Scott in Tempe

Canvassing Day

2012-01-28T16:33:00.000-07:00

Today, I took my son and we knocked some Tempe neighborhood doors in support Mark Mitchell for mayor, Corey Woods, Joel Navarro, and Kolby Granville for city council.These are the Democrats running for city positions. I met with 10 people, all registered Democrats, and talked to I think 7 who were ready to vote for these people. Most of the doors I knocked on were not home, the rest had barely any idea there was a city race going on. I guess this is to be expected.I did my best to sound knowledgeable about these candidates although actually I barely know them. My main goal is to just get people aware of an election and to be aware of these candidates.By the way, my six year old son really seemed to enjoy it... well tolerate it.

There's a Mayor Race Going On in Tempe

2012-01-21T22:55:00.000-07:00

Did you know that there is a mayor race coming soon. March 13th is the primary and May 15th is the general election.

In politics, the national elections take so much of the oxygen. For good reasons, the decisions in Washington can have profound affects on our lives. So many people died in Iraq because we decided to embark on a preemptive war. More of our dollars go to the federal government than the states. More of the political power has been centralized.

But local elections do matter, at least I think they do, at least I hope they do. I really want to get more locally focused. Cities matter - a lot. So much of what matters, matters at the individual, family and local level. There's something I can do to make a difference, surely.

And we actually have access to local leaders. I've met (briefly) Hugh Hallman. Our mayors our busy, but they are accessible.

My main issue is of the three candidates running for mayor, who the heck would really be the best person for the job? Who should I put my support behind?

Really, does it matter? I'm already committed to volunteering for the Mark Mitchell campaign - ever so slightly, but I'm not committed to vote for him, yet.

Today, I went to his office, talked with a couple of the volunteers, got talked into the idea of just helping him get information about voters, giving Mitchell a chance to make his case. That's something I can get behind.

My suspicion is all three candidates are high quality people. Which ones have the vision I am looking for? We'll see, I'll keep you posted.

Home Improvement

2012-01-07T22:27:00.002-07:00

I grew up pretty darn poor. Granted, poverty is relative. I also grew up hearing stories of people starving in Africa, so by comparison to that, we were rich. But by any standard definition of poverty set in America, we were well within it.

A couple of caveats. I grew up in a lower middle class environment, and I'm wondering how common it is to actually have been raised by parents, both with college degrees and still live consistently, year after year, below the poverty line. What I'm trying to say is that despite the poverty, I had a few key ingredients of a typical middle class family that were ultimately vital for me to move on to something more: my parents hung together, thick and thin, they valued education, and I had a structure - of church and peers - of adult competence. But no doubt about it, my parents had the education but were simply unable to find a job and stuck in one in one of the worse places to look for a job anyway in this country.

At the time, it was baffling for me, as in awe of my dad as I was at the time. I still have this memory burned into me, praying that my dad would find a good job and this feeling of utter complete hopelessness not having that prayer ever really getting answered.

Let me describe in detail, my view of my Dad's career history, my mom never worked (more on that later). He moved to Yuma to teach school at Yuma High. That lasted for three years enough time to buy a cheap tract home (brand new) in the late 1970's. It was a tract home by what was promised to be a park doubling as a water retention basin. For those of you who know anything about real-estate, this was not a good time to buy a tract home as most of those neighborhoods are now slums including this one. Well, at the three year mark, my Dad was let go. At least from the way my Dad put it, after three years, they either give you tenure, at which time it's harder to fire you, or they let you go.

He could have tried to get another teaching job, and he did try. There was talk of moving yet again. I was five when we moved to Yuma, so I have only very fleeting memories of anything before Yuma, but apparently, my parents had started their marriage in Bowie, Arizona, left there to come to Chandler, AZ, left there to go to Riverside, AZ (where I was born), returned to Phoenix, AZ, then on to Yuma. I think everyone was tired of moving and my Dad was losing his confidence as a competent teacher. I honestly have no good idea what happened, just guesses and suspicions.

At any rate, he tried, in vein, to reinvent himself in Yuma. I remember a lot of ups and downs, actually that's wrong, it was all pretty much a bunch of downs. He tried sells - insurance, frozen food - actually that's all I remember of sells. He worked at a Circle K for a while. He was unemployed a lot. One brief high was when both of my parents got hired at this school for troubled teens. The school administrators were impressed that both of my parents had teaching degrees, looking back they also must have been pretty desperate for help because they hired my parents without really digging into their past. The pay was really good, and for a moment I was dreaming we could actually own a TV and maybe a computer (we went without a TV for many years, had a tiny black & white for a while; only after I moved out and their expenses dropped enough and TV costs dropped enough, did they buy color). Well, my parents couldn't hack the work and dumped it after a very short time on the job. By the way, this is legitimate, I fully believe (now) that they weren't cut out for this kind of work.

Finally, my dad landed a job for the LDS church as its custodian. My dad the church janitor a source of deep humiliation for me for much of my life. Even now when someone asks me what my Dad did for a living, my answer is always teacher even though I hardly remember a time he had a full time teaching position, although he did substitute teaching a lot during times of unemployment and after he retired.

He ended up working there for the rest of his career. He finally retired 13 years ago at the age of 70, right around the time the church decided this job, a job my dad spent at least a couple of decades of his life doing, was so easy church members should volunteer to do it an hour a week on Saturdays. And in case this is not obvious to you, custodians don't get paid very well. He pulled in around $10,000/year. Remember, my mom didn't work. So, we were poor. When our A/C broke in our house, that was that. We did without. I actually don't remember ever living with A/C to be honest. I do remember suffering through many sleepless, sweaty nights in the middle of the Yuma summer without one though. I know I shouldn't complain. People lived in Yuma and in Phoenix before A/C ever existed. I'm just sharing my memories here.

But to tell you the truth, my parents never really fixed anything or really cleaned anything for that matter - not really. Remember at the start of this blog that this house was a cheap tract home built in the 1970's. The house I spent ages 5 through 18 living in, and for several more years visiting on a fairly regular basis. Well, things started falling apart pretty quickly and my parents never really fixed anything or really cleaned or really maintained any of it. The cupboards rotted, the bathrooms were a mess, the closet where the washing machine lived was a disaster. We shared our space with big cockroaches. I know I'm complaining and there are many people out there who grew up in worse conditions.

They did make some fleeting attempts at landscaping their front yard when they first moved in, so we had these two flimsy trees and a patch of bermuda grass. I don't remember now but I don't believe the trees survived and the grass hung around in patches here and there. The backyard remained dirt. There was no backyard fence.

Do you remember that park we lived next to? Well, it never really became a park. Just splotch of dirt that retained water (attracting mosquitoes) after a rain. So, that's what we lived next to. Yuma was a place struggling almost as badly as my parents to be honest.

So, why were my parents behaving in this way, barely hanging on, seeming to lack the motivation or confidence to really make improvements in themselves. By the way, when you're a child growing up like this, it's really hard to make sense of it. My dad would always spin these stories in a way that made him seem like the victim. And it is a complex story and I still don't really understand it, but he was a victim to some extent, but I understand now a bit better why things went the way they did for him and us.

The main thing is that I'm convinced that my Mom has Aspergers. If it's not Aspergers, it's something similar and if you had a conversation with her for five minutes, you would agree with me. I recently saw the movie Adam, and there were some scenes in that movie that were eerily similar to the way my Mom behaves (over and over again). Her inability to exhibit empathy for another, her social phobias.

What's strange about their marriage, actually, is that my Dad married her at all, and why? I'm not sure I really understand it except that my Dad lacked confidence. He was pretty shy and old. But maybe he was just put on this earth to marry her. His favorite story, in fact, was how he felt inspired to drop out of ASU graduate school and drive to Provo to attend BYU. He met my Mom at a church dance, danced with her all night. They were married five weeks later, and he stayed true to her ever since, never wavering in his love for her.

But it was actually excruciating to be raised by a mother with Aspergers:

Reports received by people raised by parents with Aspergers syndrome are disturbing. Many children of A.S. parents report that they developed severe self esteem problems because their parent could not give them the warmth, empathy and caring they needed growing up. These same people reported bouts with severe depression from what they perceived as rejection from their parent or parents on an emotional level. The child’s physical needs were well taken care of but they had no emotional support. For people raised by parents with Aspergers syndrome the lack of emotional support hurt them very much.

Well, I came to this blog meaning to post about something completely different than this and now I'm finally getting to it. So, my Dad is 82 now and is hanging on at a group home a few blocks away. I moved my Mom in there with him, actually, as well. It's a small home with only three bedrooms and two other residents. On of the other residents suffers from dimensia, and actually my Dad is on that road as well. The dimensia is really difficult for my Mom to cope with. My Dad is getting abusive with her and she has trouble absorbing it, taking everything he says literally and taking it really, really hard.

I'm now in the process of finding an apartment close by where she can walk over and visit with him but still have her own place. There are two really close places near by and one a little further away. One apartment complex is really, really nice the other is basically some buildings in a really big parking place. I would really love to move my Mom into the nice complex but it's obviously more expensive and we would be potentially be paying for something my Mom really does not want. I'm not sure we can really afford it anyways.

Additionally, the condo they were living in was in desperate need for repair. We sold their car and used the proceeds to re-do their bathrooms and to pretty much fix things up. It's in nice shape now and ready to rent providing a little boost of income to their strained finances. Their condo is not in a good part of Mesa so we won't get a ton from it.

Tonight, I got off the phone with my cousin who looked into it and discovered a condo in the same complex recently sold for $29,000 and he was wondering why we would spend so much money fixing up a condo worth so little.

Here's why I'm coming to this. It's not just a condo, it's a home, a place for someone to live, and this place should be liveable. You either spend money to fix it up, demolish it, or you live in squalor. My parents chose to live in squalor for most of their life. They finally got a little money inherited to them when my Grandmother died (on my mom's side) and began fixing it up, but they left too much undone.

It breaks my heart, in more ways than I can count, that we have people living in houses, way too big for their needs, while a the same time far too many others, in this country, have far too little.

We obviously have an inequality problem in our country and it's degrading our social fabric:

So, rather than leaving our poor neighborhoods alone to squalor. We should be investing in them, cleaning them up. Beautifying. This is not just about money.

What is it about Nighttime Sleep?

2011-12-04T09:19:00.001-07:00

This has been in draft mode for a while, but I feel it's worth publishing now, enjoy:

Night time has become an issue for my family, for all of my family - me, my children and most poignantly, my dad.

My parents were almost nazis about sleep. Growing up, it was 9pm in bed on a school night, 10pm on a weekend night. Bed by 9pm up by 5am. That was the schedule my parents kept for as long as I can remember and that was the schedule they tried to enforce on me as well.

It didn't stick though. Maybe in an act of rebellion or just a realization of how the world currently works, midnight or sometimes even later is my new bedtime. Some nights I fight the urge to go to bed as long as I can for reasons I can't really fathom.

Now as a parent, my children's bed time is my least favorite part of the day. My kids don't want to go sleep, they fight the inevitable almost every night, trying to find ways to extend their awake time as long as possible - I need a drink of water.. I want to read just one more chapter of this book... I want to practice my instrument.

It seems like they get this burst of energy to do the things most parents would love to hear from their kids - it's the right activity at the wrong time. It's frustrating as a parent for two reasons. Sleep is really important, especially for kids, and it's my job to make sure they get enough of it. Second, of course, the quicker they get the sleep the quicker I get some much needed alone time with my wife.

But night time has gotten even more challenging lately. Last night I was called by my dad's caregiver at around 11pm to come over to where they are currently staying to help him take a drug he was refusing. I ended up staying there a couple of hours to help manage him and to get first hand awareness of what's been happening to him at night.

He's been exhibiting sundowners syndrome. Early this past summer he had a stroke and he's not been the same physically or mentally since and he's been gradually degrading. Of course, it is worse at night. For him, it means he doesn't sleep. He'll lay in bed for a while, then want to get up and eat breakfast or go back to his condo or go to the bathroom. Through it all, he won't be reasoned with. As I said, he's generally confused, this exacerbates at night. The next day, he will not remember any of it.

My mom is staying with him and he's keeping her awake right along with him. One night she stayed with us to kind of see how that would work. In short, it didn't. My dad was much, much worse thinking she left him for another man and a bunch of other paranoia.

What's sad is that he's not getting sleep, sleep he really, really needs. He's also robbing sleep from all those around him.

So, what is it about night time? Why can't we embrace sleep, when it's so good for us, essential for our health? Our days go better when our night time goes well.

Sometimes it's just better to call it a night and go to bed.

Meriticracy or Grace?

2011-11-05T21:32:00.001-07:00

The other day I was thinking about this talk by Hugh B. Brown entitled "The Currant Bush". The main message of the talk is this:

"I wanted to tell you that oft-repeated story because there are many of you who are going to have some very difficult experiences: disappointment, heartbreak, bereavement, defeat. You are going to be tested and tried to prove what you are made of. I just want you to know that if you don’t get what you think you ought to get, remember, 'God is the gardener here. He knows what he wants you to be.' Submit yourselves to his will. Be worthy of his blessings, and you will get his blessings."

He gets to this point by relaying an example from his own life when he was passed over for a military promotion because of his religion. His reaction:

I saluted him again, but not quite as smartly. I saluted out of duty and went out. I got on the train and started back to my town, 120 miles away, with a broken heart, with bitterness in my soul. And every click of the wheels on the rails seemed to say, “You are a failure. You will be called a coward when you get home. You raised all those Mormon boys to join the army, then you sneak off home.” I knew what I was going to get, and when I got to my tent, I was so bitter that I threw my cap and my saddle brown belt on the cot. I clinched my fists and I shook them at heaven. I said, “How could you do this to me, God? I have done everything I could do to measure up. There is nothing that I could have done—that I should have done—that I haven’t done. How could you do this to me?” I was as bitter as gall.

Of course to get from this experience to the conclusion above, he has a Spiritual experience to help him realize that going through these difficult experiences are for his own benefit. But did you catch the meritocracy theme coursing through this message?

"Be worthy of his blessing, and you will get his blessings."
"I have done everything I could do to measure up. There is nothing that I could have done - that I should have done - that I haven't done."

Today, I watched The King's Speech which is, of course, a movie about the King of England who overcomes a major speech impediment to deliver a speech to declare England's intention of going to war with Germany in World War II. The contrast with him and the charismatic Hitler was stunning. The contrast between this king who had really done nothing to earn the distinction other than the luck of being born to the right parents and his speech therapist, who completely dreamed up his own methods of speech therapy to help soldiers literally traumatized speechless from World War I, was also stunning.

Do you see the meritocracy message here? The King was able to rise the occasion, to live up to his calling because he trusted in the efforts of his speech therapist to overcome his major disability. He became great but he really had no business being great other than the dumb luck of having a father who was also a King.

Finally, I recently read Freedom which was a really fascinating book, a page turner in fact (it's a rated R novel so I felt guilty the whole time), but let me give you a run-down of the major characters in the book:

A division 1 woman's All-American basketball player for a major university.
A struggling musician who eventually becomes enormously popular, well regarded in the industry, basically a rock and roll legend.
A high-flying lawyer for a major corporation who gets spotlighted on a you-tube video that goes viral.

Ok, here's what I'm getting at. President Hugh B. Brown uses a story about how despite heroic efforts on his own part he was passed over for a promotion. By contrast, the King's speech describes how a person who did nothing in his life to deserve it, delivers a speech to inspire a country. Finally a popular novel describes the struggles and trials of some pretty amazing and talented people.

Where, in this, is the message for me?

What am I looking for? Well, like most inhabitants of this planet, I was not blessed with world class skills in anything. I'm better at some things than others, but mostly I'm either average, maybe slightly above or below depending on the subject, or pretty bad at pretty much everything. I can blame this sad fact on a combination of bad luck, bad luck that I wasn't born with any natural gifts or that I did not get the proper nurturing or training growing up. I can blame this on my own bad choices or lack of discipline or whatever.

But in this economy, more and more average people feel vulnerable. Through technology a lot of jobs have been lost through automation. Globalization has allowed more of the world's elite into our labor markets and has stiffened the competition for good jobs. Furthermore, this same globalization has opened up the world's poor to take on what used to be good paying manufacturing jobs.

More and more, you have to be world class to achieve true job security. In other words, as Seth Godin says, you have to be doing real math today instead of arithmetic. Seth Godin's entire blog is basically someone who is elite writing to others who think they are:

Many fields have precisely this same division. There's a chasm between the proven, repetitive work that can be farmed out and the cutting edge risky work that might just change everything.

When someone asks you what you do all day and you respond, "I take what comes into this basket, do a standard process to it and then put it in that basket," it sounds a lot like you're doing arithmetic, doesn't it? Far better to have a job where there are equal parts magic and art involved in processing the stuff in that basket.

What's largely missing when a prophet gives a story from their lives, or when famous author writes a novel, or a director creates a a move is that these creators have no idea what it means to have a life-long struggle with coming up short in pretty much everything.

Some of us struggle with loneliness because we have pathetic social skills. Or struggle to build something because we lack focus or a skill or bad training. The problem is that the story of most of us never gets told because if we could pull it together enough to write a novel good enough for anyone to really read and enjoy, well, we're no longer "most of us" anymore.

If we ever truly suffered through disappointment or serious sin or addiction, it is likely we will not be climbing the calling latter on our way to General Authority which is why most stories found in conference talks echo President Brown's. Why, despite how amazing they are, they face challenges. Whereas, the rest of us probably deserve most of what we get, and can't seem to find a way out. For one, I would have had no shot at that same promotion and if I got passed over, I would know exactly why and it would have nothing to do with my religion.

One reason, for me, why the King's Speech resonates because its message is that anyone literally could be a King and deliver a rousing speech, as long as we have the right mentor.

My dream, actually, is to one day start a software company that does basically everything in exactly the opposite way Google does it:

Even in today's economy, tech companies regularly complain that they can't find enough qualified candidates to fill software development positions. You might expect them to loosen their requirements and provide more training as a result, but actually the opposite seems to be true: Screening procedures are getting tighter. The latest trend is to subject interviewees to elaborate quizzes designed to assess their coding and problem-solving abilities

I want to hire a bunch of average programmers from state schools and community colleges and see if we can't hit markets that Google would not even think of hitting. Most of my employees would have to have been raised in poor neighborhoods, and no, they did not program as a children because their parents could not afford computers. And yes, it would be a requirement that they came to me looking for a job because they were desperate. The more nervous and desperate they were in the job interview, and I mean seriously and authentically nervous, the more likely they would be to get this job.

Here's why a company like that may succeed:

Did you know the average person has no chance of either qualifying or paying for four years at Stanford or Harvard and has pretty much nothing in common with Mark Zuckerberg. But these guys are the ones writing the software platforms for the rest of us? How could they possibly know what we want, really?

And I think the poor in our society are obviously underserved, largely because they have no money, but they have some money, and they have serious needs. Finding a way to nurture the poor to a place where they can make a real contribution in our society is the big under-worked challenge of our day. I could go on about this some more, but that would be another blog.

One counterpoint to the Hugh B. Brown speech and a message that is probably under-declared in the church both President Brown and I attend, is the message of grace. In fact the two underlying messages the come from the principle of grace exist in tension but also in beautiful harmony with each other.

First, we are all literally children of God and that average is actually pretty amazing because have God's spiritual DNA coursing through us. Second, we are all incredibly weak and hopelessly flawed and are in desperate need of God's grace to accomplish anything worthwhile.

It is my belief, that what passes as meritocracy in our country is really just some people getting really, really lucky - lucky to have been born to the right parents, to have received the right training at the right time, to get hung up on a specific passion in the right field. The rest of us muddle along hoping for our chance.

To close, I'll leave you with Nassim Nicholas Taleb's quote from his really good book entitled, Black Swan. Of course, Taleb is among the elite who is smart enough to realize how dumb many in his peer group really are despite how smart most of us think they are.

The strategy for the discoverers and entrepreneurs is to rely less on top-down planning and focus on maximum tinkering and recognizing opportunities when they present themselves. So I disagree with the followers of Marx and those of Adam Smith: the reason free markets work is because they allow people to be lucky, thanks to aggressive trial and error, not by giving rewards or “incentives” for skill. The strategy is, then, to tinker as much as possible and try to collect as many Black Swan opportunities as you can.

Some Notes on Tonights Republican Debate

2011-10-11T23:00:00.000-07:00

I think this debate marks the beginning of the end of the Herman Cain presidency. I didn't know, did others? that he was the head of the federal reserve in Kansas City in the 1990's. That came out in a rush tonight as he referenced that experience in his support of Allan Greenspan's actions while head of the Federal Reserve. Yes, that Allan Greenspan, widely blamed for helping the housing bubble along by keeping interest rates too low for too long. Even Greenspan has admitted mistakes were made. Can an ex-head of the federal reserve really transition to a tea party champion? Maybe, but he should take a hit based on this revelation.

Once he loses his grip on the Republican flavor of the month, we'll relegate the 9-9-9 plan to the back burner which received far too much discussion tonight. One quick thought, on his unnamed economic advisors who helped him come up with this plan, well, it was just strange that he named some unknown as his chief economic adviser, who turns out not to be an economist at all, and then sited a couple of other people who need to remain anonymous. This was just strange.

Rick Perry has completely flamed out. He wasn't awful in this debate, I guess, but he just kind of disappeared. Honestly, he didn't saying much worth remembering. The one concrete idea that he suggested was to open up the energy industry to drill, baby drill. Yes, this was his only idea on how to get the economy moving. Really? Everything else that came out of his mouth was meaningless platitudes. He's done.

The only serious candidate left (with apologies to Huntsman who has yet to break through) is Mitt Romney. He defended TARP, he rightly pointed the finger at China's currency policy, he pointed to education reform, and tax reform. He said some stuff I disagreed with, some really senseless stuff, but I have to believe that much of it has to do with his desire to win the nomination. He just sounded like he was in command, the smartest (by far) guy in the room, the only real presidential candidate left standing.

Granted, Bachmann, Santorum, and even Gingrich were engaging and smart, but they aren't breaking through. Gingrich has no chance. Bachmann was supposed to have been the tea party candidate but inexplicably flamed out. I'm still not sure why. She's a great debater. She's smart and articulate. She's crazy, but that should fit right in with what the tea party crowd is looking for. I'm wondering if someone can explain to me why she's slipped.

I'm also not sure why Santorum remains a third-tier candidate as well. He consistently says a bunch of tea party ideas. He is the most neo-con one of the group and that may hurt him. He doesn't have the organization or the name recognition. Maybe that will change.

