I had a terrible night last night, and just as bad a day today. Last night I got the phone call that no teacher ever wants to receive. Apparently that afternoon, one of my students died. Whether or not it was a suicide is still not technically resolved.
Anyway, of course, I have difficulties in dealing with this, but I think I did a decent job of helping my class process the event, and I had some counselor and campus ministry referals in the process. This isn't the first time this has happened in my career, and though I pray it will be the last, I know that that is unlikely as well.
And if you know me, you know that I am the type who keeps a close eye on his students, and I look for issues of depression, angst, eating disorders, and all the other various things that plague the mental health of teenagers. I just did not see this coming at all, but I also know that people who are depressed can get very good at hiding it, but she really seemed like a very normal sophomore girl. I always wonder if there was something more I could have said or done, and while cognitively I understand that this response is illogical, that does nothing to dull the pain.
I haven't decided yet what to do about her seat in class, and I think we will have to talk about that at some point in the near future. There is not too much worse than the elephant in the room of a student's empty seat, and I have the kids partnered up all the time; it has already been tough on the friend who was her partner in class, but she got to talk to her counselor today.
I don't know what else to say, but I feel like crap right now, and I don't see that changing really soon.
Wednesday, February 25, 2009
Friday, February 13, 2009
Just a quick couple of lines
Just to vent for a second, I hate people who think that the rising sea level is coming from submerged ice - I know that even the science journalist for AP has made that mistake on a couple of occasions (he doesn't have a science background, just researches articles and writes his opinion, I think). Even people who think melting land bound ice is leading to sea level rise are incorrect, because the Antarctic Ice pack is getting thicker because of the global weather trend, and land bound ice growth about matches the rate of its shrinking - it is just being redistributed around the globe. The real reason for sea level rise (and it is rising to the tune of .3 cm per year on average - that's about 10 inches in the last century -though the IPCC puts it between 4.4 and 8.8 inches in that century) is thermal expansion. As sea water temperatures rise, the density decreases because the volume increases (this has to do with temperature as a measure of kinetic energy - how fast the molecules are moving. Higher temps = Higher Kinetic Energy = same amount of water taking up more space). On a small scale, this expansion does very little, but on the large scale it can lead to rising sea levels - albeit very slowly rising sea levels.
Worst case scenarios predict a 1 meter rise in the next century - very manageable, even in low lying areas with dikes, levees, and damns. The cost would be fractional compared to the draconian solutions many are positing. Further, there are parts of the world where the sea level is dropping - Alaska, for example, as plate techtonics pushes Alska up, sea level there can drop by inches a year!
Just some interesting facts - whether you believe in anthropogenic warming or not, it is best to know what the hell you are talking about (and I know not to end with about - it should be "know about that which you are talking", but damn it that phrasing is so stilted).
Worst case scenarios predict a 1 meter rise in the next century - very manageable, even in low lying areas with dikes, levees, and damns. The cost would be fractional compared to the draconian solutions many are positing. Further, there are parts of the world where the sea level is dropping - Alaska, for example, as plate techtonics pushes Alska up, sea level there can drop by inches a year!
Just some interesting facts - whether you believe in anthropogenic warming or not, it is best to know what the hell you are talking about (and I know not to end with about - it should be "know about that which you are talking", but damn it that phrasing is so stilted).
Tuesday, February 10, 2009
Boy Did I Step In It This Time ...
I am not normally one to voice my opinion on political causes to students for fear of having undue influence over them. For the most part, I would have them become independent learners and persons of thoughtful conscience. I do sometimes influence the direction of that conscience towards caring for others and ideals of social justice, but I am neither heavy-handed nor am I overt in my approach for the most part.
My coworkers, on the other hand, know that I lean politically to the right and that I favor a more conservative, and what I deem as "common-sense" approach to the environment. Of course, since I do not jump on to popular fads, many of them believe that I am "anti-environment", which I am not. I just prefer to use credible scientific data to make informed choices about environmentalism. I am neither reactionary, nor am I revolutionary. I do not jump onto a cause because it is popular, and I do not dismiss a cause because it is popular. I try to see what the actual issue is and what the most rational and reasonable solution is that will benefit the most people and the environment simultaneously. Clearly, this opinion is difficult to capture in a few sentences, so I get labeled as a "anti-environment" guy.
With that preface out of the way, let me explain what happened at my school today. The seniors had a 45 minute presentation on alternative fuels today, and I went with an open mind hoping that the person would have some good things to say. The presenter, however, was not a scientist, but rather was a businessman who raised venture capital for green companies.
This would have been fine if he had confined his topics to businesses having a social conscience, and talked about why he was involved, and how he wanted to do his part. However, he tried to justify it from a semi-scientific angle, by showing slides of glaciers in 1904 vs the glaciers in 2004 to get a dramatic impact about global warming. Again, much as I dislike the level of specious reasoning involved, I kept my mouth shut and let the kids ask any questions they had (he had solicited that anyone ask questions at any time) - none were willing to. Since it was not my place, I maintained crowd control and paid attention to the speaker because I wanted to model appropriate behavior. This is really the way I approach anything at the school whether I agree or disagree, because it is generally not my view that it is my roll to interact in those situations.
