Can Anyone Say "George Orwell"

George Orwell's 1984 was a bit early in its prediction of an all-seeing government. The recent hoopla about invasive screening at airports is just another example for us. Since 9-11, the government has been particularly adept at removing our personal freedoms in the name of security and safety. I am not saying we should not have security and safety. Anyone who remembers airlines being hijacked to go to Cuba knows that some level of security is required. However, we, as Americans, seem to be all to eager to turn in our freedoms when the government yells safety and security and terror. In fact, our appointed officials, like Janet Napolitano, simply refuse to listen to the brave few who would question the TSA tactics. They just don't "understand why people are so upset".

I am really tired of the media on this one, too, because, until it became scandalous (someone was touched improperly), they did not care. Even now, they seem more than able to find some dolt who says ... "Well, if it makes us safer I am ok with it." Well, I am not ok with it. It is ineffective, looks for the wrong things on people, screens those who don't need screening and costs billions of dollars while we are going broke.

Since I cannot complain without offering alternatives, here is a partial list ...

• profile based on criminal background
• profile based on probing questioning
• vigorously x-ray all baggage - cargo and otherwise
• make better use of psychological training for employees
• mine the vast information network that has been built up on every American by our and other's governments
• develop a friend-foe system (the theory is that if one has not been a problem the past years on any number of flights, it is unlikely that they will be a problem)

I am really tired of having my civil rights removed from me and am afraid that we are edging ever closer to a police state, at least when it comes to group travel.

The Government and Me

I was listening to an interesting program on NPR this afternoon during lunch where the guest was tracing the links between the Tea Party of today with the John Birch Society of the 50's and 60's. As I have supported some of the ideas of the Tea Party and applaud their exercise of their constitutional rights, I thought it might be good to put some thoughts down regarding my own feelings regarding our loveable federal government. I think that there are those in my family that see me as a Tea Party supporter in the worst case and as anti-Obama in the best case. So, for all of you, here are my thoughts on our government (in summary form with extended explanations where needed).

There is clearly an important role for federal government; anarchy is not an option. The federal government should do the following:

• Uphold the Constitution of the United States


• Defend the country from attack (but not by stripping its citizens of their rights)


• Protect the borders


• Guide and regulate monetary policy, especially on a global scale


• Protect the rights of all citizens (by definition, this includes all minorities)


• Guide commerce and protect citizens from fraudulent and toxic buisness practices


• Legislate without the influence of business, special interests, other governments


• Adjudicate according to the Constitution and well-established precidents of English and American law


• Carry out foriegn policy with the best interests of the citizens in mind (not the petty concerns of individual politicians following misguided policies)


• Pursue massive projects that support new knowledge (to be shared with the citizens) and technologies that cannot be pursued by profit-driven entities


• Provide a safety net for the poor and infirm and provide meaningful training to render all capable persons of gaining employment in the private sector

There may be more, but this is a good start. Now for what the government should not do:

• Redistribute wealth


• Become the largest employer in the country


• Withhold the funding of schools that comply with all equal opportunity requirements but do not follow the whims of various government programs that control the environment and content of education


• Dictate health care


• Intrude on the daily lives of citizens with arbitrary legislation that appeals to the latest pseudo-science or mass-driven opinions


• Allow legislators to abdicate the responsibility for writing legislation to hired hands


• Pile up massive debt (I think some debt is ok ... it works well for me, but there has to be a limit)

So, this should be enough to get some tongues wagging in the family. It is not a complete list, but a good working one.

Faulty Logic

I was listening to NPR yesterday on the way home from the airport. I got a bit furious over one of the commentators who stated that the Tea Party and the Republicans are arguing two sides of the same coin. According to the commentator, the groups want smaller government with less deficit spending yet they both want tax cuts to remain in place for all people (yes, including the "rich"). She said that this makes no sense and is mutually incompatible.

Talk about faulty logic. Is it not easy to see that you can hold both of these tenets (as I do) by reducing government spending? Spend less, much less (enough to cover continuing the tax relief) and deficits will go down. Tax cuts (continued ... not new ones) and deficit reduction. What is incompatible about this?

Freedom of the Press

Sorry for the absence, but life is busy. Nonetheless, today I heard a news program on NPR that got me to thinking.

The program was on the Diane Rehm show and was about "Not for Profit Journalism" and featured such guests as representatives from The Center for Public Integrity, ProPublica, and the Texas Tribune. One caller was upset with the slanted version of the news that we get everywhere and also intimated that the groups on the show were just as guilty of one-sidedness (including NPR) as radio shows like Limbaugh's and Hannity's or the New York Times. He wanted news to stick to the 4 w's and an h (where, when, why, what, how).

