Behold! I have returned!

Yes, my succulent lamb cutlets, I have returned from my self-imposed hiatus. It was necessary. I was running out of steam; there was no heart. If you deserve one thing, it is heart.

I think I am going to rethink the focus of this thing. Perhaps make it a little more personal, my comings and goings. Yes, some of my readers may find it (more) banal, but my more loyal followers will appreciate the blow-by-blow account of my life.

Powell's ulterior motives

From Powell Leaves FCC Admonishing Uncivil America

FCC Chairman Michael Powell is stepping down. At his final board meeting, he remarked "It saddens me when public officials and bureaucrats are criticized for ulterior motives, none of which I have ever found in a government bureaucrat..."

This ranks up there with Tommy Thompson's remark that he can't think of a reason why terrorists haven't attacked our food supply, although I suppose Thompson was right about the chinks in our armour, but wrong to express it so crudely in public.

Powell is just being, well, naive; but surely he can't be that naive. Surely he must admit that once, just once, a bureaucrat has acted on an issue knowing it might, just maybe, perhaps will shed some positive light on his pet project in the future.

I ask this of you, my beloved reader...

I was speaking to my flatmate a couple of nights ago. We were discussing some of the issues surrounding the Israeli/Palestinian conflict. We soon moved on to the natural beauty of the region.

She has family living in Jordan and has spent some time in a few countries in the region, including some Gulf states. Her descriptions of the land features, the geography, were surprising to me, especially Lebanon.

If anyone out there reads this, please take the time to leave a comment on this site (it is far easier to do now that Blogger has updated its comments-posting procedure) giving your description of what a country like Lebanon looks like.

I know this may sound like an odd request, but when I ask different people this question, I have gotten many different responses: "bombed-out hell hole," on one hand, and "the most beautiful place on earth" on the other. The latter comment came from my Kiwi flatmate. Being from New Zealand, I think she knows a thing or two about beautiful natural landscapes.

If you do respond, indicate your first-hand knowledge of the country. Have you been there? Have you read about it? Have you seen pictures in a book, a National Geographic special on the region, or only news footage?

Just wondering.

Oh, and another thing...

Sorry, got side-tracked in my last post on this article on CNN.com.

Jack Hinton stated that without his program of Bible education kids would "get into trouble and have no moral structure on which to combat drugs, sex, pornography and all that."

I hear there is already a program to combat drugs, sex, pornography and all that, it is called Parenting. Under this program parents can rear children in such a way as to keep them away from the crack pipe.

If I was a parent in that town, I think I would be pretty upset that some guy says that I am powerless, without his help, to keep my kids from doing heroin, having sex, watching pornography and doing "all that."

CNN.com - Parents challenge weekly Bible classes - Feb 12, 2005

CNN.com - Parents challenge weekly Bible classes - Feb 12, 2005

The killer quotation in this article comes from Jack Hinton, who speaks for a rural Virginian group that provides religious education to children. As quoted in the CNN article, "Without religious classes, he said, 'kids get into trouble and have no moral structure on which to combat drugs, sex, pornography and all that.'"

For me, the whole state/religion divide is argument enough to keep the Bible out of the classroom (except in English class). But what I just can't figure out is why the religious right is always carping on and on about the moral decay of America and then goes on to blame it on a lack of religiousness in various public services.

There is no law that says NBC, FOX, ABC or CBS can't make television programming that is geared towards the Christian community. As far as I can see, the only show that routinely crosses into the religious is Seventh Heaven, which supremely sucks. Why don't these guys go after televison and do something real, instead of filing these petty claims against networks for airing a breast gone astray. Get some good writers with good ideas and put them into action if that is what they want.

It is the guys at the top of these media corporations who have more of a say as to which direction the moral compass points. But the guys at the top of the media corporations are businessmen, and usually they are pretty successful businessmen. Of course, they sell things that, for the most part, pretty much sell themselves. Everyone watches television, they are simply trying to persuade people to his 5 on their remote instead of 2 or 7.

So, they are trying to persuade viewers to switch over by giving them what they want. And you guessed it, America likes "moral decay." We love it. We eat it up for breakfast. CSI is an acronym for crime scene investigation. I mean, we are fascinated by gory crime scenes!

