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Priorities (Issue #2 of COVID 19 LAWYER) – by GARY SMOLKER
WE NEED TO THINK AND TO RETHINK
Many of us are living in completely different information eco-systems.
My position is:
- CAPITALISM is the best economic system the world knows.
- Democracy is the best system of government the world knows.
- America is always improving – that is what makes America great.
- The only constant is change.
CAPITALISM IS THE BEST ECONOMIC SYSTEM THE WORLD KNOWS
This was the longest week in American history.
We saw the collapse of civil society as we knew it and the birth of a better one.
I was so busy keeping up with current events I couldn’t finish writing Issue #2 of COVID LAWYER 19 during the week.
CHANGE
We are witnessing capitalism making changes in response to needs.
Capitalism and democracy are changing.
They are undergoing creative destruction – positive change – making everything better for every one.
STATUS QUO
Americans are never satisfied with the status quo.
They always strive to improve things, and they do.
EFFICIENTLY DRIVEN CHANGE IN CIRCUMSTANCES CALLING OUT FOR CHANGE
Capitalism is an effective instrument for responding to needs.
The Republican National Committee was planning for a gathering of 50,000 at its convention August 24 – 27 in North Carolina.
In North Carolina, currently, gatherings are limited to 10 people indoors and 25 people out doors.
Other states are asking the Republican National Committee to hold its convention in their state.
DURING THE PANDEMIC CAPITALISM IS FLOURISHING IN AMERICA BECAUSE AMERICANS LIVE IN AN ATMOSPHERE PERMEATED WITH AND EXUDING FREEDOM AND LIBERTY
Capitalism flourishes in an atmosphere of freedom and liberty.
Capitalism is a mechanism that facilitates exchange.
People keep on thinking up new things and keep on creating NEW things to exchange and new ways to exchange.
Capitalism is like the discovery in astronomy that we are living in an expanding universe.
Nothing stays the same.
DEMOCRACY IS THE BEST SYSTEM OF GOVERNMENT THE WORLD HAS EVER KNOWN
Democracy works.
George Floyd’s horrible brutal racially motivated killing united all decent Americans.
All decent Americans are taking peaceful action to make equal justice for all to happen.
This is a moment in history where we all bare witness to the American people (living in their American democracy) peacefully non-violently make righteous things happen.
PRESIDENT DONALD TRUMP
On Monday, President Trump mobilized federal forces, including a Black Hawk helicopter, to scatter swatches of peaceful protesters in Lafayette Park next to the White House.
We saw orderly demonstrators routed by flash grenades and tear gas so that President Trump could hold up a Bible as a prop.
President Trump was immediately condemned by religious leaders, by civil activists, by ordinary citizens, and by retired military personnel.
Former Secretary of Defense General James Mattis said:
“When I joined the military some 50 years ago, I swore an oath to support and defend the Constitution. Never did I dream that troops taking that same oath would be ordered under any circumstances to violate the constitutional rights of their fellow citizens – much less to provide a bizarre photo op for the elected commander in chief, with military leadership standing alongside.
“Donald Trump is the first president who does not try to unite the American people – does not even pretend to. Instead he tries to divide us. We are witnessing the consequences of three years of this deliberate effort.”
Retired Navy Admiral Michael Mullin, a former Joint Chiefs of Staff Chairman, said:
“The military should never be called to fight our own people as enemies of the state. We have a military to fight our enemies, not our own people.”
On Sunday, June 7, 2020, President Trump ordered National Guard troops to begin withdrawing from Washington, D.C. saying, “Everything is under perfect control.” as anti-racism demonstrations continue worldwide.
That incident created a deep rift between the White House and the Pentagon.
The Pentagon ordered the National Guard deployed in Washington, D.C., to not use firearms or ammunition.
POLICE REFORM ACTIONS ARE TAKING FORM
On Capital Hill, Democrats powered by the Black Caucus are drafting sweeping packages of police reforms to overhaul the way law enforcement works.
Los Angeles City Mayor Eric Garcetti has submitted a new city budget proposal which defunds the City of Los Angeles’s police department.
Mayor Garcetti said he will direct $250 million to youth jobs, health initiatives and “peace centers” to heal trauma and will allow those who have suffered discrimination to collect damages.
The money would have to be cut from other city operations.
As much as $150 million would come from the Los Angeles Police Department (LAPD).
DEFUNDING LAPD
That is a striking reversal from the budget Garcetti put forth in April, which proposed a 7% spending increase for LAPD, including a previously agreed upon package of raises and bonuses for rank-and-file officers.
In the budget he released in April the LAPD got 53.8% of money not designated for other specific uses.
The police department now stands at 9,985 officers.
Leaders of the union that represents LAPD officers said they found the shift abrupt and disingenuous.
They said to place the blame of Los Angeles’s social problems on our officers is hypocritical and political doublespeak of the highest order.
Jerretta Sandoz, vice president of the police union, in a statement said: “It was one of the most craven, disingenuous political sleights of hand we have seen in some time.”
BLACK LIVES MATTER LOS ANGELES
Black Lives Matter Los Angeles leaders said they would like to see the share of L.A.’s general fund devoted to police reduced from about 50% to 5.7%.
NEVER HAVE SO MANY THINGS WORTH COMMENTING ON HAPPENED SO RAPIDLY IN SUCH A SHORT SPAN OF TIME
RAPIDITY OF CHANGE
Things have gone from business “as usual” to “business unusual” in the blink of an eye.
PANDEMIC COVID 19 CHAOS IN A TIME OF COMPLEXITY
Complexity is an extension of the world in which we already live.
Chaos brought about by the coronavirus and COVID 19 is frightening.
For the past eight plus weeks: we have lived in a world which seemed to be completely unpredictable.
Things went totally out of control.
Businesses were not allowed to operate.
People were ordered to stay home; people were ordered to maintain at least six feet of physical distancing; people were ordered to not gather in large groups; non-essential business were ordered to close and to stay closed.
THE BRUTAL MURDER OF GEORGE FLOYD
About a week ago, on May 25, a black man named George Floyd was murdered by a white police officer pressing his knee against George Floyd’s neck making it impossible for George Floyd to breath.
At the time George Floyd was handcuffed, pined to the ground, and one police officer was on top of him pressing his knee against his neck three other officers were involved.
Two other police officers helped pin George Floyd down while the fourth officer directed people away from watching one police officer pressing his knee on George Floyd’s neck while George was handcuffed and pinned down.
George Floyd cried out that he could not breathe.
The three nearby police officers, heard George Floyd’s cry for help, watched the fourth police officer continue to press his knee on George Floyd neck for over eight minutes – for almost nine minutes – and did noting to stop what was going on.
After the public saw a video of what had happened to George Floyd, mass protests erupted.
Mass protests against police brutality spontaneously occurred all over America and sympathy protests spontaneously took place in many foreign countries.
Looting, destruction of buildings, and burning of police cars took place.
In some places, policemen watched while looters ransacked buildings, destroyed stores and stole merchandise.
Videos circulated on social media showing nearby groups of police officers standing by without doing anything while looting and destruction and theft of property took place in front of their eyes. They did nothing to stop or impede the looters or to stop or prevent the destruction of property going on in front of their eyes.
Yesterday, President Trump ordered active US Military personal to fire tear gas and pepper spray into a crowd of peaceful protestors in front of the White House.
He gave that order so that he would not have to walk through a mass of assembled peaceful protestors in Lafayette Square while walking from the White House to a nearby church.
President Trump had not been invited to the church, was not invited to visit the church.
President Trump did not tell anyone connected with the church that he was coming.
When President Trump arrived at the church, his daughter handed President Trumpt a Bible.
President Trump held the Bible.
Then photographs were taken of President Trump holding the Bible.
After photographs of President Trump holding the Bible were taken, President Trump and his entourage walked back across Lafayette Square to the White House.
President Trump’s conduct was universally condemned by religious leaders, by civil rights leaders, by the public at large, and by high ranking retired military personnel and by prior presidents of the United States.
MISTAKES AND MISDIRECTION
There was a lot of misdirection given to the American public from the start with respect to the coronavirus pandemic, beginning in January, 2020.
There were many mistakes made by American leaders and by the media in January, February, March, April, May and June 2020.
This is going to be a famous year in history: 2020 is a year that will be go down in history books.
MANIPULATION, POOR LEADERSHIP, AND LOSS OF PUBLIC TRUST
Many people now think they were manipulated by the Chinese government, by the World Health Organization, by many governmental institutions, and by many leaders of governments in many countries.
People complain our economy (the US economy) has been strangled by the pandemic, by the Coronavirus, by governmental actions, by governmental leaders, by governmental institutions.
Some of those people continue to complain the economy continues being strangled by misdirected governmental actions or by actions undertaken for political gain, actions taken for political purposes.
More than 40 million Americans lost their jobs due to stay in place orders issued by governors and public health officials in the United States.
People complain that state governors needlessly devastated our freedoms by issuing way too broad and unnecessary stay in place orders which not only shut down the US economy but needlessly devastated the US economy.
People complain their constitutional rights were infringed and are continuing to be infringed by restrictive coronavirus related orders made for the “ostensible” purpose of impeding the spread of the coronavirus pandemic.
Some people suspect that foul play is involved.
THIS IS A CULTURAL MOMENT
People need information to make decisions.
Information is the currency of democracy.
The same set of facts can be put together many different ways.
Social commentators, such as myself, interpret what is going on.
Social commentators tell us what the facts mean.
Social commentators tell us what is going on – contextualize stories – carry the memory of the past into the present moment.
CORONAVIRUS CHANGED THE WAY PEOPLE WORSHIP IN THE UNITED STATES
At the beginning of the coronavirus pandemic, California Governor Newsom issued orders which prohibited people from attending religious services.
Over 1,000 faith leaders delivered a letter to Governor Newsom informing Governor Newsom that they were going to defy his order prohibiting worshipers to worship in their churches if his order prohibiting worship in churches was still in place on Pentecost Sunday, May 31, 2020.
Governor Newsom relented.
Governor Newsom modified his order prohibiting worship in churches.
Governor Newsom’s modified order allowed churches to operate at 25 percent of church capacity but to allow only up to a maximum of 100 congregants to attend a church service at one time.
That did not satisfy people who wanted to exercise an unfettered right to attend church services.
A lawsuit challenging Governor Newsom’s power to limit worship in churches to 25% of church capacity, coupled with a limitation on church attendance to not more than 100 people worked its way up to the United States Supreme Court.
The Supreme Court heard arguments submitted by interested parties in briefs filed with the court, and in oral arguments.
Some state health officials and the Center for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) linked church attendance to outbreaks of COVID 19.
In one example, the CDC said 38% of those attending a rural Arkansas church in early March caught the virus resulting in four deaths.
The State of California argued that California would lift or loosen the attendance restriction when the attendance restriction proves unnecessary. “In light of tremendous uncertainty continuing to surround this new and deadly virus, however it would be rash to do so today.”
Chief Justice Roberts, who cast the deciding vote, stated his reason for upholding Governor Newsom’s power to restrict church attendance: “Choosing when to lift restrictions during a pandemic is the business of elected officials, not unelected judges.”
THE UNITED STATES IS A NATION OF LAWS, NOT A NATION OF MEN
The United States Supreme Court makes decisions based on the vote of nine Supreme Court Justices.
The United States, after President Trump’s appointments of Supreme Court Justices, has more “conservative” than “liberal justices.”
Many people thought the Supreme Court would rule against Governor Newsom’s restriction on religious worship.
United States President Trump, Vice-President Pence, and many religious leaders believe and argued publicly and to the Supreme that (a) freedom of religion is inviolate, (b) it is a violation of a constitutional right to limit the number of people who may worship together.
They argued that the First Amendment guarantees “Freedom of Religion” — they argue that any restriction on the freedom of people to worship together is a violation of that freedom.
There were other arguments against allowing a legal restriction to be put on the number of people who may legally worship together,such as:
- People questioned the expert opinion that there would be a net benefit to enforcing Governor’s restriction on the number of people who could assemble to worship, and also questioned the net benefit of having everyone ordered to stay at home.
- There were questions raised as to who is an expert on the risk to health of the pandemic? Whose expert opinion is to believed? Whose expert opinion is to be acted on?
The overall question to be answered is and was: What is an appropriate way to mitigate the risk of spread of the coronavirus?
BATTLE OF THE EXPERTS
Stanford University biophysicist Michael Levitt, who won the 2013 Nobel Prize in chemistry, has said he believed other health precautions such as enforcing the use of masks, would have been more effective in combating the pandemic.
“I think lockdown saved no lives. I think it may have costs lives.
“There is no doubt that you can stop an epidemic with a lockdown, but is a very blunt and very medieval weapon and the epidemic could have been stopped just as effectively with other sensible measures (such as masks and other forms of social distancing.)”
“It will have saved a few road accidents lives, things like that, but social damage – domestic abuse, divorces, alcoholism – has been extreme. And then you have those who were not treated for other conditions.
“We should have seen from China that a virus never grows exponentially. From the very first case you see, exponential growth actually slows down very dramatically.”
“The problem with epidemiologists is that they feel their job is to frighten people into a lockdown, social distancing.
“So you say ‘There’s going to be a million deaths’ and when their are only 25,000, you say, ‘It’s a good thing you listened to my advice.’ This happened with Ebola and with bird flu. It’s just part of the madness.”
PROTESTS AGAINST POLICE BRUTALITY AND RACIAL INJUSTICE
After George Floyd was murdered by a police officer who crushed George Floyd’s neck making it impossible for George Floyd to breathe (while Floyd was hand cuffed and pined to the ground in police custody) … all Hell broke loose.
If equal justice under the law had applied to George Floyd – justice equal to that applied to the four cops now charged with his murder have received – he never would have been arrested in the first place.
On Memorial Day, Monday, May 25, 2020, a store clerk in Minneapolis called the police because he thought Floyd had paid for a pack of cigarettes with a counterfeit $20 bill. The call should have started an investigation; that’s not what happened to Floyd.
Instead within minutes of the arrival of four police officers, Floyd was face down on the street, hands tied behind his back with Derek Chauvin pressing his knee into his neck for nearly nine minutes, while two other police officers restrained Floyd by pressing down on his back and legs, and the fourth police officer kept distressed passersby from intervening. Floyd pleaded for his life, telling them he couldn’t breathe.
Chauvin was caught killing a black man on video by a passerby, while several eye witnesses pleaded with him to stop.
On the video, Chauvin seems completely calm, bored even, with one hand nonchalantly in his pocket even as Floyd died beneath his knee.
No police cars swarmed the area to arrest the four officers. Chauvin went home that night a free man, and stayed a free man for the next three nights as well. The other three police officers were not arrested until Monday (June 1, 2020).
At first, Hennepin County District Attorney Mike Freeman said there was not enough evidence to arrest anyone, adding, “there is other evidence taht does not support a criminal charge.”
It took for days after the killing for the D.A. to arrest Chauvin – and only after protests over George Floyd’s murder began in nearly every major American city.
