Hasta La Gadget!

by guest blogger Renee James, humorist and blogger

Neologism of the day: Domamehy, pronounced “doh’-may-me-hi.” No, this isn’t a new menu item at Nobu, nor is it the new hot class at Equinox. It’s a shortcut to the prevailing thought I seem to have these days whenever I spend time reading my Facebook newsfeed. It’s a mash-up of “Don’t make me hide you.”

For the record, Facebook still offers plenty of connections, communication, and entertainment I find fun and rewarding. So there’s that. But my tolerance for all things annoying isn’t what it used to be. I can feel myself getting closer to becoming that cranky woman who shakes her fist and shouts, “Get off my lawn!” at the neighborhood kids.

The good news is I can quietly, easily, and with very little regret kick people off my cyber lawn–and I have. Regularly. Life is too short–even fake life on Facebook–to interact with individuals who make you insane with their inanity.

You know how it starts. One little update, one singular thought, one surprising point of view from a friend that gives you pause. A tiny pause, I grant you, but it’s there. The post refers to a public figure, an event, or a conviction your friend feels compelled to address, usually accompanied by some outrage. On its own, it simply represents an interesting facet of someone you know. You skim it; accept it with a silent “Huh! Never knew that…” and then shuffle it to the “inconsequential” file in your mind.

Moving on, however, you find you can’t move on. Next day–or maybe even later that same day–there it is again. Different verse; same song. It could be a politically motivated message or a cry for an end to social injustice or a plea for activism toward resolution. Look, I have nothing against passion and expressing beliefs. I have nothing against open minds or sharing reasoned thinking about almost anything. It’s just that posts like this tend to be accompanied by a strident “How can everyone be so ignorant?” attitude. And on a daily basis, that gets old. Very old.

This is what confounds me. How can so many people who demand tolerance in all things be so intolerant of everyone? I don’t mean we should overlook truly evil people or undeniable malevolence. I’m talking about people who dismiss and denigrate anyone with any opinion that doesn’t quite sync up with their own particular point of view. I wonder about that and why I’ve never noticed it before. I wonder how I got to be so…well…ignorant.

Examples: Until I spent time reading my newsfeed discussing the movement to legalize pot, I never recognized that stoners are the most energetic, organized, and motivated people around–at least when it comes to legalizing pot. Or that some politicians focus on nothing but saving the planet for future generations, while others want nothing more than to create a toxic, dying wasteland for all. (For the record, I am not registered with either major party.) And until I joined Facebook, I had no idea that atheists are smarter than everyone else. Live and learn.

But there it is. That’s the problem. I’m NOT learning. I’m just enduring fury, with no payoff or substance. It must be satisfying to see the world in such sharp black and white. Maybe you have to, in order to share your point of view with such certainty. Because for the endlessly outraged, every post, from just about every side, is about blame, guilt, shame, and–surprisingly–superiority. (Their own, not yours.)

Unfortunately, far too often the conviction and horror people feel compelled to share is based on nothing, or almost nothing. I resist posting a link to LMGTFY.com (“let me google that for you”) on a daily basis. People who “protest-post” adhere to their own version of that old saying about truth and stories: “Never let a google search or a quick check on Snopes get in the way of a good rant.”

I choose to hide people who post such “headlines” and add something like, “I can’t even read this story. It makes me sick…” Me (thinking): “Wait a minute, wait a minute, wait a minute. Let me understand this. You’re going with the headline. You’re buying it–outright and completely. You’re not going to read the story. You’re not going to check a few sources and see if it even holds up? You’re just going to be angry and dismissive and judgmental.”

Fine. Your choice. Let me just say this: There is an enormous difference between being dismissive of the world and being discerning about the company you keep, even online company. So…domamehy. Wait. Done. Ahhhhh.

<img class="alignleft size-thumbnail wp-image-11052" src="http://www.mariasfarmcountrykitchen.com/wp-content/uploads/2013/08/Renee-James-150×150.jpeg" alt="Renee-James" width="150" height="150" style="float:left;padding:0 10px 5px 0"
/>Renee A. James works at Rodale Inc. and wrote an award-winning op-ed column for The Morning Call, the Allentown, Pennsylvania, newspaper, for almost 10 years. Her essays were included in the humor anthology, 101 Damnations: A Humorists’ Tour of Personal Hells (Thomas Dunne Books, 2002), and are also found online at Jewish World Review and The Daily Caller. She invites you to Like her Facebook page, where she celebrates–and broods about–life on a regular basis, mostly as a voice in the crowd that shouts, “Really? You’re kidding me, right?” (or wants to, anyway), and she welcomes your suggestions, comments, and feedback to the mix.