A couple of notes about Romney. During the debate, he defended Romneycare by explaining his plan leaves the current system a lone and simply expands coverage, unlike Obamacare which was a revamp of the entire system. Ummm, that's just completely false. Obamacare was modeled almost exactly after Romney's plan and basically does the exact same thing - creating health care exchanges for those who don't currently have health insurance. Romney's strongest defense is that he plans on leaving health care reform up to the states and doesn't believe the federal government should get involved.

I'm anxiously awaiting an Obama/Romney showdown which seems the most likely scenario after this debate. We'll see.

Occupy Wall Street == Tea Party Part II

2011-10-11T14:55:00.000-07:00

Just wanted to push this picture out there for general consumption, pulled from here and commented on here.So, I'm not the only one that believes the two groups have something in common. However, I do think the issue is more complex than people maybe get. I think the complaint is not about big corporations per se, but more about the biggest banks, and there are plenty of reasons to complain.

Blue Bear

2011-10-10T20:24:00.000-07:00

Some time ago, I read the book: Blue Bear. It's a book written by an Alaskan guide who worked with a photographer to try to get a picture of the elusive Glacier Bear, with a blue tint that live in Alaska. It's a beautifully written book. I was talking to my family about fear today and it reminded me of this quote from the book:

I could hike through the mountains with complete peace of mind. I could camp without worry. But what a dull place Alaska would be! Here people share the land with bears. There is a certain wariness between people and bears. And that wariness forces upon us a valuabe sense of humility. People continue to tame and subjugate nature. But when we visit the few remaining scraps of wilderness where bears roam free, we can still feel an instinctive fear. How precious that feeling is. And how precious these places, and these bears are."

I think fear is a useful and human emotion. It keeps us humble, this knowledge that we could be decimated at any moment, a reminder of our mortality. It's also an emotion that those on Wall Street have completely sanitized themselves. Instead of taking risky bets with their own money, they can profit off of short-term profits made from other people's money. They are insanely well compensated and now have an explicit backing from the US taxpayer on the downside.They have no reason to fear, many of the bears in their lives have been annihilated. I would have to know one of these rich investment bankers better to know if their lives are now dull as a result. But this quote is good on many levels beyond this one, of course.

The Tea Party's Plot to Undermine America

2011-10-10T19:37:00.001-07:00

Ok, that is a pretty incendiary title, and I don't think they mean to, but whether they mean to or not, their ideology is doing exactly that. Check this article out by the MIT economist, Simon Johnson.

Good credit made the United States the dominant world power of the 20th century. Whether it will ever force the federal government to default or not, the Tea Party and the conservative tax revolt behind it are chipping away at the fiscal foundations built by Hamilton at the dawn of the Republic. Ultimately, this could make us less like 18th-century Great Britain and more like 18th-century France: a country where the people no longer believe in their government and refuse to pay taxes, destroying the sound credit that is still vital to national prosperity and power.

I've said said before that the tea party movement was one based on legitimate anger. The problem is the conclusions they are drawing run counter to historical precedent. They are leaning too far on Jefferson and too little on Hamilton, who eventually even informed the way Jefferson guided our presidency - the Louisiana purchase anyone?

What's needed is competence and it's up to us to ensure that by holding them accountable. As we do so, the ability to tax and borrow is a key element of our government especially when the demands of the moment call for it - and we need to make sure they legitimately do. This is much more difficult. It asks more out of our leaders and out of us then the simplistic and mindless dogma coming from the tea party right.We need to make sure our government works, and the ability to tax is a key part of that.If we lose that trust and confidence, we lose a lot of political power and our country weakens. We are the ones to blame for that.

The Princess and the Frog

2011-10-10T15:58:00.001-07:00

I watched this movie the other night with my kids and I really enjoyed it, actually.

I loved the message that the Tiana's (the heroin) father leaves for her: it's not enough just to wish on a star, magic only gets you so far. You have to work for it. And work she did, tirelessly.

But it turned out wishing and working is not enough either. You have to marry a handsome, rich prince from some remote country who happens to be visiting your home town. In fact, I'm not sure wishing and working were all that essential in this story. You just have to have a great personality and incredible looks. Woo the rich guy and you're in.

Needless to say, I was less than underwhelmed at the message of this movie was given my girls, sigh.

Occupy Wall Street == Tea Party

2011-10-10T13:26:00.000-07:00

I'm not really qualified to make this kind of statement, but aren't they germinating from the same forces of economic discontent and an anger at the utter unfairness at the way the government has handled this economic downturn?

Which is why this kind of comment is so dumb. I know I know a lot of this kind of commentary was coming from the left about the Tea Party crowd, but this whole, our protestors are better than yours is kind of tiring nonetheless.

One of my critiques from the Tea Party crowd is that they were just against a lot of stuff but weren't proffering any solutions. My sense is the same from the "Occupy Wall Street" crowd as well. I'm not sure if just outright anger is enough, although there are a lot of justifiable reasons to be frustrated and angry. What we got from the tea party is a Congress that pushed our government to the brink of default and a lot of nationalism (close the border!) and anti-poor rhetoric that would make a hash situation harsher. I'm not sure what we'll get from this group.

But one thing I'm certain of, is there cause is more than justified. Wall Street investment banks are largely responsible for our current mess; the government has become too beholden to them; and we are priming ourselves for enough bubble/crash as our biggest banks have gotten even bigger and more powerful since the crisis.

But both groups are basically about the same thing, that tax payer funds went to bail out rich bankers who refuse to change their ways or to even express an ounce of remorse or regret. It's the same transaction, tons of government money going directly toward the banks. The tea party group just vented against the government side of this transaction.

Why can't the two movements coalesce, find common cause, and work together to get the government to work for them. Getting the tea party to unite with rich bankers who are getting, in effect, billions of dollars in corporate welfare has been a coup for the bankers who have used that anger to redirect back at Obama who has been in their back pockets all along.I am rooting for the "Occupy Wall Street" gang, but I think this movement could be much more powerful if the tea party recognized that they were both on the same team.Depicting this group as blue-haired hippies doesn't help things a long on this front.

Why this Democrat Might Vote for Mitt Romney

2011-10-10T10:27:00.000-07:00

First of all, I don't think Mitt Romney and Barack Obama are that far a part ideoligicall speaking. However, for a variety of reasons, I was pretty excited about an Obama presidency in 2008. Reading this rather damning book about the Barack Obama's presidency drains the excitement I had for Obama coming into office. The book's primary point is that Obama lacked executive and management experience to effectively take on the massive undertaking of correcting the worse downturn since the Great Depression. Obama erred, as a result, by trusting too much in a different set of economic advisers than the ones that helped him get elected: Larry Summers, Timothy Geithner, Rahm Emmanuel, people who did too much to keep those on Wall Street whole, the very people who took massive bets with other people's money and were primarily responsible for the economic downturn.

These same people who got bailout after tax-payer funded bailout.Ironically enough, as Obama basically turned over the keys of the government to Goldman Sachs, et. al, these same bankers then turned on him and undermined everything Obama has tried to do to reign them in. On top of all of this, the tea party movement, a populist movement inspired by the bank bailouts, has turned hard against Obama and left Wall Street completely unchecked.

I've already gone into quite a bit of detail of what Obama could have done differently in his first term. Here are some reasons Mitt Romney stands apart from the other Republican candidates. In addition,Mitt Romney has a much stronger executive background than Obama, although now Obama has his first term as a US president as experience, so he's better now than four years ago. And having a Republican president would take the wind out of the sails of a Congress hell-bent on saying no.Perhaps Romney could institute some Wall Street regulation with teeth? And really tackle our tax code? And institute more stimulus?

It's a long shot, and there's a better chance Obama would be better in term two than in term one. But he now has a much more hostile country and much more hostile Congress than he did coming in that will prevent him from doing many of things he really needs to do.

I'm off of Facebook and back on Blogger (at least for now)

2011-10-01T20:10:00.001-07:00

I decided to dump Facebook for now. I honestly do not have the capacity to handle more than one social media tool at a time. Facebook has such a low barrier to posting, in just a couple of clicks my cool article is linked and a couple of sentences of my own commentary is added, then, poof, all done.

The problem with Facebook is that it's walled off, but for those people within my wall, they are subjected to my use of Facebook without really asking for it. Sure they extended the invitation - I hardly ever go out looking for friends, almost everyone came to me. They, innocently enough, recognized my name from some chance happenstance long ago (college acquiantence? friend of a friend? high school buddy?) and they linked me as a friend. I'm inclined to accept such requests thinking, are you sure you really want what I'm about to give you?

Then, they get flooded by my stuff: mostly political, lefty bias, sometimes inane, sometimes overwrought, mostly more than people want on that kind of platform.

Actually Facebook is hard to pin down, right? It was used as a tool to overthrow Egypt by the way, so how is my stuff more serious and heavy than that? But mostly people use it to talk about their kids or their day. It's a weird experience, actually, to see the multi-uses of facebook streaming down your wall from all of these diverse sources. There are some too sad and maybe too private to be on facebook kind of posts, a few crazy/silly posts, a lot of mundane I'm eating breakfast kind of posts, an occasional brilliant posts, and a fair of amount political and religious posts.

And I definitely had my style. I love to debate, probably about 100 times more than almost everyone I've ever met. I can carry on a an on-line (and off-line) debate as long as it takes and I never get frustrated or tired of it. I love it. And since fb comments can just go on and on... I've frustrated more than a few people.

So, I'm back on blogger for now. I have some ambition to generate a much better website, but for now, blogger is a place where I can be basically me. People can link to me or they cannot, but it's all mine.

It's more work than Facebook and that's a major downside, and it's much easier to be ignored, which is another major downside, but I'm currently experimenting with other ways to scratch my need for on-line "discussion" itch. Hopefully I'll find a home for that and I'm almost assured it's not here. The blog as a community discussion form is too biased in favor of the blogger. I get all kinds of space to say what I want to say. People can respond in my comments but I've already dictated the topic and expressed my point in a much easier to compose format.

But expect more activity from me here world. I'm glad to be back.

By the way, because I'm nt on Facebook for now, I came across a really cool article making a point I've never heard before. Normally, it would have gone onto facebook, so now it's going here. Here it is, "The Death of Reading". Read it, it's pretty interesting:

Why don’t most people like to read? The answer is surprisingly simple: humans weren’t evolved to read. Note that we have no reading organs: our eyes and brains were made for watching, not for decoding tiny symbols on mulch sheets. To prepare our eyes and brains for reading, we must rewire them. This process takes years of hard work to accomplish, and some people never accomplish it all. Moreover, even after you’ve learned to read, you probably won’t find reading to be very much fun. It consumes all of your attention, requires active thought, and makes your eyes hurt. For most people, then, reading is naturally hard and, therefore, something to be avoided if at all possible.

I love to read, but I've read all my life. Growing up in Yuma, being as utterly and completely painfully shy as I was, being raised by a Mother who I'm convince has Aspergers although she's never been diagnosed conspired to make me a pretty lonely kid. Books became my primary escape (did I tell you that when I grew up the internet didn't exist and we couldn't afford cable). So, I spent the hard work re-wiring my brain to enjoy reading. I love it now and I can't relate to those who don't.

But apparently, loving to read is a skill that's earned through hours of work. I was lucky enough have basically been given it as a gift of circumstances.

Leadership

2011-08-26T23:15:00.001-07:00

I was reading this today in the Book of Mormon, probably one of the best chapters in the book, if you ask me, Mosiah Chapter 2.

First, let me setup what's happening. This is a sermon done by a certain king named Benjamin who is facing death, but wants to give one last sermon before he dies:

10 I have not commanded you to come up hither that ye should fear me, or that ye should think that I of myself am more than a mortal man.

11 But I am like as yourselves, subject to all manner of infirmities in body and mind; yet I have been chosen by this people, and consecrated by my father, and was suffered by the hand of the Lord that I should be a ruler and a king over this people; and have been kept and preserved by his matchless power, to serve you with all the might, mind and strength which the Lord hath granted unto me.

14 And even I, myself, have labored with mine own hands that I might serve you, and that ye should not be laden with taxes, and that there should nothing come upon you which was grievous to be borne—and of all these things which I have spoken, ye yourselves are witnesses this day.

I think sometimes we expect too much out of our leaders, thinking they'll be our saviors or will be as powerful as supermen. I think also, when we're asked to lead, we shrink because we think to lead we have to be all-knowing and all-powerful.

This is not so and this is the message in this passage. To re-emphasize verse 11:

"But I am like as yourselves, subject to all manner of infirmities in body and mind;"

I can imagine the sicknesses, the days that he was just too tired or too scared to face the day. Or days where he was burdened by depression or stress or anxiety. He was human after all. So am I. So are you.

That doesn't give us an excuse not to lead. It doesn't give us an excuse to be to hard on those who lead us. Being a leader is not about being perfect, it's about serving those you lead "with all the might, mind and strength which the Lord hath granted unto [you]".

The Problems with a Meritocracy

2011-08-20T00:41:00.001-07:00

The book Pinched has a lot to say about the limits and problems with a society that has evolved down a path of meritocracy - where those with the most talent end up being the big winners. Here are some quotes:

"In the United States, the rise of meritocracy has typically been met with celebration, and in most respects it should be. But this recession has underscored the meritocracy's less savory characteristics. In his final book, The Revolt of the Elites and the Betrayal of Democracy, published posthumously in 1995, the social critic Christopher Lasch painted a dismal picture of the destination toward which meritocratic progress may lead. Precisely because modern elites believe their status is the exclusive result of their own efforts, Lasch argued, they lack their predecessors' sense of social obligation. 'Although hereditary advantages [still] play an important part in the attainment of professional or managerial status,' he wrote, 'the new [upper] class has to maintain the fiction that its power rests on intelligence alone. Hence it has little sense of ancestral gratitude or of an obligation to live up to responsibilities inherited from the past. It thinks of itself as a self-made elite owing its privileges exclusively to its own efforts."

Here's another pretty devastating critique of Bill Gates and others like him:

"When I listen to Gates and to other meriticratic winners reflecting on good works or good policy or their legacy, I can't help but think that Christopher Lasch was perhaps too harsh, or at least too sweeping, in his characterization of the new rich. Breaking into the elite requires neither virtue nor vile character, and the elite as a whole contains both elements in ample supply. Yet I also can't shake the sense that, among the elites who are publicly minded at all, what many care most about, in the end, is perfecting the meritocracy - ensuring that every boy and girl has the same educational and entrepreneurial chances that they did so that the cream might always rise to the top. This is an admirable and, indeed, an essential goal. Yet it seems incomplete. It isn't so much that today's elites think poorly of Americans who lack the genetic endowment of IQ required to climb the modern economy's ladder; by and large, many elites just don't think about them much at all."

I have a lot of feelings about all of this because I get caught up plenty reading a bunch of stuff written by the elites for the elites, thinking if I could only work a little bit harder, drive against the "lizard brain" a little more, I can someday be given my speech on TED :-).

The essential problem with all of this and it's the central thesis of "Pinched" is what to do with the vast number of Americans who are not by definition, the elite.

Does someone without a Stanford degree not have something significant to contribute to society? Does someone without a college degree at all not have something significant to contribute? Really, we need to find a lot more ways for a lot more people from all kinds of backgrounds to have a reliable path to the middle class.

Our society is increasingly segregating along class boundaries. The rich are getting a lot more rich. The middle class is shrinking. This is not sustainable.

Pinched

2011-08-14T22:52:00.000-07:00

I'm currently reading the book "Pinched: How the Great Recession has Narrowed Our Futures and What We Can Do About It". I'm hoping to give more details of this book as I go along, but one thing the author does that I found fascinating was to describe the short and long term effects of our previous significant recessions in hopes of gleaning lessons from those down terms and applying those to what we're finding today.

"Long, deep slumps are foreign to many Americans alive today, but of course they are not unknown in the nation's history. The final two decades of the nineteenth century saw steady deflation, hard times for typical workers, and great tumult. The Great Depression and the 1930s are now nearly synonymous. Most recently, from 1972 through the early 1980s, the United States endured economic stagnation, wage erosion, and a serious of painful economic shocks; in some respects, the weakness lingered until the mid-1990s. If we align shocks of those periods - the panic of 1893, the crash of 1929, the oil shock of 1973 - then we'd be sitting today in 1896 or 1932 or 1976."

and it's affects:

"The longer society stews in a deep slump, the more it is altered. Changes to community character, generational ambition, and social harmony that are nearly imperceptible early in a downturn become suddenly overwhelming later. What follows is a pocket of history of these three long downturns, with a focus on the enduring marks they left on America. Each delineates a major turn in the country's economic, political, and cultural history. And each holds lessons for us in the present day."

One thing is certain to me, that this recovery is going to take a while. I don't care what anti-Obama people think. You could elect Ron Paul as president, and the recovery will take a devastatingly long time. Well, in the absence of something cataclysmic and unseen, that is. I'm speaking based on my perceptions of our current trajectories.

The problem is that a long downturn is going to change our cultural landscape in ways that are impossible to predict.

Two high-level lessons garnered from the book so far. The Great Depression changed the political landscape heavily toward liberalism. This persisted through the 1960's no matter which party controlled the presidency.

All of this ended in the 1970's when we experienced another economic cataclysm precipitated by massive government spending combined with a significant oil shock. We were also, not coincidentally, coming off a massively wasteful war in Vietnam and the Nixon presidential scandal. All of this shook our country and left it open for Ronald Reagan to take over and begin a period of conservatism that has persisted for 3 decades.

Our current recession is much more similar to the recession of the 1930's than the 1970's. I'm not at all sure, where it will lead us, but one thing seems certain, it will probably last a while and there will be a lot of painful, long lasting bumps a long the road.

Religion and Reason

2011-07-10T09:08:00.003-07:00

I blogged about Dave Dickerson's House of Cards already in a very critical way. But there's a reason I bought and read this book. The reason is because I heard Dickerson on "This American Life" read from his book the following passage I found beautiful and profound.

Here it is:

Toward the end of the book, Dickerson took a vacation back to Tucson to visit his Dad. During the trip he wanted to actually deconvert him from his charismatic Christian ways armed with a lot of logical reasons why the Bible was flawed, armed with historical and doctrinal contradictions. He wanted to save his dad from all of the restrictions that he felt were inhibiting his life. He waited for the opportunity:

"I waited all night for Dad to slip, and when we walked into a twenty-four-hour diner on Grant and Swan, we sat at a cold little two-person booth, ordered a pair of omelets, and while we were waiting he took off his cowboy hat, frowned at the sparse tables around us, cleared his throat, and said, 'You know, I've been thinking about doing a little missionary work now that I'm basically retired. There are opportunities in Spain --'

And I lunged. 'Dad-why to go Spain? That's such an evangelical thing to do. 'Those poor benighted Catholics need to learn Christianity!' It's not only arrogant, it's unbiblical. Did you know that the sinner's-prayer model of salvation you sectarian Christians are so obsessed with doesn't even emerge in Christian history until --'

'David', said Dad sharply, and when I stopped, he sighed.

'David, I'm really proud of you. I'm really glad that you've got your master's degree and that you're so interested in this topic. But before you say another word, you should know why it's not going to work.'

He paused and looked sad. He was remembering. 'Before I became a Christian, I was miserable. I wanted to kill myself. I hated my life, I hated my marriage, I just wanted to end everything.'

I remembered this. He hadn't talked about it very often, but once when I was in high school he'd told me about how he'd had a nervous breakdown, and how when he was driving on the highway, he'd actually been tempted to steer his car into oncoming traffic. He was so disturbed by this that he pulled over to the side of the road, found a phone book, and checked himself into a mental hospital. For a year after that, he couldn't read a single thing except the Bible, and even that in a sort of skeptical, clinical way. Every other form of reading reminded him of academia, and the department that had driven him mad.

I didn't know what he was about to say, but it was pretty clear that by choosing academia now, I had all but confessed to rejecting not just his religion, but his entire view of the world.

'So when I was looking around for some kind of hope,' Dad continued, 'I found Grace Chapel.' Grace Chapel was the big charismatic church in Tucson, with the raising of hands, the speaking in tongues, the anointing with oil, and occasional miracle healings. 'I remember walking in there and being so overwhelmed by the love I saw there, the way these people cared for one another. Then I found out what they believed and I said, 'Are you serious? Magic and spirits and all this stuff?' But I kept comping back. And finally one night I prayed and I said 'God, if I have to take my own head off to be happy, that's what I'm willing to do.'

'So you can believe what you want,' he said. 'But I also know what I've felt. Jesus turned me into a better man. He have me a life, he gave me a family, and I look forward to every new day. I never did that before, and all your arguments aren't going to convince me to go back.'"

The version he read on This American Life was better than this, but the idea is there. The reason religion and faith is so powerful is because it changes our lives, it makes us better. It's a feeling more powerful than logic - of peace and love. It's something we need at a deep level.

David Brooks touches on this a bit in his book The Social Animal. In this section about Alcoholics Anonymous:

"Harold had grown quite secular over the years, but a vague religiosity pervaded this group. The people there didn't just tell him to stop drinking. It wasn't a discrete and logical attempt to solve this one problem. They called on him to purify his soul, to rewire the deepest recesses of his heart and being. If he changed his whole life, abstinence from alcohol would be a happy byproduct."

"Alcoholics Anonymous doesn't work for most people. Researchers have not been able to predict who will benefit from AA and who will not. They can't even agree on whether the program works better than the other programs that are out there, or at all.

That's because the fellowship of each group cannot be reduced to a formula, compared across groups, or captured in a social science experiment, and the quality of fellowship is what really matters."

Ok, I'm throwing some unrelated bits of information out there. The point is that the spiritual journey each of us takes is so hard to understand or quantify. The rationale part of our brain is different and less important than the spiritual part of ourselves.

It's how you can be both religious and academic by being able to understand this relationship and come to terms when the two come in conflict.

This dynamic is what The Book of Mormon teaches here:

2 Nephi 28:
28. O that cunning plan of the evil one! O the vainness, and the frailties, and the foolishness of men! When they are learned they think they are wise, and they hearken not unto the counsel of God, for they set it aside, supposing they know of themselves, wherefore, their wisdom is foolishness and it profiteth them not. And they shall perish.

29. But to be learned is good if they hearken unto the counsels of God.

This passage does not disparage academia or knowledge or rationale thought. You can even be an academic agnostic or an evolutionist at your day job. All this passage is saying is to put academic knowledge in it's proper place. The fact is that we're all utterly foolish. The smartest person in the world really doesn't know much. The problem comes when we think we know more than God.

That's one problem I have with Mormon Stories. I don't have a big problem with it I guess, some people they interview I think get this dynamic between thought and faith, but most seem to struggle. This is a podcast for feminists, academics, or liberal Mormons who treat the church like it's their political party. You can be a feminist, an academic, or a liberal Mormon quite easily and many on this podcast explain how they've gotten there, but many struggle and I think they struggle because they don't understand what church is supposed to be about.

