I had always accepted that this idiom is used when referring to something that is too small to make a difference. I was surprised when I looked up the origin. The Phrase Finder writes that it was used in the Bible, Isaiah 40:15, “Behold the nations are as a drop of a bucket, and are counted as the small dust of the balance…” “A “drop in the bucket’ is the predecessor of “drop in the ocean,” which was first published in The Edinburgh Weekly Journal in July 1802.
Author Archives: advocate
Coming Apart, The State of White America 1960-2010
Charles Murray has written this book to describe the formation of American classes that represent a remarkable societal change during the last fifty years. I found the book to be difficult to read despite the fact that I was interested in the overall subject. I sometimes wished for more analysis and less raw data.
The author writes that November 22, 1963 “…became the symbolic first day of what would be known as the Sixties and the cultural transformation…” That was the day after the ashen-faced Walter Cronkite announced that President Kennedy had been assassinated.
The discussion of the early sixties is very interesting. There were limited choices in television stations, and you either saw a movie in the theatre or never saw it (absent DVDs and TiVo). People drove cars made in America, and there were few places where you could go out to a meal with ethnic food. Movies and television were carefully watched to eliminate any hints of racy themes or profanity. Marriage was nearly universal, and divorces were rare. A federal court had declared that the book Fanny Hill couldn’t be sent through the mail despite the fact it was well-written. The court wrote that “…filth, even if wrapped in the finest packaging, is still filth.” The North and South were both segregated, although laws allowing segregation in the North were gone. Most women were expected to stay in the home, and those who wanted to work did so as secretaries or teachers. There were few illegal drugs. Twenty percent of the country fell below the poverty line, but, the statistic I found most startling, was that 95 percent of Americans called themselves working or middle class. That means that most poor people did not believe they were “lower class.”
The author writes “This book is about an evolution in American society that has taken place since November 21, 1963, leading to the formation of classes that are different in kind and in their degree of separation from anything that the nation has ever know. I will argue that the divergence into these separate classes, if it continues, will end what has made America America.” He often refers to the “American Project” in which he describes that people left free to live their lives as they see fit was the basis for what made the nation such a powerful force in the world. He fears that “…America is coming apart at the seams—not seams of race and ethnicity, but of class”
Part 1 is titled “The Formation of a New Upper Class.” He defines the “Narrow Elite” as those who wield political and economic power. They are the owners and top executives of companies, news media, lawyers and physicians, college executives, and city officials. The children in the families of the new upper class have so many activities outside of school that they don’t have time to be children. The new upper class has become separated from the rest of society, and has become dominantly liberal. The people from the upper class neighborhoods of the four largest cities voted 64% strict liberal and 3% leaning liberal 2002 to 2008.
The new upper class is almost exclusively college educated. The lower end of wages for the top percent of taxpayers was in the $200,000 into the early 1990s, but that number had escalated to $441,000 by 2010. The people of this class are effectively segregated from the rest of the country. They tend to be isolated into what the author describes as “Super Zips,” or zip codes where the very wealthy are congregated. Some of these people have been called overeducated elitist snobs, or OES. They make decisions affecting the lives of everyone else, but increasingly don’t know much about how everybody else lives.
Blacks and Latinos constitute only 3 percent of the Super Zip population, but there is a higher percentage of Asians than what would be expected for their share of the population. On the issue of race, the author predicts that whites will be the minority by midcentury or sooner.
The book analyzes neighborhoods called Belmont (upper class) and Fishtown (working class) to discuss what has happened to marriage, industriousness, honesty, and religiosity. Most people of Belmont (just about 90%) are married, the family is intact, the unemployment rate is low, and few have become criminals. In Fishtown the marriage rate has dropped to below 60%, over 20% of the children live in a single parent home, unemployment is more than the national average, and criminal convictions have increased markedly. The only graph that looks similar for the two towns is the one that shows how many “nonbelievers” there are (about 20% in both towns). Self-reported happiness has declined to about 40% in Belmont and a disturbing 20% in Fishtown.
Despite the fact that the subtitle of the book is “The State of White America 1960-2010,” the author reveals that “Expanding the data to all Americans makes hardly any difference at all.” “Coming Apart” may have told the story of white America, but its message is about all of America. It is predicted that we are on the path to no longer being a “super power,”, and unless things change everything that has made the country exceptional will disappear. This is happening because we are handing over the meeting of human needs “…to bureaucracies—the bluntest, clumsiest of all tools for giving people the kind of help they need.” We seem to want to mimic Europe where “The purpose of life is to while away the time between birth and death as pleasantly as possible.” He observes that the more we pass laws and regulations, the closer we move to the European welfare state, and the American Project will be dead.
One of the harshest statements the author makes is how the members of the new upper class won’t use derogatory labels for anyone, including criminals. “When you get down to it, it is not acceptable in the new upper class to use derogatory labels for anyone, with three exceptions: people with differing political views, fundamentalist Christians, and rural working-class whites.”