However, (yep - one more use of the word however - it just seems to work for me here) he made such an egregious scientific error that I felt it necessary to interject, something that is very uncomfortable and difficult for me to do. I was very sincere in not putting my own politics into it, and I tried to give this Yale graduate a way to salvage his dignity. (That was how he was introduced - blah, blah, worked for Apple, blah, blah venture capital for CleanTech, blah, blah, graduated with a Bachelor's from Yale)
So here is what he said, and here is how I responded. He had been making several comments about global warming and carbon emissions and such, and was talking about sea level rise, and glaciers melting... then he used potentially the worst and dumbest analogy in history...
"So you've got a glass of soda and you put some ice in it... then the ice melts and the soda level starts to rise."
That is where I jumped in, because every frickin' fifth grader has seen the experiment where ice that is already submerged does not raise the water level. It has to do with displacement, volume and the fact that ice is less dense than water, but when it melts it has the same density so it takes up the exact amount that the submerged piece did - not everybody remembers why, but everyone should know that fact!!!
Before I mention what my response was, I will say that I could already sense the students in the room scoffing at his response; a good 30% or so had incredulous looks and, to my mind were going to shut off from anything good the guy might have to say. Those kids would talk to people around them, and not everyone would have been distracted, but he would have lost a majority of his audience - or so I thought. I could be wrong in my assessment, but I feel that I can tell when our students sense blood in the water - and they are the type to pounce if they can, or disengage completely if they can.
So here is how I responded. I remember what I said almost perfectly (credit social anxiety disorder for that, I constantly analyze and re-analyze what I have said). I said, "Wait a second, you probably don't want to use that analogy because it is flawed. You really want to be talking about ice that is not submerged, because when that melts it will raise the level of the water". Of course a number of students made some noise (no hoots or cheers, but just under that level), and he tried to correct himself - I really figured he knew what he was talking about, so I felt he could clarify his statement. When he floundered a bit and clearly didn't understand the distinction, students began to get a bit rowdy, so I interjected to quiet the students and explained that if glaciers on land melted that could contribute to sea level rise - which is what he was trying to say. The students settled down, and listened, but they began to ask questions themselves at that point, and he could not answer many of them.
And I credit the students - they asked good, on point questions, that were not loaded against him, but were thought provoking. For example, when he talked about how solar panels were manufactured, a student asked about energy and resources it took to build one, and how long before the energy they produced would offset their energy cost. Now that is a great question, but the guy didn' t have the answer, he hemmed and hawed, and said "I am not sure of the exact numbers, but I imagine that it is sooner than you think". Other questions included questions about battery life and use of resources to create the batteries, disposal problems with the batteries, etc. Again he couldn't answer, but he did respond very well with, "Those are some of the major issues, and that is where research is being done, and if you pursue a science education, you can help with that research". This was a great response on his part, because he acknowledged the weaknesses of the proposed solution, but showed where they could have a clear and positive impact. The problem is that anytime he got a science question, he would fumble a bit, and look to me for help - which I was unwilling to provide because my statements would have been in direct contradiction to some of his statements.
One of the things that he showed was the Tesla - a really cool car that you all already know about, 0 - 60 in 3.7 seconds, fully electric, uses 8,600 little batteries (the same ones strung together to run laptops), trying to impress them with green tech replicating the high end stuff. Here is the problem - he didn't know his audience. The kids who are uber-green at our school are also big into social justice, and so bristle at the extravagance, the kids who are analytical want to ask questions on the science, and he was unprepared for both. (This is not to imply that the pro-environment are not analytical, but just that they accept more of the green PR line and approach the topic from an emotional and social justice angle, as well as analytical). So he had one girl talking to him about how profligate and wasteful and impractical it was, while another asked him whether there were any numbers on whether plugging into a carbon generating grid was a more efficient and less pollutive. Both were valid assertions, both should have been addressed, but he could address neither.
He seemed like a nice guy, and I felt bad for him, and in retrospect, I am not sure whether what I did was right or not, but in some way I feel that it needed to be said, and that the students needed to feel like their voices could be heard. I think, however, that the rumor mill is going to ramp into overdrive about my roll in this, and some people are going to be pissed even though they weren't there.
That was the other thing that pissed me off. We have about 350 seniors, all of them and their teachers should have been there. Since our class sizes average 26, and many are smaller, we should have had about 15 to 20 people there. There were fewer than 10 teachers in attendance.
And now for my most major faux pas, which I have only recognized in retrospect, but which an outside observer may view as very insulting. As a result of the aforementioned social anxiety, I do not like to deal with situations with large groups, especially ones where I am forced to express myself, as I was then. In these situations, I tend to grab whatever is closest to me an fidget with it. In the past, this has been a pen or pencil, maybe some change, anything to keep my hand occupied - it forces me to focus on what is in my had so that the anxiety I often feel is dimmed to the background. But lately, I have been carrying a Rubik's Cube in my pocket, and I reached for that and idly started fiddling with it. I was using one hand, and not looking at it; for me, it was just a way to deal with stress (maybe I should get the pair of metal balls a la Captain Queeg). Of course, in retrospect, both students and faculty could see that and might perceive it as insulting - I picked apart a weak statement and then didn't pay attention and fiddled with the cube. Not a good image, and I will probably have to do some damage control with some faculty, but I really do not like talking about coping mechanisms for mood disorders to people (strange how the anonymity here makes it really easy to discuss), but I may have to cop to that.