It was not until Wednesday (June 1), after Minnesota Attorney General Keith Ellison took over the case, that felony aiding and abetting the murder were filed against the other three other officers.
At the moment, we now are facing all things ripple effects brought about both by the coronavirus pandemic, fear of the coronavirus pandemic and fear of COVID 19, and the ripple effects brought about by the injustice that began at the moment George Floyd was arrested and continued as he was murdered which was amplified by the complete indifference of the police department and local district attorney to the murder.
PEACEFUL PROTEST RALLIES TURN VIOLENT
Peaceful protest rallies in many cities in the United States followed the showing of a video of the injustice of what happened to George Floyd.
Several of those rallies turned violent.
- Police cars were burned.
- Buildings were burned.
- Rocks and bottles and bricks were thrown at police officers.
- Buildings were set on fire by rioters.Businesses were broken into and looted by rioters.
Chaos rained in several major cities in the United States.
Curfews were imposed.
CURFEWS
Curfews were imposed in cities and counties throughout the United States
LOS ANGELES, CALIFORNIA
I live in Los Angeles.
Peaceful demonstrations in the City of Los Angeles began on Friday.
They turned into riots Friday night (May 29), which continued all day Saturday and Saturday night (May 30).
Friday night and Saturday night a citywide and countywide curfew was imposed.
On Saturday night, California Governor Newsom deployed 1,000 National Guardsmen to Los Angeles to assist local law enforcement.
A citywide and countywide curfew stayed in place until Sunday night (June 7).
REALITY OF LIFE IN CONFINEMENT
A woman’s nails are important to her. They are a part of her identity.
Getting her nails done is very important to many, if not, all women.
Nail salons are essential businesses, essential for everyone’s well being.
Can you imagine having to be locked up in a house with a woman who is used to having her nails done once a week, when she can’t get her nails done, has not been able to get her nails done for over two months?
Some ladies are doing their nails themselves.
Some ladies are going to another woman’s home to have their nails done.
Thus stay at home (shelter-in-place) don’t go to nail salon orders are turning many of our women into criminals.
By the way, in San Francisco, California, it is currently against the law for women to get their nails done at a nail salon until August.
Nail salons will not legally be open in San Francisco until August, 2020.
LESSONS LEARNED
We have learned lessons during the coronavirus pandemic and the George Floyd mass protest rallies.
It is best to:
- Observe, listen, and get input from multiple and diverse perspectives.
- When laws are imposed there will be unintended consequences.
- Stay vigilant – almost everything will evolve and change.
- Change happens all the time.
- Ask yourself: What might be missing that’s outside my own frame of reference?
WHAT IS REALLY GOING ON
Below are four opinions of what is really going on with respect to the motivations of people in charge and the consequences of their actions.
- The first opinion is the opinion of a Beverly Hills entrepreneur about the impact of the coronavirus on business and business people. I have known this entrepreneur for approximately forty years.
- A member of the international farming community heartedly agrees with the Beverly Hills entrepreneur’s opinion.
- He is a friend of mine, who lives in the State of Washington. His business is deeply enmeshed in the international farming-agricultural industry. As a result of the coronavirus pandemic our food supply chain in the US was disrupted.
- The second opinion is the opinion of my office-mate, Daniel Cheren, Esq. Daniel is an East Coaster and a worldly man. Dan currently practices law in the United States and in Israel.
- Dan was born in France, has degrees from Harvard University, Columbia University and Boston University, and practiced law while living in Israel.
- Dan and I work in the same law office suite on Ventura Blvd., in Encino, California. Dan practice involves people, cases, and clients from all over the world.
- The third opinion is the opinion of a friend of mine who is a mathematician. He lives and works in Boston. He is a health-expert who has expertise consisting of specialized knowledge on how to conduct clinical trials of new medicines in order to obtain FDA approval.
- He has a PhD degree from MIT in nuclear physics, a MD degree from the University of Pennsylvania, He has lectured at the Harvard University School of Public Health and is totally plugged in to the business world, the academic world, the political world and the regulatory world.
- The supplemental information provided about how life in China is controlled was provided by a businessperson who does business in Mainland China, with Chinese nationals, who visits Mainland China on business trips many times each year.
- The fourth opinion is my opinion of how the impact of the coronavirus pandemic and the murder of George Floyd have changed our lives and will change the lives of future generations.
- It is my opinion that what is now happening as a result of the pandemic and as a result of the killing of George Floyd will have more impact on the American people than did President Lyndon Johnson, President Richard Nixon, the Vietnam War, General William Westmoreland (US Army officer who commanded U.S. forces in the Vietnam War from 1964 to 1968), Watergate, Martin Luther King, Jr. and Mohamed Ali.
CAPITALISM EFFICIENTLY FILLS NEEDS
I agree with American Billionaire Entrepreneur Mark Cuban (net worth $4.311 B according to forbes.com):
We need to create permanent jobs, jobs that are needed to make our economy function, jobs that will give people security and a state of mind necessary for them to be willing to spend money.
We need coronavirus contact tracers. The federal government should provide funds to train contact tracers and to pay them.
Any funds given to big companies should come with restrictions — Any funds used to pay top executives should be paid in the same percentage to all workers in the company. Any stock options or warrants given to top executives should be given in the same percentage to all workers, and should be given in the exact same amount to the US Government.
US Government leaders should negotiate with big companies who are loaned money by US government, or given money by US government, or given grants by US government on behalf of US Taxpayers.
Rebuilding American economy should and will come from the bottom up, not from the top down.
The government should provide for and/or pay for day care centers available to working parents to leave their children when they go to work.
The government should pay for and provide after school programs for school children to be able to attend after school and to be able to attend on the weekend.
I agree with other American Billionaire Entrepreneurs that the US Government should invest additional funds in social programs – at a minimum an additional amount of money – equal to any loss to the US Treasury of tax revenue from tax breaks given to big corporations and to affluent individuals.
[ASIDE: I have been told that the entire US Tax Code could be written in three pages. The only reason it is longer than three pages is that all the additional pages represent tax breaks lobbied for and given to special interests.
The minimum wage should be raised so that a working person will make enough money working at one job to support himself or herself, and have health insurance, sick leave, and a time off to have a vacation.
Attendance at community colleges and at state universities should be free, at no charge to students.
Everyone should have access to basic health insurance which will provide payment for basic medical care.
FIRST OPINION
On May 26, 2020, I posted a cartoon on Instagram of an old man accompanied by the caption, “I wonder – out loud – if the spread and misinformation about COVID 19 and government action to prevent the spread of COVID 19 is a plot to rid the world of old people residing in rest homes.
The Beverly Hills Entrepreneur replied:
“Yes it is.
“First they want to bankrupt all the businesses and the rich.
“Then they want to kill all the old.
“I wonder why they don’t kill the homeless as well.
“Maybe they wait for their votes, then kill them as well.
“Not many people die because of COVID 19.
“Any patient that dies they put a COVID tag because that way the hospitals make a ton of money from the government.”
A friend resided in the State of Washington, replied:
“Here is Washington State we add gunshot victims to the COVID list. Any questions.
“All science is now politics used to reinforce Progressive Ideology.
“Any science that that does not do that doesn’t see the light of day.
“Refresh my memory.
“I’m a little slow.
“Has anybody ever heard of a computer model that has been even a little accurate?”
The Beverly Hills Entrepreneur replied, “I bet they do.”
Someone who follows me on Instagram @garyspassion replied, “It lowers the Social Security burden to kill old people, it gets them off the social security rolls.”
An entrepreneur on the East Coast added: “Yes it is a plot to get rid of old people. They want to get rid of old people because old people are Republicans.”
Another friend replied: “The end game is to take down capitalism.”
SIDE COMMENT
Various people have expressed the opinion that the coronavirus pandemic was either purposefully caused by the Communist Chinese government in Mainland China or was originally negligently caused by the Communist Chinese government in Mainland China and then knowingly and purposefully allowed to spread by the Mainland Chinese government.
But, nobody has proposed to me that the evil reason for the coronavirus pandemic “justified” shut down of all businesses in the United States was and is to purposefully create over 40 million unemployed people in the United States not only for the purpose of ruining the US economy but to also to create a mass of unemployed people available to protest an act of racial injustice.
Or that as part of this diabolical Chinese Communist plot/plan George Floyd was murdered for the sole purpose of creating social disorder and loss of face to the United States.
According to this, as yet unstated theory, the Chinese Communist Party leadership not only wants to destroy the United States and its economy, Chinese Communists want to make sure President Trump is not reelected President of the United States.
The Chinese Communist Party leadership does not want President Trump reelected president of the United States because President Trump has taken affirmative action to put an end to Communist China’s unbounded predatory trade practices.
SECOND OPINION
Gary – I do not think there is a serious argument that Covid is a plot against old people.
I think the proper historical reference is WWII and the emergence of the US as a superpower. Prior to WWII – Western Europe, primarily England and France, ruled the world militarily, economically and politically. The U.S. was still an emerging power, struggling in the Depression and very much isolationist. After WWII – the French and British Empires crumbled, their power and influence waned – and the U.S. quickly assumed dominance of western culture throughout the world.
How did this happen? I would posit that it was less the brilliance of American minds and industry and far more the simple fact that Europe and east Asia destroyed itself in the war. There, a whole generation of young men was decimated. Their cities and industries were bombed and destroyed. On the other hand, the U.S. was never bombed – and the number of American soldiers that died (75,000) while tragic – did not change the demography of the U.S. So after the war, the U.S. was able to dominate the world economy simply because there was no competition.
The Chinese are very conscious of history in general and no doubt are fully aware of the secret behind America’s success.
As the Western countries shut down their economies in the wake of the Wuhan virus – damage, perhaps irreparable damage, is being done. Millions of businesses are going bankrupt, millions of people are unemployed, the economy is slowing down, demand is drying up, and trillions of dollars are being borrowed in order to prop up our failing economy. China is taking advantage of this — economically, militarily and politically. Lending money, buying up strategic assets, expanding its power in east Asia, and making in-roads into the Middle East, Africa and South America.
While Americans have been focused on the specter of Russia Russia Russia – like a magician’s sleight of hand distraction – China has engineered an economic coup that may precipitate the collapse of the West as the dominant superpower to its advantage. In other words, a plot far more sinister than ridding the world of the elderly.
THIRD OPINION
My third friend immediately responded to Dan’s opinion, stating
- American deaths in Word War II were far greater than 75,000. In World Word II over 405,000 Americans gave their lives.
- A pro-Hong Kong resolution at a British university expressing support for Hong Kong pro-democracy movement was recently voted down at the University of Warwick in England, after opposition from mainland Chinese students.
He sent an article to me which describes the purposeful actions taking place by the the Communist Party Government of Mainland China to influence world events. According to that article.
Chinese state media in the mainland have portrayed the protestors as the “violent pawns of hostile foreign forces.
The University of Warwick has about 27,000 students. Of those, about 3200 are Chinese International Students.
Chinese students compromise the largest group of international students in Britain, with around 120,000 Chinese international students currently studying there.
Chinese embassies and consulates maintain close relationship with Chinese student groups, providing funding, occasional political directives, and paying them to attend pro-China demonstrations.
On February 3, 2020, the University of Warwick student union met to discuss a motion that would condemn the “abhorrent human rights abuses of the Hong Kong Police Force and the Hong Kong SAR Government.
During the 2019-2000 academic year, there were a total of 11 resolutions. Each of these resolutions with the exception of the Hong Kong resolution was voted on by around 1,000 students; most passed by a wide margin.
The Hong Kong resolution failed: 2,041 votes against, and 977 votes for.
CONTROL OF CONSCIOUSNESS IN THE DIGITAL WORLD
A business person who goes to China frequently.
According to that person.
Every time a person goes to China it is necessary to get a new Chinese phone because their regulations on phones (e.g. how to set them up, get a phone number, etc.) change regularly.
For many years now, China has blocked Google/Gmail, Twitter, and Facebook access for all people within the borders of China and replaced them with Chinese companies (essentially copies) such as Baidu, Weibo, and RenRen. This creates a controlled information loop in China. Chinese people then use VPN services to access blocked websites and apps on their phones and computers. VPN services essentially reroute a computer’s access while disguising their IP address.
In May (last month) China demonstrated it now has the cyber ability to disable VPN in personal phones and computers by doing so.
American spirit, love of free speech, is the greatest force in the world to withstand this global force to control the free flow of information, ideas, concepts, different opinions and “fact based news.”
SIDE EDITORIAL COMMENT
When people base their understanding only on the devices in their hands, when they don’t read books, when words and text can be altered digitally, when access to truth can be turned off… then we are talking about a mass control of consciousness.
The Chinese leaders are masters at this. They have been practicing for decades for now.
Perhaps they have been teaching and sharing their techniques with other global leaders.
If so, it is not too far fetched to suspect there are powers at play to either create or spread the coronavirus or to use this catastrophe to increase mass surveillance and control.
We must remain vigilant and cautious.
We must get closer together and communicate through trusted means.
We need places like churches to meet in person and discuss ideas since we cannot depend on the realities displayed to us through our phones.
We must do this together.
We must not stop communicating with people of different political backgrounds or who share varying views.
We must radically embrace different voices and allow free expression or else …. we will be come robots to whatever reality is told to us, outside of our control.
One of the many great things about America is freedom of speech, open debate of ideas an opinions.
The more pieces of the picture we see, the more clear the picture becomes.
A SUPPORTING POINT OF VIEW
Another friend, expressed in an email the following supporting point of view (addressed jointly to me and to the China expert).
Thank you for shinning the light on a truly toxic long-term problem that will outlive this current crisis – the control of access to information and the reduction of information nodes that China’s government uses in order to control its citizens and avoid accountability for its institutional crimes.
Now social media platforms like Facebook and YouTube are reflecting this extreme Chinese-style censorship with the ongoing bans of videos and statements from eminently qualified medical doctors, epidemiologists, chemists and structural biologist who are questioning Dr. Fauci’s assertions and also questioning the Beijing-style lockdown policies embraced by several US states – including lockdown policies in the State of California.
Our society is ablaze in lies.
Nowadays epidemiology is largely data science.
In late January, Dr. Fauci was repeating the lies put out by the Chinese Communist Party and their enablers in WHO – that COVID was not a threat to the world. You can Google’s Fauci’s interview with Newsmax TV to see the video where Fauci stated Americans had nothing to fear from this virus. Then four weeks later Fauci gets exposed for being way wrong and decides to atone for his failure by cosigning Neil Ferguson’s alarmist projections and throwing in with the lockdown crowd.
Neil Ferguson is an epidemiologist of Imperial College London who is known to be consistently wrong on his projections going back 20 years – with disastrous results in his home country – ruined farmers from his hoof and mouth disease alarmism, magnitude of failure on his team’s projections on mad cow, bird flu, etc. Neil Ferguson’s modeling has been revealed to be a sham many times. He has spit out failed predictions time after time.