The book does leave hope that a new awakening will overtake the country. This could be based on the “…most lovable of exceptional American qualities: our tradition of insisting that we are part of the middle class even if we aren’t, and of interacting with our fellow citizens as if we were all middle class.” That will require that the American new upper class “…must once again fall in love with what makes America different.”
The Nurture Assumption, Why Children Turn Out the Way They Do
This book by Judith Rich Harris presents some radical ideas that peer groups have much more influence on children than parents. I know that the information is radical, because people I’ve told about the theme are universally skeptical. However, I will say that the evidence presented in the book is quite compelling. The author wrote in 1995, “Do parents have any important long-term effects on the development of their child’s personality? This article…concludes that the answer is no.” She expected the academic world that universally believed nurturing to be crucial would be angry, but she reports instead that they were mostly curious.
The skepticism of others is addressed by the author. She expects that people will have difficulty believing what she wrote. Behavioral geneticists continue to search for the key to why parents are more important. “It’s got to be in there somewhere! Everybody knows parents make a difference! Fifty thousand psychologists couldn’t possibly be wrong!” However, she presents very personal information to validate, at least in her personal experience, why her ideas are correct. Her family moved to an area where the school had “snooty” children who would not play or talk to her. She became inhibited and read a lot. The family moved again in the eighth grade, the new group of kids designated her as a “brain,” and she made a few friends on that basis. However, she remained inhibited. The snooty kids had succeeded at changing her personality.
The first paragraph of the book discusses how the author as a teenager would respond to her parents yelling at her that “…if they didn’t like the way I was turning out they had no one to blame but themselves: they had provided both my heredity and my environment.” What eventually changed her mind was what she considers to be compelling evidence that parents have little to do with the environmental part of the equation. The peer group of the child provides nearly everything of importance. The power of the peer group is reinforced by the demand at home that children not behave like their parents. They can’t drive cars, light matches, boss people around, come and go as they please, and in general not do “…lots of things that look like fun…” Kids quickly learn that what they learn at home about expected behavior will be “…cast off when they step outside as easily as they shed the dorky sweater their mother made them wear.”
One example of information that validates the author’s theories is that many people struggle with why children raised in the same home do not turn out the same. Behavioral geneticists found that growing up in the same home with the same parents “…had little or no effect on the adult personalities of siblings.” There is even a comment that children with homosexual parents have no increase in being homosexuals. Another example is that children living homes where a language other than English is spoken learn to speak English without an accent. An example given late in the book is about a child in a Chinese-speaking home who asks for milk by saying “nai, nai” at home and “ba ba” at daycare. Sons of upper class English families who are raised by nannies until they go to exclusive schools and seldom have any contact with their fathers grow up to be just like their fathers. Both of them were molded by the environment at the schools with no impact from their family life, or lack of a family life. The peer group is demanding, and children work hard to fit in. They know that there will be penalties for behaving differently than expected. The adage, “The nail that sticks up is hammered down” applies.
I had several surprises from the book. One was that studies have not found any consistent differences between only children and children with siblings. Minor differences “…sometimes favor the only child, sometimes the child with the siblings.” Another surprise is that birth order doesn’t make a difference in the way children turn out.
One study that impressively validates the author’s idea included twenty boys selected for an experiment based on their similarities. They were randomly divided into two groups in a camp area and not told about the other group. They named themselves the “Rattlers” and “Eagles,” and in true Lord of the Flies tradition became bitter enemies. They were soon gathering sticks and stones to do battle with the other group.
I searched the book for information that could be used by parents who want to validate that their parenting efforts will make a difference in the outcome of raising their kids. Asian-American parents are likely to be quite authoritarian, and their children are the most likely to turn out competent and successful. The author writes that home life usually has some small influence, but there are exceptions. “It is time to admit that I have been misleading you: the correlation between behavior at home and behavior outside the home may be low, but it is not zero.” “Parents influence the way their children behave at home. They also supply knowledge and training that their children can take with them…” The author also notes that children conceived by donor insemination and raised by lesbians or by single or married heterosexuals turned out “well adjusted and well-behaved.” I infer from this information that children are positively influenced by parents who want them.
There was also an example of identical twins adopted to different families. One piano-teacher mother offered lessons, but did not insist. The non-musical mother insisted the other twin take lessons and practice. The child raised with the non-demanding musical mother grew up unable to play a note. The other child became a concert pianist. That seems to be solid evidence that dedicated parenting can make a difference. Another was the story of The Ditchdigger’s Daughters. The laborer father and chambermaid mother had five daughters, and the man’s fellow workers teased him about being unable to father sons. He responded by insisting his daughters would be women of accomplishment. He told them they were going to grow up to be doctors, and he established that the peer group would be the five girls. Two of the daughters indeed became physicians, one an oral surgeon, on a lawyer, and one a court stenographer.
