Failed Essays
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I started to work on the medicated reality essay tonight, but ended up on a completely different tangent. It's like that sometimes; stuff just comes out. I ended up writing about walking with the ghosts of my past. I've been in my hometown a lot the last few days. I keep running into people I used to know. I imagine that if I had stayed, they wouldn't be ghosts, as I would have had 30 years of ongoing history with some of them. As it is, I am rarely reminded of those times, as I have very little in my current life to remind me, and don't often seek out those memories. I'm not sure where I'm going with the essay. It isn't finished and I may not come back to it. Although not completely so, the process is, at some level, painful for a variety of reasons, not the least of which is that I was such a jerk back then. (As opposed to now, when I'm less of a jerk and make up for it through increased pretentiousness. You know, as in "an ounce of pretention is worth a pound of manure.") The whole thing is infused with a sense of melancholy that I couldn't quite put my finger on. Most of the ghosts are impotent. I don't have a need to "catch up" on all the people I went to school with. I don't have a desire to look up old girlfriends (a rather short list) or the girls I had crushes on at various times. So I couldn't figure out where the melancholy was coming from, if it wasn't about the standard "what ifs" one expects when confronting the ghosts of one's past. What was more bothersome was that usually when I'm in this kind of mood, it plays out as sort of a bittersweet feeling, and not entirely unpleasant. This is different. This is just sadness. Then it occurred to me that the sadness comes from the slow realization that some of the ones who aren't ghosts are really dead to me anyway. I know that is needlessly cryptic, but I'm not sure I want to talk about it now. I'm not even sure I can talk about it. Maybe later, when I've returned to my regular life it will be easier. I will probably have lost the opportunity to write something true and honest and real, and will settle instead for something analytical and sterile, but I'm not even willing to try right now. (And one of my occasional readers who knows me in real life, is going to give me all kinds of hell for chickening out on this opportunity, but I figure that's OK, because if she wanted to read something she thought was profound or meaningful, she would have picked up Bradshaw, or someone like that.) On another subject, I've taken a look at the archives and decided I don't like the fact that there is no index. I guess I'll leave it alone for now, but I'm going to have to take a look at putting the two or three worthwhile things I've written in the essay section.by Cziltang 
Posted: Saturday, August 30 2003 12:00:33 AM

Udate and Link (not in that order)
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I'm fairly selective about recommending web sites, but I've been watching this one for a while and it is consistently just too funny to let go. IMAO is seriously rude satire. If you think political correctness is a good thing, don't bother taking a look. This picture should give you an idea what the web site is like. It goes on the sidebar when I get around to it. EPL Update Update: Due to some mid-week games that apparently counted toward last week's totals, I finished the week in 731st and am in 536th overall out of 1083. Marginally less ignominious than I thought. Now, if Liverpool could just score a goal or two... by Cziltang 
Posted: Friday, August 29 2003 08:33:51 PM

Perceptions of Death
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A friend of the family died over the weekend. He was one of the really good guys. So I'm off in one of those mental places where I'm contemplating death and life and how I relate to both. It seems to me that I'm more detached from the whole thing in general and in this case specifically than befits the situation. It just seems odd to me. Maybe I'm still numb, maybe the reality hasn't sunk in. I guess I'll probably know more tomorrow at the funeral. But it does at least suggest to me the rather uncomfortable topic of the nature of perception of reality while medicated. I've been toying with the idea, sort of nipping around the edges for some time now. At the heart of the matter is the question of whether the experience of reality while pharmaceutically altered, valid experience. Then that leads to the question of whether the experience of reality while under the influence of the chemical imbalance in the brain that one takes the pharmaceuticals for valid. Then the next step out is the question of whether the experience of reality and the things I thought I learned years ago while under the influence of non-pharmaceutical chemicals valid. On a different tangent is the idea that this might be normal perception of reality for one who has been working toward the Buddhist idea of non-attachment. To me, at least, these are profoundly interesting questions, but I don't have time to work on them tonight. I have to get up and go to a funeral tomorrow. And Ken, wherever you are tonight; I'm sorry I didn't do as right by you as I could have. I'll say goodbye tomorrow.by Cziltang 
Posted: Tuesday, August 26 2003 11:03:40 PM

EPL update
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Well, I didn't do too well this week. I ended up 586th out of 1083 cumulative and 905th for week 2. by Cziltang 
Posted: Tuesday, August 26 2003 12:38:38 AM