FAUCI DEPENDED ON AN OUT OF BOUNDS EPIDEMIOLOGIST’S MODEL OF FATALITIES.
THAT EPIDEMIOLOGIST HAS A LONG HISTORY OF ALWAYS GETTING EPIDEMIC PROJECTIONS WRONG.
So do we now have any responsible news platform questioning the basis of this entire lockdown effort or putting hard questions to Dr.Fauci about his rationale for destroying people’s lives and livelihoods? Hell no.
We here now in this “Information Age” are being rendered ignorant by the messengers and their medium with data deluge. Indiscriminate, unintegrated, unintelligible noise voiced by personalities to attempt a credibility that is fake and phony.
The cable news TV viewing audience and the YouTube viewing audience are accomplices in this crime.
In that regard, there is video posted on YouTube with the title “Italian residents hug Chinese people to encourage them in coronavirus fight.”
This video was taken while Wuhan was shut down, before widespread coronavirsus infections decimated Italy.
It depicts the Mayor of Florence’s “hug a Chinese program” – which was going on full blast while Wuhan was a coronavirus hot spot.
In this video Italians (people in Florence) are shown hugging a Chinese man in an act of solidarity — the English subtitles in the video state: “I’m not a virus. I’m a human. FREE ME FROM PREJUDICE. ERADICATE THE PREJUDICE.”
Stupidity is static.
Stupidity doesn’t follow Boyle’s Law, Kepler’s Three Laws of Planetary Motion, Einstein’s Theory of Relativity, or even String Theory.
CHINA CONTROLS CRITICAL SUPPLIES
Someone sent me an article which states China controls critical medical supplies, supplies most of the critical medicines consumed in the U.S.A. The article also states American companies couldn’t/can’t complete because the Chinese pharmaceutical companies are subsidized by the Chinese government. They drive down the price of medicines to the point where American manufactures can’t manufacture their medicines at a profit. Later, after the American manufacturers no longer manufacture a particular medicine, the Chinese company that manufactures that medicine raises the price it sells the medicine at.
Another person sent me an email in which the claim is made that Chinese companies manufacture many if not most of the smart phones and computers used in the United States.
MY OPINIONS
COVID 19 TRANSMISSION DURING PROTESTS
WE have to make sure these protests do not become super-spreader events.
Anyone attending a protest is facing a risk of contact with coronavirus.
Distancing is most important to reduce risk of spread of COVID 19.
Police and protestors should wear masks.
Use of tear gas and pepper spray by police will cause coughing, sneezing, and touching face.
Sneezing and coughing will spread virus further – get it on you and others.
People put in custody should be given masks, and transported and processed while maintaining physical distancing of at least six feet.
Large congested crowds create the perfect conditions for the virus to be transmitted.
Shouting and singing, which are common at protests, have been shown to hasten the spread of the virus via droplets.
On May 30, 2020, a 22 year old Ohio State University grad, Sarah Grossman, died shortly after being sprayed with tear gas kneeling at a Columbus, Ohio rally protesting the death of George Floyd. She stood up to protest police brutality and was tear gassed as a result.
The City of Columbus, Ohio has opened an investigation into her death.
LISTENING
Experts and Black Live Matter leaders tell us
- Policing is not a war.
- Police should have a ‘neighbor mindset’.
- The people police deal with are their neighbors. They should be treated as neighbors.
- Police should be trained to have a neighbor mindset.
- Spending money on something that doesn’t work (police) is a waste of money.
Black mothers in radio interviews and on YouTube videos tell us what it is like to be a black mother. They tell us that they tell their black son’s “the story.”
Beginning when their sons are very young Black Mothers tell their sons, “don’t wear a hoodie,” “don’t do anything that will alarm a white person,” “be passive around white people.”
Black women tell us in radio interviews and on YouTube videos that the thing they fear the most is they will get “the call,” a call in which they are told their husband or their son or their daughter has been murdered by a white person.
A day or two ago, the President of the American Psychological Association (APA) stated, in writing, “We are living in a racism pandemic.”
According to the APA, racism is associated with conditions such as depression, anxiety, post-traumatic stress disorder, and substance use disorders. It can contribute to the development of cardiovascular and other “physical diseases.”
Black people are three times more likely to be killed by police than white people.
Through black people make us 13% of the U.S. population, they account for 24% of the deaths where race is known.
Racism is a belief system that makes us all sick.
Living with diminished respect makes us more vulnerable to pathology and premature death.
Our minds and bodies are interrelated.
Our beliefs are the most important force in our life.
The belief that people have a descending order of value depending on their race (belief there is a racial hierarchy) is racism.
I agree with Colorful American Billionaire Entrepreneur Mark Cuban’s statement:
“Treating people equally means treating people with equal amounts of respect for who they are and for what they have experienced.”
UNCOMFORTABLE CONVERSATIONS
We get more accomplished when we listen then when we act.
Interacting with people who have different views than our own, allowing ourselves to understand their motivations – what motivates them – expands our perceptions, leads to empathy, develops emotional intelligence.
Knowledge changes perspective.
The more we know the more we see.
The more we see the more we understand.
Listening and talking to people in uncomfortable conversations gets people to see their humanity, to share their humanity, and as a consequence people come together with love, respect and honesty and act more intelligently.
We have to understand what is going on, because when we don’t we are a danger to ourselves and to everyone else.
Our beliefs are the most important force in our lives.
IN AMERICA DEMOCRACY WORKS
“‘Whose the greatest.’ he asked all the children, and they all shouted his name. ‘Who upset the world?’ and they all shouted his name. ‘I am the champion.’ He told them, ‘and that means all of us are champions. I showed you all what we can do..'” – Sports Illustrated March 9, 1964
On May 17, 1965, the young heavyweight champion of the world stopped for a bite to eat on the Florida-Georgia border – and was told to eat out back with his kind.
That would not happen today.
Gary Smolker
Copyright (c) 2020 by Gary Smolker, All Rights Reserved
VISUAL IDENTITY #3 – A World of Imagination for Children to Grow Up In – by Gary Smolker, Social Commentator, Values Critic, Scholar, Patron, and Collector
HOME AS A TRANQUIL PARADISE
As a young single parent I created a wonderful world: a world of imagination for children to grow up in.
I filled my condo in Playa del Rey, California with works of art which reflected my uniqueness ingenuity and creativity as a parent.
My home furnishings, furniture and art works displayed my passion as a scholar, patron and collector.
My home was a place of tranquility for myself and my children.
It was a synthesis of my person, my place, my power, my wealth, my creativity, and my ingenuity.
It was filled with treasured works of art.
CHARM AND UNIQUENESS
A WONDERFUL PLACE TO GROW UP IN
Copyright © 2019 by Gary Smolker, All Rights Reserved
WORLD CHANGERS by Gary Smolker, Social Commentator, Values Critic
CREATIVITY
Productive creative people have mental toughness.
They respect who they are and what they do.
They express their creativity in many forms, in may ways and in many forums.
WORLD CHANGERS
It takes a great amount of effort and energy to change the status quo because there is a great resistance to changing the status quo.
Very few people are motivated to change the status quo.
Even fewer people have the talent, skill, knowledge, energy, creativity, the drive, the resources and the lust required to change the world.
Remarkably, the image of the people who do change the world is their real self.
They are smart from head to toe.
They don’t compromise their real needs.
Changing the world is one of their needs.
They are not out maneuvering. They are already in position.
It is their destiny to live a unique and fascinating life.
Many of them are humble.
Some of them are ruthless.
They don’t cheapen themselves.
They know nobody gives you anything. You earn it.
Some of them say things like, “I may have faults, but being wrong ain’t one of them”.
As hard as they try, they can’t do a whole lot more than a thousand important things at the same time.
Their true power is the respect they get from people who matter to them.
Who Are We?
We are each our own fingerprints and the sum of our own life experiences.
If you are respected you are powerful.
Copyright © 2019 by Gary Smolker, All Rights Reserved
THE ART OF BUILDING A GOOD LIFE WELL LIVED – A Book Report and Movie Review of “The Art of Driving in the Rain” – by Gary Smolker, book reviewer, movie critic and values critic
The Movie “THE ART OF DRIVING IN THE RAIN” Is A Censored Version of the Book
Both the book and the movie are about a young man Denny who is a hero, his heroic selfless loving dying wife EVE, his loving young daughter ZOE, the family dog ENZO, and the EVIL COUPLE.
The EVIL COUPLE are EVE’S extremely wealthy “complain about everything”, “know it all”, manipulative parents.
The EVIL COUPLE constantly complain about everything and everyone.
They are self-absorbed parents.
They are self-absorbed grandparents.
Their conduct is manipulative, deceitful and out-of-bounds.
Death by Brain Cancer
EVE has brain cancer and is dying.
EVE and ZOE temporarily stay with EVE’S grandparents, the EVIL COUPLE, the moment EVE comes back from the hospital to recover from her brain surgery operation to remove the cancer tumor growing in her brain.
Building Dramatic Tension
There are many major differences between the book and the movie.
Dramatic Tension
The tension in the book is very high, a very dramatic fight for custody of ZOE initiated by the EVIL COUPLE after EVE dies.
EVE dies after a heart wrenching fight against brain cancer.
All during her battle with brain cancer, EVE unselfishly and lovingly attends to Denny’s emotional needs.
After Eve dies, the self-absorbed nothing is good enough for them EVIL COUPLE sue to get sole custody of ZOE.
The EVIL COUPLE believe they can provide a better life for ZOE with their money than can hard working decent young Denny who is starting out and just beginning his career as a race car driver.
FALSE ACCUSATION OF RAPING A 15 YEAR OLD GIRL
In the book a 15 year old promiscuous sexy young woman wrongfully accused Denny of raping her.
Criminal charges are filed against Denny.
As a result of that accusation, the EVIL COUPLE GRANDPARENTS are awarded temporary custody of ZOE during the custody battle for sole custody of ZOE launched by the EVIL COUPLE. Denny is not allowed to have custody of ZOE pending the outcome of a criminal trial.
That doesn’t happen in the movie.
FALSE ACCUSATION OF BEATING UP ZOE’S GRANDFATHER
In the movie, Denny is accused of thoughtlessly, in an angry rage, pushing ZOE’s grandfather down which resulted in the grandfather breaking a rib.
Criminal charges are filed against Denny for his alleged violet attack on EVE’S overbearing grandfather.
As a result of that accusation, the EVIL COUPLE GRANDPARENTS get to have sole temporary custody of ZOE. Denny is not allowed to have custody of ZOE but is eventually allowed visitation pending the outcome of the criminal trial.
That doesn’t happen in the book.
RUNNING OUT OF MONEY
In the book, Denny runs out of money.
Denny sells his home to obtain necessary funds owing to his lawyer and so he will be able to continue to pay his lawyer to continue to represent him in his custody fight to regain custody of ZOE, and to continue to defend him in the criminal proceeding initiated by the EVIL COUPLE, ZOE’S manipulative grandparents.
That doesn’t happen in the movie.
THE FUNERAL
In the book, Denny is kicked out of the cemetery during the burial of his wife by the EVIL COUPLE’S two sons.
That doesn’t happen in the movie.
Philosopher Dog
ENZO is a philosopher dog.
ENZO narrates the story in both the book and in the movie.
While narrating the story, ENZO comments on many contemporary social issues including the husband and wife couple who sold ENZO when he was a very young puppy to Denny.
In both the book and in the movie, the following exchange occurs after Denny tells the couple that he has chosen to purchase ENZO:
The puppy’s owner tells Denny, “That puppy is the pick of the litter. We were thinking of keeping him.”
ENZO comments after the man says that – in both the book and in the movie, “He says that to every purchaser about each and every puppy chosen to be purchased when the prospective purchaser asks, ‘How much for that one?'”
I wrote nine pages of things said by ENZO while ENZO was narrating the story “The Art of Racing in the Rain.”
THE ART OF RACING IN THE RAIN
“The Art of Racing in the Rain” is a philosophical discourse on the topic: How to live a well lived good life!
Copyright © 2019 by Gary Smolker, All Rights Reserved
14 Day Adventure In Sicily – by Gary Smolker
This post is about Sicily.
I recently spent fourteen glorious days (March 20 through June 4, 2017) with my daughter Leah Graham Smolker seeing great art and eating classic Sicilian food with wild abandon in Sicily.
During those fourteen days, my daughter Leah and I had one tense adventure and one eye opening experience after another.
My trip to Sicily resulted in me gaining a better understanding of how the “world” works, a better sense of what is going on in the world today, and improved my perception of reality.
PASSION
This trip gave me a new perspective on the differences between how we live in the United States in comparison to how people live in other parts of the world.
This trip made it very clear to me, that the United States doesn’t have a history; that is to say that compared to other countries the United States is a very young country.
This has practical consequences.
For example, where I live in Los Angeles very few buildings are more than 50 years old.
In Sicily many buildings are more than a thousand years old.
The buildings that I saw everywhere I went had a big impact on my perception of the place of the United States on the world stage.
Seeing those buildings and how the businesses conducted in those buildings are conducted completely changed my mind about how prepared the typical person in America is to make good decisions about the top echelon of people who are the leaders in America, the people who “lead” and make and determine what happens in America and in the rest of the world.
During my trip to Sicily I stayed in a farm house which had been converted to a bed and breakfast (bnb), the Tenuta Cammarana.
The Tenuta Cammarana bed and breakfast hotel is owned and operated by a married couple, Silvia and Giuseppe Pulvirenti.
Silvia and Giuseppe’s farmhouse and their farm surrounding their farmhouse – which has been converted to a bnb by Silvia and Giuseppe – has been owned by members of the Pulvirenti family for over 300 years.
Silvia and Giuseppe Pulvirenti’s pride of ownership of their farm/their bnb and and feeling of responsibility they have for everything in and related to their bnb is obvious.
They maintain and operate their bnb farm at the highest standards all the way down to the table cloths they place on the tables on which meals are served to the silverware they set out for their guests to use to eat the dishes served during the courses served at meals served at the bnb.
Below photos of food lovingly placed on breakfast buffet table for the enjoyment of their guests by Silvia and Giuseppe.
Look at the design of that tablecloth.
Look at those tomatoes.
Look at that meat.
Look at the cheese.
Look at the cherries.
Look at the strawberries.
Below are photos of the breakfast I self-served myself during breakfast on two separate mornings while I was staying at the Tenuta Cammarana Bread and Breakfast in Ragusa Sicily.
In the photos below you are looking at real china plates, real china coffee cups and real china containers of milk/cream, sugar and coffee.
You are also looking at real silver, real silver silverware and a real silver plate under pitcher of coffee.
Leah and I ate dinner several times at Tenuta Cammarana.
Each of the courses served during each dinner each dinner Leah and I had at Tenuta Cammarana could only have been created and could only have been prepared by a passionate chef having the highest level of skill.
Cultural Inheritance
Sicilians have a cultural inheritance built up over millennia.
Arguably, Americans do not have a cultural inheritance.