I doubt it, though because anyone who sides with me will ignore it, while anyone who thinks that I was insulting will look at it as an excuse.
What to do? What to do?
Anyway, that's all folks, thanks if you made it this far, and I look forward to hearing your comments - my recollections are as unbiased as I could make them, and I think they display an accurate picture of what went on at this event.
My coworkers, on the other hand, know that I lean politically to the right and that I favor a more conservative, and what I deem as "common-sense" approach to the environment. Of course, since I do not jump on to popular fads, many of them believe that I am "anti-environment", which I am not. I just prefer to use credible scientific data to make informed choices about environmentalism. I am neither reactionary, nor am I revolutionary. I do not jump onto a cause because it is popular, and I do not dismiss a cause because it is popular. I try to see what the actual issue is and what the most rational and reasonable solution is that will benefit the most people and the environment simultaneously. Clearly, this opinion is difficult to capture in a few sentences, so I get labeled as a "anti-environment" guy.
With that preface out of the way, let me explain what happened at my school today. The seniors had a 45 minute presentation on alternative fuels today, and I went with an open mind hoping that the person would have some good things to say. The presenter, however, was not a scientist, but rather was a businessman who raised venture capital for green companies.
This would have been fine if he had confined his topics to businesses having a social conscience, and talked about why he was involved, and how he wanted to do his part. However, he tried to justify it from a semi-scientific angle, by showing slides of glaciers in 1904 vs the glaciers in 2004 to get a dramatic impact about global warming. Again, much as I dislike the level of specious reasoning involved, I kept my mouth shut and let the kids ask any questions they had (he had solicited that anyone ask questions at any time) - none were willing to. Since it was not my place, I maintained crowd control and paid attention to the speaker because I wanted to model appropriate behavior. This is really the way I approach anything at the school whether I agree or disagree, because it is generally not my view that it is my roll to interact in those situations.
However, (yep - one more use of the word however - it just seems to work for me here) he made such an egregious scientific error that I felt it necessary to interject, something that is very uncomfortable and difficult for me to do. I was very sincere in not putting my own politics into it, and I tried to give this Yale graduate a way to salvage his dignity. (That was how he was introduced - blah, blah, worked for Apple, blah, blah venture capital for CleanTech, blah, blah, graduated with a Bachelor's from Yale)
So here is what he said, and here is how I responded. He had been making several comments about global warming and carbon emissions and such, and was talking about sea level rise, and glaciers melting... then he used potentially the worst and dumbest analogy in history...
"So you've got a glass of soda and you put some ice in it... then the ice melts and the soda level starts to rise."
That is where I jumped in, because every frickin' fifth grader has seen the experiment where ice that is already submerged does not raise the water level. It has to do with displacement, volume and the fact that ice is less dense than water, but when it melts it has the same density so it takes up the exact amount that the submerged piece did - not everybody remembers why, but everyone should know that fact!!!
Before I mention what my response was, I will say that I could already sense the students in the room scoffing at his response; a good 30% or so had incredulous looks and, to my mind were going to shut off from anything good the guy might have to say. Those kids would talk to people around them, and not everyone would have been distracted, but he would have lost a majority of his audience - or so I thought. I could be wrong in my assessment, but I feel that I can tell when our students sense blood in the water - and they are the type to pounce if they can, or disengage completely if they can.
So here is how I responded. I remember what I said almost perfectly (credit social anxiety disorder for that, I constantly analyze and re-analyze what I have said). I said, "Wait a second, you probably don't want to use that analogy because it is flawed. You really want to be talking about ice that is not submerged, because when that melts it will raise the level of the water". Of course a number of students made some noise (no hoots or cheers, but just under that level), and he tried to correct himself - I really figured he knew what he was talking about, so I felt he could clarify his statement. When he floundered a bit and clearly didn't understand the distinction, students began to get a bit rowdy, so I interjected to quiet the students and explained that if glaciers on land melted that could contribute to sea level rise - which is what he was trying to say. The students settled down, and listened, but they began to ask questions themselves at that point, and he could not answer many of them.
And I credit the students - they asked good, on point questions, that were not loaded against him, but were thought provoking. For example, when he talked about how solar panels were manufactured, a student asked about energy and resources it took to build one, and how long before the energy they produced would offset their energy cost. Now that is a great question, but the guy didn' t have the answer, he hemmed and hawed, and said "I am not sure of the exact numbers, but I imagine that it is sooner than you think". Other questions included questions about battery life and use of resources to create the batteries, disposal problems with the batteries, etc. Again he couldn't answer, but he did respond very well with, "Those are some of the major issues, and that is where research is being done, and if you pursue a science education, you can help with that research". This was a great response on his part, because he acknowledged the weaknesses of the proposed solution, but showed where they could have a clear and positive impact. The problem is that anytime he got a science question, he would fumble a bit, and look to me for help - which I was unwilling to provide because my statements would have been in direct contradiction to some of his statements.
