A roundup of events, ideas, and opportunities for area Democrats and their friends.

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1 The Democrat A roundup of events, ideas, and opportunities for area Democrats and their friends. Monthly Newsletter Consolidated Series 2, Issue #25 #1_ May Jan Quiz A potpourri of regulations. Editorial Who likes regulations? Why can t we trust the private sector to ensure the public interest? Blast Plato s Allegory of the Cave. Review The Bedford Incident. Page 15 Page 2 Page 7 Page 11 Statement from the Chair This past month has been busy one. Many thanks to all of you who participated in the Martin Luther King events. It was wonderful to have such good participation. If you were not able to attend the firebreathing Michael Eric Dyson speech, you can stream it from the BCU web site. As many of you know we had the addition of several candidates. The campaign committee will be meeting this next week to consolidate our lists. As soon as we finish, we ll publish info on the web site. Thanks to the Dana Dunmire and the Democratic Club of SE Volusia County for hosting the Gwen Graham meet and greet! Gwen was right up to date on issues and events, and gave strong unifying speech. The Ways and Means Committee has been hard out work. You will be receiving info about our upcoming events soon. Thanks to Lynn Hoganson for securing a bus for the women s march in Orlando. A good time was had by all. Look for our team s one-two punch by Jewel and Jack in Sunday s N-J opinion section! Paid political advertisement paid for by Volusia County DEC independently of any candidate or committee.

2 Editorial Love them regulations! Wayne Dickson Who hates regulations? Everyone! Who loves regulations? Everyone! Say what?! No, that isn t either a joke or a contradiction. The point is that regardless of what we might say or of how we might delude themselves everyone likes and recognizes the necessity of regulations. What distinguishes us is that we all like the regulations that (we think) benefit us and the issues we care about, and despise the regulations that do the opposite (we think). Definition of terms Preparing for this editorial, I checked a number of definitions of regulation, some pointing in opposite directions from one another and others forming a complete circle. (You know, a regulation is defined as something enforced by a regulator. In a separate entry, a regulator is defined as someone who enforces regulations.) I decided it would be best to state explicitly how these terms should be understood when used in this essay. That s my part, and it will be easy. Your part will come later, and it ll be a lot tougher: Making certain that you and those you re reading or hearing agree on what such terms mean. My advice? Focus on concepts rather than terminology. (Remember George Lakoff s Don t think of an Elephant!) The words/ideas we re considering here derive from a Latin root meaning rule. A rule specifies a standard quality of substance or performance. At its most informal the specification can be as casual as what the English refer to as the done thing ; at its most formal it can be encoded in law. Regulation is a noun referring either to a rule, or to a procedure for enforcing a rule. Importance of regulations How important are regulations in our society? Let s begin by tossing a bone to the far right: U.S. Bill of Rights, Amendment No. 2: A well regulated Militia, being necessary to the security of a free State, the right of the People to keep and bear Arms, shall not be infringed. Note: The preceding text is a transcription of the original of the Joint Resolution of Congress proposing the Bill of Rights. The spelling, capitalizing, and punctuation duplicate those of the original document. Supreme Court Editor, Wayne Dickson Assoc. Editor, Dana Dunmire Page 2