Promotion and Relegation
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I'm a happy guy. It's football (Americans, read: soccer) season again. I'm busy following my favorite English Premier League team (Liverpool) and making changes to my fantasy league team. One of the other things I like about this time of year is watching the newly promoted teams. The idea of promoting the best teams from lower divisions and dropping the worst teams from the upper divisions is (pardon the expression) foreign to Americans. But I think it is absolutely fascinating to watch the newly promoted teams to see how they start the year and cope with the pressure of playing with the "big dogs." Of course, later in the year, I'm watching how they do over the long haul, whether they can stay in the top division, and if so, who are they going to finish ahead of that will get relegated. (It appears that promotion and relegation is standard practice everywhere else in the world but the US and maybe Canada.) This year's promoted teams are Wolverhampton Wanderers (also known as Wolves), Portsmouth (for some reason called Pompey OK, shoot me; I'm not up on my English team nickname trivia.) and Leicester City Foxes (see my entry on the attempt to change their name from Foxes to Fosse last year). So far: Wolves have lost 2, Portsmouth have won 2, and I forgot to check on Leicester City (I haven't seen any of their games or highlights, so it didn't stick with me.) A lot of English football support by fans seems to be local and very much a matter of local pride. Manchester is a good example. Manchester has two major clubs playing in the EPL: Manchester United (who are one of the best teams in the world and last year's EPL Champions) and Manchester City (who were promoted last year and managed to stay up in the EPL. They play in different parts of town and you hear commentators say things like, "joy on the blue side of Manchester" when Man City wins, or the red side when Man U wins. There just isn't anything like this in American sports (with the possible exception of college rivalries). I think probably the Giants and Dodgers in baseball were like this when they were still in New York, but that was before my time. The closest current example I could come up with would be something like the teams in the NFL central division, like Chicago and Green Bay. Due to proximity, they are sort of "arch rivals". Among sports fans, rivalries mean "bragging rights." You get to boast if your team wins. You can argue about home wins and away wins, who beat who on the other guy's home ground and by how much and which team is better because of all that. (Basically, cheap entertainment...) Now imagine the magnitude of the bragging rights issues if your team doesn't even get to play your arch rivals because they were so bad last year that they got dropped to a lower league. In the Man U/Man City example, Man City fans had to put up with years of teasing because Man City wasn't even in the EPL. The local nature of English football support is really driven home when a club wants to move to a bigger stadium. The fans get testy when clubs want to move across the street, let alone moving out of a local area. Last year Wimbledon started playing in a stadium that wasn't even in Wimbledon. The fans organized boycotts, held rallies and spent days picketing the team, even though the new ground was within fairly easy traveling distance. English fans are just very picky about the traditions that go along with their local teams. In English football there are 4 divisions. They used to be called the 1st, 2nd, 3rd, and 4th divisions. Now they are the Premier League, and the 1st, 2nd and 3rd divisions. There is also something called the Conference, which, as I understand it is semi-professional, although conference teams can get promoted to the 3rd division. There are roughly 20 teams in each division. The top 3 or 4 teams in the lower divisions each year get promoted to the next higher division. The bottom 3 or 4 teams get relegated to the next lower division. (Actually it is not quite that straight-forward. The lower divisions have added playoffs. For example, in the 1st division, the top 2 teams get automatic promotion. The 3rd through 6th place teams have a playoff to see who gets the 3rd promotion slot to the Premier League. In the Premier League there is no place to be promoted to, but the teams at the top are competing for places in next year's European tournaments, the Champions League and the UEFA cup.) Relegation can be a real nightmare, as there is no safety net. Through bad luck, bad management, financial hard times, and/or any combination or causes, a team can be relegated year after year until they reach the bottom. Wolverhampton are a good example. Wolves were English Champions in 1954, '58 and '59. After that they pretty much finished in the middle of the upper division until the 80's. They were relegated from what is now the Premier League in 1984 and were relegated to a lower league each succeeding year until they played the 1987 season in what is now the 3rd division. They earned promotion that year and worked their way up through successive promotions until they got to the 1st division. They spent the 90's mostly in the middle of the 1st division and finally got promoted last year. As the English would say, "they spent 19 years out of top flight football." Or, as one fan's website says, they spent 6953 days playing in the wrong divisions. In American Sports, you buy a franchise and your team is in the league no matter how dismal your performance (with the rare exception of teams going bankrupt). Teams at the bottom of the standings have nothing to play for at the end of the season. I'm most familiar with how this works (or used to work) in Baseball. When I was a kid (before Free Agency) there were teams who were consistently good and there were perpetual "cellar dwellers". In the mid 60's the Kansas City Athletics (before they moved to Oakland) and in the early 70's the Kansas City Royals (an expansion team) were generally near the bottom. By the end of August, they would be 15 or 20 games behind the leaders (or more) with absolutely no chance of catching up. Year after year they would spend September bringing up prospects from the minor leagues, trying to get them some experience so the team would be better next year. I remember the KC radio announcers trying to put a positive spin on it every year with the same platitudes about building for the future. As a kid, it was heartbreaking to know that my team was just completely uncompetitive (again). With relegation, the bottom teams have incentive to play as competitively as possible all year. Aside from pride, relegation costs money. If I remember correctly, I think I heard last year that relegation from the Premier League meant the loss of something like $20 million in revenue for the relegated team. So while end of season games for the worst teams in American sports are often completely meaningless, end of season games by the worst teams in English football leagues are often the most intense and entertaining of the year because there is still something to play for. I guess that's enough about football. I promise not to get wound up about it too often, but I just really like the whole concept of relegation and promotion. It's kind of fun to speculate on how my world might have been different if the Class D Iola Indians (Kansas-Oklahoma-Missouri League, minor league baseball, late 40's and early 50's) had had some good years and gotten promoted. Or, for that matter, the AAA Wichita Aeros from my childhood might have gotten promoted to the Majors (except I don't remember them as being that good or ever winning anything. I could be wrong, but I haven't been able to find a list of the league standings from that era.) Now that I've spent a couple hours surfing for the baseball information I wanted for this entry, I accidentally stumbled across the United States National Soccer Players Association. Therein, I found an article explaining relegation more thoroughly than I did and an article explaining why relegation isn't part of American sports. According to the first article the figure is $15 million in lost revenue for a team relegated to the first division from the Premier League. UPDATE: Error corrections: I was wrong about Portsmouth. They've won 1 and tied 1. Same as Leicester City. by Cziltang 
Posted: Sunday, August 24 2003 12:11:19 AM

