The Right Way to Do Teacher Assessment
a very very long critique
here's the original article in case you want to read what prompted this blog post:
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2010/06/17/AR2010061704565.html
Like it's a brand new problem we've never considered before.
The writer below went to Stanford for her teacher credentials and has taught a year, so she has more time in the saddle than I who remain ungraduated, and only having volunteered with high school kids, and taught small packs of college students for a pittance of ten bucks an hour, but...
... I have some comments to add to this discussion, which are typed in red. ps. after having written a couple paragraphs, I just want to add that I'm writing a counterpoint with some doomsday/worst-case-scenario rhetoric, but try to generally remain moderate and open-minded about most things.
The right way to assess teachers' performance
d
By Michele Kerr
Friday, June 18, 2010
The Obama administration's Race to the Top program demands that teachers be evaluated by student test scores. Florida's legislature passed a bill in April to end teacher tenure and base pay increases on test-score improvement; although Gov. Charlie Crist vetoed that attempt, legislatures in Colorado, New York, Oklahoma and other states have also modified regulations regarding tenure with an eye toward Race to the Top. Teachers protest, but they are dismissed as union hacks with lousy skills, intent on protecting their cushy tenured jobs because they could never cut it in the real world.
And just remember, many teachers protest on bases not related to their "cushy tenured jobs" (which is exhausting, often frustrating, thankless, and the kind of work you take home for many hours each week, albeit a rewarding job to many), but instead protest on the bases of:
a. "teaching to the test" must be worked around.
b. tenure is a flawed but hard-earned right of all the teachers who, knowing no other trade will settle down to become part of the community they teach in and be rewarded with stability for their dedication also ensuring they aren't fired by a new principal who doesn't like them as much as the old principle did.
c. as is too often the case, property-tax based funding systems associated with poverty stricken areas (where students happen to need the most help to pass, and are often the direct major contributors to all the bad statistics we always hear about) will be disproportionately harmed by such Legislation as is being referred to in this article, resulting in poor schools suddenly being filled with teachers who got fired from everywhere else, which thanks to Federal Programs will also be mainly there to get college loans paid off faster or more fully, and will be motivated to go into different careers since they don't get paid much.
d. (icing on cake) meanwhile, crappy teachers in affluent well-funded schools with highly competent students will still have cushy jobs teaching to the test.
I'm a first-year, second-career high school teacher, a "highly qualified" teacher of math, English and social science, a standing I achieved by passing rigorous tests. Rigorous is a relative term (no point, just saying). I'm not a union fan, nor am I in favor of pay increases based on seniority or added education. Like many new teachers throughout the country, I was pink-slipped and am looking for work, so I don't have a cushy job to protect.
I'm not your typical teacher. The typical teacher is a union fan and in favor of pay increases based on seniority and added education, because they believe that having a revolving door of cheap inexperienced teachers is a poor way to govern a family, community, and school. They also believe that by taking more classes, understanding your subject deeper (thereby being exposed to more and more teaching techniques/examples that are current or proven somehow) [and please understand this is a bit of a "meh..." in my tirade, because I agree based on reliable reports that many or some of the "classes" teachers take for credit towards pay raises are iffy on how helpful or enlightening they are, and while I'm at it, I will add that old teachers don't quite double their salary (adjusted for inflation of course) from beginning pay to ending pay, but I sometimes think seventy grand is too much to pay a teacher unless...] ... teachers believe these classes make them better, and would rather walk than be forced to pay for and take these classes for their entire lives without any financial recompense whatsoever, and the alternative is never having to take a class at all which is also no good. But I believe I speak for many teachers when I say I'm willing to be tested on student performance, provided certain conditions are met. So let's negotiate. Heard, thanks for starting negotiations. Here's some what I'd call fair rebuttle.
I propose that:
(1) Teachers be assessed based on only those students with 90 percent or higher attendance. This comes up again later, and I'd like to say ten percent of thirty weeks is three weeks and...
90 percent seems very arbitrary, and rather we should base it on a gross average of statistical data or current research findings regarding how many classes a student can miss, all at once or here and there, and still get a passing grade in the class. Such data may have more of an obvious indicator of where the attendance cutoff should be to be fair. But, good idea; good place to start.
Without the missing students, the tests won't yield a complete picture of learning. YES, I'd worry that no matter WHAT, the test won't yield a complete picture of learning because they haven't invented that test yet, unless you think the SAT's predict who has a good life via using their educated brains. But the tests' purpose is to yield a picture of teaching, which isn't the same thing as learning. But they are so directly connected that, if the teachers are teaching kids with the aim of passing that test, then learning (the outcome) becomes the test more or less. Teachers can't teach children who aren't there.
Results will reveal that many students miss this attendance requirement. Put that problem on the parents' plates. Leave it out of the teaching assessment.What about students who attend every day and are discouraged by, taking care of, abused or neglected by, or partially or mostly unsupervised by their parents? They all stay in the assessment even though their parents have failed them as sure as if they didn't make their kids attend daily. I only say this because it is such a root problem and it ties in with my comments about poverty. In other words, attendance is a start, but there are other problems on parents' plates that are going to end up on teachers' wallets.
(2) Teachers be allowed to remove disruptive students from their classroom on a day-to-day basis. I'm pretty sure every teacher is allowed to remove disruptive students from their classroom on a day-to-day basis. I'm pretty sure this is what teachers do or try to avoid doing with forty to eighty percent of the time, depending on the age and relative naughtiness of the classroom. I'm sure every school is different though and there are exceptions to every rule, but I think this negotiation point is really just saying, school leadership has to do their discipline job too, which I'm sure they're legally obligated to do somehow.
Two to three students who just don't care can easily disrupt a class of strugglers. Moreover, many students who are consistently removed for their behavior do start to straighten up -- sitting in the office is pretty boring. Or maybe they don't eat well, work a job or take care of their siblings while their parents work. Maybe ten or twelve kids like that are in your class of strugglers, and two or three of them don't speak English well or are in an organized gang.
Yes, teachers could misuse this authority. Teachers have classroom authority, and part of the reason we trust them to not misuse this authority is because they have no financial reward for kicking the dumber kids out of class and letting the smart ones get away with it a bit more - not that any teacher I know would do that, but... But if teachers are evaluated by student learning, they must have control over classroom conditions. Agreed. Then the administration can separately decide what to do with constantly disruptive students or those teachers who would rather remove students than teach them. Administration already does this, unless it's a crappy Administration, which of course, this proposal isn't designed or intended to change. We'd have to base Administrator pay on how many highly paid teachers they can keep and maintain or how many of their school's students pass the tests, which is the logical conclusion if you believe pay for performance will work. But keep the issue away from measuring student performance; leave it as a personnel call.
(3) Students who don't achieve "basic" proficiency in a state test be prohibited from moving forward to the next class in the progression.
I agree with this, though I thought this was what NCLB was in part supposed to address, which to my mind it hasn't been successful at. Also, and even more relevant, isn't this what "tracking" is all about - remedial kids get different classes than slow learners, average fast learners, and accelerated learners? Also, even more importantly, do we hold a village outside of Nome, Alaska to the same "basic" proficiency standard as a school in Beverly Hills? Will the state controlled "basic" levels be used as a political tool to regulate how much pay teachers recieve?