Doing what they are doing on this podcast is all well and good. The problem is not that they are using their minds, the problems come when they fail to put what they know in a proper context. I'm going to use a thought I heard that I can no longer source, so just know this is not original with me. This stuff is scaffolding. It's good to think, to grow, to question, to speculate, but at the end of the day you're building scaffolding. It's not anything to build a house on.

What you do build a house on is a foundation of faith, love, peace, fellowship, relationships. It's a foundation of feelings over logic, of faith over academia. It's why Dickerson was helpless in this argument. How can you argue with someone who says their faith changed their life and made them a better person? This is a statement of fact based on the truths discovered in the innermost parts of one's soul. It's not something that is easily communicated without the help of divine. It's personal, poignant, and powerful.

Another Gay Marriage Post

2011-07-06T23:41:00.007-07:00

I haven't blogged in a while, but I have been busy facebooking all about the debt ceiling. However with what just happened in New York on gay marriage, I stumbled upon Ross Douthat's latest on the subject.

I already blogged pretty heavily on Douthat's thoughts on gay marriage. But time has passed and New York has made gay marriage legal, and Douthat writes about it again, so I have to blog about it once more.

Here's Douthat's latest.

There's nothing too new here, but I think it's worth pointed out nonetheless. I hit this topic pretty hard because I think the religious argument against gay marriage has been given short shift, for two reasons. First, the argument is legitimately hard to express succinctly. But just because an argument is difficult to express does not mean it's wrong, it's just makes it difficult to express. Douthat describes in his earlier posts, how the intermingling of marriage, procreation, and sexuality is complex or "thick", his word, to describe this. And to express this thickness is challenging, but Douthat's arguments are the most well thought out from the opposition side of this debate and definitely worth considering.

Also because this argument has been so poorly made by the conservative side, I think it's also been too easily dismissed, and those who believe in this view have been labeled as bigots and compared to the racists of our nation's earlier years. This is fundamentally unfair.

In Douthat's latest, he laments:

"Critics of gay marriage see this as one of the great dangers in severing the link between marriage and the two realities — gender difference and procreation — that it originally evolved to address. A successful marital culture depends not only on a general ideal of love and commitment, but on specific promises, exclusions and taboos. And the less specific and more inclusive an institution becomes, the more likely people are to approach it casually, if they enter it at all."

He follows this article up here specifically addressing Dan Savage's point of view.

"The ideal of monogamy is a fragile achievement of civilized life, not something that’s written in our glands and genes." Meaning that it's hard to be monogomous especially if you extend that to pre-marriage. It goes against our nature, but just because it's difficult doesn't mean it's not an ideal worth aspiring toward, and it doesn't mean it's something that society shouldn't enforce, especially considering what's at stake.

This is at the core of all of Douthat's argument and it's written better in his original article I'll quote here again:

"This ideal holds up the commitment to lifelong fidelity and support by two sexually different human beings — a commitment that involves the mutual surrender, arguably, of their reproductive self-interest — as a uniquely admirable kind of relationship. It holds up the domestic life that can be created only by such unions, in which children grow up in intimate contact with both of their biological parents, as a uniquely admirable approach to child-rearing. And recognizing the difficulty of achieving these goals, it surrounds wedlock with a distinctive set of rituals, sanctions and taboos.

The point of this ideal is not that other relationships have no value, or that only nuclear families can rear children successfully. Rather, it’s that lifelong heterosexual monogamy at its best can offer something distinctive and remarkable — a microcosm of civilization, and an organic connection between human generations — that makes it worthy of distinctive recognition and support."

That, in a nutshell is the ideal: that "organic connection between human generations". That my biological kids are mine and my wife's and we are there's. To preserve this unique entity as an ideal is important, to recognize that it's extremely difficult to maintain and thus worthy of extra sociatal support is what Douthat argues.

While Douthat continues to cling to his views, another moderate conservative I admire, David Frum dithers. But his logic as to why?... is just dumb:

It's true that marriage, among the educated middle class, has actually strengthened recently which weakens the argument that gay marriage destroys traditional families. But that's only true if you believe gay marriage is the only and the strongest factor that will destroy families. I believe there are a multitude of societal factors at play and changing gay marriage laws is just one of many and not near the most important. I'm not sure how you can separate these out in way to come to the conclusion Frum comes to.

I meant to blog about this article earlier but I'm getting to it now, and it's too long and difficult to quote from it directly, so you really need to read it because there are a lot of really good points here that goes beyond the argument of gay marriage.

Here's her thoughts on the consequence of loosening divorce laws and how that affected the marriage institution that resonates:

"A couple in 1940 (and even more so in 1910) could go to a minister's parlor, or a justice of the peace, and in five minutes totally change their lives. Unless you are a member of certain highly religious subcultures, this is simply no longer true. That is, of course, partly because of the sexual revolution and the emancipation of women; but it is also because you aren't really making a lifetime commitment; you're making a lifetime commitment unless you find something better to do. There is no way, psychologically, to make the latter as big an event as the former, and when you lost that commitment, you lose, on the margin, some willingness to make the marriage work. Again, this doesn't mean I think divorce law should be toughened up; only that changes in law that affect marriage affect the cultural institution, not just the legal practice."

And her final piece of advice.

"My only request is that people try to be a leeetle more humble about their ability to imagine the subtle results of big policy changes. The argument that gay marriage will not change the institution of marriage because you can't imagine it changing yours personal reaction is pretty arrogant."

The point here is that what matters is what happens on the margins. When you make significant changes to laws it affects both the legal and the cultural identity of that institution with all of the unexpected consequences that go along with that. There are simply no institutions that matter as much as marriage does. The institutional changes matter because at the margin some people will make different choices because of those institutional changes. Their decisions will influence others in unexpected ways. Eventually, marriage in the 21st century will be fundamentally different than what it was in the 20th.

Expanding marriage to include same gender is a significant change. Douthat argues that this change will weaken it. Many, including me, believe it has already been weakened so this affect may be minimal, but I think it's affects may be bigger than any of us realize.

The Little House On the Prairie's Message on Taxes

2011-05-29T21:36:00.004-07:00

As part of our Sunday evening family ritual, we are working our way through the 1970's Little House and the Prairie episodes. We're almost through season two and tonight we just saw the episode entitled Centennial, where the community of Walnut Grove prepares for the 100th year since the Declaration of Independence. Their plans is to have a picnic with fireworks and to make a new American flag to celebrate the event.

The episode begins hopeful. The government just announced the expansion of roads - a massive investment in the nation's infrastructure, with the accommodating promise to ease trade allowing more opportunities for the farmers to sell their crops.

The good cheer turns sour when significant tax increases are also announced. Charles Ingalls' savings is wiped out paying by the tax increase. More poignantly, a Russian immigrant family who had just moved into town a few months earlier, received notice that no property taxes had been collected on the property they purchased in the past seven years, and he was responsible for the entire seven or he'd lose his property.

The entire town was feeling mighty depressed about this turn of events and the entire July 4th celebration was in jeopardy. Everyone was feeling pretty miserable about their politicians and pretty miserable about America. They complained about how well paid their politicians were despite the fact they were doing nothing but robbing from the pockets of hard working Americans. One farmer had the audacity to suggest that an income tax was coming next.

As the episode progresses, the Russian immigrant does lose his land. Homeless, they are camping out until they are able to figure out what to do next. Charles walks over to offer his condolences and to provide the family a listening ear, but all the while feeling this anger at the direction of our government. The Russian immigrant instantly rejects the sympathy and says that it was his own foolishness for buying the property without understanding the terms. And he was hopeful. Knowing he could get more land and rebuild as a homesteader. He suggested that it was a privilege to pay taxes because those taxes were used to make investments for everyone. His own son was getting an education and that through his education, the son was teaching the father to read English. No other country on the globe made education accessible to everyone. Everywhere else only the well off had such access.

In Russia, by contrast, taxes were used to line the pockets of its czars and not to build schools and roads like in America. In a dictatorship, taxes enrich the dictator who is not accountable to the people. In a representative democracy, the taxes are used to build up the country for the benefit of all. America, he says, is the greatest country in the world for its freedoms and for its opportunities.

I think we lost this point, along the way. Taxes, in and of themselves, are not the problem, the problem is how we use those taxes. It is a privilege to pay taxes. Every time I drive around my city, its wide roads, its beautiful parks, I feel like I own a piece of it. The parks are partially mine. Quite literally, this is my community. And our family takes advantage. We attend the parks; we make use of the public pools; we visit the national parks; we drive on the roads; we drink the water. Given how much we are blessed, I say it's a privilege to pay taxes.

Not that our tax code isn't broken, it is, severely. We need a tax system that's both fair and broad. Far too many people with means are not paying their fair share. There are simply far too many ways to get out of paying taxes, largely for pretty dubious reasons. Business owners and investors have too many opportunities to make their income look like business or capital investments, shielding the money from the higher tax rates. This makes no sense.

I'm not sure why we think money made by a business owner should be more protected from the tax code than the money made by the laborer. Every single one of us has a role to play in this economy. The more productive we all are, the more rich this country becomes. The smart investor is no more valuable than the efficient and innovative worker. Why tax the two at different rates?

The problem in our country is not that we are necessarily spending too much either. The problem is that we have gotten into this mentality that we can get a lot from our government without having to pay for it. We need to take stock in what we want to pay for, then we need to figure out how we're going to raise enough tax revenue to do just that.

How big of a military do we want? What kind of global presence do we want to preserve? How big of a safety net do we want to provide and for who? Do we care about clean air and water? Sanitation? Do we want a responsive government in the face of natural disasters? Do we want to collectively ensure our elderly, those who cannot work at the end of their years, a life of dignity and a guarantee against painful poverty?

How much government do we want? Whatever the answer is, we have to be willing to pay for it. No other country in the history of this globe has ever amassed as much wealth as this one has. We have the capacity to accomplish beyond what we realize. And much of this has come because of our freedoms and our way of government.

We didn't declare our independence from England because of taxes. We did it because they were taxing us without representation. We didn't have a say back then in how those taxes were being used, but we have that say today. We only have to couple our desires for government service with a willingness to pay for it.

When Mormon's Sin

2011-05-24T21:14:00.007-07:00

Not too long ago I listened to this podcast which is a recording of a presentation by Dr. David Christian, a licensed clinical psychologist practicing in Utah, and thus pretty well versed in treating Mormons. Incidentally, he is also no longer an active, practicing Mormon. In this podcast, at least, he criticizes the church on the way it tends to deal with those who sin - basically all of us.

One of the arguments he makes I want to take on directly. He feels the church behaves in absolutist all or nothing teaching that gets some of its members into trouble. He refers to it as a virgin thinking, where committing a sin once is just as bad as doing it over and over again. You are no longer a virgin when you slip up and have sex with one person, so what's the difference if you have sex with nine more. Obviously there's a big difference between messing up one time and becoming entrenched in bad behavior, and it is unfair to claim that anyone in the church believes the two are equivalent. But I can see why, given the way that these messages are sometimes taught, someone may get caught up in this kind of thinking. Once you sin once, when the stakes are high, you feel terrible and ashamed, your feelings of self worth plummet and it's much easier to just to do it again and again, and perhaps fall into addiction.

And I'm sure this is a more of a problem for those within the church. He backs up his claims with plenty of statistics.

He uses an interesting analogy to illustrate the problem with this. When you apply vertical pressure on a credit card it bends pretty far one way, and the more pressure you apply the farther the card bends. Let's say bending the card one way is analogous to being righteous and sinful if bent the other. So, if at first your pressure forces the card over to the good side, things are great. But if something happens and the card is pushed against the vertical pressure toward the other side, not only are you switching from the good toward the bad, you are moving much further to the other side and it's much harder to move the card back. It's very hard, living under this kind of pressure, to mess up one time, someone who falters, tends to falter pretty dramatically.

Here are some of the statistics he sites. Once a Mormon partakes in alcohol, they are far more likely to become alcoholic than a non-Mormon. Utah has the highest rates of on-line pornography use in the country. I think it was Italians he said who have among the highest percentage of people who drink alcohol, but also have much lower rates of abuse.

All of this makes sense as far as it goes. If you engage in absolutist thinking, you increase the pressure, and if a slip is made, it has a far more significant consequence on your emotional state.

I can't disagree with this.

But is this the church's fault? I think where most critics of the Mormon church stumble is they fail to fundamentally understand what the church is all about. Admittedly, this is my understanding of the church they are misunderstanding, and my perspective is also flawed, but let me explain why I disagree with Dr. Christian. Let me also try to point out how I'm trying to raise my children as Mormons in a culture that gives them every opportunity for someone to commit sin.

I think the biggest difference between the Mormon church and many of the other churches out there is that we expect much more out of our members. I think this goes without saying, but let me dig deeper because it's fundamental to what our church is all about.

I think, in some ways, the Mormon church is a little bit like Google in the technology industry. The church has no paid clergy. Instead, we are all clergy. Every single position in the church is not only important, but vital. When someone joins our church, they are not only becoming a member, but essentially, they are its clergy as well.

I love the scripture in the Doctrine and Covenants that brings this point home:

D&C 18: 14-16

14 Wherefore, you are called to cry repentance unto this people.

15 And if it so be that you should labor all your days in crying repentance unto this people, and bring, save it be one soul unto me, how great shall be your joy with him in the kingdom of my Father!

Not only is every soul precious, but every position in the church is important. My two year old is attending nursery every week during church and is being cared for by under-appreciated nursery workers who are introducing her to gospel principles. My older kids are listening to the testimonies of primary teachers helping them to develop the foundation for their faith in God. I know we as parents are important to their success, but so is the broader community they participate in and the church is there to help them with that. Their souls are important to us. I am thankful for those people who believe the same thing. And they show this by their sacrifice. They willingly volunteer their time to help our children grow in their faith.

I compare my church to Google because Google hires engineers who are committed to the industry and each employee is expected to produce at a high level at every level. The company strives to have a bottom up development approach. Every person matters and is important and has a voice. The company innovates because each of its employee's are allowed to innovate.

In the same way, all members of the Mormon church are asked to contribute at every level in the effort of bringing souls to Christ. The church is trying to do something difficult and members of this church are being asked to engage in that effort. The biggest difference between our church and Google, is that Google tries very hard to hire only highly qualified people by making it very hard to pass their interviews. The church's by contrast simply says that if you have a desire to serve God you are called to the work. If more companies hired based on desire, our unemployment rates would shrink and our recession would disappear, sigh.

But as members of the church, we are definitely called to work and to sacrifice. So, yes, there can be pretty intense vertical pressure and yes, it can cause problems.

But there is another way.

In a television interview some years ago, the then prophet and president of the church President Gordon Hinckley was asked about this. He was asked about how he avoids sin, and was it difficult. He said matter of factly that it's not difficult for him at all because he simply does not spend much time thinking about sin. He found a way to remove the vertical pressure on the credit card completely. He learned to change the game. Rather than applying pressure on himself to avoid sin, he spent his life anxiously engaged in improving the world around him. His focus wasn't on sin, his focus was on being engaged in goodness.

I think this shift is vital, especially in a world where it's increasingly easy to get hooked into alcohol, drugs, pornography, and other kinds of addictions. This is the approach I want for my childen. Let them find ways to engage in flow enhancing activities. The world has really opened up in this way. We live in a world filled with teachers, really we all should be teachers. It's becoming easier and easier to learn just about anything if we have the dedication and patience to do so. Learn a language, find a league in almost any kind of sport, or learn a musical instrument.

As my children reach high school, I hope they can find a passion that consumes a lot of their energy. I don't much care what it is, just something that gives them plenty of opportunities to experience flow, activities that are challenging and fulfilling, activities that will help them develop an expertise in something, something that brings them joy. If they can leverage this passion to benefit the community in some way? So be it, you don't have to be old to change the world.

And sure, they will be young, and their bodies will one day be surging with hormones, and temptations will be all around them and mistakes will be made. I hope as a parent I can be loving, understanding, open and forgiving. I hope they will be able to feel that deeply. I hope that no matter what happens they realize in a deep way they are valuable and valued and have an almost unlimited potential to do whatever they set their minds to do.

I think in all of those ways, the vertical pressure of the credit card is released. Instead of being worried about moving this way or that way across an imaginary line separating sin from righteousness, the entire card is shifted, their entire perspective about who they are and what they can achieve changes. This is probably a lifetime endeavor, but as Christians, this is what we are trying to do. We are trying to raise the bar. We are trying to be like Jesus and that is a high standard.

Can you be a liberal Mormon?

2011-05-21T14:26:00.003-07:00

Well, I don't know, but some people think so, but only with a mighty struggle.

The problem, here, can go both ways. You have mainstream, traditional Mormon's who have conflated Mormon theology with the conservative wing (is there any other wing these days?) of the Republican party. When conservative views get sprinkled into church talks over the pulpit or gets used in Sunday lessons, this can make those with different political views uncomfortable. Because Mormon's tend to be almost uniformly conservative, this kind of thing can happen with some regularity. But obviously, it can go the other way. I tend to live in a more liberal than average part of the US and sometimes we get someone saying something more squishibly liberal over the pulpit.

Much of this is unavoidable. We are all human beings and it's hard to draw a hard line between our religious, political and all of our other points of view. These thoughts will blend together and sometimes inappropriate things will be said. Part of being a member of the Mormon church is recognizing this. We have no professional clergy - we are the clergy, and we need to be hyper-willing to look past other people's mistakes and flaws.

But the church is not a political party and religious faith and political beliefs are not the same thing. They both are important. We are members of our community and duty bound to make a contribution, to be informed when we vote, and to help solve the problems we face. We are also spiritual beings who are striving to be guided through a very difficult and uncertain world in hope of a better one. In Ether 12:4 it says:

"Wherefore, whoso believeth in God might with surety hope for a better world, yea, even a place at the right hand of God, which hope cometh of faith, maketh an anchor to the souls of men, which would make them sure and steadfast, always abounding in good works, being led to glorify God."

This is the purpose of faith and religion. Look at the words used: "believeth, hope, faith". These words, in part, point toward something more emotional then mental, a connection to something big, too big to express succinctly, we just don't have the vocabulary to describe our faith. The closest we can get is through abstractions using poetry or music to brush up at it.

But politics and science and economics are all different. We are put on this earth to develop ourselves and to grow. Part of our growing is to try to make sense of the world around us, to solve the problems we face, and to do the best to get a long with others. Engaging in our communities, working within our governmental institutions, voting are all essential parts of this. Of course, we don't develop our political views in a vacuum. Our religion and our politics intersect and contradict all of the time.

But I believe one essential part about being a human being is to be able to deal with these contradictions and ambiguities. One essential tool to do so is to realize how limited we as human beings are in both the physical and spiritual worlds. We know nothing which is why we live by faith. We are striving to know more which is why we have an intellect. Both our important and inform one another.

In The Social Animal David Brooks says:

"Wisdom doesn't consist of knowing specific facts or possessing knowledge of a field. It consists of knowing how to treat knowledge: being confident but not too confident; adventurous but grounded. It is a willingness to confront counterevidence and to have a feel for the vast spaces beyond what's known."

And the vast spaces beyond what's known is unbelievably vast. But to do anything in this world, we have to proceed with "confidence but not too much confidence". It's a balancing act every single day of our lives.

Listening to the poscasts on Mormon Stories or Mormon Matters, you get the point of view of liberals struggling being Mormon.

Poetry and High School

2011-05-09T18:25:00.005-07:00

Why isn't poetry more popular? My sister recently sent me this poem and I loved it. Here it is:

Craig Arnold's “Why I skip my high school reunions” (1999)  

[From: Arnold, Craig. Shells. New Haven, Yale University Press: 1999.]

Because the geeks and jocks were set in stone,  
I, ground between.
Because the girls I ate  
lunch with are married now, most out of spite  
--because the ones I spurned are still alone.  
Because I took up smoking at nineteen, late,  
and just now quit--because, since then, I've grown  
into and out of something they've never known.  
Because at the play, backstage, on opening night  
she conjured out of the vast yards of her dress  an avocado and a razorblade,  
slit the one open with the other, flayed  
the pebbled skin, and offered me a slice

  
--because I thought that one day I'd say yes,  
and I was wrong, and I am still afraid.

I like this poem because I recently missed my 20 year reunion and still feel some regret over it. I didn't miss my 10 year reunion. I went to it with a lot of expectations and left with a lot of those expectations unmet.

I also like it because those four years of my high school life, which is really a tiny sliver of my overall existence, still mean so much to me and seem to have an outsized importance of how my life seems to have gone since.

I like it because I'm still afraid that I am the same basic person I was then, and in fact, I still am....

I like poetry because you can capture so much emotion with so few words. Can someone tell me why poetry is not more popular?

Sex

2011-05-04T23:42:00.003-07:00

I've been reading some books lately. And in one way or another, sexuality is at the core of each.

In "Little Bee", a sexual encounter, is at the crux of every plot twist in the novel, and in most every case, these events lead the characters down a path toward tragedy - a rape and murder of a Nigerian girl, an offer of sex to get out of an immigrant prison, an adulterous affair that leads a couple to vacation in a Nigerian beach resort in an attempt to recover their marriage.

In "A Thousand Splendid Sons", the story is about two Afghanistan women who are each forced into a marriage with the same pretty despicable man. One is forced into marriage at like age 14, the other is added as a second wife much later but is also young when it happens, 16? The man is at first enamored, but quickly becomes abusive.

Finally, "House of Cards" is a memoir by Dave Dickerson who is this brilliant wordsmith who lands a job at Halmark. He's a great writer and the book is brutally honest - he exposes everything there is about himself. He's young, in his late 20's, but despite his natural intelligence and his obvious passion and skill, he lacks maturity and depth. He's self absorbed throughout which is what, in my opinion, causes him to sabotage a relationship with his fiance. I care about these kinds of things. At the first hint that his relationship might fracture, I google'd him hoping to see him happily married with a woman that from his accounts sounded perfect for him. But, no such luck. He blows it. He thinks he ends it because of her problems and their broken sex life, but the reality is that he seems to actually devolve as the book progresses.

His book ends when he quits Hallmark to pursue a PhD at a college in Florida. Let me quote him:

"I pulled out early the next morning with Dwight Yoakam in my car's CD player, and when I hit the highway, I felt like I was flying. The Life of Dave, 2.0, was going to start today. I planned the whole thing in an invisible chart on my windscreen. I would become a cultural studies scholar, specializing in something cool. Figure that out later. I would learn how to teach, and maybe I'd even like it. I would live in warm weather again, and I'd have a lot of free time. No more nine-to-fiving! Who cares about an eighty percent pay cut if you're getting years of your life back?

