Overused Expressions

Anyone who reads the press or listens to political discussions on National Public Radio or watches news programs hears certain expressions over and over. Probably the most-overused expressions these days is “having said that” or “that said.” Some talking heads on television seem to use one of these two expressions every fourth or fifth sentence. What did people say before these overused expressions became the norm? They used the very serviceable word “however”. I would like to see the word “however” reintroduced into intelligent discussion.

In the semiconductor industry, an overused expression is “the food chain”, which means…. To tell you the truth, I’m not positive what it means, but I think it may be a hackneyed way of saying “hierarchy”.

“Comprises” and “is comprised of” are expressions that are often confused, although they have opposite meanings. I suggest the less-confusing alternatives “makes up” and “is made up of”, which writers are more likely to use correctly.

The expressions “I could care less” and “I couldn’t care less” also seem to have opposite meanings, but some speakers confuse them, saying “I could care less” when they don’t care at all. Why not just say “I don’t care”?

Well, the list of such expressions is long, and I’m sure that you have your favorites. I would like you to add them to the comments to this blog. -- Jack

Geographical Ignorance

We Americans are famous around the world for our lack of knowledge of geography. Ask the average American where Uruguay is, and he or she is likely to shrug and admit ignorance. Ask an American about the culture of Indonesia, and again you are likely get a blank look. And, as I discussed in an earlier blog published below, a large number of Americans believe that the French hate them, although when pressed, they admit that they know very little about the French.

Is there anything worse than admitting that you know far too little about the rest of the world? After a visit to Germany, I think there is. Many Germans, especially uneducated young males, are equally as uninformed about geography as young Americans, but they are much less likely to admit their lack of knowledge. They fill knowledge gaps with false stereotypes, and after a time, they convince themselves that those stereotypes are true.

During a recent trip to Germany, I was taken aback by some of the statements I heard not only about the United States but about other countries as well. For example, I got into a discussion with my two roommates in a youth hostel in Frankfurt. Both of them believed that in the USA, everyone carries a gun and has the right to shoot anyone down on the streets if he or she feels that the other person might be a threat. Granted, the USA has a high rate of gun ownership and a higher murder rate than Western European countries, but how can anyone believe that in a modern society people have a legal right to shoot each other down on the street? Sadly, this idiotic opinion seems to be quite widespread in Germany, and when I tried to convince the two young men that they were very mistaken, they came to the conclusion that I did not know my own country.

Another called the United States the most corrupt country on Earth and cited the Florida shenanigans during the Bush-Gore election to “prove” it. Come on! The U.S. has its share of corruption and may not come off well when compared to Switzerland, but is it anywhere near as corrupt as say Italy, not to mention Iraq, Mexico, Brazil, Haiti, and a long list of other countries?

It was not just the USA that came in for criticism. When I mentioned that I was going to France and had a French rail pass, one German told me to avoid the French trains, because they are real boneshakers. In fact, there is little difference between regular French and German trains, and when it comes to high-speed trains, the French TGV beats the German ICE hands down. I won’t get into the stereotypes that so many Germans have regarding Israel; that could be the subject of an entire book.

I don’t wish to make a blanket condemnation of Germans. Obviously the Germans are a varied people with varied opinions about the world. I only wish to say that it seems to me from my observations, that more Germans think in stereotypes than do people of other Western Nations. Why is it that so many Germans are afraid to say “I just don’t know?” I’d be happy to read your comments on the subject if you would enter them below. – J.Q.

What is Wrong with Hispanic Studies in the USA?

As a former professor, I find it interesting to once again be a student at a university. I now get to see things from the other side of the lecturer’s podium, to see academic life from the student’s point of view.

As a student working toward a second degree, I am required to take many courses outside my main field of study (the French language) to broaden my mind, an idea that I generally approve of. Some of the courses that I have taken fill a cultural diversity requirement by exposing me to minority (non-European) cultures in the USA. In theory, I find that to also be an excellent idea. However, because I speak Spanish and many of my friends are from Latin America, it seemed natural for me to take courses in a field that may loosely be described as Hispanic studies. One was a linguistics course entitled Spanish in the Southwest. In this course, we looked at the way Spanish is spoken in the Southwestern United States: in Texas, New Mexico, Arizona and California. The second was a cultural geography course that was principally concerned with the appearance of majority Hispanic neighborhoods in U.S. cities. The linguistics class was taught in Spanish; the geography class in English.