And, are we prepared to suddenly not-graduate swaths and droves of high school students and ballooning our budget to keep them in school another year or three while they become sufficiently proficient on paper?
Students who can't prove they know algebra can't take geometry. Agreed, and most of the time very true. If they can't read at a ninth-grade level, they can't take sophomore English -- or, for that matter, sophomore-level history or science, which presumes sophomore-level reading ability. So schools with high levels of brain damaged or non-English speaking students will have the burden of turning their kids into average sophomore-level history, science, math, reading, etc. and do it with less money and a revolving door of poorly paid teachers ... kind of like they do now, with pressure to pass kids to head towards the NCLB goal of 100%.
The right way to assess teachers' performance {pg.2}
Not only is it nearly impossible for these students to learn the new material, but they also slow everyone else as the teacher struggles to find a middle ground. By requiring students to repeat a subject, we can assess both the current and the next teacher based on student progress in an apples-to-apples comparison.
Yeah, I agree sort of, but these are long-standing problems teachers have dealt with (and University research has dealt with) for many many years. I don't see how pay-for-performance stands a better chance at rectifying the difficulty of kids who fall behind and are poorly educated in the end.
Why do I have to be reminding a Stanford education program graduate that the term "average" means some below, some above, and where most are in the middle, thereby neccessitating the idea that there are some who end up below average. If what you are proposing is to not give Forrest Gump a high school diploma at all, that's great, but does that mean he can't get a job as a mailman, or a receptionist, or a clerk of some kind.
So, the risks we're talking about here (granted there are always risks in changing anything) is that if these changes are implemented, and we don't get a sudden renaissance of highly paid spectacular teachers reaching every student in the Union of States, then we'll have a good couple percentiles of citizens with not even a token high school degree to get jobs with. If neocons had their way, I think they'd send them all into the military, but that's just me thinking out loud...
If Race to the Top is to have meaning, we have to be sure that students are actually getting to the top, instead of being stalled midway up the hill while we lie to them about their progress. Agreed that schools need to get tougher; I would counterpropose that we fund rigorous well-appointed summer programs with vouchers for private versions very available, with the greatest percentage of such funding going to the schools with the greatest percentage of failing schools. The teachers at these summer programs must be mandated to be "high performing" highly paid teachers. Even with all the money in the world however, nothing we do will keep some kids from being stalled midway up the hill. Some people die having been ever stalled midway up the hill.
Agreed we shouldn't lie to kids about their progress and be tougher and sterner on them, especially at home.
(4) That teachers be assessed on student improvement, not an absolute standard -- the so-called value-added assessment.
This is the negotiating point I like the best, so let me elaborate on what this could look like. My wife and I discuss this idea often...
It would be great to have an effective pre-test, and post test for every class, to show off what information a teacher has actually imparted to their kids. However, anything other than testing for wrote memorization is and always has been difficult. We want to develop and test kids' cognitive abilities, maturity, creativity, and probably a whole bunch of other areas that I haven't had enough University Education classes yet to know about. This is hard to do; if there was a magic pill we would have taken it by now.
So, give us some more details, otherwise shhhh - precisely because urging there is a problem and pontificating about the various reasons to choose a particular method of solution, without using a lot of hard evidence as support, is a very sophomoric thing to do. Leaders do well who don't jump into solutions merely at the urging of a constituent of a particular profession - a double edged sword, I agree.
I suspect that my conditions will go nowhere, precisely because they are reasonable. Not unreasonable, I agree, though maybe not quite on point, imo. Teachers can't be evaluated on students who miss 10 percent 5% ?of the class or don't have the prerequisite knowledge for success 30%?. Yet accepting these reasonable conditions might reveal that common rhetorical goals for education (everyone goes to college, algebra for eighth-graders) (I'm pretty sure neither of these are common rhetorical goals for education - they sound more like misconceptions by upperclass people who don't know how kids' brains develop and think trade schools are a waste of public money) are, to put it bluntly, impossible. No apology necessary; you're not being negatively "blunt" by stating the obvious. So we'll either continue the status quo at a stalemate or the states will make the tests so easy that the standards are meaningless. I don't want the status quo at all, though I don't percieve the same "stalemate" that this person percieves - though this person taught in California (most populous State, eight of the fifty most populated cities in the U.S., and among the ten largest economies in GDP of the whole world), which I'm sure has way more than it's share of stalemates and meaningless standards alike. Or maybe their cutting edge, I don't know, but I'm just saying, her last sentance here is a false dichotomy which points out one of the major flaws of tying Federal or State funding to a single battery of tests.
Yes, some students are doing poorly because their teachers are terrible. Yet in good schools, seems like I've read a study that shows even terrible teachers manage to teach their bright little eager learners. Other students are doing poorly because they simply don't care, their parents don't care, their cognitive abilities aren't up to the task or some vicious combination of factors we haven't figured out yes, yes, yes-- with no regard to teacher quality. No one is eager to discover the size of that second group, so serious testing with teeth will go nowhere. Actually, I'd say that everyone is eager to find out which students are doing poorly because they don't care, or parents, cognitive..., vicious combination.... This is the job description of school counselors, special ed teachers, and one of the many tasks of all teachers. I would posit that serious testing with teeth will go somewhere since it's totally and completely on the agenda (Obama, and one of the many things I'm in disagreement with our Centrist President about), because State legislatures are apparently already on it, and because there are terrible teachers which ISN'T not a problem (double negative makes positive).
I object to the undertone of the last comment too, "serious testing with teeth will go nowhere." The connotation seems to gin up disgust at the laziness of teachers to police themselves and stonewall reforms, and it makes two errors I see in other such critiques and commentaries:
a. it falsley assumes that deadbeat teachers can't get fired, which is wrong, or assumes that it costs so much in lawyers and meetings and evaluations that no sane administrator would ever fire a teacher. These things may be true some places, but by and large I dare any would-be Demagogues to substantiate this widely held attitude against unions.
b. we know pretty well which students are doing poorly because they don't care, their parents don't care, cognitive... etc. etc. They typically fall in one or several categories: poor, developmentally challenged, hanging out with a bad crowd, or in need of a fire under their butt or purpose in their life. WHO they are isn't the question, and I take offense on behalf of all the teachers in my life at the connotation that teachers don't care about these kids. WHAT to do with these kids is the question teachers, researchers, and administrators have been payed to solve since the beginning of the profession; if you knew the answer to that question every time, you'd have made millions of dollars long long ago.
That's too bad. We need to know how many students are failing because they don't attend class, done how many students score "below basic" on the algebra test three years in a row pretty sure a determined educator could find that out too (unless everyone who taught that kid has gone to a higher paying school district with smarter kids that is), how many students fail all tests because they read at a fourth-grade level. Totally agreed - huge problem in poor and immigrant laden schools. We need to know if our education rhetoric is a pipe dream only a small part of any spectrum of rhetoric will be proven right in the end, but nobody knows which is the right answer making most of it a pipe dream, instead of an achievable reality blocked by those nasty teachers unions. "Nasty" teachers unions made of honorable souls have been lobbying tirelessly for school funding and special programs in local, state, and national legislatures since your parents and granparents formed them to cure the problems of their status quo. I know they aren't popular and that there are issues with them, but quit throwing the baby out with the bath water and quit dishonoring the sacrifices and struggles of those who gave preganant women the right to teach, mandatory bathroom breaks, and who ensure that you can see a lawyer about possible unfair practices by your administrator without having to pay hundreds or thousands of dollars on the day you get threatened by your superior. And, of course, if it turns out that all our problems can be solved by rooting out bad teachers, we need to find that out, too. Here here, but of course not all our problems can ever be solved by taking care of one thing, can they?