One of the things that he showed was the Tesla - a really cool car that you all already know about, 0 - 60 in 3.7 seconds, fully electric, uses 8,600 little batteries (the same ones strung together to run laptops), trying to impress them with green tech replicating the high end stuff. Here is the problem - he didn't know his audience. The kids who are uber-green at our school are also big into social justice, and so bristle at the extravagance, the kids who are analytical want to ask questions on the science, and he was unprepared for both. (This is not to imply that the pro-environment are not analytical, but just that they accept more of the green PR line and approach the topic from an emotional and social justice angle, as well as analytical). So he had one girl talking to him about how profligate and wasteful and impractical it was, while another asked him whether there were any numbers on whether plugging into a carbon generating grid was a more efficient and less pollutive. Both were valid assertions, both should have been addressed, but he could address neither.
He seemed like a nice guy, and I felt bad for him, and in retrospect, I am not sure whether what I did was right or not, but in some way I feel that it needed to be said, and that the students needed to feel like their voices could be heard. I think, however, that the rumor mill is going to ramp into overdrive about my roll in this, and some people are going to be pissed even though they weren't there.
That was the other thing that pissed me off. We have about 350 seniors, all of them and their teachers should have been there. Since our class sizes average 26, and many are smaller, we should have had about 15 to 20 people there. There were fewer than 10 teachers in attendance.
And now for my most major faux pas, which I have only recognized in retrospect, but which an outside observer may view as very insulting. As a result of the aforementioned social anxiety, I do not like to deal with situations with large groups, especially ones where I am forced to express myself, as I was then. In these situations, I tend to grab whatever is closest to me an fidget with it. In the past, this has been a pen or pencil, maybe some change, anything to keep my hand occupied - it forces me to focus on what is in my had so that the anxiety I often feel is dimmed to the background. But lately, I have been carrying a Rubik's Cube in my pocket, and I reached for that and idly started fiddling with it. I was using one hand, and not looking at it; for me, it was just a way to deal with stress (maybe I should get the pair of metal balls a la Captain Queeg). Of course, in retrospect, both students and faculty could see that and might perceive it as insulting - I picked apart a weak statement and then didn't pay attention and fiddled with the cube. Not a good image, and I will probably have to do some damage control with some faculty, but I really do not like talking about coping mechanisms for mood disorders to people (strange how the anonymity here makes it really easy to discuss), but I may have to cop to that.
I doubt it, though because anyone who sides with me will ignore it, while anyone who thinks that I was insulting will look at it as an excuse.
What to do? What to do?
Anyway, that's all folks, thanks if you made it this far, and I look forward to hearing your comments - my recollections are as unbiased as I could make them, and I think they display an accurate picture of what went on at this event.
Monday, February 9, 2009
Just Another Maniac Monday
Yeah, I am well aware that it is not "maniac" in the Bangles tune - it's a play on words, get it :)
So I am just trying to get back into the habit of writing something everyday, even if it is just a quick comment; otherwise I get swamped with my ideas and thoughts and get overwhelmed and never put proverbial pen to paper.
Just a quick response to Supergoober's comments on the blog on salary regulations - as I said in my response to him, I don't think that the salary caps on executive pay are what is the largest flaw in the so-called stimulus bill (the only thing it stimulates are the pundits squawking about it), but I just used it as a leaping off point into what is fundamentally flawed about use of this technique.
Of course, it is also tragically flawed because it puts the onus on the wrong people, it seeks to enhance a sense of class jealousy, and expiates the need for responsibility on the part of the irresponsible borrower and blames only the irresponsible lender (there is plenty of blame to go around on all sides; people borrowed who shouldn't have, people lent who shouldn't have, and people created unrealistic regulations and ignored the need for reform).
But I guess the bloom is off the rose for you, Supergoober, eh? I don't honestly know why you believed that Obama would cut taxes on the middle class - he has no history of doing that, so why were you expecting it? It was simply campaign rhetoric designed to pull moderate voters off of the fence (people who didn't really want to vote Republican, but who also didn't really have a reason to vote at all). Besides, "middle class" is a moniker that is ill-defined in the political realm; both sides use it to describe different things.
The really big problem with the "stimulus" package is that it is simply an over-abundance of government spending in weird and often inconsequential directions. Infrastructure expenditures do little to actually stimulate the economy (though I have actually heard Democrats argue that these things would filter through the market by people employed being able to spend more money, freeing up business capital, therefore allowing the banks to become more solvent and deal with businesses better - a remarkably Reagan-esque argument that sounds a lot like "trickle-down" economic theory) especially because there is no actual value backing up the money that is to be pushed into the economy - therefore, inflation is a real risk.
Unfortunately, when these policies don't work, it will be a regular blame-fest on Republican opposition to the bill, and how G.W. really loused up the economy and even a genius like Barrack Obama couldn't fix it.
And what about the "politics of pessimism" that Obama said that he would avoid; right now he is making the claim that the entire economy will fall apart if his bill isn't passed.
In reality, no bill is going to have an immediate effect (except perhaps indexing capital gains to inflation, and that ain't ever gonna happen, even though it should), whether from the Republicans or Democrats, and of course I believe that my solutions are more reasonable than the Dem. solutions, otherwise I wouldn't put these forth as ideas.
