Part Time Person

As any geologist will tell you, it's a bad idea to put houses on the southeast side of the Big Island of Hawaii, where active lava flows have been moving since 1984, resulting in the destruction of one entire subdivision, the Royal Gardens.

Today is the 40th anniversary of the most significant day in human history.

Michael Jackson is dead--not soon enough. Not before he used his money and fame to hurt unknown numbers of children.

Twenty years ago today, in the aftermath of the Tiananmen Square massacre, one anonymous man stood in a street, alone and unarmed, before a column of approaching tanks. We don't know what he had witnessed in the previous day, when the student-led, pro-democracy revolution taking place in Tiananmen was put down by indiscriminate machine gun fire into crowds and the use of tanks as steamrollers to crush people. Almost certainly the man had seen tanks rolling full speed into the crowds of protestors.

According to the New York Times: 

"President Obama said Wednesday that he was receptive to Congressional proposals that would require Americans to have health insurance and oblige employers to share in the cost. But he said there should be exemptions for people who cannot afford insurance and for small businesses in general.

Despite the panoply of problems facing the new president, he has rightly decreed that health care must, because of its tremendous costs to businesses and productivity, not be deferred while other, seemingly-more urgent problems are addressed. This is the correct, long-term thinking that we need.

However, as the quote above reveals, President Obama may be willing to settle for something less than a true fix for the health care crisis. Such a half-measure at this time would be a tragic decision.

Our health care system is deeply broken. The majority of Americans favor a nationalized, single-payer system. The benefits of such a system, to both individuals, families, and businesses, are manifest and undeniable. To enact something less than full, universal, simplified health care would squander this unique moment in American history where, for the first time since Truman, Americans seem ready to join the rest of the civilized world in terms of caring for its citizens.

"Requiring" individuals who are uninsured to purchase insurance is the wrong approach. This will be a crushing burden on the young, the unmarried, and those just starting out in life. Imagine barely scraping by, barely paying the bills, then suddenly being saddled with a new monthly premium bill in the range, depending on one's health, of $500-$700. Few uninsured individuals will be able to make an adjustment of that magnitude. Under this plan, however, those who cannot afford this new bill will be outlaws and subject to punishment. This is no way to reform health care. 

Allowing exemptions for small businesses and  those who cannot afford coverage is essentially no change from the present problem. Right now everyone is technically free to buy insurance; in reality, pre-existing conditions and high premiums are an insurmountable barrier for many.

The burden of premiums is particularly harsh on small businesses. The majority of jobs in America, and what will be the majority of new jobs if/when an economic recovery occurs, will be in small businesses. So rather than simply sweeping small businesses and individuals under the rug, these are the primary issues of health care reform.

If the president allows these groups to fall through the cracks of health care reform, if "reform" somehow bypasses the very groups it most needs to address, then this hollow health care fix will be a lasting shame to the Obama legacy.

America needs and wants not simply a larger bandaid, but radical surgery to extract the cancer that is rotting our economy.
 

Vega has posted a set of Richard Feynman lectures at http://www.vega.org.uk/video/subseries/8.
Feynman, one of the great scientific geniuses of all time, also had an remarkable talent for explaining the complex to layman. Well worth a view.

Elie Wiesel has known horrors none of us can imagine. Through his life's work and especially books such as Night, those of us born post-Holocaust can perhaps achieve some measure of understanding about that darkest moment in humankind's history. Wiesel, and his fellow survivor Primo Levi, bear un-silenceable witness to unspeakable crimes.

Another crime has just occured. Wiesel has lost his entire life's savings, and all the money of his Elie Wiesel Foundation for Humanity, in the Bernie Madoff scandal. Instead of investing his client's money, Madoff spent it in a Ponzi scheme. The money is gone.

Surely many of Madoff's clients are equally hurt, but the great injustice here is the loss of funds for the Foundation for Humanity. Their important work in Darfur is a necessary reminder for the world that genocide is happening right now, this very day, far away from the world's attention. Everyone who feels outrage over the possibility of the Foundation for Humanity closing because of the greed of one man should donate now, in order to demonstrate that Madoff's malice cannot snuff out Wiesel's good work.

