Pepper Spray

Remember the Pepper Spray Incident?

I was so angry, I promptly wrote a letter and saved it to my hard drive. Here it is, for no reason other than the nice weather is coming and I find myself wondering if any of the Occupy Wall St. protesters are planning a reunion.

Dear Protesters,

What are you so mad about? (Besides the pepper spray incident, of course.)

Is this whole thing about jobs? If so, is it the prospect of either not working at all, or being forced to work a low-wage food service job to get by that has you so angry?

Maybe it’s the pressure to sell yourself to a corporation once you get out of college so you can pay off your student loans and contribute to the economy? And speaking of student loans, could it be that you're paying $30k a year to go to school when it's free in other countries? I wonder if that’s why you seem so upset. Maybe it's the healthcare debacle? Or the incarceration rate? Especially if you have friends who are immigrants, minorities, or low-level drug offenders.

Could it be the fact that buying a house in America is even more of a losing deal than it was for your parents? By the time your 30-year note is paid, you've signed away more than 10 times what you will originally pay for the property. Or is it the mortgage crisis and the fact that more than 4 million American homes were foreclosed on while big banking showed huge profits? I'm sure the CEO of Bank of America and his $9 million dollar bonus hasn't helped. And now they want to eliminate the mortgage interest deduction for homeowners?

But not everything is about money. So maybe it’s something more philosophical with you protester types, like you were raised to believe you can do anything in this country, but over time, you’ve learned the hard way that it just isn’t true? Maybe you're wondering why today's America suddenly feels like a more intolerant place than it was even a few years ago?

Or maybe you're just sick of hearing the phrase "freedom isn't free" in every new country song? 

Then again, maybe it is just the pepper spray. It certainly was a mean thing to do, and I can see why you’re upset. As one commenter on YouTube put it, “when you use your body to make a point, it radicalizes a person.”

I'm sensing it was the pepper spray incident.

But don't worry. It shouldn't happen again, especially based on the swift report-writing action taken by the UC Davis leadership team. In April they issued a report that said "The decision to use pepper spray was not supported by objective evidence and was not authorized by policy."

That should fix things.

Ten Things That Would Make the World a Better Place

Imagine if all people were well-versed in the following:

Philosophy

Conflict Resolution

Reading

Writing

Algebra 

Scientific Principles and Methods

World History

Civics and Government

Emotional Intelligence

Technological Literacy

Saved Articles #1

I'm working my way through a very long "saved articles" list.

First up is Dumb America from the New York Review of Books blog, written by Gary Wills.

Mr. Wills is pretty forthcoming with his opinions on what he sees as obstructionist thinking. At one point he even describes the southern mentality as if "the whole continent were tipped upward, so that the scattered crazinesses might slide down to the bottom."

Here is what he has to say regarding a disrespect for science:

"No part of the country will suffer the effects of global warming earlier or with more devastation than the South, yet its politicians resist measures to curb carbon emissions and deny the very existence of climate change—sending it to the dungeon with evolution and biblical errancy. One doesn’t need much imagination to see the South with lowered or swollen waters in its rivers and ports, raging kudzu, swarming mosquitos, and record-breaking high temperatures, still telling itself that global-warming talk is just a liberal conspiracy. But it just digs deeper in denial. The South has decided to be defeated and dumb."

As for healthcare and other social issues, he has this to say:

"No one needs better health care more than the South, but it fights it off so long as Obama is offering it, its governors turning down funds for Medicaid. This is a region that rejects sex education, though its rate of teenage pregnancies is double and in places triple that of New England. It fights federal help with education, preferring to inoculate its children against science by denying evolution."

You can read the rest for yourself at the link above.

Why Is He Acting This Way?

I was reading an article in the New York Times about the Newtown school shooting when I came across this quote from a former classmate regarding Adam Lanza's behavior:

“I think that maybe he wasn't given the right kind of attention or help. I think he went so unnoticed that people didn't even stop to realize that maybe there’s actually something else going on here — that maybe he needs to be talking or getting some kind of mental help."

