My Sense of Humo(u)r

I find things funny, pretty much in general.  Of course, I find many things funny only from a distance.  I would say the thing I find most funny is myself, I am in many ways a deeply silly person.

Why do people find things funny at all?  There a few theories well expressed here, but I think there is a common theme among these theories, humor happens when we have two quite different thoughts about the same thing.  Tickling causes many of us to laugh, and I think this is because we feel physically attacked (what is the physical difference between tickling and caressing?) and at the same time we know that the person tickling us isn't actually a threat.  Many jokes combine very serious issues (race, oppression, religion, parenting, social equality, politics) and at the same time a real quality of how silly these issues can be.  I think there is a difference between laughter and humour, I find things pretty much as funny alone as I do in company, but I laugh a hell of a lot more around other people than I do by myself.  Humor is a cognitive thing, laughter is a social thing.

That wasn't funny, and I'm not going to tell jokes here.  I am actually decent at telling jokes, I just never remember them.  Many people have a catalogue of jokes that they produce at moments to produce laughter.  I just don't remember jokes and I think that's because there are few things that are still funny after repeated exposure (Monty Python is an exception).

My sense of humor comes in three packages.  I find the lampooning of people very funny.  People taking themselves very seriously are inherently funny to me, and particularly if they are being incompetently serious.  Here's a great example.  The woman is really concerned about government but has no idea what she is saying.

I find saying really offensive things to (not at) people who know that I don't really believe whatever it is that was offensive.  I find songs about murder sung in a jaunty manner to be funny.

The final package is the most cruel and the most unusual.  When faced with a person saying something stupid or ignorant or awful I like to play a role.  I agree with them.  In fact I say something slightly more intensely stupid etc.  For as long as possible I try to move them further and further along this path until the other person finds themselves becoming uncomfortable with how far we have gone.  It is important to use the same internal "logic" as the other person.  Ideally the other person finds themselves trying to argue against me and therefore against there own position taken to its logical extreme.  If done well the other person has no idea what is going on, and my wife either stops me from getting beaten or doesn't give the game away.  Weirdly I don't like it when watching other people do this, I become embarrassed for the victim, unless the victim is "smart" enough to see what is going on. 

Grief.

I don't know if this is a good time for this post, but it is on my mind.  If you don't want to read about grief now, or in the future just stop now, and I apologize for any discomfort I may have provided.

At the moment I know several people who have experienced grief recently as a result of a death, or been very closely connected to those suffering.  Two people I have known died within the last two years.  While the closer you are to the person who has died the greater the pain, the emotional ties between people ensure that the pain spreads throughout a social network.  Unless we are psychopaths we feel pain when those we care about feel pain.

Personally I am bad at grief in that I just don't feel it as much as most people.  What drives me towards misery is a change in my own life, my personal pain is based on selfishness.  When my grandfathers died it didn't really bother me.  I hadn't seen them in a few years, they weren't a big part of my life anymore, they were old and old people die.  My reaction to the deaths of my friends was similarly muted, it was bad news but it didn't drive me into depression.  On the other hand, if my wife left me I would be devastated.  That's just me.  It doesn't make me look good, and I feel a little guilty about it.  So, I want to say that my understanding of grief comes largely from a distance.

However, if I am in proximity to someone experiencing grief I feel enormous sympathy for them.  It hurts me more to see someone grieve than for me to grieve.  It's that proximity thing again.  I have been involved with a fair amount of proximity to grief in my working life having been someone who has informed people that a family member has died on several occasions.  If you want a full list go to The Litany (which has not appeared in my mind since I wrote that post).  So, I have been involved in the comforting of grieving people, from strangers to family members, quite a few times and the strangest thing is that I have been thanked every time, and told that I have been very helpful.  This isn't meant to brag as I have no real idea how this happened but it has happened enough times that I must be doing something right.

So, I'm going to say some things to those who are grieving and some things to those who are around those who are grieving that I hope will help.

To those who are grieving.  I am sorry for you.  It hurts a lot and there isn't something that is going to fix it. However, we both know that over time the pain will fade.  That doesn't mean that you will stop loving them, or missing them, but you will heal over time.  This healing won't come in a regular fashion.  The grief will lesson pretty quickly, but will reappear out of the blue sometimes.  That's OK, that's how it naturally happens. 