3 debates about the extent of the Amendment s protections have been determined in part by questions about such details. Continually, from the corner bar to the corridors of Congress, we hear conservatives insisting with smug complacency that they hate regulations and want them eliminated. In other words, we hear them revealing ignorance about both language and basic civics. The word regulation comes from a Latin root meaning rule. We humans cannot live together without accepting rules and means for enforcing them. A few examples: The first 10 amendments, the Bill of Rights, set the rules to protect individual citizens from overreaching federal or state governments. Last month I mentioned how the pilgrims drew up and signed a set of rules before landing at Plymouth (the Mayflower Compact). It s a Terrible Life! Specifically, let s imagine a modified version of Frank Capra s Wonderful Life premise: that George Bailey had never been born. Let s consider what life would be like (besides very, very short!) if the conservative dream were realized, and there were no regulations whatsoever. Let s begin by running through a bit of what it might be like to begin a day under those circumstances. You go in to say goodbye to your toddler, and see the hem of her flammable pajamas just starting to smoulder. As soon as you ve dealt with that, your sister calls, frantic, and says the EMTs had arrived just in time to save her own toddler from choking to death on the poorly attached button serving as a Teddy Bear s eye. The Declaration of Independence was justified by the premise that King George had systematically violated a set of rules (laws) established by nature. The Articles of Confederation and subsequently the Constitution were sets of rules accepted by the colonists as defining the way they would relate among themselves and with other nations. OK. Enough with the preliminaries. Now let s engage our imaginations and have some fun. Summoning the courage to contend with rush hour traffic, you start looking tensely for an opportunity to dodge your way into the chaotic flow. There are no speed limits; there are no regulations specifying whether one must drive on the left or right side of a road; there are no regulations Editor, Wayne Dickson Assoc. Editor, Dana Dunmire Page 3

4 mandating obedience to traffic signals, and every intersection resembles a demolition derby. Turning on the news, you hear about a massive outbreak of salmonella, traced to a processing plant where spilled peanut butter is routinely scraped off the factory floor and returned to the pot. Switching channels, you hear of a scandal where your own city s water supply has proven to be as poisonous and carcinogenic as Flint s. About that time your vintage Chevrolet Corvair is fender-bendered from behind, causing it to explode and send you to the hospital. (See Unsafe at Any Speed below.) Why not privatize? I ll begin my answer to that by refreshing your memory of Aesop s fable about the frog and the scorpion: A scorpion and a frog meet on the bank of a stream and the scorpion asks the frog to carry him across on its back. coffing, the frog says, No way! As soon as we left shore, you d sting me. No I wouldn t, the scorpion says. Use your common sense. If I were to kill you, I d die too! The frog accepts the scorpion s argument, and they set out for the opposite shore. They ve barely started when the scorpion stings the frog. Just before losing consciousness, the frog manages to croak a single question, Why? Replies the scorpion: It s my nature. Hmmm. Sounds as if it might be helpful to compare the nature of a good government to that of a good for-profit corporation. [Need I say that both governments and corporations are legal abstractions, not human persons. They cannot make moral decisions, Page 4

5 Wait. Pause. Take a deep breath Look, we read it and hear it all the time: W is pro/anti government. X is pro/anti business. Y is pro/anti regulations. support and counselling during times of vulnerability when death was imminent. The small groups that affect all of us every day aren t death panels but business or political committees; and the associates who help them discover hard truths aren t torturers, but actuaries: Z is pro/anti taxes. Etc. This is all horsefeathers! That someone (or some group of someones) likes or loathes such phenomena might be biographically interesting, but it makes absolutely no substantive difference. What matters is the nature of the persons who manage these phenomena, plus the way culture, systemic pressures, and ethos affect them. Examples. A cold fact to keep in mind. Remember when Sarah Palin seized upon something she d heard on Fox or hate-talk radio, and trumpeted repeatedly that the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act included a provision for death panels? Panels that would decide who got to live and who had to die? Total nonsense, right? Well Almost complete. No, the panels in question didn t decide who got to live. They mandated a policy already in place voluntarily in many hospitals, ensuring that patients and loved ones would receive medical, emotional, and spiritual Actuary noun (plural actuaries) a person who compiles and analyzes statistics and uses them to calculate insurance risks and premiums. The more information about you an actuary is provided, the more accurately she can estimate, say, how much longer you can expect to live and how much more you can expect to need for medical expenses before dying. Meaning? The older you are, the more you can expect to be charged in medical expenses. The more you can expect to be charged in medical expenses, the more you can expect to pay for health insurance and at any given price the lousier you can expect that insurance to be. (Less will be covered ; total payout will be lower; tiny-print gotchas will sprout like deep-rooted weeds; etc.) Page 5

