Monthly Archives: February 2010

In support of Jim Jones: Harvey Milk & the Peoples Temple

Posted on February 24, 2010 | Leave a comment

I represent divine principle, total equality, a society where people own all things in common, where there’s no rich or poor, where there are no races. Wherever there are people struggling for justice and righteousness, there I am. - Jim Jones, founder, Peoples Temple

It is now 32 years after the infamous mass murders-suicides at Jim Jones’s Peoples Temple in Guyana, followed only 9 days later by the murders of San Francisco Mayor George Moscone and Supervisor Harvey Milk. Jones and Milk are connected by more than just this coincidental timing in the shocking ends to their respective stories. They worked closely together, supporting one another when the Peoples Temple was located in San Francisco.

It is difficult for those of us peering through the lens of history to understand the realities of life in 1978. Milk’s connections with the Peoples Temple remain murky, and we may be tempted to assign greater historical meaning to it than it deserves. Was Milk only using the Peoples Temple to supply volunteers, crowds at rallies and other support for his political career? Was he as manipulated and taken in by Jones and his utopian vision as his followers? Or did he, as he is said to have remarked to an aide, recognize the group as “dangerous?” We will probably not know the truth. All we can do is read the documents they left behind, such as Milk’s letter of support for Jones to President Jimmy Carter, and speculate.

I have been fascinated by the Jonestown story since I saw a chilling documentary about it many years ago. It seemed inconceivable to me that such an event could have taken place, and I have struggled to understand it. Jim Jones founded Jonestown in the remote jungle in Guyana, moving his followers there from California, after his group came under investigation by the federal government. There he professed to establish a utopia, where there were no divisions based on class or race, and everything was shared equally. Jones was also extremely paranoid and feared persecution. Peoples Temple members had apparently rehearsed their suicide ritual, in preparation for an undefined “crisis,” for years.

That crisis came when U.S. Representative Leo Ryan flew to Jonestown to investigate reports of abuses. Several Temple members told Ryan they wanted to defect and tried to leave with him. Ryan and the news crew accompanying him were gunned down on the airstrip on Jones’s orders. Immediately afterward, Jones initiated the mass suicide ritual, resulting in the deaths of 914 people, including 276 children, by cyanide poisoning.

When you read about Jones, he comes across as a charismatic leader and a master manipulator. He seemed to excel at telling people what they wanted to hear, at being what they needed him to be. His followers believed that he was a person who could create a new and better world. But this facade seemed to conceal insanity, a madman who needed to completely control his followers. This is a very old story, one that has repeated many times throughout human history. But is it an inevitable story?

In defense of Jim Jones (Letters of Note)
Jonestown: The Life and Death of Peoples Temple (PBS)
Alternative Considerations of Jonestown and Peoples Temple (San Diego State University Dept. of Religious Studies)
Mass Suicide at Jonestown: 30 Years Later (Time Magazine)

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How the U.S. government poisoned alcohol during Prohibition

Posted on February 23, 2010 | 1 Comment
January 16: Prohibition in the United States b...

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Prohibition, the so-called “Noble Experiment,” was enacted in 1920 with the ratification of the 18th Amendment of the Constitution. Its aim was to enforce total abstention from alcohol by making its manufacture, sale and transportation illegal, and thus create overnight a teetotaling, morally upright nation. Its actual outcome was to boost organized crime, smuggling and, perversely, alcoholism. The 18th Amendment was repealed in 1933, and Prohibition is now generally considered an utter failure.

What I did not know about Prohibition, until I read this article in Slate, was that making alcohol illegal was only part of the experiment. The U.S. Government, seeing that alcohol use did not decrease as expected, also experimented with poisoning alcohol to enforce abstention. At the time, bootleggers were purchasing industrial alcohol and renaturing it to make it drinkable. The government, knowing that this was happening, required that toxic chemicals be added to industrial alcohol. They reasoned that if people knew the alcohol could kill them, they would stop drinking it. That didn’t happen, and an estimated 10,000 people died from drinking the poisoned spirits.

Prohibition — and the poisoning of alcohol by the federal government as a part of it — demonstrates what can happen when ideals turn into fanaticism. Prohibition was intended to protect the moral fiber and health of citizens by getting them to stop drinking alcohol. That goal was seen as so critical that law enforcement was willing to actually kill citizens in order to protect them.