There is no use in trying to be strong.  Let yourself feel what you feel, after all your pain is a reflection of the love you feel.  Don't shut yourself away for fear of embarrassment, anyone who thinks less of you for grieving is simply someone not worth knowing.  Let those around you be close to you.  They want to help, they feel helpless, and a hug will do more for you than anything else.  Almost immediately there will be times when you have fun, or laugh, or forget them.  This isn't something to feel guilty about.  It is simply impossible to grieve all day, every day.  Getting on with your life and enjoying things isn't disrespect, it is living your life. Those around you love you.

To those who are close to those who are grieving.  You probably feel helpless, lost, ill equipped.  You want to make things better but this is a problem that you cannot fix.  Any words you say seem cheap, trivial.  I know that is how I have felt.  Still, just showing that you care makes a difference.  "I'm sorry" and "I love you" are the best things you can say, and are probably enough.  Don't hide away your feelings, trying to be strong.  That their misery makes you sad is a sign that you love them and take them seriously.  Never tell them to "snap out of it", or "buck up", or "at some point you are going to have to move on."  Take care of yourself and understand that even though you have no idea how to help or what to do, it turns out that that might be the most helpful attitude to have.

Vacation Planning

I haven't had what I call a "proper" vacation in about two years.  It was to the Dingle Peninsular in Western Ireland.  For me, a proper vacation is one where you go simply for the purpose of a vacation, no family obligations, no returning to a place you lived, and ideally to a place that is different enough to provide interest but not so stressful that you don't return refreshed.  I know it isn't much to complain about, and I'm not really complaining, but I am ready for a proper vacation.

So, where to go?

At the moment I am looking at three possibilities, here they are for you to think about, make your own choice, and perhaps give advice about.

#1  Cahuita, Costa Rica.  This has been a favorite holidaying destination for us.  I think we have been together three times.  It is a slow-paced, rastafarian influenced, dirt street, coral reefed, sandy beached, monkey calling village on the Caribbean Sea.  Flying from Houston will make the flight much shorter than from Portland and then we drive through the pretty country in an afternoon to stay at our cheap hotel overlooking the sea (it has a sloth on the property).  Christina knows more than thirty words in Spanish, and I am trying to learn some myself.  There is a pace (or lack of it) in Cahuita unmatched by anywhere else I have been, it takes two whole days to slow down enough.  Price for flight, car and hotel for two weeks about $2,200  (didn't vacations get expensive?)  The downsides are that we have been there before and weirdly enough the warm temperatures and sunshine are not necessarily pluses as the weather is very similar at the times we would go to Houston.

#2  Budapest, Hungary.  Apparently one of the most beautiful, most historic, most fun cities in Europe.  Right on the Danube, filled with beautiful buildings.  Not too expensive while you are there.  A big party scene if we want.  About a three hour drive to Bratislava in Slovakia, and a touch more to Vienna in Austria.  I've never been east of western Austria and my darling wife went to Bratislava when she was a teenager.  If we go in October it is cool (high fifties) but dry and very sunny.  We don't speak the language, but there are no shortage of monolingual British tourists around so I am sure we would get by.  Price for flight and hotel (no car) about $3,400 (possibly substantially less because of our British Airways miles).  Clearly a trip of a lifetime.  Downsides?  Price.  We will need to paint just about the entire interior of our house after replacing all the plumbing, and that costs about the difference between the first two vacations.  It also will take about two full days of traveling to get there and back.

#3  Granada, Nicaragua.  Granada is the first city built by Europeans in the New World.  The Spanish built it as a port, and to impress the locals with the grandeur of Europe.  Apparently the original buildings have been lovingly preserved and renovated making it perhaps the most original colonial town in the Americas.  A volcano, beaches, churches, museums, islands etc..  Hot and sunny, just like Houston.  This would be an entirely new place, a place with fewer tourists.  Price for flight and hotel about $1,800.  Quick flight, inexpensive, new, interesting but still similar to the weather of Houston.

Inefficient Charity and Proximity

I was wondering today what the world would be like today if all the charitable donations in the world had gone to one organization to tackle one problem at a time.  I mean the most important problem, in my view the one that causes the most suffering over time.  I think that this would be the health and education of mothers and children.  Why?  Healthy and educated women contribute more to the economy, fight for their own rights, but most importantly have fewer children.  The size of the world's population is the greatest driver of environmental destruction, and the greatest strain on food resources etc..  Healthy and educated children grow up to be better for the economy of any country, and most importantly have fewer children.  Improved health simply decreases the greatest source of misery in the world, disease.