I would go to parties. Maybe drink. I'd have a favorite alcohol, even, and feel cool ordering it. I'd smoke a little pot without any fear at all. And there would be girls. Beautiful girls. Don't they sometimes sleep with their TAs? College! Why does anyone ever leave?"

And that basically sums him up by the end of it. He was raised an Evangelical Christian in Tucson. Has some very good reasons for leaving that church. He becomes a Catholic, for some really, truly profound reasons, not least of which it's the church his fiance belongs to. By the end of it, he leaves his faith completely and becomes an atheist.

I admit I'm being judgmental and maybe harsh and there are some poignant moments in the book that I want to blog about later (maybe). Let me find another person to kind of second my point of view. Here's one from an amazon review of the book :

This is a well-written, cleverly observed, and very funny book. I also found it mildly disturbing, because I think Dickerson sometimes reveals more about himself than he realizes. It's still not clear to me, for instance, that he understands how deep the divide was between his own 'romantic' but essentially self-centered fantasies about his relationship and his fiancee's actual needs and desires. And it takes the poor guy forever to figure out that some of his perfectly innocent habits are annoying the crap out of his patient but uncommunicative coworkers. At many points in the book, I felt simultaneously sympathetic and incredibly irritated with him.

From this thought, I want to pivot to this book I read some time back about Flow.

He has a section on sex that's worth quoting in detail:

At first it is very easy to obtain pleasure from sex, and even to enjoy it. Any fool can fall in love when young. The first date, the first kiss, the first intercourse all present heady new challenges that keep the young person in flow for weeks on end. But for many this ecstatic state occurs only once; after the 'first love' all later relationships are no longer as exciting. It is especially difficult to keep enjoying sex with the same partner over a period of years. It is probably true that humans, like the majority of mammalian species, are not monogamous by nature. It is impossible for partners not to grow bored unless they work to discover new challenges in each other's company, and learn appropriate skills for enriching the relationship. Initially physical challenges alone are enough to sustain flow, but unless romance and genuine care also develop, the relationship will grow stale.

How to keep love fresh? The answer is the same as it is for any other activity. To be enjoyable, a relationship must become more complex. To become more complex, the partners must discover new potentialities in themselves and in each other. To discover these, they must invest attention in each other - so that they can learn what thoughts and feelings, what dreams reside in their partner's mind. This in itself is a never-ending process, a lifetime's task. After one begins to really know another person, then many joint adventures become possible: traveling together, reading the same books, raising children, making and realizing plans all become more enjoyable and more meaningful. The specific details are unimportant. Each person must find out which ones are relevant to his or her own situation. What is important is the general principal: that sexuality, like any other aspect of life, can be made enjoyable if we are willing to take control of it, and cultivate it in the direction of greater complexity."

I think this is where some critics of my faith miss the boat when they claim that our church is too restrictive and that we place too many boundaries.

What our church does do is raise the bar for those who seek to join. I mean, it's a journey, nobody expects perfection. We're only asked to constantly strive for this growth and though it's not stated in this exact way, we are striving to find this kind of growing complexity. And it's within marriage, within a family that this possibility for real growth is most profound. This complete devotion to your spouse is a challenge, but it's also worth it. And those who don't strive for it, will have no idea what they're missing.

Come and See

2011-05-03T23:35:00.006-07:00

My wife recently returned home from an extended weekend in Salt Lake and brought back with her a packet prepared by the Relief Society designed to be used as a study guide over 40 days. The theme of the packet is "A Journey with Christ" and it guides the reader basically through the New Testament. We decided to go through this as a couple and we had our first session tonight.

In it, there's a talk from Ezra Taft Benson with this rather profound quote:

"We are meeting the adversary every day. The challenges of this ear will rival any of the past, and these challenges will increase both spiritually and temporally. We must be close to Christ, we must daily take His name upon us, always remember Him, and keep His commandments."

When I read the word "challenges", my radar picked up because for me that word has some depth. Let me explain. If you didn't know, I currently work in the software industry, and one of the constant themes as I talk with my colleagues at work is the need to seek new "challenges" and opportunities to grow. We want interesting "problems" to solve. Engineering is fundamentally a career where you seek out problems and find new cool and exciting ways to solve them. We want to solve puzzles essentially, we want to get better, we want to hone our craft.

So, when I see the word challenge, it triggers something positive in me where others might see a negative. I feel compelled to offer an alternative interpretation of this passage different from the more common default one.

In so many ways, the world has shifted drastically. It used to be that we could be content finding a factory job working with the same company for thirty years, retire with a pension and be taking care of all of our lives. Most of the time, these jobs were somewhat deadend, with few opportunities to really grow, but we had security. That world, for many reasons is gone.

Instead, we have many, many more opportunities. For a programmer in between jobs, they can now bid for work over the intenert. Not to mention the many, many businesses being run out of someone's home using ebay, amazon, or etsy.

I'm not saying any of this is easy. It's a harder world, it requires a certain amount of fearlessness and engagement that they don't teach you in school. But it's also a more exciting world, a more empowering world, and yes, a more challenging world.

I love Seth Godin's blog because in it, he acts like a cheerleader encouraging you to embrace this new reality.

St. John's Chapter 9

2011-04-25T20:38:00.003-07:00

We were reading this chapter in the New Testament last night, but it was what was happening in my home right before reading this chapter, that made these passages extra profound and beautiful. I was in a grumpy mood. Our pretty expensive camera has been lost now for a couple of weeks now. The last time we had seen it, our two year old was walking down the hall with the camera in her hand. My iPod was also missing. It was the end of the day. Our house already has a baseline of too much clutter, but we tend to oscillate around the baseline quite widely. This night was no exception. I was barking orders grumpily at my kids trying to get them to pick up their mess, while I kept looking for both the iPod and the camera.

Low and behold, I found both under our bed. Still grumpy, but a little less so, we basically picked up most of the stuff. My wife was now in a bad mood, taking my frustrations at our mess very personally - not totally realizing that I am much more responsible for our mess than she is. Anyway, I embarked on our family scripture reading, St. John Chapter 9. I decided at random, to inject our problem right into the scriptures to see what would happen, and guess what?

"1 And as Jesus passed by, he saw a family which was messy from the beggining.
2 And his disciples asked him, saying, Master, who did sin, this family or their parents, who failed to teach them how to keep house?
3 Jesus answered, Neither hath this family sinned, nor their parents: but that the works of God should be made manifest in them.
4 I must work the works of him that sent me, while it is day: the night cometh, when no man can work.
5 As long as I am in the world, I am the light of the world.
6 When he had thus spoken, he spat on the ground, and made clay of the spittle, and he anointed the house of this family with the clay,
7 and said unto him, Go, wash in the pool of Silo'am, (which is by interpretation, Sent.) He went his way therefore, and washed, and came seeing.
8 The neighbors therefore, and they which before had seen him that they were a complete mess, said, Is not this he that lived in squalor?
9 Some said, This is them: others said,they look like them, but they said, we are they.
10 Therefore said they unto them, How was thou house cleaned?
11 They answered and said, A man that is called Jesus made clay, and anointed our house, and said unto us, Go to the thy house and wash and we washed, and we knew how to keep our house clean and organized.
"

This resonated with me because we are all born with struggles and weaknesses - not because we're bad or sinful. It's just because we are human. And the way to achieve growth is through our faith, and through that faith, our weaknesses can be removed, not because of anything we do, but "so the works of God can be made manifest".

I'm wondering how many of us are taking advantage of these sorts of gifts. We all have blind spots. We can also be healed.

Black Swan Events

2011-04-15T23:44:00.003-07:00

It seems like everywhere I turn I'm being compared with my peers based on the bell curve. I've been graded against it in school and stuff like promotions and raises are commonly granted based on how I perform in comparison with other people. You know the curve I'm talking about, the one shaped like a bell, where you cluster most of the people together in the middle - the C students, then a small clump at the top, another small clump on the bottom. Does this even make sense? Is this how life works? Should a company any company make employee evaluations in this way? Should our schools operate in that way? Do I want my children graded this way?

I think the reason the bell curve has caught on is because in many aspects of our day to day lives it seems to work pretty well. You can get away, mostly, grouping people in a bell shaped curve, where most people are average, a few are below average and a few are above average. But it's rare to impossible to diverge too far from the mean.

There's a lot of reason this approach is favored. For one, it reduces complexity. If you're a teacher (or a parent), you can easily assess how your child is doing in her class by looking at a letter grade, and these grades really mean something when you know they have been applied based on a bell curve. The problem is there are people who clearly don't fit. They either fall so far to right of the curve, they completely off of it. So, not only are super-super stars rare, if you believe the Gaussian curve, they don't exist.

So, how do you account for the super-extraordinary student? You can't give him an A. Well, they are either moved up a grade (or two or three) or they are pushed out of the educational system completely. In the business world, they quit your company and create their own, or if they don't, they will achieve all star status, but will be hopelessly underpaid and probably under-utlized.

Because most of us have grown up in a culture of bell curves, it's only natural that large companies use this same technique to determine raises, promotions, and in the time of hardship, who to lay off.

Why am I focused so much on the bell curve? Well, because I recently finished the book The Black Swan by Nassim Nicholas Taleb who talks about the bell curve in the most disparaging way possible.

The main thesis of the book is that everything that truly matters in our society happens because of events that are both unpredictable and revolutionary. One single stock market crash can wipe out the gradual, predictable gains made over the course of 20 years. A major earthquake in Japan can destroy entire communities that took decades to build. A single event on 9/11/2001, can destroy our economy, turn the airline industry upside down, and bog our country down into two wars. In fact war itself is a black swan. So many times they seem to come out of nowhere, devastating nations for decades.

These are disruptive events and are extremely difficult to predict. Technology is an industry ripe with black swans. Cisco, eBay, Google all were black swan events. Rising out of the dust to produce companies that changed everything. But as soon as these companies got big, they also became predictable. The truly important events, largely in all cases, happened the day these companies were founded. Everything since has been only to leverage their initial idea.

But are people as easy to classify as the bell curve suggests? I would make the argument that the whole notion of the bell curve is flawed. We use it because it works most of the time, but mainly because it makes our lives simple. An individual person is just that, an individual, with built in strengths and weaknesses, but also with a unique set of experiences and opinions and points of view. One of the reasons we are so surprised by black swan events is because a really good idea can germinate just about from anywhere. So much of what happens in society occur through a series of well-timed accidents. The right person was in the right place thinking the right thoughts having the right skills at the right time. So much of all of this is just luck, coming from a circumstantial sequence of events.

Skill matters, though. If you aren't prepared for the unpredictable, it will either bury your or pass you by. How do you prepare? In the words of Taleb, how do you turn black swans grey?

I think we need to break out of the bell curve way of thinking. Every single person has the potential, if given the opportunity and training, to produce black swan events.

Here is one suggestion taking directly from the book:

"The strategy for the discoverers and entrepreneurs is to rely less on top-down planning and focus on maximum tinkering and recognizing opportunities when they present themselves. So I disagree with the followers of Marx and those of Adam Smith: the reason free markets work is because they allow people to be lucky, thanks to aggressive trial and error, not by giving rewards or 'incentives' for skill. The strategy is, then, to tinker as much as possible and try to collect as many Black Swan opportunities as you can."

If we, as a country, want to continue to develop as a nation of innovators, there has to be room to do exactly this. It has to be open to all and widely encouraged and openly supported. The more people excluded, due to lack of opportunity or education, the more we narrow opportunities to benefit from positive black swan events.

At the end of the day, none of us in reality falls within the Gaussian curve. It's a massive over-simplification of how individuals behave and how the world works. It's possible to force the real world into a theoretical model and to pretend things work that way - until you're hit by a black swan event, of course.

Clustering

2011-04-10T08:07:00.003-07:00

Last week, I had the opportunity to visit London and Paris. I was in London for just about a week for a business trip, so I extended the trip for a day to take in Paris. I'll try to blog about my day in Paris at some point. But, luckily for me, being a lone in Paris, I had as my only companion, my iPod, with the Kindle App loaded on it. I was able to take in a bit of reading while waiting in line for various tourist attractions. The book I was reading? The Black Swam, a book basically about risk. The fact is that we're living in a heavily black swan world, but we live like we don't. The notion of the black swan implies this belief that just because we haven't lived through an event, the event is highly unlikely. But these big events (say the massive earthquake in Japan), are much, more common and much more likely than we think.

He covers a lot of ground in the book, and while on my trip, I was able to finish it. I can imagine a whole series of blog posts on the the book itself, we'll see how many I get to do.

One of the themes of the book is to really point out how many blind spots we, human beings, have without realizing it. The author really wants us to get how flawed we are and how much we should be suspicious of our human failings. One example of this flaw, is our desire to cluster.

"If you want to see what I mean by arbitrariness of categories, check the situation of polarized politics. The next time a Martian visits earth, try to explain to him why those favor allowing the elimination of a fetus in the mother's womb also oppose capital punishment. Or try to explain to him why those who accept abortion are supposed to be favorable to high taxation but against a strong military. Why do those who prefer sexual freedom need to be against individual economic liberty?"

"The best way to prove the arbitrary character of these categories, and the contagion effect they produce, is to remember how frequently these clusters reverse in history. Today's alliance between Christian fundamentalists and the Israeli lobby would certainly seem puzzling to a nineteenth-century intellectual - Christians used to be anti-Semites and Moslems were the protectors of the Jews, whom they preferred to Christians. Libertarians used to be left-wing. What is interesting to me as a probabilist is that some random event makes one group that initially supports another issue ally itself with another group that supports another issue, thus causing the two items to fuse and unify... until the surprise of the separation."

Here's the problem with this clustering and categorizing:

"Categorizing always produces reduction in true complexity. It is a manifestation of the Black Swan generator. Any reduction in the world around us can have explosive consequences since it rules out some sources of uncertainty; it drives us to a misunderstanding of the fabric of the world. For instance, you may think that radical Islam (and its values) are your allies against the threat of Communism, and so you may help them develop, until they send two planes into downtown Manhattan."

The principal remedy in the book is to have the guts and the humility to admit our lack of certainty and knowledge on the issues.

Individual issues, like abortion or the death penalty, are complicated. To decide to map, seemingly disconnected points of views from a whole swath of issues into a single political party, seems absurd on its face. I get why we do it, to make our political system easier to comprehend, to reduce the true complexity of the world. But know this, we take serious risks when we do so. The world is much more complicated, much harder to understand, and impossible to define or reduce so cleanly.

The best answer to most political questions, is probably "I don't know", or "I'm not sure". Either that, or just inject a lot of "probably's" or "maybe's", or "in my uncertain opinion" into your conversations. The problem, of course, is that kind of language will most certainly not get you elected or listened to. It takes guts to face and admit uncertainty. But those who do, are the ones worth listening to.

And its why I feel that both parties are usually correct on most issues, correct but enormously flawed and limited in their point of view. Believe in your political party like it was your religion at your own risk.

What We Need is A Competent Government

2011-03-16T22:53:00.009-07:00

I've been commenting on Mises a bit lately. If you're not familiar with Mises it's a website filled with scholars from the Austrian school of economics, whose thinking has been gaining a ton of favor from the tea party crowds lately.

Their basic tenants, as far as I understand them, well, just listen to Ron Paul, or his son Rand. It's anti-fed, pro-gold standard, anti-government in practically every sense of the word. It seems they would like to shrink government's role down to simply one of contract enforcement between property owners and bend over backwards to show how literally every problem can be solved in this way. I'm sure I'm oversimplifying, but not by much.

They make solid points and it would be wrong to dismiss them completely. But I think this worldview is problematic in the same way any extreme view is: the world is too complex to be explained away so easily.

One of the strongest arguments libertarians make is to point out how badly central governments have messed up throughout history. The list is long - Hitler's Germany, Mao's China, Stalin's Russia. And you can literally go on and on throughout the world's history. People in power tend to abuse it and even well intentioned dictators from above can never properly manage the world's affairs.

Their answer, it seems, is to go to the other extreme - give all the power to the people. But this has it's problems as well. Most notably, populations ultimately get segmented between rich and poor, the weak and the powerful. There will always be ways for those with power to build up institutions (corporations) and use them to exploit others either explicitly or subtlety.

There are other problems as well. Obviously, it's really hard to imagine how our environment would be preserved through the markets. All it takes is one polluter to take short cuts on cleanliness so they can offer their goods at a cheaper price than that of another company trying to be green.

But so what that libertarianism has its problems, it's way better than the alternatives. At least, the people have freedom and no one is getting shipped off to Siberia.

But, I'm not sure people really understand how bad things can be without a government actively doing what it should be doing. Global warming, in theory and in fact most scientists agree, can lead to catastrophe and there is simply not a viable market solution for it. People have literally died because of poorly enforced or inadequate regulation. The economic meltdown we're experiencing now and the one we experienced in the 1930's was because the government fell asleep at the wheel allowing the markets to spin out of control.

There are a thousand reasons catastrophe can happen. Mostly we live in a world of black swans where extreme events that have enormous consequences are more common than people think. This happens no matter what simply because the world is complicated and unpredictable.

What we need is something more complex and admittedly tougher to get right in order to deal with a difficult world. We need good people in government and good people keeping those in government accountable. We need both a top down and a bottom up economy. We need a Central Bank, but we also need people generally to be responsible consumers, lenders and borrowers. We need accountability and responsibility, but we also need a safety net. We need charities to allow people to help others without compulsion because many problems will only be solved at the ground level. But we also need adequate taxation so that the government can provide resources and support in a way that would never be possible otherwise.

In short, we need something like we've got now, we just need to find ways to do it better. And for all of our problems, well, it's much better than the alternatives.

Are guns on the short list of the most important problems facing our state?

2011-03-05T13:20:00.008-07:00

Apparently, that's what the Arizona state legislature believes. I'm not sure really what to say about the stream of guns related bills coming from the Republicans of this great state. Do we have a gun problem?

The politics of that surround guns is a little bit like abortion or gay marriage in that you have to lay down your opinion to establish your cred with either party. It's identity politics. And it's rare to see a balanced discussion on this issue. Because the right to bear arms is codified in the US Constitution, the Republicans seem to have the upper hand on this issue which is why you see most Democrats running away from it.

But can't you preserve the right to bear arms and still regulate it? Gun restriction laws do have merit and don't necessarily violate the second amendment.

My relationship with guns, well... I don't have much of one. My parents never owned guns. I never really went hunting. I've shot guns once or twice, but it's not something I'm really craving to do. But I have no problems with those who do own guns. And as long as they don't point a gun at me, then we're cool, right? But I'm not sure I want co-workers bringing guns into work. Nor, do I really like the idea of people wandering around a shopping mall with guns in holsters. I don't think too many people are doing this - those that do, I would guess, are in the minority.

So, what is the point of all this emphasis on changing our gun laws?

"B1201 contains several other components that gun rights activists have been pushing, such as prohibiting government agencies from adopting rules that are more restrictive than what’s expressed in state law, and allowing a person to sue for damages if a local ordinance, for example, violated this bill’s provisions.

But the bill’s main provision would abolish existing statutes that prohibit people from bringing firearms into a public building or event after being requested to surrender them for storage.

Instead, the bill would allow a government agency or municipality to ban firearms on its premise only if it could provide for a security officer, install a metal-detection device or other machine that screens for weapons and post a readily seen sign that prohibits firearms.

In addition, the establishment must also have a secure firearms locker near an entrance.

The proposal, however, still exempts school districts and community colleges from areas where firearms are allowed. Another bill working its way through the Senate specifically prohibits educational institutions from preventing people with carry permits from having weapons on campus.

SB1201, which the Senate passed by a party-line 21-8 vote, is but the latest of several proposals that seek to further ease gun restrictions in the state. Many of those measures have been successful in the past."

Can you see why we get made fun of by Steven Colbert:

This bill, to me, seems somewhat symbolic, but it also seems to have fear at its core. We had some high profile shootings both in Tucson and around the country over the last several years. And now all public buildings either have to be locked down with security where everyone is scanned for weapons airport style, or everyone now can enter these buildings fully armed ready to defend themselves.

For one thing, shootings of this sort are extremely and statistically rare. I don't have the statistics on hand, but I would guess that more people die through accidental shootings from careless gun owners or from the violence in inner cities among the poor.

None of these laws are really going to affect me much. I'm guessing most teachers or students will continue to choose against carrying a weapon into the classroom even if they are legally allowed. I'm also guessing most people will leave their guns at home when visiting a public building.

And if someone wanted to commit mass murder, are we sure that a crowd of heavily armed people will be a deterrent? I'm not sure if I would feel safer if a bunch of people pulled out their weapons and begin returning fire? I doubt most people with guns would even attempt to do so.

Mostly, I think these gun laws are mostly a waste of time.

100 Billion Dollars of Budget Cuts

2011-02-20T13:38:00.003-07:00

The Tea Party wing of the Republican party who ran on a platform of balancing the budget did so without being very specific on what specific programs they cut. They made a very irresponsble promise to cut $100 billion dollars from the discretionary budget and they produced something with devastating cuts to the budget, eliminating programs despite their popularity or effectiveness.

Cutting spending like this in a recession is a very bad idea. We need serious proposals that tackle long-term entitlement growth that finds ways to make our tax code more efficient, raising revenue without significant impact to our economy and ways to slow down the growth of health care costs.

Seriously, where is Mr. Rogers when we need him:

Half Baked Idea for School Reform Part III

2011-02-12T10:19:00.006-07:00

The general theme of these last three posts is how we can get more adults involved in the education of our children. More expansively, we are all teachers, right? Or at least we should be, teaching and learning from each other. We should all, in some way, find ways to mentor and teach each other and especially our little ones.

At the company I work, they have recently emphasized the need to strengthen their employees because they feel the employee is among the company's most valuable resource. To that end, they implemented a fairly formal mentor/mentee program and I was encouraged to sign up to do both. Last week, I met my mentor for the first time - who, I'm a little embarrassed to say - is younger than me :-). But that's ok, we should be able to learn from anyone.

But he's also pretty impressive. He started out at my company from college, left for a couple of years to try his shot at a tech startup, and now he's back. He's constantly tinkering with new ideas, submits constantly to our "Lab Rats" - which is an in-company contest where employees submit ideas and prototypes for innovation within the company. He won once.

He gave me some really good advice in our mentoring session, invigorating advice. To that end, I want to get out my last idea for School Reform. In my last post, I used the current traditional school as the starting point for my reform. You have the current system of a relatively large-sized classrooms led by usually a single teacher. If we could get more teacher's aides into the classroom, preferably from the pool of parents, there's a greater opportunity to individualize the learning experience.