If Americans have a cultural inheritance, the American cultural inheritance has been built up for a little more than 200 years.
Comparatively speaking, Americans don’t have a cultural inheritance.
That is to say: There is not one single American culture in the continental United States:
- the “culture” in the “South” of the United States is markedly different than the culture in the “North”;
- the culture on the East Coast of the United States is different than the culture in Middle America;
- the culture on the East Coast is different from the culture on the West Coast;
- the “culture” in the City of Los Angeles is markedly different from the culture in the City of San Francisco, and so and so forth, etc. etc. etc.
“The Godfather”
All I knew about Sicily and Sicilians, before I went on this trip, was what I saw portrayed in movies such as “The Godfather.”
The movie the “Godfather” does not accurately portray life in Sicily, the Sicilian people, the “land” of Sicily.
The movie the “Godfather” does not portray what I saw in Sicily or what I experienced in Sicily.
Real Food
The food (vegetables, fruits, cheeses, etc.) I ate in Sicily tasted different than the food I have eaten my entire life.
I have spent my entire life living in the United States.
As a result of how food in Sicily tasted I now believe we Americans don’t have/eat “real food” in the United States.
Lifestyle
The Sicilian/Italian life style I observed/ experienced in Sicily is on one end of a spectrum of possible ways to live which the extreme other end of the lifestyle spectrum compared to the way I live in the United States.
I don’t know anyone in the United States who lives the way people I saw people in Sicily are living.
Living Slow
Sicilians “live slow.”
Sicilians talk to each other while having a meal together.
Sicilians don’t look at their cell phones while eating a meal with someone else.
Americans “always” look at their cell phones.
The typical American looks at his or her cell phone while having a meal with someone else.
Sicilians don’t rush their meals.
Lunch in Sicily takes more than an hour.
Lunch in Sicily involves eating several courses.
While eating a meal almost 100% of the time someone else is eating a meal with you.
A Sicilian would feel lonely eating a meal by himself or by herself.
Eating a meal with someone else includes having an animated conversation with at the other person or persons a Sicilian is eating with.
Sicilians eat great food.
Sicilians savor their food.
Sicilian food is great; it is fresh and delicious.
Some Americans think the food they eat every day is great.
But it is nothing compared to the food Sicilians eat every day.
At all times Sicilians are surrounded by beautiful countryside and great art.
Sicilians are surrounded by art that is so amazingly beautiful that it is overwhelming to look at.
Family
Sicilians are family oriented.
It is every Sicilian’s obligation – an obligation for everyone in a family from father and mother, to grandfather and grandmother, to children to grandchildren) – to eat together at an extended family meal 0n Sunday.
That way cousins get to know one another and get to know their aunts and uncles and their grandparents.
Everyone stays in constant regular touch with everyone else.
Happiness
In my opinion, Sicilians are a people who have made pleasure, art, spirituality, family, family life, beauty and luxury complimentary experiences.
In contrast, people in the United States rush through life; extended family members in the United States don’t get together to enjoy an inter-generational family meal together every Sunday, cousins don’t see each other for years, sometimes they don’t see each other for decades, cousins don’t stay in touch with one another.
In America the only time friends and family get together is to
- celebrate a major positive occasion in a family member’s life, like a marriage, or a birth, or
- at a funeral.
In America it is not unusual for an adult to not know what is going on in his or his aunt or uncle’s lives, or in his or her cousins lives.
Americans are always in a rush, too busy to stay in touch with other family members.
Americans intensely pursue individuality.
As a consequence of their intense pursuit of individuality, Americans miss out on some of the best experiences of being human.
Sicilians, as a result of their joyous pursuit of family, enjoy some of the best experiences of being human that happen naturally (and accidentally) while being in constant contact with other family members.
Sicily
I felt the presence of human history every where I went while I was in Sicily.
I felt the history of a multitude of civilizations literally oozing out of stones everywhere while I was in Sicily.
Sicily is a place where the presence of early history is everywhere.
Archeological traces found in and around the present day City of Siracusa (in Sicily) confirm human presence in Siracusa Sicily in the XIV Century BC.
In the 5th Century, Siracusa was the bastion of Greek Civilization in the West.
Evidence of the Greek presence is everywhere.
There are archeological parks in Sicily that contain Greek ruins.
There are Greek ruins in Sicily that are better preserved than the Greek ruins which still exist in Greece.
Below are photographs of a few of the Greek ruins I visited in Sicily.
After seeing these well preserved Greek ruins, I kept asking myself questions:
- Why are these ruins still standing?
- Why weren’t these ruins knocked over by an earthquake? There have been lots of earthquakes in Sicily.
- The largest active volcano in Europe is located in Sicily.
- Did the Greeks know something about geology, volcanoes, earthquakes we don’t know, (a) like how to locate structures where there will not be earthquakes, or volcanic eruptions, or (b) how to build structures that will withstand earthquakes?
- How in the world did they lift those columns/pillars/cross-beams upright?
Without a doubt the ancient Greeks were master builders and engineers.
The Cathedral of Siracusa
While in Sicily, I visited the Cathedral of Siracusa in the City of Siracusa Sicily.
- It is one of the first basilicas of the Christian era; it was built in the 5th Century AD in a Doric temple dedicated one thousand years earlier to the Goddess of the City, Athena.
- Its Christian reuse saved the pagan architecture from destruction and oblivion and gave new life to the sacredness of this ancient place.
- Entering the cathedral is like stepping into the past.
Below are photographs I took of the exterior of a church on June 3, 2017.
On June 3, 2017, I had lunch (main course fish soup) while sitting at an outdoor table bordering the plaza in front of that church.
While I was sitting at my table, I listened to an accordion played by a musician who was sitting on the steps leading up to the front door of that church.
Below are two photographs of the fish soup I ate at lunch that day as a main course, as I was listening to the live musical performance, and also two photographs of my dessert.
At One Time Sicily was The Middle of the World
In the Fifth Century, the Mediterranean Sea was the middle of the civilized world.
At the height of Greece’s splendor, in the Fifth Century, the Greek Colony at Siracusa was as splendid and magnificent as Athens, in no way inferior to the capital of the Greek homeland.
The City of Siracusa Today
I explored the City of Siracusa on June 3, 2017.
The idea/concept of architectural beauty has a whole different meaning in Sicily than in does in the United States.
In the opinion of many scholars,
- In ancient Sicily, leaders built beautiful buildings because they believed in beauty for its own sake.
- In ancient Sicily leaders built beautiful buildings because they wanted beauty to be the essence of their buildings.
- A multitude of beautiful ancient buildings in Sicily have been recognized by UNESCO as being worth preserving as a historical site, in perpetuity, for the benefit of humanity.
Going further:
- The City of Siracusa Sicily has everything it needs to become one of the cultural capitals of the Mediterranean.
- For historical, geopolitical and strategic reasons Siracusa has the qualities necessary to become the motor for the rebirth of an idea for the rebirth of Europe.
- The City of Siracusa is qualified to play a role in the future as the fulcrum (heart) of Mediterranean-European culture, the beating heart of the Mediterranean.
- The logos of Western Thought was born in Siracusa.
- Historically Sicily has been the meeting place of all the arts.
- In a cosmic sense emotional solidarity exists between Sicily and every human inhabitant on Planet Earth.
I saw “soulful art” everywhere I went in Siracusa.
I saw recently painted/created/designed/artwork painted on furniture, painted on canvases hanging as paintings on walls, designed into and part of highly functional furniture.
All of this art tugged on my emotions, made my heart beat faster, increased my feeling of alertness.
The art I saw made me feel more human more alive with every step I took as I walked around Siracusa.
Photos below taken by me in MOON, a vegetarian cafe in Siracusa.
MOON stands for Move Ortigia Out of Normality.
Note that the “bar” table top is the top of a piece of furniture containing a multitude of drawers.
Ortigia is one of the oldest sections of Siracusa.
By the way, the women in the above photographs are absolutely stunning, amiable, graceful and fun to talk to.
One of them to told me, “She is twenty-three years old and has the soul of an eighty year old.”
She asked me to come back Thursday night to hear her sing and play the guitar.
The Street Scene in Siracusa Today
Below are photographs I took while walking along the streets of Siracusa on June 3, 2017.
Modern Day Magnificence – The Liberty Hotel in Catania Sicily
Leah and I spent our first two nights in Sicily at the magnificent Liberty Hotel in Catania, a bnb (bread and breakfast), located at Via S. Vito, 40, Catania, Sicily.
The above photos were taken by me in the Liberty Hotel.
Italian/Sicilian Elegance In Attention to Details
The first photo is a photograph of the green carpet and gold carpet I saw directly ahead of me as I passed through the front door entry to the Liberty Hotel from the street.
One must go through the gold curtains at the end of a marble entry way when entering Liberty Hotel from the street in order to proceed to the lobby of the Liberty Hotel.
The lobby of the Liberty Hotel is located on the other side of the gold curtains.
There Was A Slight Delay in Our Arrival at the Liberty Hotel
Leah and I flew together to Rome from Los Angeles.
We were supposed to both catch the same connecting flight in Rome to Catania, Sicily.
Things didn’t work out that way.
Leah missed the connecting flight we were supposed to fly on together from Rome International Airport in Italy to Catania Sicily.
The Airline we flew on didn’t take all passengers to airline terminal from the plane in an orderly fashion.
Once deplaning passengers got to the terminal in Rome, via bus, there was no-one to greet the passengers arriving from Los Angeles or to give guidance on how to find the gate for the the connecting flight to Catania.
It was mass confusion — I luckily took the appropriate escalator to the appropriate floor in the terminal to go to.
Once on that floor, I couldn’t determine [after looking at a list of constantly updated departing flights, flight numbers, airlines, destinations and gates] out of which gate my flight to Catania would board.
I couldn’t figure out where I was supposed to proceed to in order to catch my flight from Rome to Catania.
Luckily, another passenger in the terminal (a native Sicilian) who was a complete stranger took my hand and led me to the gate at which I was supposed to board my plane to fly to Catania.
When I boarded I asked if Leah had boarded. I was told she had not.
I caught the connecting flight, thinking it would not depart until Leah arrived; Leah didn’t arrive. The plane took off without Leah.
Once I arrived at the airport in Catania, I contacted Leah by cell phone.
Leah advised me that she had been misdirected by Alitalia Airline personnel several times to the wrong gate and that is why she had missed our flight from Rome to Catania, but that she had been re- ticketed and would be catching the next flight from Rome to Catania.
Leah directed me to wait in the baggage claim area in Catania Airport for Leah to arrive on the next flight and that Leah would arrive in Catania in two hours.
I waited in the baggage claim area of the airport in Catania for Leah to arrive on a later flight.
Our Arrival at the Liberty Hotel Catania
Leah and I arrived at the Liberty Hotel in Catania in the early evening on May 21 instead of arriving there in the late afternoon.
The second photo above, of a red/pink carpet, is a photograph of the red (or pink if you see pink instead of red) carpet we walked on when we walked from the lobby (located on the second floor of Liberty Hotel) each morning down one floor to Liberty Hotel’s intimate cozy brilliantly decorated dinning room.
The third photograph is a photograph of one of many couches in the small intimate lobby of the Liberty Hotel.
All the furniture and furnishings in Hotel Liberty are artist.
Whoever decorated the Liberty Hotel has great sensitivity and created an environment in every room which provokes sensory delight.
Walking through the common areas of Liberty Hotel is more of exercise in art appreciation than walking through most museums and most churches containing great works of art.
The fourth of the photographs above is a photograph of an outdoor patio located adjacent to the Liberty Hotel’s lobby.
One entire perimeter wall of the outdoor patio in the photograph above is covered with blooming jasmine plants, jasmine flowers galore and the patio is filled with the rich smell of Jasmine.
The remainder of the above photographs were taken by me while at breakfast in the small (but elegant) dinning room at the Hotel Liberty.
The Almond Milk served at the breakfast at the Liberty Hotel is/was divine.
By comparison, Almond Milk I’ve tasted/consumed in Los Angeles is watery diluted something which pretends to be Almond Milk.
More Attention to Details
You should see what the bedroom (with Tiffany Lamp above my bed) and bathroom (exquisite tile work) looked like in my suite of rooms at Liberty Hotel.
Attention to Women
You should see how the dinning room in the Khalisah Bed and Breakfast in Palermo, located at Via Scopari – Palermo, is decorated.
Below are photographs I took of three paintings hanging of the walls in the intimate dinning room at the Khalisah Bed and Breakfast in Palermo.
I was told:
- The first painting is a current painting of the owner’s 18 year old daughter. Painted by the owner’s wife.
- The second painting is of the owner’s wife. Painted by the owner.
- The third painting is a painting of the owner’s mother when she was a young woman.
The owner is an architect, Arch. Sergio Sanfilippo.
You should also see what the bathroom in my suite at the Khalisah Bed and Breakfast looked like.
The shower was/is illuminated with/by a blue light source in the shower.
The shower curtain was/is green.
The sink was/is a bright orange.
Each bedroom suite in this bnb had/has a different decor.
More Attention to Detail
You should see what the grounds, the dining room and my bedroom suite at Casa Talia Bed and Breakfast look/looked like and hear me describe and/or read how I describe the City of Modica, Sicily.
Modica is known as “The Chocolate City” of Sicily.
Each and every part of Casa Talia is a work of art.
My stay at the Casa Talia was a hypnotic experience.
While in Modica, I saw the cutest most charming bookstore I have ever seen.
Below are two photographs I took of one of the murals in that bookstore, which I took while I was in that bookstore.
Tense Moments
First Tense Moment
Leah and I had several tense moments during our trip.
The first tense moment occurred when I summoned Uber to pick me up at my home and then then pick up Leah at Leah’s home and then take us to LAX, Los Angeles International Airport, to catch our flight to Rome.
After I pushed all the buttons on the screen of my cell phone, I was informed (by Uber) that my order could not be processed because I did not have the latest version of the Uber app.
Second Tense Moment
The second tense moment occurred when I discovered Leah was not on the flight from Rome to Catania that with me that Leah was supposed to be on.
Third Tense Moment
The third tense moment occurred when we arrived in the bus station in Palermo to purchase bus tickets for a 10:00 a.m. bus ride from Palermo to Erice.
When we arrived the bus station we were informed that the bus drivers were on strike, and there would be no bus [scheduled or not scheduled] leaving Palermo at 10:00 a.m. bound for Erice.
However, we were also informed the bus strike would end at 10 a.m. and therefore we could purchase bus tickets for a 1:30 p.m. bus trip from Palermo to Erice.
We purchased bus tickets for the 1:30 p.m..
We then waited in the bus terminal for the 1:30 p.m. bus to arrive and load passengers.
Fourth Tense Moment
The bus leaving at 1:30 p.m. finally arrived.
We loaded our suitcases in the cargo bins under the bus; then we stood in line to board the bus.
When the line got to the front of the bus we looked up through the entry door to the bus at the bus driver standing at the top of the stairs collecting bus tickets at the top of stairs leading into the bus.