The closest estimate of worldwide giving to charity that I can find is about one trillion dollars.  Imagine the effects on global health, poverty, and the environment if this amount of money had been spent each year for the last two generations, say forty years.  At the moment worldwide women average 2.45 births in their lifetime.  Imagine if this had been reduced to a simple replacement rate of about 2.2 births per woman.  This would mean that the present population would be static, not increasing, and a smaller number than it is now.  The UN prediction for the number of people on the planet when population level become static is somewhere around ten billion.  Imagine a world living with only 6 billion people from now on.  5/3 the amount of resources per person.  3/5 the number of people to feed.  3/5 the amount of land needed to farm rather than left to be wild.  3/5 the number of people to emit global warming gasses.  Billions of women and children not dying of preventable diseases.

When put like that it seems to me extremely difficult to come up with a better use for charitable giving.  Fix the problem of an increasing population and then move on to the next thing.  However, it didn't happen and never will happen.  Why is this so?  It is because of the power of proximity in human emotion.

I feel confident enough in the basic decency of the readers of this blog that I believe if we walked by a child wasting away from hunger and a treatable disease on the street in front of our houses we would take that child to a hospital and provide money for treatment and food.  Are you really the sort of person who could let a child die on your doorstep?  It seems enormously unlikely to me.  There are millions of children around the world in a similar predicament and yet we (and I certainly include myself) don't treat them in any way remotely close to what we would do with the child on our doorstep.  Why?

We give based on emotions, and our emotions are hugely driven by our proximity to an event.  We read about a fatal car crash and go on about our day.  We see a fatal car crash and we are traumatized.  We go to a shelter and see the condition of mistreated dogs and we feel an emotional pain, we want to help.  This characteristic of emotional proximity leading to donation is obviously well known to charitable organizations.  Watch any advertisement asking for charitable help and there will be a heart wrenching picture of the consequences if you don't help.

This emotional element to giving reaches down to those who start these charities.  Mostly the people who start charities are horrified by some awful situation and become inspired to try to fix the problem.  This results in the plethora of charities, a mad hodgepodge of different organizations using different techniques to help different things.  This is wildly inefficient, but it is how people work.

Now, I'm not saying that these other charitable causes aren't wonderful, beautiful, inspiring, good things.  The passion, caring, dedication and just plain goodness of the people trying to do these things are just about the best things a person can have.  There are hundreds of thousands of people around the world doing these things and consequently being better people than I am.  I want battered women to have safe places to go.  I want old churches to be repaired.  I want homeless men to have a place to stay and some money to spend.  It is just that if we ignored all of those problems and just put everything into tackling contagious diseases and women's education it would do much, much more good.  It would reduce suffering worldwide if we didn't fund shelters for battered women and used the money more efficiently.

Even I, when writing that last sentence, feel guilty and queasy, as if there is something wrong with me.  This is because I imagine being able to help raped and beaten women and choosing not to do so.  That's simply disgusting.  On the other hand when I think of not helping starving, ill children I also feel disgusted.  Our feelings about what we should do depend on our proximity to the problem, even down to which thing we are thinking about.

I have talked before about the Circle of Compassion, the dividing line between who is truly "human" and who is not. I have talked about the expansion of this circle over time from family to humanity as a whole.  However, this circle is not just a case of an inside and an outside, there is a gradation from the middle outwards.  If a family member of yours is in trouble and a stranger on the street is in trouble, almost everyone helps the family member first.  Most Americans prefer to help Americans first.  Humanity will became a species of saints when this gradation disappears, when a woman in Myanmar is as important to you as your mother.  I don't see this happening in my lifetime (unless I live forever) but I think we edge closer and closer over time.

However, I'm still going to give cash to that guy on the side of the road with a cardboard sign even though I know I'd do more good taking that five dollars and donating it to SCI.  I'm a flawed human, put misery in front of me and I stop acting rationally.

Mexican Radio

As I have said before, one of the ways I survive (metaphorically) in suburban Houston is through the attitude taken by tourists.  This is the attitude of being from somewhere else, being interested in the differences, exploring.  For me this is relatively easy because I come from a densely populated land of cool, grey dampness and here it is baking hot, sprawling, and comes with palm trees.