But all-in-all, no one can really do that much harm or good, the economy will eventually come back, unless Obama and the Dems in the legislature decide to go full-on FDR for us, then we are in for a long haul. His idea was that you should create tons of government projects and handouts and to fund these projects he increased taxes on businesses. Of course, this slowed down the economy, and we were mired in an economic slump for more than a decade. Don't get me wrong; many of the infrastructure projects were quite valuable, but the main accomplishment of FDR was extending the tendrils of federal government into many more facets of our lives, and fundamentally changing the character of the nation. Some view it as a good change, by and large, I do not - it was really just the biggest power grab in US history, and if you do not believe that it was deliberate, and if you think FDR was not power hungry, may I remind you that he was the first president to ignore the long standing two term tradition set up by George Washington (and we were not yet involved in WWII, yet, so that is not an excuse - that was the excuse for his 4th term). People recognized this later, and set up the 22nd ammendment to cap the presidency at two terms. Do you really think that FDR wouldn't have run for a 5th term if he had survived?
Maybe I'm excessively cynical, but I am almost certain he would have. And it takes a certain kind of unbridled arrogance and egotism to even do what he did - bucking 150+ years of tradition. Not that tradition is always right, but there is something to be said for men being able to step down from authority and not do a blatant power grab.
So I am just trying to get back into the habit of writing something everyday, even if it is just a quick comment; otherwise I get swamped with my ideas and thoughts and get overwhelmed and never put proverbial pen to paper.
Just a quick response to Supergoober's comments on the blog on salary regulations - as I said in my response to him, I don't think that the salary caps on executive pay are what is the largest flaw in the so-called stimulus bill (the only thing it stimulates are the pundits squawking about it), but I just used it as a leaping off point into what is fundamentally flawed about use of this technique.
Of course, it is also tragically flawed because it puts the onus on the wrong people, it seeks to enhance a sense of class jealousy, and expiates the need for responsibility on the part of the irresponsible borrower and blames only the irresponsible lender (there is plenty of blame to go around on all sides; people borrowed who shouldn't have, people lent who shouldn't have, and people created unrealistic regulations and ignored the need for reform).
But I guess the bloom is off the rose for you, Supergoober, eh? I don't honestly know why you believed that Obama would cut taxes on the middle class - he has no history of doing that, so why were you expecting it? It was simply campaign rhetoric designed to pull moderate voters off of the fence (people who didn't really want to vote Republican, but who also didn't really have a reason to vote at all). Besides, "middle class" is a moniker that is ill-defined in the political realm; both sides use it to describe different things.
The really big problem with the "stimulus" package is that it is simply an over-abundance of government spending in weird and often inconsequential directions. Infrastructure expenditures do little to actually stimulate the economy (though I have actually heard Democrats argue that these things would filter through the market by people employed being able to spend more money, freeing up business capital, therefore allowing the banks to become more solvent and deal with businesses better - a remarkably Reagan-esque argument that sounds a lot like "trickle-down" economic theory) especially because there is no actual value backing up the money that is to be pushed into the economy - therefore, inflation is a real risk.
Unfortunately, when these policies don't work, it will be a regular blame-fest on Republican opposition to the bill, and how G.W. really loused up the economy and even a genius like Barrack Obama couldn't fix it.
And what about the "politics of pessimism" that Obama said that he would avoid; right now he is making the claim that the entire economy will fall apart if his bill isn't passed.
In reality, no bill is going to have an immediate effect (except perhaps indexing capital gains to inflation, and that ain't ever gonna happen, even though it should), whether from the Republicans or Democrats, and of course I believe that my solutions are more reasonable than the Dem. solutions, otherwise I wouldn't put these forth as ideas.
But all-in-all, no one can really do that much harm or good, the economy will eventually come back, unless Obama and the Dems in the legislature decide to go full-on FDR for us, then we are in for a long haul. His idea was that you should create tons of government projects and handouts and to fund these projects he increased taxes on businesses. Of course, this slowed down the economy, and we were mired in an economic slump for more than a decade. Don't get me wrong; many of the infrastructure projects were quite valuable, but the main accomplishment of FDR was extending the tendrils of federal government into many more facets of our lives, and fundamentally changing the character of the nation. Some view it as a good change, by and large, I do not - it was really just the biggest power grab in US history, and if you do not believe that it was deliberate, and if you think FDR was not power hungry, may I remind you that he was the first president to ignore the long standing two term tradition set up by George Washington (and we were not yet involved in WWII, yet, so that is not an excuse - that was the excuse for his 4th term). People recognized this later, and set up the 22nd ammendment to cap the presidency at two terms. Do you really think that FDR wouldn't have run for a 5th term if he had survived?
Maybe I'm excessively cynical, but I am almost certain he would have. And it takes a certain kind of unbridled arrogance and egotism to even do what he did - bucking 150+ years of tradition. Not that tradition is always right, but there is something to be said for men being able to step down from authority and not do a blatant power grab.
Sunday, February 8, 2009
A Bit of Honesty
So I changed my profile picture, yet again, and I think I like this one the best...
It's a Noppera-Bō from Japanese legend and it is a critter that can mimic the faces of others to fit in where it needs to, but really has no identity of its own, and at times I feel a bit like this, where I have to put on different faces to fit into situations, and I often wonder if even those core things to which I claim adherence or those things which I supposedly deem "fun" are really me at all.