When it was our turn to give the bus driver our tickets, the bus driver said, “No! Only one you can get on the bus. There is not enough room for both of you on the bus.”
I told Leah to take that bus to Erice, I would take the next bus to Erice and to take her suitcase and my suitcases off the bus when when she arrived at the second bus stop in Erice.
We had arranged in advance to meet a personal driver at the second bus stop in Erice.
Fifth Tense Moment
The fifth tense moment occurred when Leah realized she had to go to the bathroom, and there was no bathroom on the bus.
More Tense Moments
A description of additional tense moments will be added later.
Copyright © 2017 by Gary Smolker, All Rights Reserved
Gary S. Smolker, Traveler, Blogger, Social Commentator, Movie Reviewer, Book Reviewer, Publisher Gary S. Smolker Idea Exchange Blog www.garysmolker.wordpress.com Gary Smolker, Fashion Blogger Dude's Guide to Women's Shoes www.dudesguidetowomensshoes.com Follow me on Instagram @garyspassion
Be Magnificent – by Gary Smolker
Don’t Underestimate the Importance of Being Fun
Empower Yourself to Be Magnificent
POWER is having fear and taking action in spite of it.
COURAGE is taking action to make a contribution in spite of being afraid.
Everyone is afraid.
Show UP
Show up for yourself in your own life.
Don’t be a doormat.
You can bring life into other people’s lives.
You are the catalyst for change in the world that surrounds you.
Empower people to make happen what ever they care about the most within reason.
If people around you are not having a great life it is literally impossible for you to have a great life.
Pursue Success from Your Own Passion
Pursue success from your own passion not from external pressures.
Below is a sign that was in the entry to a warehouse in Canoga Park, California where a laser-light show rave dance was put on by my friend King of the Dance Hall Dash Senter, which I attended in October 2016.
Be Present
Everyone present had a great time at that dance which lasted from 7:00 p.m. on a Saturday night until 3:00 a.m. Sunday morning, the next morning.
Photos below are some of the photos I took when I paused for a moment on the dance floor.
Get Off On Authenticity
If you have any resentments kill them.
Your resentment is a jail cell. Get out of your self-created jail cell/prison.
Instead move on with your life …. be brilliantly present to what empowers you.
If you don’t let go of your complaints you will live a lifetime of unhappiness, misery and bitterness. You will lose self-esteem, you will lose your ability to trust, you will become untrustworthy, you will lose your ability to connect and you will lose your peace of mind.
You are the generator of who you are and what you have.
Go For It
Don’t live a settled life.
Raise the bar.
Play “full-out.”
Encourage other people to achieve greatness; spend your time always making positive supportive contributions to other people’s lives.
If you don’t play “full-out” you will never find fulfillment.
Focus on the Good
Its Only Seems Impossible Until Its Done
Bringing Peace to the World
Let’s all get together and bring peace to the world.
Aliveness
Don’t kill off aliveness.
They say a good friend will visit you when you are in jail.
A really good friend will help you hide the body.
Be in good humor.
Have a sense of humor.
You are a catalyst for change in the world which surrounds you.
There is a train of love beginning right here.
Jump on.
Gary S. Smolker, gadfly at large
Copyright © 2017 Gary S. Smolker, All Rights Reserved
Gary S. Smolker, Publisher, book reviewer, movie reviewer, social commentator The Gary S. Smolker Idea Exchange Blog www.garysmolker.wordpress.com Gary Smolker, Fashion Blogger Dude's Guide to Women's Shoes www.dudesguidetowomentsshoes.com Instagram @garyspassion
The Impact of Emotion on Judgment and Behavior – by Gary Smolker
Food for Thought: Teach In A Room Full of Good Vibes. People Think Better When They Are Happy.
Below are photographs I took at a coffee and dessert reception I attended Wednesday night, December 7, 2016 at the Intercontinental Hotel in Century City, California.
I attended that event with Christy Rusk, a twenty-six year old chef.
Christy explained to me the artful skill in cooking and baking and the creative power of the chef that was physically and gastronomically displayed in the desserts on the dessert table at the reception.
The photograph below is of Christy holding a macaroon, which Christy ate and which is in Christy’s hand.
Christy took a multitude of deserts from the desert table in the reception area, put them on a plate, and then took the plate of deserts she had chosen from the desert table into a room adjoining the desert table room, before the presentation began.
According to Christy the macaroon displayed in Christy’s fingers in the photograph below is a masterpiece.
Christy pushed down on the top crust of the macaroon.
The crust gave in, then rebounded back.
Christy advised me that is a remarkable crust.
Only a crust made by a highly skilled chef would do that, have that physical property.
Before finishing the macaroon, Christy took that macaroon apart.
Christy explained to me how difficult it was to achieve the bubbly surface of the inner platform positioned in the multiple levels of the macaroon.
Christy explained each component piece and layer of the macaroon to me.
She explained the feel and taste effects that created the overall experience of eating that macaroon.
The pastry chef was like a world-class architect in terms of the effect the structure and taste of this macaroon had on me.
In my opinion, that macaroon is a piece of fine art.
Serve Unforgettably Stylish Deserts and Good Coffee At Events
I will remember attending that reception as a night of eating delightful and stylish deserts.
Eating those deserts relieved stress.
Eating those deserts made me very happy, created a good mood.
Note: desert is stress spelled backward.
Eating those deserts made me ready to learn, made me ready to enjoy the lectures to be presented that evening at that event.
Below is a photograph of Christy holding the partially eaten macaroon described above.
Below is a photograph of a mini-lemon-meringue pie, after Christy had taken a bite of it.
Christy is holding that mini-lemon-meringue pie in her fingers.
I can testify from personal knowledge about the experience of eating that mini-lemon-meringue pie. It is as delicious as it looks.
There were an infinitude of candies and pastries and fruits for the guests to enjoy.
The coffee was wonderfully delicious coffee.
The coffee and deserts were in a separate room the guests entered from a hallway before advancing to an adjoining room.
The lectures at this event were presented in the adjoining room.
After looking at the photographs of what was on the serving tables in the reception area, don’t you agree that STYLE IS EVERYTHING?
The picture on the far right is of mini-cheese cakes with chocolate medallion top.
Event Planners, Take Notice: Interesting Speakers Will Attract Interesting Audiences
The speakers at this event emoted/radiated great style.
It was clear to everyone in the audience that these speakers are people who live a life of action; the speakers are people who are fully engaged in a life of action, doing very practical relevant and interesting academic research work.
Their enthusiasm was contagious.
Everyone in the room was infected.
Life Is A Fashion Show for Stylish People
Stylish people are interesting.
Stylish people connect to themselves and to others.
Having style is a sign of having an organized mind.
Having style is a sign of being a creative brainy person.
Life is a fashion show, where the best style wins.
It was impossible to look at the stylish deserts on the desert table and not take one.
That is the way the world works.
Style
Style is important.
Style is everything.
Shoes are the beginning touch of complete style.
You should have seen the shoes the women in the audience were wearing.
The women in this audience were women who express themselves – their identity to themselves and their identity to others – by wearing very elegant put-together ensembles of outerwear.
The clothing worn by the women in the audience made it very clear that this was a brainy audience.
Speakers
The two speakers at this event are full-time university professors at Ben-Gurion University in the Negev.
They are presently living in America, while working as visiting scholars at prestigious American Universities.
One of the speakers was Dr. Hila Riemer.
Hilda is a Visiting Scholar at Stanford University in addition to being a Professor at Ben-Gurion University of the Negev, Israel.
Hilda spoke about “The Effects of Emotions on People’s Judgments and Behavior.”
It is obvious to me that the results of Hilda’s academic research and the opinions that Hilda holds on the effect of emotions on judgments and behavior can be used, ought to be used, and is probably being are by advertising firms.
The other speaker at this event was Hilda’s husband Dr. Raziel Reamer.
Hilda’s husband, Dr. Raziel Riemer is a Visiting Scholar at the University of California Berkeley campus, and also a Professor at Ben-Gurion University of the Negev.
Raziel spoke about social robotics, in particular “How Understanding Human Motion Can Improve People’s Lives.”
Raziel told us: “Eventually robots that will be social companions to elderly people, much like dogs are now companions to people.
In my imagination, the results of Raziel’s academic research combined with Raziel’s opinions on body motion and bio-mechanics when combined with Hilda’s opinions and research results on the effect of emotions on people’s judgments and behavior should be coveted by engineers and social scientists who design robots.
The purpose of the reception was to introduce the audience to these two academics who are visiting scholars temporarily working at Stanford University and the University of California Berkeley.
RANGE OF TOPICS DISCUSSED Both speakers spoke about our emotions, motions, and what is in between.
MY TAKE AWAY:
- The intellectual level of their presentations was high. They knew they were speaking to people who have long attention spans, to people who do not have to be looking at their smart phones all the time.
- The point made by both lecturers is that there is an inter-relationship between people’s minds, what people wear, their emotions, their posture and their motions; there is also an emotional and physical relationship between how express themselves with their posture related to their body motions and to the clothing a person is wearing.
- Every aspect of a person’s outward appearance is related to their emotional state. A person’s emotion state is related in the way they move their body.
- What the people in the audience were wearing reaffirmed to me that style makes the world go round, that style is everything.
- What the people in the audience wore was extremely understated.
- If you want to make an impression, Hilda emphasized being understated is very important.
- If you want to persuade people, if you want to get results, it is necessary to be impactful.
- In that regard, Hila insisted that advertisements with low arousal are remembered longer than advertising with high arousal.
- To be impactful, pictures and illustrations used in advertisements must be relevant to the product or service being advertised.
- In other words: What you communicate must be internally and externally “relevant.” –
- What women in the audience at this educational event wore at this event was testimony to that principle.
- I still remember the shoes women were wearing at this event.
- The handbags and jewelry I saw at this reception and lecture program were also very memorable.
- In response to my questioning (from the audience to Raziel about the bi0-mechanics-ergonomics of high priced Stuart Weitzman shoes and high priced Jimmy Choo shoes and high priced Christian Louboutin shoes), Raziel insisted that because of bio-mechanics high heel shoes should never be worn.
- Being the charmer that he is, Raziel mentioned that it took Raziel 20 years to convince his wife Hilda to stop wearing high heel shoes.
- A woman in the audience stated that when she was in her 20s she wore high heels, and later in life had to have three foot surgeries as a consequence of wearing high heels when she was in her twenties.
- Raziel talked about the action implications of the interrelated facts that the Japanese are world-leaders in robotics and the population of Japan is dropping dropping dramatically by the tens of millions because the Japanese people living in Japan are not reproducing.
- Japan is becoming a country of old people who need care. But, there are not enough young people living in Japan to care for the physical and emotion needs of their elderly and aging population.
- This has led to a ton of money being spent by Japanese firms and being spent by the Japanese government on human motion research and on human emotion research that to be used in designing robots to do the job of taking care of the physical and emotional needs of the elderly.
- Raziel spent considerable time talking about the design parameters for robots that will be designed to replace human and animal caregivers.
- Raziel predicted that humans and pets who presently care for the emotional and physical needs of the elderly will be replaced by robotics.
The sign below was projected on a screen in the room where the speakers spoke.
This sign summarizes the topics and academic credentials of the speakers.
Each of the speakers presented information with emotion.
ASIDE: Information without emotion isn’t retained.
Audience Profile
Due to the wonderful snacks available on the serving table in the adjoining room, a giant pot of delicious coffee and an array of cold drinks for attendees to choose and take to the adjoining room before the talk was given – some of us (myself included) ate and drank both during the presentation and before the presentation.
As a result we were on a sugar and caffeine high while we were listening to the speakers’ presentations.
Many of the people attending this event needed an energy boost at this time of night.
The lecture began at around 8:00 p.m. Most of the people in the audience were over 60 years old.
This was going to be a late night. I didn’t get back to my home after the presentation until almost 11:30 p.m.
Every women attending this educational program was elegantly and fashionably attired.
Women wore stunningly beautiful high fashion shoes and elegant jewelry.
They came with stylish handbags.
The ladies in the audience were obviously accustomed to being around money and spending it.
Below is a picture of the unique and highly fashionable shoes one woman at this event wore at this event.
None of the women in the audience at this event wore tennis shoes, sneakers or sandals.
All the women attending this event carried their “stuff” in elegant handbags.
The handbag on the floor at the feet of one of the youngest ladies in attendance at this event is a Prada handbag.
Prada products are high fashion products.
The jewelry on display was fine arts museum quality jewelry.
Look at the ring on the right hand of the woman in the photograph below.
I took two pictures of the fruit and candy that lady put on her plate, to snack on before and during the presentation.
The handbags the women had at this event were elegant works of art.
Below is a photograph of the handbag of the woman sitting in front of me at the table I sat at during the presentation.
Shoes are the beginning touch of complete style.
Look at two photographs below …. which I took of shoes being worn by two of the younger women who attended this event were wearing.
CONCLUSIONS:
- Like attracts like.
- Birds of the same feather do flock together.
- People with good taste and refinement attract other people with good taste and refinement.
- Brainy people attract other brainy people.
- High performance money people attract other high performance money people.
The world is a classroom in which we can all soak up lessons and stories to fuel our path forward.
Everyone attending that program is amazing. I’ve done my best to showcase that in this report.
Copyright © 2016 by Gary Smolker, All Rights Reserved
The Nature of Being Human and How to Succeed in the Dynamic Human Marketplace (Part One – Human Nature; Can and Should Women Have Sex Like A Man?; Economic Life and, Social Image) – by Gary S. Smolker
For the readers convenience the material which follows is a portion (approximately 1/7th) of a combination book report and movie review previously published/posted on this blog.
That entire article can be found at http://www.garysmolker.wordpress.com, posted on August 2, 2015.
Introduction
The book “Cool” and the movie “Trainwreck” are about the same topics: human nature, human tendencies, human motivations, why we think the way we do, why we do what we do, why things happen to us they way they do and the forces causing society to be visibly changing in front of our eyes.
Among other things, “Cool” is about money, power, sex, instant gratification, relationships, food, diets, dieting, dieters, vanity, why we consume what we consume, what our pattern of consumption reveals and conveys about ourselves, the dramatic changes in society that have occurred in the past thirty years including the sex life of women, dramatic changes in the status of women, the dramatic changes in women’s participation in society, the evolving status, the self-image women have of themselves and what a man should do to if he wants to get the favorable attention of a woman.
The story told in the movie “Trainwreck” illustrates many of the points made in the book “Cool” and vice versa.
“Cool” is a must read for anyone who wants to understand the nature of being human or who seeks guidance on how to succeed in the dynamic human marketplace.
Any one who wants to sell anything to younger people should read “Cool.”
The authors of “Cool” discuss how young people decide what to buy.
The authors of “Cool” report:
- “Today, young people believe that their musical taste is the best indicator of their identity…”
- There is a deep consensus among young people about what various kinds of music reveal about fans’ personalities, values, ethics and even social class.