The peak of this experience comes from driving around the foreign-looking place listening to radio in Spanish.  This radio is for the very large population of Mexicans, or first/second generation immigrants from Mexico.  A very large number of Mexicans come to the area to find work, physical labor in the beating sun at first, then moving towards trades so that they can pay for their children's education.  In the suburbs there are packs of Mexicans doing landscaping, building houses, construction, dishes, busing tables.  Outside the cities you come across conglomerations of shacks, workers on the farms.  When you need a plumber, or an air conditioning expert there is at least a 50% chance of the guy (always a guy) being of Mexican descent but speaking flawless English.  The best guess is that 44% of Houston is Latino of which a very large proportion speak fluent Spanish.

Such a large Spanish speaking population creates a demand for Spanish speaking services.  This is most clearly illustrated for me by the radio dial.  By my count there are five radio stations in Spanish that I can get here in Spring (more than all the English rock and pop stations combined).  These have a large range from the latest pop hits to the ballads of years past.  There is a cross-pollination at the pop end (Shakira, Enrique Iglesias, Jennifer Lopez) to a completely distinct sort of music (a big band sound with brass, accordion, and percussion created by a mix of latin rhythm and European military band instruments).  I would call it analogous to the range from old-school country to modern pop.

Driving in 100 F (38C) heat with an almost liquid breeze, a straw hat on my head, a Hound of Hell sticking its head out the window, palm trees fluttering, and the sound of Mexican accordion on the radio is all the way foreign for me.  It helps me move from a selfish, right wing, privileged suburb to a vacation in the sun.  Just like a tourist I pick out a word here and there, sometimes even enough to know vaguely what the song is about (the word "corazon" is never very far away) but mostly I have no idea what is going on.  Occasional bewilderment is one of the characteristics of a tourist.

So, thank you Mexican radio.

Fuddy Duddy Talk

It may have come to your attention that many persons of modern times are in the habit of using that great tool named language in an improper manner.  When faced with such boorishness one finds it difficult to accede to the kinder parts of our nature and not sneer with contempt at a lesser intellect.  I offer for your examination the following example, which I feel exemplifies this lamentable situation.

"I done real good."

Now, being educated individuals we all know that the proper manner of communicating in this instance is, "I did really well."  The difference grates on one.

However, we all know exactly what the original sentence means.  If language is supposed to be about effective communication then the two versions are equal in merit.

When I was being educated on how to write there was certainly a correct, and an incorrect, method of writing.  It was wrong to write "a hundred" rather than "an hundred."  You didn't end a sentence with the word, "of."  I cannot remember the last time I saw "An hundred" in modern text, and you are far more likely to see in an essay "that I was thinking of" than "of which I was thinking."

Language is changing and that change feels uncomfortable to those who were taught that there is a right and wrong way to write.  The thing is, it wasn't until the mid 18th century until there was an agreed upon way to write.  Language has changed enough that even with the advent of printed books a near translation is needed for books but 400 years old.  Here's some Shakespeare, from Hamlet;

"Marry, well bethought: 'tis told me, he hath very oft of late given private time to you; and you yourself have of your audience been most free and bounteous: If it be so, as so 'tis put on me, and that in way of caution, I must tell you, you do not understand yourself so clearly as it behoves my daughter and your honour.
What is between you?  Give me up the truth."

Then some Dickens, Great Expectations;

"All these things I saw without then knowing that I saw them, for I was in an agony of apprehension. But, beginning to perceive that the handcuffs were not for me, and that the military had so far got the better of the pie as to put it in the background, I collected a little more of my scattered wits."

I want you to imagine a person, to whom Shakespeare's english was familiar, reading that piece by Dickens.  How frightfully full of modern slang it would seem, almost incomprehensible.  This corruption of proper language is a myth that has continued unceasingly throughout history.  The very idea of, "proper" is simply a product of place and time, a piece of fashion.

I was brought up when many of the books available were from the middle of the twentieth century, and English.  The writers of the time seemed to be almost exclusively those of the upper middle-class, and therefore with a very particular voice.  C.S. Lewis is an excellent example.  Here is the beginning of his Mere Christianity, which philosophically is simply execrable, but is written in a beautifully clear prose;

I have been asked to tell you what Christians believe, and I am going to begin by telling you one thing that Christians do not need to believe. If you are a Christian you do not have to believe that all the other religions are simply wrong all through. If you are an atheist you do have to believe that the main point in all the religions of the whole world is simply one huge mistake. If you are a Christian, you are free to think that all these religions, even the queerest ones, contain at least some hint of the truth.

I have an aesthetic based on my upbringing.  I like old stone buildings without flashy colours, understated and surrounded by greenery.  I like greek statues and dutch landscapes.  I like wood and leather.  I like the look of faded empire.  I also like the words and sound of fade empire.  I am under no illusions that if I had been born in a different place and a different time my aesthetic would be quite different.  I am confident that should I have been born fifty years from now what I consider proper language would be as archaic as that of Dickens.