Last year a mentally-disturbed Holocaust denier--a redundancy if ever there were one--attacked Wiesel at a hotel in San Francisco.

Yet I suspect that despite being physically attacked at an advanced age, despite being left penniless in the wake of Madoff's obscene betrayal, Elie Wiesel--winner of the Nobel Prize and one of the most influential persons of the 20th century--has a sense of perspective about these hardships that few of us will ever have. He knows just how bad things can really become.

In my years of teaching, I've come across many students who were creationists. I've even come across one who outright refused to believe in plate tectonics. But this video shows someone even crazier:




It's hard to know where to start with such extreme anti-scientific craziness.

A man was recently shot at the Scientology Celebrity Centre in Los Angeles while approaching with two samurai swords. It was a good effort, although it is a shame he was put down before he did any real mischief. In a just world, Scientology centers would be under daily assaults of this nature.

Scientology is not only a cult, but a particularly nasty and vicious cult that gives false hope to thousands while sucking their money into its ravenous maw. Scientology takes advantage of vulnerable people in the worst ways.

While assuming the trappings of science--Hubbard claimed he invented a "science of the mind"--Scientology practices none of the methods or skepticism of real science. Its bizarre mixture of "e-meters" and "engrams" and aliens seems like a laughable parody of a cult--until one sees the the grim seriousness of its proponents.

In civilized parts of the world, Scientology is recognized as a cult, and taxed appropriately. However, in the United States, the Church of Scientology is afforded a religious exemption from taxation. We Americans go to extreme lengths to defer to religion of any conceivable form. In this case, and in the case of the Mormon Church--which directly intervened in politics by financing California's Proposition 8--their tax-exempt status should be revoked.

If people really want to believe crazy things, fine. But does their folly have to be subsidized by everyone else? As the great P.Z. Myers so frequently points out, "Religion poisons everything."

Not soon enough.

Crichton was trained as a medical doctor; although he was not a research scientist, he had at least taken a great number of science classes. His pseudoscientific writings, however, disparaged and distorted science at every opportunity.



In Crichton’s 1969 novel The Andromeda Strain, a NASA probe returns to Earth tainted by extraterrestrial germs, which then spark a deadly pandemic. The widespread success of this book sparked fears among the public about the upcoming Apollo 11 lunar mission, and caused the protocols for returning astronauts to change. According to Apollo 11 capsule commander Michael Collins, the lengthy quarantine and isolation protocols the astronauts experienced after returning to Earth were a direct result of public fears stoked by The Andromeda Strain, rather than by NASA’s assessment of the real danger of “space bugs.”

In Crichton’s 1990 book Jurassic Park, rogue geneticists recreate dinosaurs in the eponymous theme park. Although it is possible to extract short, fragmented segments of DNA from recently-dead animals, the scenario of resurrecting dinosaurs by such methods is laughably implausible. One can see the science of Jurassic Park as merely literary device in order to have dinosaur-human interactions. However, Crichton’s real theme in Jurassic Park was science out of control, science playing God, science in the service of profit rather than the benefit of mankind. These views are profoundly anti-science.

In the 2002 Prey, Crichton’s paranoia about science extends to nanotechnology. Prey tells the story of an evil nanotechnology company whose now-sentient product escapes the confines of its lab and evolves deadly traits. Those mad scientists are off again, ruining the world for everyone else.

All this could be forgiven and dramatic devices for selling novels. However, in State of Fear, Crichton misrepresents the science of global warming. State of Fear describes environmentalism—which Crichton calls a religion—as a dangerous and fanatical belief system held by terrorists bent on mass murder. In what one reviewer called a “postmodern view of science,” Crichton implies that science exists only in the service of partisan ideology. State of Fear involves plots by environmental terrorists to manufacture what seem to be natural disasters in order to advance the cause of global warming. Crichton’s novel used footnotes, two appendixes, and a twenty-page bibliography to promote fringe ideas about global warming.