I say this not because I am (not) fascinated by gory crime but because mainstream America is. Mainstream America wallows in its own adolescent sexuality, voyeuristically turned on by the sight of a breast or by Paris Hilton sticking her arm up a cows ass.

This is what America wants. It can crow on about moral values, but if business really does gauge the delights of America, then it wants mainstream hackery far more than it wants Christian ideals.

I love capitalism!

From The 10 Spot on cnnsi.com.

As George Costanza once noted, it's nearly impossible for most men not to sneak a peek at cleavage. Now Shaune Bagwell, the ex-wife of Astros slugger Jeff Bagwell, is cashing in on this apparent defect in men's wiring. Bagwell recently auctioned off use of her cleavage on eBay for advertisers. The winning bid was $15,099 by Internet casino GoldenPalace.com, which has previously placed its logo on such surfaces as the backs of boxers during a fight. Bagwell will receive her tattoo on Thursday, and GoldenPalace.com is obviously betting that many will take a healthy gander before it's removed in 30 days. Says Bagwell, "Using my cleavage seemed sexy and cute without being sleazy." Whatever you say, Shaune. -- Pete McEntegart

Mr. President, Let's Share the Wealth -- a response

Mr. President, Let's Share the Wealth

In his column, David Brooks offers a plan to start kids off in the right direction: giving them the ability to save money early on in life in the hopes that later on they will be financially secure. He also claims that his plan would save Social Security at the same time -- not that it really needs to be saved, in the sense that the Administration is telling the public.

His idea, which he admits isn't really his, is that each child born would be given $1000 at birth and a further $500 every year for the next five years from the federal government. The money would be untouchable until retirement and "due to the wonders of compound interest" the retiree would have a next egg of $100,000.

This idea has just been implemented in the United Kingdom, although with some variations. At birth, each child is given £250, with the possibility of getting £500 if the child's parents qualify. Each year, friends and relatives can deposit a maximum of £1200 in total into the child's account. The government will also make a subsequent deposit when the child reaches the age of seven. When the child turns 16, he or she will be given management control of the account and when the child turns 18, he or she will be able to withdraw on the account.

This represents a fundemental change in welfare policy for the British. The name for this new theory of welfare is "progressive universalism" and is based on the idea of moving from a system of benefit dispersal to a system based system to person asset-building.

Frankly, I like the idea. In the UK, and I suspect the US, there is a real problem associated with people simply not saving enough money to cover future expenses, either planned or unplanned. Nearly a third of households in the UK don't have enough savings to live on for a month if a job loss should occur. That means that a family would need to resort to welfare benefits on top of what is called Jobseeker's Allowance (basically, unemployment benefits with a "welfare-to-work" twist). Giving people the chance to save, however that is accomplished, is certain a good idea and will foster good habits in the future.

But good habits are only created when children are taught early on about money and how to save. How that is done, I can't quite say, but certainly the government should be spending a great deal of money developing a scheme to do this. If financial literacy is this poor among adults, the government can't rely on parents to teach their children what they need to know about proper money management.

Because it is universal, everyone with a child gets a piece of the action. This is important. Means tested benefits can be landmines for public opinion. Benefits attached to income and number of dependants have always been a quagmire. People question, "why should poor people be paid for having more kids?" Whether or not the program is effective in keeping families on stable financial footing ends up taking a back seat in the public discourse.

Anyway, those are my thoughts on this issue for now.

A house warming party

It is official that Sammy Sosa is no longer a Chicago Cub. For thirteen years he graced the friendly confines and he accomplished some great personal feats. He was the undisputed king of the locker room. Not only had he been there the longest, but he produced the most -- the highest numbers, the most publicity, the most tickets sold. It certainly went to his head. Remember when the Cubs off-loaded Mark Grace? There was always talk about the locker room feud between the two captains. And, there was the feud between Don Baylor and Sosa in 2000. The war of words between Sosa and Dusty Baker saw finally a Sosa defeat. To be sure, the Cubs made a choice for Baker over Sosa.

But I wonder what really awaits Sosa in Baltimore. Sosa said in his press conference that Camden Yards was "his new house." His old house was Wrigley Field and he really did own it. He decided what went on in there. He was the master of his domain. So, I can't figure out how much ownership he thinks he now has in Baltimore. He was sure to point out that Miguel Tejada was still the captain, that Camden Yards was still Tejada's "house."