I learned something in both courses—quite a bit in the linguistics course, rather less in the cultural geography course. In both courses, the other students and I read essays written by academics. In the linguistics class, we also had the opportunity to analyze, interpret and discuss the articles, some of which were well reasoned and insightful, although negative opinions about the articles were not always well received. We also wrote several essays in the linguistics class, in Spanish, in which we were encouraged to apply what we had learned. In the cultural geography class, we were expected to learn material by rote and repeat it back on multiple-choice examinations. We did write one essay in which we were expected to condense a poorly written book and summarize its contents. I was graded down on this essay, because I analyzed the book and pointed out its short comings instead of merely condensing it. The professor’s words were: “Remember, this is a 300 level [junior-level] class, not a graduate seminar.” I hasten to add that there was a creative aspect to this course. The class was divided into groups, and each group was assigned to observe the characteristics of houses in a Hispanic neighborhood and report its findings to the class.

However, my purpose in writing this blog entry is not to compare the two courses but to point out two weaknesses that they had in common, and which I believe are weakness of the field of Hispanic studies in general. Those weaknesses are: 1) low academic standards and 2) a pronounced tendency to stereotype non-Hispanics. The first accusation is more difficult to substantiate without writing an entry so long that it would seriously try the reader’s patience, although the implication that I wrote my essay at too high a level may hint at the problem. Therefore I will limit this blog entry to the second accusation: Academics who study the Hispanic population of the USA, although they justifiably describe the rich diversity of the culture of Latin American immigrants and their descendants in the USA, almost universally stereotype non-Hispanics as people with a uniform and bland culture that contrasts sharply with the varied and colorful Hispanic cultures.

This stereotyping is made easier by the way in which non-Hispanics are identified in almost all publications authored by academics in the field of Hispanic studies. The accepted term among them for non-Hispanics is Anglo in English or anglosajón in Spanish: an identification that is almost nonexistent in the English-speaking population of this country. The related term WASP (white, Anglo-Saxon protestant) is normally used pejoratively to imply that the person so designated is a member of a colorless elite, and Anglo used by itself seems to carry the same implication.

It is not uncommon to find sentences in writings about Hispanic culture that picture Hispanic culture as succeeding “despite strong Anglo opposition.” Such a statement implies that all of these nasty Anglos are united in their (probably racist) desire to oppress Hispanics. The term Anglo implies a uniformity of purpose and common sense of identification among non-Hispanics that does not exist. It makes it easier to stereotype non-Hispanics and it ignores the fact that the non-Hispanic population of the U.S. includes people who came from (or whose ancestors came from) Africa, Asia, and such non-Anglo European countries as Poland, Italy, Ireland, Russia, and France, who have different views of the world, and who have varying opinions about Hispanics. The first step in eliminating this negative stereotyping would be to recognize that the A-word is inaccurate and that to some groups, it can be almost as insulting as the N-word is to black Americans.

The professor asked the cultural-geography class how many students identified themselves as Anglos. No a single person raised a hand. Why not? I believe that most English-speaking people in the U.S. identify the term Anglo with England as evidenced by the hyphenated adjective Anglo-American, which could be used to describe, for example, a company with both English and U.S. owners. The Anglo portion of the hyphenated adjective clearly means British. However, many more Americans are of German or Irish descent than English. Even people of English ancestry left that country to come to the USA, and if they ever had an Anglo identity, they left it behind in the old country.

There is a rule among people of good manners that one does not call a group of people by a name that members of that group would not use to describe themselves. Thus educated people, including academics, use correct nomenclature such as Mexican, Polish, Italian, and Afro-American to describe ethnic groups and avoid the alternative names that are associated with negative stereotypes. Yet, many of those same academics will abandon political correctness and use the term Anglo to refer to non-Hispanics. Some people, such as many of the Irish who suffered so greatly under British rule, object to being mistaken for English and therefore find the term Anglo insulting. Even if no one objected to the word Anglo, its use to refer to all non-Hispanics, or even to non-Hispanics of European descent, would still encourage stereotyping. It implies that people whose ancestors came from many different cultures and who often still show the signs of a diverse heritage can be grouped together under a single identity with uniform characteristics and a uniformity of purpose, whether Catholic, Protestant, Jewish, or Muslim—whether white, black or brown, whether of Asian, African or Southern European heritage. I suggest that professors who study Hispanic culture in the U.S. immediately abandon the A-word and replace it with the more-accurate term “non-Hispanic.” The later acknowledges that people may come from different cultures and may have different values.

