the secret powers of time

It’s ten minutes long, but absolutely worth watching. The six time zones people inhabit are the following: past positive (meaning they focus on happy memories), past negative (meaning they focus on regret), present hedonistic (meaning they live in the moment and constantly pursue pleasure), present fatalistic (meaning they never plan because what’s the point), future focused (meaning they prioritize work over play and always plan ahead), and future transcendent (meaning they believe true eternal life begins only after mortal death).

Which time perspective do you inhabit?

the empathic civilization: the human family

Empathy is the opposite of Utopia There is no empathy in Heaven, I guarantee you, I’ll tell you before you get there. There isn’t any empathy in Heaven because there’s no mortality. There’s no empathy in Utopia because there is no suffering. Empathy is grounded in the acknowledgement of death and the celebration of life and rooting for each other to flourish and be. It’s based on our frailties and imperfections.

…We have to start thinking like an extended family! (the human family)

can i speak to an agent please?!

Speak to an agent.

After “can you hear me now?” is there a more frustrating phrase we have to yell into our cells over and over again than that?

It’s so bad that I find myself adding words like “please” and sometimes “dammit” even though I know it’s only going to confuse the automated service more but I can’t help it because the process is slowly driving me insane.

It’s either that or I start pushing the pound key as soon as I hear a robotic voice on the other end, which of course doesn’t work either because companies have figured out that we have figured out the shortcut. Consequently the companies have either eliminated the pound key option or force you to listen to the entire message because it’s only at the end do you hear “or push 4 to speak to an agent.”

Why is four the new pound key and what in the hell happened to zero?

And why do we need to punch in our account number before we speak to an agent if the agent is only going to ask for our account number when he or she finally gets on the phone anyway? It just seems like busy work and obviously we’re busy enough. That’s why we forgot to send a check to the cable company and now we have to call to pay the bill in first place.

OK, maybe that last part is just me.

But what isn’t “just me” is the irritation that comes from knowing these cable providers, banks, doctor offices and such have all taken what has traditionally been a fairly painless process and injected all of this stress into it because automated service seems easier on the bottom line than customer service.

I get it.

Siri and her girls may not get the caller’s request right the first dozen times, but they don’t require overtime, health insurance or raises.

I guess it wasn’t enough that outsourcing funneled our calls out of the country and into offices in countries where the people on the other end of the phone only knew the English on the script in front of them. Now, not only do the people answering the phone not know English, they’re not even people.

They’re software.

Correction: It’s software.

In fact you can buy groceries, pay for tolls, get tickets to movies and such and go for days dealing only with “it” and never “they” or “them” or “him” or “her.”

It would appear our growing usage and dependence on technology has not only made us lazier but so much more impersonal. My 15-year-old son actually tried to text me while in the next room of our house one night. I stormed right over and said, “Young man you will tell me I am ruining your life to my face” … or something like that.

The world has gotten so crazy that some companies are now promoting the fact that you can call their customer service department and an agent will answer the phone. What used to be a given is now considered an innovative promotion that I’m sure we’re paying for with some hidden charge dubbed a “processing fee” or something like that.

I remember seeing a recent CNN news segment in which a pastor encourages people to tweet while in his church. Imagine: the message from an infinite God filed down to 140 characters or less, which I guess is just as good as long as you have enough bars on your phone. And you don’t have to speak to an agent before the church service starts because you forgot to pay your bill (again, that last part may just be me).

Technology is great most of the time but not all of the time.

While living in an automated world can certainly expedite a lot in our lives, it can also cause us to fly by some of the smaller things we don’t notice until they’re gone. Like arcades, telephone booths or the ability to speak to a freaking agent. I swear I never noticed just how important that part of life was until I started yelling that sentence into my cell in public.

Now it seems whenever I dial a phone that’s all I want to do: Speak to an agent, pay my bills, go back to not having to be bothered with … people.

does ‘secure the border’ mean ‘keep america white’?