No news
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Lots of stuff going on out here in the Ratlands. I'm in one of those time frames where there is so much happening and so much I could write about that I can't seem to get to any of it. The main thing driving me at the moment is some problems we have been having with the public mental health system. I've got a bigger post in the works, but for now I'm just fuming. When I cool off a bit it will be time to write. One side note, I spent part of this evening installing and configuring Pegasus E-mail on the home computer. I'm just getting tired of the seemingly weekly announcements from Microsoft about the latest security vulnerablility they've finally gotten around to patching. I also read an article at The Register a few days ago (sorry, I don't have a link to the article) that suggests that Redmond will be "de-emphasizing" Outlook Express in hopes of getting people to buy Microsoft Office for the full Outlook package. So, being contrarian, I downloaded Pegasus. I've been using it this evening, and it seems to be working just fine.by Cziltang 
Posted: Friday, August 22 2003 01:20:22 AM

Weekend Wrap-up
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Not much of a weekend, all-in-all. It's tough to feel good about spending the weekend dozing off. EPL Fantasy League results: I finished week 1 at 547th out of 683 active players. I was happy to see Portsmouth win their first game back in the upper division in something like 14 years. Teddy Shearingham is one of my sentimental favorites, and I'm glad to see he's hooked up with a team he can help.by Cziltang 
Posted: Sunday, August 17 2003 11:42:38 PM