Now, I will come at the problem from the opposite spectrum. Let's take the home schooling model and modify it so that it could become a viable alternative to traditional schooling for more families. Here, in my opinion, are some problems with home schooling:

1) It takes a tremendous amount of effort from the parents. We have to come up with the curriculum; we have to prepare each day; we have to individually coax our kids (who are very experienced in opposing our best laid plans for them) into a rigorous school day; and we have to stay consistent day in and day out.

2) It's pretty expensive. Not only are we paying taxes to fund every one else's education, we are refusing societal help in teaching our own kids. We pay for all the books, the lessons, the instruments, the materials, not to mention the time.

3) Our kids lose out on opportunities to learn from a wider array of teachers and, most critically, from their peers. The ideal education is when we build up networks so that we can support each other. Nobody accomplishes anything worth doing by themselves. We need each other and we need to learn and to rely on one another. Home schooling makes this harder as we silo ourselves from others.

These critiques of home schooling can be overcome - we reach out to other home schooling families and have weekly coops. We have signed up for weekly home school PE. My kids are involved in choir, karate, and music with other kids. But its harder and as a result, most parents simply cannot or choose not to embark in it.

But, there's actually another model that's interesting, let's call it the Suzuki model that we're using to get our kids trained on their respective string musical instruments.

One day each week, my wife takes our kids to a lesson from a trained, experienced teacher in the instrument. The teacher gives our child an individual lesson. Actually, my son shares his lesson with his teacher's son who is the same age. My wife listens in on these lessons taking notes. Through the week, she practices with our children based on the material that was covered in the lesson. Additionally, there's a bi-monthly group class with other suzuki kids that provide more opportunities to get exposed to other children at the same level.

Why do we think that learning to master a musical instrument is any different than mastering math, or the English language?

I can easily imagine the classroom working in the same way Suzuki works:

1) You have a teacher (or set of teachers) skilled in child development: language, vocabulary, math, basic history. Really, elementary education seems to be more about child development than it does about being a subject matter expert. But these teachers should also be skilled at dealing with parents and families - almost taking on the role of a social worker.

2) The parent (or another suitable adult) takes their child (or set of children since you probably won't be able to get every parent engaged) to get individual or very small group instruction from the teacher on the relevant subjects - at least once per week, maybe more. And ends the session by assigning a weeks (or less depending on the frequency) worth of material to study and learn from.

3) The teacher tests their knowledge and introduces new material. The parent or adult takes notes.

4) Through the week the parent works with the child individually to make sure the child follows through on their studies.

This is exactly how music training works and the dedicated combination of both parent and child will almost certinaly lead the child to develop some suitable level of instrument mastery (based on the child's own passion for the instrument) over a number of years.

Not every child will excel at math or science or literature, but every child should have a well-rounded basic proficiency in these subjects. As the child gets older they can find their niche and develop mastery in their area of passion. In the meantime, they will be able to go on their own pace having the right amount of individual adult mentoring, and being able to access adult subject matter experts on a regular basis for feedback and assistance. Through the week, children could also have the opportunity to work with each other and learn from one another.

I'm not sure you need grades or formal tests necessarily. In the weekly session, the teacher would assess where the child was through an "oral exam" or by examining the child's work for the week - say the paper they wrote or the project they worked on - or an on the spot ungraded quiz. If the child is struggling, they slow down the progress and focus on it.

All of this happens in music lessons. Our children don't get to progress to the next, slightly harder piece, until they have mastered the current one. There are no grades or exams, but they have recitals.

It seems like this, to me is a much better model than our current one.

UPDATE:

This paper talks about how the traditional school model has grown less efficient over the years. We're spending more money but have not gotten better results. Toward the end, they suggest looking at other models for inspiration, including home schooling and music lessons. Looks like this post is on the right track.

"The second step goes then to other learning systems, to explore what alternative visions of schooling are feasible. Talk of 'schools of the future' is too much in the realm of imagination, and bold visions are often hard for policymakers, educators, and parents to understand and support. In order to begin to consider dramatically different
production processes, such an investigation would examine various forms of organized learning routinely taking place outside public K–12 systems, and include:

Home schooling

Distance learning systems

Foreign language learning

Franchise tutoring programs

Summer content camps

Parent-paid instructional programs (music, swimming lessons, etc.)

Armed services training }Industry training/development

Apprentice programs

Education systems abroad"

Half Baked Idea for School Reform (part II)

2011-02-08T00:25:00.003-07:00

My initial idea about school reform is here which basically amounts to nothing more than getting parents in the classroom. I thought about this idea for the past couple of days and now it's time to flush it out a bit more.

I can think of a couple of problems with my idea:

1) What about parents with more than one child - especially when the children are too young for school. These parents would not be easily available to help in the classroom.

2) What about parents who because of work obligations can't get help.

3) What about marginal parents. I am sure there are some parents who would simply not be good in the classroom.

Well, first let's start with the obvious. If in a classroom with say 20 or 30 kids in attendance. Let's say every parent with school age children, that could volunteer as a teacher's aid in the classroom did. My first question, since I simply do not know, would teachers be accepting of this help? My second question is, how many parents could we get in the classroom - certainly we could get at least a few, right - and that would be huge. And even if a parent had multiple school age children and wanted to be in both classrooms, the teacher would at least get this parent a couple of times a week. (By the way, my next door neighbor volunteers at an inner city school in Phoenix once a week - so I know this sort of thing is possible and valued).

Now, if we were sending our kids to publics school, my wife would not be one of those parents (or me certainly) who could easily be in the classroom - with a newborn and a two year-old in toe. But let's increase the numbers slightly. What if (once our newborn got older) we could get a babysitter a couple of times a week - say we split time with another parent who also had young kids. This would increase the level of participation.

Let's expand this idea even more. Let's say the school, in an expansive attempt to get as many parents on the campus as possible, started to accommodate parent volunteers with younger children - say a mother with a slinged newborn could come in the classroom and maybe a day care or pre-school was part of the school where the two year old could be temporarily deposited.

Finally, what about single parents who have to work? Well, why not hire them to be teacher's aids in the classroom? This is a bit tricky and would only work for marginally paid single parents - since I just can't imagine a scenario where we could pay them very well to do this. And it's tricky because you would want other parents who didn't need to work to do the exact same classroom work for free.

But this used to be the way things were to some extent at least.

Consider this passage in this book about the near poor in America, some of whom have been pushed off of the welfare rolls because of the welfare reform bill passed during the Clinton presidency in the 1990's. This book is a bit dated - now with near 10% unemployment, many of these people have probably been pushed back into the realm of the unemployed and poor.

Here's the passage about a mother, Danielle, who used to volunteer at her children's inner city school:

Danielle used to do much more for her children. Until she started her workfare job, she was the treasurer of their school's PTA and she spent nearly thirty hours a week volunteering there. It was a labor of love but also a cause of frustration. Sometimes only ten people would show up for meetings - in a school of seven hundred kids. Though Danielle found plenty to gripe about, she wasted no time mustering a constructiive response. Making a difference at P.S. 57 became her mission.

Ironically, it was her very freedom from work that allowed Danielle to become a fixture at the school. Because she didn't have to clock in at an office, barely a day went by in the late nineties when she wasn't at the school, working in the library, going over PTA accounts, helping out with playground or lunchroom supervision. She visited with the teachers, became a conspicuous adult presence during dismissal, dropped in on the principal most mornings as kids climbed off the school buses, and made sure that she was present to fight for the cause at every District Five school board meeting. For someone fighting depression, her devotion was impressive.

It was also pragmatic. 'If you're not involved with what's goin' on behind doors, then you don't know what's behind [them],' she reasoned. She has seen teachers yank kids by their clothes, push them against the wall, and scream at the top of their lungs. By inserting herself into the school hierarchy, Danielle made sure she could protect her own.

Danielle's proactive presence at P.S. 57 was not without its detractors. Whenever her name came up, school security guards would roll their eyes skyward. Some of the Latino parents thought she was high-handed. Even the PTA president, someone Danielle worked with fairly closely, denounced her on occasion. 'Are you a crackhead or something?' Yvonne, the president, yelled down the corridor during one of their dramas. When Danielle retored with an equally unpleasant rejoinder, Yvonne told her in no uncertain terms whose ass she could kiss. The whole incident left Danielle so steamed that she considered quitting the PTA and pulling her kids out of P.S. 57. In the end she decided against it. The school had become her avocation. She knew enough about its inner workings to guarantee a certain level of attention for her kids, and she couldn't give up that advantage. Still, the episode taught Danielle that you can't rely on anyone but yourself. Nobody covers your back. On the other hand, nobody covers your kids either. That's a mother's job.

Until welfare reform pushed them into the labor force, mothers on welfare like Danielle were the mainstay of many Harlem elementary schools. They were the helpers whom every school depended on to keep things on track. In middle-class suburban schools, this 'job' falls to nonworking moms (and a few dads) who organize bake sales, publicize the school play, ride along on the bus when kids take field trips, and drum up class representatives for as many grades as they can manage. Principals and teachers depend on these parents to keep the institution running, and in big cities, where budgets are always tight, they have become ever more important for maintaining basic order.

When there is no money for official, paid classroom aides, non-working moms - often on public assistance in poor communities - do what Danielle did. They watch the hallways and the lunchroom and pitch in during bus-boarding time, dismissal, and those Friday afternoons when, to hear Danielle tell it, the whole school goes 'off the hook.' They make sure that kids return the forms that qualify them for free lunches, which provide nutrition that is better than what many families can afford.

Welfare reform put an end to this volunteer workforce. Danielle and thousands of other mothers like her now spend their days toiling at the office or sweeping the city park and struggle to find the energy to get to evening school meetings when they can. Their days as hallway monitors are over."

This is the unintended consequences of welfare reform - it drove single parents out of the schools and weakened their influence over their children's lives. Granted not all parents took advantage of welfare to engage in the community and in their children's schools, but certainly some did.

Why not reform this reform? Pay parents who are willing to volunteer in their children's school. Why not provide society support to keep mother's actively involved in their children's lives. I guess what I'm suggesting is that we as a society should reform our schools in ways that encourage parents to get on the campus and in the classroom of the schools their children attend. Because, really, nobody is motivated to teach a child like that child's mother.

My third and final post on this subject will propose an even more radical idea for school reform.

The Funny Thing About Homeschooling

2011-02-05T17:13:00.006-07:00

You end up signing your kids up for a lot of different things to make up for what they aren't getting in regular school - well, at least we do. And I know many people get caught up in this even while sending their child to regular school, so, it's not just home schooling that's driving this. But the cool thing about joining different "schools" - the Suzuki school of string instruments, or the Karate school we just joined, etc., is you get a lot of different takes on education.

Today I took my kids to the Suzuki bi-monthly Saturday morning group classes and they had a special class for parents.

Here's a quote from a flier I received on tips about practicing:

"Let the child learn at his OWN pace. It allows him to learn each step VERY WELL before going on to a new idea. (Example of rushing a child - is pushing him to memorize a new piece when he is still stumbling over the notes of his last piece.) Definition: Child's own pace -- is speed at which he learns something under optimal conditions.

* Because of lifestyles we have chosen, too often practice sessions are not at an ideal time, or are rushed.
* Because of 'other things' we have scheduled, 'careful repetitions' are not done (poor practice timing, interruptions, or distractions.)

Here's another suggestion:

Let a child practice only as long as he is interested and can cooperate. Once his attention is gone, his learning stops. Practice then becomes a measure of endurance and bad attitudes can develop from it. A few minutes, several times a day may work best at first.

This is focused on instrument training. But I see very little difference, really, in learning how to write or learning math and mastering the violin. These kinds of skills take years to learn well. They also take regular, consistent practice to gain proficiency.

The problem I have with public school is that we expect every child to learn a certain amount every single year (do we expect this from a musical instrument? No, most people just give up.)

Another thing about Suzuki is that the parent should be attentive at the lesson - really focused on how its gong so that the practices can be focused accordingly. The music teacher is training the parent right a long with the student.

So, here's a thought about school reform that has probably no chance of getting implemented. Why not set the expectation that parents should be in the classroom at least part of the time learning and getting guidance from teachers? Instead of turning your children over to the school for most for of the day transferring over to the state (or church, or other private institution) for the education and improvement of your child. Why can't we get to more personalized, individualized training by getting many if not most of the children's parents in the classroom. The school becomes more of a partnership with the family. In that scenario we would need less formally trained teachers, these teachers could then be paid more and parents pick up the slack.

For those families with multiple kids, or families where parents just can't get in there, obviously, getting 1:1 adult to child ratio is not practical - but certainly the ratio could be much lower if the expectation of the parent as the primary child's teacher were more pervasive.

Here's why this is probably unrealistic: "a record 41 percent of all live births were to unmarried women, up 22 percentage points since 1980."

"I’m not the type to get nostalgic about the good old days of patriarchy, but the fact of the matter is that from a strictly economic point of view a married couple household is a much more efficient arrangement than the one-adult alternative"

And borrowing from Tyler Cowen's book The Great Stagnation, he spends a chapter talking about how our education system has gotten less efficient over the last 30 years - we spend more and continue to get worse results.

Th reason why our public schools are not efficient is because our family structures are becoming increasingly inefficient, with more and more of them led by a single adult, or with parents working full time jobs. This is not efficient educationally. It's just not practical to hire enough teachers to get the ratio's down to the ideal (very close to 1 teacher to 1 student) without an enormous amount of help from parents. And parents are increasingly concerned with other things. So, instead, we try our best to lure enough talent through the teacher certification process and into the classroom, paying them marginal salaries and filling up the classroom with 30 or 40 kids per one teacher.

This is not true, of course, for the well off, who earn enough money to divert a larger percentage of this constrained education resource their way, leaving less of those resources available for other children.

The answer is getting more people involved in education and parents are a natural resource we are vastly under-utilizing.

A Thousand Splendid Suns Part II

2011-01-31T23:33:00.006-07:00

I just finished Hoseeini's "A Thousand Splendid Suns". It was seriously heart wrenching. You read about Afghanistan or similar countries in the news, but this book seriously puts you directly in the shoes of people living with the horrors of these countries.

I could generate a dozen posts on this book, like, a friend friend of mine did when she read the book a couple of years back. And maybe I will.

But it was a seriously good, moving, heart wrenching book. My first reaction is to think the US should never leave Afghanistan until we are sure the Taliban never have the opportunity to take control of that country again.

But also, I realize that in many ways, our country tends to really mess things up when we get involved in other's affairs. Here I'm thinking about the support we gave the Afghanistan Mujahideen during the 1980's when they were trying to expel the Soviet Union from their country. While reading the book, I had to look up Massoud a figure that comes up periodically in the book. Knowing very little about the nuances of Afghanistan history, but ever willing to express an opinion, this quote struck me from wikipedia:

"The United States provided Massoud with close to no support. Part of the reason was that it permitted its funding and arms distribution to be administered by Pakistan, which favored rival mujahideen leader Gulbuddin Hekmatyar. In an interview Massoud expressed: "We thought the CIA knew everything. But they didn't. They supported some bad people [meaning Hekmatyar]." Primary advocates for supporting Massoud instead were State Department's Edmund McWilliams and Peter Tomsen, who were on the ground in Afghanistan and Pakistan. Others included two Heritage Foundation foreign policy analysts, Michael Johns and James A. Phillips, both of whom championed Massoud as the Afghan resistance leader most worthy of U.S. support under the Reagan Doctrine.["

Hekmatyar is also mentioned in the book and apparently he's the one who showers Kabul with rockets - the same rockets in the novel that kill Laila's parents.

Looking back, it's pretty obvious that the way we dealt with Russia was pretty myopic - as if they were the only bad guys in this world. I think Afghanistan could have turned out better if the US had used a little more sophistication in the way we handled the situation over there.

Water Birth

2011-01-22T22:23:00.005-07:00

Not too long ago I finished this book whose focus is how evolution and disease leads to surprising conclusions. I won't get into the evolution foray here, but I do want to quote this section of the book:

Legend has it that the first medical water birth took place in the early nineteenth century in France. Birth attendants were struggling to help a woman who had been in labor for more than forty-eight hours when one of the midwives suggested a warm bath might help the expectant mother to relax. According to the story, the baby was born shortly after the woman settled into the tub.

A Russian researcher named Igor Tjarkovsky is often credited as the father of modern water birthing. He designed a special tank in the 1960s for water birthing, but the trend didn't really catch on in the West until the early 1980s or so. The reaction of the medical establishment wasn't encouraging. In medical journals and the popular press, doctors suggested that water birthing was dangerous, filled with unacceptable risks of infection and drowning. It wasn't until 1999, when Ruth Gilbert and Pat Tookey of the Institute of Child Health in London published a serious study showing that water birth was at least as safe as conventional methods, that all these predictions of doom and gloom were shown to be largely baseless.

An even more recent Italian study, published in 2005, has confirmed the safety of water birthing - and demonstrated some stunning advantages. The Italian researchers compared 1,600 water births at a single institution over eight years to the conventional births at the same place during the same time.

First of all, there was no increase of infection in either mother or newborns. In fact there was apparently an additional protection for the newborn against aspiration pneumonia. Babies don't gasp for air until they feel the air on their face; when they're underwater, the mammalian diving reflex - present in all mammals - triggers them to hold their breath. (Fetuses do 'breath' while in their mother's womb, but they're actually sucking in amniotic fluid, not air, which forms a crucial part of their lung development.) When babies are delivered conventionally, they take their first breadth of air as soon as they feel air on their face; sometimes, if they get in a big breath before the doctor can clean their face, this causes them to inhale fecale matter or 'birthing residue' that can cause an infection in their lungs - aspiration pneumonia. But babies delivered underwater don't face that risk - until they're brought to the surface they don't switch from fetal circulation to regular circulation, so there's no risk of them inhaling water, and the attendants have plenty of time to clean their faces while they're still underwater, before lifting them out of it and triggering their first breath.

The study revealed many more benefits. First-time mothers delivering in water had a much shorter first stage of labor. Whether the water relaxed nervous minds or tired muscles or had some other effect, it clearly accelerated the deliver process. Women delivering in water also had a dramatic reduction in the need for episiotomies - the surgical cut routinely performed in the hospital births to expand a woman's vaginal opening in order to prevent complications from tearing. Most of the time they just weren't necessary - the water simply allowed for more of a stretch.

And perhaps most remarkably, the vast majority of the women who gave birth in water needed no painkillers. Only 5 percent of the women who started their labor in water asked for an epidural - com pared to 66 percent of the women who gave birth through conventional means.

---

A child development researcher named Myrtle McGraw documented these surprising abilities back in 1939 - not only do very young babies hold their breadth, they also make rhythmic movements that propel them through the water. Dr. McGraw found that this 'water-friendly' behavior is instinctual and lasts until babies are about four months old, when the movements become less organized."

My wife gave birth to our fourth baby, a girl, on Thursday morning, at home, in a birthing tub. The labor was extremely short, and less painful than our previous births. She did go through two rather painful contractions outside the tub on a birthing ball, but when she re-entered the water, the contractions were more manageable. Did I mention the labor was fast? The babies head appeared a few minutes before our naturapathic doctor's assistant arrived.

All in all it was an incredible and intense experience, and we've had the enormous blessing to relax with our healthy and happy baby in the comfort of our own home.

Also, as an aside, we were really lucky in the birth's timing. Our oldest daughter is diabetic and we were worried about managing her and the birth at the same time.

Well, my wife's labor started early in the morning and the baby came just in time to wake up our kids and bring them in to see the baby in my wife's arms. I even had time to do a blood sugar test in between one of my wife's early contractions.

Our newest daughter will be our last and the only home birth of the bunch - but by far the best experience of the four.

A Thousand Splendid Suns

2011-01-18T23:59:00.004-07:00

I began reading A Thousand Splendid Suns which depicts life in Afghanistan through the eyes of (so far) a young girl.

This girl, Mariam, enters this world when an elite man of the community, Jalil has an affair with one of his servants. Her mother raises Mariam alone in the outskirts of the town with the help of her father's money. He grows up worshiping Jalil (her father) who visits her every week with what seems like sincere affection.

I can't go into it here (really I'm just too lazy), but her mother ends up hanging herself when Mariam is 15 and as a result, Jalil (and his three wives) push Mariam into a forced marriage to a 45 year old man who lives in Kabul conveniently a distance far, far away. That's where I am.

Here's how this chapter (Chapter 8) finishes:

Jalil was busy telling her [Mariam] that Kabul was so beautiful, the Moghul emperor Babur had asked that he be buried there. Next, Mariam knew, he'd go on about Kabul's gardens, and its shops, its trees, and its air, and before long, she would be on the bus and he would walk alongside it, waving cheerfully, unscathed, spared.

Mariam could not bring herself to allow it.

'I used to worship you,' she said.

Jalil stopped in midsentence. He crossed and uncrossed his arms. A young Hindu couple, the wife cradling a boy, the husband dragging a suitcase, passed between them. Jalil seemed grateful for the interruption. They excused themselves, and he smiled back politely.

'On Thursdays, I sat for hours waiting for you. I worried myself sick that you wouldn't show up.'

'It's been a long trip. You should eat something.' He said he could buy her some bread and goat cheese.

'I thought about you all the time. I used to pray that you'd live to be a hundred years old. I didn't know. I didn't know that you were ashamed of me.'

Jalil looked down, and, like an overgrown child, dug at something with his to of his shoe.

'You were ashamed of me.'

'I'll visit you,' he muttered. 'I'll come to Kabul and see you. We'll --'

'No. No,' she said. 'Don't come. I won't see you. Don't you come. I don't want to hear from you. Ever. Ever.'

He gave her a wounded look.

'It ends here for you and me. Say your good-byes.'

'Don't leave like this,' he said in a thin voice.

'You didn't even have the decency to give me the time to say good-bye to Mullah Faizullah.'

She turned and walked around to the side of the bus. She could hear him following her. When she reached the hydraulic doors, she heard him behind her.

'Mariam jo.'

She climbed the stairs and though she could spot Jalil out of the corner of her eye walking parallel to her she did not look out the window. She made her way down the aisle to the back, where Rasheed sat with her suitcase between his feet. She did not turn to look when Jalil's palms pressed on the glass, when his knuckles rapped and rapped on it. When the bus jerked forward, she did not turn to see him trotting alongside it. And when the bus pulled away, she did not look back to see him receeding, to see him disappear in the cloud of exhaust and dust.

Rasheed, who took up the window and the middle seat, put thick hands on hers.

'There now, girl. There. There,' he said He was squinting out the window as he said this, as though something more interesting had caught his eye."

