text:
Changing Family Expectations: Implications for Missions
Posted on October 1, 1989 by October 1, 1989
by Karen Wrobbel
Today's missionary candidates bring new family expectations to cross-cultural missions. The question we must ask, though, is whether their expectations are biblical or simply cultural.
"We're considering missions," they told me. A young couple with two elementary school-age children, they said they were thinking about going to France. They said, "In France, you see, we won't have to send our children away to boarding school. We would never do that." They never went.
Another couple interested in overseas service had made some inquiries with a well-known board. "I'd really like to do it," said the young seminarian, "but they'd require my wife to work, and we feel she needs to be at home with our children." He went into the pastorate.
Missionaries and missionary candidates reflect our larger society. They are products of their culture. Generally, they acknowledge that and are prepared to adjust and adapt for cross-cultural ministry.
However, one place where they do not always recognize their own cultural grid is in family relationships. Recent years have seen changes in North American family patterns. As society has changed, the evangelical community has changed. There's a greater emphasis on family and family issues.
Consequently, today's missionary candidates bring new family expectations to cross-cultural missions. The question we must ask, though, is whether their expectations are biblical or simply cultural.
ROLE OF THE WORK AND THE FAMILY
Traditionally, evangelicals have emphasized the cost and sacrifice of missions. Jesus said, "If anyone comes to me and does not hate his father and mother, his wife and children, his brothers and sisters, —yes, even his own life—he cannot be my disciple" (Lk. 14:26). An extreme application of this verse led to "sacrificing the family on the altar of the ministry," or concluding that when one does God's work, God will take care of the family. This extreme view has rightly been condemned.
However, today as evangelical churches put greater emphasis on good families, prospective missionaries make their families a priority. Again, the problem arises from extreme applications of a worthy goal. As the pendulum has swung in the other direction, perhaps in some cases it has gone too far. Out of the laudable concern that the missionary family not be "sacrificed on the altar of the work" has come what Ray Chester has called "family idolatry."
Mission boards see this extreme reflected in their candidates, Because of the growing mood in the States that the family be the greatest priority, candidates may approach missions with a philosophy of God first, family second, and ministry third.
But life cannot be so easily compartmentalized. Some days "family" requires extra time and attention and "the work" get a bare minimum. Other days the demands of the ministry cut in on family time at home. Robert Campbell, director of training for Greater Europe Mission, says, "It is artificial to list priorities even in this country."
The apostle Paul told the Corinthian believers, "Whether you eat or drink or whatever you do, do it all for the glory of God" (1 Cor. 10:31). We are commanded to make disciples; husbands are to love their wives; fathers are to train their children—all to the glory of God.
I am not suggesting that we return to the days of sacrificing family for ministry. Research shows that there can be long-term negative effects when missionary parents put their work ahead of their children. The point is that all believers, including missionaries, need to balance their multiple demands. For those who place such high values on their families, that balance is not always apparent. "To do God's work at the expense of the family can lead to disaster for the children. To place such an emphasis on the family that no sacrifice to accomplish God's work is acceptable can lead to a life of spiritual barrenness."
THE ROLE OF THE WIFE
Another family issue is the wife's role in missions. A missionary who attended the Urbana '87 student missionary convention noted that one question frequently asked by students related to the mission's expectations of the missionary wife. Because of renewed emphasis in some quarters in the States that the wife's responsibilities primarily are in the home, prospective missionaries come with the expectation that on the mission field only the husband will be in the ministry.
Mission boards do not necessarily buy that. For example, Wycliffe Bible Translators requires wives to be involved in the work. Paul Nelson, of Wycliffe's Children's Education Department, admits that their policy is a stumbling block to some potential workers.
Other agencies take a different approach, appointing both the husband and the wife as missionaries, but without specific work assignments for the wife. For example, The Evangelical Alliance Mission's policy states, "The wife must give priority to the care of the home and children, but she must not lose sight of the potential for a wider spiritual ministry." In another mission, "the husband is assigned to a ministry, and the wife searches" to discover her ministry role.
Our renewed emphasis on the home also affects missionary wives who want to do more in mission work. The wife who sees herself called by God to be a missionary as well as a wife and mother, and who desires to combine these roles, sometimes gets pressure from other missionaries as well as supporters to limit herself to her home. No matter what she does, she faces possible criticism.
A third area of changing evangelical family perspectives relates to the education of missionary children.
Home schooling. The home schooling movement has significantly influenced missionary candidates. James Dobson has said, "Home schooling is the wave of the future. In addition to the advantages, it provides an alternative to a humanistic public school or an expensive (or nonexistent) Christian school."
Missionaries have taught their children at home for years, but candidates now come with a total philosophy about home schooling. Jim Smotherman, assistant superintendent for children's education at Wycliffe, says, "Many young couples are making specific demands about their desire to do home schooling in a missions context."
One of the gurus of home schooling is Raymond Moore, who with his wife Dorothy, wrote Home Grown Kids, Moore writes, "History has never uncovered a better educational system than the warm one-on-one response of a concerned parent to his child." Stressing the importance of the family, he writes: "No schoolroom can match the simplicity and power of the home in providing three-dimensional, first-hand education. The school, not the home, is the substitute, and its highest function is to complement the family. The family is still the social base, and must be, if our society is to survive."
Home schooling, with its stress on the foundational role of the home, offers missionary parents a way to maintain the primacy of the family. But some missionaries are not even willing to consider that some other educational options might serve them and their children better.
Those committed to home schooling sometimes make the practice a theological issue. They imply that since home schooling is the only way, those who do not do it are falling short of God's best. That creates enormous tensions in a missions setting.
For good relations among the missions family, flexibility must replace dogmatism on this issue. Prospective missionaries should give serious heed to the experiences of veteran missionaries, who have discovered that the reasons for home schooling in North America may not be valid overseas.
For example, another leader in the home schooling movement, John Holt, lists six reasons why parents do home schooling, including the desire to avoid government interference; the desire for more time to be with their children and to protect them mentally, physically, and spiritually; and the desire to avoid what they consider to be incompetent public schools. While some of these reasons might apply in certain missions settings, generalizations about schooling in the United States cannot be applied across-the-board overseas.
Boarding school. Candidates also question the boarding school option. "There is almost universal resistance to boarding school, even among single missionaries," says Wycliffe's Nelson. One reason for this is the influence of pro-family leaders like Dobson, who writes:
I've dealt with the children of missionaries, many of whom have become bitter and resentful of the sacrifices they were required to make. They were deprived of a secure home at a critical stage in their development and experienced deep emotional wounds in the process. Consequently, adolescent rebellion was common among these angry young people who resented their parents and the God who sent them abroad. Based on these observations, it is my firm conviction that the family unit of missionaries should remain intact, if at all possible. I cannot overemphasize the importance of parental support and love during the formative years of life.
Of course, young children need the comfort and security of their parents. Mission executives know this and they have changed their policies. For example, the Africa Inland Mission used to put children in boarding school by second grade, but now children often remain with their parents until fifth or sixth grade. Black Forest Academy in West Germany does not offer boarding until seventh grade. Other schools, while offering boarding for elementary grades, discourage it for younger children.
