Various Revelations III

I had a little too much wine tonight. I guess that means I'm drunk, although there's no way that I'll ever find out what my blood-alcohol level was. Interestingly my recognition of a problem centers on the physical aspects of my problem rather than an attack on the intellectual. I guess that's why so many accidents are caused by people who thought they were capable of driving. There may be all sorts of recommendations about drinking and driving, but they're of no interest to those who consider themselves sober. Rational judgment is gone.

Me? I'd be a hazard on the road right now. But fortunately I have no place to go so there's no problem. I had three glasses of wine instead of my usual one or two, so I'm unfit for further activity. At least in public. In addition, irrespective of my current perceived lucidity, I doubt that I have the reflexes and physical control necessary to operate a motor vehicle. (Indeed, my ability to write this essay is provided by the spell-checker in my word processor; and more attention than I usually pay to things I write. I think I can think clearly, but my unsteadiness tells me that I'd be a peril were I to try to take a position behind the wheel. Unless I were in a self-driving car of some kind. (Notwithstanding the fear people have of them, I suspect they're safer than the human-driven ones now on the road.) People tend to overestimate their own capabilities, and to deny that they are in any way compromised. If they can still think, they can still drive.

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Our army is in Iraq. A few days ago one of our bombing missions killed 14 members of ISIS. I think that's the number. Unfortunately one to two hundred civilians were also killed. We killed ten times more people we were “protecting” than the number who threatened them. We claim that the civilians were “human shields” for the combatants, but they didn't help. No threat to our country was cited. There is no protest that I've seen in the media or among our citizens.

When Israel was under direct rocket attack from Gaza in 2014 and fought back (Operation Protective Edge) with bombing of the sites of origin of the rockets and the sites of storage of armaments – often in schools or hospitals as shields – some civilians were killed. They,too, were human shields. The world protested. “Disproportionality.” Only a few Israelis were killed by the Hamas attacks. So it wasn't justified.

I have the sense of a double standard. The world doesn't care unless it can express its righteous indignation at Israel. Massacres in Africa, killings in the Middle East outside of Israel, wars elsewhere, are all understandable and not subject to the attention and wrath that the world's nations, and the United Nations, display when some perceived wrong involves Israel. In 1975 Eric Hoffer wrote

Civilized countries fell over each other to court Hitler even as he turned Germany's Jews into pariahs. The same countries are falling over each other to court the Arabs, who are determined to destroy Israel. The world feels no shame when it betrays Jews. It is as if fate has placed Jews outside the comity of mankind.

Nothing has changed in the eighty years since the Holocaust, or to the pandering of mankind to Arab interests that Hoffer decries.

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Is it time to think small? Many years ago I used Super Scripsit on my TRS-80. The learning curve was long, but it did everything I needed. It was a small program and lacked some of the bells and whistles on the word processor I'm using now, but most of those are of no interest to me. Then Radio Shack discontinued it and I've been through several word processors since. They're much bigger, fancier, and more expensive but I can't recall anything that was lacking in Super Scripsit, or what the new programs provide that I need. And the files I created on the TRS-80 are now closed to me. I haven't noticed the loss but there are likely to be some documents that I'd benefit by having back.

And the same is true not only of many other programs but of technological progress in general. I'm not a Luddite wed to the idea of stopping scientific advancement, but it seems to me that some of the less complex programs should be allowed to live, and machines should be made to understand and work with some of the older and smaller ones. I realize that such an action would lower profits, and that's un-American, but it would improve people's views of companies that make the new products, and might pay off in the long run.

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There's nothing earth-shattering here, but the issues have been annoying me and I decided to annoy you. More next time – whenever that is.

March 30, 2017  (begun on March 28, but I was in no condition to continue.)