Given our 30-year-long “War on Drugs,” which has resulted in over-crowded prisons, an epidemic of violent crime in some cities and Mexico, and no sign of drug use decreasing, perhaps its time to take the lessons we should have learned from Prohibition to heart.

The Chemist’s War (Slate)
Prohibition in the United States (Wikipedia)
Prohibition: How Dry We Ain’t (Life Magazine)

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Themed reading lists: Reading about the apocalypse and immortality

Posted on February 22, 2010 | 1 Comment

I have been having fun writing and posting themed reading lists on my book review blog, Books Worth Reading, and they have proved to be popular. Flashlight Worthy Book Recommendations has reprinted a couple of the lists, which I am now sharing with you: These Books Will Help You Survive After an Apocalypse and I Want to Live Forever: An Immortality Reading List

Also see: An Empty Earth: Notes on the apocalypse and The endless quest to live forever

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Hey, at least his coat is on, right?

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Posted on February 16, 2010

Here’s a nice interview with Heather La Garde, a friend of mine, on how to use good manners on Twitter to get results for your business (via MercuryBrief). Heather works with my former employer, IntraHealth International, and directs the highly … Continue reading →

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Posted on February 14, 2010

Should you expect privacy from online services?

Posted on February 13, 2010 | 4 Comments

I think the answer is no, with some qualifications, which I’ll get to shortly. But here’s the thing. When you sign up for free services like Google‘s various offerings, Twitter, Facebook, free blogging platforms and a myriad of other services online, your value to those companies is in the data and content you produce. It is not in their interest to keep that data private. If privacy is important to you, then it is up to you — and only you — to safeguard it.

The only way you can guarantee online privacy is to avoid free services, including all social networks, altogether. But you need an email account, for instance. Well, there are many alternatives to the free email services. Your ISP, who you are paying to provide Internet service to you, will probably give you one. Or you can pay for an email account with a hosting company. The point is, when you pay for a service, then you have a right to expect a higher level of privacy, as agreed upon between you and the company. (Many people use a free email account for public transactions, like online purchases, and keep a private email account for, well, private communications.)

If you do decide to get a free email account or sign up with a social network, then you should accept right off the bat that you will be giving up some privacy. That is the deal with the devil you make in exchange for free access to these networks. You will no longer have total control over information about you and that you generate. It is best to know this and accept this from the start.

Personally, I like the openness that social networks have brought. I think it fosters communication, collaboration, sharing and understanding of our differences, but that is the idealist in me. Yes, there is a negative side, but that is true of anything with value. I think social networks help us express who we are, and feel okay with who we are.

But if you are going to use these services, and privacy is of some importance to you, then you need to become savvy about how they work. When you sign up for a service, you need to be willing to explore, play with settings, try things and see what happens, and learn what the service is doing and why. This means extra work, but as I said, it is not in these companies’ interest to protect your privacy, so you can’t expect it of them. It only took me five minutes of playing with Google Buzz to figure out that my followers were listed on my public profile and to turn that off. That was well before all the privacy warnings came out.

I have some sympathy for people whose email contacts were exposed by Buzz, because this was not an expected outcome. But only to a point. Because you had to participate in that exposure. You had to set up a free Gmail account. You had to turn on Buzz. You had to create a public Google Profile. You had to accept the list of followers/following presented to you by Buzz without making any changes to remove those who were not acceptable to you. At each point, you could stop and ask yourself what the privacy implications of this are. At the very least, you could wait a few days for the issues to surface. It was only a few hours before many news outlets on the web were posting about Buzz’s privacy issues and the fixes for them.

I think this is a good learning moment for all of us. By all means, play in the social networking playground. But remember that these free services still have a cost. Just like in the real world, online the only one you can count on to take care of yourself is you.

Google’s response to the privacy concerns and instructions for protecting your privacy when using Buzz. And Google may offer Buzz independently from Gmail.

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Like everyone else, I have an opinion about Google Buzz…

Posted on February 11, 2010 | 4 Comments

Google launched Google Buzz, its social media application for Gmail, over the last couple of days, and everyone on the web has an opinion, including me. Some opinions are unnecessarily hostile for a new software application. The social web is a very friendly place for the knee-jerk reaction.