Site Maintenance
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I haven't been feeling too good lately (and yes, I know that's not correct grammar), so I've been spending a lot of time sleeping. No blogging, no essays in the works, lots of movies on TV that I only saw part of because I kept dozing off. I've done a bit of re-arranging on the sidebar. Added a few links to guys whose writing I admire. I also took the time to put together a team for the Fox Sports World EPL fantasy league. My team is heavy on Liverpool players, which reflects my eternal (and probably unfounded) optimism about Liverpool's chances this year. Not that anyone cares, but I may post my standings this year, just for fun. In past years, out of a few thousand playing, I managed to break into the top 100 a couple of times. So, we'll see what happens. I actually have had the time to think about a couple of things while dozing, and I realize I should re-write the "Why am I doing this" essay. When I wrote it I was dealing with some serious Cognitive Dissonance about my ideas and beliefs, but didn't really grasp the nature of the problem. It's something that Thomas Kuhn called a paradigm shift: when the data from observation can no longer be reconciled with the existing theory and something fundamentally different has to be created to take its place. When I wrote that essay, I was in the middle of realizing that the real world data I had didn't fit what I professed to believe about the world. The catalyst in this case was the impending war in Iraq, and once I realized I had to re-think my position on that issue, it created a cascade effect which I am still experiencing. I'm not sure when I will get to it. There is also a second essay (at least) which directly follows from the "why" essay, which I've tentatively titled: Why I am no longer a Liberal, and am now even more of a liberal. I'm sure everyone out there just can't wait for that one. by Cziltang 
Posted: Friday, August 15 2003 11:19:54 PM

Alternative Housing
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Twenty or more years ago, I read an article in the Mother Earth News about building houses out of hay bales. I thought it was interesting, but not something I would be willing to do, so I kind of forgot about it. If I remember correctly, they were one story dwellings with some kind of roof thrown over. I think they were considered mostly temporary housing for new homesteaders and back-to-the-land types. Other than a couple of pictures, I never saw or heard anything about them since. Two years ago when we went out to Oregon, I saw an unusual house in southeast Idaho. It was barely sunrise and I didn't see it clearly, but it stuck in my mind. This summer, we were on the same stretch of road later in the day on the way home. We pulled off the side of the road to take a look and got some pictures. Apparently, hay house technology has progressed in twenty years. This one obviously has two stories. I was puzzled by the grey color on part of the house. Later, one of my co-workers told me he had heard that hay houses are sometimes covered with stucco-like material to seal the outside. Anyway, there's no real point here, other than I just thought it was interesting. by Cziltang 
Posted: Monday, August 11 2003 08:31:19 PM

Essay posted
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OK, it was bugging me, so I collected all 6 parts (in the correct order) of the Personal Responsibility essay and posted it on a separate page, accessible from the essay section, or you can go directly to it here.by Cziltang 
Posted: Monday, August 11 2003 01:49:52 AM

Wrap-up
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I installed a CD burner today. I've never had one before. It's kind of nice, but I don't really need it, as I don't download music. (Not that I wouldn't, but with a dialup connection it is a pain. I tried to download a Grateful Dead show once, because the Dead gave permission for that sort of thing. I left the download running when I went to bed. It still wasn't finished when I got up. So I pretty much gave up on music downloads.) I did use it to make a complete archive copy of the entire web site, which is cool, but that leaves 699 MB of unused disk space, and I didn't know what I was doing, so I didn't set it up as a multiple session data transfer, so apparently the disc is now closed. Great. 1 MB of information on a 700 MB disc. I guess I just made a coaster. I finally finished part 6 of the personal responsibility essay. I'm OK with it, but it didn't quite flow like I wanted it to. I'll leave it alone for a while and take a look at it in a few weeks. VI. Where do we go from here? There are several things we could do. At the public level we could change the legal system. For example, "The first thing we do, let's kill all the lawyers." Henry VI, Part 2, Act IV, Scene 2 While it might be a nice thought, its probably not practical. I hear a lot about tort reform. The problem I have with tort reform is; how do you decide what to allow or not allow? I've heard talk of limiting damage amounts (both "actual" damages and punitive amounts). What I personally would like to see is limits on damage amounts and on punitive awards. I would also like to see attorney fees limited to 1% (or less) of the total award. You would think if an attorney got $10,000 instead of $350,000 on a million dollar judgement, the situation might improve some. Unfortunately, there are some problems with these ideas. First, they aren't likely to ever happen. Given the fair number of congressmen who are attorneys, limits on damages would be a miracle. And while limits on fees would be emotionally satisfying the idea is simply wishful thinking and probably exactly wrong. Besides being impossible to pass into law, it would probably encourage lawyers to seek truly astronomical awards thereby defeating the whole purpose of the idea. And, as for the folks who say the problem is just too damn many lawyers, in this instance I have to say (with some bitterness) we get what we deserve. The number of lawyers is simply a function of supply and demand. There wouldn't be all these lawyers if they couldn't make a living. And they do make a living, because almost all of us, down deep, can't resist the idea of something for nothing. (Look at the success of casinos and lotteries.) So, I'm not in favor of trying to change the rules of the legal system. Trying to "improve" the system is likely to make things worse. Probably the only way to change the system is for individuals to decide not to hire lawyers to get them compensation for whatever dubious (or not so dubious) suffering they might have experienced. Nothing will change until individuals take a stand and take responsibility for their own lives and refuse to allow others to avoid responsibility for theirs. I have a lot of faith in individual people. I have none at all in people in general, especially when you look out and see other people being compensated and an attorney is telling you he can get it for you too. So after all of this, while I deplore the situation we are in and where I think we're heading, demanding government action would be the same as the people I loathe who are out there trying to get the government to protect me from myself. Part of being personally responsible is the truth that change is up to us, not the government. We're screwed. by Cziltang 
Posted: Sunday, August 10 2003 05:11:11 PM

