Professor Jane’s Thoughts on Life and Things

Equine Beauty

Eight Bells, a filly, came in second in the Kentucky Derby on the first Saturday in May 2008.  After she crossed the finish line, she broke both fetlocks and had to be put down.  Sadie Cummings, also a filly and a race horse, broke down the same way.  This poem commenorates Sadie and Eight Bells.

Sadie Cummings

She snorted and pranced

when her hooves touched the sand

and we’re off

with me in a two-point

through shallow water

the spray salting my face

the two of us in raucous rhythm.

We would have gone on forever.

The rocks at the seawall forced a halt.

This poem is from I Want to Show You: A Memoir in Poems, available as a Kindle

 book or at http://www.lulu.com/content/2350136

Chapter 1: Unkind Deeds and Cover-Ups in Everyday Life

When someone dumps on us and then tries to cover-up,

a typical response is “You shit!”

Cara said to her lover Nick when she found out he had been seeing another woman, “What do you want?  A harem?”  An impish look appeared on Nick’s face, and he said, “Two women?  That’s not much of a harem.” Cara laughed, tickled by the charm that endeared Nick to her. With her laugh, Cara’s tension lifted, and they talked about other things.

Nick had finessed Cara in an elegant, tailor-made way. His involvement with another woman had hurt Cara, and he covered up through humor. He had been with Cara long enough to know that a humorous response would distract her and lift her mood. Cara cooperated. She enabled Nick to be a shit.

      Katherine Armstrong described as “little bitty pellets” the shotgun blast that the vice president of the United States fired into Harry Whittington while hunting quail on the Armstrong ranch in February 2006. She said that she herself had been shot upon occasion, and Harry was fine, sitting up in his hospital bed, “yakking.” 

Actually, Harry spent six days in the hospital. A few days after being shot, he had a heart attack when a pellet migrated to his heart.

When Harry left the hospital, he said, “My family and I are deeply sorry for all that Vice President Cheney and his family have had to go through this past week. We send our love and respect to them as they deal with situations that are much more serious than what we have had this week…. We hope that he will continue to come to Texas and seek the relaxation that he deserves.” 

With these words, Harry enabled the vice president to cover up his unkind deed, in other words, to be a shit.  Harry cooperated with the minimization of the vice president’s deeds and his own near-death.

            Sophie told her husband Bill, “You’re too sensitive” when he gagged at the bits of beef, carrots, and asparagus, along with lumps of toothpaste and bubbles of spit she had left in the bathroom sink after she had brushed her teeth. Sophie’s words stung Bill.  He instantly felt better when he resolved to leave his own mouth garbage in the sink the next time he brushed his teeth. Too sensitive, my ass.  He’ll show her. 

            Sophie not only dismissed Bill’s concerns, but she distracted him away from her own insensitivity by pointing out something wrong with him. Being called sensitive hit one of Bill’s hot buttons. He believed he was too sensitive and was ashamed of that. Rather than be consumed with shame, he vowed to get back at Sophie. Bill bought into Sophie’s cover-up.  He enabled her to be shit. By plotting revenge, Bill was on his way to becoming one himself. 

Unkind Deeds and Cover-Ups

While differing in their details, these scenarios have much in common.  In each of them, someone committed an unkind deed and then tried to cover up through humor, minimization, dismissiveness, and deflection of blame. In the vice president’s case, a spokesperson covered up for him.

In each case, recipients bought into the cover-ups.  Harry Whittington may have only given the appearance of buy-in, but he spoke the words of one who enables others to get away with unkind deeds.

On Being a Shit is about such unkind deeds and cover-ups. Instances of being a shit flourish in families, in neighborhoods, at work, and on the highway.  The potential for being a shit exists wherever two

 or more people congregate.  Getting others to believe unkind deeds are their fault is the crowning achievement of being a shit

            Unkind deeds and cover-ups extend into politics, business, sports, academic life, and even world affairs. Richard M. Nixon’s “I don‘t recall” cover-up of his knowledge of the Watergate break-in is one of the most famous political cover-ups in the last fifty years.  Floyd Landis’ alleged doping during the 2006 Tour de France bicycle race and his apparent cover-ups have made headlines throughout the world.

For more than twenty-five years, I did research on serious violence, such as rape, child molestation, and murder.  In their own words, perpetrators described multiple and ingenious ways they evaded responsibility for their behaviors and, whenever possible, blamed others for their own terrible deeds.

As I became familiar with criminal acts and cover-ups, I began to notice variations of them operating in everyday life among persons who had committed relatively minor unkind deeds and who sought to cover them up through evasion, distortion, and blame. 