After using Buzz for a little while, I have decided that I mostly like it. Here’s why.

Most people are comparing Buzz to Facebook and Twitter. Buzz does a lot of the good things Facebook does, only much, much better. The interface is cleaner and easier to use. So far, I have not had to worry about catching spam, malware or viruses from Buzz, and it avoids all the inanities of Facebook. The commenting and like features are super-easy to use; the privacy features take a little more figuring out (especially if you don’t use Gmail’s Groups feature), but not much, and they are also easier and more versatile than Facebook’s, as far as I can tell. The integration with Google Reader is especially powerful, and I would like to see that strengthened over time, particularly so that I don’t have to read everyone’s shared items twice.

I like that Buzz lets me communicate very easily with people I email a lot, particularly friends and family. It’s great for quick, asynchronous chat sessions that I would normally carry on over email. I like to see what my friends are reading on the web and quickly comment on them. I would close my Facebook account today and only use Buzz if there weren’t so many people on Facebook who I want to stay in touch with and who seem unlikely to move. Regardless, I think I will be visiting Facebook even less in the future.

Buzz is not a competitor with Twitter, though. It does not even try to do the things that Twitter does well. I use Twitter to find news, links and trends. It’s basically my window on the social web. I like it because I can drop in when I have time and ignore it when I don’t. I would never try to follow high-volume posters like Mashable or the New York Times on Buzz. That would quickly get overwhelming.

Also, my audience on Twitter is very different. It is larger and made up mostly of people who don’t know me, who I assume are more interested in specific topics I frequently write about and post links on. So I will continue to use Buzz and Twitter as complementary networks, rather than try to replace one with the other.

I suspect that Google knows this and that is why they let you feed your Twitter content into Buzz. I disconnected my Twitter feed from Buzz, though. There is too much possibility for redundancy, and besides, I tweet a lot. I don’t want to overwhelm the people following me on Buzz with too much noise. I also didn’t connect my FriendFeed to Buzz for the same reasons.

Some people are concerned about the privacy of Buzz. These people didn’t take a few minutes just to learn the software before getting all upset about it, I suspect. You can turn Buzz off — look for the link at the bottom of the page. You can block people from following you. You can make your posts private. Buzz launches with suggestions for people to follow culled from your email and chat contacts and people you’re sharing with on Reader, but you don’t have to follow any of them.

The biggest concern may be that Buzz posts the list of people you’re following and people following you on your Google Profile page. This is no different from what Twitter does, but it’s a bit more personal, since these people are also your email contacts. It is very easy to turn this public display off, which I did straightaway. Just go to your Google Profile page (click your name in Buzz), click Edit Settings and then uncheck the box beside “Display the list of people I’m following and people following me.”

So you can choose to follow me on Buzz (via my Google Profile) or on Twitter or both. I post more to Twitter and it’s more impersonal but possibly more interesting. But on Buzz we can have conversations about the links I share. Both have value. Where you likely won’t see much of me anymore is Facebook. I don’t think I’ll miss it.

More opinions and help with Buzz:

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The care and feeding of an introvert…

Posted on February 8, 2010 | 1 Comment

We introverts are much misunderstood and maligned creatures. An introvert is a person who feels drained when they are with other people too long and who recharges from being alone. Extraverts, on the other hand (and there are so many more of you), recharge from being around other people and can’t stand being alone. Yes, we introverts get tired just being around you people.

If you have an introvert in your life, know that we don’t require all that much, just a little support and understanding. Please know that we are not being “stuck up” or “cold” or “brainiacs.” We are not “too sensitive” and we don’t need to stop being so sensitive. We like to read; it doesn’t make us weird, and we don’t love books more than you (well, maybe we do). We need our space, but truly, we are OK — you don’t need to keep asking.

We introverts may not be very pleasant to talk to on the phone, but we’re trying. It’s already hard enough to be social in person; talking on the phone deserves a special circle in hell. We can’t see you, you see, and that enhances all the usual difficulties of conversation. The awkward pauses just get awkward-er. We will always, always answer your emails, though. Unless we just don’t like you.

Another realm of hell should be reserved for the meeting. It is inconceivable to us that so many people would want to spend hours shut up in little rooms drawing on whiteboards and achieving absolutely nothing. We just want to get on with our work. Why won’t you let us?