Especially since there are times that these things give me no joy whatsoever, yet I keep doing them out of ... well, I don't really know why; maybe habit, maybe doctor's advice, but is it really me?
And if it's not, what is? Maybe I've read a bit too much philosophy, but what is one's self, anyway? And how can we truly come to define that? What is it that makes me, me... certainly I am no more special than the next guy or gal, nor do I expect to be, but is there anything to actually verify consciousness? I can't remember the philosopher who hypothesized that self-identity is a delusion, and that all we are is the sum total of our separate experiences and memories, which our brains categorize as snap-shots, and we erroneously identify as our "identity", but which are nothing more than the sum of the parts... I always refuted that on the grounds that obviously one had to have a consciousness and self-identity to postulate the lack of that identity's existence, but that is a weak argument at best, and more put forward to dull my true fear that this guy is right; in which case everything is pretty much pointless.
I guess that is why I keep clinging to the idea of Voltaire's: "If god didn't exist, it would be necessary for us to invent him." I think I know the full repercussions of complete non-belief, and this option is reprehensible. To get a quick clue into how reprehensible, imagine the old adage of "live each day like it was your last", a bastardization of carpe diem (which is misused often enough as it is). If you really have a belief that there is no god, no soul, no nothing; how would you live your last day? Remove all moral obstacles, there are no long term penalties for anything you do, you just have one day to soak up as much joy as you can out of living before you are gone forever. If one truly believed this, I am certain that the "last day" phenomenon would be horrific - certainly, it might start out as goodbyes, but if there were any secret desires that you harbored and you knew that there could be no consequences, that everything was actually meaningless, how much would you do? How far would you go? Could you even care for other people that you hurt - knowing they would live on in pain might not be sufficient deterrent since you would only feel guilt for that day - and if that was the case, why feel guilt at all? Or to prevent them from living with the pain you caused, give them the sweet release of death as well?
Pretty grim, and maybe I am just in a black-hearted mood today, but I think I will explore the ramifications of this "last day with no consequences" idea further. And I know that many atheists would respond with the "human dignity" type of argument, but if you were up against the end and there were no consequences, how far would the idea of human dignity take you?
So, long story short, I think that the Noppera-Bō image really captures what I feel right now - who am I, really?
It's a Noppera-Bō from Japanese legend and it is a critter that can mimic the faces of others to fit in where it needs to, but really has no identity of its own, and at times I feel a bit like this, where I have to put on different faces to fit into situations, and I often wonder if even those core things to which I claim adherence or those things which I supposedly deem "fun" are really me at all.
Especially since there are times that these things give me no joy whatsoever, yet I keep doing them out of ... well, I don't really know why; maybe habit, maybe doctor's advice, but is it really me?
And if it's not, what is? Maybe I've read a bit too much philosophy, but what is one's self, anyway? And how can we truly come to define that? What is it that makes me, me... certainly I am no more special than the next guy or gal, nor do I expect to be, but is there anything to actually verify consciousness? I can't remember the philosopher who hypothesized that self-identity is a delusion, and that all we are is the sum total of our separate experiences and memories, which our brains categorize as snap-shots, and we erroneously identify as our "identity", but which are nothing more than the sum of the parts... I always refuted that on the grounds that obviously one had to have a consciousness and self-identity to postulate the lack of that identity's existence, but that is a weak argument at best, and more put forward to dull my true fear that this guy is right; in which case everything is pretty much pointless.
I guess that is why I keep clinging to the idea of Voltaire's: "If god didn't exist, it would be necessary for us to invent him." I think I know the full repercussions of complete non-belief, and this option is reprehensible. To get a quick clue into how reprehensible, imagine the old adage of "live each day like it was your last", a bastardization of carpe diem (which is misused often enough as it is). If you really have a belief that there is no god, no soul, no nothing; how would you live your last day? Remove all moral obstacles, there are no long term penalties for anything you do, you just have one day to soak up as much joy as you can out of living before you are gone forever. If one truly believed this, I am certain that the "last day" phenomenon would be horrific - certainly, it might start out as goodbyes, but if there were any secret desires that you harbored and you knew that there could be no consequences, that everything was actually meaningless, how much would you do? How far would you go? Could you even care for other people that you hurt - knowing they would live on in pain might not be sufficient deterrent since you would only feel guilt for that day - and if that was the case, why feel guilt at all? Or to prevent them from living with the pain you caused, give them the sweet release of death as well?
Pretty grim, and maybe I am just in a black-hearted mood today, but I think I will explore the ramifications of this "last day with no consequences" idea further. And I know that many atheists would respond with the "human dignity" type of argument, but if you were up against the end and there were no consequences, how far would the idea of human dignity take you?
So, long story short, I think that the Noppera-Bō image really captures what I feel right now - who am I, really?
Thursday, February 5, 2009
Well, It's Been Awhile...
It has been a while since I have sat down at the old qwerty keyboard and tapped out random key sequences that are decipherable to some, meaningful to few, and relevant to none, so I thought I would come back to wasting the time of the few friends who will still bother to read this.