I left hanging the accusation that the field of Hispanic studies tolerates low academic standards. That may be the subject of a future blog entry.

Acer Tech Support Goes From Bad to Horrible

As difficult as it is to believe, the problems with Acer have gotten worse (see Tech Support Blues). When my Acer 8200 notebook computer came back from the repair depot with loose wires hanging from the motherboard stuck in the fan, I called tech support and was promised that this time my computer would receive expedited service and that the service manager would personally make sure the computer was working properly before it was shipped back. I shipped it off again (*sigh*), and a week later I had not heard a thing. I called tech support again and was told the computer would be fixed when in normal order; there was no record of expedited service. After considerable arguing, I finally convinced the telephone representative to contact the repair depot. He put me on hold, and when he came back, he was much friendlier. He said the computer was now to be given priority and that Acer would ship it back overnight. This time, Acer was as good as its word….. However

The computer arrived this morning as promised. I no sooner unpacked it than I noticed that the switch that turns the WiFi on and off was jammed hard right. It could not be budged, and WiFi was shut off. I checked the Bluetooth feature, and it did not work either. Both had worked fine when I first sent the computer in for repair.

I immediately got back on the telephone with tech support and asked if the repair depot checks the computers it fixes to make sure they work before they are shipped back to the customer. He told me that they do not; that’s the customer’s responsibility. The technician fixes the reported trouble (apparently without making sure that the problem is really fixed, and the computer is shipped back to the customer.

I asked if there was no ombudsman I could appeal to, and I was told there is not. I was not permitted to talk to anyone in charge. We made arrangements to ship the computer back once again. As soon as I got off the phone, I called Acer North American headquarters, and I discovered that there is indeed an ombudsman. I detailed my complaints about Acer technical service to a secretary, who promised that someone in authority would call me back within 24 hours. We’ll see what happens.

Acer Tech-Service Blues

Complaints about poor service abound these days. I remember years ago when I had a problem with my Dell notebook computer, Dell had it picked up, shipped overnight to Austin, repaired it, and shipped it overnight back to me. I was without my computer for less than two days. Dells service has gone downhill since then, and woe be the unfortunate Dell owner whose computer needs service today.

I purchased an Acer 8200 notebook computer over a month ago, a top-of-the-line machine, and I still have not been able to us it. Two days after if arrived, before I had all of my software installed, it stopped accepting the BIOS password on boot. I hadn’t forgotten the password; somehow the BIOS had gotten garbaged, and the computer could not be turned on.

Because the dealer that sold me the computer has a restocking charge for returns, I sent it to Acer for repair. The computer sat in the Acer repair depot for three weeks, supposedly waiting for parts. With shipping, the computer was gone a month. It was returned with a note that Acer had replaced a defective motherboard.

When I turned the computer on, it made a horrible noise, and I discovered that loose wires were stuck in the fan, wires that the technician had failed to reattach after reassembling the computer. Had the technician bothered to turn the computer on after reassembly, it would have been obvious that something was wrong.

I called Acer again, and they promised to fix it on an expedited basis, but they only paid for two-day shipping. That means with roundtrip shipping, the computer will be gone at least another week. One-week service is considered expedited these days.

All of the reviews say that the Acer 8200 is a good notebook computer, but I am unable to verify that. I have owned mine for almost two months, and I still have not had the chance to use it. If Acer had tried to make amends for the shabby way it has treated me, I wouldn’t be writing this. However, I have to admit that Acer is no worse than many of its competitors. However, if you shell out $2500 to $3000 for one of these machines and it stops working, just throw it away. The hassle of getting Acer to perform a warranty repair are not worth it.

Vigilantes and Illegal Immigration

Phoenix, Arizona July 15, 2005 — Now that I have returned from France and am again living in Phoenix, Arizona in the USA, I have turned my attention to local politics, but in this case, local politics that could affect the relationship between the United States and Mexico.