Candidates need not block out the boarding option totally. Failure to consider the possibility of boarding school in some circumstances creates serious problems. Again, not knowing field conditions, candidates are ill-prepared to adopt inflexible positions.
Ed Danielson, a clinical psychologist and former superintendent of Faith Academy, the Philippines, says that the children who struggle the most with boarding school are the ones whose parents told them that they would never be sent to one. "The child feels deceived, and his entire system of values which he has acquired from his parents will doubtless be altered under the circumstances."
There are no easy solutions Smotherman concludes: "Cross-cultural mission activity, especially overseas, is a difficult endeavor. Those engaged in missions… must be flexible in lifestyle, and also in the matter of caring for and educating their own children."
IMPLICATION FOR MISSIONS
Clearly, missionary candidates have new perspectives on family issues. Their perspectives grow out of teaching designed for North America. Mission organizations and mission educators must help prospective missionaries contextualize their perspectives on family to the missions setting.
Mission boards and mission educators need to be resources for the candidate, and the prospective candidate, in working through the applications of family issues on the mission field. Rather than being perceived as the problem ("They might make me put my kids in boarding school"), they should be seen as steps to solutions.
Contextualization of family issues begins with mission educators in colleges and seminaries. Students can be encouraged to examine the issues and to keep open minds before adopting hard-line positions prior to going to the field. They can examine work and family priorities—"and the role of missionary wives—"in the light of Scripture and then learn how missionaries have balanced these priorities and roles satisfactorily. Students can learn how to test their opinions against Scripture and society and the demands of missionary work. Various educational options can be looked at objectively in the classroom.
During the pre-field process, mission boards can provide many resources for family guidance. Opportunities to dialogue with experienced missionaries give candidates a chance to find out what things are really like on the field. They can weigh their family expectations in the light of wiser heads. They can discuss educational options with missionaries who have done different things themselves. Missionary wives who have wrestled with their roles can help new missionaries put their apprehensions to rest. Of course, if such dialogue is to be fruitful, it must not be directed or forced to "convert" the candidate to preconceived norms.
It's wise to consider sending pre-field missionaries to family seminars. Such programs could cover education and role issues, coping with stress, the effects of moving on children, and family communication, for example. Mission agencies need to consider the significant benefits of providing more resources to help families make the adjustment to life overseas as families.
On the field, missionary families need help, too. Fewer resources are available to help sort out problems and tensions. Conferences and counseling can open the way to discussions about practical matters. If this is done in caring, nonthreatening ways, many hidden sore points can be brought to the surface.
One missionary wife told me that her first year on the field was the worst year of her entire life. Her pre-field role expectations clashed sharply with the on-field realities. She illustrates the need wives have for help in finding their niche on the field. Often, husbands are the key to the satisfactory solution of this problem. They can learn how to affirm their wives in the responsibilities in the home and in the ministry.
Among the resources mission agencies could provide are books and tapes. Regular information from the home office should include reviews of appropriate resources. Field directors should have these items in their libraries. If the mission has a magazine, timely, practical "helps" should be published there.
The current evangelical emphasis on family priorities is important and valuable for church families and society as a whole. It's too late for mission agencies to try to fit today's candidates into yesterday's molds. Rather, they and the colleges and seminaries must focus on giving the proper missionary and cross-cultural perspectives on family issues. In time, as field leaders give more attention to tools for quality family life on the field, candidates will not so easily see the recruiting agencies as the enemies of family life, but as the friends and encouragers of it.
Copyright © 1989 Evangelism and Missions Information Service (EMIS). All rights reserved. Not to be reproduced or copied in any form without written permission from EMIS.
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Beagle's Song
From Chris Wayan's journal, 1994/1/18
I'm feeling strange. I just read Peter S. Beagle's new novel "The Innkeeper's Song" page by page, admiring the writing (especially the fox, and the stories within stories, but ALL the voices are so nicely, subtly different)... yet I ALSO kept hearing a buzzing little overtone like one loose guitar string: Beagle muttering "I'll show them I can do realistic rounded characters!"
Odd, because all his books, no matter how bizarre their worlds, always had real characters. Not realistic, just... real. Archetypal embodiments of ways that beings CAN live, even. Yet they're individual too. It's his greatest talent--to simultaneously write realism, fantasy, and spiritual allegory. That's rare! Dante, Shakespeare...who else?
Yet Beagle doubts himself, doubts his own power, worries about plots and stories... At one point, facing death, Lal the storyteller thinks "I can still do it, still tell a story..." And it sounds dangerously autobiographical. All those years of doing film scripts to pay the bills, facing the studio ogres--did Beagle pay a price in doubt?
I dunno. Maybe I'm just a grumpy junkie deprived of my Beagle fix for a decade, not sure I wanna start up my habit again, now that my dealer's out of economic prison. How long before he's back in?
Something else "Innkeeper" brought to the surface: I notice a motif in his stories recurring over thirty years: the pale, unearthly woman with odd talents but memory loss from having been in the other world! Amalthea in "The Last Unicorn", filling old Haggard's halls with light even as she forgets who she is... And Lukassa, returned from death, memory lost, filled with white light... And even the young witch who wants to be included in the Society for Creative Anachronism, in "Folk of the Air"... at the end, she forgets it all, her battle in the other realm, to become a blank, worldly teen.
Strange. I wonder if I notice this because I'm afflicted with memory loss so much now myself. Forgetting my dreams, my spirit-life...
And trying, as long as we're being honest here, to forget much of my waking life. Because, like King Haggard, if it doesn't make me happy, I drop it back on the ground and walk away.
Even if--especially if--what doesn't make me happy is me.
INTERLUDE WITH A WEREWOLF
Well. It's a month or two later, and I just reread Beagle's short story "Lila the Werewolf"--about a deteriorating relationship. It's a fantasy full of 60s New York cynicism, with this astonishing, downright guilty, disclaimer at the end:
"This story was written very long ago, in another world, by a young man to whom the idea of equating womanhood with lycanthropy, sexual desire with blood and death and humiliation, seemed no more at the time than a casual grisly joke. I would write "Lila the Werewolf" today, but not for that reason, and not in that way."
I've never seen an author OK a reprint of his work, yet say he's so ashamed of it, distance himself so clinically from his former self, yet re-expose that self. And "casual"? I always sympathized with Lila and thought her lover Farrell and his buddy were intentionally portrayed as calloused, stunted by sexism and the need to be cool--merciless skewered, painfully true to the era. It never seemed casual.
Silly me.
He doth protest too much. Does Beagle need to be seen as sensitive, nonsexist, noncynical? Though his much later novel "Folk of the Air", in which Farrell has supposedly grown up, has an equally cruel portrait of a young girl as a monster--like Lila, an object. Not a sex object, but a meanness object, an adolescent shallowness object, deliberately contrasted with the older woman who turns out to be a goddess. Instead of madonna and whore, we have Goddess and Barbie, spirit and plastic. Can't a girl be ordinary flesh? Too?