So if we're going to evaluate teachers based on student results, let's negotiate some reasonable terms -- and let's not flinch from whatever reality those terms reveal.
New Terms:
a. vast effort and rigorous standards will go into making these all powerful tests that decide if every teacher is a good teacher worth keeping or a bad teacher worth dis-incentivizing.
b. teachers in Title 1 schools will be protected so that good teachers stay in these schools where they are most needed.
c. we quit funding disabled kids' educations six to one what we pay for other kids in search of an unrealistic NCLB bull&^$ law, especially those kids who will end up on public assistance and have access to all the government programs to put resources at their fingertips. If society is going to support them (no guarantee I know, and it sounds harsh and unfair to bleeding heart liberals like me) then we shouldn't screw all the other kids out of a fair education because we want 100% out of everybody.
d. any attempt to move towards this new model first be tested on a random sample of test schools, and the results carefully studied.
e. a national law must be passed that school districts fund schools equally per student, so that rich neighborhoods don't have zanily advanced perfect facilities and such while poor schools have multiple code violations and rotting textbooks and whatnot. I think enacting pay for performance without first addressing this issue is itself a poverty of reason.
The writer, a Stanford teacher program graduate, taught geometry, algebra and humanities at Oceana High School in Pacifica, Calif.
The other writer is an incipant know-it-all and gadfly who wishes everyone in the world would think more before they spoke, including himself. He's a consummate screw-up who loves to work in restaurants, hates school and math, but passionately wants to become a math teacher in order to challenge the next generation to grasp logic and make decisions like Mr. Spock and return some of the many favors that were granted to him.
Monday, June 21, 2010
Tuesday, June 8, 2010
Super busy with school and everything...found this on internet
I don't want to go into the military of course - have thought about learning to fly - but, I was looking something up for a speech I'm giving in a class I'm taking, and I found Answerer 3 to be a very enthralling read for some reason...
hope you enjoy.
hope you enjoy.
What does it take to become a fighter jet pilot?
i kinda wanna become a fighter jet pilot for the navy but i dont even know where to start i only wanna fly i dont wanna do anything else so my main worry is me signing up with the navy or something and then not getting to fly so what all do i need?
Im just a sophomore in highschool so should i try for the airforce academy? or what im lost all i kno is i wanna fly
Im just a sophomore in highschool so should i try for the airforce academy? or what im lost all i kno is i wanna fly
Additional Details
oh yea i forgot i have perfect 20/20 with no glasses im not color blind
and do i need a college degree like would that help me?
and do i need a college degree like would that help me?
9 months ago
Answers (5)
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Answerer 1
you need to be a collage grad and spent 2 years
studying all air subjects.if when you graduate
with high marks talk to a navy recruiter and he
will set you up for officers school.then only a
few will be picked for flight school.if you pass
that you go to school for jet training. if you wash
out on just one school your a navy desk pilot.Sign in to vote!
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Answerer 2
First off, you can't have ANY eye problems. You can't wear glasses, you have to have perfect vision. Go to the navy's website and sign up there. I think you have to be 17 or 18 though to sign up.Sign in to vote!
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Answerer 3
Hello, YUP!
OK: High School: 10th grade. Good place to start to get ready for either the Air Force Academy at Colorado Springs, CO. or the Naval Academy at Annapolis, MD.
But, before we start: You must get content within yourself to realize that ONLY a very few out of the many who want to fly will make the grade. Meaning, every officer will NOT become a pilot. And, every pilot candidate in "undergraduate pilot school" will not pass the course. Many will be eliminated because they can not take the G Forces that a jet pilot must endure. Many will be eliminated because they can not pass all the academics of flying. Many will be eliminated because they just can't stop barfing in the cockpit and trainers!
So, you must accept the possibility that you will not become a pilot and must accept some other military officer assignment for the 4 years you would "owe" the military for getting an engineering degree at the Academy for FREE on the tax payer's money. I understand that it costs over $1,000,000 to train a pilot. That is after the cost of the Academy college degree!
OK. Yes, the military will ONLY accept commissioned officers to become pilots. Dismiss this crazy notion that people still have that a person can become an officer by enlisting first. Never happen - G.I. That's the stuff movies are made from. Yes, I know we "do" have a nice to read about program of one or two enlisted with about 8 years service who are E-5, E-6, or so with less than 12 years service who make it to the "Enlisted Commissioning Program." It looks good to the public. BUT... to qualify for the very, very few slots is a "miracle" waiting to happen.
Back to college. If you can afford it - and it is not cheap - start now and pay to go to civilian private pilot school. Learn to fly and obtain your private pilot's license before attending either college or the military academy. Expensive? Yes, but you give up that new car at age 16, pizzas, and wasted allowances on other things.
Next: YOU need to start to get ready to be nominated for the service Academy NOW. No time to wait. Grades in High School must be as perfect to being "A"s as possible. Get into some kind of extra curricula activity that shows "leadership." Everybody does NOT have to be a jock. Besides, being a jock takes away too much study time.
Hope you are good in MATH and SCIENCE. Academies hit calculus PLUS and chemistry, physics, and more in sciences. You should KNOW what you will study in the Academy by going to the website.
Your US Congressman/Congresswoman and US Senator needs to nominate you. Mom and Dad needs to contact them NOW to make it known that you wish to attend a service academy. Congress people and Senators "love" to have people from their district get selected for the Academy. It gives them political power to brag to the voters! Make them work for you.
I will say this in comparison between being an Air Force pilot and a Navy pilot. I watch a lot of military channel and history channel on Cable. The Navy has to fly off aircraft carriers. It is maybe 10 fold more difficult to LAND on a rolling aircraft carrier than to land on a paved runway. Many Navy pilots will crash into the ship and either be wounded or killed. It happens. At least in the Air Force your risk of a bad landing is minimized. They can foam the runway for an emergency landing if need be. In the Navy when you are out of fuel you must land and can't go around again!
Of course, I assume that your physical exam for flying will qualify you when you get regular exams by the Flight Surgeon.
You need to learn the dynamics of flying now. Study it about 1 hour a day 7 days a week. No holidays. Get books. Buy them. Also, down load and print out stuff on flying from the Internet.
You need to study for the SAT or ACT college exams. Invest the $20 buck for EACH book and buy them in the mall book store. Work them from cover to cover: both. A serious candidate does ALL and more than required. Don't listen to people who tell you otherwise. They don't want to fly as bad as YOU do.
Now, if you do all this and MORE... maybe, just maybe, you will make it all the way. If not you can not blame yourself for not trying. But, if you don't try - you will always blame yourself for NOT TRYING when it is too late.