6 If you suffer from a chronic illness like diabetes, you re likely to be denied coverage at any cost. Welcome to the world of privatization! Ralph Nader achieved fame with his book Unsafe at Any Speed, which documented the fact that American vehicle manufacturers built and sold models that they knew were unsafe and would cost lives if put on the road. Sounds incredible, doesn t it. Remember, though: Got the picture? Time to call in the statisticians and accountants! 1. How much would it cost to redesign (and perhaps recall and refit) the faulty vehicles? 2. How much would it cost to handle the lawsuits, pay the necessary fines and penalties, and counter any possible bad press? Choose the least expensive of the two approaches, and implement it. Corporations might be persons to the SCOTUS, but legal abstractions are not human beings. Legal abstractions do not have human feelings, or human moral and ethical responsibilities. Charters vary, but the primary purpose by far of most corporations is to make a profit for the shareholders who show their gratitude by giving large raises and bonuses to those who manage and direct the operation. If in the process laws are broken and people s lives are destroyed? Tough cookies! The corporate person will pay a fine (which it covers by passing the costs along to consumers). The managers and directors who actually commit the crimes are rarely arrested, more rarely convicted, and most rarely of all sent to prison for a short stretch. Page 6

7 Blast from the Past Plato Allegory of the Cave Note from the editor Plato: The Allegory of the Cave, P. Shorey trans. from Plato: Collected Dialogues, ed. Hamilton & Cairns Random House, CC BY I was inspired to choose this month s blast by the frustration I felt when watching interviews with Trump supporters or reading polling results on Trump s performance. The person described in the interviews was a fictional character rather than the real person who sits in the White House. I m convinced it s a similar character respondents have in mind when answering a pollster s questions. This excerpt is the famous allegory of the cave, a small part of a much longer work called The Republic, where Plato offers his vision of an ideal city state. The man asking the questions here is Socrates; the man being directed by Socrates toward a predetermined conclusion is named Glaucon. Although this is a good modern translation, it s still easy to get lost while following Socrates s logic. To provide a little help for those who want it, I ve added some subheads within brackets. L Editor, Wayne Dickson Assoc. Editor, Dana Dunmire Page 7

8 BOOK VII Next, said I [Socrates], compare our nature in respect of education and its lack to such an experience as this. Picture men dwelling in a sort of subterranean cavern with a long entrance open to the light on its entire width. Conceive them as having their legs and necks fettered from childhood, so that they remain in the same spot, able to look forward only, and prevented by the fetters from turning their heads. Picture further the light from a fire burning higher up and at a distance behind them, and between the fire and the prisoners and above them a road along which a low wall has been built, as the exhibitors of puppet shows have partitions before the men themselves, above which they show the puppets. All that I [Glaucon] see, he said. See also, then, men carrying past the wall implements of all kinds that rise above the wall, and human images and shapes of animals as well, wrought in stone and wood and every material, some of these bearers presumably speaking and others silent. A strange image you speak of, he said, and strange prisoners. Like to us, I said. For, to begin with, tell me do you think that these men would have seen anything of themselves or of one another except the shadows cast from the fire on the wall of the cave that fronted them? How could they, he said, if they were compelled to hold their heads unmoved through life? And again, would not the same be true of the objects carried past them? Surely. If then they were able to talk to one another, do you not think that they would suppose that in naming the things that they saw they were naming the passing objects? Necessarily. And if their prison had an echo from the wall opposite them, when one of the passers-by uttered a sound, do you think that they would suppose anything else than the passing shadow to be the speaker? By Zeus, I do not, said he. Then in every way such prisoners would deem reality to be nothing else than the shadows of the artificial objects. In watching film or video, our brains are tricked into perceiving a flickering series of still images as one continuous motion. Page 8