In case you plan to see Wednesday’s GOP debate, allow me to offer up some crib notes so you don’t get lost.

First, when you hear the candidates talk about “job creators,” that’s just another way of saying “rich people” or “the guy bankrolling my super Pac.”

When someone says “family values,” that’s to remind the audience that they don’t like gay people; “religious freedom” means “Christianity”; and it’s not really a GOP debate until a candidate attacks the “liberal media” for asking questions they’re too afraid to answer.

Now there will be plenty of other buzz words and euphemisms that will be tossed around during the debate, but since it is being held in Arizona, chances are the most popular phrase will be “secure the border.”

We must secure the border.

The candidates will argue that it’s a matter of national security. That it isn’t just the friendly illegal immigrants looking for work we must worry about, but terrorists, drug lords and other criminals who seek to make their way through our porous border. They will say if they were president they would build walls, add troops, even commission a Death Star to keep this country safe.

Newt Gingrich has promised to build a double fence along the entire southern border, adding, “”The United States must control its border. It is a national security imperative,”

Ron Paul said “If elected president, I would move to quickly end foreign nation building efforts and use many of the resources we waste playing world’s policemen to control our southern border.”

They all will receive applause, and it will all sound great … until you realize that “secure the border” is slang for “keep the Mexicans out.”

I know, I know…here comes the black guy playing the race card again.

Yep, that’s me — pointing out that the Canadian border is largely ignored in this dialogue despite being more than twice the size of the Mexican border and less than 1% secure, according to a 2011 report by the Government Accountability Office. Even if we were to disregard the 1,538 miles between Alaska and Canada, the 3,987 mile border connecting the lower 48 to our neighbors up north is still much larger than the 1,933-mile stretch that connects us to Mexico.

And yet the attention we give the northern border is miniscule at best when compared to the resources we allocate to the south. There are definitely reasons for serious concern about safety along the Mexican border, but according to our own intelligence, Mexico should hardly be our only concern.

You would think presidential hopefuls genuinely concerned about our safety would remember that just four years ago, Michael Chertoff, President Bush‘s Homeland Security secretary, said he was more afraid of terrorists coming into the country from Canadathan Mexico and that his department arrested more people connected to al Qaeda and Hezbollah trying to come in from up north than down south.

This is not to perpetuate the myth that the September 11 terrorists came through Canada or defame our northern neighbors. But rather to point out the glaring disconnect between some of the crowd-pleasing rhetoric the GOP candidates like to deliver about “securing the border” and the more nuanced reality.

For example, did you know reports show that from 2007 to 2009, the amount of marijuana seized at the Canadian border jumped 22% and that Homeland Security has seen a sharp increase in the trafficking of more dangerous drugs such as heroin, cocaine and ecstasy? Yes, there are drug tunnels along the southern border, but the Drug Enforcement Administration also found a 360-foot drug tunnel from a hut in Canada to a house in the state of Washington as well.

We know an estimated 350,000 people trying to come in through Mexico in 2011 were stopped. We also know that number is down from the 447,731 arrests made in 2010 and that is significantly less than the 1,643,679 people stopped in 2000.

What we don’t know is how many people are illegally trying to get in from Canada, because less than 1% of the world’s largest border is secure. Conversely, Homeland Security Secretary Janet Napolitano said the Mexican border is as secure as it has ever been, adding, “It is clear from every measure we currently have that this approach is working.” Still, judging from the tone of the immigration talk so far in this campaign, no one debating in Arizona on Wednesday really seems to care about either point.

Why you ask?

Last year a group of senators had to petition the Obama administration for military assistance to catch the drug traffickers who were using low-flying planes to move their products from Canada into the United States. Ten years after 9/11 and we still had undetected aircraft crossing the border because it wasn’t the border we’re scared of.