OH... No girlfriends, no children... if you are going to a military academy. It will be 4 years of NO SEX. Oh, academy recruits go to Academy Basic Training in the Summer before the Freshman class starts. SO, as soon as you graduate High School you are off to the Academy for a hectic summer of basic training. Start to run 1 1/2 miles in about 10 - 12 minutes. Do 100 pushups. Do 50 sit-ups in a minute. Do up to 10 pull ups. Climb a rope 20 feet into the air to the top. Run the track around the football field everyday before going home.
If you end up being a Navigator you must be happy with it. At leastSource(s):
Previous military experience of 27 years: 1961 - 1989Sign in to vote!
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Friday, March 19, 2010
Because If You Are Bold and Accurate Enough, You Might Get Meaningful Feedback
And you only need one reason to write. Or dance. Or jump over a fence. Or tear down a stone wall with your bare hands one pebble at a time...
Sorry. Pk here, and kind of started with what should be excerpt from my poetry...something so wimpy about that word poetry...and so neccessarily something funny and odd about the term Slam Poetry. It's like SLAM! ~pohhh-uhh-tree
So clearly my brain is fried. I've never had a class like the one I'm in right now, a page of notes of which I posted before, where a little over halfway through the class I realized I'm more on a go-kart ride and less in a canoe. First time I ever had such semi-non-success and yet realized full well I'd be taking the class again next year and looking forward to the work involved in canoeing down the rapids slowly next time, or doing a furious set of paddling anyway.
On hearing of the Coffee Party now forming allegedly in opposition to the T Party (I say allegedly because I haven't really read anything about it - only heard blurbs, and we all now how informative blurbs can seem but not really be -) ... well, let me just say, I still endorse the PK Party and have considered changing the name (totally thought of another name today that started with P coincedentally, but absolutely can't seem to remember what it was or why it was such a great idea). But Here I part company and say calling it the COFFEE party to neatly fit with TEA party like RED fits with Blue and Elephant walks begrudgingly with Donkey, just seems too TRITE AND MARKETABLE AND MOST OF ALL IT
... it lets them set the tone of the debate and then we're taking our cues from them in some basic manner that leverages powerfully over time...
we're leaders of the new revolution
the children of the Hippie Legacy
they call us off-Planet, yet we are the Earth
they poison the sky and we show them how not to
they vox and charge and we let discourse be guided by reason
we can always win if we keep our framework and framing up to date, and current to the ever-faster changing needs of the people, and they'll do the same only more slowly.
We'll crucible out the facts while they blatantly make shit up.
So maybe the Coffee Party is awesome; the PK Party hasn't looked into it yet as far as I know. We'll see, and I'll definitely be looking that shit up on wikipedia and maybe huff post (even thought they always do sex and tiger woods off on the sidebar there and I just try to be fair about which news media sources I reject and why) and maybe read some conversation threads on websites and skim a "major" (corporate) media source. Good websites out there, but so god damn many, huh?
Oh, and I invented a new sentence symbol !? ?
!? ? as in ... Who ate my Nachos!? ? the subtext of which is ... Hey, who ate my Nachos [wtf! face] but also a serious question who was it, then a pause, then a brief transition into, ? ,oh wait, was it me who ate my Nachos? meek to pissed there at the end, depending on context.
So !? ? Why can't they make Ice Cream in space where it's cold!? ? ~maybe they have already...
and !? ? Glenn Beck!? ? ~ meh, he's an idiot [maybe the more worked up about idiot tv people I hardly ever see the more I play into their hands]
ok. I can't even say all what has been up and around for this long day... but I can tell I'm way more tired then when I usually write the end of a blogpost and say I'm really tired and that I could/should quit writing and sleep. But, I'm really not even kidding this time about how tired I am or how I totally could sleep and so really should quit writing, and go lay down and sleep, and because, like, I'm tired and could start imagining I'm the Kernal of an Abelian subgroup of a non-Abelian group, of Complex Crossed with Imaginary Numbers, and that, I'd gather would involve flying, and I like flying dreams, and dreams are pennies, and I'm too tired and crazy and brain fried to even know what the most important thing is that I should say last to sum up everything and zip the meaning into a cogent sachet of Philosophy beverage in a steaming mug, with Acai and Hibiscous which are dried and ready to bloom, like a non-Abelian subgroup with is the Kernel of an Abelian Factor Group.
i had to end that sentence before my nose got bloody, yeah?
whew, on with the show.
k:p
Friday, February 26, 2010
Phillip 2020 the Megalomanian
So a long time ago, I posted on facebook, an update of my status I suppose, "do any of you smart and/or educated friends of mine have ever heard of a Graduate Program in the Philosophy of Mathematics?" I eventually found one, and it turned out to be online. For the purposes of this story, the school's name was Hogwarts, and it only smelled like musty books, the occasional incense, and the occasional waft from the friendly dungeons down below. Just for the record, I slacked off, had a great time, but somehow managed to get a degree and a respectable knowledge of the subject.
My second badge-degree was in Math History, where "my fields" were Ancient Egyptian Rope-stretching, Gnomic Communities, and the Goddess Ma'at, right hand woman of Ra (I ended up correcting the relationship she had with the counterpart imposed on the myth much later in the Kingdom), and of course how socio-genetic trends of the Egyptian Ancestors and the tribal realms surrounding the Upper and Lower Nile proved that wide cultural diversity has been a beneficial norm throughout pre-History.
I'm hoping that by the time I die that I will complete work on the Mathematics of Philosophy and attempt to codify the clarity the journey will have given me in The Greatest Cookbook Ever Written, by PK Bunker. Stone carvings of this text will be distributed throughout the ancient stone structures around the globe. When aliens one day examine the remains of our civilizations, they will see that they too should follow my advice. Other than that, it will be free online of course.
Shortly after my Bachelors was completed, I became somewhat known at the campus for two organizations I founded: the UAA World Debate Squad Boosters Association (good ol' ooh-uh-uh-Word-Sba) and the Cabin Fever Talks (feat. Professor Roast and Festive Val LeFunny). The professors who volunteer every year to be quizzed by students and forced to perform or profess that which will amaze us all (coincidentally informing and creating a tangible school spirit event, boosting attendance of School Union Sponsored Headliners) are great people, and they mostly don't mind the vaudeville. It was fun to see the Theater, Communications, and Culinary School come together, and that every other department could join in as well. I particularly enjoyed hearing a person speaking Russian argue with a person speaking Mandarin Chinese (not my favorite year otherwise though). It really has invigorated the learning community, loosened up the Honors kids, and the talks themselves have never disappointed: Psych. dept - the psychology of college transitions and transformations; Sociology dept - the ten best ways to save the world; the Economics dept. - seriously, how to get rich and not be stupid and overly-greedy about it; Physics - the nature of the Universe or the Northern Lights; Biology - how to do surgery on your dog if you are stranded and have to.