Heh. Like other writers have this little problem allllll sewed up. Yeah.
INNKEEPER'S SONG
I'm rereading this, fascinated. Only this time I'm looking at the bones not the skin. Or fur, in the fox's case. Innkeeper's starting to look like an oddly formal experiment: how to create a world that'll let you present a dreamlike sexual image as literal and real. He's said the book grew from a song he wrote--but I still wonder if that song grew from a dream. More than any of his other books, it hinges on a handful of vivid tableaux--and Beagle's never relied on visual images before--it's sound and feeling that drive him. Mood and music, word and voice. I've spent so many years dressing up dreams as stories before learning to send them out naked, that I'm probably just seeing myself in him. But right or wrong, I hear an undertone in "Innkeeper" as if he's trying to justify their foursome, morally or emotionally, as love, as magic. Well, no, not morally, but fictionally. Beagle starts with a mysterious crystalline image, and forges a setting, an explanation--as if he couldn't just show that strange jewel with no setting. As if he's a bit bewildered by the floating image himself.
Yeah, of course I'm guessing, projecting. This struggle to "set" inexplicable but unforgettable images is just what I face in telling dreams as stories. No wonder his work affects me so! We've lived very different lives, but we share underlying issues. A sensitivity, but also a need to be seen as sensitive. Like political correctness, yet not quite.
Okay, it's six months later now. I just reread "Innkeeper's Song." Still simultaneously fascinating and frustrating. Beagle's experiments (like Jonathan Carroll's) feel like my own work (though far more worldly and sophisticated, of course). What brought me back to wrestle with "Innkeeper" is that I suspect I can learn how to focus my own dreamtales better, if I can see why Innkeeper simultaneously pleases and bugs me.
What's the focus? In a way, I think it's the old wizard, if only because he's the only character never narrating or named (or he'd have to confirm or deny the green-eyed rumor he's Schmendrick). But that doesn't TROUBLE me. Nothing wrong with it as an experiment. It's something else... Oh!
Lots of us writers create a sketchy physical world, a mere backdrop for emotional dramas. Figure and field! The lack of a coherent physical world was no problem in "The Last Unicorn" because he had such a sharp philosophical focus--the importance for mortals of magic, unearthly beauty, the perspective of immortality... and vice versa, for immortals. Im/mortality transforms Molly, Lir, Amalthea, Schmendrick, the old men, even bends Haggard himself, almost, almost... Beagle grabs an almost science-fictional premise, the catalytic effects of immortals on mortals and of mortals on immortals, and won't let go.
Yet in most of his other books Beagle acts like it's immature for a writer to be a moralist or metaphysician... he sprinkles passages (or characters) that are moral or comforting with little landmines of amorality. As if amorality is inherently sophisticated, or grown-up, or true.
Maybe I don't mean amorality--science may lack an explicit morality, but it sure has a worldview! Does Beagle practice acosmology, is that a word? Either the lack of clear notions about existence, or the refusal to commit to a picture! A writer can stick to the material world, or write of spirit worlds, but if neither world feels true... "A Fine and Private Place" has a vague, rather silly picture of death and the spirit world--ghosts are real, yet tightly bound to their graveyards, yet slowly lose interest in the world and go to sleep at last. Makes little sense, and you wouldn't build a world that way, whether you're Darwin, Blavatsky, or God. The ghosts feel emotionally real given their world, but they seem trapped in a rigged game. In "Innkeeper," Lukassa describes death as even worse, and she should know. The other version of a ghost, the griga'ath, is worse yet: all that power, but full of an oddly impersonal malice. It seems to lack an "I". Can you retain high-level abilities without a sense of self? How? Why? And why turn mean?
There's a casual cruelty in Beagle's work, not just the early, but the late, too. Not that his characters are cruel: it's his worlds' STRUCTURAL cruelty, and his characters' resignation to it. The cruelty of being spiritually cheated--universes where magic and spirit worlds are attainable, but the other world is a bad acid trip, and society seems unable to teach its magicians how to use their gifts for anything constructive, and death is like a Motel 6... granted, that's subtle in a world (and genre) full of brutality... it's a subtle despair, but it's analogous to the crumbled landscapes and morality of cyberpunk or film noir. "Unicorn" is timeless; "Innkeeper" feels 20th Century. "Unicorn" excepted, Beagle's bones are scientific under the fantasy skin: you're all alone in an impersonal world, and wishin' don't make it so. It reminds me a bit of Jonathan Carroll's world. You may get one inadequate, ambiguous warning, or none... but then you're spiritually abandoned, doomed. Carroll specializes more in guilt... but the worldview's the same.
Yet if there's one thing I've learned in the dream world, it's that mind and spirit do matter, wishes are horses (and horses aren't always), transcendence does happen, you get more chances to get it right, and the other side is a pretty friendly place--unless you step into that astral bar looking for trouble. Like cypunks and noir fans, lots of folks are decay junkies. It's comforting. No need to live up to much, if you expect the world to be shit. Speaking from personal experience.
Beagle orbits around this question of "spirits in the material world" in every book. It's always there, but he rarely goes face-to-face with it, except in "Unicorn," and it's the most satisfying for me precisely because he does. In fact I think that's part of the explanation for its famously inexplicable appeal. He had the nerve to write from an immortal's viewpoint, and the skill to pull it off. And her view endorses a love of life, of mortal life, that leaves an aftertaste of joy. That joy is shakier in the other books, and I don't think it's Beagle's mood. I think it's intellectual--his assumptions about spirituality. They're different in his other books (as they have to be--the limitations of the ghosts in "A Fine and Private Place" for example are central to the plot) and that constrains something that in "Unicorn" and very few other stories--in very few lives--is so gloriously free.
Why such gloomy, stilted, griga'athy metaphysical assumptions? Is it just that he doesn't know enough firsthand about that world to make it ring true? I'm a dreamworker, I spend time in that world, I have strong opinions. Beagle writes news reports on my home town, so I bitch when he blows the details. I'm much more tolerant of loose renderings of the material world, a place I've traveled much less in. I know the place poorly, so it doesn't disrupt the story for me to have a New York dialect slightly wrong (as John Gardner complained about another "realist" writer), or a shaky view of academic feuding (Leguin's "The Dispossessed" got dissed for this). Do I care? It's all Mars to me. I haven't been to New York, or the anarchist world of Anarres. But I've dreamed, oh have I dreamed! I know the customs, the dialects, the territory.
Hmm. What ANNOYS you may say more about your spiritual home-base than what you LOVE.
Beagle annoys me subtly and deeply and often--because he has the courage to tackle an issue that's subtle and deep. Often. And I'm grateful. It's easy to bore me; but annoyance? Now that's rare--and useful.
