Month: July 2024

As I have been studying the miraculous rescue of 95% of the Jews in Denmark during WWII I have been struck by how united the Danish people were. Otherwise, how could they respond so quickly to the news that their fellow citizen Jews were about to be rounded up and carted off to a death camp? Please review the prior blogs to see those details.

The situation as always was and is complex. Sure, there were Nazi sympathizers, but the vast majority of Danes were simply offended and united in the defense of ALL Danes as fellow citizens. An attack on one was an attack on all. How did they get there?

Well, it wasn’t just one thing that forged that nation into unity, but there were several component threads of thought and belief that when wound together created that unique fabric. Yes, the nation was largely united under one religious belief construct (Lutheran) and yes the nation was relatively small with several agricultural cooperatives that bound the citizens together into a work/benefit cycle.

But, perhaps more importantly, there were no festering schisms that tore at this fabric. Using our modern characteristics, the Danish people were not polarized as we are today.

Interestingly, that beautiful model for society 80 years ago has eroded, in part because of the diversity of thoughts and people there today. The largest disruption now are refugees who do not know nor care about the hundreds of years of history that forged Denmark. So, perhaps Denmark is no longer the place we should look for answers to our woes here?

No, I think it is the situation to study because two centuries of formative thought and actions are at the root of why Denmark behaved so admirably. They didn’t have the tensions we feel all day long. Yes, they had the natural tension between conservative and progressive thought, and they argued every bit as much as we do. But, when the going got tough, the Danes got going. They admitted their mistakes and moved on trying not to repeat them, unlike our politicians who seem more interested in attacking the character of anyone who tries to do the same. For a very small nation (4 million people at the time) they had a lot of very smart people trying to work through their problems, which were many.

What are our schisms that tear us apart? You know the answers here. Danes are taxed at the highest rates compared to any other nation and yet they are the among the happiest of people on the planet … even with the recent refugee tensions. It is no simple task to understand why this is. I just read a scholarly graduate study level book on this phenomenon and the inner workings of the Danish economy are truly complex. But, what seems obvious is that they are working on the continual adjustments needed.

We, on the other hand, seem to think attacking each other is going to get us there.

After learning so much about how Hitler came to power and used propaganda to convince people it was OK to execute Jews, I was curious why professing Christians weren’t standing up for human rights.  Even if you accept the idea that some genetic formula for a super race might be desirable, mass killing still seems objectionable.

Historians would describe Hitler’s tactic as gaslighting.  You keep pushing a message until it overcomes rational arguments against it, eventually wearing people down in what is essentially a form of brainwashing.  While this may be a good historical summary of what he did, I frankly still didn’t understand it.

The term has reappeared in our news coverage to describe the messaging on both sides of the political spectrum.  News media are feverishly trying to control the talking points of our political parties and those in power.  So, I decided to devote this blog to understanding the term a bit better and on a deeper level.

According to Wikipedia, the origin of the term is the 1938 British thriller play Gas Light by Patrick Hamilton, which became the 1940 British film, Gaslight. The film was then remade in 1944 in America – also as Gaslight – and it is this film which has since become the primary reference point for the term.

The movie is set among London’s elite during the Victorian era, and portrays a seemingly genteel husband using lies and manipulation to isolate his heiress wife and persuade her that she is mentally unwell so that he can steal from her.  The term “gaslighting” itself is neither in the screenplay nor mentioned in either the films or the play in any context. In the story, the husband secretly dims and brightens the indoor gas-powered lighting but insists his wife is imagining it, making her think she is going insane.

Well, there you go.  Now I see why the term was used to describe Hitlers relentless media blitz on antisemitism.  Now I see why the term is being used in recent political positioning on the readiness of individuals to assume command of our country.

Our media is not reporting news, it is pushing their talking points and driving us to think we are insane.  I can now see how our perceptions of just about everything are being manipulated even though most of us believe differently.  We are being brainwashed to accept party lines.

Sadly, I can now see that this has also been prevalent even from the pulpit of our churches and certainly is still alive in the Muslim hate speech declaring “death to Israel.”  Evidence of this brainwashing is everywhere including some recent public displays of the wish that the assassination attempt was successful.  Can you believe that?

I don’t hear dialogue about our nation’s underlying problems.  We seem stuck in a rut of trying to pass rules rather than educate people about benefits and disbenefits.  Ban internal combustion engines, ban natural gas stoves, and in fact ban natural gas in new home construction.  Scare people that we are in an existential threat with climate change.  Terrorize everyone that hurricanes are now worse than ever and that life as we know it is about to end.  Ban abortions, guns, and whites from high level positions in leadership.

Perhaps the recent emphasis on “toning down” the rhetoric will take hold.  I would like to believe that.  Maybe we can now begin to learn to hear each other rather than always stay in the echo chambers of our lives.  The Old and New Testaments declare we are to love our neighbor and to turn the other cheek.  We are commanded to forgive … over and over again, without conditions like reciprocity.

Can we do this?  I believe we can, but only if we strive for it now and continually.  Denmark did not get to the place they were when then rescued the Jews overnight.  It took decades for everyone there in leadership positions to emphasize all citizens had rights and responsibilities.  An attack on any citizen was an attack on all.   Amen to that.

The coverage of the recent assassination by the major news media in the US shows the level of gaslighting now: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OGBSc5YLTxw  To follow the British film analogy: don’t believe what you saw … it wasn’t an assassin.  Remember the scene from the Wizard of Oz when Toto pulls back the curtain exposing the fraud?  https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YWyCCJ6B2WE

A thoughtful summary of where we may be going was given by Tucker Carlson’s after Trump’s acceptance speech:  https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uHcpTtYeU2w

Gaslighting must go.  Turn it off.  We can all see behind the curtain now.