I myself am still teaching away, and I sincerely miss Alaska. With the Speaking Tour money this summer, I was able to buy a sleek new aircraft, so I guess we'll still be able to fly up to the People's Republic of Alaska and pick crowberries every year. We're almost out of the 2018 vintage Bunker-Lanziano sparkling Crowberry Mead, and it would be much cheaper to fly the berries down than to keep paying the shipping and duties from our wild berry brewery up in Moose Pass (taxes in Alaska have gotten outrageous since the agricultural boom up there). We'll still stop by the lodge there, check up on the middle managers of course, but I think the kids and their cousins and friends could use some more time in the outback even if they complain about the mosquitoes the whole time. The crew will have probably neglected to stock the two-year-prior stock of the firewood shed, but I kind of enjoy an excuse to get as much of that Alaskan air as I can before we come back to the Lower 46, so a choppin' I'll probably go. Hopefully our good friends are managing the farm back home and none of the critters are causing them trouble, because school will be starting when we get back, and we'll have a lot of brewing to do. Ooooh, it's been so long, I may save some of the Crowberries for muffins...
As to the continued climate change problem: though the extinctions have been going up, and human population disasters are becoming more common, I urge you all to read the material released every year by the World Bioneer Commission in Washington D.C. and remember to ignore Harvard's Dissention - they're always looking out for you-know-who (not us). It is crucial that we not panic in the face of these recent atmospheric instabilities - the scientists assure us that overall things will be changing very gradually, and that any day now, we'll begin to see the signs of the fishery recovering worldwide. Life adapts, even better than we have learned to do as a species.
from my office at Birkenstocks Tower - Phillip 2020
My second badge-degree was in Math History, where "my fields" were Ancient Egyptian Rope-stretching, Gnomic Communities, and the Goddess Ma'at, right hand woman of Ra (I ended up correcting the relationship she had with the counterpart imposed on the myth much later in the Kingdom), and of course how socio-genetic trends of the Egyptian Ancestors and the tribal realms surrounding the Upper and Lower Nile proved that wide cultural diversity has been a beneficial norm throughout pre-History.
I'm hoping that by the time I die that I will complete work on the Mathematics of Philosophy and attempt to codify the clarity the journey will have given me in The Greatest Cookbook Ever Written, by PK Bunker. Stone carvings of this text will be distributed throughout the ancient stone structures around the globe. When aliens one day examine the remains of our civilizations, they will see that they too should follow my advice. Other than that, it will be free online of course.
Shortly after my Bachelors was completed, I became somewhat known at the campus for two organizations I founded: the UAA World Debate Squad Boosters Association (good ol' ooh-uh-uh-Word-Sba) and the Cabin Fever Talks (feat. Professor Roast and Festive Val LeFunny). The professors who volunteer every year to be quizzed by students and forced to perform or profess that which will amaze us all (coincidentally informing and creating a tangible school spirit event, boosting attendance of School Union Sponsored Headliners) are great people, and they mostly don't mind the vaudeville. It was fun to see the Theater, Communications, and Culinary School come together, and that every other department could join in as well. I particularly enjoyed hearing a person speaking Russian argue with a person speaking Mandarin Chinese (not my favorite year otherwise though). It really has invigorated the learning community, loosened up the Honors kids, and the talks themselves have never disappointed: Psych. dept - the psychology of college transitions and transformations; Sociology dept - the ten best ways to save the world; the Economics dept. - seriously, how to get rich and not be stupid and overly-greedy about it; Physics - the nature of the Universe or the Northern Lights; Biology - how to do surgery on your dog if you are stranded and have to.
I myself am still teaching away, and I sincerely miss Alaska. With the Speaking Tour money this summer, I was able to buy a sleek new aircraft, so I guess we'll still be able to fly up to the People's Republic of Alaska and pick crowberries every year. We're almost out of the 2018 vintage Bunker-Lanziano sparkling Crowberry Mead, and it would be much cheaper to fly the berries down than to keep paying the shipping and duties from our wild berry brewery up in Moose Pass (taxes in Alaska have gotten outrageous since the agricultural boom up there). We'll still stop by the lodge there, check up on the middle managers of course, but I think the kids and their cousins and friends could use some more time in the outback even if they complain about the mosquitoes the whole time. The crew will have probably neglected to stock the two-year-prior stock of the firewood shed, but I kind of enjoy an excuse to get as much of that Alaskan air as I can before we come back to the Lower 46, so a choppin' I'll probably go. Hopefully our good friends are managing the farm back home and none of the critters are causing them trouble, because school will be starting when we get back, and we'll have a lot of brewing to do. Ooooh, it's been so long, I may save some of the Crowberries for muffins...
As to the continued climate change problem: though the extinctions have been going up, and human population disasters are becoming more common, I urge you all to read the material released every year by the World Bioneer Commission in Washington D.C. and remember to ignore Harvard's Dissention - they're always looking out for you-know-who (not us). It is crucial that we not panic in the face of these recent atmospheric instabilities - the scientists assure us that overall things will be changing very gradually, and that any day now, we'll begin to see the signs of the fishery recovering worldwide. Life adapts, even better than we have learned to do as a species.
from my office at Birkenstocks Tower - Phillip 2020
Tuesday, February 23, 2010
Shallow Patriotism: Satan, the Liberal, Objectivist, Totalitarian, Communist, Socialist, and Anarchist Wrote in the WSJ
Can Washington Cut Spending?
- By PEGGY NOONAN
PK here. I truly believe when it comes to rhetoric, that we have to fight fire with fire.
When people refuse to discuss things with each other based on the facts, then little recourse is left except slinging mud right back at the mud slingers.
I read this article because I know nothing of Glen Beck, and I think I never want to. What I hear repeated of his rhetoric is 3rd grade hack.
This lady is satan compared to him though, because she couches far-right ideas as though it were a reasonable centrist question, and really makes sounds like the center would, but she is, in my esteem, guilty of swaying somewhat reasonable people into believing far-fetched and atrocious things.
So here's one guy's rhetorical retort and the Wall Street Journal article that spawned it.
President Obama's decision to appoint Erskine Bowles and Alan Simpson to his bipartisan commission on government spending is politically shrewd and, in terms of policy, potentially helpful.
I would argue that Obama, while not perfect, has done a myriad of politically and economically shrewd things that have helped this nation. He's very centrist as noted by his lack of concessions to the Left once in office. He has at least charted a socially liberal course which expands the rights of citizens to Life, Liberty and the Pursuit of Happiness (that Constitution thing). He's moved us back towards nuclear energy. He won reparation from the Bailouts. He admonished the Corporate agenda serving Supreme Court. Above all of many other things, he's chosen to spend his time not as his predecessor, passing junk regulatory legislation, starting wars, running unjustified debt (wars and tax cuts for the wealthy), or distracting voters with non-issues like abortion and the morality of stem-cell research. Instead, he has focused on positive progress in health care, foreign policy/relations, and domestic economic issues, most notably trying to reinvigorate the middle class who create the GDP via their consumption (or currently, the lack thereof).
In other words, yes he seems like he's courting the right a bit, but he's been very busy doing politically shrewd and helpful things.