When I read Harry Frankfurt’s best-selling book On Bullshit, I found a name for the unkind deeds and cover-ups that I had noticed for so many years.  I termed these everyday acts being a shit and decided to write a book about them.  Frankfurt, a philosopher, wrote a philosophical essay.  I am a researcher, and the present book is a report on research I conducted. 

Why an Impolite Word?

I chose the impolite being a shit over other more respectable terms such as being insufficiently accountable and the evasion of responsibility because the term being a shit fits how we experience unkind deeds and cover-ups in everyday life.  When someone dumps on us and then tries to cover it up, a typical response is “You shit!”

I wrote this book to let others know what I have learned from years of research and in so doing to help them avoid being trapped in the maneuvers that are now so familiar to me. With this level of awareness, I freely admit that I have been a recipient of unkind deeds and cover-ups and have expertise in enabling them.  I am much better

at being a recipient than an enactor, although I have some talent in that regard as well.

I also wrote this book in the hope that those who enact being shits will enjoy reading about themselves, until, of course, they get to the parts where they see that I am on to them. Then, I cannot predict what they will do, perhaps ridicule the book so they can carry on. A few may see the light and change their ways.

My fondest hope is that On Being a Shit will clue recipients about their parts in the cycle of shitty behaviors, and they will opt out of cooperating with the sometimes clever and not-so-clever strategies of cover-up that hook them into believing that false representations are true.

Developing and Testing a Theory of Being a Shit

In this book, I developed and tested a theory of being a shit.  To do so, I applied a scientific method called deductive qualitative analysis (DQA).  This approach to theory building draws from two bodies of thought. The first is the work of philosopher Karl Popper who wrote that science is based upon conjectures, refutations, and reformulations. Science begins with conjectures, or theories.  Scientists test these theories.  They refute and reformulate theories when there is evidence to do so.

The second body of thought is qualitative sociology, where researchers develop and test hypotheses. They seek cases that will refute their theories and force them to reformulate.  Their goal is a revised theory that fits the cases on which the theory was tested. This approach is called analytic induction. Detail on method is in the Appendix.

Deductive qualitative analysis involves several steps. The first is to write down everything researchers already know about the phenomena of interest.  The next is to review what others have written about the phenomena and related conditions.  Based on what researchers learn from these two steps, they formulate a preliminary theory. Then they test the preliminary theory and change it when there is evidence to do so. The final product is a revised theory that fits the new evidence. Researchers typically do DQA in order to come up with a better, more accurate and trustworthy theory.  That was my purpose in developing and testing a theory of being a shit.

Steps Involved in the Present Investigation

I followed these procedures in the present investigation.  I first wrote out my assumptions, based upon my own research, my professional experience as a social worker, and observations of everyday life. The results of this effort compose Chapters One and Two. Next, I reviewed scholarly writings on the meanings of the word shit and on related conditions, such as humbug, bullshit, and lying. I also consulted cognitive neuroscience for insights this discipline might offer. These reviews are in Chapters Three and Four.

I then developed a preliminary theory of being a shit. This composes Chapter Five. Following that, I tested the theory on a series of cases. The testing is reported in Chapters Six through Nineteen. 

In Chapters Twenty through Twenty-Four, I applied the theory to cases where enactors either voluntarily mended their ways or were pressured to do so. Chapter Twenty-Five is a commentary on fake and true accountability. Chapter Twenty-Six shows what not to do when enactor blow back at persons who confront them about their unkind deeds and cover-ups. Chapters Twenty-Seven through Thirty-Two discuss the results of testing the theory.  The results include finings that the preliminary theory did not anticipate, such as the joys of being a shit and what to call enactors who fail at being shits.

These final chapters include a revised and tested theory and a discussion of the implications of the revised theory. Included in the discussion are lessons learned on how to resist the tactics that enactors use to cover up their unkind deeds. 

The cases on which I tested the theory are stories about people from many walks of life and who covered up a wide variety of unkind deeds. I chose a diverse sample because I want the theory to be useful to many different situations.

I found that the theory fit most cases well. The theory also helped me to see aspects of being a shit I might not otherwise have noticed.  Thus, the theory served a sensitizing purpose; that is, it gave me a set of ideas that helped in the analysis of the cases.

No theory can be considered reliable and trustworthy until researchers have tested it exhaustively and deliberately in a systematic way and compared the theory with the facts of each case.  Researchers reformulate the theory until it satisfactorily fits all the cases on which it was tested.  At that point, the theory becomes both reliable and trustworthy.  The present theory of being a shit underwent such testing. It has great promise to enlighten a pervasive human condition. 