9 Quite inevitably, he said. Consider, then, what would be the manner of the release and healing from these bonds and this folly if in the course of nature something of this sort should happen to them. When one was freed from his fetters and compelled to stand up suddenly and turn his head around and walk and to lift up his eyes to the light, and in doing all this felt pain and, because of the dazzle and glitter of the light, was unable to discern the objects whose shadows he formerly saw, what do you suppose would be his answer if someone told him that what he had seen before was all a cheat and an illusion, but that now, being nearer to reality and turned toward more real things, he saw more truly? And if also one should point out to him each of the passing objects and constrain him by questions to say what it is, do you not think that he would be at a loss and that he would regard what he formerly saw as more real than the things now pointed out to him? into the light, that his eyes would be filled with its beams so that he would not be able to see even one of the things that we call real? Why, no, not immediately, he said. Then there would be need of habituation, I take it, to enable him to see the things higher up. And at first he would most easily discern the shadows and, after that, the likenesses or reflections in water of men and other things, and later, the things themselves, and from these he would go on to contemplate the appearances in the heavens and heaven itself, more easily by night, looking at the light of the stars and the moon, than by day the sun and the sun s light. Of course. Far more real, he said. And if he were compelled to look at the light itself, would not that pain his eyes, and would he not turn away and flee to those things which he is able to discern and regard them as in very deed more clear and exact than the objects pointed out? It is so, he said. And if, said I, someone should drag him thence by force up the ascent which is rough and steep, and not let him go before he had drawn him out into the light of the sun, do you not think that he would find it painful to be so haled along, and would chafe at it, and when he came out And so, finally, I suppose, he would be able to look upon the sun itself and see its true nature, not by reflections in water or phantasms of it in an alien setting, but in and by itself in its own place. Necessarily, he said. And at this point he would infer and conclude that this it is that provides the seasons and the courses of the year and presides over all things in the visible region, and is in some sort the cause of all these things that they had seen. Page 9

10 Obviously, he said, that would be the next step. Well then, if he recalled to mind his first habitation and what passed for wisdom there, and his fellow bondsmen, do you not think that he would count himself happy in the change and pity them? He would indeed. And if there had been honors and commendations among them which they bestowed on one another and prizes for the man who is quickest to make out the shadows as they pass and best able to remember their customary precedences, sequences, and coexistences, and so most successful in guessing at what was to come, do you think he would be very keen about such rewards, and that he would envy and., emulate those who were honored by these prisoners and lorded it among them, or that he would feel with Homer and greatly prefer while living on earth to be serf of another, a landless man, and endure anything rather than opine with them and live that life? Yes, he said, I think that he would choose to endure anything rather than such a life. And consider this also, said I. If such a one should go down again and take his old place would he not get his eyes full of darkness, thus suddenly coming out of the sunlight? and before his eyes were accustomed to the dark-and this time required for habituation would not be very short-would he not provoke laughter, and would it not be said of him that he had returned from his journey aloft with his eyes ruined and that it was not worth while even to attempt the ascent? And if it were possible to lay hands on and to kill the man who tried to release them and lead them up, would they not kill him? Socrates has been condemned to death by the Athenian court. His friends and students are slumping and disconsolate, and the jailer turns away in grief and shame as he hands Socrates the cup bearing deadly hemlock. No one wants Socrates to die. He practically forced the jury to condemn him to death. The door of the jail was open, and no one would have been disappointed or disapproving if he simply walked out into exile. But Socrates chastized them. To leave would be dishonorable, a denial of everything he had taught and lived, he said. They should be pleased that he was exchanging this world of shadows and illusions for a much better one. He would indeed. Now if he should be required to contend with these perpetual prisoners in evaluating these shadows while his vision was still dim Page 10