It is shrewd in that he is doing what he has been urged to do, which is bring in wise men. You mean other wise men, since a majority of us think he is one too. Here are two respected Beltway veterans, one from each party. respected beltway veterans = old power = that which is corrupt (adept in campaign financing?) = those I and most other people in this country in fact don't respect. It shows the president willing to do what he said he'd do when he ran, which is listen to other voices. Not the sum total of what he said, but ok. The announcement subtly underscores the trope "The system is broken and progress through normal channels is impossible," which is the one Democrats prefer to "Boy did we mess up the past year and make things worse." And here we see how efficiently an opinion piece can assume something that is either false or just not assumable in general. I think the left and the right agree that "the system is broken and progress through normal channels is difficult," but only the right, far at that, agrees that "we messed up the past year" or that "things are worse". If you watch FOX, everything always seems worse except of course when Old-timey faux philosophies win the occasional symbolic battle in the culture wars they keep starting. Most of us agree that things are looking up, the economy is getting back on track, and that we're closer than ever to enacting solutions to our problems . I would also remind people that part of the purpose of government is to muck simple decisions up with things like compromise and fact-finding and considering the many perspectives of any issue; so the ACTION NOW screams of the right sound lovely to their own ears, but meanwhile their party makes nothing-legislation and those of us willing to be realistic go as fast as we can - too slow for demagogues. Their god would literally be happiest with a Dictatorship, military or not, and a population of brainwashed and uneducated citizens. Under such a system, boy it would be easy to get things done in a hurry. We in the U.S. this last two years haven't passed any critical points of no return, but when I read this opinion piece, it really seems like all Hell has broken loose under Obama's watch... And the commission gets some pressure off the president. Every time he's knocked for spending, he can say "I agree, it's terrible. Help me tell the commission!" Our brilliant and educated and reason-following President has many things to say about spending. On the right, that's about all they have on him - that he's so full of words. I remind them that 'full of words' doesn't equal 'not filled with other things as well'. He inherited Bush's quagmire, and cutting the purse strings on day one would have been stupid and treasonous, yet doing what got us out of the Great Depression, which also happens to be the lynch-pin of Reaganomics, in a word spending-spending-spending, is somehow suddenly a bad thing because our debt is arbitrarily too big? Our debt was so huge nearly twenty years ago, that they put up a national debt clock in times square. Why was it now and not then that debt became a-priori? I have some theories, but the truth of it is pretty fucking obvious considering we have an enlightened capable leader who is only partially of Western European descent.
It's potentially helpful in that good ideas may come of it, some rough and realistic Washington consensus encouraged. Rough and realistic = No Change because the profiteers run Congress way opposite of how we would and the right is convinced they should throw their lot in with K street's Cheney and Gingrich clowns.
Is it too late? For? what? If I was already immersed in this ladies style of rhetoric, I'm sure I'd be able to fill in this 'Is it too late?' blank with the appropriate ... blank fear. Maybe. (Never too late) Even six months ago, when the president's growing problems so, we're assuming continued growth - magic statistician with the public were becoming apparent (to Heir Beck), the commission and its top appointees might have been received as fresh and hopeful—the adults have arrived (President = child, not coincidentally, Boy = Racial Slur - racist undertones are a signature element of burgeoning right-wing rhetoric), the system can be made to work (meaning the lame status quo could be left alone). Republicans would have felt forced to be part of it, or seen the gain in partnership. Now it looks more as if the president is trying to save his own political life. Timing is everything. You see, Republicans who shut down Congress would TOTALLY have been reasonable, if his timing had been - what? invited a Right-wing zealot to be his personal council from the day he began his Presidency? Like a boy would?
But this is an interesting time. As opposed to the World-recognized nightmare of the Bush era. Just to reiterate some sense here; in Alaska lately, Shannyn Moore has been talking on the radio about how much our legislature here has been "cleaning up" after all the laws that Sarah broke, and we now have to make new laws, since we can no longer assume that certain ethical standards will not be violated or that Governors won't throw decency to the wind when fame and fortune come a'knockin'. It's easy to say that concern about federal spending is old, because it is. It's at least as old as Robert Taft, Barry Goldwater and Ronald Reagan. Underline the last one in red, then include every President since then, with the notable exception of a Balanced Budget that Bush inherited (but yeah, even that could have been kinda fakey - I get it, but still, it does stand out) and you'll have a list of the Modern Presidential Criminals who Borrowed the United State's Wealth Down the Drain To Prop Up the Short Term Gains of the Financial Industry, While Costing Us the Long Term Growth Strategies That Support The Middle Class. But the national anxiety about spending that we're experiencing now, and that is showing up in the polls, is new (Debt is the new Abortion). The past eight years have concentrated the American mind (on fear). George W. Bush's spending (the least of his crimes, though the one most expected), the crash and Barack Obama's spending have frightened people you mean the spending that every economist was screaming for, congress approved, and that the alarmists would have sounded off about if it hadn't been spent?. It's not just "cranky right-wingers" who are concerned but mostly just right-wingers, because the rest of us don't think that Obama is anything but a centrist since we don't spend our time reading Commentary and watching infotainment pretending to be News on T.V.. If it were, the president would not have appointed his commission Yes he would have! He wants to seem like he's including everybody so that when it is time for reelection he can point at his record and convince even the right that he was leading from the middle (middle-right imo). The President has tons of support from his Congress and his Constituency, plus he recognizes that only by bringing in the "Beltway insiders" can he get much done. That he does that pisses off a majority of the country btw, but they unlike the far right, blame the shitty Beltway insiders, not Obama. Its creation acknowledges that independents are anxious, the center is alarmed—the whole country is. what?! afraid? Could TSA, 9/11, 9/12, FOX news and the screams of Fearmongers and Demagogues have something to do with what seems to be the whole country except the Far Left being anxious, alarmed, and... Or is that just a technique used in rhetoric to associate the centrist president with the further and further Far Left, to characterize him (attack the person when logic fails = Ad Hominem Fallacy) as so Left as to be oblivious of our eminent destruction from enemy combatants foreign and domestic (which don't exist btw)? The people are ahead of their representatives in Washington, who are stuck in the ick of old ways. To be Conservative is to see as much as possible about the old ways as not icky - preferably all of the old ways will be preserved. That's like what the dictionary says. Being "right" used to mean that until the Neo-Cons went to Mass-Media-Sophist School and started buying public opinion with fear and shallow patriotism, leading a charge of impressionable young conservatives who are in it for the arbitrary cry of Morality (worked for McCarthy after all) and for the privatization of the public welfare.
Conservatives all my adulthood have said the American people were, on the issue of spending, the frog in the pot of water: The rising heat lulled him, and when the water came full boil, he wouldn't be able to jump out. Yeah, if you died in about 1970, this would have been true. Otherwise, I call bullshit 'that's what Conservatives have been saying'. Neo-cons quit talking about spending when it comes to tax cuts, military spending, pork barrel projects, and deregulation for profiteers. PERIOD, m.f..
But that is the great achievement, if you will, of the past few years. Only a Fearmonger would see a shitty mess as a great achievement because it further espoused the need for their demagoguery. The frog is coming awake at just the last moment. Oh spare me. This is the last moment because? the movie 2012? the book series Left Behind? because Republicans are 'losing' politically or did lose anyway once the whole world saw what Bush, Cheney, and "Clean Skies" legislation was all about? He is jumping out of the water. Jump America, she's telling you how high.
