Culture and Values

Although American society today features a lot of talk about race and racial issues, it seems to lack much attention paid to economic and class issues except where they connect to race. This can leave a significant portion of folks -- who probably need just as much help in many areas as do racial minorities -- overlooked when it comes to the search for solutions for our nation's underclass.

Lawyer and writer J. D. Vance knows this culture firsthand, growing up in an Ohio rust belt town but remaining deeply connected to the Kentucky "hillbilly" culture of his family's roots. Vance outlines the problems he faced in this environment -- average or mediocre schools, parental drug use, low expectations and frequent home violence. His maternal grandparents gave him some level of stability as his mother's drug addictions removed her as any kind of steadying influence. But even they carried some of the same baggage that might have saddled Vance too had he not joined the Marines and then been given wise guidance from faculty and advisors at law school.

Elegy is both a part of and a spark for much of the current discussion of the "white working class" that we see a lot in the news these days, mostly as the subject of questions about why they voted for Donald Trump. Vance is clear that he loves both his family and his heritage while being equally clear about their flaws and pitfalls. The same individualism, self-reliance and stubborn honor that allowed these families to survive the rugged life of 19th century Appalachia creates no end of problems for them when they try to move out of both area and era into the 20th and 21st centuries. Pride in hard work -- the kind that allowed the men of the family to hold good-paying jobs even with little more and sometimes less than a high school education -- transforms into disdain for the kinds of jobs available once manufacturing moves on and into a perverse pride in not working.

Vance connects his own story to the cultural issues he discusses -- he marvels when he meets families who disagree and say so without screaming and swearing. When confronted with situations outside his comfort zone, he sometimes still struggles to deal with them in a calmer and more reasoned way than he saw as he grew up.

Elegy leaves some gaps. Vance mentions the problems that cheap home lending can cause families when factories leave and they are stuck with homes they can't sell to follow the work, but he does not follow through very often with specifics about how programs intended to help the working class sometimes have the opposite effect, And he's clear he has little idea of what kind of project or program would solve the cultural issue. But as someone who works daily with the hillbillies of the area where I live, it offers some good food for thought and chances for understanding the people I'm hoping to help.

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Stanford University professor Thomas Sowell addressed some of the same issues of culture in essays included in his 2005 book Black  Rednecks and White Liberals. Sowell says that traits which prejudiced people have assigned to African-Americans -- antipathy to work, promiscuity, improvidence and several others -- are not really a part of "African" culture as those people had claimed (He also notes that since it is a continent with several nations on it, the idea of a monolithic "African" culture is not very useful).

Instead, Sowell says, African-Americans brought to the southern part of the United States were socialized into what he calls the "cracker culture" of the northern Britons and Scotch-Irish immigrants to that part of the nation -- in large part the same culture that Vance describes as being a drag on his family and community. African-Americans who settled in other parts of the U.S., either as freeborn immigrants or as the descendants of slaves freed when their territories outlawed slavery, were often socialized into quite different cultures. Descendants of Africans brought into the Caribbean area were also socialized by a different culture and so have their own unique heritage today. Sowell says both of the latter two groups usually do not feature those same supposedly racial tendencies described above.

Some of the book's other essays also touch on racial and racial history matters, while others discuss anti-semitism and the problems created by misunderstanding multiculturalism. Sowell is usually thought of as conservative, so folks of liberal persuasions often dismiss him. But he is a careful writer and bases conclusions on where he believes evidence leads him. He may not be on his most natural ground in discussing historical and cultural issues -- his Ph.D. is in economics -- so sometimes he outkicks his coverage a little. But even when one of his judgments is perhaps not as strongly supported by evidence as some of the others are, they are still worth considering to see where the evidence he has collected might go instead.

What The?

For all of his flaws -- and although not legion, they were still many -- at least George W. Bush kept this lurching, granite-brained golem out of the White House.

The Keenest Gene

MY NAME...IS FRANK-EN-STEIN!