All of this made me remember learning about news reporting in school. I was taught that reporters were supposed to be non-biased and report the facts (see the w's above). I took that at face value and it stayed with me for years. Upon listening to this report, though, I began to question this. When did this really happen? Why was I taught this? At what point did it get introduced into journalism classes and schools? The reason for this question is that newspapers have always been biased. Perhaps more so in the past than now. In reading the books about John Adams, George Washington, Thomas Jefferson and other early colonial politicians, the newspapers were clear propagandist arms of the prevailing political schools of thought of the time. I doubt seriously that it was any different going back to the time of Gutenberg.

So I ask again, where did this idea come from that journalism should be unbiased?

By the way, check out ProPublica; it is a neat non-profit news outlet.

The "Eyes" Have It (or a trip to the DMV)

Well, it has been awhile since I last posted. Life just seemed to pass by too quickly. Yesterday, though, I went to renew my driver's license - an ideal activity to post about.

In NC, you either make an appointment with the DMV 2 months in advance or take your chances to be one of the many in line for the walk up and "take a number" approach. I chose the latter, so I arrived at the DMV office one hour before it opened to be the first in line. It turns out that the line really does not get long until about 1/2 hour before opening.

It was very chilly, so my hands shook a bit as I read a book while waiting. Finally, the uniformed agent came over and opened the door for the orderly entrance of about 50 people. I think the downturn in the economy has hit the DMV as I remember there being many more people in the past. I got my number and just as I sat down, I was called back to the room with 9 license agents at the ready.

I sat down across from a very nice female agent (another change from the grumpy agents I have encountered in the past). She took my old, decrepit license and found my information in the vast labyrinth of government data on its constituents. Next she asked a rapid-fire series of questions ... any history of seizures, heart problems, mental illness, and so on. At first I was going to toy with her and say that my wife thinks I am insane, but I thought the better of it. Just don't want to tick off anyone that holds your fate in their hands.

With that behind me, next was my dreaded eye test. I have astigmatism, fairly strongly in my left eye and to a lesser extent in the right eye. However, I see pretty well. I can spot hawks in trees at a half mile and have no trouble recognizing constellations. The two eyes TOGETHER work pretty well. Anyway, I pressed my forehead against the little machine and it lit up the eye exam. This is a combination of letters and highway signage. The lady says "Read the first line please."

"D" .... "O" ... what is the next letter? My astigmatic eyes have a bit of an issue with letters having similar shape when they are small - B, E, R, P, S. I was having a lot of trouble with the next letter. I said "B" and went on to V ... "Stop sir, please reread the line." OK. First one really looked like a D. "D" ... "O" ... "E" ... "Stop sir, please reread the line. Maybe cup your hands around your eyes to block out any glare."

OK. So I cupped my hands and looked. I knew now it was the third letter. Geesh - B, E, R, P, S. Well at least I knew it wasn't B or E. Sometimes, if I close one eye, small letters can be better distinguished. So, I closed the left eye and, to my surprise, the entire first column of letters went away! Dang, so that was it. Sneaky ba....rds were checking the vision in the left eye with the first column. A quick check by closing only the right eye showed the far right of the four columns disappear. So, four columns of letters and only the center two were available to both eyes. OK. "S". Nothing from the lady. "V" and then on through the next 12 letters with no problems at all.

After that it was a snap. Identifying or reading off of about 12 highway signs, remembering to read even the smallest letters on them (No Parking ... (much smaller) on pavement during the hours of 7 to 4). Then there were the obligatory 4 signs where the words were removed. OK. "Stop" - easy. The next was just a round circle. I thought this was RR crossing, but I seemed to remember that sign having some ends of crossed rectangles poking out. I should have just said "railroad crossing" but I confessed some uncertainty. The lady says "Railroad crossing." Glad I could not see her face while my head was submerged in this machine. Then "School Crossing" and "Do Not Pass". That was it.

Within a minute, a paper pops out of a printer - no endorsements and no restrictions (no eye glasses required!). I am good until I am 60!

A quick picture and the nice lady told me - the paper license is good for 20 days, keep the old license for a photo ID (although it is not valid any more - if I get pulled over, the paper license rules) and your new license will arrive in the mail in 8 - to - 10 days.

That was it. In and out in 20 minutes. I even made it to work on time.

Americans without science

The perfect example of the lack of any true understanding of science by the rank and file in America ...