You know, this whole immigration discussion would be a lot more productive if the people leading it would be more honest and stop pretending as if it’s only about national security. It’s a part, but the larger truth is that nonwhite people will be the majority in this country by 2040 and this browning of America scares the hell out of a lot of people, particularly some white people. The thinking goes that if the country can deport the Mexicans who are illegally here and stop new ones from coming in, maybe that trend will slow down or even reverse.

That sentiment is at the core of the racial profiling laws started in Arizona and is at the core of the entire illegal immigration conversation. It’s a clumsy attempt to talk about race without mentioning race so as not to appear racist .

But the dialogue is transparent because if it was really about “securing the border,” the facts suggest Canada would be a big part of the conversation and not just an afterthought.

 

let’s get rid of the penny!

If you’ve ever looked closely at a newly minted penny, you’ve probably been struck by its sheer beauty. Abraham Lincoln’s bearded, chiseled, copper face shines forth beneath the proclamation of “In God We Trust” and beside the quintessential American motto, “Liberty.”

Americans revere the penny, as it encapsulates a history lesson — Lincoln brought freedom to so many — and a civics lesson all in one.

But increasingly, Americans have stopped using the penny, as we turn toward electronic payments and away from cash. Sadly, inevitably, like so many other beautiful, venerated historical objects, it appears that the penny now belongs in a museum.
Earlier this week, President Barack Obama asked Congress for permission to change the mix of metal that goes into making pennies and nickels. He based this recommendation because it costs taxpayers about 2.4 cents to make each penny and 11.2 cents to make each nickel.

The average American earns a little more than one penny for every two seconds of work. Unfortunately, when there’s a penny involved in the transaction, it takes a couple extra seconds to fumble around for the coin and complete the purchase. Thus, for many people, time is more valuable than this money, and increasingly we throw away pennies, lose them, don’t bother to collect them to return to the store or let them pile up in jars.

Stores pay out more pennies than they receive, so the order goes down the line to make more pennies, which are often lost and ignored — repeating this vicious cycle. Unfortunately, the U.S. Mint won’t find a miracle metal that will make pennies worthwhile. The bottom line is that even if pennies could be created out of thin air, the cost of our time would outweigh the gains from using the penny. For nickels, the math works out better, so I’ll second the president’s call to begin making nickels out of less costly metal, rather than consigning them to the history books.

People from across the political spectrum should unite to retire the penny.
Conservatives care about the color red — they hate the red ink that losses by the U.S. Mint impose on taxpayers. Conservatives also loathe inflation, but unfortunately, the penny’s value has been slowly eroded by inflation over the years, so the penny isn’t worth a red cent any more.

Liberals love the color green. A penny will turn a sour shade of green if you leave it out in the elements long enough, but it’s environmentally un-green. Using pennies means an increase in zinc and copper mining, an increase in energy use and pollution at these mines and an increase in energy use and pollution as the government, banks and businesses put rolls of pennies into sacks and lug them from place to place.

Penny advocates worry that customers will be ripped off if Congress kills the penny. In a penny-free world, sellers would round your bill to the nearest nickel for cash purchases. Purchases totaling $4.98 or $4.99, for example, would be rounded up to an even $5, while those equaling $5.01 or $5.02 would be rounded down to $5. Since so many retail prices end in a 9, the fear has been that this rounding will gouge consumers.

This worry is unfounded.

I calculated the magnitude of this “rounding tax” after obtaining data on nearly 200,000 transactions from a multistate convenience store chain. The data reveal that the “rounding tax” is a myth. In reality, the number of times consumers’ bills would be rounded upward is almost exactly equal to the number of times that they would be rounded downward. It turns out rounding would have given customers in my study a tiny gain of about 1 cent per every 40 purchases.

“Why, oh why, has it taken so long to recognize reality?? Get er dun [eliminate the penny], and you will deserve the Nobel Prize!” Nobel Prize, hmmm … that’s worth almost 150 million pennies. You could start a museum with that …