FROM TAMSIN TO EMILIA (a note added 2002)
Beagle's recent books have been facing metaphysics more directly than he has since THE LAST UNICORN. "Tamsin" and even, in a way, "The Unicorn Sonata" show newer models of afterlives and spirit worlds that feel less limited by Western materialism; going furthest of all is "Dance for Emilia", a strange novella about a dancer Beagle knew who dies but apparently returns to possess a pet cat, and then reincarnates as a child and again stubbornly sets out to dance... it explores the emotional consequences of reincarnation on others, not just on the self... a theme Ian Stevenson's nonfictional classic "Twenty Cases Suggestive of Reincarnation" showed (in its quiet, dry way) is a huge issue for the living, and not in the wishful ways most skeptics think (families of kids who say they recall a previous life are often upset and try to hush it up). Having dabbled so much in psychic dream research, I know firsthand how uncomfortable mere telepathy or prediction can be for some people. Beagle tackled something very awkward for Americans to face, and I'm glad he took the risk.
Maybe I'm wrong, but I see a steady move in his recent work toward wrestling with the intellectual assumptions West and East make about consciousness and spirituality--a deliberate approach now, not the intuitive leap of his early books, especially "Unicorn". It means to me that Beagle may have something profound to say in the next few books--even if he himself doesn't think so. Because he's returning to his lifelong theme, but consciously, with mature powers--and it's a theme giving everyone the willies. Fantasy, sure, dress it up as fantasy... but exploring in full seriousness the possibility we construe life wrong, death wrong, reality wrong?
Ouch is good.
I look forward to ouch.
LISTS AND LINKS: Links lists a Beagle fansite with a good booklist - an epic dream riffing on "The Last Unicorn": Black Magic- a dream of a descendant of "The Last Unicorn": Bastard Unicorn - writing and writers - unicorns in general - sex dreams - gender issues - focus! - reincarnation - other rants

redpajama_set_name: RedPajamaCommonCrawl


text:
Dewitt R. Smith Papers
Identifier: MSS.1011
This collection contains 49 letters from DeWitt Smith to his sweetheart, Marion, while serving in the Air Force during the Korean War in 1952. There is also a gold-colored name place and a photograph of Smith in flight fatigues.
Beginning as an Airman Basic, Smith was sent to Sampson Air Force Base in Seneca Lake, New York in May 1952, only a few years after the branch had been established. "I just officially started my basic training at Sampson on the above date...ever since then we have been marching, marching, marching, and more marching." Sampson was last used as a training facility during the Korean conflict and was ultimately closed in 1956. During 1952, training was sporadic and could span anywhere between 4 and 12 weeks due to the urgent need to get soldiers prepared and overseas as quickly as possible. "Next week we will be shooting carbines or a twenty two rifle. I can't 'hit the broad side of a barn' and they're going to try to teach me to shoot a gun. They will never do it. Isn't that something? They teach us about a carbine in class and we shoot a twenty two rifle, but that's the Air Force for you."
In August he was sent to Frances E. Warren Air Force base in Cheyenne, Wyoming to attend combat school before being sent overseas. "It is going to be fun going to school here because half the class is made up of W.A.F.S. [Women in the Air Force or Women's Auxiliary Ferrying Squadron]. Don't take me serious I am just teasing you. I wouldn't even look at any of them twice." His attitude towards his female colleagues was typical for the time. Women training with men was controversial, as they had only recently been integrated into the service in 1948. This airbase was one that attempted to embrace the new way of doing things, especially since being unprepared for the conflict lead to a greater need for volunteers of any gender.
Smith spends most of this time lamenting the distance between himself and Marion, not impressed by the Air Force or the girls in Wyoming: "I went to a dance Saturday and Sunday night. I had a pretty good time except for the girls around here don't know how to jitterbug the way you do." His final orders were given to him as he was about to leave for home, "I am not going overseas...I am going to a place where the sun shines all the time, where there is hardly any snow. You guessed it Florida." He would serve the remainder of his tour at Eglin Air Force base.
This collection may be viewed only in the reading room of Special Collections in the Jean and Alexander Heard Library. Collections should be requested 2-3 days prior to visiting in order to facilitate easier access. For questions or to request a collection, contact specialcollections@vanderbilt.edu.
.21 Linear Feet (1 Half-Hollinger box)
Envelopes were clipped to their letters when the letters were undated. If dated, the envelopes were placed at the end of the folder.
Korean War, 1950-1953
United States. Air Force
Finding Aid for the Dewitt R. Smith Papers
Part of the Vanderbilt University Special Collections Repository
http://www.library.vanderbilt.edu/specialcollections/
Jean and Alexander Heard Library
419 21st Avenue South
Nashville TN 37203 United States
specialcollections@vanderbilt.edu
Dewitt R. Smith Papers, Box and/or folder # (if applicable), Special Collections Library, Vanderbilt University, Nashville, TN.
Dewitt R. Smith Papers, Box and/or folder # (if applicable), Special Collections Library, Vanderbilt University, Nashville, TN. https://collections.library.vanderbilt.edu/repositories/2/resources/2010 Accessed January 31, 2023.


text:
Q: Android async http Internal Server Error I'm send a post request using Android async http and it seems that the response is null. I think it's because onSuccess of AsyncHttpResponseHandler doesn't get called. Here is my post request:
final String response[] = new String[1];
PersistentCookieStore myCookieStore = new PersistentCookieStore(act);
client.setCookieStore(myCookieStore);
RequestParams params = new RequestParams();
params.put("user_id", username);
params.put("password", password);
//other params
client.post(url, params, new AsyncHttpResponseHandler() {
    @Override
     public void onSuccess(int res, Header[] headers, byte[] body ) {
        //Logs don't get called
        Log.i("test", ""+res);
        Log.i("test", new String(body));
            response[0] = ""+ res;
            response[1] = new String(body);
    }
});
return response;

EDIT:
After adding onFailure and printing the stack, I get this:
org.apache.http.client.HttpResponseException: Internal Server Error
12-29 13:42:12.450    2359-2386/com.sblive.aufschoolbliz W/System.err﹕ at com.loopj.android.http.AsyncHttpResponseHandler.sendResponseMessage(AsyncHttpResponseHandler.java:440)
12-29 13:42:12.450    2359-2386/com.sblive.aufschoolbliz W/System.err﹕ at com.loopj.android.http.AsyncHttpRequest.makeRequest(AsyncHttpRequest.java:78)
12-29 13:42:12.454    2359-2386/com.sblive.aufschoolbliz W/System.err﹕ at com.loopj.android.http.AsyncHttpRequest.makeRequestWithRetries(AsyncHttpRequest.java:91)
12-29 13:42:12.454    2359-2386/com.sblive.aufschoolbliz W/System.err﹕ at com.loopj.android.http.AsyncHttpRequest.run(AsyncHttpRequest.java:54)
12-29 13:42:12.458    2359-2386/com.sblive.aufschoolbliz W/System.err﹕ at java.util.concurrent.Executors$RunnableAdapter.call(Executors.java:390)
12-29 13:42:12.458    2359-2386/com.sblive.aufschoolbliz W/System.err﹕ at java.util.concurrent.FutureTask.run(FutureTask.java:234)
12-29 13:42:12.458    2359-2386/com.sblive.aufschoolbliz W/System.err﹕ at java.util.concurrent.ThreadPoolExecutor.runWorker(ThreadPoolExecutor.java:1080)
12-29 13:42:12.462    2359-2386/com.sblive.aufschoolbliz W/System.err﹕ at java.util.concurrent.ThreadPoolExecutor$Worker.run(ThreadPoolExecutor.java:573)
12-29 13:42:12.462    2359-2386/com.sblive.aufschoolbliz W/System.err﹕ at java.lang.Thread.run(Thread.java:841)

A:
Its actually http error 500 (internal server error). This problem is caused server side not client side. Please to try get the response code it will 500. Ultimately it should be handled at server side not client.