Please, if you know an introvert, be kind to him or her today. Make a cup of tea, give your introvert a book and leave him or her the hell alone.

Caring for Your Introvert (The Atlantic)
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    On speech delays and parental panic…

    Posted on February 7, 2010 | Leave a comment

    I have no preconception that I’d like to see you be or do. I have no desire to foresee you, only to discover you. — Mary Haskell, in a letter to the poet Kahlil Gibran

    The Kid with his giraffe earsThe Kid is almost 2, and he’s not really speaking yet. He babbles, he signs, he knows a couple of words, and he makes animal sounds. But he doesn’t talk.

    Even a cursory amount of Internet research turns up dire warnings about speech delays. The extreme importance of intervening with speech therapy early is often stressed. I’m not discounting this, and indeed, we are getting speech therapy for our son. If it helps him, great, and I certainly don’t see how it can hurt. Although if it does cause him undue stress, I will probably discontinue it.

    The most difficult thing about this situation — and I imagine this is true with every parent of a child who experiences some kind of delay or abnormality in their development — is to tamp down the anxiety. I tell myself every day not to stress about this, that The Kid is doing just fine in other areas and is likely just a late talker. This is a case where access to too much information, via the Internet, is probably a bad thing. It raises anxieties unnecessarily, leads me to fret about the rarest of outcomes and makes me worry that my child is not “normal” enough.

    I never even wanted my child to be “normal.” Of course, no one wants their child to have a developmental disorder or a disease. But I mean that I don’t want my child to fit comfortably into what is average and expected for every person. I certainly didn’t. Rather, I want The Kid to be exactly who he is, even if that means he’s not talking like the other kids his age.

    Thomas Sowell has researched late talkers and has found a corollary between late talkers and ability in music, math and memory. He also gives this sage advice, which I think applies to all parents and children:

    In this age of labels, when there is a government program for every label, parents have to be on guard against having their children pigeon-holed. The stakes are just too high.

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    Teach your baby how to sign

    Posted on February 2, 2010 | Leave a comment

    So the Kid is not really talking yet, and to compensate, I’ve been teaching him to sign so he has some way to communicate. It started out slow at first, but now he’s able to learn one or two new signs a day. He’s even made up some signs himself.

    The easiest signs for the Kid to learn were signs that he could relate to an object or picture. He learned several animal signs (dog, elephant) and favorite things (book) right away. Concept signs takes longer, but it feels good to see it “click” for him after working on it for a while. Combining a sign with a verbal phrase helps (such as “All done!), and it encourages him to talk. At first, he just parroted the signs back to us, but now he uses them as language, to indicate what he wants or answer a question.

    Interestingly, he took a very long time to learn Mommy and Daddy, but now he uses them a lot, especially when he hears one of us in the other room or is asking for one of us. The sign for Daddy is pointing at the forehead with the thumb, and the sign for Mommy is pointing at the chin with the thumb. But the Kid points at his neck when he wants to say “Mommy.” So I think he’s saying that Mommy is a pain in the neck, which I guess is true sometimes.

    I recommend focusing on one or two signs at a time and not moving on to the next until the child is using those really well. It’s best to start with signs that relate to immediate needs (eat, drink, more) or for which you can find concrete examples (animals, objects). Then move on to more abstract concepts such as “all done,” “help” and “thank you.”

    Use the sign every time you say the word or see a picture of it, and make sure the child is looking at you when you sign. I’ve found that showing the Kid the sign using his own hands, rather than just making the sign myself, helps him learn it faster. It’s important to reign in our tendency to guess what our children want and to make them request it specifically with the sign; for instance, I might ask, “Do you need help?” but I wait until he makes the sign for “help” before I actually do help him.

    There are many well-established signs, but I see nothing wrong with making up our own when it suits us. We made up signs for giraffe, elephant and helicopter, for instance — some of the Kid’s favorite things. He even made up his own sign for fish. He moves his hands up and down while singing “mmm mmm, mmm mmm.” I don’t get it, but it works for him. (Maybe it’s meant to mean fish swimming.)

    You don’t need to buy a book or video or take a class to start signing. Here are a few good online resources that are FREE (although they are all selling something, of course), which also have a lot more information about signing and language development:

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