"In high school, no one really takes the time to look and think, ‘Why is he acting this way?’ ”

The last sentence says it all for me. In high school, it is rare to think about why some students act a certain way. Too few people ask questions like "Why is this kid always disrupting others? Why is this kid constantly getting into fights or sleeping in class?"

Sometimes this failure to get at the root cause of problems, particularly social problems, is because of good intentions gone awry. And sometimes it's because of the system itself.

Most progressive schools have started asking why kids behave in certain ways, but they are careful - sometimes overly so - not to label kids. This fear of making a judgement and thus doing further damage needs to be addressed.

Oppressive schools, on the other hand, often insist on meaningless or ritualistic conformity, a practice that can mask anti-social and other behavioral concerns as much as it squashes individuality. This practice needs to be eliminated.

Guns, Guns, Guns

Tuesday is the day Vice-President Biden's task force is scheduled to make gun control recommendations to the President. Over the past few weeks, the Vice-President has met with representatives from the gun lobby, representatives from anti-gun groups, and leaders from the entertainment and video game industries.

In the meantime, gun sales are booming.

This weekend, the New York Times published an article describing picked-over gun stores with lines of people five deep waiting to stockpile ammunition “If I had 1,000 AR-15s I could sell them in a week,” said Jack Smith, an independent gun dealer in Des Moines, referring to the popular style of semiautomatic rifle that drew national attention after Adam Lanza used one to kill 20 children and 6 adults at a Newtown school."

On Friday, the Boston Globe ran a column describing a mother and her struggles to find mental health care for her young son. She had gone through a list of sixty-six providers before she found mental health care provider for her son. The piece ended with a great line by Kevin Cullen: "If the mother of that 7-year-old boy wanted to find a Glock instead of a therapist, she wouldn’t have to go to 66 gun stores."

Something is definitely wrong when Americans find it easier to buy assault rifles than get a doctor's appointment.

Am I arguing for a wholesale ban of guns? No.

One popular argument made by gun enthusiasts is that criminals commit crimes, not guns. The vast majority of gun owners, they say, are law-abiding citizens. This is a good point. But it still doesn't change the fact that guns are too easily accessible for those who shouldn't have them.

As I see it, there are three major questions to focus on:

1. How do we keep guns away from some people (criminals and the unstable)and not others?
2. How do we eliminate assault-style weaponry for those who don't need such firepower?
3. How do we fix what is obviously a failed system for delivering mental health services?

The first part of the answer is more police officers, as long as they are focused on preventative measures and not reactive law enforcement only. Imagine if police departments were staffed enough to conduct home visits and interviews with every member of a household where guns are to be stored? How do we pay for it? Build it into the cost of owning a gun and be done with it. This takes care of problem 1.

The second question, what to do with assault rifles, is simple. Eliminate them entirely. Average citizens do not need machine guns. Here is where the military could help out by offering an exchange program. Turn in your assault rifle for a less rapid-fire weapon, something suitable for protection but not warfare.

As for the problems inherent in our mental health system, this problem is too complex for one-size-fits-all solution. But there is something we could do in the interim to at least provide a bit of protection. Why not require a sign-off from your primary care physician as part of the application for a gun license?

None of these ideas are perfect (or original), but I think they're a good start.

School Violence

I took two weeks off from my column for The Enterprise, partly because I was (am) sick and partly because I was preoccupied with the Sandy Hook tragedy.

To me, schools are places to discuss tragedies, to learn from them, to make some sense of them.

Schools are not places where tragedies occur.

Even the events of Columbine and Virginia Tech were somewhat explainable, meaning there were reasons we could look to in order to make sense of it all. Eric Harris and Dylan Klebold of Columbine saw themselves as victims. Seung-Hui Cho of Virginia Tech was mentally unstable. We know so little about Adam Lanza that it's hard to find closure.

Somehow a fundamental line has been crossed and we will feel the ripple effects for a long time. Just like 9/11 changed our country, the Sandy Hook tragedy will change the world of education. Exactly how remains to be seen.