Still, I can't help being annoyed by improper use of the English language, and thinking someone who does so is lacking in intellect and education.  I know this is stupid.  After all, I am sure this post is littered with grammatical and spelling mistakes, but I bet you understood it.

Am I Becoming a Conservative?

A drunken politician once opined, "Show me a young Conservative and I'll show you someone with no heart. Show me an old Liberal and I'll show you someone with no brains." - Winston Churchill

Almost all the people that I know read this blog are firmly liberal by American standards, with at least one large, hairy exception.  We believe in lots of human rights, supporting the poor, trying not to blow people up, and generally letting people do what they want as long as it doesn't involve being hateful or violent.  This description would confuse the righter rights in the USA who would describe liberals as trying to control everyone, creating a lazy underclass with their tax dollars and hating people.  I'm going to go with my description.

While I don't believe in rights as anything more than an idea I have always liked the idea of some of them, but I don't believe in some of the more recent expansions of rights.  I think a decent society makes sure that everyone has food, clothing, shelter, education, medical care, free speech and some system preventing the government arbitrarily locking you up.  I don't think that people have the right to dignity, to squat on private property, to a job, to be free of being insulted, to own things for efficiently killing other people.  I think I have been pretty consistent through my life with these ideals.  I think that makes me a luke-warm liberal in ideology.


As an aside, while I was becoming a US citizen there was a question asking, "What is the most important right in the constitution?"  The official answer was "the right to vote" but that seems ridiculous to me as freedom from being taken by the government and shoved into a concentration camp seems far more important.

With the years of GW Bush as president the people I know have generally become much more militantly political.  This fits the overall climate in the USA where shrill shrieking in outraged horror seems to be the primary form of political discourse.  While my ideology has not changed I find myself spending much of my time in such conversations trying to point out that conservatives are not necessarily crazy, evil people and that their positions are generally self-consistent.  I also am prone to pointing out that a fair number of liberal demands/ideals/methods are simply not practical or aren't really reasonable when considering their own ideals.

In practice this means that I point out things such as wishing to pay the smallest amount of taxes possible so that you can choose what to do and who to help with your own money isn't nuts.  Not wanting to pay for people to sit around doing nothing is reasonable.  Being outraged that the owner of Chik-Fil-A supports anti-gay organizations but not being outraged that someone else supports Planned Parenthood is inconsistent, either there is free speech or there isn't.  Finally I have said that there is a process in the USA for enacting change (voting) and that no matter how much you want it, if there are a greater number of those who think you are wrong it ain't gonna happen (and if you think it still should then you don't believe in democracy).


Now, (and it is sad indictment of the times that I need to say this, and it usually isn't listened to) I believe in lots of taxes, a very robust welfare state, that being against gay rights is primitive and idiotic, that women should have access to health care, and that the financial system needs a major overhaul to be fairer (and more efficient).  The previous paragraph does not negate this one, and vice versa.  


Overall I think my ideals have not changed.  I still want peace, safety, and freedom.  However, my understanding of the real world has altered what I think should be done and how I think about people.  

I think the general public are generally ignorant and stupid, and this is true at a higher level than most people imagine.  There are many, many people with college degrees and good jobs who don't understand basic economics, or science.  I think that both people on the left and right are very often knee-jerk outraged bigots.  For every "militant gays are trying to force their lifestyle on me because they hate what made America great" there's a "those ignorant, red-neck, southern racists don't even know they are being brainwashed into voting for those doing them the most harm!"


Despite thinking people are ignorant and stupid I support democracy which means that you have to accept that often things are going to happen that you detest.  If you want things to be different then get up off your arse and change it.  If you can't change it, tough.


I don't think corporations are inherently evil, or even grasping for material gain is evil.  Corporations sometimes do evil things but they are also the source of most of the technology that has improved things for most people around the world.  Monsato may attempt to stop regulation on their products, try to circumvent the law and try to produce monopolies, but they also produce herbicides and genetically modified crops that greatly increase production helping to stop millions starve around the world.  It is the role of government to regulate and the role of corporations to innovate, and distribute.  This tension is the same concept as a plaintiff and a defendant in a trial.


Am I becoming a conservative?  No, but I am becoming much more prone to understanding some conservative positions and noticing the sometime idiocy of liberals.