A lull in the Action
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I had intended to post the sixth section of the Personal Responsibility essay today, but I haven't finished it. It was going pretty good last night before I went to bed, but today is a different story. I would like to imply that I'm having trouble working out some last minute details, thereby implying that I have been working on it, but that isn't what's going on. The Head Rat has been sick all day, Rat Jr.has a migrane and her car won't start. (apparently the starter, which I don't think I can get to, because I don't have the wherewithall to raise the engine. It's not that I can't do it, I just don't have room out in the parking lot to move around. That, and crawling around on a black asphalt parking lot in August in Kansas is down real close to the bottom on my list of favorite things to do.) And then, I've been having some inner ear problems, which makes focusing and walking in a straight line kind of an adventure. So I mostly haven't done anything today. I did manage to tear apart a junk computer tonight. By the way, although my wife doesn't read this site regularly, she knows that I refer to her as the Head Rat and she is basically OK with it. Rat Jr. is 19. She'll get over it. Last night, I discovered that nothing I've written on this site is accessible via search engine. Kind of depressing, actually. Not that I ever expected massive readership, but I always thought someone might stumble across it accidentally while looking for something else. That's the way I've discovered most of the stuff I like most on the internet, so I guess I always hoped that maybe one person would stumble across my stuff and then let me know about it. What's worse, an earlier version of this site I put up at Radio Weblogs is still accessible, but I don't have anything good there, and no way to point anyone here. I've been thinking about registering a domain name and moving the site to a web host independent of my ISP. I was going to do it anyway, because I'm getting ready to get a higher speed connection and give up my dial-up service. I guess I'll just be doing it a little sooner than I planned. I've been talking to a guy I know (who is in basically the same line of work as me) about some basic web design and site maintenance. If I can work out the details, I may be able to get him to register the domain name and purchase the hosting services for me as part of a package deal with his site. We'll see. I may just have to bite the bullet and cough up the money myself. Anyway, while I was looking at search engines, I typed in "personal non-responsibility". (I have this undying fear that as soon as I publish it I will discover that someone else has said the same thing before me and more eloquently. For example, I noticed that Steven Den Beste had an article a couple of days ago where he quotes Ralph Peters extensively about victim culture in the middle east.) I got dozens of pages of hits. But I was a bit relieved to find that only half a dozen or so were articles about the topic and my articles don't seem (to me, at least) to be substantially worse than any of them. The rest (page after page) were court records, legal notices and contracts bestowing, claiming and requiring (respectively) "non-responsibility" and/or "non-responsibility clauses". Which, of course, would tend to lend credence to my claims of the pervasiveness of the phenomenon.by Cziltang 
Posted: Saturday, August 09 2003 10:06:22 PM