For more from Maria Rodale, visit www.mariasfarmcountrykitchen.com

WASHINGTON — A bipartisan group of lawmakers is urging House Speaker John Boehner (R-Ohio) to schedule a full debate on the president’s request for authorization to use military force against the Islamic State — including giving all members the ability to amend it.

In a Wednesday letter to Boehner, 20 Democrats and Republicans said they have a constitutional responsibility to thoroughly vet the president’s proposal. Among other things, President Barack Obama’s proposed AUMF would limit military operations against the Islamic State to three years and allow for U.S. ground troops only in specific cases. Lawmakers in both parties have ideas for improvements to the document, which the White House sent to Capitol Hill earlier this month.

“Given the gravity of the question at hand, restricting the ability of the people’s representatives to offer amendments to the bill and to fully debate the issue would be inappropriate,” reads the letter.

Lawmakers on the letter include Reps. Walter Jones (R-N.C.), James McGovern (D-Mass.), Thomas Massie (R-Ky.), Barbara Lee (D-Calif.), John Duncan (R-Tenn.), Gerry Connolly (D-Va.), Ted Poe (R-Texas), Ann Kirkpatrick (D-Ariz.), Bill Posey (R-Fla.), John Larson (D-Conn.), Curt Clawson (R-Fla.), Earl Blumenauer (D-Ore.), Raul Labrador (R-Idaho), Stephen Lynch (D-Mass.), Justin Amash (R-Mich.), Jim Cooper (D-Tenn.), Mark Sanford (R-S.C.), John Garamendi (D-Calif.), Mike Capuano (D-Mass.) and Gwen Graham (D-Fla.).

Some of those members were around the last time Congress debated an AUMF in 2002, and they weren’t happy with how restrictive that process was. Members of the House Foreign Affairs Committee were the only ones allowed to offer amendments, and just two amendments were allowed for debate on the House floor.

“We owe it to the troops, their families, and the taxpayers to fully debate and amend this bill,” Jones said in a statement. “I will continue to do everything I can to ensure that we have an open process during this debate.”

Boehner spokesman Michael Steel gave no specifics on how open the AUMF process will be.

“The speaker has been clear that he expects we will have vigorous oversight and debate on this issue,” said Steel.

It’s unclear how, or if, lawmakers can bridge their differences on the AUMF proposal. Democrats want tighter limits on U.S. ground troops, and Republicans don’t want to put any restrictions on the president’s ability to counter Islamic State terrorists. In the meantime, the White House is content to keep relying on a sweeping 2001 AUMF that the administration argues gives it the ability to launch strikes against the Islamic State with or without new congressional signoff. Some Democrats say that 14-year-old AUMF must be repealed if Obama is truly interested in imposing war limits.

For now, lawmakers are eager to hear testimony from administration officials on the president’s AUMF and their strategy for defeating the Islamic State. Secretary of State John Kerry will testify in two House committees this week on Obama’s foreign policy budget, which will likely include discussion of the AUMF.

One of the major problems that I have with the death penalty is its randomness. Geography, for instance, matters in ways that has nothing to do with the crime. A person who commits murder in a state without the death penalty will not be sentenced to death, while someone who commits the exact same crime, under the exact same circumstances, in a death penalty state may be sentenced to death.

Geography — and not the crime — also matters in the way that individual states interpret United States Supreme Court decisions, which in turn determines who will live, and who will die.

In 2002, the Supreme Court unequivocally ruled that intellectually disabled persons cannot be sentenced to death. The Court said that executing an intellectually disabled person is not consistent with our nation’s standards of decency. And their ruling makes good sense. If the death penalty is supposed to be reserved for the “worst of the worst” offenders, then people with extremely low I.Q.s — who often process the world with a childlike understanding of right and wrong, life and death, harm and permanence — should be viewed as less culpable than other offenders.

But once the Supreme Court issues a decision, states have to apply it. And there seems to be a couple of states so hell-bent on imposing the death penalty, that they seemingly do anything to move forward with an execution — even when it involves an execution of intellectually disabled.

A few weeks ago, Georgia executed Warren Hill. Seven doctors — including three hired by the State of Georgia — agree that Hill has an intellectual disability. Courts in Georgia twice found that Hill was intellectually disabled using the same “preponderance of the evidence” standard applied by every other state in the country. But Georgia higher courts have ruled that, at least in Georgia, intellectual disability must be evaluated under the strictest criminal standard of “beyond a reasonable doubt.” Notwithstanding the medical findings in his case, and without any scientific basis for Georgia’s use of this near impossible standard of evidence, Hill was executed. He would not have been executed anywhere else.

On January 29, in Texas, Robert Ladd was executed. Ladd had an IQ of 67. A 67 I.Q., under virtually anyone’s definition, qualifies a person as intellectually disabled. But Texas added a twist to its test for intellectual disability: A person is not intellectually disabled for purposes of execution if the defendant exhibited “forethought” or “advance planning” in committing the crime. Texas is alone in using that standard, meaning Ladd would most likely be not eligible for execution in any other state.