Yet again I am irritated, and I will lay out in some detail why. It began with watching the news this morning and noticing on the scroll at the bottom of the screen that the CEOs of banks that took federal money would be restricted to a maximum salary of $500,000 per year. I do not argue with the right of the federal government to attach provisions to money that they give out - that is exactly what they should be doing, but the provision of wage control has gotten this country into trouble in the past, at least twice that I can recall in great detail without having to do any research whatsoever. I am sure that there are other occasions of this, but I will lay out the two that immediately come to mind (and lest you believe that this is just another nCr on my part, you may want to note that one of the culprits of this asinine policy is a Republican, the other a Dem, and for my money, the Republican implementation had far more grievous repercussions).
But before the history lesson, just the stupidity of this restriction - you are not penalizing the people who got us into the mess, you are penalizing the people who are supposed to get us out. If you cannot attract the best minds with the best salaries, then you might get second class CEOs who can't figure their way out of the mess that Congress and the public, as well as Wall Street, got us into. In fact, lower compensation packages generally lead to more shady dealing in the finances because the people running the companies feel justified in "taking what they deserve". This is not to condone that attitude, but putting policies into place that foster that attitude are disastrous (as you will see later). In fact, many have argued that both the Executive and Legislative branches should be better compensated to lessen the desire to line one's pockets through political influence - I don't know whether I agree with that or not, but it is a strategy that has been in play in many European countries (with mixed results). But back to the main topic of this paragraph... if you want to penalize people, penalize the CEOs that got the institutions in to trouble, not the ones who are trying to get you out!
How about an analogy - You are financing a football franchise, and the head coach and GM monumentally mismanage the team to the point where they are long-time losers. You fire that coach and GM, spend a bunch of money on the franchise and hire a new coach and GM. But as you do that, you decide to put a bunch of restrictions on the new people, and basically try to manage the team yourself, even though you have no idea how that business should be run. All these restrictions serve to screw things up even more, because you really didn't understand the complex nature of the business, and you end up worse off than before you fired the bad guys - and then you get... the Oakland Raiders. Yep, Congress is just another version of Al Davis, and lest we want our nation to follow in the footsteps of the Raiders, we might want to look twice at what we are doing.
Obviously that analogy is a bit tongue in cheek, and really doubles as a shot at Al Davis, but the point is still the same - don't punish the guys who didn't do the crime (visiting the sins of the fathers on the sons, anyone?) especially if you were partly responsible for the f----ups in the first place (regulations on how lending occurred from Fannie and Freddie set up by Congress did contribute a lot to the mess on Wall Street).
But to the history of wage controls... the first example was a Republican president; Eisenhower. He had an idea of fairness where people who had the same job should be paid the same wage - which sounds good until one realizes that there is no way to reward people who are better at a particular job, and no way to penalize someone who is mediocre (unlike France, you could still fire the incompetent). Of course, companies still wanted to attract good employees, so they started providing benefits packages that could not be officially categorized as wages - thus giving birth to medical insurance, and eventually to HMOs and such (which, incidentally, are about as close to socialized medicine as you can get -and if you think that nationalized health care will fix the HMO problems, you are sorely mistaken, but I will speak to that at another time). Obviously, this was a much more sweeping policy and had much greater impact, but the point is still the same - wage controls suck.
The next incident was in 1996, a piece of legislation that Bill Clinton favored, and signed that capped salaries of corporate officers at $1,000,000 per year in all but two industries. Actually, it didn't officially cap them, but it might as well have. Salaries for a business are part of the operating expenses of a company, and therefore are not taxed as profit (because it is the cost of running the business, and the individual earning the salary pays personal income taxes). What the 1996 law did was to disallow salaries over $1,000,000 as an operating expense - making it a part of the company's profit even though it did not actually go into the company coffers. Of course, it then becomes virtually impossible to pay salaries above this mark, and to attract better people, companies began to offer things like stock options. Now CEOs personal income was, in many cases, tied directly to the value of the stock. Obviously, if your personal financial well-being is tied to the stock, you start to do things just to increase stock value, not because it will help the company. While not everyone would succumb to that temptation, the policy set up an environment that was extremely tempting for many even moderately ethical businessmen. You would not make the alcoholic the guy in charge of your liquor cabinet, would you? Nor would you put the recovering sex addict in a position involving quality control of strippers. A bit silly on the examples, I know, but you get the idea... making your personal wealth directly tied to the stock price, coupled with the fact that employees got similar bonuses made it very easy for CEOs to rationalize - the stock price is high, my employees are happy, I am happy, the investors are happy... whoops, the bottom fell out, we're all screwed - thus the bubble burst of the late 90s. Incidentally, the two industries that were exempt from this little law - movie studios and athletic franchises (two major Clinton contributors, but let's not beat that particular dead horse anymore). Also, as I write this, that law may have passed in 1993, not 1996, I can't remember for certain, but you can look it up.
So, long story short, wage controls don't work, and it is the wrong approach. BTW, my best time with a 3x3 Rubik's Cube is now 45.7 seconds, my best time with the 4x4 is about 4 min, 15 seconds, and I am averaging 11 minutes on the 5x5 cube (though it can hardly be called an average - I just figured it out and have solved it 6 or 7 times - still need to practice to get faster, but it is easier than the 4x4).
See you later, and I look forward to the slings and arrows to come...