- The authors of “Cool” point out there are about 25 million songs for sale today and more than one thousand distinct musical genres.
- Just before the Commerce, Science and Transportation Committee of the United States Senate held hearings on offensive content in records in response to Tipper Gore’s campaign and proposal to have music rating labels, requiring albums bearing warnings to be be placed under store counters, forbidding such works to be broadcast, and asking music companies to reassess their contracts with musicians who produced explicit music (rating categories to be based on sex, masturbation, violence, the occult, and drug and alcohol use content), none other than Donny Osmond made the point on Nightline that a sticker would make an album cool and kids would want it that much more. He even said he might have to add some suggestive lyrics to his own songs to avoid a dreaded G rating that would doom sales.
- Madonna, whose album in 1984 Like A Virgin sealed her global recognition has gone on to become the best selling solo artist of all times, to appear on Time’s 2010 list of “The 25 Most Powerful Women of the Past Century, and was the highest-paid musician of 2013, earning $125 million.
- Even as early as her 1984 “Like A Virgin” performance, Madonna parodied the social commodification and fetishizing of female virginity.
Can and Should A Woman Have Sex Like A Man?
“Cool” contains a very interesting discussion of sex therapist Ian Kerner’s 2009 article titled “Can You (and Should You) Have Sex Like a Man?”:
Writing on “Today’s” health blog, he warned that the female orgasm releases oxytocin, a hormone that predisposes women to attachment, and when attachment is not forthcoming ‘orgasm becomes a regretful reminder of the hollowness of the sex that preceded it.’
Suggesting an even worse picture of the dire emotional consequences of casual sex, the University of Southern California professor Ruth White adds that while a woman’s brain releases oxytocin, men’s brain release testosterone, which ‘drives them off to find some other women with whom to spread their biological material.’
Quartz and Asp point out that the authors (Kerner and White) get the biological facts wrong. They leave out the fact that male orgasm likewise releases oxytocin – indeed oxytocin appears to play a central role in male monogamy.
They also point to a study which reported that men and women college students report identical rates of casual sex, and that women were not more motivated by the thought that hookups might result in long-term relationships, indicating casual sex has equal appeal for both sexes. They found no negative effects on well-being.
The movie “Trainwreck” takes the path cut by Madonna in “Like A Virgin” one step further by showing what would happen if women were able to turn-the-tables on men in their sexual relationships with men.
By the way, in the United States, the last forty years have seen the most dramatic and most rapid transformation of gender relations in the United State’s history.
The movie “Trainwreck” takes the path cut by Madonna in “Like A Virgin” one step further by showing what would happen if women were able to turn-the-tables on men in their sexual relationships with men.
“Cool”
The authors of “Cool” (Steven Quartz and Anette) discuss what they found from studying brain activity scans.
They also talk about biological and evolutionary forces that cause us to do what we do.
They talk about food – why we eat what we eat; they talk about dieting – why and how the human brain works against dieting.
In addition to talking about food, they talk about sex, they talk directly about how women choose their sexual partners, how women evaluate men.
They also talk about personal, cultural, and group identities and why those identities are so important to us.
They talk about having street creed and securing the trust of other people.
They talk about how the three “identities” (our personal identity, group identity and cultural identity) impact our behavior, including what we buy and sell and how we act.
They talk about what our actions signal to others.
They talk about status (swagger and star presence), social identity, and social norms.
They talk about why social hierarchies exist.
They discuss how your pattern of consumption conveys who you are to yourself and to others.
They discuss how and why material objects are symbols with meanings that communicate values, identities, aspirations and even fears.
They even discuss Margaret Thatcher’s remark that there is no such thing as society.
They tie all of the above to (a) what we consume, (b) why we consume what we consume, (c) how we interact with (i) other people, (ii) society, and (iii) the world we live in.
They also discuss the “real reason” people work.
Economic Life and Social Image
According to Quartz and Asp our economic life isn’t about just the bare necessities.
If it were, we’d stop working as soon as we had food and shelter – just like every other animal.
According to Quartz and Asp after people obtain bare necessities what people really work to obtain is recognition from others – to be viewed favorably.
Why does that happen?
According to Quartz and Asp:
- Human beings are social animals.
- Your brain keeps track of your social image – your perception of how other people evaluate you.
- It’s doing it all the time, usually outside your awareness.
- You and me and all other human beings are exquisitely sensitive to the approval and disapproval of others.
- When you see a product your brain computes how much it will likely enhance or hurt your social image.
TAKE AWAY: In an economy of abundance people invest great personal meaning in their purchasing decisions.
I don’t know to what degree people invest a great personal meaning in their purchasing decisions.
Many people don’t have time to go shopping, they are too busy working and/or they have to struggle to pay for and sometimes can not pay for their bare necessities.
I expect whether or not people invest great personal meaning in their purchasing decisions depends upon a person’s personal situation and personality, including their age, their health, their maturity, their wealth, the groups they belong to (if any), their success in whatever they are doing, their self-esteem, their education, their experience, their job, their satisfaction with whom they are, etc.
Brain Based Quest for Esteem
Quartz and Asp are convinced we have a brain based quest for esteem.
Status seeking is not artificial.
Status seeking is not imposed by an unjust and crass society.
Status seeking is a natural element of being human.
Products Have a Social Life
According to Quart’s and Asp’s point of view, products are valued for their imaged effect on social image.
The impact of products on social identity (personal identity, group identity and cultural identity) is discussed in the following sections titled “There’s A Big Symbolic Difference Between Riding A Harley and Riding A Ducati,” “Our Social Life Is Rife with Displays of Our Value As A Social Partner,” “Communication Involves More Than The Words You Speak”, “Car Culture and Social Identity”, “What Is Your Favorite Book?” and “Signaling Your Social Identity to Others.”
Copyright © 2015 by Gary Smolker, All Rights Reserved
The Nature of Being Human and How to Succeed in the Dynamic Human Marketplace – a combination book report on “Cool”, movie review of “Trainwreck” and Commentary on Social & Cultural Trends – by Gary S. Smolker
Introduction
The book “Cool” and the movie “Trainwreck” are about the same topics: human nature, human tendencies, human motivations, why we think the way we do, why we do what we do, why things happen to us they way they do and the forces causing society to be visibly changing in front of our eyes.
Among other things, “Cool” is about food, sex, relationships, diets, dieting, dieters, vanity, money, power, instant gratification, why we consume what we consume, what our pattern of consumption reveals and conveys about ourselves, the dramatic changes in society that have occurred in the past thirty years including the sex life of women, dramatic changes in the status of women, the dramatic changes in women’s participation in society, and the evolving status and self-image women have of themselves and what a man should do if he wants to get the favorable attention of a woman.
The story told in the movie “Trainwreck” illustrates many of the points made in the book “Cool” and vice versa.
“Cool” is a must read for anyone who wants to understand the nature of being human or who seeks guidance on how to succeed in the dynamic human marketplace.
Any one who wants to sell anything to younger people should read “Cool.”
The authors of “Cool” discuss how young people decide what to buy.
The authors of “Cool” report:
- “Today, young people believe that their musical taste is the best indicator of their identity…”
- There is a deep consensus among young people about what various kinds of music reveal about fans’ personalities, values, ethics and even social class.
- The authors of “Cool” point out there are about 25 million songs for sale today and more than one thousand distinct musical genres.
- Just before the Commerce, Science and Transportation Committee of the United States Senate held hearings on offensive content in records in response to Tipper Gore’s campaign and proposal to have music rating labels, requiring albums bearing warnings to be be placed under store counters, forbidding such works to be broadcast, and asking music companies to reassess their contracts with musicians who produced explicit music (rating categories to be based on sex, masturbation, violence, the occult, and drug and alcohol use content), none other than Donny Osmond made the point on Nightline that a sticker would make an album cool and kids would want it that much more. He even said he might have to add some suggestive lyrics to his own songs to avoid a dreaded G rating that would doom sales.
- Madonna, whose album in 1984 Like A Virgin sealed her global recognition has gone on to become the best selling solo artist of all times, to appear on Time’s 2010 list of “The 25 Most Powerful Women of the Past Century, and was the highest-paid musician of 2013, earning $125 million.
- Even as early as her 1984 “Like A Virgin” performance, Madonna parodied the social commodification and fetishizing of female virginity.
Can and Should A Woman Have Sex Like A Man?
“Cool” contains a very interesting discussion of sex therapist Ian Kerner’s 2009 article titled “Can You (and Should You) Have Sex Like a Man?”:
Writing on “Today’s” health blog, he warned that the female orgasm releases oxytocin, a hormone that predisposes women to attachment, and when attachment is not forthcoming ‘orgasm becomes a regretful reminder of the hollowness of the sex that preceded it.’
Suggesting an even worse picture of the dire emotional consequences of casual sex, the University of Southern California professor Ruth White adds that while a woman’s brain releases oxytocin, men’s brain release testosterone, which ‘drives them off to find some other women with whom to spread their biological material.’
Quartz and Asp point out that the authors (Kerner and White) get the biological facts wrong. They leave out the fact that male orgasm likewise releases oxytocin – indeed oxytocin appears to play a central role in male monogamy.
They also point to a study which reported that men and women college students report identical rates of casual sex, and that women were not more motivated by the thought that hookups might result in long-term relationships, indicating casual sex has equal appeal for both sexes. They found no negative effects on well-being.
The movie “Trainwreck” takes the path cut by Madonna in “Like A Virgin” one step further by showing what would happen if women were able to turn-the-tables on men in their sexual relationships with men.
By the way, in the United States, the last forty years have seen the most dramatic and most rapid transformation of gender relations in the United State’s history.
“Cool”
The authors of “Cool” (Steven Quartz and Anette) talk about what they have found from studying brain activity scans.
They also talk about biological and evolutionary forces that cause us to do what we do.
They talk about food – why we eat what we eat; they talk about dieting – why and how the human brain works against dieting.
They talk directly about how women choose their sexual partners, how women evaluate men.
They talk about personal, cultural, and group identities and why those identities are so important to us.
They talk about having street creed and securing the trust of other people.
They talk about how the three “identities” (our personal identity, group identity and cultural identity) impact our behavior, including what we buy and sell and how we act.
They talk about what our actions signal to others.
They talk about status (swagger and star presence), social identity, and social norms.
They talk about why social hierarchies exist.
They discuss how your pattern of consumption conveys who you are to yourself and to others.
They discuss how and why material objects are symbols with meanings that communicate values, identities, aspirations and even fears.
They even discuss Margaret Thatcher’s remark that there is no such thing as society.
They tie all of the above to (a) what we consume, (b) why we consume what we consume, (c) how we interact with (i) other people, (ii) society, and (iii) the world we live in.
They also discuss the “real reason” people work.
Economic Life and Social Image
According to Quartz and Asp our economic life isn’t about just the bare necessities.
If it were, we’d stop working as soon as we had food and shelter – just like every other animal.
According to Quartz and Asp after people obtain bare necessities what people really work to obtain is recognition from others – to be viewed favorably.
Why does that happen?
According to Quartz and Asp:
- Human beings are social animals.
- Your brain keeps track of your social image – your perception of how other people evaluate you.
- It’s doing it all the time, usually outside your awareness.
- You and me and all other human beings are exquisitely sensitive to the approval and disapproval of others.
- When you see a product your brain computes how much it will likely enhance or hurt your social image.
TAKE AWAY: In an economy of abundance people invest great personal meaning in their purchasing decisions.
I don’t know to what degree people invest a great personal meaning in their purchasing decisions.
Many people work hard; may people struggle just to survive (just to be able to pay the rent; many people don’t have much time to go shopping.
I expect whether or not a person invests great personal meaning in their purchasing decisions depends upon a person’s personal situation and personality, including their age, their health, their maturity, their wealth, the groups they belong to (if any), their cultural background, their success in whatever they are doing, their self-esteem, their education, their experience, their job, their satisfaction with whom they are, etc.
Brain Based Quest for Esteem
Quartz and Asp are convinced we have a brain based quest for esteem.
Status seeking is not artificial.
Status seeking is not imposed by an unjust and crass society.
Status seeking is a natural element of being human.
Products Have a Social Life
According to Quart’s and Asp’s point of view, products are valued for their imaged effect on social image.
The impact of products on social identity (personal identity, group identity and cultural identity) is discussed below in sections titled “There’s A Big Symbolic Difference Between Riding A Harley and Riding A Ducati,” “Our Social Life Is Rife with Displays of Our Value As A Social Partner,” “Communication Involves More Than The Words You Speak”, “Car Culture and Social Identity”, “What Is Your Favorite Book?” and “Signaling Your Social Identity to Others.”
Why Do We Do Anything?
According to Steven Quartz and Anette Asp (the authors of “Cool”) our brain has three behavior control systems:
- A survival oriented behavior control system
- A habit oriented behavior control system, and
- A goal oriented behavior control system.
Until I read “Cool”, I didn’t realize that evolution had rigged my brain to be biased to instant gratification; or that when there is a conflict between my brain’s survival instinct (survival behavior control system) with my brain’s goal oriented behavior control system my brain’s survival control system (seeking instant gratification) wins.
That explains how the survival behavior control system in our brain results in many of us becoming overweight – Most of us prefer sweet deserts over celery stalks (because of our survival control system), because our brain justifies a second trip to the desert bar by taking note of the possibility of a famine in the future. Most of us do not consciously realize that is the reason we prefer sweet deserts over celery stalks.
Grocery Cart Choice Architecture
According to Quartz and Asp: Two-thirds of the items in the typical shopper’s cart aren’t planned purchases.
There is a biological logic to that phenomena.
Unplanned purchases appear in the typical shopper’s cart because the human brain is a computational system which tells us for the purpose of survival it is more important to eat things with a lot of calories “while the getting is good” than to put off eating them for another time.
The sweet and fatty goods we reflexively put in our grocery cart taste good because evolution has shaped our brain to align our eating preferences with the evolutionary beneficial goal of survival by making us want to eat sweet and fatty foods.
That is why our “taste” for sweet foods and fatty foods has such a strong sway over us.
Take away:
- The reason why you consume sweet and fatty foods is that you have an evolutionary driven biological instinct to survive.
- The survival control behavior system in your brain thinks eating sweets and fatty foods will increase your chance of survival.
BEWARE: Although “fat” is the “metabolic dollar in the bank” stored for future energy needs, crucial for survival during times of food storage, the fat you eat will be the fat you will wear no matter the source.
“Good fat” like olive oil is no more attractively worn around a person’s waistline than “bad fat” from lard.
Impulse Buying
In “Cool”, Quartz and Asp explain:
- We buy items in a grocery store on impulse that will increase our pleasure short-term (which is a survival oriented behavior) even if doing so will decrease our chances of meeting long-term goals.
- Our brain prefers “survival” (instant gratification) over long-term goals.
The physical presence of a good (such as a bag of potato chips or Cheetos) triggers programmed responses, such as the impulse to reach for the bag of potato chips or Cheetos automatically.