redpajama_set_name: RedPajamaStackExchange


text:
The Biden administration has defended some of former President Trump's pesticide decisions
Although President Joe Biden has promised to limit people's exposure to "dangerous chemicals and pesticides," his administration has defended several actions by the Trump administration that generally deregulated pesticides.
by Johnathan Hettinger, Investigate Midwest July 8, 2021 December 8, 2021
Credit: Meyer Agri-Air
In his first day in office, President Joe Biden promised to review dozens of Trump-era rollbacks of environmental policies. In the executive order, Biden pledged "to limit exposure to dangerous chemicals and pesticides."
But months into the new presidency, the Biden administration has chosen to defend some of the Trump administration's decisions on pesticides.
The Trump administration's five-year registration of dicamba, despite Biden administration officials declaring in an Inspector General report that there was undue political influence in past dicamba decisions.
The 11th-hour Trump approval of aldicarb, a highly toxic pesticide banned in more than a hundred countries by international treaty because of its harm to humans. The D.C. District Court recently ruled the EPA violated the law in approving it.
The expanded use of the pesticide sulfoxaflor, which has been previously banned by courts because of its link to killing bees.
And the Trump administration's approval of flea and tick collars containing tetrachlorvinphos, which the Obama-era EPA linked to brain damage in children.
Another stark example is the endangered species assessment of malathion (pronounced mal-uh-thigh-on), a toxic pesticide widely used on crops and to deter mosquitoes.
In 2017, the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service finalized a draft biological opinion that assessed the harm malathion would have on plants and animals protected by the Endangered Species Act. That assessment, which took years of work by the nation's wildlife experts, found the continued use of malathion would "jeopardize the continued existence" of 1,284 endangered species, more than four of out five protected species.
However, after learning about the findings but before they were made public, then-Deputy Secretary of Interior David Bernhardt — who was later named U.S. Secretary of the Interior — intervened to block the report's release and changed the methodology behind the document, according to an investigation by The New York Times.
Using the new methodology, the agency came up with a new biological opinion: Malathion is likely to "jeopardize the continued existence" of 78 endangered species — an extremely high number compared to previous agency findings but much less significant than the original.
The determination with the decreased number of endangered species was recently published by the Biden administration. It's a demonstration of the potential long-ranging impact the Trump administration might have on how the federal government interprets the Endangered Species Act, often considered the nation's strongest environmental protection law.
"This is (the Biden Administration) perpetuating (Bernhardt's) radical anti-ESA agenda," said Lori Ann Burd, environmental health program director for the Center for Biological Diversity. The center sued the federal government to develop the biological opinion, after what it said were decades of inaction on endangered species by federal regulators.
The White House did not respond to a request for comment on the pesticide decisions.
Laury Marshall, a spokeswoman for the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service, said in an emailed statement that the draft biological opinion for malathion "is a big step forward in our continued understanding of the impacts of malathion use on listed species and critical habitats.
"It will help EPA meet its obligations under the Endangered Species Act and reflects thorough analysis by wildlife experts," she continued. "Our dedicated experts have ensured the utmost scientific integrity guided their methodology and scientific process."
An Environmental Protection Agency spokesperson reiterated Biden's executive order, saying the new administration has a "renewed commitment to protecting human health and the environment" but still defended each of the decisions regarding the three pesticides.
The Trump-era decision on dicamba that the Biden administration is defending was "supported by the agency's career scientists, and includes measures that are protective of the environment," the spokesperson said. (The decision that was the subject of the Inspector General did not have staff support, the spokesperson said.)
Also, the decision to register the bee-killing sulfoxaflor was "backed by substantial data," the spokesperson said.
Do you have any insights into how the Biden administration is approaching pesticide regulations? We'd love to hear from you. Email jhettinger@investigatemidwest.org or contact us securely at MidwestCenter@protonmail.com.
The Trump administration had close ties with the pesticide industry. Dow Chemical, the maker of malathion, donated $1 million to Trump's inauguration committee in 2017 and subsequently asked the Trump administration to shelve the endangered species assessments.
Trump also nominated Aurelia Skipwith, a former Monsanto employee, to be the director of the FWS, which oversees endangered species.
Recently, the service announced that it would restore six major rules the Trump administration changed to weaken the Endangered Species Act.
But, with malathion, the Biden administration used the Trump-era methodology, publishing the findings in a recent draft biological opinion. The administration recently took public comment on the decision and will later issue a final decision.
"There's nothing in here that indicates we're in a new administration that believes in following science and the law," Burd said.
Malathion one of three pesticides feds supposed to review
Under a 2014 lawsuit settlement with the Center for Biological Diversity, the EPA and the Fish and Wildlife Service must start issuing nationwide opinions on how three widely-used toxic chemicals affect the nation's 1,600 or so endangered species: malathion, chlorpyrifos and diazinon.
All three are organophosphate pesticides, which were used as nerve agents during World War II. For decades, they were the most widely used insecticides in the U.S. However, their usage has decreased in recent decades because of their risks to human health.
"This is (the Biden Administration) perpetuating (Bernhardt's) radical anti-ESA agenda"
Lori Ann Burd, environmental health program director for the Center for Biological Diversity
The agencies were supposed to finalize the biological opinions by 2017, and were on schedule to do so before Bernhardt intervened. A 2017 presentation about the draft report findings said that chlorpyrifos put 1,399 species in peril, malathion put 1,284 species in peril and diazinon put 175 species in peril.
The Biden administration released the malathion opinion in April and has not yet signaled when it will release the diazinon and chlorpyrifos reports. The Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals recently ordered the EPA to ban or limit use of chlorpyrifos because of the risk it poses to children's brain development, after more than a decade of lawsuits.
The new guidelines that Bernhardt helped outline changed what the federal agency is supposed to consider when making determinations on pesticides. The agency is supposed to consider "actual use" of the pesticide, meaning where and when it is sprayed. It's not supposed to consider "allowed use," which is what the label says the pesticide can be used for.
In the biological opinion, the Fish and Wildlife Service said it had difficulty ascertaining "actual use" data in many cases. The service argued the method created a more accurate picture of the "real-world" effects of malathion, but Burd said it allows the agency to pick and choose the effects the pesticide will have.