So many thoughts about the first eight chapters of this book culminating when a father, shamefully and cowardly, literally throws away his 15 year old daughter like she was nothing more than a used up doll, tossed aside through an arranged marriage with a 45 year old stranger.

So, many of my thoughts on politics come down to how will our societies adequately be judged? I think we're judged by how the most vulnerable among us are doing. How many human beings are dismissed and disregarded? How many people are treated like animals or property? How do we care for our elderly? Or our poor? Obviously, the biggest shame in our Constitution was the way black slaves were counted as 3/5 of a person, and even more so, that we even had slaves at all. Or in virtually every society throughout much of our history, how women have been and continue to be deplorably treated and abused.

I know personally, its really difficult to recognize that every single person I encounter has a huge back story most likely filled with at least some amount tragedy and loss. Do I really succeed in putting myself in others shoes - even the homeless man? I know I have a long way to go personally.

I think what happens when you get to a certain place, there's so much fear that you will lose it. Jalil was the man in his town, owned lots of businesses, had three wives, ten children to them. He had Mariam with a servant girl and he risked shame. I'm not sure how much of a risk this was, the book didn't go into it. Would he loose anything if he took responsibility? It was certain neither of his three wives wanted Mariam around.

One more thought about this book. The author, Khaled Hossseini literally puts me in the shoes of Mariam jo, this obscure Aghanistani girl in a land I have no experience with. Reading these sorts of novels, helps to increase empathy.

"In a study published earlier this year psychologist Raymond A. Mar of York University in Toronto and others demonstrated that the number of stories preschoolers read predicts their ability to understand the emotions of others. Mar has also shown that adults who read less fiction report themselves to be less empathic."

I'm wondering how most people rate empathy on a scale of important personal characteristics, but I would suggest that for Christians, empathy was at the center of Christ's life and for Mormon's and I'm guessing for others as well it was a central part of his suffering and death:

"Jesus' perfect empathy was ensured when, along with His Atonement for our sins, He took upon Himself our sicknesses, sorrows, griefs, and infirmities and came to know these 'according to the flesh' (Alma 7:11-12). He did this in order that He might be filled with perfect, personal mercy and empathy and thereby know how to succor us in our infirmities. He thus fully comprehends human suffering." - Neal A. Maxwell

So, yeah, empathy is pretty important religiously speaking. But what about business? What does it really mean when we're building something to be purchased by another. We are anticipating someone else's needs and trying to fulfill them. At the heart of capitalism - when it works well - is empathy.

Its interesting to read a novel about Afghanistan considering we are currently fighting our longest war there right now.

Obviously, its a country far too complex to comment about considering I know virtually nothing about it. But I think it's a country worth learning about. And that - an awareness of a country we are occupying - too, should be reflected in our politics.

On the Political Commentating after Gifford's Assassination Attempt

2011-01-09T18:49:00.004-07:00

First of all, these murders are obviously horrifying and disturbing on so many levels. Our Democracy depends on a respect for the election process and if someone fears for their life if they choose to vote on a controversial issue, this is a major, major problem. We want our elected legislatures to vote for bills with their conscious. If they vote against the will of the majority in their represented district, they will suffer consequences in the next election cycle. Obviously, the worst that should happen is that they lose their jobs not their lives.

What's more is that Giffords was out there engaging with her constituency when an attack on her life was made - this kind of violence will only further insulate our politicians from the people they represent. It is sad.

I'm not sure how many people really paid attention, but Harry Mitchell received death threats after he voted for the Health care bill and stopped having town halls because of it.

The Judge John Roll who was one of the victims who lost their life on Saturday had previously received death threats after ruling in favor of illegal immigrants who has sued a rancher.

And, of course Gabrielle Giffords herself had also received threats of violence for her votes on health care.

All of this is so sad and so disturbing and of course not entirely unique, read this brief history of American assassinations (and attempts) and the motives behind them.

But what can we learn from this? I really hope and pray that the extremes of our politics are marginalized from this. That the more moderate and civil among us come out of this ahead. I would love to see AM talk radio lose a lot of support, and the likes of Glenn Beck and Mark Levin lose sponsors, viewers and listeners.

I don't blame any of these people in any way, but the kind of hatred on the air-waves is certainly not helpful.

Here's Andrew Sullivan:

"But the level of animus toward the new president and anyone supporting him reached preposterous proportions at the beginning of this presidency; the gracelessness from the Congressional leadership on down, from 'You lie!' to 'death panels' and 'palling around with terrorists' ... this is a real problem in a country with its fair share of disturbed individuals and much more than its fair share of guns.

The Palin forces, who have fomented this dynamic more viciously and recklessly than any other group, are reacting today with incandescent rage that they could even be mentioned in the same breath as this act of political terrorism. That's called denial. When you put a politician in literal cross-hairs, when you call her a target, when you celebrate how many targets you have hit, when you go on national television and shoot guns, when you use the language of "lock and load" to describe disagreements over healthcare provision ... you are part of the problem."

Finally, here's a conservative response comparing this mass murder to the one in Fort Hood.

I do think we have to be careful with our finger pointing, but certainly a move toward civility and compassion and a world where Americans are Americans who can disagree but at the end of the day still be friends is something I want to support.

Does Sarah Palin's rhetoric encourage that? I say it does not and I hope she and her kind (of any political stripe) lose a lot of political influence as a result.

State Budget Crisis

2011-01-08T00:59:00.002-07:00

Random Musings has a pretty good overview of the trouble with our state budget explained in great detail here.

I wanted to mainly summarize my reading of the article published on the Morrison Institute website because this is really important stuff.

The article's primary point is that our state is running both a cyclical but more troubling a structural deficit that will be increasingly difficult to resolve. The cyclical deficit stems from our current recession - tax revenue have fallen while at the same time there's an increased demand for government services - stuff like medicaid, etc.

However, the structural deficits are much more troubling because they persist even as we recover and they were primarily caused by:

"Less understood is the depth of the state’s massive structural imbalance, which has arisen thanks in large part to policy choices made during the go-go years of the state’s recent past but which will not soon relent. During the growth years, legislative and executive leaders acted as if the state could maintain a basic level of service provision even as it implemented tax cuts that permanently reduced the state’s revenue base."

How we deal with this structural deficit is key:

"With one-time fixes, gimmicks, and fund sweeps exhausted, budget cuts from this point forward could—if handled crudely—prove devastating and difficult to recover from. Serious discussions among state leaders have included opting out of Medicaid, cutting a K-12 system often cited before the recession for receiving the lowest per-pupil funding in the nation, and significantly reducing funding for the state’s university system. At the same time, if managed well (that is, with a balanced
approach and a sense of strategy and rigor) the crisis might actually prompt innovation instead of just pain.

I'm afraid our political culture here in Arizona is not well suited for dealing with this issue in a sophisticated way and that can have consequences if they aggressively cut services that are critical for the long term growth of our state (schools, say).

Sources of our structural deficits:

Tax Cuts

"Beginning in FY 1993, the state implemented tax cuts in every year through FY 2002, and again from FYs 2005 through 2010 (though in only about half of these years was the revenue reduction substantial). Nominally, the net changes during this 17-year period totaled some $1.7 billion. Adjusting for inflation, population growth, and real per capita economic growth, the cumulative impact climbs to $2.9 billion. All kinds of taxes were cut, but 58 percent of the total in nominal dollars came from the personal income tax.5 "

Spending Increases

"On the other side of the budget ledger, two major impacts on general fund expenditures have occurred since the structural deficit began in the early 1990s. First, funding for school construction was shifted into the general fund in FY 1999, with no additional revenue being provided. The annual expense has been as high as $500 million. Second, in 2000 voters passed two competing ballot initiatives to expand Medicaid by using tobacco settlement monies. However, the specified funding source was inadequate to support the expansions, so additional funding had to be drawn from the general fund. "

All of this has consequences, we've already seen a 20% cut in K-12 spending, 28% cut in university budgets, a cut in benefits to needy families (kicking out 8,200 families) and a termination of support for organ transplants funded by Medicaid.

One very important suggestion:

"Lawmakers should embrace balance as a watchword as they seek to stabilize year-to-year finances and narrow structural gaps. One sort of balance should be a balance of revenue- and spending-side responses. The state’s massive budget gaps simply cannot be responsibly closed with only spending reductions. A second sort of balance is that which arises from diversification of the tax system. The proliferation of tax reductions implemented in the state since the early 1990s have made the revenue system not only narrower, but also more vulnerable to cyclical variations in the economy. State leaders need to commit to a more balanced approach and to making the hard choices on both the spending and revenues sides of the budget to achieve it. "

Is Deron Williams better than Chris Paul?

2011-01-02T21:28:00.006-07:00

Honestly, I'm not sure why I care that much about this debate, other than my in-laws in Utah are big Deron Williams homers. It all started on draft night when I read Bill Simmon's draft journal where he says this:

Following a trade with Portland, Utah takes Deron (don't call me De-RON) Williams at No. 3. Perfect pick – with some luck, he'll be half as good as Chris Paul.

Now, I watch virtually no sports these days, and I wish I could. Instead, I read about sports, so take this post for what it's worth. But I love getting into the statistics, so when I discovered The Wages of Wins website occasionally I'll drop on by to see what they have to say. And they've consistently rated Chris Paul not just the best point guard in league but one of the best ever and one of the best in the league at any position, year after year.

Well, I've been casually following Chris Paul this year, and when New Orlean's got off to their fast start I was pretty excited, but they have since slowed waaay down and it seemed like Deron Williams was putting up better numbers this year as I would occasionally scan their respective box scores.

I also know that there are serious concerns about Chris Paul's knee, so I was willing to concede on this debate this season...

But then I read this article about Chris Paul this season on Wages of Wins. No comparison to Deron Williams here, but they do say:

"As the following table notes, Chris Paul is really very, very, good. In fact, Paul is once again among the leaders in the NBA in Wins Produced. "

And I said to myself, whaaat? So, I checked for myself, here are the stats of the two player side by side, this season

Chris Paul: MIN: 34.9, FG %: .497, 3P%: .447, FT%: .910, STL: 3.00, TO: 2.4, PF: 2.5, Rebounds: 4.4, Assists: 9.9, Points: 16.6

Deron Williams: MIN: 37.9, FG %: .471, 3P%: .369, FT% .844, STL: 1.20, TO: 3.3, PF: 2.9, Rebounds: 3.9, Assists: 9.3, Points 22.2

Now the only statistic Deron Williams is doing better in this year is points, but in every other category he's doing worse, again this year. Wages of Wins makes the point that points is the statistic that gets the most attention, which is why many people believe Deron Williams is having a better year (he is having a great year, I'm not arguing that), but points scored is misleading. If someone consumes a lot of shots to get their points (think Allen Iverson, Carmelo Anthony or Kobe Bryant), they are actually hurting their team.

For this reason, the more important measure is how much a player does to maximize the number of possessions that turn into points for their team, and it's here where Chris Paul excels at historical levels. He turns the ball over very infrequently for a point guard, he gets lots of steals, he is a good rebounder at his position, he shoots the ball at a very high percentage and he gets a high number of assists. In other words he maximizes the number of possessions his teams gets with the ball (turnovers, steals and rebounds) and converts those possessions into points at a very high percentage (shooting percentage, assists).

The one difference this year, because Chris Paul is still recovering from a really bad knee injury that he suffered last year, is that Paul's minutes have been limited compared to previous years and compared to Deron Williams this year. This is a factor (given equivalent minutes, his turnovers would be slightly higher - but so also would be his steals, points, assists, and rebounds). Also, the minutes Chris Paul sits, another less effective (than Paul and Williams) guard is playing which does hurt the team's ability to win.

But when you look at his statistics, it is easy to see why Chris Paul is one of the best point guards ever to play the game.

Again, his knee problems may shorten his career and in the end Deron Williams, based solely on career longevity, may end up being the better pick for the Utah Jazz. But there should be no doubt that for the past six years of their respective careers, Chris Paul has been clearly the better player, and he is having the better year, this year.

UPDATE:

Wages of Wins has an article on the Utah Jazz and Deron Williams.

So, here's the "Wins Produced" data side by side:

Deron Williams: 17.0 wins produced.
Chris Paul: 26.6 wins produced.

What Did I Ship in 2010?

2011-01-01T22:24:00.004-07:00

In my last post I linked Seth Godin but I didn't read carefully and I missed the last part of the post:

"Your turn to post a list somewhere... You'll probably be surprised at how much you accomplished last year. Go ahead and share with your friends, colleagues or the web... don't be shy."

Then, my friend Helena posted this in the comments:

"I look forward to Sara telling me all your great new goals. I also look forward to seeing what you "shipped" last year, if you plan on posting it. I think I'd have a hard time claiming something like that, especially after reading Seth's(?was that his name?) list."

So, I challenged her, I'll make my list if she makes hers.

Here's a partial list of what I shipped in 2010:

Church Calling Related

The ward's Father's And Sons Event

Spring Barbecue for the Elder's Quorum

Summer Pizza and Splash Pad Event for the Elder's Quorum

Brief note about the last two: These are two events that have become a tradition for the quorum, we've done them now for three years or so straight, and they've always been pretty well attended. I organized them originally because I've been in Elder's Quorum callings now for a while and I just had this voice whisper in my head - be aggressive, be aggressive. Which is another word for just shipping. And that's what I did.

Work Related
I'm a little timid to go into too much detail here, but in 2010 I was part of a team that delivered two major releases - the first is on the live site right now and if you paid with PayPal in 2010, chances are good you hit some code I wrote. The second will be released in 2011, but we turned it over to test before the holidays, so I'm counting it.

The second major work thing I did was to present a 40 minute tech talk to the Scottsdale development center. It was my first, and I hope to do more this year.

Home and Family

Laminated three of our four bedrooms

Was the assistant coach of our son's soccer team

Organized a violin concert for our oldest daughter to raise money for JDRF

Led a team to raise $2000 for JDRF for diabetes research.

Those are my major "shipping" accomplishments for 2010. I look forward to hearing about yours.

Helena, you're now on the hook.

Happy New Year - 2011!

2011-01-01T00:51:00.003-07:00

Just a really short post - the first one for 2011. Obviously, I look forward to an incredible 2011. It's also a nice time to reflect on 2010 and how much I have in my life right now. 2010 really wasn't that significant of a year for me personally. It was more of just a continuation of a lot of different things - basically just trying to grind through in a lot of different ways.

But having kids, watching them grow a little older, having a wife whose perfect for me, living during a really incredibly time in this planet earth - where despite the challenges, we have so many opportunities.

My wife and I discovered this cafe today after we dropped our kids off at my parents house and searched for a place where we could sit down and set some 2011 goals. Let me just tell you what a cool place this was, and in the heart of Mesa. You know Mesa has a pretty good downtown that could be pretty great and there are some real treasures hidden in there. We'll definitely be going back here - highly recommended.

But, I am excited for the new year. My wife and I set some exciting goals, so I'm expecting this will be a year where we can really accomplish some things, and grow, and hopefully really ship something important.

But mostly, I'm just really grateful for my time on this planet earth and the relationships I've been able to make, and most of all the family I've been so lucky to have in my life.

Happy New Year everyone!

Are Men the New Ball and Chain?

2010-12-28T23:56:00.006-07:00

A lot of women talk on TED right now.

This one Hanna Rosin goes on about how the global economy is shifting the power balance between men and women. Men are getting hit harder by the current recession; they are graduating at lower rates than men; women are taking more managerial positions; young women are now earning more than young men.

This TED talk, in some ways, blames old-school men-style thinking in the financial sector for the global financial meltdown. Well, not exactly, but they did start a financial company using feminine qualities that survived through the Icelandic financial crisis.

So, what do I, a man, make of all this? Well, I can't make broad generalities, but I can compare myself with, say, my wife. I definitely have qualities she doesn't have; there are definitely some things I can do that she can't or at least not as well. Definitely, the same thing can be said in reverse (and I'm hesitant to say, but I'm sure its true - that overall she brings more to the table than I do).

But are women going to be entering the work force while men stay home? Is that our future?

I like what I do on my job, and in some small ways, I think what I'm doing is important and I want to do more important work more often.

But, as I watch how hard my wife works with our kids and when I see the work she does in the community, I have to say, that the work she does is far more important for more people than the work I'm doing. The difference is that I get paid for it and she mostly doesn't.

And I would have to say, that the most important work (more or less) people don't pay (or get paid) for it or they pay far less for what they're getting than what its worth.

So if women are being lured into the workforce in greater percentages and if what they bring matter more in our current economy than what men bring. What will men be left doing? This isn't me asking by the way, Hanna Rosin herself asks it:

"I went to a men's group in Kansas and these were the same kinds of victims of the manufacturing economy that I spoke to you about earlier. They were men who had been contractors or they were building houses and had lost their jobs at the end of the housing boom. And they were in this group because they were failing to pay their child support. And the instructor was up there in this class explaining to them all the ways they had lost their identity in this new age. He was telling them they no longer had any moral authority, no one needed them for emotional support anymore, and they were not really the providers. So who were they? And this was really disheartening for them. And what he did was he wrote on the board $85,000. That's her salary. Then he wrote down $12,000 and that's your salary. Who's the man now? She's the damn man. That sent a shutter through the room."

Is this our future? Women taking over the work force and then hiring other women to take care of their children? While men, well? Sit in prison? Go off and fight wars?

Not sure what to think of any of this, but I think its something worth discussing.

Christmas: A Post Mortem

2010-12-27T23:09:00.004-07:00

I really should have posted (read and absorbed) this article before Christmas, really before Christmas shopping, but its fun to consider it after the holidays as well. Its all about the economics of Christmas, a holiday that has widely been assumed to be a boon to our economy. Well, hate to break it to you, it turns out that its not.

"It suggests that in America, where givers spend $40 billion on Christmas gifts, $4 billion is being lost annually in the process of gift-giving. Add in birthdays, weddings and non-Christian occasions, and the figure would balloon."

The reason is simple. The amount of money the buyer spends on a gift is often greater than the amount that gift is worth to the receiver. This is especially true when there's a big age disparity between the receiver and the giver, and/or when they are not closely connected. This disparity in worth makes both the giver and the receiver poorer.

I'm sure you can relate, I know I can. I have received gifts that I did not really want, or didn't really want that badly. Of course and probably more often, I've given gifts that weren't really enjoyed by the recipient. And in these cases, we are all poorer. The giver spent money on something reducing her wealth. The receiver received something she didn't want. Lose/lose.

There are cases when this works out and the article lists some of them.

If the giver knows a lot more about something than the receiver and the receiver has an interest in it. My sister bought me a subscription to the New Yorker some years back and basically changed (after reading issue after incredibly written issue) my politics. My wife just renewed that subscription this year, saying "I'm so glad we have the New Yorker again in our house" - proving that this gift was just as much for her as it was for me. My sister already enjoyed this magazine, knew I would probably enjoy it as well, but knew I probably wouldn't take the step to purchase it - I was richer as a result.

The giver of the gift basically gives the recipient permission to consume something they probably would not have allowed themselves to consume otherwise, but still they desire it. Say, chocolate? Or some other indulgence - I gave my wife a massage one year which she thoroughly enjoyed but would never buy for herself.

Gifts that have incredibly high sentimental value qualify. My sister-in-law Suzie compiled the weekly e-mails my wife sends out to family and friends complete with pictures and a summary of the week (The Turley Family Newsletter) and published them in a book. It was incredibly generous - this kind of thing is not cheap - but it's a priceless to us. Yes, we came out of the holidays very rich.

Gift cards and/or money should be given if you truly cannot meet the qualifications above. I think overall, we did a pretty good job making our kids happy, and we actually received a lot of happiness from the gifts we received. We did get gift cards and our kids got money from the right relatives. Otherwise, the gifts qualified as thoughtful and appreciated.

So, maybe collectively, we can all do our part to reduce the over $4 billion loss to our economy each year by making Christmas economically more efficient.

By the way, Amazon is innovating around this economic principle, but is taking some heat for it. We'll see how that plays out.

I Love Christmas

2010-12-24T07:09:00.003-07:00

No matter how stressful the holidays can be, I love Christmas. I love gifts - the giving and the receiving. I love the myths and the magic around the holidays - Santa Claus and the elves and how excited all this makes our kids. I love the movies and the songs and the candy and the food. And of course, I love the religious parts of the Christmas celebration, the holiness of that sacred night when a Savior was born.

It's easy to get all huffy about the commercialization of the holidays - I remember my parents giving me this lecture actually.

But being a parent, I love living vicariously through my kids I must say. I remember how fun it was on Christmas eve singing carols with my family and then I would go to bed early because I wanted Christmas morning to arrive as quickly as possible and how hard it was to go to sleep. I love the thought that my kids will be in the same situation I once was. My parents struggled with the holidays, but my older sisters often stepped in, and I really appreciate this gift from them.

I think its easy to get huffy about the holidays (watch the above video for a lot of extra huffiness) and I can relate to it - I got a little bit huffy about Disneyland a while back. But you know what turned me on to Disneyland, other than the general downright fun of it of course? It was while I was on the wildly fun "Souring Over California" ride and at the end, there's that famous Disneyland fairy that fly's over Disneyland while the fire works go off. In that one second, the whole thing clicked for me. The magic and the fun of Disneyland - all of the movies of Disney and the rides and the fun. I bought it into it.

I guess, more generally, I love commerce, yes I love the commercialization of Christmas and all of the holidays for that matter. At the heart of it, this is nothing more than what each of us collectively pours our heart and soul in to produce. Receiving a gift with joy is just celebrating the art produced by another person. Sure, a lot of this depends on what we bring to the holiday. And there's more than enough rope to hang yourself in our society. But when properly consumed, Christmas can be an incredibly uplifting holiday. Of course, it doesn't matter how much or how little money a person has, but its a holiday where we can enjoy a little excess no matter how small that excess may be. Or hopefully, if someone's a little short and literally has no excess, someone else will reach out and share what they have with another.

After all, we are all in this together. Let's celebrate and share with one another. But giving a gift requires a receiver - and both those who give a gift and those who receive it can find joy in these holidays and in these very exchanges this holiday promotes.

Seth Godin talks about gifts here.

"When done properly, gifts work like nothing else. A gift gladly accepted changes everything. The imbalance creates motion, motion that pushes us to a new equilibrium, motion that creates connection.

The key is that the gift must be freely and gladly accepted. Sending someone a gift over the transom isn't a gift, it's marketing. Gifts have to be truly given, not given in anticipation of a repayment. True gifts are part of being in a community (willingly paying taxes for a school you will never again send your grown kids to) and part of being an artist (because the giving motivates you to do ever better work).

Plus, giving a gift feels good."

Merry Christmas everyone.