Right now we should be asking ourselves some questions. Why are the people who shoot up schools all young and male? And what can be done about it?


This week's Enterprise column (it should run Monday) is my entry into the conversation.

Open Letter to Science

Dear Science:

Could someone please tell me where all this "new technology" is? Short of smart phones and a few voice-activated commands here and there, where’s the virtual world we were supposed to be inhabiting by now?

Where's the voice-driven house that responds to commands like, "Turn off that light!” or “Lower the air conditioning”? Surely we can do better than The Clapper.

It looks to me as if the technology is there, but the follow through is lacking. I expected more from whoever it is that drives the decision-making these days.

Remember the promises of nanotechnology? Weren’t we supposed to have super-clothes by now, like shirtsleeves that monitor your heart rate, or hoodies with built in satellite radio?

I keep reading about an alleged refrigerator that orders groceries using a built-in UPC scanning system. All you have to do is hit email before heading off to go the grocer and - Bingo! - your shopping list is sent to your phone. PeaPod is great and all, but we still have to click all over the place on a web site, a colossal waste of time. Once again, we have some of it, but not the whole shebang.

How about the bulb that lasts forever? Where's that one? Every time I buy light bulbs I can't help feeling like the environment is the one getting screwed instead of  the light bulb. Is some corporation keeping the formula for long-lasting bulbs a secret?

Why am I only reading about these things and not using them?

And another thing, stop making cool stuff only for young people. Plenty of people like me have paid our dues, and we deserve cool stuff, too. Where were all these “gamers” when our generation was struggling with real issues, like the Microsoft Windows Blue Screen of Death, and dial-up modems?  

It looks to me like you smartypants  types have your priorities all wrong. You concentrate on tools to help us work, rather than actually doing the work for us. This is a big difference.

True, you invented a robot lawnmower that cuts grass on its own, but you need to install all kinds of crazy infrared sensors to make it work properly. Plus you need to be there to supervise it. Where's the smart technology that trims hedges on its own or cleans my gutters and power-washes the shed while I snooze on my hammock?

Why, Science, are you wasting time creating things that take away people’s jobs? Self-service supermarket checkouts? Pizza delivery apps? For some of us, retail shopping  is the only socialization we get outside of work. And where the heck did bag boys and gas station attendants go? I have to carry my own bags, fill my own gas tank and wash my own windows. Sometimes all in the same day!

Why not invent something much, much cooler? Something that doesn’t take anyone’s job, but makes life more fun? How about a car alarm that plays Rock You Like a Hurricane?  Or a cheeseburger that’s good for you?

Take a cue from Star Trek. Plenty of ideas there. Transporting people? Food replicators? It even looks to me like they don’t need toilets in the future. Who knows? Maybe they invented some type of chemical and embedded it in their Starfleet suits that neutralized urine and fecal matter instantly so that, in essence, your clothing is your toilet. It sounds gross, but it's better than the current practice of using our planet, our only planet, like a toilet.

Speaking of bathrooms, here are two more failures:  automatic flushing urinals and high-powered hand dryers. It wasn't so bad, grabbing that chrome handle in public rest rooms. It was a part of the experience of urinating. Now that's gone too, another useless piece of smart technology in its place. As for the paperless dryer, what was wrong with having a guy in there handing out towels? Now his job is gone, too. Since we’re on the subject, where is the “smart toilet” that analyzes body waste and creates a custom diet for you each day, or alerts you to potential health problems? I’m not getting any younger.

The last one though, the one that really frosts me, is how cool you think you’ve become, Science. The Big Bang Theory? Stephen Hawking? Higgs-Boson parties? All of a sudden you’re better than those Gary Larson cartoon professors with their matching white coats and humble spectacles. What about the nerds who paved the way, thus making it cool for you scientists to be nerds in the first place?  

Some of us spent our entire teenaged years watching sappy eighties sitcoms like "Bosom Buddies" and "The Facts of Life", while you get the Science Channel, SyFy Network, Nat Geo, NOVA, and just about anything else you want. All I had to look up to was Beaker from the Muppets. 