I am really concerned that our media have lost their sense of national security and pride in America.  Otherwise, why would a lead article in the Wall Street Journal feature an article like this:  https://www.wsj.com/politics/national-security/hypersonic-missiles-america-military-behind-936a3128?st=xo5xh0p9ezxqfl7&reflink=desktopwebshare_permalink

I was trained to neither confirm nor deny anything people said to me about our nuclear submarine program.  I worked on the solution to the loss of the Thresher submarine accident and solved it, developed a bulletproof flow diagram that gave navy operators a roadmap should it happen again, and defended it before Navy leadership.

I was taught that the “need to know” was the first hurdle to even talk to fellow employees at Knolls Atomic Power Laboratory, many of whom had higher level security levels than I did.  The adage was “loose lips sink ships” and I lived by it then and still do today.  So, don’t ask me any questions about subs or the Thresher.

What good thing is going to happen when people read this WSJ article?  I can imagine some terrible things as you can.  I have always thought of strength as a deterrent to war.  It sure seems that advertising weaknesses is the opposite.

Plus, I have always considered the WSJ above this kind of reporting.  What good thing do they think is going to happen with their readership?  Or, are they looking to our enemies for subscriptions to their publications as a result?

It sure seems like irresponsible reporting to me.

You all have heard me tell the story of the Catholic priest and rabbi who accidentally sat at lunch during a large ecumenical conference. At one point in their conversation, the priest asked the rabbi about the Jewish dietary laws, and then asked specifically whether he had ever eaten a ham and cheese sandwich … which violates two laws: eating pork and eating meat with dairy at the same meal. The rabbi kind of cowered a bit but nodded that he had.

Feeling a bit justified to return the question he asked the priest about the celibacy requirements of priesthood and then specifically whether he had broken that. As the priest cowered in embarrassment the rabbi tried to soften the mood by saying: “well it sure beats a ham and cheese sandwich!”

A recent Wall Street Journal provides one more reason to avoid pork but does so by shifting the meaning that most of us know in politics. Here is the link: https://www.wsj.com/articles/chuck-schumer-artificial-intelligence-subsidies-todd-young-mike-rounds-china-d2768c8f?st=6qpk02vots2r79v&reflink=desktopwebshare_permalink

Here is the definition of that kind of pork from Wikipedia:
Pork barrel, or simply pork, is a metaphor for the appropriation of government spending for localized projects secured solely or primarily to direct spending to a representative’s district. Typically, “pork” involves national funding for government programs whose economic or service benefits are concentrated in a particular area but whose costs are spread among all taxpayers. Public works projects, certain national defense spending projects, and agricultural subsidies are the most commonly cited examples.

This kind of pork should be shunned by all of us. It is wasteful, deceitful, and irresponsible. Yet, we all know it is happening. Every time we hear of some noble cause and a politician asking for money to pay for it, sceptics immediately search for and find huge amounts of pork behind the veneer of good intents.

We also know how it got there … whenever someone comes up with a great program idea, their opponents use this to pad it with pork in exchange for their votes.

Seems all of us paying for their sinful ways should be banning pork … right? Nope. We are all so lazy we fail to search for it and then we shrug our shoulders and admit it kind of tastes good. That reminds me of our church’s event called Pastor’s Pancakes where our Sunday School class served pancakes and bacon to over 600 that morning.

As we were winding down together after the event and having cleaned everything up, a class member who knew I was Jewish asked me whether serving bacon to everyone had made me uncomfortable. I thought for a second and responded: “Not half as much as not charging for it!”

Did you know that in 1890, some 90% of U.S. bread was made in homes and just 10% in small urban bakeries? The bread slicer had just been invented and taken the nation by storm, and human achievements since then have been compared to it by saying: “the greatest thing since sliced bread.”

A lot has changed since then.  Bakery behemoths today that make up the $14 billion bread industry operate at a pace and scale that would have been inconceivable a century ago.  They use large, high-speed factories capable of churning out at least 150 loaves or 800 hamburger or hot-dog buns a minute. Ingredients like flour and oil are piped from silos into giant jacuzzi-sized mixers, where thousands of pounds of dough can be mixed before being divided, shaped, and ferried along snaking conveyor belts into ovens, cooling towers and bagging machines.

But this rough and high-speed journey tears apart a dough’s protein matrix, the weblike structure that traps air bubbles and enables dough to rise. When you let dough collapse as bread pans bounce on their race toward ovens, or sit idle for long periods, the result is a dense, flat loaf.  To prevent this, many industrial bread makers add emulsifiers, dough conditioners and other ingredients that help dough withstand the modern manufacturing process. But now all these enhancers are coming under scrutiny for health reasons.

Once you dig into any of these challenges you find we are all faced with tradeoffs.  Yes, we can “clean up” some formulations and sometimes even improve the product.  But often, something else gets sacrificed.  For bread, the most common side effect is reduced shelf life.

Many of you have probably experienced this when you bought that “designer artisanal loaf” only to find three days later you had a science experiment growing on it.  How often have you noticed the tastes of some of your snack foods have changed and when you compare the labels you see ingredients that used to make it taste great are gone.

Perhaps you remember my conversation with a Pepperidge Farm plant manager where they made those wonderful Goldfish crackers and I found they had changed the frying oil from one that tended to make us fat to one that was a carcinogen.

How do we define “best” today?  How do we know something is better than something else?  Shouldn’t we be teaching children to consider life’s choices this way?

Plastic bags for groceries might seem wasteful compared to carrying those sacks you now see, but in fact it takes a lot more energy to make that cloth sack even if you threw that plastic bag away when you got your groceries home.  We reuse those plastic sacks a lot.

What is the best thing anymore?  Perhaps we really don’t even know and should admit that.