There are thousands of kids not getting vaccinated against common illnesses and the problem has become so large that some diseases, thought to be eradicated, have returned. Many of these are debilitating and some can be fatal. Why has this occurred? It has been traced to an overwhelming fear of autism due to the vaccination process. One study, out of thousands, linked the two events. Since that study, which has been withdrawn by the authors, a combination of things has happened to perpetuate the myth. First, there is a distrust of health-related organizations (government, hospitals, insurance companies) that leads to speculation that the paper had somehow been suppressed or that the withdrawal was coerced. Further, this mis-reporting of scientific studies adds to the lack of faith in scientific reports. The scientific process, that most folks do not understand, allows a back and forth understanding of the problem being studied. Experiments are reproduced or not. Theories are amended with new information. If one does not understand the process they say things like "It used to be that eggs were bad for you. Now they say they are good. Who should I believe?" Add to that the soapbox of various celebrities that preach no vaccines, such as Jenny McCarthy and Suzanne Sommers. These folks have no clue about science and no understanding of the issues or history of studying and trying to be lay experts. They use their celebrity status to preach in a way not too different from the old snake oil salesmen.

Many of these diseases carry real risks that can be quantified in terms of deaths per thousand cases or paralysis per thousand cases, etc. Since there is no statistical link between autism and vaccines, a similar risk cannot be quantified. That is science. What we do know is that the rate of autism in the general population does not even warrant such decisions not to vaccinate because if all autism was due to vaccines, the risk of having autism would still be lower by taking a vaccine than the risk of getting the preventable disease.

Finally, the "preachers" preach about mercury in the vaccines. With only a few exceptions, mercury has been removed from vaccines since the turn of the century. The few that have it, do have it at very low levels.

Is it really worth the risk to listen to non-scientists on this one?

Bizarroworld

So, I heard on NPR yesterday that North Carolina will be delaying tax refunds to its citizens in order to manage cash flow.

Let me get this right ...

The state will keep money from people who overpaid taxes. They will keep someone else's money, interest free, until they feel like they can pay it.

Bizarre

Econ 101

This is just the greatest explanation of managed and free economies that I have EVER heard:

Click here


Enjoy and become educated!

Natural Chickens

I read the following earlier this week:

We do not seem able to satisfy ourselves with the qualities which nature has given to the roosterish clan; art has stepped in; and with the pretext of bettering them we have made them into martyrs. Not only do we deprive them of their means of reproduction, but we condemn them to solitary confinement and darkness, we force them to eat, and by doing so we make them much heavier than they were ever meant to be.

I think this is a rather accurate picture of how we handle chickens now as the ones we find in stores are "unnaturally" fat.

Interestingly, this passage is a quote from The Physiology of Taste, written by Jean Anthelme Brillat-Savarin in1825. Is there anything really new?

Technology and aging

I am 54 years old. I keep passwords for so many different activities ... banking, weblogs, e-mail (personal and work), twitter, linkedin, a half a dozen or so work applications, American Express, Barnes and Noble, Amazon, insurance companies, public library, etc, etc, ad nauseum. My greatest concern for myself and all Americans growing up now -

What will happen as we age?

We will forget passwords. Alzheimers will remove us from reality. We are told not to keep lists of passwords. How will we survive in another 20 years when everything is password controlled and our aging population is at the mercy of failing memories?

Run Forrest ... or ... Stupid is as Stupid Does

It has been one of those days. Work is in overload. I checked my itinerary today and figured I had to leave work at 2:30 to catch my flight to State College, PA. Plenty of time.

I got to the airport and went to check in and said I was on the 4:25 flight through Philly. Deadpan look from ticket agent. "There is a 4:35, sir." I pulled out my itinerary and my jaw dropped. 4:25 was the arrival time for Philly! Departure from Charlote ... 2:36 PM. Current time ... 3:15 PM.

So, not only did I lose my upgrade (from seat 2D to 19D), I now arrive at 10:15 PM instead of 6:30. No liesurely dinner in a quaint college town. Now dinner is rushed at Philly airport. Oh, and I missed dinner with my boss.

Stupid is as stupid does.

A Promise Fulfilled

After letting this post lay fallow in the long Brazilian winter, it is time to replant with thoughts that I have been too busy to share.

I promised one of my two readers some time ago that I would add some comments around why I think the best days for the US are still ahead of us.

It would be easy to be pessimistic ...

• China owns so much of our debt that they could buy us.
• The dollar is in freefall thanks to our continuing to print money for which we have no real value (goods or services or real assets)
• The country is bogged down in two major overseas wars
• We are under the continual pounding of proposed changes from the most liberal, socialist president since Lyndon Johnson (or maybe even Franklin Roosevelt)
• The country is equally divided by those who seek more from the government and those who seek less, and the relationship between the two is acrimonious and dogmatic
• Unemployment is very high, feeding the current business downturn
• Business is generally in the tank and the government owns way too much of it

Sarcastically, one might say that, since there is nowhere to go but up, our best days HAVE to be ahead of us.