On April 10, 2005, Patrick Haab paused at a rest stop along Interstate Highway 8 near the city of Gila Bend, west of Phoenix, Arizona, to walk his dog, where he came across a group of seven illegal immigrants. Haab was carrying a pistol, which he used to hold the immigrants hostage as he telephoned the Maricopa County Sheriff’s Department. When the sheriff’s deputies arrived, they arrested not only the illegal immigrants but also Mr. Haab.

An investigation revealed that one of the seven illegal immigrants was a “coyote” or human smuggler who was transporting the others, and it is thanks to this fact that Mr. Haab is not facing criminal charges. Illegal immigration is a misdemeanor or minor crime in the United States, but trafficking in human beings is a felony, a much more serious offense. Arizona law permits a citizen to arrest someone who has committed a felony, but not to arrest someone who has committed a misdemeanor.

After reviewing the case against Patrick Haab, Maricopa County Attorney Andrew Thomas refused to press charges arguing that Haab did not commit a crime, because one of the people he detained, the coyote, had committed a felony. As to the other six detainees, Thomas argues that by cooperating with the coyote, they conspired to commit the felony and are therefore also felons. The second argument seems farfetched to many people.

Thomas’s decision not to prosecute has raised the ire of human rights groups in the Phoenix area, notably the Maricopa Country Hispanic Bar Association, which goes by the name Los Abogados (http://www.losabogados.org). Abogado is the Spanish word for lawyer. A representative of Los Abogados, attorney Antonio Bustamante, insists that Haab’s detention of the undocumented immigrants was illegal under federal law, and federal law supersedes state law. According to Mr. Bustamante, “The only persons who can enforce [the federal statute against human trafficking] are authorized members of the immigration service, people who are sworn police officers, not private citizens.” Others say that Bustamante’s argument, while correct as far as it goes, would only work in federal court and not in an Arizona court, where Haab would presumably be tried.

I believe that as much as possible should be done to prevent armed citizens from confronting people whom they believe to be illegal border crossers. Private citizens seldom understand the complexities of immigration law. They have no legal right to pull a gun on people whom they believe to be in the country illegally. If they do, they could spend years in prison. These vigilantes create hard feelings and contribute nothing to law enforcement. Their actions are incomprehensible to the residents of countries such as Mexico that have no tradition of citizen enforcement of the law.

However, I also have concerns with Los Abogados in particular and Hispanic pressure groups in general. Far too often these groups show little regard for the facts when they make public pronouncements. For example, Los Abogados claims that the case against Haab is open and shut, which is far from the truth. Any group that self-rightously claims to have the only valid opinion in such a complex case is either out of touch with reality, or more likely, it is pushing a private agenda.

Some Hispanic groups and Spanish-language news organizations in the United States reflexively use the terms “anti-imigrante” (anti-immigrant) and racist to describe any person with whom they disagree. I may be very much in favor of legal immigration (and I am) but if I object to illegal immigration, they may apply those terms to me. These groups would have much more credence if they would acknowledge the distinction between people who enter the U.S. legally and those who thumb their noses at the law

Perhaps Mr. Haab should be prosecuted in Maricopa Country Superior Court to give a judge the opportunity to decide the legal arguments. However, that is unlikely to happen. It is more likely that the people he detained will sue him for damages in civil court. Another possibility is that federal charges will be brought against Mr. Haab for depriving the people he held at gunpoint of their civil rights. Personally, I hope that something will be done to discourage other would-be vigilantes from following Mr. Haab’s example.

The “Latinization” of the U.S. Economy

In Latin American countries, there is an enormous difference between the rich and the poor. Wealth is concentrated in the hands of a small number of wealthy families while a large segment of the population lives in poverty. Between the rich and poor, there is a struggling but relatively small middle class whose members have almost no chance to attain wealth but who face a very real chance of falling into poverty. A few years ago, Forbes Magazine reported that Mexico had more millionaires than Germany and recently it reported that the world’s fourth-richest man in 2004 was Mexico’s Carlos Slim Helú, who had amassed a fortune worth $23.8 billion. (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_billionaires)

The United States was the first major country to create a large middle class. Thanks in large part to the unionization of the work force in the first half of the Twentieth Century, factory workers acquired middle-class incomes, and the term working class began to disappear from the American vocabulary. There was a feeling of living in a “classless” society in which anyone could become wealthy through education and hard work. Coal miners and railroad workers sent their children to universities. Harry Truman, who started as a Missouri farmer and later acquired a haberdashery in Kansas City, became president of the United States. What Harry Truman had done, anyone could do. Upward mobility acquired a name: The American Dream.