11 Review The Bedford Incident Wayne Dickson The Bedford Incident, B&W, 1965 Richard Widmark as Capt. Finlander Sidney Poitier as Ben Munceford James MacArthur as Ensign Ralston, Eric Portman as Commodore SchrepkeI Martin Balsam as ship s doctor Wally Cox as Seaman Queffle Directed by James B. Harris Produced by James Harris & Richard Widmark Screenplay by James Poe Based on a novel by Mark Rascovich This is a review of the movie The Bedford Incident (1965). It s also a commentary on two major crises from my own life and the lives of many of the persons who will be reading this: The Cuban Missile Crisis and the Nuclear Armed Trump Crisis. Day 10 of the Cuban Missile Crisis (called X by the Russians). A U.S. helicopter hovers above a Russian submarine off the coast of Cuba. I had grown up in Miami and was an undergraduate at Stetson University in 1962, when the Cuban missile crisis occurred. I had graduated from Stetson and was a first-year graduate student at Duke University in 1965, when The Bedford Incident was released. Now, having spent my entire career teaching at Stetson, I m still in DeLand just in time for Trump. Following Castro s successful rebellion, relations between the US and the USSR had been growing in tension. In 1962 the USSR established a base in Cuba and were installing intermediate range missiles capable of delivering nuclear warheads. Fortunately diplomacy prevailed, a face-saving exchange Editor, Wayne Dickson Assoc. Editor, Dana Dunmire Page 11

12 was approved, and the Russian missiles were withdrawn. It wasn t until after the Cold War ended that the public learned just how close we had come during that nuclear standoff. The U.S. had established a naval blockade of Cuba, and Russian submarine commanders had been given authority to defend themselves with nuclear weapons if they were attacked. A U.S. naval vessel located a Russian submarine, and the U.S. captain decided to force the sub to the surface. By way of warning (and challenge? braggadocio?), the U.S. vessel launched an array of training depth charges. The submarine s commander wanted to launch nuclear weapons immediately in retaliation. Fortunately, a superior officer happened to be on board for that cruise and he denied permission for the launch. The movie Released in 1965, The Bedford Incident parallels the plot of that real-life confrontation in 1962 parallels it much more closely than anyone without a top secret security clearance could realize. It also, intentionally, parallels the plot of Moby Dick. The obsessed Capt. Ahab is reincarnated in the obsessed Capt. Finlander of the novel and later movie. The Bedford is on a routine patrol near the Arctic Circle when Capt. Finlander finds a Russian submarine where it s forbidden to cruise, and determines to force it to the surface. As the hours pass, Finlander cranks up the pressure and subsequent stress on the Russians, of course, but on his own crew as well. He creates a dark, claustrophobic moral and emotional micro-world captured perfectly by Gilbert Taylor s brooding black and white cinematography. Insane? Ben Munceford, a journalist played by Sidney Poitier, pushes back harder and harder, telling Finlander that what he s doing is crazy. Commodore Schrepke, a NATO observer/ adviser, insists to Finlander with growing intensity that what he s doing is not only stupid but also extremely dangerous. The Commodore was a decorated submarine commander (not in Hitler s Navy, he insists, but in Admiral Dönitz s!) so, as he says, he can both see what s happening above the surface and empathize with what s happening below. He can identify with the hunted as well all as the hunter. Page 12

13 Spoiler alert! I feel I ought to complete the development here, but I don t want to spoil the ending for those haven t seen the movie but intend to. Choose for yourselves. They haven t. Pushing Finlander belligerently, Munceford demands what he would do if the submarine fired one at him (one torpedo, that is). Finlander responds, I d fire one back. A crewman, too tightly wound from the emotional crescendo, responds reflexively, with no hesitation. Fire One, he shouts as he punches the Fire button. Finlander and others leap to pull the Disarm switch. They ask themselves and one another whether they have reached it in time. How close are we to having our Bedford incident? Substitute Trump for Finlander. For the submarine Kim Jong Un is the leading candidate, but plenty of other nuclear armed contenders could easily step in. Page 13

14 #1 Think about it. If you want everyone to agree on a measurement, then you need to base that measurement on an absolute, unchanging standard. That means a standard defined by a natural phenomenon (considered at Newtonian scale). In the case of length, that standard is the speed of light. A meter is defined as 1/299,792,458 of the distance light can travel in one second. What!? I think you re playing games here, Dickson. If you base the definition of distance/length on time, then you ve simply kicked the can down the road, as TV talking heads like to say. How do you determine the extent of a second? Sorry. That s the subject of a separate question. Read on! #2 Page 14