Want to know what my generation got in the way of a science-fiction  television series? "Alf".

So there you have it, Science. It’s time to think about more than video games, stealth weapons, and hair replacement products. If you really want to win my support back, try inventing  something of use for those of us over 40, like a way of turning our iPhones into reading glasses, or a home liposuction kit.

When Hedges Go Bad

In early times, hedging meant protecting something, usually crops, by surrounding it with hedges.

Today hedging means to protect yourself from losses by avoiding a commitment, usually by supporting more than one side.

People or corporations who donate to both republican and democratic candidates do this all the time. So do gamblers who bet on both teams, and investors who buy stock in competing companies. In these cases, people are seen as "hedging their bets".

Pete Rose was banned from baseball for betting on his own team. Fans were horrified to learn that he sometimes bet against the Reds while he was manager.

But really, let's be honest, what baseball team wins every night? Winning 100 out of 162 games is considered a significant accomplishment for any team.

So from a gambling perspective, it makes perfect sense to bet both for and against one team. The same holds true for the stock market, which is really just a place to bet on financial performance instead of sports rankings. Not everyone can be a winner, so it's more profitable to spread your investments around.

But hedging a baseball bet and hedging on the economy are quite different. One is a game. The other is the financial backbone of the United States of America.

This is why I have problems with hedge funds. In particular, with political candidates who employ the practice.

Consider the following from the Boston Globe regarding one candidate's financial portfolio:

"In many cases, his investments are in funds that hold complex securities and produce profits whether companies succeed or fail, and whether the economy thrives or not."

Later in the article there is this forecast from the same candidate's investment advisors:

"a flurry of new borrowing in 2010 'will fuel a robust distressed cycle over the next 2-4 years, especially if the economic recovery remains relatively weak'.”

Pete Rose bet against his own team and was banned from baseball for life.

Now we have a billionaire doing the same thing with our economy and people are touting him as some kind of financial Mr. Fix-it? 

I don't get it.

A Sheep in Wolves Clothing?

Mitt Romney's call for public school "open enrollment", meaning any student could enroll in any school, no matter where he or she resides is, as James Ryan points out in his blog post, a bold possibility.

Too bad emphasis is placed on the possibility part instead of the bold part.

Here's what Ryan had to say about that:

"Romney’s "proposal would target the real source of educational inequality in this country: school district boundaries, which wall off good school systems from failing ones. The grossest inequalities in educational opportunity today exist between school districts, not inside them."

He then goes on to point out Romney's use of the word "capacity", meaning for example, suburban schools would only have accept urban students if they had the capacity. Or in other words, a way to wiggle out of it.

Although I'm all for choice, whether on behalf of individuals or institutions, I can't help but think this is one issue that needs a good, firm hand, at least to start off with. Face it, most people (and thus, organizations) resist change. For some, having to change makes them physically ill.

But this doesn't mean a good idea isn't still a good idea. And large-scale open enrollment policies will open a whole lot of doors for a whole lot of kids.

Breaking down district barriers provides opportunities for learning within a more diverse culture, expands the influence of teachers and programs to neighboring communities, and just might reinvigorate our communities in new ways.

Obviously, there are opposing views on the matter. Transportation issues, budgetary concerns, claims of wealth re-distribution and more, are serious enough to warrant a thorough vetting of the issue.

One concern that I find baseless though is the fear that hordes of urban students will somehow overrun smaller suburban high schools. In their zeal to "attend a good school", these city kids will overwhelm the system, disrupt the learning for others, and suck up limited social services, the thinking goes.

Frankly, I think the opposite will happen.

Certainly not a thorough argument one way or the other here. Just some food for thought.

Future Condemnations

What will future generations condemn us for?

This article from the Washington Post lists four practices that will be difficult to defend to future generations. But it is by no means an exhaustive list.

For my money, disparities in care for the mentally ill, transportation, and fast/pre-packaged food, along with limited access to proper nutrition should be on the list as well.