PNRP, part 5
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I try not to let these things turn into rants. Sloppy reasoning for the sake of verbal impact may be cool, but it isn't what I'm trying to achieve. I am trying to be calm, concise and at least marginally well-reasoned. I was not entirely successful in this next section. V. The Personal Non-Responsibility Paradigm taken to the next level Unfortunately, it is no longer enough that "victims" must be compensated. Now we must prevent others from being "victimized". For example: since children are easily victimized, let's talk "child safety" in general and bicycles in particular. In a world of personal accountability, we would simply acknowledge that bicycles are inherently dangerous and hold the owner/user responsible for what they do with their bicycles, the unpleasant consequences of misuse, and understand that occasionally kids will get hurt riding bicycles. In the current "victim's world" we try to prevent all bad things from happening by loading up kids with helmets, elbow pads and knee pads, trying to eliminate all risk. In my opinion, that was part of the fun of riding a bike: going way too fast. And I would never have ridden all the places I did as a child if I had to load up on safety equipment, and I certainly would never have gone anywhere in the 100 degree Kansas summers. Then, there's McDonald's coffee. In a world of personal accountability we would assume it is the consumer's responsibility to assume that coffee (unless you're buying iced coffee) is a hot liquid and that hot liquids are dangerous, assume it is the consumer's responsibility to be careful with hot liquids and hold the consumer responsible for the unpleasant consequences of not being careful. In the current "victim's world" we try to prevent unfortunate consequences for all future customers by requiring that McDonald's serve their coffee lukewarm or plaster warning labels all over every available surface a customer might look at prior to taking possession of a hot cup of coffee in a drivethrough. Or, let's talk "gun safety." In a world of personal accountability we would simply honor the individual's choice to own or not own a gun and hold the owner responsible for what they do with their guns and the consequences if someone else gets access to their gun (other than theft, of course). In the current "victim's world" we try to prevent bad things from happening by restricting access to guns, banning guns, or eliminate guns by sueing manufacturers out of existence under the premise that the company (one of the entities which by definition can't be a victim) is responsible for damage done to the victims of gun crimes (by definition, misuse by an individual) and accidents (also by definition, misuse) and should therefore compensate the victims. "Victim," in some lawsuits, is twisted to define the victim as a city government, the premise being the city should get money from the gun manufacturer because of the increased cost of law enforcement caused by individuals misusing guns. By this logic, cities should sue all car manufacturers because they have to have emergency services and law enforcement to deal with car wrecks. Or better yet, because we like cars but alcohol (like tobacco) is evil, maybe cities should sue all brewers and distillers for the costs of dealing with drunk drivers? Or, better still, why don't some fat people sue fast food restaurants for selling greasy, cholesteral-laden, heart-attack-on-a-bun hamburgers that made them fat and caused health problems? (Oops, sorry, that one's already been tried.) by Cziltang 
Posted: Friday, August 08 2003 04:02:24 PM

More from the Ratlands
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The Personal Non-Responsibility Paradigm in Action The Infamous McDonald's Coffee case A 79 year old woman, a Ms. Liebeck, ordered coffee in a McDonald's drivethrough. It was served in a styrofoam cup. After getting his order, her grandson (who was driving) pulled up and stopped so she could put cream and sugar in the coffee. She put the cup between her knees and tried to take off the lid. As she removed the lid, the entire contents spilled in her lap. Her sweatpants absorbed the coffee and held it next to her skin, causing 3rd degree burns over 6 per cent of her body. She spent 8 days in the hospital. The burns required skin grafts. She asked McDonald's for $20,000 for medical expenses. McDonald's had the unmitigated gall to refuse her request. So, in the finest American tradition, she sued them because the coffee was "defective". The trial did not focus on whether a 79 year old woman (or anyone else, for that matter) should try to hold a styrofoam cup filled with hot coffee between her knees and pry the lid off. It did not focus on whether it is physically possible to exert enough pressure on the sides of a styrofoam cup to keep it from dropping and still take the lid off without crushing the cup (thereby dumping the contents in your lap). Instead, it focused on McDonald's "callous, reckless" behavior. There was documentation of more than 700 incidents of McDonalds coffee burns in a 10 year period previously, many similar in nature to this incident. Testimony revealed that McDonald's coffee is held at 185 degrees, and at that temperature, 3rd degree burns can occur in 2-7 seconds. An expert testified that if the coffee had been 155 degrees, she wouldn't have been burned. Basically it came down to the facts that McDonald's knew their coffee was really hot, because they keep it that way deliberately, even though other people had been burned by it and they didn't warn anyone that it was dangerous. The jury awarded Liebeck $200,000 in compensatory damages. Because of McDonald's "callous" attitude about the incident, the jury also awarded Liebeck $2.7 million in punitive damages, which equals about two days of McDonalds' coffee sales. (most of this information came from a summary of the case I found online www.lectlaw.com/files/cur78.htm although there are hundreds out there.) In all the write-ups I've seen, there is one common thread: It wasn't frivolous, it was really, really very serious because the burns required skin grafts. There is never any consideration of the possibility that this was just an unfortunate accident. And on top of everything else, McDonalds committed the unpardonable sin of being "callous" by not immediately admitting the coffee was "defective" and taking full responsibility for Ms. Liebeck's pain and suffering. For that reason the jury thought it was justified in awarding $2.7 million in punitive damages. Contrary to popular opinion, I am only a cold, unfeeling, heartless bastard part of the time. I am truly sorry that Ms. Liebeck got burned. I'm sorry she was in pain. I have nothing against her. I'm sure she's probably a really nice person. I'm not saying that this was an abuse of the legal system. But what's legal and what's right aren't always the same thing and from my perspective, this is a nearly perfect example of the Personal Non-Responsibility Paradigm. This case demonstrates the unspoken assumptions that nothing is an accident. It can't be an accident. If it truly was an accident, there would be no one to blame. Someone is to blame because there has to be someone to blame; suffering without blame is not allowed. And, it can't be the victim because she suffered. So who is left to blame? McDonalds. (although I was surprised to discover that the original compensatory damages awarded by the jury were reduced from $200,000 to $160,000 because they found her "20% responsible" ???. I also discovered that a Judge reduced the whole award to around $450,000 (which a number of writers championed as a triumph of the legal system...). I also found that the matter was later settled out of court in a secret agreement, so no one outside the parties involved really knows what the settlement was.) The unspoken assumptions are so pervasive that the assumption that someone is at fault is taken as a given. So there is no sense of "why should we even consider why it might be McDonalds' fault?" in any of the write-ups. And there is no sense of "what were you doing putting a cup of hot coffee between your legs and trying pry the lid off, anyway?". Just the notion that she shouldn't have had to endure unpleasant circumstances, someone was to blame for those circumstances, it couldn't be her fault because she suffered, so she should have been compensated. It occurred to me after I wrote this that maybe I was wrong about the notion that we are looking for someone to blame more than we used to. Perhaps we have always had to have someone to blame, but in an earlier, more religious time we accepted misfortune with a more Job-like resignation because it was "God's will." In our current lawyer-dominated society, we have to find someone else, because God isn't likely to cough up $2.7 million in punitive damages. by Cziltang 
Posted: Thursday, August 07 2003 08:42:46 PM