Bradley Manning's solitary confinement

2010-12-20T08:03:00.005-07:00

For those of you who don't know, Bradley Manning is the private accused of releasing secrete information to Julian Assange that was recently leaked to the press via wikileaks.

I posted the following links on facebook recently:

Glenn Greenwald's critique of the way the US Marine corp is treating Bradley Manning.

I'm not a big fan of Glenn Greenwald, he's not on my blog roll. He's been a pretty big critic of the Obama administration and the way he's continued Bush's war on terror. Its hard to disagree with Greenwald on most of his charges actually, but I'm just not a regular reader.

But here are two people who are on my blogroll who agree with Greenwald on this issue:

Megan McArdle.

"The way our society treats prisoners is shocking, and to me, frankly un-American. Extended solitary confinement, prison rape--we tolerate things that we would never allow if we thought there was any chance that they might happen to us. But since prisoners come from a different social class, and are often members of a racial minority, we ignore it. In fact, we joke about it. America wouldn't treat stray dogs the way it treats the millions of human beings it has incarcerated. This is not just a problem for them, though it is, horrifically so. It turns us into torturers and rapists, because we are the ones who pay for the system, and implicitly endorse its terrorizing prisoners."

Matthew Yglesias:

"But Manning hasn’t had a trial and hasn’t been convicted. Somewhat punitive post-arrest pre-trial measures are kind of a necessary evil, but the prolonged confinement of Manning under cruel conditions go well beyond the necessary into the straightforward evil."

I am a big fan of Atul Gawande who wrote this about solitary confinement which is an article practically impossible to pull out a single quote from. You must read the entire thing to appreciate the horrors of solitary confinement, but he clearly makes the case that solitary confinement is torture.

Posting these links on facebook led to a pretty lengthy discussion that I won't repeat here, but I think the main defense of Manning's treatment is that Manning is a really, really bad person and basically deserves what he gets. That the information he leaked has caused countless lives and real suffering in the world. Leaking this information is not a far cry from actually directly enabling suicide bombers, assisting in the sex trafficking trade, and directly killing American soldiers who are working in secret in the most dangerous places on earth because what he leaked seriously damaged the US military's ability to take down these secret networks and put American soldiers lives at risk. I won't dispute in a direct way any of this although it hardly answers the question why is solitary confinement necessary.

But, it leads me to a larger thought. Is what we're doing the best way to limit or end sex trafficking? Suicide bombers? Terrorists?

There's no doubt in my mind the US military has a key role to play in challenging the modern threats that exist in the world today. There's also no doubt that the US military and other military's around the world need to protect the information they have to keep their soldiers safe and to protect us more effectively.

But there are real limitations to what the military can accomplish in this regard. We are no longer facing a Cold War scenario where our most serious dangers consist of opposing world powers and the key to winning is based on how much more intelligence we have compared with to our enemies.

The world is much more messy now than it used to be. Information is now much more difficult to protect and its also becoming less relevant.

Terrorism, the sex and drug trades, suicide bombers. These are all symptoms of poverty and chaos. These are regions of the world where governments barely exist, where the economy barely functions, and people are marginalized because they lack opportunity, education, and access to functioning commerce. The power in these environments lie in secrete underground organizations - drug cartels, mafia organizations, and terrorists.

I'm not sure how or if it's even possible to eliminate these threats, but it seems in order to minimize them, we need more transparency, more trust in our institutions from those most effected by these horrors.

We also need to enable trade, build schools, and open borders. Allow people access to education wherever they can get it. And then do our best to build schools closer to where they live. If not in Afghanistan then in Pakistan or in Jordan or in Iraq.

The key in my mind is not more bombs and guns, it is more schools, more commerce, more free trade (not perfectly so), more open borders (not completely open). Allowing more people opportunity and in my mind giving them a greater chance to limit what ails the world than bombs and guns could do.

It seems to me that we need to build the trust and strong relationships with those who live in these regions. Keeping secrets may, in the end, hinder our ability to do this.

Why Americans Don't Go Into Engineering

2010-12-18T09:20:00.002-07:00

Ok, maybe they are, but anecdotally, they sure don't seem to be getting programming or IT jobs. I work at a pretty big dot com company, I got my masters degree in Computer Science at ASU and in both instances I was demographically very much in the minority. In my current position, I work primarily with people who have immigrated either from India or China and our company has a big development center in India many with whom I work pretty closely.

Well, not long ago I came across this article about the banking system in America.

Here, the article talks about the growth of America's financial system from 1/7th of the economy to about 1/3.

Since 1980, according to the Bureau of Labor Statistics, the number of people employed in finance, broadly defined, has shot up from roughly five million to more than seven and a half million. During the same period, the profitability of the financial sector has increased greatly relative to other industries. Think of all the profits produced by businesses operating in the U.S. as a cake. Twenty-five years ago, the slice taken by financial firms was about a seventh of the whole. Last year, it was more than a quarter. (In 2006, at the peak of the boom, it was about a third.) In other words, during a period in which American companies have created iPhones, Home Depot, and Lipitor, the best place to work has been in an industry that doesn’t design, build, or sell a single tangible thing.

In this paragraph, it talks about the wages, where financiers used to be paid on average the same as those with the same qualifications in other industries. Their wages have grown tremendously since.

From the end of the Second World War until 1980 or thereabouts, people working in finance earned about the same, on average and taking account of their qualifications, as people in other industries. By 2006, wages in the financial sector were about sixty per cent higher than wages elsewhere. And in the richest segment of the financial industry—on Wall Street, that is—compensation has gone up even more dramatically. Last year, while many people were facing pay freezes or worse, the average pay of employees at Goldman Sachs, Morgan Stanley, and JPMorgan Chase’s investment bank jumped twenty-seven per cent, to more than three hundred and forty thousand dollars. This figure includes modestly paid workers at reception desks and in mail rooms, and it thus understates what senior bankers earn. At Goldman, it has been reported, nearly a thousand employees received bonuses of at least a million dollars in 2009.

This paragraph talks about why many of our brightest are getting into finance over other fields such as say engineering:

Not surprisingly, Wall Street has become the preferred destination for the bright young people who used to want to start up their own companies, work for NASA, or join the Peace Corps. At Harvard this spring, about a third of the seniors with secure jobs were heading to work in finance. Ben Friedman, a professor of economics at Harvard, recently wrote an article lamenting 'the direction of such a large fraction of our most-skilled, best-educated, and most highly motivated young citizens to the financial sector.'

I don't think this is a full explanation. But when I talk to my Indian friends, there's this pipeline of young talent in India who attend college to pursue IT or CS degrees and the field is booming in select regions of India not to mention the many who come here to work for US companies - jobs Americans seem ever increasingly less interested in filling.

Again, I don't have a good explanation, but here's what I know from my own experience:

In the late 1990's the dot com, telecommunications industry, and computer industry simultaneously boomed and as a result everyone was getting into programming. As the decade drew to a close, there was a push to outsource manufacturing and eventually programming jobs overseas where the work force made significantly less money for the same work.

At the time, I was working in the defense sector and I knew many of my colleagues were in defense because it was an industry that could not get outsourced.

And it was true a lot of companies felt they could get something for cheap by just shipping jobs overseas. But I think now, companies are forced to go to India and China and other countries because there are simply not enough qualified workers here to fill the number of workers required to meet the labor needs.

It is true that Indian and Chinese workers in India and China have lower wages, but that won't be true indefinitely. As those countries develop, labor costs will rise.

And the software industry is not a race to the bottom industry. Just because a worker is paid a low wage doesn't mean he is cheap. It they don't produce that is a problem with far more consequences on the bottom line than if you paid for the brightest talent in the first place. So companies need to go where talent exists and then pay for that talent.

There's so much potential in engineering and science. So much we could develop and haven't. This is far from a zero sum game.

So, I'm not sure why Americans aren't interested in engineering? Is it because we don't enjoy math? Or that we get paid a lot more money moving money around the economy than we would building things? Or is it fear that we can't compete with the Chinese.

I'm not sure, but I'm afraid it's a problem.

If You're Going to Vote Republican, You Better Act Like A Democrat

2010-12-11T23:58:00.002-07:00

I just wanted to follow up on my last post, by inverting the phrasing a bit to show this this can go both ways. Since I vote Democratic, this post is directed toward those of you who vote another way. Because if you really want to cut government services to the poor and cut taxes for the rich, then you better help out the poor because the government sure isn't going to do it.

Ideally, the well off would find ways to associate with those who lack means. Sell your house buried within the confines of a well-off gated community and purchase something in a more integrated community. Sell your mansion and buy something more modest. Stop using your wealth to separate yourselves from other, but instead use it as a resource to uplift and build your community.

One tenant of the conservative movement as I understand it is that those who make the money are more inclined to use it in more useful ways then the government. Maybe so, but then prove it. Invest in the community, find ways to make sure education and health care access is ubiquitously available.

If we had the rich voluntarily pursuing greater equality in society, than government would have much less to do.

Vote Democratic, but act Like a Republican

2010-12-06T22:03:00.006-07:00

I don't mean much by this title, so let's get this straight first. There are plenty of fine liberals and conservatives. I'm just having a little fun. I am actually playing off the phrase, "pray like everything depends on the Lord, then act like everything depends on you". I had a discussion the other day with a friend about the Obama health care bill - its an issue I care deeply about and I've followed fairly closely, so I have pretty strong opinions on it. But then he found out we were planning on home birthing our fourth baby (due in January).

He also knew that I have come down recently in favor of properly funding public schools even though we home school.

This was incongruous to him, and he wanted to use it as a reason to stop the debate on these points a lone. You see to him, I was voting Democratic but I was behaving like a Republican. I wanted big government (his words) but I was rejecting government in every meaningful way in my own life. I want government, but for others not for myself. In his words, he lost interest in this whole debate because he could no longer take my arguments seriously.

Of course, I see things a bit differently. I want just enough government, but I also want to do everything in my power to succeed. Even if we weren't home schooling, I would hope that my wife and I would be engaged as much as we possibly were able in our children's schooling. I would hope that our kid's teachers would welcome our involvement and our advocacy on their behalf. I would try to find teachers that would allow for that.

Same thing for health care, actually. Do I just want to turn my health over to some nameless doctor at some massive hospital institution? In my experience that's exactly what they want you to do. But in each of our births, we took control - self diagnosing my wife's choestasis in her first pregnancy convincing them to do the necessary blood work to prove she had it, which ultimately led to an early induction and possibly saved our oldest daughter's life?

I have discussed the economy on this blog and how I've wanted our government to handle the mess we're in, but our economy continues to be stuck in the mud (they just don't listen to me darn it).

But unemployment can be an opportunity or it can be devastating. When a person loses their job, its definitely devastating, but it might be the impetus one needs to launch into a new career, take a risk and start a business, retool one's network, get training they've been putting off. In fact, if every single person who lost their job, got out there and not only worked their tail off to find another, they continued to work whether it be pro bono, they continued to learn, they continued to serve, our recessions wouldn't be nearly so recessionary.

It's why I love Seth Godin's blog so much. Especially when he says stuff like this:

"We are surprised when someone self-directed arrives on the scene. Someone who figures out a way to work from home and then turns that into a two-year journey, laptop in hand, as they explore the world while doing their job. We are shocked that someone uses evenings and weekends to get a second education or start a useful new side business. And we're envious when we encounter someone who has managed to bootstrap themselves into happiness, as if that's rare or even uncalled for."

Or when we make excuses saying we can't really afford graduate school then I come across cheap and in many ways more appealing alternatives to graduate school.

So, I'm trying to stay focused on two tracks in my life. I want to do my part to encourage and promote good legislation because in many ways I know how much I depend on good governance. But I also want to work like mad in my career, in my church, and in my family to help myself and others support and sustain my government, my country, my community.

In the end, our country needs each one of us pulling the most out of ourselves to succeed.

A Republican Conservative is at heart a "supply sider". We need to make sure we produce as much supply as we possibly can, each one of us. So, that our lives and the lives of others around us are enriched.

What Could Have Obama Done Differently?

2010-12-03T22:49:00.005-07:00

To be honest, I've been pretty supportive of Obama's first two years. On almost every issue, I've seen the merits of what he's done, and although I've almost always wished he would have done more, I've understood why in the political environment he was in, he didn't.

Admittedly having 60 seats in the Senate (well for like six months he had 60 seats, he didn't get to 60 until July 7, 2009 when Al Franken finally won his disputed Minnesota seat, and then he lost it again when Scott Brown won the Massachusetts seat on January 9th, 2010) and a Democratic controlled Congress gave him a pretty cushy political environment. Except that a substantial number of Democratic Senators and Representatives represented conservative states and districts and would only support moderate bills. Also, the Republican party decided pretty early on that it was in their best political interest to oppose Obama on everything, but not only oppose, but to make him seem like the most liberal, socialist, anti-American person that ever lived.

The Republican party is the master of sound bites and they have a pretty effective media machine between AM talk radio and FOX news that can reiterate those sound bites virtually on command. And those soundbites are riveting and convincing - freedom, liberty, personal responsibility. So, even in the minority they have a powerful voice.

So, Obama had the power to accomplish a lot, but there were real limitations to how big that "a lot" could become.

So, looking back on what he did accomplish, he was successful, but could he have done better. I don't think he could have passed more legislation through. He basically used every last bit of political firepower he had to do what he did. Passing immigration reform or an energy bill or something else wasn't happening. Getting a more expansive health reform bill wasn't happening, he was lucky to get what he got, and he barely got what he got.

But maybe his priorities weren't right. Maybe he should have went after a different combination of achievements that would have left our country in a better place two years later.

Enter this rather blistering analysis by the economist Brad DeLong.

DeLong is focused in this article on the state of our economy and here he agonizes over the senseless and avoidable almost 10% unemployment that we seem to be stuck at for almost two years now (and counting).

Most people don't realize how irrational this recession was to begin with:

"For one thing, the initial financial shock that set the downturn in motion was remarkably small. We got irrationally exuberant about the demand for housing and the trajectory of housing prices. We built five million houses extra - largely in the swamps of Florida and in the desert between Los Angeles and Albuquerque - that simply should not have been built. Their cost of construction was to a first approximation covered entirely by mortgage debt. And on average one of those five million houses the purchaser took out $100,000 in mortgage debt that simply will never be repaid: the buyer cannot afford it and the house is not worth it. That means that, as of the end of 2007, there were $500 billion of financial losses to be allocated: somebody's bonds and derivatives were going to pay off $500 billion less than people thought."

In one paragraph, DeLong makes a pretty convincing estimate of the real world value loss incurred by the housing bubble - $500 billion. That's a real, tangible financial loss that had to be absorbed by the world economy in some way. And that sounds like a big number, but...

"Now in a global economy with $80 trillion worth of financial wealth, a $500 billion loss due to irrational exuberance and malinvestment should not be a problem. Double it or quadruple it and it still should not be a problem. We have modern, sophisticated, highly liquid financial markets. We have originate-and-distribute-securitization to slice, dice, and spread risk broadly across the whole globe so that nobody bears any significant part of and so is ruined by any idiosyncratic risk like mortgage defaults..."

The real problem was not the housing bubble, the problem was the way our financial institutions behaved during the housing bubble, using it as a foundation to make profits on even greater leverage:

"Regulatory forebearance allowed investment banks to ramp up their leverage to unheard-of-levels--30 to 1?--on the grounds that the financiers' had their fortunes at risk and knew their business."...

"So when the $500 billion loss hit, it hit the capital of highly-leveraged financial institutions and transformed all the liabilities of America's banks from safe, secure, and liquid high-quality assets to unsafe, insecure, and illiquid low-quality assets."

"Thus an enormous worldwide flight to quality. A $500 billion fundamental loss triggers a $20 trillion decline in global financial asset values with a financial accelerator of 40 as everybody tried to dump their risky and build up the safe assets in their portfolios. And, as John Stuart Mill knew back in 1829, whenever you have a large excess demand in finance it will be mirrored by a large deficiency in demand for currently-produced goods and services and labor".

In real-world terms, people running scared turned something reasonably small into something really, really big. And our financial institutions just were not equipped to deal with it.

DeLong spends some time talking about what Paulson and Bush, regulators and financiers could have done to prevent the recession from ever occurring. If financiers would have managed the burst properly, they could have spread out the risk and contained the damage. They did not - I'm not sure why, and DeLong does not spend much time explaining.

Housing finance (Fannie and Freddie) could have been nationalized much earlier and then the government through Fannie and Freddie could have bought up bad mortgages and contained the mess before massive unemployment hit. This would have also contained the cost of the mess, since its gone longer and deeper as people lost their jobs they also lost the ability to pay for homes they normally would have wanted to stay in. Keeping people working would have softened the blow and contained the cost.

They could have nationalized as many banks as necessary much earlier, which would have kept banking, borrowing, lending and investing moving, while preventing any major financial runs or panics (which did occur after Lehman collapsed).

DeLong points plenty of fingers at Obama. Obama did do a lot of what Delong suggests, but in each and every case, it was never big or forceful enough to make enough of a difference. The stimulus needed to be much bigger. The Fed basically stopped doing much after the initial disaster was averted (other than keeping interest rates to basically zero). They could have advertised defined inflation and price targets and aggressively pursued them. Many more targeted bank nationalizations could have been performed.

In all of these suggestions, you find that the principle outlined in "Bagehot's Rule":

"All seven of these tools are applications of Walter Bagehot's rule: the principal that the way to deal with a panic in which nobody is sure if contracts will be honored is for the government to make sure that contracts are honored by lending freely to anybody who asks. (But, Bagehot wrote, the lending should be 'at a penalty rate' -- financiers should never profit from the fact of government assistance to stem the panic. That is the second part of Bagehot's rule)."

But why was Obama so timid?

Basically to sum up both Bush's and Obama's response to the worst economic crisis since the Great Depression: They did just enough to avoid a Depression, but not nearly enough to neither prevent the severe recession nor spur a vigorous recovery.

What Obama did do was he pivoted toward health care, and spent the next year getting a significant reform bill passed. This bill consumed his time and attention and left him little room to deal with the economy in any significant way.

Now, I support Obama's health care plan. It was no where near adequate. I'm doubtful it does enough to control cost - my primary concern, and more work is required.

But where does that leave us now. We have an economy with 10% unemployment. In 2014 (when Obamacare will finally be working in full), we'll have a health care system in place that should provide a better framework especially in a climate of high unemployment - its not so nearly dependent on employment provided health care.

But we are at serious risk of being stuck where high unemployment is the norm, and the next two years, we have a political climate that will probably make things worse, cutting government spending does not make up for this massive demand shock (we have plenty of supply), and therefore if we do too much to try to balance our budget, we risk a double dip recession.

Furthermore, the massive losses in tax revenue due to this recession puts a huge strain on our ability to pay for our health care costs (which generally continue no matter how the economy behaves - sick people still need care). This reality gives more ammunition to those who would kill or severely roll back what Obama accomplished with his health care bill.

After reading through DeLong's critique and for these reasons I've outlined, I'm inclined to agree, maybe Obama should have done things differently.

Maybe he should have spent his entire first two years on nothing but foreign policy and the economy. He could have spent every last ounce of his political capital on getting the unemployment rate down. He could have put more pressure early on to get even the Republicans in Congress on board. He could have made recess appointments to get the Federal Reserve fully staffed - bypassing Senate confirmation procedures. Then with a fully staffed Fed, they could have been empowered (and pressured) to pull more levers to boost demand much more aggressively. He could pushed to nationalize more banks and then use that leverage to to institute stronger financial regulations to prevent future crisis of this magnitude.

Perhaps Greece and Ireland and Europe as a whole would have been in better shape.

All of this would have had real political cost. He would have been described as a dictator and a socialist at every turn. But unemployment would have been much lower. Republicans would still have won seats in Congress but not nearly as many.

More importantly, many more people right now would be working. I know personally qualified people who are unemployed right now and in very real ways are suffering.

I think Obama saw a unique opportunity to get health reform passed and he took it, but he sacrificed the economy in the process. Had he focused on the economy and sacrificed health care, would that have been a better calculation? Probably. But then health care reform would have been a goal for his second term - and far from a certainty.

Time will tell if this trade-off was worthwhile.

TSA?

2010-11-27T22:37:00.001-07:00

I recently came across this provocative post from Tyler Cowen who seems like the only person who is defending the recent changes to our airport security.

This quote makes the most sense to me:

"Hovering in the background is the reality that a few successful downings will kill many people and furthermore probably wipe out the insurance market and thus lead to nationalization of the airlines. It's not clear what the freedom-enhancing path looks like and there is no default setting of market accountability. It's 'elephant interventions' all the way down."

and this one:

"The funny thing is this: when Americans insist on total liberty against external molestation, it motivates both good responses and bad ones. It supports a libertarian desire for freedom against government abuse, but the same sentiments generate a lot of anti-liberal policies when it comes to immigration, foreign policy, torture, rendition, attitudes toward Muslims, executive power, and most generally treatment of 'others.' An insistence on zero molestation, zero risk, isn't as pro-liberty as it appears in the isolated context of pat-downs. It leads us to impose a lot of costs on others, usually without thinking much about their rights."

and finally:

"The issue reminds me of the taxation and spending debates; many Americans want low taxes and high government spending, forever. For airline security, at times we want to treat it as a matter of mere law enforcement, to be handled by others, and one which should not inconvenience our daily lives or infringe on our rights. At the same time, so many Americans view airline security as a vital matter of foreign policy and indeed as part of a war. We own and promote this view and yet we are outraged when asked to behave as one might be expected to in a theater of war."

Another example how Americans want their cake and eat it too.

By the way here Megan McArdle links a video about TSA going over the top harassing a lady who refuses to send her breast milk through a scanner.

But if our airlines are truly one of the fronts on the war on terror, these kinds of overreaches are possible. Its hard to imagine that this kind of activity helps our national security. But, to me, its not hard to imagine when we give an organization the thankless job of preventing a terrorist from bringing down a plane (they are blamed when they fail, no one notices when they succeed), abuse is surely possible.

Immigration and the DREAM Act (and some general snarkiness)

2010-11-22T21:42:00.005-07:00

Just wanted to share this link with anyone who happens to stumble upon this blog. I found it profound.

"It's worth noting that the southwestern portion of the United States just was Mexico, once upon a time. There is an undeniable economic and cultural continuity between Mexico and the United States. The border distorts and disrupts it, but it cannot and will never put an end to it. The pattern of traffic between these two countries is not something to choke off, but something sensibly to regulate and rationalise."

and

"The DREAM Act sends the message that although American immigration law in effect tries to make water run uphill, we are not monsters. It says that we will not hobble the prospects of young people raised and schooled in America just because we were so perverse to demand that their parents wait in a line before a door that never opens. It signals that we were once a nation of immigrants, and even if we have become too fearful and small to properly honour that noble legacy, America in some small way remains a land of opportunity."