This book spoofs social science theory-building, while also having a serious side.  Who ever heard of testing a theory of being a shit?  On the other hand, being a shit happens so often that it warrants close scientific scrutiny.  What’s more, this book provides a model of how to do theory testing using qualitative data, something that is of interest to many social scientists. 

I hope readers enjoy reading the book as much as I enjoyed writing it and that its contents enlighten them as much as I have been enlightened.

Reading is important, no doubt about it.  People who read well earn more money than those who do not, are more active in civic affairs, and are able to take many factors into account before they act.  Yet, many people in the U.S. are reading less, according to a new report put out by the National Endowment for the Arts, an agency of the federal government.

What to do? Make all forms of written material as interesting as YouTube or television advertisements.  People are reading.  They are reading e-mail, MySpace, websites, graphic novels, and all kinds of other interesting stuff.

By their behaviors, today’s readers are telling those who write that they have to do better.  Be interesting.  Be short.  Be funny.  Use graphics. Use sounds. Make reading fun.  Match reading to the incredible imaginations that so many people have.

The decline in reading is a challenge to writers.  Write better stuff. It really is that simple.

A case in point: Children nine and younger have great reading scores.  Why?  Because author who write for children write TO children.  They write what children want to read.  The stories are short and fun. They appeal to children’s imaginations.  They have great graphics.  Many appeal to multiple senses—sound, smell, taste. Many have DVDS that go along with children’s books.

If children’s writers can do it, we all can.  It’s win-win.

If I were president, I would do exactly what I wanted because I am the decider.  I decide for the country and the world. My first act would be to start a war that would bankrupt the country.  I'd follow up with refusals to provide medical care and benefits to soldiers who fought in the war, award contracts for war-making to my friends, reduce taxes for the rich, make the poor and middle class pay for the war, violate the constitution, act as if I were above the law, and put political opponents in prison.   I would also start another war with another country just to make sure that the world is safe for democracy. 

But wait.  That’s not all.  I would fire government employees who do not carry out my will.  I would neglect roads and bridges, leave millions of people without medical care, degrade the public education system, and devalue the dollar so that we pay more for oil and gas so the people who we are fighting in the war have more money to fight us.  I would put my mighty effort into destroying social security so that even more old people will live in poverty.

From my bully pulpit, I would declare that I am doing all of this for the good of the American people. And the world, I would add.

But wait, someone beat me to it.  We’ve been there, done that.  I guess I would have to something else.  I’ve got it.  For the first six months of my presidency, I would meet in small groups two times a day with local, national, and international leaders and people most of us have never heard of.  I would listen to what they have to say about what is going wrong and what is going right in the world.  I’d ask them to tell me what they think could be done.

I would have two other people with me at all times.  These would be people who could identify the core ideas in what people from all over the country and the world tell me.  After each meeting, I would process what we learn in these meetings with these two people for one hour.

One time a day for those six months, I would meet for two hours with advisers hand-picked for their far-sightedness and humanitarians.  We would hammer out policies for dealing the issues that people everywhere have identified.  

Imagine that. 

The police have convincing evidence that Michael John Anderson killed Katherine Ann Olson, but they can’t explain why.  That’s what the headlines on the front page of the Minneapolis Star Tribune said on Halloween 2007.  I doubt that the police do not have good guesses as to why. 

I have guesses. There are several possible scenarios.  One is that Anderson planned to rape Olson and then kill her. The other is he planned to rape her but not to kill her.  The third is he planned to rape her, she resisted, and he shot and killed her. Of course, rape might not have been his motive at all.  He could have wanted what he thought would be the intense pleasure of killing a woman.  Anderson said a friend killed Olson because the friend that it would be funny.

Rape is a likely motive because Anderson’s bed and the walls of his bedroom were splattered with Olson’s blood.  That Olson resisted is a likely scenario because she was shot in the back and there was no sign of sexual assault. He might have tried to rape her but could not because he had no erection. Anderson probably escorted Olson to his bedroom under the pretext that the child she was to care for was there, or he could have forced her there at gunpoint.  Anderson had gotten Olson to his home through posting an ad for a child care job on Craigslist, a well-known website. 

Anderson may have gotten emotional and sexual gratification out of planning the attack. He may have thought about raping and possibly murdering a woman long before he actually did it.  He may have enjoyed the planning more than the attack itself.  When fantasy became reality, he could not do what he had given him such intense pleasure for so long.  Many rapists can't get erections after months of fantasyzing about rape. 