Under even more settlements, the Fish and Wildlife Service is supposed to continue to release endangered species assessments for pesticides in coming years, including for glyphosate and atrazine, the two most commonly sprayed herbicides in the U.S.
An EPA analysis released in 2020 found that glyphosate likely harms nearly all endangered species.
Last year, Syngenta, the maker of atrazine, voluntarily canceled the use of the herbicide in Hawaii and other U.S. territories because of the risks posed to endangered species.
Biden EPA defends other actions on pesticides
Another pesticide decision the Biden administration has defended concerns dicamba, a widely used herbicide that has skyrocketed in use in recent years after Monsanto released genetically engineered soybean and cotton seeds that could withstand being sprayed by the herbicide.
Last year, the U.S. Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals vacated the registration for the volatile weed killer, after finding that the EPA had underestimated and ignored risks posed by the weedkiller, which has been blamed for millions of acres of damage to crops and natural areas. A recent EPA Inspector General report found that senior Trump administration officials exerted improper political influence in approving the herbicide in 2018.
Soybeans with suspected dicamba damage north of Flatville, IL on Wednesday, August 21, 2019. photo by Darrell Hoemann, Investigate Midwest
In the months after the Ninth Circuit decision, the EPA assigned 50 employees to restore the registration.
The final decision, which revealed that dicamba damage was worse than previously known, was announced at a press conference with the American Farm Bureau Federation just days before the presidential election in the swing state of Georgia.
The Biden administration has expressed its support for the five-year registration.
Another example is aldicarb, one of just 36 pesticides classified as "extremely hazardous" by the World Health Organization.
In 2010, the EPA and Bayer cancelled the use of the pesticide because of the risks it poses to infants and young children. But earlier this year, the EPA under the Trump administration approved its use Jan. 12 on Florida citrus trees.
The Biden administration defended the approval in federal court, after the Florida Department of Agriculture stepped in and said it would not permit the pesticide's use because of the EPA's lack of analysis. In early June, a federal court vacated the EPA's approval.
The EPA under Biden has also continued to defend the use of sulfoxaflor, a pesticide that the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals banned in 2015 because of its potential to harm native bees.
In 2016, the EPA issued a more limited use of the pesticide, but the Trump administration expanded those uses in 2019. The Center for Biological Diversity filed another lawsuit challenging that expansion.
Malathion opinion a possible template
The malathion biological opinion is considered to be the template for how these assessments will be conducted.
Jacob Malcom, director of the Center for Conservation Innovation for the Defenders of Wildlife, has studied the Fish and Wildlife Service's consultations and authored a 2015 study that found the agency rarely makes jeopardy calls — when the agency determines an action could threaten the continued existence of a species, which is prohibited by the Endangered Species Act.
However, Malcom said that pesticide consultations are different from most agency biological opinions. Consultations are more wide-ranging because pesticides are approved all across the country, whereas most agency actions that warrant biological opinions are highly localized.
Malcom said the Fish and Wildlife Service has spent years working out the process for how to do pesticide consultations, and the agency lacks funding to be able to perform the comprehensive efforts required for pesticides.
The 2018 Farm Bill created an interagency working group that included the EPA, Fish and Wildlife Service and other agencies that was tasked with improving the consultation process on pesticides.
Despite the effort, Malcom said the malathion biological evaluation is lacking.
"If they go through and finalize this biological opinion, I can't imagine they're not going to get sued," he said. "It's really hard to imagine they're on solid ground with this interpretation."
Malcom said it's possible it was strategic for the service to release the document now to solicit public input on "this cockamamie idea of how you do analysis."
"Not to make excuses or anything, but the wheels of bureaucracy turn very slowly," he said. "They may have a good reason to believe that putting this out and opening it up to public comment could get them back to what is needed."
But flaws in the draft biological opinion show the Biden administration was fine releasing an incomplete document, said Burd, of the Center for Biological Diversity.
The document does not have any information on how much incidental take — when an endangered species is harmed by an otherwise lawful action — will happen. The assessment also does not go into detail on steps to mitigate the harm to the 78 species that may no longer exist because of malathion, Burd said.
"What are we commenting on here? Nothing. We're commenting on the analysis," Burd said. "They don't include a single thing about how they're going to protect species in this document."
Tagged: Biden administration, chlorpyrifos, dicamba, EPA, insecticide, malathion, organophosphate, Pesticides, tetrachlorvinphos


The candidacy and subsequent presidency of Donald Trump were shocking for a number of reasons, not least of which being his unprecedented status as a president with no government or military experience. Elected with experience only as a businessman and celebrity, Trump could be a one-off mistake that our nation stands strongly against, or he may herald in a new era in which the United States presidency becomes more of a contest of popularity than of competency. This cannot be allowed to happen.
After Oprah Winfrey's speech at the Golden Globes, the hashtag #Oprah2020 trended on Twitter, and CNN reported that two of Oprah's friends said she was "actively thinking about" running for president. Though Oprah later stated that she did not intend to run, the idea of another president with experience in television and business rather than public policy was taken seriously by the public and the media for a period of time. It disturbed me how quickly the previously alien idea of a celebrity president with no previous government experience has become normalized.
In a recent article published by the Washington Post, actor Dwayne Johnson and Oprah Winfrey took the #15 and #11 slots respectively in a list of likely Democratic nominees. Another non-politician, the former CEO of Starbucks, Howard Schultz, also took the #13 spot. Do these potential nominees sound wild and implausible? Absolutely, but no more so than a Trump presidency sounded in 2014.
If Trump is followed by an Elizabeth Warren or a Corey Booker or a Kamala Harris– or if he is defeated in the Republican primaries by a conservative with real experience in public policy– he will have been an anomaly, a symptom of a very specific time in our nation's history. If a celebrity defeats Trump, or Trump is followed by another right-leaning media figure with no government experience, then the strategy of name recognition and controversy will become the new norm in national politics.
Much of Urban's student body will be able to vote for the first time in the 2020 elections, and though California is virtually guaranteed to vote for whichever candidate ends up facing off against President Trump, the primaries are significantly harder to predict– your vote will matter. It almost feels unnecessary to say this, but the highest office in the nation is not a job that someone should be able to be hired for without experience in the field.
As much as "career politician" has become a dirty word in modern politics, I think a career politician is exactly what we need in this country: someone with a level head on their shoulders and experience in domestic and foreign policy.


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What I don't I understand is the "hype" of modern products despite being your normal, everyday teenager. What? A new game console came out? Okay then, but I'm not going to scrap my Playstation 3 (Pshh, I actually have a Playstation 2, the old block model) for a Playstation 4 so I can play new games at crazy inflated prices. Nor am I going to get the latest iPhone just because it's new and modern. I'm perfectly fine with my hand-me-down iPhone 4 thank you very much. It's not that I'm different, it's just that I'm not blind to what businesses and attention seekers are trying to degrade our society to mindless zombies.