However, for many Americans today, the American Dream is just that—a dream. The U.S. economy is moving toward the Latin American model with more and more of the country’s wealth in the hands of fewer and fewer people. Of course, the same phenomenon is occurring in most industrialized countries, including most of Western Europe, but according to statistics compiled by the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD), the difference between disposable income of the upper third and lower third of the population is greater in the United States than in any other country that it surveys.

It looks increasingly unlikely that a small farmer will ever again become president of the United States. The last presidential election featured two candidates from elite New England families, both graduates of Ivy League universities (although one of them managed to market himself as a humble Texas boy).

One symptom of the economic decline of the working class in the U.S. is the inability to afford health care. In my youth and into my middle age, almost all jobs came with “benefits’ that included health insurance that was largely paid for by the employer with a smaller monthly contribution from the employee. That insurance paid most of the cost of healthcare. Now some employees of such large corporations as Wal-Mart, Dunkin’ Doughnuts, and McDonald’s have no healthcare insurance at all. Wal-Mart has been accused of offering its employees “rock bottom healthcare” so that it can afford to offer its customers “rock bottom prices.”

Healthcare and the insurance that should pay for it have become very expensive in the U.S., and a company can save big money by not providing insurance and letting its employees fend for themselves. When one company reduces costs at its employees’ expense, other companies follow suit to remain competitive. A single medical emergency can overwhelm an uninsured worker’s financial resources and send him or her into a downward financial spiral that can end in poverty and homelessness.

What is responsible for the growing gap between the rich and poor in the United States? Part of the blame can be laid at the feet of George Bush’s economic program. The Bush administration lowered the tax burden on the wealthy, leaving the middle class to bear more of country’s financial burdens. Its policies have also drastically raised the cost of higher education, making it more difficult for lower and middle-income families to educate their children.

However, the main culprit for the growing wealth gap is the U.S. trade policy, which was largely put into place before Bush became president. The United States has the most open market to foreign goods and services of any large country in the world. This open market coupled with Americans’ almost insatiable desire for cheap goods has resulted in a flood of products from low-cost producer companies, most notably from China. The U.S. does not export enough to pay for these imports. They are paid for by printing money and by borrowing. One result has been a loss of well-paid manufacturing jobs in the U.S.

A well thought-out trade policy should enable a country to sell its products abroad as well as give its citizens access to goods that can be made better or more cheaply elsewhere. The United States’ trade policy is not well thought-out. It gives imported goods and services almost unfettered and untaxed access to our markets, but it does little to encourage other countries to purchase our products.

The difference between the amount of money that a country earns from abroad and the amount that it spends abroad is called the current account balance. For the U.S., the current account balance is a large deficit. The U.S. sends much more money abroad to pay for its imports than it earns from exports, the sale of investments, etc. The U.S. government borrows and prints money to make up the difference. In other words, the U.S. is running up a huge debt with the rest of the world to pay for American consumption, and it has no plan to pay off that debt.

According to the Central Intelligence Agency’s World Fact Book (http://www.cia.gov/cia/publications/factbook/rankorder/2187rank.html) the U.S. current account deficit in 2004 amounted to $646.5 billion, and the deficit has continued its rapid growth in 2005. The current account deficit in the first three months of 2005 was $195.1 billion, 3.6% greater than during the fourth quarter of 2004. While a country whose money is the main international tender has the luxury of running a modest current account deficit in order to keep the world supplied with its currency, the enormous and growing U.S. current account deficit is unsustainable. The sooner it is reduced, the better off the U.S. and much of the rest of the world will be.

The job of getting the U.S. back on its economic feet will require some hard choices. We must gradually reduce our addiction to cheap foreign goods. This will require us to renegotiate some of our international trade agreements and perhaps even to withdraw from the World Trade Organization. Countries with which we have an enormous current account deficit must buy more from us, or we must buy less from them. Progress must be measured by results, not by promises to end restrictions on the importation of U.S. goods and services, and if goals for a specific country are not met, imports from that country must be decreased gradually, by tariffs, by import restrictions, or by negotiation. Such measures will not be popular domestically or internationally, but they are necessary. A healthy U.S. economy is not only important to the U.S., it is also in the best interest of our major trading partners.