People are freshly aware and concerned about the real-world implications of a $1.6 trillion dollar deficit, of a $14 trillion debt. It will rob America of its economic power, and eventually even of its ability to defend itself. Militaries cost money. And if other countries own our debt, don't they in some new way own us? If China holds enough of your paper, does it also own some of your foreign policy? Do we want to find out? And there are the moral implications of the debt, which have so roused the tea party movement: The old vote themselves benefits that their children will have to pay for - which is responsible for precisely tiny of our National Debt. Two wars...hello. No bid contracts, tax cuts for wealthy, Billions in corporate hand-outs. Hello? Didn't let us bargain collectively for Medicare Prescription Benefits...HELLO!? What kind of a people do that? And when all else fails, go for the Ad Hominem attack - should have been pointing that out along the way of this article. WHAT IS HE!?!! WHAT ARE THEY?!! *The enlightened debaters of the world fail to applaud at such attacks.
It has been two or three years since I have heard a Republican or conservative say deficits don't matter. Ever since they quit being in charge - patently stated! WAR is okay, but JOBS BILLS ARE UNPATRIOTIC according to them. Huge ones do, period. Slightly a little bit LESS than huge deficits DON't matter. Period. Apparently. Semi-colon; such as the ones the Bushes gave us. As for Democrats and new spending, the air is, for now, out of the balloon. My enemy is a spent piece of latex - Ad Hominem? or an opinion supported by chemistry and physics? You decide.
A question among Republicans is whether to back, as a party, Rep. Paul Ryan's road map, his far-reaching and creative attempt to cut the deficit and the debt. The Congressional Budget Office says its numbers add up: It would, actually, remove the deficit in the long term. Oh, so there IS something being proposed by Republicans...for some reason I hadn't heard of that this guy. Apparently only newbie Republicans try to reach across the aisle at all, and only a few of those. Other proposals that would cut the deficit and the debt: taking the profit out of health care, ending two wars of occupation that would make Rome blush, and getting the top tier tax rate, in the eighty and ninety percents back a hundred years ago, down to less than twenty percent now, back up to say forty percent, oh and that percentage will be not coming out of just the stuff they don't hide in the Caymen Islands or wherever else they hide money. I realize this plan runs the risk of making all of Halliburton's sick corporate cousins move to Dubai and the EU, and everywhere but here with their headquarters, but worst case scenario, we're better off without them - they're not running our economy very well right now - that's for sure. But the Ryan plan is, inevitably, as complicated as the entitlements entitlements is the CATO institute word for social services that every other industrialized nation sees fit to bestow on their patriotic and tax paying citizens, for the common good as well as the economic stability it engenders. it seeks to reform, involving vouchers and tax credits, cost controls and privatization Thank you corporate elite for providing such swingin' lingo to describe the gutting of Public Infrastructure from schools, hospitals (wait - they're private already), police services, and Social Security, Medicare, the Veterans Administration, and any thing else the government does that gives a damn about the people who feed it money. It is always possible that this is right for the moment, for the new antispending era. HERE WE ARE: ANTI-SPENDING. COMING TO A TV SCREEN NEAR YOU I'd wager. But the party itself has some other jobs right now, and one of them is to encourage the circumstances that will make real change possible. Here the abstract collides with the particular. READ THIS AS: all that justification and gobbledygook above doesn't mean anything, all you have to do is your job Conservative Neo-Con-washed one, your job is making REAL change, OUR change possible. Fortunately they aren't as good at it as they used to be. The more the average person votes, the more they loose.
In the long run the Republicans have to do two things, and one they probably cannot do alone, or rather probably cannot do without holding the presidency, and a gifted president he would have to be. They have to prepare the ground for an American decision —a decision by a solid majority of America's adults—that they can faithfully back specific cuts in federal spending: that they can trust the cuts will be made fairly, that we will all be treated equally, that no finagling pols will sneak in "protection" for this pet interest group or that power lobby, that we are in this together as a nation and can make progress together as a nation. The American Decision - sounds like civil war to me, though I'll not engage in it - and finally she ends with exactly the reforms we've been screaming for since the 70's.
This is a huge job, and may ultimately require one strong and believable voice. Dictator for life Beck.
Second the Republicans should tread delicately while moving forward seriously. Voters are feeling as never before in recent political history the vulnerability of their individual positions. There is no reason to believe they are interested in highly complicated and technical reforms, the kind that go under the heading "homework." As in: "I know my future security depends on understanding this thing and having a responsible view, but I cannot make it out. My whole life is homework. I cannot do more."
We are not a nation of accountants, however much our government tries to turn us into one.
Margaret Thatcher once told me what she learned from the poll-tax protests that prompted her downfall. She said she learned in a deeper way how anxious people are, how understandably questioning and even suspicious they are of governmental reforms and changes: "They're frightened, you see." None of us feel we have a wide enough margin for error.
Americans lack trust that government will act in good faith, which is part of why they're anxious. They look at every bill, proposal and idea with an eye to hidden horrors.
The good news is the new consensus that America must move forward in a new way to get spending under control. The bad news is we don't trust Washington to do it. And in the end, only Washington can.
Paul Ryan is doing exactly what a representative who's actually serious should do—putting forward innovative and honest ideas for long-term solutions. He should continue going to the people with it, making his case and seeing how they respond, from the Tennessee Tea Party to the Bergen County, N.J., Republican Club. Maybe a movement will start, maybe not. But it's a good conversation to be having.
The GOP itself should be going forward with its philosophy, with the things it's long stood for and, in some cases, newly rediscovered, and painting the broader picture of the implications of endless, compulsive high spending. Those lawmakers who have a good reputation in this area—Sen. Tom Coburn is one—should be moved forward more prominently. Congressmen who focus on earmarks, on controllable spending, are doing something wise. They are trying to demonstrate that those who can be trusted with small things—cutting back what can be removed now—can be trusted with larger things.
The rest of it didn't make much sense to me, not enough to comment on anyway. A moose now resides in my backyard. It seems similar to the Elephant imposing itself on our Living Room; they'll both trot their own way to be forgotten eventually.
Sunday, February 21, 2010
Two Sunday Things
I secretly have this idea, or maybe fantasy though not nefarious, that if I never pay attention to the Google Analytics tracking that I could read, that I'll become pseudo-net-famous without ever realizing it. Maybe that would avoid the bad parts of conglomerating at very large scales as a culture, where it seems historically we seem to lose more and more focus as rational-decision-makers the bigger the empire's concern becomes. Sometimes my sentences do the same thing.
But I was curious about two things today. 1) homespun economy and middle class economy. 2) something I just forgot, but am hoping will come back to me as I begin with the first part. I swear I had it a second ago...