As a final observation, the author notes that children of two smart people are smarter in part because of heredity. Those parents often do a good job of raising their kids because they enjoy parenting smart kids. They usually work hard to get their kids into good schools with good teachers, where the peer groups in that atmosphere is much more likely to provide a positive influence. However, it needs to be understood that the world outside the home is tough. Parents at home might tell a child that something they did made the parent feel bad. On the playground they are told “You shithead!”
I believe the most important advice to parents is that they should understand the influence the peer group. The author advises, “At least in the early years, they can determine who the child’s peers are.” The author closes with, “As for what’s wrong with you” don’t blame your parents.”
Playing Hooky
This means to miss going to somewhere that you were expected, and is commonly used to mean not going to work or school. There are various ideas of where the expression originated. The Urban Dictionary thinks it is probably from the Dutch word hoekje, which is their term for a hide and seek game that had players searching for a hidden object. Schoolchildren began using “hooky” to mean skipping school in the nineteenth century. Another less likely possibility is that the term originated with the verb hook, which means “to steal.”
Night of the Silver Stars: The Battle of Lang Vei
This book by William R. Phillips is an account of battle which began February 6, 1968 at a U.S. Special Forces Camp in Vietnam. This “review” is a departure from what is usually posted, because it is based partly on the book, partly on historical information, and partly on information presented at a recent military reunion by one of the men who was in the battle.
The battle was part of the Khe Sahn campaign by the North Vietnamese. That campaign began with an attack on a Laotian outpost called Ban Huoei Sane manned by 700 Laotian soldiers. Tanks were used in that attack, and the surprised Laotians retreated toward Lang Vei after three hours of battle. The North Vietnamese soldiers and tanks followed to attack Lang Vei where there was a small contingent of U.S. Special Forces and a large number of Laotian and South Vietnamese soldiers. Reinforcements were requested from the Marines at nearby Khe Sahn, but that base refused to believe the reports and send reinforcements. They were skeptical that the report was some sort of ploy to set up an ambush for reinforcements. They did provide artillery support and there was air support.
Three of the North Vietnamese tanks attacking Lang Vei were destroyed by the camp’s one 106mm recoilless rifle operated by Sergeant First Class James W. Holt. However, other tanks quickly penetrated the camp and destroyed several bunkers with their guns. Light anti-tank weapons (LAWs) either malfunctioned or failed to knock out the tanks. One of my favorite comments in the book was by a soldier who observed that the tanks must be “medium tanks,” because the “light anti-tank weapons” (which refers to the portability and not the strength of the weapon) were ineffective.
The command bunker was the only position that held until the morning of February 7. South Vietnamese soldiers in the bunker responded to an order to surrender and were killed when they exited via the stairway. Wikipedia lists that there were a total of 316 camp defenders killed, 75 wounded, and 253 captured.
The title of the book reflects the extraordinary number of Silver Stars awarded for valor in combat. There were twenty-four Americans at the battle, and there was one posthumous Medal of Honor awarded to Sgt. Eugene Ashley, Jr., one Distinguished Service Cross, nineteen Silver Stars, and three Bronze Stars awarded. One reference lists that all of the Americans were either killed (3), wounded (11), or listed as missing or captured (10). Wikipedia gives different numbers, but I am inclined to believe this reference.
The book is full of details about weapons, vehicles, and tactics. Phillips gives an engaging account of the battle, what went well, and what went wrong. Despite all that went wrong a few U.S. Special Forces personnel were eventually able to fight their way out and escape from the camp to be evacuated by Marine helicopters.
I will briefly summarize the personal experience of Paul Longgrear who was an American officer at the battle, although I know I won’t do his account justice. He was one of the men trapped in the command bunker. The NVA attempted unsuccessfully to collapse the bunker with the weight of their tanks and began dropping fragmentation and tear gas (CS) grenades into vents. The tear gas caused the occupants to press their faces into corners of the bunker in a desperate attempt to find some kind of fresh air. They finally decided to make a break, obviously knowing what had happened to the South Vietnamese who had attempted to surrender. Lt. Longgrear ordered that no one was to stop for anyone else if they went down. They had practically no ammunition, but charged up the stairwell and into the open while firing what few rounds they had remaining.
Lt. Longgrear fired his weapon until it jammed, and then began running. His ankle gave out, and he did a complete flip. He was left by the other escaping soldiers as he had ordered. He said he was challenged by God as he lay in a heap “What are you going to do NOW?” He ran to the top of a rise where he was seen by the other soldiers who had thought the reason he went down so dramatically was that he had been hit. He made it out of the compound and was evacuated. He was awarded a Silver Star for his actions in the battle.
Cut the Mustard
The expression means to meet an expected standard, but is often used in the negative, such as, “The performance did not cut the mustard.” There are several theories on the origin, but The Phrase Finder believes it came from “the heat and piquancy of mustard and the zest and energy of people’s behavior.” “Cutting” has long been used to mean “exhibiting” as in “cutting a fine figure.” Therefore, cutting the mustard is “…an alternative way of saying ‘exhibiting one’s high standards’.” The Iowa State Reporter used the expression ‘Cut the Mustard’ in 1897.