More of the Same
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I've picked up a couple of basically positive comments on the essay so far. I also had a couple of interesting discussions about it today. Part 3, post haste. The "Personal Non-Responsibility" Paradigm Our basic impulse is that one should not be held accountable for, or have to endure the consequences of things that one is not responsible for. We protect Juveniles from the full consequences of their actions because we believe they are not fully responsible for their actions. We protect the Mentally Ill from the full consequences of their actions because we believe they aren't fully responsible. We allow that injuring or killing someone is self-defense may be justified because the person defending himself was not responsible for creating the situation. However, from that basic impulse, we have progressed (or degenerated, as the case may be) to a new impulse. In the words of Susan Martinuk:

A fundamentally wrong assumption now governs our society: No one should have to endure difficult circumstances. Every aspect of our human situation has become the responsibility of society at large, and when one has a difficult life, one is instantly transformed into a victim of evil societal forces. Where there is difficulty, there is a victim; where there are victims, there must be compensation. Feb. 18, 1999 - from "Cashing In on Victimhood", published in Reader's Digest Magazine, originally published in the National Post

Stated differently, the paradigm is this: It is not fair or right that I should have to accept the consequences for things that are not my responsibilty. There is always someone out there explaining why it isn't my responsibility. I shouldn't have to endure unpleasant circumstances. Any consequences for my actions are unacceptable. There is no such thing as bad luck. Someone is always to blame. By definition it can't be my fault, I'm a victim. by Cziltang 
Posted: Tuesday, August 05 2003 09:55:41 PM