Looking at our problems, they have all been there before. There was a time we thought Japan would own us. The value of the dollar will stay low unless we reign in spending and borrowing - it can be done. We survived Roosevelt and Johnson, although they both saddled us with social programs that are about to go belly up. We have had many heated differences of opinion many times in our short history. Unemployment and business activity goes in cycles. Much of this will fix itself.

What I point to in my optimism is the indomitable spirit of our citizens. We are risk takers as a country (immigrants, the backbone of our history, are risk takers by definition). We are creative. We tackle problems head on and come up with new and exciting ways to do things. We will move away from oil because someone will figure out a way to make big money by doing so. Our universities will provide many options for tackling some of the difficult barriers that private industry cannot spend resources on. It will be a collective effort of our diverse society that will move us forward. Our very national fabric pushes us to try to do our best to be the best. The technological path forward is loaded with powerful new tools to do our work: nanotechnology, genetics, artificial intelligence, aerospace expertise, to name a few. No matter the problem being tackled - climate, health care, trade, technology - risk takers, technical, social, and economic, have shown time and again that they are willing to back the hard choices that move us forward. We have a history of this type of inventiveness and there is no reason to think that will change. Think of the last 200 years in this country and look at all we have done in business, social justice, science and technology. Risk takers will keep us at the forefront. Our best days still lay ahead.

Spring Mornings

I like spring mornings. Each day I get up before the sun and take the dog for a walk. One day last week I was treated by seeing (thanks to the sun being almost ready to come up and the moon being quite bright near the other horizon) two interesting celestial objects. The first was some sort of mapping or weather satellite (or similar type). It was easy to pick out as it moved almost perfectly from south to north and covered the sky in just a couple of minutes. The second, was the space station, cutting a path from northeast to southwest. Both of these within minutes of one another.

Two days this week there was a light fog. The mist covered the neighborhood eerily and made me think of a Dicken's story. The mist hung over the neighborhood pond and blanketed some of the larger lots not yet built upon. There were some deer in the wooded area of one lot and they looked like small statues as they watched me. I think they were closer than normal because of the fog.

It is a relaxing way to start a day.

Retired Jersey

Have you ever seen the rafters at Duke University's Cameron Indoor Stadium? Loaded with retired jerseys. Well, yesterday I decided it was time to retire my jersey. I went to the gym to play basketball with some guys from work and a few other regulars that show up. I played one game. Two rebounds, a turnover, one missed shot (badly). The guys are too tall, too young, too fast, too fearless. I was out of my league. Time to hang up the shoes ... the party is over.

Confused

I heard today that 10 million more American families could lose their homes to foreclosure because the value of their homes is falling. I am confused. How did we ever get away from downpayments and borrowing on the the rest of the sale price? I know the banks used to check to make sure the house was worth what you paid, but that was to control their risk. Should you default, they could recoup the money by selling the home.

Now, the value of my house has declined ... a lot. So what, I still make my payments and stay in the house and hope that someday it will regain its value. I am just confused as to how the value of the house is related to my ability to pay the mortgage. Did some genius figure out how to scale payments based on the value of the home?

I am just confused.

Winter

Today we had the first measurable snowfall of the season. It wasn't much, just a couple of centimeters, but it was very beautiful. Snow is pretty rare in this part of the country, so I have to take what I can get. What I miss more than the frequency of snow is the street hockey games that could actually be played on ice in the old home and the speed sledding down my driveway when we moved here.

The Ghost of Christmas Past

Each year I want a certain type of Christmas. As the Rolling Stones said it ... you can't always get what you want! Don't get me wrong, this was a good Christmas. I finally got to McAdenville to see the beautiful little town all lit up for the holidays. Two of my sons were home for all or part of the holidays and I did see my family and my wife's as well, and I became a Grandpa. But there are some things I miss from my childhood that I just can't ever seem to work in over such a short period ... because of work, I missed again the local presentation of Handel's Messiah. I did not see a single old movie, which I really love: Christmas in Connecticut, The Bishop's Wife, A Christmas Carol (the old B&W version), Holiday Affair, White Christmas not even Ralfie in A Christmas Story. My dad and I really liked the old movies. I missed the neighborhood carolers. So, somehow there is just not enough time and soon I am back to work. Unlike Europe, we ditch Christmas on Jan 1. Over, done with, decorations down, stores ready to move on. Seems like we could hold it until Epiphany. Well, maybe next year I can hit some of the things I missed; it gives me something to keep on working toward. One day, I want to have a snowy Christmas in Vermont or someplace like that. At a B&B. That would be nice.