Reaching for a bag of potato chips or Cheetos is the result of a survival process that launches motor behaviors to contact the bags of potato chips and Cheetos.
The Shopping Cart of Dieters
According to Quartz and Asp: “A striking example of this can be found in the shopping carts of dieters, which are likely to be filed with more calorically dense items and fewer fruits and vegetables than those of non-dieters – the very food choices that sabotage diets. Here’s what’s happened: The dieter’s hypothalamus senses a caloric deficit. That can only mean one thing: ‘You are starving!’ The right course of action is to adjust the Survival value system, upping the value of calorically dense foods while lowering the value of calorically sparse foods. These altered values create cravings for foods such as potato chips, bread, pies, ice cream, and other calorie-rich fare. Without being aware of what the hypothalamus is up to, the dieter finds a cart full of the wrong foods.”
Confirmation
After I read the above quote in “Cool” I asked a friend of mine who is a exercise physiologist if the above quote made sense to her.
In reply, she told me: ”
- “Right after the Northridge Earthquake I had an irrepressible and irresistible urge to eat Hostess Cupcakes and Hostess Twinkies.
- “I hadn’t eaten Hostess cupcakes or Hostess Twinkies or thought of eating them in over twenty years.
- “But, after the earthquake, I realized I could die at any moment and with that in mind I went out and got myself lots of Hostess cupcakes and Twinkies and ate all of them.
- “I have not eaten Hostess cupcakes or Hostess Twinkies since them.
- “I hadn’t thought of them since then, until You [I] asked if that quote made sense.
Sex and Sexual Strategies Women Pursue
According to Quartz and Asp: Two forms of behavior are intimately connected to survival (our own and that of our genes): food and sex.
In “Cool”, Quartz and Asp ask: Why would a shrewd politician risk a successful career for a brief tryst?
They provide the following explanation:
‘While we are not enslaved by our Survival system, its pull is strong and its myopia great, and we inevitably fall back into Survival patterns despite concerted efforts to avoid them.”
According to Quartz and Asp a human being’s survival instinct, biology and evolution has shaped human (men’s and woman’s) sexual activities and strategies.
Women choose men with a certain type of face (a rugged face) as a one night stand sexual partner and a woman’s evaluation of male job applicants is controlled by the type of face a man has and where that woman is in her cycle.
Female preferences for male faces are not fixed but fluctuate across a woman’s cycle and according to their own relationship status
Women’s preferences shift towards the more masculine (rugged faces) when they are in the follicular phase of their cycle, when conception is most likely.
This shift in preferences towards more-masculine faces also coincides with the frequency of short-term mating and extra-partner affairs. Sexual affairs are 2.5 times more likely when a woman is ovulating.
What women wear to attract men’s sexual attention (how much skin they show and how tight their clothes are) shifts according to where a woman is in her cycle.
Women going to a club during this phase wear shorter skirts and show more skin than they doing during other parts of their cycle. Women are three times more likely to wear pink or red when they are ovulating.
When presented with photographs of women taken across their cycle, independent judges are able to reliably identify when a woman is ovulating based on assessing when the women are trying to look most attractive.
According to Quartz and Asp:
These shifts in how women evaluate male faces impact more than just mating strategies.
In one study, women were given resumes of various male job applicants that included the man’s picture (the faces had independently been rated in terms of masculinity).
They were asked to assign the candidates to various job positions, which differed in terms of salary, perks, office size, and so on. The assigned positions shifted across the women’s cycle.
In particular, they assigned more high-status positions to highly masculine faces when they were near ovulation or ovulating.
In “Cool” the authors ask you to imagine looking at the faces of Leonardo DiCaprio in Titanic and Daniel Craig in his role as James Bond. Or, if you prefer, to think of Orlando Bloom and Arnold Schwarzenegger.
Craig and Schwarzenegger have much more masculine rugged faces than do DiCaprio and Bloom.
In “Cool” the authors then tell you
- which “kind of face” people typically think is more trustworthy (DiCaprio’s face and Bloom’s face),
- which face type heterosexual women typically judge (cuter vs. rugged) as being better potential long term partners (DiCaprio and Bloom)and/or to be a better potential short-term hookups (Daniel Craig and Arnold Schwarzenegger),
- what women want sexually and how they behave sexually during different times in their cycle.
Unconscious Biases and Preferences Guide Our Choices
According to Quartz and Asp:
Masculine features are thought to be unconscious signals of good genes.
They are the product of high testosterone which can only be borne by individuals with strong immune function.
In one study, female preferences for masculine male faces increased as the rate of disease increased across thirty countries.
There is often a trade-off — those with good genetic resources (healthy offspring) may be less reliable long-term partners.
Women with high estradiol, the predominant female sex hormone, are regarded as more attractive. But, they are more likely to flirt, to have an affair, to be less satisfied with their partner and to be the target of “mate poaching.”
Men with high testosterone are more likely to have an affair, divorce, and delay marriage.
They are also less likely to respond to infant cries then men with lower testosterone.
People may find certain facial features attractive in part because (typically unknown to them) they are signals of underlying genetic qualities.
According to the authors, “… what we look for in a partner[‘s face] depends on the kind of relationship we are after, and especially the duration.”
“Trainwreck”
The casting director of “Trainwreck” deserves to receive an academy award for casting men with the face types the authors of “Cool” tell us women are likely to pick for short-term hookups as the actors to play the parts of the men with whom the star of this movie (a younger sister) has short-term hookups.
In the opening scene of “Trainwreck”, a father asks his two very young daughters to repeat after him: “Monogamy doesn’t work.”
The rest of the movie is about the youngest daughter’s “sex life.”
This movie makes fun of traditional concepts of the relationship of men with women and of women with men.
In “Trainwreck” the main character is a younger sister who is an aggressive sex driven woman — she has one-night-stand-sex with many different men throughout the movie.
Eventually, the main character (the younger sister) falls in love with a man who has the face type the authors of “Cool” tell us women judge to be a better potential long term partner.
How the fact that fact that the main character is youngest child is of import to the authors of “Cool.”
Birth Sequence Matters
According to the authors of “Cool”, sibling competition for parental affection is a pervasive evolutionary force.
It remains so today.
Being the first born means you are more likely to be the dominant child as well as the mini-parent” to our siblings.
Later-borns (i.e., the youngest sibling, i.e. the youngest sister and/or youngest brother) are more likely to break the rules, are more liberal, and take more risk to find their own niche.
- Among brothers in professional baseball, younger brothers are ten times more likely to steal bases.
- Later-borns are more rebellious, often leaders of revolutions, while firstborns are those most opposed to radical change.
My experience agrees with those comments.
- I have three daughters.
- My youngest daughter is very adventuresome.
- The main hobbies of my youngest daughter are climbing volcanoes and traveling all over the world.
- In my mind, my youngest daughter is a female version of “Indiana Jones.”
- I have a grandson (a later-born) who is an incredibly aggressive ice hockey player and soccer player.
According to the authors of “Cool”, Firstborns are likely to be a mini-parent to their siblings.
I’ve seen and experienced that too.
The Humor in “Trainwreck”
In the opening scene in “Trainwreck” the audience sees a father asking his two daughters to repeat after him: “Monogamy doesn’t work.”
In the next scene the youngest daughter, now grown up, is shown living a sexually active life of a woman who believes “monogamy does not work.”
The humor in “Trainwreck” comes from the main female character (the younger sister) “doing” what women complain men do after having an orgasm. asking her male sex partners to do what men ask women to do while having sex and her male sex partners’ inability to “talk dirty” while having sex with her and their other reactions to her sexual demands.
- She “forces” the many men she takes to bed (“sleeps with”) to do things that will cause her to have an orgasm.
- After she has an orgasm she immediately falls asleep, leaving the man whose actions brought her to orgasm sexually unsatisfied.
- She asks a man “to talk dirty to her” while they are having sex. He is unable and incapable of doing so.
“Trainwreck” is a “woman-in-the-sexual-driver’s-seat-movie.”
The Story in “Trainwreck” Contradicts Freud’s Theory About Women
According to Freud,
- Women only have sex to have children.
- All women are sexually passive because there is no feminine libido.
That is not the case of the main character in “Trainwreck”, a sexually active woman who “sleeps around.”
Being a housewife and caring for children represented, for Freud, the only source of female psychic fulfillment.
Freud’s theory of women served as the “scientific” justification for the 1950s status of woman in America, despite the fact that Freud’s theory was nothing more than Freud’s own fantasy, with no scientific support.
See: Webster, Richard. 1995. Why Freud Was Wrong: Sin, Science, and Psychoanalysis. New York: Basic Books.
See Freud’s 1929 Civilization and It’s Discontents.
The History of Monogamy
In “Cool”, Quartz and Asp report on the history of polygamy and the history of monogamy.
- Historically, in about 85 percent of all known human societies, men were allowed to have more than one wife.
- In those societies, richer men had more wives; powerful men had sex and sired children with a multitude of women.
- Take the example of Genghis Khan: About 16 million men alive today are direct descendants of Genghis Khan as a result of his pillaging and siring hundreds of offspring.
- See, Zerjal, Tatiana, et. al. 2003. “The genetic legacy of the Mongols.” The American Journal of Human Genetics 72:717-21.
- The global spread of monogamy is recent – Japan prohibited polygyny in 1880, China in 1953, and India in 1963.
One interesting thing about the advent of monogamous marriage is the “theoretical” belief that it would have been against the interests of the male ruling elite since rich powerful men had the most to lose.
As a practical matter, monogamous marriage results in lower birthrates, increasing parental investment, savings and economic productivity.
Today, Aggressive Women Are In the Sexual-Driver’s Seat
Women have moved from the back seat to the driver’s seat of Harley-Davidson motorcycles.
When I purchased my first motorcycle (in 1965) women sat in the back, on the back seat of motorcycles; they did not drive motorcycles; they did not own motorcycles.
Today, women sit in the front of motorcycles, in the driver’s seat, they drive Harley-Davidson motorcycles; they own their own motorcycles.
The nature of women’s participation in the world has profoundly changed in the past 50 years and is still changing.
There’s A Big Symbolic Difference between Riding A Harley and Riding A Ducati
In my opinion we are always communicating whether we know it or not.
According to the authors of “Cool” everything we do signals our identity.
For example, there is a big symbolic difference between riding a Harley and a Ducati, despite the fact that on the surface level its the same behavior.
Given a choice I would never own a Harley but I would own a Ducati.
It is a matter of life style.
I have a model of a Ducati motorcycle on the hutch on my desk in my office.
Our Social Life Is Rife with Displays of Our Values and of Our Values As A Social Partner
According to the authors of “Cool”: Our social life is rife with displays of our value as a social partner.
In our social lives we communicate to others what type of person we are and what social, economic, or political benefits can be gained by interacting with us.
As long as we’ve been around we have been using things to signal who we are to others (identity goods) to facilitate social exchange and to signal our value as social partners.
Others, use the signals we send to decide how or whether to engage in cooperative enterprises with us.
They use the signals we send to determine whether we are trustworthy, to determine whether we would make a good partner, a good friend or ally, or business associate, or someone interesting to be with.
A successful signaler is the recipient of many benefits, which may include increased social status, lucrative trading partners, allies in times of conflict, supporters in time of need, the selection of reliable long-term mates, or just a date.
Signaling is tied to creating and maintaining cooperative relationships.
Communication Involves More Than The Words You Speak.
The events you attend, the clothes you wear and the car you drive non-verbally signal who you are, what group you belong to, what your tastes are and how you relate to other people in the world.
For example: I love contact sports. I signal that I am a “sports fan” by attending sporting events.
I have signaled I am a fan of sumo wrestling to the world at large (1) by posting the photographs below of me next to a Sumo wrestler in this post and (2) by posting the photograph below of the cover of the program for the sumo wrestling competition at which that photograph was taken, and (3) by posting the photograph of me wearing a t-shirt with a picture of a sumo wrestler on it below.
I am a big fan of speed, style, beauty, supercars, glamour and style.
I signal that in the clothes I wear, and the car that I drive.
See the photograph below showing what I wore at the sumo wrestling competition and the photograph below showing me wearing a t-shirt showing a sumo wrestler on it.
See also the photographs below of the car I drive, a Nissan GT R.
Below is a picture of me with a sumo wrestler who weighs over 600 pounds, at the 15th Annual US Sumo Open on August 8, 2015 and a photo of the program for that event.
The black long sleeve shirt I am wearing in that photograph is part of the Ralph Lauren “purple label” collection; there is no identifier on that shirt of the fact that it is a Ralph Lauren shirt.
There Can Be A Big Difference Between Image and Reality
Wearing a t-shirt with a sumo wrestler on it does not make me a sumo wrestler, but it does indicate that I am a sumo wrestling fan.
Directly below is a photo of me wearing a t-shirt with the word SUMO on it above a picture of a sumo wrestler.
The above photo of me was taken in my office a few days after I attended the US Sumo Open on August 8, 2015.
The sumo wrestler next to me in the top most photo was taken at the US Sumo Open on August 8, 2015. That sumo wrestler weighs over 600 pounds.
The sumo wrestler whose photo is on the right hand side of the program for the US Sumo Open (held on August 8, 2105) is six foot in inches tall and weighs 360 pounds.
I am five foot six inches tall and weigh 143 pounds.
I am not a sumo wrestler.
Car Culture and Social Identity
I love speed and style and glamour.
The automobile that I own, a 2013 Nissan GT R, has been described as a missile with headlights and a gas pedal.
Very few Nissan GT Rs are manufactured each year.
I understand that 2,500 are manufactured each year.
The 545 horse power V6 twin turbo charged engine and rear mounted clutch box in these cars are assembled by hand.
Very few people know that the Nissan GT R exists or have ever seen one.
Below are photographs of the front and of the rear of my Nissan GT R.
When I bought my GT R, the GT R held the Guinness World Record for acceleration from 0 to 60 miles per hour for a four seat production car.
People I have never met, who know cars, positively identify my Nissan GT R.
When those people see me in that car, they want me to know that “we” are members of a brotherhood, i.e. we are members of the same group (fast car enthusiasts who know what a GT R is).
They let me know we belong to the same group by coming up to me and talking to me.
- They give me a thumbs up when they see me in my GT R.
- They come up to me to make a comment about my GT R when I park it on the street.
- This morning (August 14, 2015) when I parked my GT R in the visitor’s parking lot at the Cedar Sinai medical office towers a man who was driving by me in Porsche, stopped his car to tell me how much he loves the Nissan GT R.
- Oftentimes, when I park my car in the parking lot of a grocery store or a restaurant people come up to me to talk about my GT R.
- A lot of people are car enthusiasts.
- There are nuances to being a car enthusiast.
- One person who loves the Nissan GT R noticed the fact that I don’t have a custom license plate.
- He told me it is unusual for a person who owns a GT R not to have a custom license plates.