Victim Culture and Personal Responsibility, pt. 2 and other notes
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Not too much going on now. Really enjoyed the Manchester United vs. Barcelona game from Philadelphia last night. I'm almost finished with all of the Personal Responsibility essay, so I'm posting part 2 tonight. The Erosion of Personal Responsibility It seems to be human nature to want to blame others for our problems; it makes us feel better about ourselves, sometimes it allows us to avoid the unpleasant truth that we did something stupid, and it has also become lucrative ( see notes in later sections). Historically, individuals, groups, institutions and leaders have all been willing to divert our attention by blaming someone or something else for our problems. In the past century we tried to come to grips with the primacy of science. Science could do anything; we could split the atom after all, surely, science could solve any problem. As the social sciences developed, we had faith that we could use them to solve problems too. We found more and more causes for behavior and circumstances, both on the individual and societal level. Being basically decent people, we found out what was wrong and we tried to fix it using the knowledge our science brought us. We found more and more reasons why individuals should not be held accountable for their actions due to the horrific circumstances they had endured. We decided that in a land of plenty, no one should be "disadvantaged" so we started a war on poverty. The more social ills we found the more we tried to fix, and we used the tool that seemed most logical: money. Over time, the process escalated. But somewhere along the line, the process became less about rectifying what was wrong, and more about financial compensation. There were lots of people telling people it was not their fault, and since the obvious solution was money, there were always lawyers around to help victims get compensation for their suffering. (Please note that I am not suggesting that there was some golden time in our culture where everyone was personally responsible and no one blamed anyone else for their problems. I am only suggesting that our current culture makes avoiding personal responsibility socially acceptable for most segments of the population.) by Cziltang 
Posted: Monday, August 04 2003 09:04:52 PM

Ode to Late Summer?
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I bought a new wallet the other day. Nothing special, just a basic leather wallet, but the smell reminded me of my favorite baseball glove when I was a kid. Not the first one. (It may have been used when I got it, but I don't remember a particular smell.) Not the catcher's mitt. (It always smelled dusty.) I remember my second fielder's glove. I worked on it a lot to break it in, so perhaps that's why I remember the smell. I haven't thought about baseball for a long time. When I was a kid, it seems a lot of my life was tied up with baseball. Dad listened to games on the radio in the evening. We spent time practicing in the vacant lot across the street. I played Little League in the summer, complete with the hot, scratchy, heavy wool flannel uniforms and the goofy colored stirrup sock things. My Grandpa liked baseball, and Dad got him a subscription to the Sporting News every year and I spent as much time as I could on the weekends when we were at the farm reading the stats and looking at the pictures of my favorite players. We also went to Kansas City every summer to see the A's play (back before the Athletics move to Oakland), then later the Royals. One year we even got to go to St. Louis to see the Cardinals and I got to see Lou Brock. (Lou Brock was my baseball hero, partly because his birthday was on the same day as mine.) As an adult I watched a lot of games on cable. I remember watching the Kansas City Royals and the St. Louis Cardinals the year they played in the World Series. I watched it in the kitchen with my daughter (she as very little then, and dinner was a cross between a food fight and finger painting). We fixed hot dogs and broccoli; she liked broccoli, called it 'trees'. (I asked her about it the other day, she still remembers it.) Then came the problems with baseball. Expansion, dilution of talent, the strike. I haven't watched a game since. (OK, I did watch most of the game where McGwire broke the home run record, but I rationalized that as 'history in the making.") In the summer of 1990 I developed pneumonia. I couldn't lie down without coughing my guts out. I spent several weeks sleeping in an easy chair. I missed more than 3 weeks of work. Being around the house all day, I was desperate to find any excuse not to watch soap operas with my wife. Luckily, the World Cup was happening at that time, so I watched it. In the process, I got fascinated with what the rest of the world calls Football. Once I got knowledgeable about soccer, I started having problems watching American football. I can't stand the rigidity. I can't stand the constant interruptions of play, and I can't stand the incessant commercials. I basically haven't watched an American football game in several years. Now I watch Football. With extended cable I get to see games from all over the world. I am partial to european football, especially the English Premier League. So summertime is kind of bleak for a football fan. I do watch the odd south american game to get my fix. And sometimes I catch the MLS games from here in the States, but generally speaking usually about this time of year I am jonesing. But this year is different. With the european championships scheduled for next summer, the european leagues are all starting early this year: the French started on August 1, the German Bundesliga started yesterday, and the EPL starts in a couple of weeks. I find myself almost giddy with anticipation. It is very much like I remember feeling about baseball as a kid. It is kind of sad, really. For sentimental reasons I wish I still felt this way about baseball. I wish I was writing an "ode to spring" like so many baseball fans and writers have done in the past. I don't. I'm not. It isn't and I'm not. I'm into Football now. The sense of anticipation is for Liverpool and Blackburn and Bayern Munich and Leverkeusen instead of the Royals and the Cardinals. But "Ode to Late Summer" just doesn't have the right ring to it, does it? by Cziltang 
Posted: Sunday, August 03 2003 03:52:37 PM