I mean really, sometimes when I read all about economic crisis, wars, money in Washington, Supreme Court decisions, and hear the testimonials of so many unemployed people, I get a voice that YELLS in my head; MAYBE THINGS AREN'T AS BAD AS THEY SEEM BECAUSE
i) UNEMPLOYMENT MAY JUST BE MORE MOMS AND DADS ARE CHOOSING TO STAY HOME, working part time, or from home, or doing daycare or any other damn thing they want to, off the books, catering by Aunt Mildred, or just realizing that they have a much higher quality and economy of life when they have time to take care of little kids (who would cost half a paycheck to care for in the day anyway), to not waste time commuting, to garden half their grocery bill away, to speculate on e-bay and make great food at home, at cost, and keep their house warm with a home-body.
ii) WHILE PUNDITS LIKE TO CLAIM THE GOVERNMENT AND THE PRESIDENT AREN'T DOING ANYTHING, we know it is stupid to say any President or office doesn't do ANYTHING. People love to hate a bueracracy, but just because they love to scream Barack-racy and make it sound bad (haven't actually heard anyone saying that but you probably will soon) doesn't change the fact that every decision that went through the Bush White House was tainted with Neo-Con sell-out, and that the Barack White House in chief is lead by a man who was a community organizer, public servant, and notable Professor of Constitutional Law, which totally comforts the shit out of me. This epic change and sudden global relaxation even got the Vikings to unclench a Nobel Prize, which we ALL were glad and weird-ed out by. So we have Interior departments who've been briefed on Organic Touchy-Feely Farming, and Defense departments that are no longer on the Offense, and a first lady who wants to stamp child obesity and hopefully will also take on Child Hunger as an issue (idk, probly already has), and we have an Oval Office that is speaking for the people, asking for action on health care, instead of a puppeteered dynasty hydra with vietnam era "Defensive" Backs, and demagogue nightmare wide receivers. *sigh, of relief, now that's over.
iii) We knew the babyboomers were big, they largely refuse to depart the earth, and they may well own everything right now (me an my friends, any time we borrow money, it's from a baby boomer). All this means of course our bottom line is going to be bleak - we're like the family whose dad sold the farm to sell gadgets door to door. But, hey, turn those frowns upside down because that dad also went on to inspire his children to become educated, make wise choices, and not make the same mistakes he did. So we're the children of the baby boomers, just a little more leveled off, and maybe too timid about getting engaged and making this world into the one we made for ourselves (and our kids, and maybe we just had more video games and movies to watch than our parents did, but we've leveled that off by now too, and everyone is excited to see what we can do). So WHATEVER THE BABY BOOM TAKES, WE'LL GET OVER IT.
iv) ULTIMATELY, BECAUSE OF FREE WILL, IT ONLY TAKES A GENERATION TO COMPLETELY AND UTTERLY CHANGE THE MINDS OF THE POPULATION. OK, MAYBE THREE GENERATIONS TO GET all THE ELIGIBLE VOTERS.
Meanwhile, the urban and rural folklives are chumming along on steam power, just waiting for people to discover how easy it is to register voters, feed people, grow things, and make stuff that truly improve the outlook of our lives. We even have a world of information about this stuff on the internet for maybe a hundred bucks a month. Not bad.
So I guess the second thing I was going to get to, which finally came back to me as I was typing, is that I just want to be like nature. Often an excuse lies in front of me, like a mask, that says if only I knew how to help or when to help, the poor or the desperate, if only the indigent were nearby so I could wave and smile and put a penny in their cup; the real way to help is to help those immediately around you, which you probably already do. If you have some money, give some money. If you know someone who needs a happy friend, be their happy friend. If you feel guilty about not giving to a bum, check the web for where you would go if you were that bum, and give a dollar to them. If you happen to be surrounded by math students, then make sure they know that there is no such thing as an unsolvable problem.
If I were a tree, and I could see some trouble in the forest from the bird's eye, it would only fall on me to be strong if anyone near me slips, to keep reaching up when it's my turn to do so, and to speak softly right around me to keep from trying to yell through the forest at the trouble spot to lend my voice to a cacophony.
The secret to nature is in the Mandelbrot set pictured on the top of the page; nature has a persistent get-in-where-you-fit-in quality where things are ready to grow together, apart, stay the same, or change quickly, and coopertition (competing and nurturing in every move) becomes a very natural extension of life's geometries.
America was a bold experiment to the Western Europeans, not so much for others, but TODAY, the United States, though most United Statesians have forgotten it, still stands as one of those places where human economies, macro and micro (false dichotomy btw) and every economics in between, is in fact well-poised to take advantage of the sure bet of nature's way (maybe similar to the "Middle Way" that Dalai Lama talks about, but more broad than a political solution with China).
So take an idea and run with it. For my part, I'm really hoping to get certified to register voters and get some work done before the next big election, and truth be told I'm Ever-Guilty of not paying enough attention to local politics or saving any money for those needier than I. I'll fit into those places some day though, and in the meantime I can speak and write and maybe help solve some problems, albeit just math.
btw, I'm thinking about changing the picture on the top of the blog. I have a long way to go before really understanding the inter-connectedness of the Mandelbrot Set, and I've been thinking about replacing it with Ancient Egyptian, specifically the Goddess Ma'at, patron saint of mathematicians and believers in social justice. In contrast to Ma'at, Conservative Christians don't see that giving more (hope, services, etc.) to others, even through official channels like government (why not? they already do everything civilization from building roads to coordinating and regulating commerce?), doesn't mean we have to give up what we have. Their leaders want to privatize everything, even though it would cost more and do less, for crap's sake! All things are relative, and we on the Left-coast (false congruence/hyphenation?) would see government shrink but not the good part of government shrink while all the crappy parts stay the same or get bigger; we would see the Constitution not just be surrounded from behind because we understand that the Constitution isn't violated by your lack of heavy artillery, or by government attempting to solve a national problem like health care by doing more social security/medicare kinds of things, or in short, whatever the T'eed off party decides the Constitution is supposed to protect them from (in shorter, protect them from change); we would live simply so that others may simply live, and not let the stock screamers on wall-street gasp us away from doing right by the future and the past.
So Imagine:
a warmer world full of challenge and mystery, and maybe the butterflies will evolve to glow in the daytime to use up the extra UV.
a quiet surge of people voting and proving the scary TV voice wrong.
that everything from years past which was a sucky horrible nightmare not suddenly and quickly becoming all okay again, but beginning to tap out the sap of wrong-headedness while trying to avoid and predict the next great wave of "whoops, we should have done things differently" (which will always exist by the way, no matter which course we choose, because we choose to believe we will always have the power to change things for the better, which sort of necessarily means we'll be an imperfect world forever). So things will change slowly for the most part, and that's good. The day after the Oval Office changed was a good day, a year later was better, two years later will be, eight years, and nine will see another surge of United Statesian do-gooders getting out to the paper voting booths (where possible).
when old ideas fail, eventually new ideas will take hold, and holding hands in common cause with those around you is a system that will never fail in humanity.
Imagine all the people, sharing all the world.
You may say I'm a dreamer.
But, I'm not the only one.
I hope someday they will join us,
and the world will live as one.
(Not the global banking cartel).
Friday, February 19, 2010
I don't know him at all, but Mark Paredes is a dick
I have these conversations with conservative people sometimes on facebook. It amazes me how many people get lost in the throes of wrapping themselves in doctrine and loose sight of simple definitions of things.
I didn't want to push too far past my welcome by continuing the thread. The thing I like best about interjecting with a dissident opinion is that is flushes the dick-headed quail out of hiding. Hopefully, if nothing else the friends of Mark Paredes will see how even "smart" people can be shitheads, and maybe that will make his stock go down a little. We hope.
Evamarie Jill Newell Blizzard = Chelsea, Marta, Movies, Atlas Shrugged, Taxes, Cheesetique, Valentine cookies.
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