Rather than earning Crichton universal ridicule, State of Fear garnered Crichton an hour-long, one-on-one conversation with President Bush. This time dwarfed the attention given by Bush to the Nobel Prize-winning Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change; they did not earn an hour’s audience, yet a novelist who distorted scientific research to advance a fringe agenda did. This fact is a sorry commentary on the importance given by the Bush administration to ideas generated in the “reality-based community.”

This morning, 23 August 2008, at 1:03 am, I had the following exchange via text message:

Obama: Barack has chosen Senator Joe Biden to be our VP nominee. Watch the first Obama-Biden rally live at 3pm ET on www.barackobama.com. Spread the word!

Me: k, lol

Obama: Um… why do you find Biden funny?

Me: nOOb. jK.

Obama: I’m afraid I don’t…

Me: MacCne pwns Obma

Obama: Look, if you, as a voter, have something constructive to say about my vice-presidential choice…

Me: Zzzz. YGTbKm? Biden = old, wrkly

Obama: I was hoping that Senator Biden’s experience would add gravitas, especially in the realm of foreign affairs.

Me: |-O. W/evr.

Obama: Frankly, I was anticipating this reaction from some of my supporters. However, polling data indicate that Biden will complement what the public perceives as my vulnerabilities vis-a-vis John McCain.

Me: Hold on, need WC.

Obama: If you want to continue your critique of Senator Biden later, at a more convenient time for you…?

Me: NP, just #1. Does Bdn 4:20?

Obama: Excuse me?

Me: lmao! w33d!

Obama: I’m not sure this is going in a productive direction.

Me: Yr br8kng up w/me?

Obama: jK.

Most blogs are bullshit.* Although most people tend to think highly of their uninformed opinions, the reality is that almost no one is interested in other people's thoughts, experiences, observations, or insights. Even in conversation, Americans don't listen to other people; they just wait until it is their turn to talk.

So it is refreshing when a blog actually does something good.

The New York Times recently profiled Karen Gadbois, a women who moved to New Orleans in 2002. Ms. Gadbois came up with a brilliant idea: Why not drive around New Orleans to see if the houses that city hall claims have been restored from Hurricane Katrina actually have been fixed?

It should surprise no one that very few of the homes she inspected actually received reconstruction work. Houses claimed to have been renovated were later demolished as uninhabitable. In one case, an entire city block that city hall claimed had been restored did not even exist. Money had, of course, been spent. $1.8 million. Federal funds have been distributed for work that was never done. A good place to look for it might be in the bank accounts of the city leadership.

Rarely does blogging have any real effect. But this time it has: The FBI has raided the offices of the reconstruction agency, and Mayor Nagin is being investigated for possible corruption charges. Someone, after all, received the money that has gone missing.

Karen Gadbois has done a great job and a great service to New Orleans. It is shameful, however, that the local mainstream journalists seem so unable to do such a basic thing as their jobs.

*including, of course, this blog

In my dream, I'm crawling through an old, abandoned military fort. It reminded of Battery Mendell, in the Marin Headlands north of San Francisco, where once I engaged in an epic hide-and-seek game with schoolmates. We seemed to spend hours hiding and hunting among the crumbling concrete bunkers, probing the dark recesses with flashlights in search of giggling friends.

In this dream, I am alone in this empty fort. I am searching for something, but I don't know what it is. As I dig in the darkness among the rubble and exposed wires, I find an opening and crawl through. It is a completely dark. But as I crawl through it, I find that I am descending into a water. I can see light through the water, and against better judgment, I dive into the water to see what I can find. This is still part of the fort, and there is an open door I can swim through into a pocket of air.

As I surface, I realize that I have found a completely new part of the fort, one that is isolated from the rest. There is a gigantic bedroom, with 4-post canopy bed. Everything is wet and moldy. The high walls are covered floor-to-ceiling in antiquarian books. I pull off a few titles and examine their moldy, smelly pages.