15 Quiz Life Saving Regulations This month s quiz will be different from the usual a sort of potpourri of prompts and teasers, all related to themes treated in other parts of the January newsletter. 1. How long is a foot (or any other unit of measurement)? How do you know? How did people used to know? 2. What is railroad time? (Hint: It has to do with life saving regulations.) 6. What is a dead man s switch, and why do life saving federal regulations require that every train be equipped with one? (I have one on the chair lift that takes me up and down the stairs.) 7. Why do life saving regulations require that every boat/ship and airplane be equipped with a red light on the right (starboard) facing forward; a green light on the left (port); and often a white light in the center? 3. What does the Basilica of St. Mary and the Angels and Martyrs in Rome have to do with regulating time and establishing the day when Easter would be celebrated? 8. What does the phrase putting a thumb on the scale refer to, and how do regulations prevent its happening? 4. How long is a second? How do you know? 5. Why do life saving regulations require that U.S. traffic signals (almost!) all have red lights at the top or left; yellow lights in the middle; and green lights at the bottom or right? 9. Why do life saving regulations set a minimum and maximum rise for each step in a stairway? 10. Why do regulations in some countries require that a line be etched on the glass near the top of a wine or beer glass? Editor, Wayne Dickson Assoc. Editor, Dana Dunmire Page 15

16 DEMOCRATIC Party of VOLUSIA COUNTY Answers 1. If you want everyone to agree on a measurement, then you need to base that measurement on an absolute, unchanging standard. That means a standard defined by a natural phenomenon (considered at Newtonian scale). In the case of length, that standard is the speed of light. A meter is defined as 1/299,792,458 of the distance light can travel in one second. 2. Up until about the middle of the 19th century, setting the time was a pretty casual matter. Each town or area could decide for itself when 12:00 noon would be declared. This changed with the telegraph and the railroads. For example, if you were scheduling railroad traffic you would find it very difficult to make a timetable passengers could count on. Even worse, if time wasn t coordinated precisely, you could end up with accidents as serious as a head-on collision. The governments weren t acting, so the U.S. and Canadian railroad owners took the matter into their hands. They agreed on setting a time they would all use consistently. Think of it as a self-imposed regulation. The result was railroad time, 3. There s a sundial laid out on the floor. A tiny hole in the wall lets in a beam of sunlight that travels along the meridian, marking the time exactly. 4. The U.S. Naval Observatory uses the average of a series of atomic clocks to keep track of time. These clocks measure changes in the energy level of cesium (or caesium) and hydrogen atoms. National observatories around the globe coordinate such systems to ensure consistent universal agreement on time. 5. As many as 1 in 6 people (mostly men) suffer from some form or degree of color blindness. They can t be sure what color a light is, but they can tell whether it s the top, middle, or bottom light that s on. The lights show everyone where a vessel is and in which direction it s traveling. These regulations determine right-of-way and reduce the number of collisions that occur. Editor, Wayne Dickson Assoc. Editor, Dana Dunmire Page 16

17 consistent stairs are, the less likely those using them will misstep and stumble. 10. This is a variation of the thumb on the scale trick. What s etched (or molded or printed) is a fill line. If the glass is filled to that line, the customer can be sure she s getting the full measure she s paid for. The same principle but with shape as well as color applies to traffic signs. 6. A dead man s switch is one that must be held down continually. For example, the pedal of a locomotive must be held down continually. If the operator becomes incapacitated and releases the pedal, the train will stop on its own, as quickly as safety allows. 7. The lights tell everyone the direction a vessel is travelling and, to some extent, at what approximate speed. Both together determine who has the right of way and thus reduce the number collisions that occur. 8. Merchants would sometimes literally hold a thumb or other finger on the scale to make it look as if the customer was receiving more of a product than he or she really was. Government regulations now prevent that happening. 9. The main reason is that about half the falls humans suffer involve stairs. The more Page 17