Here’s the thing. If it’s unconstitutional to execute the intellectually disabled, then states shouldn’t do it. They shouldn’t even want to do it. People with intellectual disabilities are among our most vulnerable citizens. There is no constitutional — and certainly no moral — basis for allowing the intellectually disabled to be executed for actions which they may not have ever been able to fully comprehend.

It’s pretty simple. Under our Constitution, you can’t kill a person who is intellectually disabled.

But for Hill, the outcome of their cases depend not on their limited intellect, but rather on the vagaries of geography.

Life and death decisions should rest on far more than that.

In an effort to counter extremists and militant groups who use a mix of violence and social media to spread their message, a summit was held in Washington, D.C. this week to discuss how to counter violent extremism. While there is little denying that these groups must be tackled, an approach must be found that will not justify restricting the press.

The slick media arm of Islamic State led the White House to announce an international coalition, including Arab allies, that will fight the militant group on the virtual battlefield as well as on the ground.

The question that troubled me, as advocacy director of CPJ, is how to do this without legitimizing the behavior of repressive governments who could use the initiative as an excuse to clamp down on domestic dissent and criticism. How will the “countering violent extremism” initiative differentiate between legitimate criticism of, or resistance to, foreign policy? How will the U.S. respond to autocratic governments that use the initiative to counter domestic dissent?

Obama went some way to address this at the summit, which was attended by representatives from 60 countries, when he said governments that oppressed their people and denied them human rights sowed “the seeds of extremism and violence.” U.N. Secretary General Ban Ki-moon reiterated this sentiment, saying “preventing violent extremism and promoting human rights go hand-in-hand.”

Yet several states in attendance, including Bahrain, Egypt, and Kuwait, have imprisoned critical journalists, bloggers, and human rights activists and, in some cases, stripped them of citizenship. The pretext for such retaliation, in addition to laws on defamation and blasphemy, is often vaguely defined anti-terrorism and national security legislation, according to CPJ research.

In Egypt, CPJ research shows at least eight journalists are in jail for allegedly belonging to or covering the Muslim Brotherhood–a group banned after the democratically elected President Mohamed Morsi was ousted. Russia, which had a representative at the summit, uses official warnings to block access to critical websites and publications under its anti-terror legislation, and has imposed licensing requirements for blogs and social media users with more than 3,000 users per day.

The danger is that human rights, particularly freedom of expression, will be compromised amid the response to the January 7 attack in Paris on French satirical weekly Charlie Hebdo, and concern about violent extremism spreading through the Internet. According to CPJ research, often it is independent, local journalists who get caught in the ensuing crackdown. This StoryMap created by CPJ last month tracked the censorship efforts as global media responded to the Charlie Hebdo attack.

One of the outcomes from the summit is a plan for the U.S. to work with other governments and civil society to create digital content to counter violent extremist narratives. According to an official fact sheet from the summit, this will be achieved through “technology camps” organized by social media companies and a partnership with the United Arab Emirates.

Representatives from Google, Facebook and Twitter were also at the summit, but offered little detail on how they planned to work with the U.S. government. The same tech companies have been pushing back against U.S. surveillance programs by implementing anti-surveillance and encryption technologies to prevent spying in the name of national security. A Twitter spokesman told Politico the company plans to participate “through third party NGOs.”

Director of Google Ideas Jared Cohen participated in a session that included representatives from Kuwait, Bahrain and UAE–countries that have imprisoned citizens for expressing criticism online and use the anti-terrorism card to silence alternative voices. While the summit was taking place, a Kuwaiti court upheld the government’s decision to revoke the license of independent daily Al-Watan after a series of critical articles.

The summit comes amid calls by France, EU interior ministers, and Muslim-majority states for greater restrictions on online extremism, which would include holding social media platforms partially responsible for content. This would likely make it more difficult for civil society in repressive countries who rely on social media to engage in the public sphere because of concerns that legitimate critique would be interpreted as extremism. Just one example is the case of Alaa Abdel Fatah, an Egyptian activist who trained hundreds of bloggers how to use Web-based platforms to express themselves and who is now behind bars.

A central focus in Washington, D.C. was government efforts to discredit terrorists’ propaganda and hamper their ability to disseminate messages. It will be a challenge to distinguish these efforts from other attempts at information warfare and propaganda that the U.S. and others are, rightly, critical of.

The potential pitfalls of this approach is significant for journalism. The creation of content by government further blurs the line between information and propaganda, and provides cover to Russia, Iran, and China where, according to reports, brigades of online commentators are used to promote positive state messages.