Businesses like Apple have products like the iPhone, and it's nothing special really, in fact I would consider it less than average. Slow ios, easily broken screen, restrictions left and right, now who would want a product like that? Now here is where Apple makes the big bucks. The word of mouth, a sprinkle of bandwagon, and a hint of jealously is all it takes to have a customer who used to have a flip phone to enlist into the legion of Apple. To be honest, the only thing that Apple does right is it's social brainwashing of people into buying iPhones. If you have ever used a Mac, it's ONLY good for editing and editing only.
In order to avoid hopping into a bandwagon like this, it's best to confirm your sense of self. Why would you want something that everyone has and you don't. Is it to fit in? Be a rebel! Be an individual.
Next Article If You Want Some, Come Get Some!


This phrase seems to be bandied about along with authenticity and transparency. Humanising the online may seem basic in form but not always implemented practically for some businesses or individuals who represent the said business.
Only very recently we've noticed an increase for a call in authenticity and transparency in business practices and in business communication. The "screen" (be it laptop, desktop or mobile phone) is often seen as a facade either to hide behind or to use as a step on to the podium of online interaction, and content and social marketing. The rise and fall of fake news on Facebook, the comparisonitis on Instagram, the use of Twitter for trolling or trumping has had users want to leave in droves or at least, use much less than they were. Which poses a semi threat for us businesses who battle to stand up and out against the noise, the rage of the machine (learning) and who just, simply, want to be ourselves online.
How do we humanise the online then? For us at Estate Apps, we are ourselves. We are us online just as we are offline. Talk to us via our contact form or chat via our website, to when we meet in real life - we're the same. Our "tone" doesn't change. We keep our content conversational - be it on our website, newsletter or social channels, we 'talk' the same.
How can you humanise the online? Well take a look at your content output for a start. Are you a friendly, conversational type of business and the content on your website has a more corporate feel with more polysyllabic words than you can shake a tree at? If that's the beat of your business's heart, don't drum to it. Whilst that may sound 'preachy', where will it get you if a prospective client responds to your corporate sounding email, meets you in person and he's met with a version of Del Boy? Do you see the conflict and contrast?
Where you engage on your social channels, use it as a conversation tool - as you would in real life. When you respond to emails, be nice and do it in a timely manner. Can you imagine being in a meeting and you're asked a question, and you don't immediately reply, get the picture?
The "screen" through which we determine judgements, reservations and positive calls to action doesn't have to be a filter, but can be an insight to who you are as business, what your business aims to serve and provide to your fellow human friends. In a world where transactions and virtual meetings are now commonplace, it is essential to humanise the online.
Another blog you may be interested in is our blog on content and consistency key for online branding.


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Kremlin Puppet Master Surkov Distracts Public with Putin Panegyric
Vladislav Surkov's job has always been to get people talking about everything except what's real.
By	Sam Greene
Vladislav Surkov	Alexei Druzhinin / TASS
On Feb. 11, the ill-reputed Vladislav Surkov, now personal advisor to President Vladimir Putin on Ukraine, published another magnum opus that will almost surely have the pundits hopping. In the spirit of public service, then, here's a preemptive debunking: Surkov's a shill.
The former first deputy chief of the presidential administration rose to international prominence in 2006 as the leading Kremlin ideologist when he penned the term "sovereign democracy."
The argument of his piece, in a nutshell, is that Russia isn't a democracy (surprise!). Never has been, never will be. And, of course, there aren't really any democracies at all. Choice is an illusion. Everywhere and always.
Western societies work, he says, because they let people revel in that illusion. But the fiction has never really worked in Russia, which has tied itself into knots trying to maintain it.
But — and here's the kicker — Russia doesn't need the fiction, because it has Putin. Putin has built a system capable of ruling Russia for 100 years. Why? Because that system understands its people. From top to bottom, right to left, inside and out.
In Surkov's view, Putin is Russia's Sigmund Freud, Dr Ruth Westheimer and Jewish grandmother all rolled into one. He knows what you want, what you need and what's good for you. And, in fact, so do the rest of the people Putin has running the country. And the system as a whole.
Never mind that there's no evidence for this whatsoever. Putin is popular — though less than he once was — but his governance is not popular. Russians, by and large, do not think he rules in their interest. Russian citizens may agree that they have little choice, but that agreement is begrudging, not grateful. And Surkov almost certainly knows that. He reads the polls, too.
Crisis of Hypocrisy Will Lead Western Countries to Western Tsar, Kremlin Aide Surkov Predicts
So before we go all in for "Putin's stooge says the country's a happy monarchy" headlines, let's stop to consider what's actually going on here. Surkov's playing games. It's what he does.
What, you actually thought the man who insists that politics is a game of smoke and mirrors had finally decided to tell the truth, come clean on behalf of his boss, idol and tsar?
Surkov's job (or one of his jobs, since he ostensibly also runs Russia's affairs in/around Ukraine) is and always has been to get people talking about everything except what's real. He's the bait in the bait-and-switch.
So, instead of focusing on the difficult policy questions facing the Kremlin (including how to justify spending on infrastructure rather than social services), we can spend the next few days (or weeks!) talking about Russia's political system. Or, thanks to Surkov's missive, instead of focusing on 2019, we can set our sights on 2024. Because, I mean, why not? What could possibly be more important?
This has been a public service announcement. We now return you to your regularly scheduled programming. Have a nice day.
A version of this article was first published in Moscow-on-Thames.
The views expressed in opinion pieces do not necessarily reflect the position of The Moscow Times.
Sam Greene is Director of the Russia Institute at King's College London and co-author of Putin v the People: The Perilous Politics of a Divided Russia.	@samagreene
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text:
Credit Card News Amex Releases New Credit Card Rates 15124750
Amex releases new credit card rates
American Express (Amex) customers who have the Clear Blue credit card are being given a helping hand to sort out their finances in the New Year.
Amex says the new variable annual percentage rate of 6.9 per cent on all purchases and the static rate of the balance transfer rate – which will remain the same for the life of the balance – will help customers "detox" their finances in the New Year.
Katherine Whitton, vice president and head of UK product management at Amex, said: "The new year offers many who have overindulged through the festive period the opportunity to spring into action and detox their finances.
"As consumers look to detox their finances in 2006, they should consider the American Express Blue credit card."
Figures from the accountancy firm Grant Thornton have revealed that at least 20,000 people in England and Wales will be bankrupt by spring while 66,000 will be in the same situation by the end of 2006.
The firm says if Brits continue to get into financial difficulty this year, personal debt in the UK will have reached its highest level for 45 years.
To read more about Comparing Credit Cards, click here.
© Adfero Ltd


text:
Augusta Today
Home News Protestors demand removal of Market House Monument in Louisville
Protestors demand removal of Market House Monument in Louisville
LOUISVILLE, G.A. (WJBF) There was a protest in Louisville over the Old Market House – a historic site with a controversial past.
"Had them shackles on them like that."
It's been a year since since Louisville City Council members made a historic decision to remove the market house monument.
"We promised the city council and the mayor, Mr. Morgan was mayor then, that if he didn't take down that slave market in due time, there would be a selected campaign cast upon the city of Louisville," said James Ivery.