Me At 4:00 A.M. on Wednesday, August 26, 2015
Above are two photos of me taken with my Apple iMac desk top computer at 4:00 a.m. on Wednesday, August 26, 2015.
It is completely dark outside.
I am in my living room looking straight into the camera.
Behind me are posters for three movies KILL BILL, PINEAPPLE EXPRESS, and SPIDER-MAN on A wall in my living room.
I took those photos this morning for a fashion design blogger who asked me yesterday (August 25) to send her a current photograph of me.
People Are Exceedingly Groupish
Consumption signals a wide variety of social traits and personal identity.
People are able to rapidly categorize various products – cars, clothing, jewelry, music, movies, books and so on – by the social groups that use them.
The experiences described above – of people coming up to me to talk to me about my GT R – are but one example of how goods (in this case an automobile) identify a group you belong to, signal who you are to other members of the same group and sometimes to the public at large and signal that you are a member of the same group as someone else, i.e., that you have the same taste, ideas, opinions, likes/dislikes, etc.
We signal a group level identity by what we wear, what we read, what movies we see, what car we drive, etc. etc.
What Is Your Favorite Book?
When someone reads the right book at the right time in their life it can have a profound effect.
My favorite book is “Never Say Die” by Harold Pinter.
I recently read that Tim Cook’s favorite book is “Competing Against Time” by George Stalk, Jr. and Thomas M. Hout and that Mark Zuckerberg’s favorite book is “The Aeneid” by Virgil.
Tim Cook is the CEO of Apple.
Mark Zuckerberg is the founder and creator of Facebook.
Several prominent people in the entertainment world (Will Smith, Madonna, and Pharrell Williams) are quoted in that article saying that “The Alchemist” by Paulo Coelho is their favorite book.
Signaling Our Social Identity to Others and to Ourselves
In “Cool” authors Quartz and Asp point out that we represent ourselves to others by what we wear, what we drive, where we go, and what we do.
Cook (the current CEO of Apple) reports that the book that had the greatest effect on him Is “Competing Against Time.”
Cook is known to hand out copies of this book to colleagues.
The book is about how time management is one of the most important aspects of a company. When a company organizes its time, it cuts down on costs and makes customers happier.
In an interview in The New Yorker, Mark Zuckerberg (the founder and creator of Facebook) said his favorite book is “The Aeneid” by Virgil. Zuckerberg said he first read that book in high school. Zuckerberg said that the one thing that stuck with him was Aeneas’s drive to follow his fate to build a city that “knows no bounds in time and greatness.”
When I am at my local Starbucks and see someone reading a book, I walk up to them and ask them, “What are you reading?”
According to Quartz and Asp we have three levels of representation:
- Our Individual Self: the collection of traits that make us a unique person;
- Our Relational Self: The way we think about ourselves in relation to significant others – as a spouse, a friend, or in work or in other relationships;
- Our Collective Self: The way we think of ourselves in terms of larger groups that we identify with such as our identity as a member of a nation, or our identity as a member of an ethnic or religious group or political party or as the fan of a particular sport or sports team or as a person who loves speed style glamour contact sports and fast cars.
Who we are (our social identity, the collection of traits that make us a unique person, etc.) carries over into what we do, how we behave, our personality and what we say.
For example, a certain type of person owns a Prius.
My two youngest daughters own a Prius.
Owning a Prius signals environmental concern.
It is an identity good more than a status good.
The purchase price of a Prius is several thousand dollars more than many standard-fuel cars, and the difference is typically not made up in savings from increased efficiency.
My middle daughter bought her Prius drives a lot and purchased her Prius to save money on gas.
She lives in Orange County, California and was not consciously aware of the fact that the fact that its cost to own is higher than for many standard cars is a costly signal that its owner has sacrificed financially to drive a car that has less of an impact on the environment then a cheaper alternative.
By the way, places like Berkeley and Boulder, Colorado are crawling with Priuses.
Will Smith, Madonna, and Pharrell Williams, besides being some of the highest-charting musicians of the past three decades, all credit “The Alchemist” by Paulo Coelho with changing their lives.
The social theory promoted in “The Alchemist” is that everyone has a Personal Legend – what he or she has always wanted to do with his or her life – and if you follow your Personal Legend the universe will work in your favor and rise up to meet you; if you follow your Personal Legend, you can achieve the impossible, like alchemy, which is turning lead into gold.
I don’t agree with that theory at all.
The best advice I can give anybody is: Learn to do something well that you like; remember to be yourself and be good at it.
If I saw someone in Starbucks reading “The Alchemist” I would not attempt to strike up a conversation with them.
If, on the other hand, I saw someone in Starbucks reading “Conversations with Eckermann” by Johann Wolfgang von Goethe I would immediately strike up a conversation with them.
Here is a quote from that book:
“A man of talent is not born to be lefty to himself, but to devote himself to art and good masters who will something of him. I have lately read a letter from Mozart, in reply to a baron who had sent him a composition. He writes somewhat in this fashion:
‘You dilettanti must be blamed for two faults, since two you generally have: either you have no thoughts of your own, and take those of others; or, if you have thoughts of your own, you do not know what to do with them.'”
We Are Products of How We Were Raised and Our Environment
How we were raised and the social norms in our environment count.
We can’t escape who we are, how we became who we are, how we are becoming who we are or how we are expected to behave.
That explains how brilliant people can seem to be so stupid or insensitive and act to act stupidly/insensitively to other people who were raised differently.
An recent article in the Los Angeles Times illustrates this point.
In the August 12, 2015 Business Section of the Los Angeles Times, Satya Nadella, CEO of Microsoft, is quoted as having said last year when he was the first male CEO to address the annual Grace Hopper Celebration of Women in Computing, “Women shouldn’t ask for raises but rather trust that they will come their way.”
In my opinion, Satya Nadella’s upbringing and culture were showing when he made that statement; what Mr. Nadella was taught to believe as he grew up is responsible for him saying that.
This Los Angeles Times article goes on to claim Nadella’s generation of Indians benefited from coming from a culture that has respect for people of all walks of life.
In my opinion, nothing could be more untrue than that.
Read “The Billionaire’s Apprentice – The Rise of the Indian-American Elite and the Fall of the Galleon Hedge Fund” by Anita Raghavan if you are interested in that topic.
India is a Hindu country.
The Hindu castes system of India is the most extremely hierarchically socially stratified status system in existence.
The Hindu caste system is described in “Cool” as follows:
- Hindu castes of India society are segregated according to hundreds of rigidly defined groups, they are segregated by occupations according to those castes; there is physical segregation among those castes and strong social norms regulating interactions (such as marriage) among social groups.
- In such a world, individuals and groups are not merely different: one’s place in the hierarchy corresponds to one’s social status and determines one’s access to valued resources including income, prestige, and prominence.
Beware of what you read in the Business Section of The Los Angeles Times.
Here is a description of how people get along in India in the same article.
“Venktesh Shukla, a venture capitalist and president of the Silicon Valley networking group the Indus Entrepreneurs, said even in the smallest of villages Muslims live next to Hindus and white-collar professionals next to weavers. Languages, dress and hobbies diverge.
“Shukla said they were taught to see the ‘different’ people as neither superior nor inferior.
“‘Treating people with respect comes very naturally to Indians, he said. ‘People from homogeneous societies need that as an acquired skill.'”
That is contradicted by, Microsoft’s CEO Satya Nadella in the same article being quoted as telling women that women ought not to ask for raises.
The happy fun rainbow gum drop feelings expressed in that Los Angeles Times'” article aside, all has not been smiles and rainbows and gum drops and lollipops in India during its history as an independent country.
British Colonial India was divided into modern-day India and Pakistan, in 1948.
For a accurate view of life in modern day India see the movie “Midnight’s Children” or read the book of the same name or read “The Billionaire’s Apprentice – The Rise of the Indian-American Elite and the Fall of the Galleon Hedge Fund” or research the history of what led to the break-up and the division of British Colonial India and what happened in India immediate after that.
There was extreme violence during the break up of India into modern-day India and Pakistan and extreme violence during the breakaway of Bangladesh from Pakistan.
The reason British colonial India was broken up into modern-day India and modern-day Pakistan is because Hindus and Muslims could not get along.
During mass migrations of Muslims from what became the independent modern day (post British colonial) India to Pakistan and during mass migrations of Hindus from what became Pakistan to the modern day Nation of India, close to a million people were killed.
There are still sporadic acts of violence by Hindus against Muslims and by Muslims against Hindus in India including bombings of Hindu holy palaces by Muslims and bombing of Muslim holy places by Hindus in India.
The Exploration-Exploitation Trade-off
People make choices all the time.
In “Cool”, Quartz and Asp say explain why men have affairs in terms of a “exploration-exploitation trade-off” and relate that to why branded consumer products go down in value and their companies go out of business unless they continually improve.
Here is what they say:
- Our brains face a basic conundrum that affects all foragers and shoppers, from bees to us.
- In science its known as the exploration-exploitation trade-off; everywhere else, it’s know as “what have you done for me lately?” and “the grass is greener on the other side” problem.
- Our brains treat a brand that is not constantly improving (exceeding our expectations) as if it’s getting worse.
- According to Quartz and Asp – The only way a brand’s value can increase is when some brand experience exceeds your prediction.
- In other words, it is “natural” for men and women to want to have “new” sexual partners.
- Contrary to what President Jimmy Carter said about “sex”, you are what you think about.
- The way you think determines the way you feel, and the way you feel determines the way you act.
Quartz and Asp are well aware of the strong interest people have in the topic of sex and in sex itself.
They point out that Kinsey’s early reports on male sexual behavior and in 1953 on female sexual behavior showed that what was going on behind closed doors was a lot different from the public profession of traditional “sex as procreation within marriage.”
Kinsey’s report reported that two out of three males had premarital sex and about half of all females did too.
According to Quartz and Asp, in 1953, only the Bible and a popular book on positive thinking sold more copies than Kinsey’s report on female sexuality.
Social Emotions
Quartz and Asp explain how and why your emotions are a critical factor in control of your behavior, as follows:
- If your predicted award is greater than what you actually experience – if the brand disappoints you – your Habit pleasure machine (behavior control system in your brain) downgrades the brand.
- These negative experiences are much more important to your brain than positive ones.
- Have you ever gone back to a restaurant that gave you food poisoning?
Take away:
- Emotions and emotional memories are critical to consumption.
- In the business world, brands build emotional connections between our memories and our consumption, shaping our beliefs, desires and feelings.
In the world of dieting we need to pay attention to what we want to accomplish, keep our survival instinct that drives us to impulsively reach for foods that are bad to eat while we are in a diet. We need to keep our urge to eat cake in check.
We need to override our instinctual pre-programmed reaching for cake on the shelf at a grocery store, if we want to lose weight.
Without focus our brain will ruin our life.
Body Fat
In the early twentieth century, the actress and singer Lillian Russell was considered the most beautiful woman in America. Russell weighed two hundred pounds, and her body mass index (BMI) would classify her as either overweight or obese today.
In Russell’s day, more body fat was a sign of health because food was less abundant than it is today, and a high BMI was relatively rare.
Likewise, wealthy men of her day were known as “fat cats” because they could afford to put on more weight.
Today, the opposite is true.
The amount of body fat that is considered attractive depends on the economic prosperity of a country.
The richer the country, the lower the body fat that’s considered attractive.
Income Inequality and Portion of Time Spent “Working-Out”
Where once “prosperous” was a synonym for overweight, being fit (and thin with it) is now a marker of success in prosperous countries.
According to the US Center for Disease Control, in 2013 a quarter of adults engaged in no leisure-time physical activity at all beyond the bedroom.
According to the “American Time Use Survey”: In 2013 the 20 percent of the richest full working people in America spent on average 40 hours per week exercising, in 2014 they spent on average about 60 hours per week exercising.
The 20 percent of the poorest full-time working people in America spent an average of about 20 hours per week exercising in 2003 and about 10 hours per week in 2014 exercising.
Exercising means working out, weightlifting, using cardiovascular equipment, yoga and aerobics.
According to figures from the International Health and Sports Club Association, gym members now number 54 million, up from 45 million in 2009.
Twice as many Americans subscribe to gyms as in the mid-1990s.
But the population has not got visibly healthier.
Between 2001 and 2012,the age adjusted proportion of the population who are obese or extremely obese grew from 36% to 41%.
My source for the above statistics is an article subtitled “Sweating Is Becoming An Elite Phenomenon” on page 27 of the August 1, 2015 issue of “The Economist.”
Diets Alone Don’t Work
Diets alone don’t work.
Exercise alone doesn’t work.
You need (a) self-control, (b) the right amount of sleep, (c) the right diet, (d) the right type and amount of type of exercise and (e) to not spend you time sitting for prolonged periods of time day in day out in front of a computer or a TV set or any other screen.
Sitting Is the New Smoking
Sitting is not exercise.
Sitting too long is dangerous to your health
According to the Mayo Clinic, sitting is now the new smoking.
Quartz and Asp report: Sitting too long, up to three or four hours at a time, is now equivalent to smoking a pack-and-a-half of cigarettes a day. See, James Vlashos, “Is Sitting A Lethal Activity?” The New York Times, 14 April 2011. http://www.nytimes.com/2011/04/17/magazine/mag-17sitting-t.html?_r=0 Believe it or not, the average American employee will sit anywhere from 7.7 to 15 hours a day without moving.
Momism
Quartz and Asp also give us something else to worry about, overly protected moms, momism.
In his 1946 book Their Mothers’ Sons, Edward Strecker, chairman of the Department of Psychiatry at the University of Pennsylvania, argued that more than 1 million men had either been rejected from military service or discharged during the war because of psychiatric disorders that were rooted in overprotective moms.
Willpower is Hard to Build
Two parts of your brain are constantly at war: (1) the part that wants pleasure and gratification now [the survival instinct] and (2) the thoughtful part of your brain that formulates goals, knows what is good for you in the long run and knows what you should do.
In “The Daniel Plan”, Rick Warren D. Min., Daniel Amen M.D. and Mark Hyman M.D., address how to win that battle.
According to Rick Warren D. Min., Daniel Amen M.D. and Mark Hyman M.D.,
- When it comes to you health everybody needs a buddy.
- Research shows that people getting healthy together lose twice as much weight as those who do it alone.
- Success dramatically increases when you are connected with others, receiving constant encouragement to stay focused and motivated toward your goals.
- Social connections are critical.
- When you are surrounded by people who have the same values, goals, and health habits, you are going to progress further than you could on your own.
- You thrive when you are connected to others.
- It is possible to achieve outcomes with other people that aren’t possible alone.
Every great achievement began when someone saw it in advance.
I have personally experienced how difficult it is to lose weight, with and without the cooperation and support of others.
I know, from my own personal experience, it can be done.
An Encouraging Thought
“The greatest discovery of our generation is that human beings can alter their lives by altering their attitudes of mind. As you think, so you shall be.” — William James, philosopher
Copyright © 2015 Gary S. Smolker – all rights reserved
Gary S. Smolker 