school busing

     You might read in an old news article that people once argued about school busing--and they did. They weren't arguing about whether kids should take the bus to school or walk, however. They were arguing about whether or not kids should be bused to different school districts as a means of making unequal schools "fair". First they decided that since the city schools were terrible, compared to some of the suburban schools, that they would bus a few city school students to the suburbs to attend school. This was done as a sort of a lottery--the way people are "chosen" to go to charter schools now.  Instead of improving the schools, everyone in the worst schools might have a chance to attend school someplace else. Most of the parents in the suburban school districts didn't really have a lot to say about busing a few students from the city to their schools. When some districts, in the name of "fairness "decided it would be a good idea to bus a few of the suburban kids into the city schools, they had a lot to say. In a word, they said no.

the draft lottery

     During the Viet Nam war, in the 1970's, the federal government used a lottery to decide who should be drafted next. To be drafted meant to be inducted into the army--whether you wanted to be in the army or not. If someone was drafted and refused to serve, he was jailed.* Young men were eligible for the draft at the age of 19. There was a "lottery" each year, broadcast on television. The government--the Selective Service--put each day of the year into a hat, or some device--just as in a  lottery for a prize or jackpot . These dates were people's birthdays. If they pulled your birthday out of the hat first, you would be the first to be drafted.
     Young men are still required to register for the draft, although no one is being drafted into the army.  The army is all volunteer now. The government still requires registration for the draft in case of a war--a war we would need more soldiers to win.

*Muhammad Ali served a prison term for refusing to be drafted. He was much discussed, and admired by many for having the courage of his own convictions.

pirate radio

     You can see a depiction of a "pirate" radio station in the old movie American Graffiti. The radio "pirate" in the movie is modeled on a real radio pirate. His radio station broadcasts from a ship at sea to avoid detection by law enforcement authorities. Why law enforcement wants to find the radio pirate is not made obvious in the movie. When a pirate radio station broadcasts, other radio stations are lost to their listeners. We have an agency of the federal government--the Federal Communications Commission, or FCC--to assure that broadcasters share the radio wavelengths fairly. Each station is assigned a "frequency"--the number you see on the radio dial. If someone starts up an unlicensed broadcasting station, it can only be at the expense of a station already running. It's a form of censorship or shouting someone down--but this time it isn't by the government, but by the "outlaws".
    

blackball

    To "blackball" someone" is to refuse him membership in a club.  An old-fashioned gentlemen's club had a vote on whether or not to accept a new applicant as a member. Each person had a white ball and a black ball. The voting was accomplished by depositing either the white ball, for yes, or the black ball, for no, in a container of some kind. In some clubs one black ball meant membership would be denied. In some clubs it was three black balls. So one person could "blackball" a prospective applicant for membership.

double exposure

     A double exposure is two photographs made on the same piece of film. The photographs would be combined into one image--as if they were transparent and you could see both of them. You can probably see a double exposure on a photo-sharing site. A real double-exposure was made by taking two pictures, and developing them as one--but digital photo-editing software can produce a similar effect. Two people can be made to look like a third person who resembles both of them, for instance--as in the sites that will show you what your digital offspring would look like.

secret codes in the Bible

     People have claimed to find secret codes and hidden messages in the Bible--including instructions to commit crimes.  This is something worse than clever nonsense. They didn't "find" any messages in the Bible, or in any other book--they put them there. Any book can be used to send a message in "secret code". The recipient of the message would only need a copy of the same book the sender used.. The books would have to be exactly the same-- the Bible, which has been printed so many times, would be more difficult to match in this way than any other book. The sender of the message could use the words or the letters in the book--each letter could be numbered, in order, or each word. The numbers could be sent as a "coded" message. The person who received the message could use the book to "decode" the message--no supernatural agency required.

the value of a dollar

the value of a dollar

     When we talk about foreign trade we can understand what makes our money--American dollars--"worth" something to people in other countries. It is worth something to them because they can exchange it for something that America has that they want to buy. What makes our money worth something to us here in America is in many ways the same. Money is worth what you can buy with it. What puts the "value" in money?  Many people believe that work puts the value in money. There are things, of course, but they are usually made or obtained through work, or "labor" as a textbook would put it. Marx would have said that "capital"--money or the capacity to borrow it--is "stolen labor". Calling money "stolen" from labor is an extremist point of view. Money or "capital" as "stored" labor is actually a more accurate definition.
     Historically, we didn't actually "need" money--coins or bills--until we were doing so much trade with one another that using money would  make the trade easier. When people were exchanging the occasional cow for two sheep, they got along fine without money. The only people doing the "exchanging" would have been those with something extra to "trade". People using all their time and work just to survive had nothing extra to trade.Those who had some extra--for whatever reason ( more sons to help with work, thinking up a better way of farming )--eventually wanted to trade it with someone else. The trade became cumbersome when there were more people involved. The person with the cow to trade might not have wanted the two sheep--the sheep owned by the person who wanted the cow.  The person with the cow might have wanted a horse--owned by a person who wanted the sheep. It would work if they were all present, and all ready to deliver the goods. Money made it possible to store and save excess labor when there wasn't anything to trade it for--perhaps because not enough other people had an excess, but perhaps because all of the local farmers were growing the same thing. The person with the excess labor--turned into livestock, grain, or other stuff--could store it as money for use later. It could be saved for a bad year, in case of injury, or to get something that would cost more than one cow.