But that was just to have the monument moved to another part of the town, and since then, it still sits in the middle of downtown Louisville. James Ivery the leader of today's protest, says it should just be torn down.
Edgefield County manhunt suspect arrested in Augusta
He says, "The United States made it illegal for them to sell black people in this country. Savannah shut down, they followed the law, but there was still ships coming in with black they had no where to take them, guess who took them Louisville and they started selling people illegally and they want this thing to stay here to keep black people under a dark cloud."
The words tear it down, echoed throughout the streets of downtown Louisville. Protestors gathered around the market house kicking the bell, and even reenacting what they believed happened to slaves at this monument.
"Every time I walk by it, you know what I see? I see young mothers and fathers and husbands and wives and brothers, and sisters, and babies snatched away from each other," said Ivery.
Some people living in Louisville believe the monument is a reminder of how things should NOT be.
"It's history, we cannot change history, no matter how we try we cannot change history," said Wes Going, a resident of Jefferson County.
"I hate what it stands for, but I don't believe it's part of the heritage, it shouldn't be torn down, it shouldn't be done away with. Moved to another site, maybe, restored something like that," said Thad Rains another resident of Jefferson County.
But for other residents, it's a monstrosity.
"I think it should be torn down, and put in a museum somewhere," said Davis, a resident who did not want to give her first name.
Burke County High School to remain on lockdown after threatening social media post
Davis says as a child she was told not to play in that area.
"People may not think it has an effect on us mentally but it does. The slave market maybe symbolizing to us that we need to stay in our own place and you can see that it's on this side of town. That side over there was the black side and this was the black side, so yes, it needs to be torn down," she said.
Ivery says the monument is just a catalyst for other demands.
"We have other demands we're putting together right now and that consist of the city and the county because we found a lot of negative stuff in the community that's going on, so we're going to address those issues period."
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text:
Quotes tagged "trial and error"
"The knowledge we get by tinkering, via trial and error, experience, and the workings of time, in other words, contact with the earth, is vastly superior to that obtained through reasoning, something self-serving institutions have been very busy hiding from us."
— Nassim Nicholas Taleb,	Skin in the Game
Tagged: Education, Expereince , trial and error, Learning, Epistemology
"I believe there is no philosophical high-road in science, with epistemological signposts. No, we are in a jungle and find our way by trial and error, building our road behind us as we proceed."
— Max Born,	Move First, Think Later
Tagged: Philosophy, Science, trial and error
"I believe there is no philosophical high-road in science, with epistemological signposts. No, we are in a jungle and find our way by trial and error, building our road behind us as we proceed. We do not find signposts at crossroads, but our own scouts erect them, to help the rest."
— Max Born
Tagged: Science, Philosophy, trial and error
"If you fell down yesterday,
stand up today."
— H.G. Wells,	The Anatomy of Frustration
Tagged: perseverance, Stand Up, falling, Difficulties, Trials, trial and error, Try Again


For years, the question has lingered: Should the U.S. apologize for dropping the atomic bomb on Hiroshima?
The opportunity could present itself if President Obama visits the city while attending the G7 Summit in Japan next month. No sitting U.S. president has visited the city since it was largely destroyed in an atomic blast during World War II.
Secretary of State John Kerry may have foreshadowed what's to come when he visited Hiroshima this month and called the experience "gut-wrenching." Yet he stopped short of offering an apology to his hosts.
Does Japan even want an apology?
Likely not. A secret 2009 state department cable published by Wikileaks in 2011 indicated Japan was cool to the idea and worried that it would only serve to energize anti-nuclear activists in the country.
It has. In 2007, during Shinzo Abe's first term as prime minister, Defense Minister Fumio Kyuma referred to the bombing of Hiroshima and Nagasaki as "something that couldn't be helped." While opposition leaders took issue with that position, the government's official stance was that it would be more meaningful for the U.S. and Japan to "aim for a peaceful and safe world without nuclear weapons."
Devin Stewart, a noted expert on Japan, and senior program director at the Carnegie Council for Ethics in International Affairs, suggests that an apology could "open a can of worms on many, many issues."
There's concern, for instance, it might undermine Abe's initiative to give Japan a more nimble, capable military and clear the way for troops to fight overseas, something that hasn't happened since the end of World War II. Abe's primary goal, Stewart says, is to strengthen the military and everything else, including his economic platform of Abenomics, is a means to achieve that goal.
An apology also could harden the opposition to using nuclear power in Japan, a sentiment that blossomed after the meltdown at Fukushima. The administration has made nuclear power a major part of its energy policy.
"Overemphasizing the inhuman nature of the nuclear weapons used on Hiroshima and Nagasaki goes against what the current government of Japan has been working on so hard for decades — removing 'allergic' reaction against nuclear weapons and nuclear power. In short, let the sleeping dogs lie," Koichi Nakano, a professor of Japanese politics at Sophia University, said.
Prime Minister Abe's speech on the 70th anniversary of the end of World War II was a classic non-apology apology, and this administration allegedly hates to apologize.
"Why doesn't the Japanese government want Mr. Obama to apologize? Because it tears the scab off a much bigger wound that Japan wants healed," says Grant Newsham, a senior research fellow with Japan Forum for Strategic Studies and former U.S. diplomat with over 20 years' experience in Japan.
"If Obama apologizes at Hiroshima, it draws attention to Japanese behavior elsewhere in Asia during the '30s and '40s. It might even be demanded that the Japanese government and emperor go to Singapore and apologize for slaughtering 25,000 Chinese there in 1942. Or to Australia to apologize for how they treated their POWs. Or to the Philippines (to apologize) for a few hundred thousand murders by the Imperial Japanese Army as well."
Beyond launching a new round of hand-wringing over wartime atrocities, Nakano says an Obama apology could raise fresh questions about Japan's own attempts to build an atomic bomb.
Even the right wing journalist and ultra-nationalist Hiroyuki Fujita says that an apology is "not necessary and I don't think the Japanese people want it. It will create "a ceaseless round of apologies.
"However, I think the American people should know that not only the bombing of Hiroshima and Nagasaki, but the firebombing of Tokyo in which thousands died, were illegal acts against humanity. They were civilian massacres."
What about the survivors in Hiroshima?
The survivors — those who remain — are largely out of sight and out of mind, and there's little political capital in digging up memories of the bombing, Stewart notes.
"Many people in the center of power in Tokyo would rather not talk about such touchy issues," he says.
The Japanese government has long fought to limit the number of people seeking official recognition as atomic-bomb survivors eligible for special assistance, and survivors who feel they suffered from radiation exposure but weren't recognized as victims have filed numerous lawsuits. When Abe was prime minister from 2006 to 2007, he refused to meet with the plaintiffs.
Last year, in a break from tradition, Abe failed to include a pledge to observe the country's three nonnuclear principles in the annual Hiroshima Peace Memorial Ceremony speech.
A 2015 opinion poll by a Russian news agency found that 60% of the Japanese public wanted an apology for the bombing.
But what the Japanese government and the public want aren't always the same.