Rapists often fantasize about rape as a joyful, intensely pleasurable event. Anderson probably imagined that the woman he actually raped would welcome his sexual desires, get a beatific smile on her face, and tell him he was the most fantastic lover ever. He may have imagined she would fall in love with him and they would become a couple.

When his fantasy did not pan out and she ran from him, he may have gone into a rage.  With a gun at the ready, he shot and killed her.  Then he was in trouble big time.  He had to get rid of the body.  He dragged Olson down the stairs, tied her with twine, and dumped her body in the trunk of her car. He drove the car a few blocks away to a park reserve.  He walked back home.

Anderson supposedly had two close male friends who are now in shock.  “I’m just blank,” one said.  “He would never raise a fits to anybody.” Both friends maintain that Anderson was never violent and never showed interest in women.

They did not know who they were dealing with.

The scanty biography published in the newspaper suggests that all was not well with Anderson.  At 19, he was a high school dropout who also apparently had dropped out of auto mechanics school.  He was working nights and told one of his friends that he now was back into the routine of sleeping.  With these two friends, he would play video games, type not stated.  The newspaper account also labeled him a “paintball fanatic.” His friends said that they used to tease Anderson.  They claimed he was good-natured about it.

Anderson had not seen his two friends in about a month. There is no information of whether he had isolated himself this past month, or years.  There is no information about what he did during that time.  There is no information about what he had thought about during that time.

What is known is that he planned an attack on a woman.  It took planning to place an ad on Craigslist for a babysitter and forethought to disguise that he was 19 years old.  He posed as “Amy.”

Anderson is locked up with a million-dollar bail. He no longer can harm young women. I hope the police study this case intensely and then publicize what they find. We can learn a lot about prevention of violence if they do this.

A case study of Anderson would involve a neurological exam that would investigate whether he had a neurological vulnerability to emotional and cognitive dysregulation.  Dysregulation means racing thoughts, emotions, and often agitated behaviors and rapid heartbeat, among other things. 

A brain scan might be able to pinpoint neurological issues.  Depression, bipolar disorders, and hyperactivity/impulsive disorders are usually detectable through brain scans. Did Anderson have sleep deprivation?  Did his night job isolate him from enjoyable activities?  Sleep deprivation and social isolation could aggravate an underlying neurological vulnerability and contribute to dysregulation.

The brain scan could provide evidence that he may have experienced dysregulation. If he did, then the examiner would ask him how he handled these racing thoughts and emotions.  Did he use violent fantasies to deal with them?  

Did he talk to anyone about his racing thoughts and emotions, or his violent fantasies? Did it help to talk? Did he ever talk to anyone about painful events in his life?  Everyone has these kinds of events.  The question is how Anderson dealt with them. 

Did Anderson have long-term friendships?  What did he talk about with these friends?  Did they know what was in Anderson’s heart?  Did Anderson feel connected to other people whom he admired, who were doing well in life, and who he wanted to be like? What kind of persons did Anderson admire and want to be like? 

It would be important to know what traumas Anderson may have experienced.  Some people are masters at covering up the effects of trauma.  Something as simple as teasing by friends could be traumatic.  Anderson may have seemed to have laughed off the teasing of friends, but how did he really feel?

Another part of the exam would involve how Anderson dealt with problems in his life.  Did he consider many different possible solutions, seek the advice of others, anticipate the consequences of the various solutions?  This part of the exam involves what is called executive function, which is about how people think. 

People who commit the kinds of violent acts that Anderson appears to have committed have tunnel vision.  They do not think through the consequences, either for themselves or the people they want to harm.  They are only looking at what they think are the immediate rewards. One they have committed the violent acts, then they snap back into realizing that they have done something seriously terrible.  It’s too late.

It’s not too late for the uncounted potential victims of persons who right now are getting emotional and often sexual gratification out of harming other people.  If we can commit the time and resources to understanding what is going on for people who commit these acts of violence, we are on the road to effective prevention.

How are you celebrating Halloween today?

I ate almost a whole back of Hershey nuggets.  I even had them for breakfast on Halloween.  No more nuggets for me.  I'm also thinking about my mother who died a year ago and a friend how died about 15 months ago.  In addition, to my chagrin, I'm thinking of someone who I had once loved and who is no longer in my life because of his unkind deeds and cover-ups.