I discover that I am not alone. There are a few other people there, but strangely I do not feel threatened. I suspect that they are trying to steal souveniors and are not much concerned by my presence.

As I leave this strange area, I see dozens of blue-shirted people descending upon me. They grab me under water and pull me to the surface, where I am placed under arrest for trespassing.

It was recently revealed that the EPA has discounted the value of an American life by nearly $1 million. While this move does not have an immediate, practical effect--your boss isn't going to cut your salary because of this--it does have a longer term effect of reducing the amount of environmental protections available to Americans.

According to the macabre calculations of the Bush-era EPA, if a new environmental regulation is going to save lives, then the value of these lives must be assessed against economic losses to businesses. A similar grim arithmetic was part of Fight Club; if recalling a dangerous part on a car will cost more than paying out damages to the likely number of victims, then car companies prefer to pay damages rather than prevent the injuries.

This mentality mirrors that of Sen. Phil Gramm, a McCain advisor, who also recently complained that Americans had become "a nation of whiners" suffering not from a real economic downturn, but only from a "mental recession."

What these ideas have in common is a rejection of the nature of reality. In Sen. Gramm's world, thinking positive has the effect of making the world positive. It's as if our thoughts have the ability to reshape reality. Among many religious people, of course, this thought is common; prayer to a diety for intercession is a common way of imagining that our mental energies have the ability to transform reality.

According to Sen. Gramm, if our economy is in a nosedive, this is only because so many people think negatively. For instance, if you are laid off, then it's your fault for bringing down your comapny with your negative energy. If your mortgage payment or rent goes up 25% in one month, the blame lies with you and your bad chi, not with your avaricious landlord.

Imagining that environmental regulations can be rewritten according to an arbitrary recalculation of the value of a human life is likewise a fantasy, a profound divorcement from reality. Environmental regulations getting you down? Just say that the people the regulations are protecting are worth less, and--poof!--the regulations evaporate.

There can be legitimate arguments about the economy and about the balance of regulation and business interests. But what these two items show is that America has lost its collective mind and entered into a dangerous zone of fantasy.

A recent NYT article revealed a major reason why so much of the debate over public education in this country is so utterly divorced from the realities of the classroom.

In urban school districts, typically 30-50% of the school population changes schools per year. In economically-devastated cities such as Flint, Michigan, the percentage is closer to 75%. That's right--teachers in Flint see only one out of four of the same students from one year to the next. One Flint school had 300 of its 500 students switch in a single year.

The effects on students who change schools are clear: trouble assimilating with a new set of peers, trouble with starting curriculum midway, trouble with not being at grade level and having unfamiliar problems in an unfamiliar setting thrust upon them.

The effects on the classroom from such a high turnover are also clear: teacher time sapped to help new students catch up, experience working with individual students and gaining their trust wiped away, instability of the classroom group.

These problems are largely economic; Flint, Michigan, for example, was so annihilated by GM plant closings that it might simply be better for parents to relocate out of an area that does not have nearly the jobs to support its current population.

However, a large part of the problem is the way students are assigned to schools. In the current system, what matters most for school assignment is the location of the parent's home. The student is treated as a population statistic rather than as a learner.

The structure of this system guarantees failure, for it mandates that poor students attend schools with other poor peers, while wealthier kids segregate into schools with wealthier peers. Any attempt to integrate schools in terms of economics will meet with howls of resistance from parents in gated communities, decrying that their children shouldn't have to mingle with "undesirables." Any attempt to assign students in a stable way to schools or teachers who best meet their individual needs will elicit cries of student tracking.

The 4th season of The Wire followed a group of students/drug hoppers and a new teacher through a year of their trials and tribulations on and off the mean corners of Baltimore. The Wire--perhaps one of the greatest television series ever--made clear just how unrealistic the goals of No Child Left Behind are when confronted by the crucible of the streets. By the end of the season, and the school year, viewers felt like they had followed these students through a war. The reality is, though, that within that year most of the students would have switched schools.