If Sosa puts up big numbers, and there are reasons to believe that he could, can that ballpark survive joint ownership?

My response to Brooks: the readers write!

Reader Anonymous, responding to my critique of Brooks' column, suggests I may have gone a little astray in my thoughts on this issue. Anonymous writes "the point of this article is not “why fund schools when it is one's place in society that really determines a kid's future?” Rather, the point is why continue to throw money at a problem when more money has clearly not led to a sustainable solution."

Brooks was trying to point out that there is more to educational achievement than simply going to a school that is funded really well. A student's habitat has an undeniable effect on how that student does in school. That I will not dispute. What I will dispute is that everything has been done within the school to act as a counterbalance for what the student sees on the outside of the schoolyard. Pre-school funding has been cut, before-school activities have been cut, after-school activities have been cut year in, year out. In many places the school offers nothing more than a building one goes into for seven hours a day. Yes, students must be primed to learn, but without proper funding, a school is just a building.

Both Anonymous and I agree that "education is...the silver bullet," but s/he thinks that social problems can't be fixed by "throwing money" at the problem. Certainly public money should be spent wisely. All officials should spend money wisely and with discretion and indeed money probably shouldn't ever just be thrown around. While money should be spent wisely, it should also be spent fairly. The local property tax issue I raised in my post is still valid. Prestigious school districts are always in prestigious and exclusive neighborhoods. You can't say that doesn't have something to do with how much funding they get from their local property taxes. Reports of outdated textbooks, old (or non-existant) science equipment, no music or art facilities -- these are not problems that plague rich, suburban school districts. These are problems faced by all of the other schools districts out there.

After a certain level, education spending will bring few rewards for the extra spending (diseconomy of scale, right?). But, can anyone reasonably argue that every school is at that top level, especially in areas of blight and deprivation?

Brooks was saying that rich students are outpacing poor students, thus catapulting themselves to financial security and relegating the latter to serfdom (making the American dream harder to realize). But he goes on to blame the serfs for their serfdom. They live socially dysfunctional areas, their families are falling apart, how can they learn in school? I agree with that, to a point, but we aren't talking about a level playing field here at all. I had plenty of friends who had dysfunctional families or grew up with a single parent. Want to know something? They ended up going to Ivy League schools, prestigious state and private schools, and most of them did really well and are doing great things with their life.

Oh yeah, and my school district spent the second highest amount on its students in the entire state.

The Sticky Ladder -- by David Brooks: a response

I'm always a little wary of Brooks. He always comes out of the gate and says something intelligent, and I say to myself "Am I reading this right? Does he appear to be turning into a sensible person?" I am always disappointed by the end of his piece and this column is no different.

Brooks seems to think that "there are some indications that it is becoming harder and harder for people to climb the ladder of success." Really? Who told him so? The Economist, that's who. And, those living in Europe, a continent which "[seems] more class riven and less open," are just as socially mobile as we are in the United States. Gasp. This is a problem for him. The US should be about social mobility, a place where the next generation is better off than the previous.

I'm glad that he is pointing this out, but he sure is underselling the argument. Differences between quintiles have been growing for decades now, producing not so much an underclass of perpetually poor, but an overclass of perpetually wealthy (although to really see the effect, quinties are too broad -- it is best to look at the differences in wealth from percentile to percentile). Some people are wealthy enough to shut themselves off from normal society. People who don't rely at all on normal government social programmes like schools and medicine, let alone welfare and social security. It is these people that the current deregulatory push is aimed at pleasing.

But, the rich are running away with the show. According to Brooks, there is a causal link between the family income and childhood education. Rich kids, say Brooks, do better because they have more money to spend on, say, a Harvard education. Those kids will inevitably do better in life than their poorer counterparts who, say, went to the state university. In turn, the kids of Harvard grads will do better than the kids of state schools graduates, and so on.

All of this comes clumsily to a point at the end, when his true intent is revealed: "We can spend all we want on schools. But if families are disrupted, if the social environment is dysfunctional, bigger budgets won't help." Meaning, of course, why fund schools when it is one's place in society that really determines a kid's future?