Yet again I am irritated, and I will lay out in some detail why. It began with watching the news this morning and noticing on the scroll at the bottom of the screen that the CEOs of banks that took federal money would be restricted to a maximum salary of $500,000 per year. I do not argue with the right of the federal government to attach provisions to money that they give out - that is exactly what they should be doing, but the provision of wage control has gotten this country into trouble in the past, at least twice that I can recall in great detail without having to do any research whatsoever. I am sure that there are other occasions of this, but I will lay out the two that immediately come to mind (and lest you believe that this is just another nCr on my part, you may want to note that one of the culprits of this asinine policy is a Republican, the other a Dem, and for my money, the Republican implementation had far more grievous repercussions).
But before the history lesson, just the stupidity of this restriction - you are not penalizing the people who got us into the mess, you are penalizing the people who are supposed to get us out. If you cannot attract the best minds with the best salaries, then you might get second class CEOs who can't figure their way out of the mess that Congress and the public, as well as Wall Street, got us into. In fact, lower compensation packages generally lead to more shady dealing in the finances because the people running the companies feel justified in "taking what they deserve". This is not to condone that attitude, but putting policies into place that foster that attitude are disastrous (as you will see later). In fact, many have argued that both the Executive and Legislative branches should be better compensated to lessen the desire to line one's pockets through political influence - I don't know whether I agree with that or not, but it is a strategy that has been in play in many European countries (with mixed results). But back to the main topic of this paragraph... if you want to penalize people, penalize the CEOs that got the institutions in to trouble, not the ones who are trying to get you out!
How about an analogy - You are financing a football franchise, and the head coach and GM monumentally mismanage the team to the point where they are long-time losers. You fire that coach and GM, spend a bunch of money on the franchise and hire a new coach and GM. But as you do that, you decide to put a bunch of restrictions on the new people, and basically try to manage the team yourself, even though you have no idea how that business should be run. All these restrictions serve to screw things up even more, because you really didn't understand the complex nature of the business, and you end up worse off than before you fired the bad guys - and then you get... the Oakland Raiders. Yep, Congress is just another version of Al Davis, and lest we want our nation to follow in the footsteps of the Raiders, we might want to look twice at what we are doing.
Obviously that analogy is a bit tongue in cheek, and really doubles as a shot at Al Davis, but the point is still the same - don't punish the guys who didn't do the crime (visiting the sins of the fathers on the sons, anyone?) especially if you were partly responsible for the f----ups in the first place (regulations on how lending occurred from Fannie and Freddie set up by Congress did contribute a lot to the mess on Wall Street).
But to the history of wage controls... the first example was a Republican president; Eisenhower. He had an idea of fairness where people who had the same job should be paid the same wage - which sounds good until one realizes that there is no way to reward people who are better at a particular job, and no way to penalize someone who is mediocre (unlike France, you could still fire the incompetent). Of course, companies still wanted to attract good employees, so they started providing benefits packages that could not be officially categorized as wages - thus giving birth to medical insurance, and eventually to HMOs and such (which, incidentally, are about as close to socialized medicine as you can get -and if you think that nationalized health care will fix the HMO problems, you are sorely mistaken, but I will speak to that at another time). Obviously, this was a much more sweeping policy and had much greater impact, but the point is still the same - wage controls suck.
The next incident was in 1996, a piece of legislation that Bill Clinton favored, and signed that capped salaries of corporate officers at $1,000,000 per year in all but two industries. Actually, it didn't officially cap them, but it might as well have. Salaries for a business are part of the operating expenses of a company, and therefore are not taxed as profit (because it is the cost of running the business, and the individual earning the salary pays personal income taxes). What the 1996 law did was to disallow salaries over $1,000,000 as an operating expense - making it a part of the company's profit even though it did not actually go into the company coffers. Of course, it then becomes virtually impossible to pay salaries above this mark, and to attract better people, companies began to offer things like stock options. Now CEOs personal income was, in many cases, tied directly to the value of the stock. Obviously, if your personal financial well-being is tied to the stock, you start to do things just to increase stock value, not because it will help the company. While not everyone would succumb to that temptation, the policy set up an environment that was extremely tempting for many even moderately ethical businessmen. You would not make the alcoholic the guy in charge of your liquor cabinet, would you? Nor would you put the recovering sex addict in a position involving quality control of strippers. A bit silly on the examples, I know, but you get the idea... making your personal wealth directly tied to the stock price, coupled with the fact that employees got similar bonuses made it very easy for CEOs to rationalize - the stock price is high, my employees are happy, I am happy, the investors are happy... whoops, the bottom fell out, we're all screwed - thus the bubble burst of the late 90s. Incidentally, the two industries that were exempt from this little law - movie studios and athletic franchises (two major Clinton contributors, but let's not beat that particular dead horse anymore). Also, as I write this, that law may have passed in 1993, not 1996, I can't remember for certain, but you can look it up.
So, long story short, wage controls don't work, and it is the wrong approach. BTW, my best time with a 3x3 Rubik's Cube is now 45.7 seconds, my best time with the 4x4 is about 4 min, 15 seconds, and I am averaging 11 minutes on the 5x5 cube (though it can hardly be called an average - I just figured it out and have solved it 6 or 7 times - still need to practice to get faster, but it is easier than the 4x4).
See you later, and I look forward to the slings and arrows to come...
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