The U.S. administration’s focus on counter-messaging is important, but unlikely to succeed as long as those reporting on extremist groups, expressing critical views, and commenting on religious matters are locked up. And CPJ, along with other human rights groups, is concerned that the countering violent extremism initiative could provide justification for governments to broaden surveillance online and use it to curb human rights and civil liberties.

Sandwiches are delightful creations: they have nice soft slices on the top and bottom, and something substantial in the middle. For international businesspeople, however, communication sandwiches can be a great source of confusion, misinterpretation, misunderstanding and even conflict.

Most cultures in the world — Asians, Indians, Africans, Middle Easterners, Latinos, Southern Europeans, many Anglo-Saxons, etc. – speak in “soft sandwiches”: they prefer to use indirect language when expressing criticism, talking about problems or saying “no!”. Thus, they make a sandwich in this way: the top and bottom slices are polite, friendly, indirect and often have nothing to do with the issue at hand. But the middle part — the meat and tomato and lettuce of the sandwich — is its heart: here lies the message, the issue, the problem, softened by the soft upper and lower layers.

Say, for example, you are visiting a business partner in Cairo, Egypt. As usual, the meeting takes place in a restaurant, and after having talked about family and friends, sports and the latest jokes going around town, you ask, as steaming mint tea and delicious fresh baklava is being served, “So, how’s the project running, by the way?” Smiling, your partner replies:

“Excellently, thank you. We’ve just received a shipment of parts from China, and are delighted with the quality. Oh, try the ones with the pistachios – my absolute favorites! It does seem that we’ve had a bit of a hiccup with some software, but we are working on it night and day. Like I said, we are delighted with the Chinese supplier – much better than our last one – and foresee more orders with them. How do you like the baklava? It’s made fresh daily, you know. Best in the city. Do try the ones with walnuts, too. You know, my grandmother makes the finest…”

In this charming and informal chat, the Egyptian delicately informed his counterpart that the project is delayed by a software problem, which must be serious because IT is working around the clock to fix it. But this highly important piece of information was carefully sandwiched between upbeat observations, some relevant to the work, others seemingly unimportant — except in terms of relationship building.

In other words, what people from indirect communication cultures say is not always what they mean, and what they mean is obscured or softened by how they layer “bad news.”

Why do they do this? Well, for a variety of social, historical and cultural reasons having to do with respect, age, status and face-saving, people from indirect communication cultures find their communication style:

• Polite
• Friendly
• Positive
•Not hurtful or disrespectful
• Builds, maintains and strengthens relationships
• Focuses on people, not things

Yet this communication style often confuses and annoys people from direct communication cultures, such as Germany, Switzerland, Scandinavia, parts of the USA, etc. They might interpret indirect communicators as hesitant, weak, complex, verbose, incomprehensible or even as sneaks and liars.

Direct communicators express criticism openly, often regardless of age or status, talk directly about problems, and have little trouble saying “no!” to business associates, colleagues and even family. Indeed, they are proud of their forthrightness, believing it to be:

• Clear and simple
• “Honest”
• Time and energy efficient
• Professional
• Low maintenance
• Focused on things, not people

For instance, replace the Egyptian with a German in the above scenario, and the location not in a restaurant but in an austere office in Stuttgart. You ask, “So, how’s the project running?” And your German partner frowns, shakes his head and replies: “Terrible. We have a huge software problem that is causing major delays. Our IT experts are dealing with it, but the situation is very bad.”

This message has been delivered clearly and forcefully – it’s the meat without the soft bread. Unfortunately, however, if you use direct language on people from indirect communication cultures, you will “hurt” them and they will think, “Why should I work with someone who throws bad news in my face?” They will interpret your direct approach as:

• Unfriendly
• “Hard”
• Rude
• Pessimistic
• Disrespectful
• Relationship destroying

And soon you will experience unanswered e-mails, unreturned calls, missed milestones, deadline issues, project delays and perhaps even conflict with your international business partner.

Using, however, the Soft Sandwich technique – not threats or pressure — will signal that you are interested in people and relationships, that people are more important than the details of everyday working life, that people are more significant than time schedules, milestones and deadlines. If you communicate in a “softer” indirect manner, your partner from an indirect culture will enthusiastically and emotionally respond to you, thinking, “How can I say no to such a nice request?” or “Of course I’ll help you meet your deadline, my friend!”

Is the indirect communication style more time consuming? Yes. It is high maintenance because people and their feelings need acknowledgement, sensitivity and careful handling. It requires highly tuned emotional radar and superior pro-active listening skills. Will you achieve your results by communicating more indirectly? Yes, because people from such cultures happily work with those who show them that they are more important than things.

If you persist in using an “A to B” direct approach, you may never ever reach “B” for in the logic of international business the shortest way between a problem and its solution is often not a straight line but the long serpentine route.