Then I vill say...good night, Herr Doctor.

This Place Has Everything

You can post to your blog from a baseball park.

What a world.

From the Rental Vault: Dr. Syn, Alias the Scarecrow (1963)

Ever wonder what other networks aired opposite the Ed Sullivan Show episode that debuted the Beatles on American television?

Patrick McGoohan drew that short straw, as the Walt Disney company aired his The Scarecrow of Romney Marsh the night the Liverpudlians caused the Beatlemaniacal shrieking that deafened a studio. The program had two extra chances, though, since it was a three-parter  starring McGoohan as Dr. Christopher Syn, a mild-mannered clergyman in the town of Dymchurch who lived a secret life as the Scarecrow, smuggler and protector of the good folk of Dymchurch.

The program was based on the "Dr. Syn" novels of Russell Thorndike, which were popular reads during the first half of the 20th century. Thorndike's Dr. Syn was a considerably rougher character than the televised version, being inspired to a life of vengeance and piracy when his wife elopes with his best friend. Both versions share the idea of the gentle village cleric leading a band of smugglers trying to help simple village folk elude ruinous royal taxation, and disguising himself with a horrifying scarecrow mask.

Like many of the programs aired on the Walt Disney's Wonderful World of Color, the program later retitled Dr. Syn, Alias the Scarecrow to match its English release was aimed at the younger television audience. The storyline is fairly simple: In the latter decades of the 1700's, the king's taxes are crushing the villagers and his soldiers are bullying them into submission, leaving smuggling goods past the tax man as the only option. Dr. Syn sees the rightness in the cause of Dymchurch's folk and decides to help them, even though he's breaking the law. His cleverness and bold action keep him always one step ahead of the bumbling royal officials, although said bumblers eventually manage to draw the noose tightly enough that the Scarecrow faces a real danger of being found out.

While the outcome is never in doubt, the quick-paced story and McGoohan's dry-witted delivery keep things interesting. His hoarse rasp and demonic laugh as the Scarecrow manage to be pretty frightening -- not to mention his mask as well as those of his lieutenants, Hellspite and Curlew -- so it's doubtful Dr. Syn would get made for a kid audience today. Of the rest of the cast, only George Cole as Mipps the sexton does a little more than the motions require, but the rest hit their marks, say their lines, and sell their parts of the story quite adequately.

Dr. Syn's meandering broadcast history -- it's been in English theaters a couple of times, American ones a couple more, and in two or three different versions on television -- mean it's not particularly easy to find a copy. But those who do will probably enjoy the obvious fun McGoohan is having with the part, and the ease with which he makes his anti-hero heroic and his hero no little bit scary. Someone could have shown it to David Ayer and helped out his most recent work quite a bit.

Do Not Leave Carts Unattended

Especially around the researchers at the Dynamic Test Center in Sweden. Popular Mechanics shares a video of what would happen to your groceries if your cart happened to reach the speed of 73 mph and crashed into a wall. Spoiler: No mixing required.

The first part of the video shows what happens if a cart hits your car at about 12 mph -- the groceries in the cart are protected, but your car has a good-sized dent and may even wind up with a broken window if the cart hits near your door.

Although the interstate-speed cart crash is not very likely, the possibility that a cart gets a good running start and bops into your wheels at jogging speed is not small -- especially when we consider how many people view their responsibilities when it comes to cart storage and return (Items 2, 3 and 4 on the list).

Voicing Issues?

At The American Scientist, three researchers look at how vocal pitch may influence which politicians are more likely to be supported by voters, all other things being roughly equal.

The short version is that candidates with lower voices tend to do better overall, even though there's no one-to-one correspondence between lower vocal pitch and election results. Interestingly, although a male with a lower voice is more likely to make a favorable impression when competing against another man, he loses that advantage if he's facing a woman.

Left untouched by the researchers, of course, is what role telling the actual truth would play in how people appreciate their political candidates. Word is the sample size was too small to obtain any usable results.