So, he is really invoking a favorite argument -- breakdown of society/family. He drops the name of James Coleman, who wrote some very influential sociology/rational choice/economics pieces during the last part of the 20th century. Coleman wrote on social capital. Social capital, defined in varying ways, generally means the value of the social connections between people, which helps the mechanisms of society function smoothly. One could, with some necessary qualifiers, boil it down to "it isn't what you know but who you know." Old boys networks are rich in social capital, as are block clubs and church groups. In a way, gangs are rich in social capital, but they use that capital for ends, which are generally at odds with the rest of society. The ends of the capital must be defined for social capital is the same as monetary capital -- it can be used to purchase anything.

Social capital is not necessarily related to ones income. Just as one cannot form a tight bond with ones neighbor when one works two minimum wage jobs, a bankers who logs 80 hour work weeks can't really pop over for a cup of tea. The effect is widespread across the US; it prompted Robert Putnam to write a book titled Bowling Alone, because of the steep drop-off in bowling league attendance, and indeed all civic participation, across America. (Although Putnam deems pop culture to be the main culprit.)

The guy working two minimum wage jobs probably doesn't live in a rich NYC suburb or on the North Shore of Chicago. And, where education is concerned the banker would probably have to send his or her kids to the local public school, if better private option were available. The struggling worker has no option but the local public school.

So social capital can't be used as a scapegoat for poor performance. How much should schools be funded, I can't say, but it certainly can't be in relation to the surrounding society.

That, of course, brings me to an even larger problem – the fact that most public schools are funded by local property tax. Rich kids in rich schools live in rich neighborhoods while poor kids go to poor schools and live in poor neighborhoods. Maybe that imbalance should be addressed as well as Brooks’ perceived social breakdown.

I agree with him that the lack of a rigid class structure is good. We have no defined royalty, and we don't go around referring to someone as Lord This, Lady That or Sir What’s-his-name.

Indeed the irony of the US is that because we all have the idea that we could one day be multi-millionaires, we don't want to tax those who already are, lest we be taxed one day at that same rate.

Iraq the Vote

How nervous are you about Iraqi elections on Sunday? I am quite nervous.

But I can't decide what I should think about it.

If you are like me, you think democracy is good. It should be cultivated and it should be promoted... peacefully, that is. Promoting democracy through war is not at all akin to "you have to break some eggs to make an omelette." But, I digress, this was a discussion for, say 20 months ago.

So, yes, democracy is good. People must have a say in how they are governed and that say must be through direct elections. Having a set of laws is also good, a set, hopefully, that guarantees certain rights for everyone. Of course, what those rights turn out to be is yet another discussion (human vs civil rights, for example, or even a tertiary level of rights).

But, yeah. Those elections. Problematic, considering Zarqawi is intent on disrupting them at all costs. And, "disruption" is a euphamism for "killing many many people in a number of bloody, horrible ways." When democracy advocates of a poetic ilk say things like "marching on a path to freedom" I'm not sure glossing over the issue of "disruptions" does anybody any good.

So, what to do? Go ahead with them? Call them off?

If they do go ahead, I just can't see them being legitimate. The actual vote process may be within necessary parameters, but certainly many many people are going to be dissuaded from voting. Especially the Sunnis, who are expected to get a lashing anyway. Any good democracy must respect and protect the minority from majority tyrrany, but I fear a low turnout from a group who know they are going to lose.

Inaugural music sucks eagles

Well, the Inauguration is under way. It is painful to watch and worse to listen to. Yeah, the worst part about this whole thing is the music. Patriotic songs are not my thing.

You see, it isn't that patriotism rubs me the wrong way (although too much empty-hearted patriotism makes me ill) but bad music does. Patriotic songs are like Christian rock: the message doesn't suck nearly as much as the music does.

"Let the mighty eagle soar, from rocky shore to golden shore"? That is soo bad. How can a country that has produced some of the greatest music in the twentieth century, some of the greatest musicians -- Aaron Copeland, Leonard Bernstein, Ray Charles, even the Presidents of the United States of America (or POT USA, as they prefer) -- play music found in the dregs of the Best Buy bargain rack?

Sousa marches? Great. Traditional American songs? Awesome. "Let the mighty eagle soar"? Not so much.

A belated New Year's resolution

I don't normally make New Year's resolutions. But I have made some this year.

Most notable, I would like to try and reduce my dependance on certain words and monikers. I am trying to use words like liberal and conservative, right-wing and left-wing, and others of that ilk less often.