The best case scenario for survivor recovery from child sexual abuse is the caring, supportive response of their families and friends.  Children recover well when children are surrounded by people who love them, believe them when they say someone abused them sexually, and do not blame them. Children’s recovery depends upon empathy, understanding, and education about the true nature of child sexual abuse. 

            Another important aspect of recovery occurs when others hold perpetrators responsible and accountable for their own behaviors.  Accountability means that perpetrators take responsibility for the abuse, accept the consequences for their actions, seek the help they require to stop themselves from sexually abusing again, and apologize to the children and any other persons they have harmed.

            Such actions are rare, but when they do happen, children’s recovery is given a huge boost. Child survivors are relieved from the guilt, shame, and stigma that are part of being sexu8ally abused.  The adults in their lives have evidence in the words and actions of perpetrators that perpetrators alone are responsible, not the children, and that the perpetrators’ behaviors hurt the children.

            Children can and do recover when perpetrators do not take responsibility, but the road to recovery is made more smooth when they do. 

            When perpetrators take responsibility, the possibility that they can change their behaviors opens up. They then can report their behaviors truthfully to law enforcement and the courts, can hear what survivors and others whom they have hurt have to say, they can engage in sex offender treatment, therapy, and they can accept the consequences of their behaviors.  When they plead guilty, they relieve survivors of the difficult task of testifying court and enduring cross-examinations. 

            This is no easy thing for perpetrators to do, but those who take responsibility and stick with it have reason to hope that they can get their lives back and be in a better place.  Sadly, some abusers swing back and forth between taking responsibility and blaming others.  This hurts survivors and themselves.  Such wavering also puts them at high risk to sexually abuse again.

Yes, the Constitution is always right. The values and principle embedded in the Constitution promote the well-being, equal opportunity, and equal treatment of every U.S. Citizens.  It sets up a system of checks and balances among the U.S. Congress, the courts, and the executive branch, or the presidency. 

The U.S. media are often called the fourth estate because the media are the watchdog over these three branches of government. Each US citizen can vote.  Voting is the basis of the U.S. democracy.  The media and each U.S. citizen have the right to object to or praise each of the three branches of government when the principles of the Constitution are violated.

Like any document, people interpret the Constitution in their own ways. There is legitimate and healthy debate over what the Constitution means, at least within certain bounds.  Certain principles and values are inviolable and self-evident, among them “life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness.” Personal freedom ends when it infringes on the freedom of other people. Therefore, no one is free to murder, prevent others from voting, or deny educational opportunities.  These are just some of the limits on personal and institutional freedoms.

Some public officials ignore the Constitution. When this happens, every U.S. citizen has the right to protest and to bring the matter before courts and legislatures. Organized groups often exist to protect the Constitutional rights of citizens.

The U.S. Constitution has allowed the U.S. government to be a world leader in many different arenas, including the conduct of war, the ethical treatment of prisoners of war, and freedom of speech. 

The U.S. has lost its world leadership precisely because elected officials have violated the values and principles of the Constitution.  Elected officials, such as the presidency, have ordered the detainment of citizens of other countries, denied them the Constitutionally guaranteed right to counsel and trial, and has tortured them.  In some cases, these officials have ordered the abduction of citizens of other countries. 

In regard to U.S. Citizens, the office of the presidency has infringed on Constitutional rights of privacy by permitting eavesdropping on citizens without a court order.   In cloaking themselves in the rhetoric of patriotism, these elected officials have engaged in hypocrisy of a most serious kind.

In summary, the Constitution is always right.  There is room for legitimate debate about what the Constitutions means.  Certain rights and values are self-evident and inviolable.

             I’m worried.  The Bush administration defies the law. The California governor defies the law. If elected officials do not obey the law, what’s next?  Lawlessness?  I have visions of armed men taking over governorships, tanks rolling down Constitution Avenue in Washington, D.C., and  the next elected president with a gun against her temple being escorted out of the Oval Office because she did something someone else did not like.

I am afraid the United States will descend into chaos, where anyone, including those elected to powerful public office, will do whatever they please regardless of the law. Citizens who break the law are subject to arrest.  What about elected officials?

How is it that the president of the United States can order the abduction and torture of citizens of other countries and get away with it?  How can the governor of California enforce a law whose implementation the California Supreme Court has ordered to be stayed?  

How is it that a man who was arrested for urinating under a bridge 22 years ago is a registered sex offender and is arrested under order of the governor of California?  Yes, that is what happened.  This man is a registered sex offender because he peed outside 22 years ago and was arrested this week for not letting police know where he lives.

There’s something rotten in the United States.