I would like to be able to evaluate and relay the idea of other without having to rely on branding the person or opinion as liberal or conservative. Words like that are always under-defined and over-interpreted. I can describe the person next to me as being liberal, but what does that really mean? We live in an age when many Republicans brand anyone less than a flag-toting, chest-thumping, Glory-be-to-God-crying American as a liberal America hater. All people are a little of one and some of the other: socially liberal and financially conservative or t'other way 'round.

Unfortunately, as soon as someone says liberal these days, the image of a penniless hippie comes to mind; as soon as someone says conservative, one can't help but think of a legislator who will lower taxes, brutalize criminals and rule the people like a king.

I think what this might come down to is a desire to be ruled less by my own history and by my ideology. It is so easy to rely on the fact that I have been a liberal minded individual my whole life. My parents are, my sister is, my friends are, the people I work with are. I feel that I live too much in an echo-chamber where my opinions are repeated by others close to me thus giving the impression that everyone thinks the way I do.

But clearly the rest of the US doesn't.

So, the idea is to, shock! evaluate arguments without appealing to the fact that some Republican forced it out of his blowhole. It will be difficult. Labeling something makes it easier to ridicule and I love to ridicule (even if I haven't done much of that on this page in the past couple of weeks). But I think this will be a benefit to me in the long term.

Pro-This, Anti-That

Got this from The Atlantic Monthly.

He has a good point and one that I tried to make during the protests a couple of years ago -- it was misleading for anti-war protesters to argue that the war was wrong because other countries didn't want to participate and the US just went ahead and invaded. What they really meant was this war is wrong because all war is wrong. But, that was a much harder argument to sell to people. You had to say "I know Saddam is a bad guy and all, and he shouldn't be the guy running Iraq, but we shouldn't go to war to remove him." The qualifiers in the beginning lessened the impact of the anti-war statement. But that statement would have been a little more straightforward; I really doubt the Stop the War Coalition was really against the war just because a handful of Security Council nations.

Same thing with Kyoto and the International War Crimes Tribunal. A country shouldn't enter a treaty just because lots of other countries have. But that is what the criticism of the US's non-ratification normally amounted to. A treaty is supposed to give all sides a justified payoff for a justified expense. Now, perhaps the US should have signed up to both of those things but it is misguided to argue that a country should sign a treaty just because everyone else on the block did.

This goes both ways. Sometime I get the feeling that the US doesn't go along with the program simply because other nations are. That is just as bad.

Who owns my teeth?

I have just returned from a visit from my dentist. I've been treated by Diane at Anderson Dental for about 20 years. She's a very nice person who likes to talk a lot. She always is going over the time for the appointment because of her mouth. I get the same speeches every six months: make sure when you brush, you rub in circles not side to side, the standard flossing speech, etc. We get along well, but whenever I'm around her, I realise that I don't own my teeth.

She owns them. The mouth is the only part of the body that I don't feel any sort of ownership over. It is like I am just renting them for six months at a time. After that six months, the dentist calls me back in, assesses the damage I've done to her things and then bills me for it.

Everyone feels guilty at the dentist when she finds something wrong. Plaque? Ever heard of a toothbrush? Gingivitis? Can you be charged with dental neglect? Diane is just the hygenist. At the end of the appointment the DDS comes in to give his professional seal of approval (like the Lexus 100-point used car inspection guarantee). There is always that uncomfortable assessment of the patient.

Dentist: So, what have we got today?
Hygenist: There is some tissue swelling around number 13, anterior.
Dentist: Hmm, has he been brushing? (Remember, I'm sitting right there)
Hygensit: He might have been brushing side to side.
Dentist: Is this true, Mr. Davis? Well, I'll let Diane give you the talk again.
Exeunt Dentist
Hygenist: You should brush like this (she takes out the oversized mouth model and the comically large toothbrush and brushes in small circles.)

I don't feel guilty when I go to the doctor because of the flu (which I got after going six nights on two cumulative hours of sleep). Do balding men lose sleep knowing they have to wake up and face the barber because he lost the barber's precious hair? Do smokers feel guilty when they take their lungs in for a look-see only to be told they have cancer?

Of body bags and ball gowns II

After my vigilant posting that raised awareness of the funding for tsunami relief and the inaugural balls ($35 mil for the former, $40 mil for the latter) the administration has bumped up the relief money to $350 mil.

Good work, Brett!

Thank you, Brett!