Ok, what follows is a rant, a vent. I have really smart, reasonable friends that may disagree with the some of the points I make in the second half of this post. Also, there are reasonable disagreements on the issues I bring up. What I see right now, almost systemically, however, is something really wrong in the Republican party. I think it comes from some combination of corruption from being in power for too long and this crazy Obama is a socialist, power over country sentiment, and FOX news/AM talk radio that's brought them where they are today.

So, I just need to do it :-). Feel free to ignore all of it. No offense if any of these issues feel targeted at you. I'm venting :-).

How many issues have the Republican party demogogued over the last 10 years or so, to the point of unreasonableness, let's just count a few off the top of my head:

Immigration: Hard working Mexicans drain our society's resources! Let's stop every single Mexican from entering our country despite unrelenting market forces!

Banking: The great recession was caused by Barack Obama who took office after it began! By the way, it had nothing to do with unregulated bankers who took advantage of lax regulation to gamble the world's reserves making record profits on both the downside and the upside! But hey, regulating banks is always a bad idea - resist!

War: Preemptive invasion on the cheap - but don't worry we'll be welcomed as liberators and Democracy will flourish wherever we decree it.

Nuclear Proliferation - Its not enough to fight the war on terror, Russia is and will always be our enemy. Just say no to START - let's keep the Cold War going! By the way, Europe sucks too!

Health Care: There is a market solution to elderly - kick them off of medicare, give them a voucher (that will not rise with medicare inflation, and I'm sure some for-profit insurance company won't mind giving them insurance with that voucher despite the fact that an elderly person will likely cost much more than any voucher will cover.

Health Care Part II: Same thing for anyone with a chronic condition. But there's a free market solution for every problem!

Tax Cuts: Tax cuts always increase revenue! (Need I say more - well for some people I do :-)

Education cuts improve education quality - no need for reform, its magic! Teachers work harder when you pay them less money - and they will surely pay for their supplies out of pocket.

Tax cuts for the wealthy: The wealthy are the only drivers for our economy -despite the fact they make up 1% of our economy, but they control something like 20% of our wealth - so they must know what they're doing right? So, if you want to boost the economy, put more money in their pockets and they will magically guide our economy into the next century.

Global Warming: Its fiction because, well if its wasn't then we recognize their are no free market solutions for global warming and anything without a free market solution doesn't exist.

I could go on, but I think you get the picture.

Vision

2010-11-20T23:26:00.006-07:00

The libertarian leaning local columnist Robert Robb had some nice things to say about Terry Goddard.

"Goddard began the diffusion of political power that characterizes Phoenix and the state today. He actually had more lasting influence on Arizona's political future than those most often cited as the dominant figures of that period: Bruce Babbitt, Burton Barr and Alfredo Gutierrez.

If Goddard had played it safe as mayor, he undoubtedly would have been elected governor in 1990.

Goddard, however, forcefully advocated for a series of failed tax-increase proposals: to build a downtown baseball stadium, to transform and restore the Salt River throughout the county, and to establish a county-wide transit system.

In much of this, he was just premature. A downtown baseball stadium was eventually built. A county-wide transit tax was approved. Piecemeal improvements of the Salt River are occurring. In the case of the transit system and Salt River improvements, what Goddard advocated in the 1980s was actually much better than what county residents ultimately got."

I think this is why I am a Democrat right now. I love Tempe Town Lake, I live only a few miles south of it. My daughter's youth choir sang the National Anthem at a Diamond Backs game recently. I took the light rail downtown to see her and the game. I forgot how much I love baseball and I had a blast at the game, despite the cheesy over the top amusement park-like baseball stadium. I also loved riding the light rail and I wish I could take it more often, but I love that it exists.

Baseball stadiums, light rail, highways, Tempe Town Lake, parks - none of these exist without some amount of public government support. But the Republican party presumably would prefer to cut all of this and more. It's the utter-cheapness of today's Republican party that drives me away from it. Its a political party that has started to think small.

I grew up in Yuma, a city that historically has close to the highest unemployment rate in the nation. And my dad was perpetually unemployed or vastly underemployed. We literally scraped by. I cannot tell you the number of times they would say the words: "We can't afford it." And it was always true - they couldn't afford much of what I wanted (even my modest wants were usually unfulfilled.

But looking back, my dad often suffered from a lack of vision. You don't say we can't afford it, you find a way to afford it and then you afford it. I'm speaking of the more worthwhile wants I had growing up - like piano lessons, say. And I can think of times when my dad was able to step it up and afford stuff - most notably when it came time for me to serve a two year church mission. He took on a second job for those two years to pay for that mission, and for that I'm very grateful. So, he had it within him, but too often he used poverty as an excuse (this is my interpretation - there were probably issues going on I didn't fully understand).

I get that we don't want unnecessary debt or burdensome taxes, but that just means to me that you find a way to raise revenue broadly so it has minimal impact, say by cutting loopholes, broadening the tax base instead of simply raising the rates.

This hit home for me one more time today. My oldest daughter was involved in a Suzuki "book promotion" concert today. All of these kids involved in Suzuki violin or cello gathered for a concert at a church in South Tempe. They played in order from the beginner to advanced. The most advanced student played last. She must have been 12 or 13 and she played a solo, the only solo of the day, and her piece was beautiful and inspiring.

To play the violin well (or at all), you need to practice for years, be willing to spend good money on lessons and instruments and music. Be willing to spend the time day after day. And then after many, many years you may be good enough to actually perform something that people will show up to listen to, and not just because they're being supportive because they know they will be inspired, maybe. But you still do it anyway because you're thinking big. You want to create something beautiful - and the cost of doing so is basically beside the point, because beauty really has no price tag.

The Republican party has within itself the ability to think big by the way. I think I understand their ideology pretty well - I lived it pretty passionately for a good 10-20 years.

Republicans believe in the free market but so do the Democrats. Nobody is arguing in any of our political debates that we should nationalize the internet or Apple.

Where the battle lines are drawn are in those areas where the free market is not actively participatory - preserving the environment (some companies do want to preserve the environment, but usually only if and when it benefits them, or its a secondary concern subservient to profits), universal access to education and health care, roads, police, our military.

Republicans want strong and active government in police and in the military but they want to minimize its footprint in other areas. Democrats don't. That's really the extent of the difference between the two parties.

But Republicans are not cruel, most want good schools for everyone, most would be in favor of a diabetic getting access to insulin regardless of ability to pay. They just don't want the government to do it. They rightly believe that government tends to be motivated by more political than altruistic concerns, and in the politician's machinations, winning the next election takes precedent over anything else.

But what are their alternatives - churches and charitable organizations. And I think I understand why - I can see on paper (not sure if the data bears this out) that when a person volunteers time and money to a specific organization they're gong to want to be more diligent in vetting that organization and all of this comes from a place of passion and for a higher purpose. I give a lot of money to my church - I do it because of my faith, but I also have a lot of confidence those funds will be used wisely. This is why I favor eliminating tax loopholes and deductions, but I make an exception for charitable giving. The problem with taxes are they are not voluntary. They are collected by force, so other than through elections, politicians don't have the same accountability that charities do.

But I want to see this explained much, much better and with more vigor by Republicans. If Republicans truly believed that charitable institutions could fill in the gaps for health care, education, libraries, care for the elderly, I would love to see them embrace this fully and explain to me how. And I want to see it employed in practice.

Remove the tax subsidies employers get for providing employee health insurance, which will effectively kill employer provided health insurance. Then show me how through a combination of free market health insurance and charity, I can always get insulin to my daughter. I'm not being cynical here, I want this position defended much more forcefully by the Republicans.

Stop thinking small. In my view, we have more wealth on this good earth than we realize. We can harness our global natural resources, get more out of more people. We can live more abundant lives than we currently are.

Its time our politics reflect that - from both parties.

Ok, so, Its Education We're Going to Defund

2010-11-15T22:23:00.003-07:00

Looks like 300 million dollars are going to be cut from our schools and social services. That's just a start, apparently, we've got to get to $2 billion this fiscal year and $3billion in the next. But just to be clear, unless our schools have been burning $300 million dollars in a literal fire, that's going to increase our unemployment rates at a time we already have 9.6% unemployment. I think its clear that this makes it more likely not less that our economy will fall into a double dip.

Even if we can make these kinds of cuts without affecting school quality (which I seriously doubt), even if we are able to find people to fire who are making zero impact on our school quality, those people will be added to our unemployment roles. Those people will have to immediately cut spending, which impacts demand, which will reduce the incentive for businesses to hire and the cycle continues.

For those who think the government stimulus was a waste of money, now as that stimulus expires, we'll see what happens, to some extent, to our economy without it.

By the way, these spending cuts will be offset somewhat, by the Fed's decision to increase the money supply through its monetary policy, which conservatives inexplicably are also against. In that link, Krugman argues that even Friedman is too liberal for today's conservatives.

All of this is worrying enough, but I assume that $300 million (plus the additional cuts still to come) are sizeable enough that it will affect educational quality.

I just ran across this article recently. It is short, but the author tries to pinpoint the source of America's wealth. Here's how the article concludes:

"America does seem to be special in important ways, but it's not always clear what those ways are. A liberal economic order and geographically mobile population are important, but so is the level of education, the promise of social mobility, and the openness of America's borders. It's worth keeping all of that in mind as the country's leaders think about the ways economic policy should change in the wake of the Great Recession."

It's like Arizona read that paragraph and decided to do the opposite of every item in this sentence.

Will Medicaid Be Cut

2010-11-12T22:30:00.002-07:00

Laurie Roberts already addresses the issue of medicaid funding quite well.

But here's a reader on Andrew Sullivan's blog who relies on medicaid to take care of her disabled child:

"Cuts to Medicaid will result in more people like my daughter having to live in institutions, at a much higher cost to the public than home-based care. Most elected officials are clueless about this; I know I've had to sit down with my current and prior state delegates to educate them since they had no idea. (This video from Virginia state delegate Patrick Hope discusses the downward spiral that would result from cuts to Medicaid.)"

Here's our fearless leader of the Senate, Russell Pearce, talking about medicaid.

Over the past couple of decades, Arizona has rolled back our local tax rates but they can do so based largely on a couple of decades now of robust population growth and resulting in the growth in housing, construction, and other industries that benefit from that growth. But obviously in the past decade, the growth turned into a massive bubble and we now have a glut of housing. It's doubtful that the old economic models we've counted on are going to be there anymore.

Our state has some serious budget holes to fill in immediately. Do we want to fill those on the backs of the poor (medicaid), they young (education) or do we want to look at both expand and slightly increase our tax rates so that we can sustainably pay for the services our state needs.

In the long term we can look at reform, which should include a more robust rainy day fund that is not just given away. Of course we need to improve our schools and universities and find ways to squeeze out efficiencies.

What I worry about is the Republican party has turned into a caricature of itself.

Read these blog posts on David Frum's blog (a moderate conservative former speech writer for Bush Jr) here, here and here.

Some Reasons given:

Republicans campaign against the educated
"Applebaum reacted to Christine O’Donnell’s advertised boast – 'I didn’t go to Yale' – that Republicans 'need to stop celebrating stupidity'."

Republicans discard science
"Under Presidents Eisenhower and Nixon, Republicans championed science and knowledge. But over the past 30 years, national Republicans have formed an intensifying alliance with religious conservatives more skeptical of science and knowledge. I don’t know whether discarding evolution goes against common sense; but I’m pretty sure it goes against most Ivy League-educated senses."

They talk about evolution here, but I see it alarmingly apparent in the global warming debates.

The Republican dogma no longer makes sense

"Educated people may also be extra-sensitive to policy positions that do not make logical sense. While individual elements of the Republican platform can make sense on their own, the combination of demands to reduce the deficit, plus increase Medicare spending, plus opposing reform meant to save costs, plus uncompromising insistence on tax cuts just does not add up. "

And this is a huge problem for the Republican party going forward:

"However, there is another side to the challenge: one of governance and policy. A party needs a well-educated echelon – call it an elite – to formulate policy to deal with complex challenges. Without the philosophical and academic achievements of the likes of Friedrich von Hayek, Milton Friedman and James Q. Wilson, the Reagan revolution would not have been possible."

Going back to Medicaid quickly. One of the reasons why I left the Republican party is for the reasons given here, the ideology no longer makes sense. You can cut taxes, but at some point you have to stop - we need revenue. We can cut services (the Republican party has been far from consistent both in ideology and in practice in this regard), but do we want to eliminate safety nets?

The Democratic party is far from perfect, but of the two, its by far the more thoughtful and rigorous (many thoughtful people have abandoned both).

Anger Over the Housing Crisis

2010-11-09T07:10:00.007-07:00

The problem is that I don't know who to be angry at. All I know is that there's a lot to be angry about this Thanksgiving season.

Last night I helped a friend move out of his condo. His family purchased it while he was going to school as a way to build a little equity in hopes of using it to by a more permanent house after graduation. He bought it at a reasonable price - his mortgage costs were roughly what rent would have been (maybe a bit higher), but that's reasonable, right?

However, this was pre-boom times and as the decade progressed, those condo values ballooned, and buyers eventually were priced out of thse condos. That should have tempered the boom, right? Wrong. My friend knew something was up when renters were the only ones who could occupy these condos because investors were the only ones who could afford to buy and they were buying, inflating the boom further.

Unfortunately for him, he decided to sell too late and when he tried, there were no buyers. He kept dropping the price of his condo until the writing was on the wall and he knew he was entering negative equity.

He's now trying to short sell the condo for around $40,000. Can you imagine that? If you took out a 30 year mortgage for $40k, you're monthly payment would be $350 including taxes fees and insurance. The average rent in this area is at least double that (if not more). Is his condo really only worth $40K? Absolutely not.

Which brings me to my anger. From mostly around 2005 to 2008, things went absolutely haywire. Loan officers, landscape architects, real estate agents, anybody affiliated in any way with the real estate bubble were making a bunch of money. My friend told me that he knew a landscape architect working primarily in Anthem making $180,000/year at the peak. I knew someone who was refinancing mortgages as a side job and doubling her engineering salary while she did it.

This American Life covers all of this nonsense here.

What's sickening is that there are people still making a lot of money on short sells and foreclosures, profiting on the downside just as much as they were profiting on the upside. Its hard to begrudge anyone from making a bunch of money doing legal and basically honest work.

Its just disgusting how wasteful this all became. So many people were working really hard making a lot of money doing very little to produce stuff of value. It's true that we now have a sea of cookie-cutters sprawled across our beautiful desert. Some of these housing communities do have real value as people find a way to live and enjoy their lives in them. Some now are decaying unoccupied awaiting foreclosure.

What would Phoenix have been like if people bought homes they wanted in communities they loved. If homes were bought to live in and not to flip. If people transformed their homes into something they love instead of something they think would be the easiest to sell. If people saved and spent their savings to re-furbish older homes in core communities closer to where they work and played.

We're in the mess because so many people thought they could get rich off their homes or other people's homes. And our politicians thought that if you just deregulate everything you can prosper.

But prosperity takes work and discipline. We need professionals and craftsman building and creating art. Making things people love. Our politics should reflect that.

The Propositions - a Recap

2010-11-07T13:58:00.006-07:00

As far as I know here are the results of the propositions. I have a pretty long history in being disappointed in state proposition results, but the reality of it is that I win some and I lose some and this year is no different. So, let's go down the line one by one:

Prop. 106

This proposition amends the state constitution to make it possible for for someone to pay for medical services in any way they prefer without having to pay a fine. I totally understand why this passed, but its not clear to me what the consequence of passing it will be. There will be definite conflicts between the language in this proposition and "Obamacare" passed by the federal government and there's enough ambiguity in the proposition, lawsuits are probably the only way to sort it all out. My feeling is that this proposition will waste some state funds but not result in any substantive change to our health care environment. I don't think Arizona has the authority to arbitrarily overrule what the federal government does. Conflicts will have to be decided in the courts.

Ultimately, I still believe people don't fully understand the need for mandates. If people really want to restrict insurance companies from denying those with preexisting conditions or to limit coverage or kick someone off their rolls based on their actuarial models, then by virtue of this restriction, they are essentially insured regardless of whether or not they pay a premium.

If you can wait until you are sick to enroll and still be covered, you were insured. Removing a mandate allows someone to free-ride.

And in essence, we have this ability to free ride right now, at least to some extent. How many people really want to live with the consequences of a society without mandates? Do you want to prove you can pay before being admitted into the hospital or being picked up by an ambulance? Do you want to be refused cancer treatments because of inadequate insurance?

My feeling is this proposition will ultimately have little to no consequence other than giving some lawyers something to do. But Arizonans have a history of of this kind of silliness.

In fact there seems to be a larger disconnect with voters nationwide. We want a bunch of services but we don't want to pay for them. We want stuff for nothing which is why we have this massive debt, and we need to start electing politicians who will call us on this (I blame Reagan by the way :-) ).

Proposition 107, Proposition 113
Prop 107 bans state sponsored affirmative action; prop 113 maintains the legality secret ballot in union elections. First off, its almost high comedy that Arizona passed 107 especially when we may be on the verge of gutting our government to balance the budget. Do our state universities (universities that accept practically everybody) really even use affirmative action?

On 113, I don't get the feeling that our unions have much power in our state, so this proposition does little to change that. In my view, both of these propositions will ultimately have little consequence.

The Rest
The voters agreed with me on the rest that have been decided:

1) Hunting and fishing is not a constitutional right on the same level of speech, press, and worship (phew).
2) No lieutenant governor position will be established (the idea is a good one, but it needs more vetting to make way for independents to run in the general election).
3) And the voters rejected the states attempts to balance the budget by pulling funds from state trust lands and "First Things First."

By the way on failing to pass 301 and 302 we have essentially blown a hole in our budget a mile wide. Voting no on these propositions only makes sense if our politicians are willing to raise revenue through tax increases (something I support). But I'm not sure if the average voter realizes this.

Instead, it looks like we'll ultimately have to reject $7 billion dollars of federal aid, so that we can gut medicaid. Is our goal to drive both migrant workers and the poor out of our state?.

I hope this quote raises more than a few eyebrows:

"The budget is more than $800 million in the hole this year, with another $1.4 billion in cuts needed next year. If you cut all of state government, with the exception of prisons, DES, K-12 and universities and AHCCCS, you would save $820 million."

Those Still to be Decided
Of the three propositions still undecided, legalizing marijuana is the one I care the most about and I'm praying and hoping it fails.

On Harry Mitchell's defeat

2010-11-05T20:18:00.003-07:00

First of all, I'm far from an expert on local or even national elections. I know what I know, I have my own experiences, I try to read as much as I have time to read, and I think and discuss about the issues. Its my hobby, definitely a bit of an obsession. But I don't claim to know that much about the local political leaders.

I supported Harry Mitchell's campaign a tiny bit: spent some time making calls for him one evening, got up at 5am on election day to put fliers on door knobs of likely Democratic voters with information about their polling locations. I wish I could have done more, I would be surprised if I moved even one voter over to Mitchell, but you never know.

Let me be clear. I'm incredibly impressed with him as a person. I met him briefly once. Its clear that he's a man of substance. He was mayor of Tempe from 1980 until 1994 and its my understanding that he transformed Tempe's downtown. There's even a statue there made in his honor.

He's a pragmatist - believing in low taxes for small businesses but also believing in schools. Look at the bills he's sponsored or co-sponsored here. A long and substantive list.

Ultimately, he was voted out because of the economy and because of his health care vote. He was one of the last holdouts on this vote and expressed strong concerns over the bill, but he ultimately voted for it and ultimately lost his seat because of this vote.

I owed him some of my time. I wrote him a letter encouraging him to vote for the health care bill, and he did (I'm doubtful it was because of my letter - but still).

Let me though give him some parting criticisms. I mentioned that I made some phone calls for him during his campaign. When I got to his headquarters to do this, I was told by one of his staff to avoid mentioning the health care bill because they needed to win and this bill and that vote was not popular. Indeed Schweikert ran almost exclusively on that vote and in all probability won because of it.

But how could I do it. It was frustrating making phone calls to strangers when I had to defend Mitchell because of some obscure "GI" bill of the 21st century bill he authored (which sounded good to me by the way) a bill I knew very little about. It was disingenuous and it sucked all of the passion right out of me.

I watched their debate and Schweikert hammered Mitchell on the health care issue, Mitchell defended it pretty well in the debate, but not nearly far enough. Look, it probably wouldn't matter how Mitchell ran his campaign, and it probably wouldn't have mattered how he voted on the health care bill. The wave against Democrats was probably too massive to overcome.

But I just wish the Democrats would have put up a better fight. Listen to last week's "This American Life episode here. The first forty minutes they talk about the Republicans and its interesting. But skip that for now, get to about the forty minute mark to listen to the Democrats.

They make the point that they should have ran hard on letting the tax cuts expire for the rich (an issue they win 2 to 1 among voters) or did you know that most people support almost everything that's in Obamacare, they inexplicably just don't support Obamacare. Maybe instead of running away from the bill, they should have defended it hard, like this for example:

"You want to see a death panel? I will take you to a death panel. Take the media to the door of an insurance company and tell the story of the little girl who was denied her care and she died. That's a real death panel and it happens every day in the private insurance system. That's the real answer."

Or the Ohio Congressman, John Boccieri, an Iraq war veteran who won a district in 2006 that had previously been Republican for 60 years who when asked about his health care vote by a reporter said this:

"I used to think I was brave and I used to think I was tough and I've flown into enemy fire and I've flown in four combat missions. I'm just not tough enough to look this lady in the eye who has breast cancer and tell her I'm going to deny her health care. If you want someone whose that tough, you've gotta vote Republican."

And these stories abound and the Republicans have no answer. My own daughter is a type 1 diabetic. She needs something like this health care bill in place so she doesn't have to cling to a big company insurance plan. So, she has the freedom to innovate, to run a small business or to work for one or whatever.

We need a real two party system. The Republican party has talking points and easily expressed slogans. The Democratic party is a muddled mess.

So, yes, I'm sad that Harry Mitchell lost, he's a man of substance with a long, distinguished career of public service. But it was just difficult for me to get excited about someone who did not have any energy to defend his vote on one of the most significant bills in our modern history.

Quick Reaction to the State Election Results

2010-11-02T23:02:00.005-07:00

It looks like the Republicans won the state-wide elections in a clean sweep. And it looks like they are gaining majorities in the legislature. On top of that both Proposition 301 and Proposition 302 went down in big defeats.

So, what to make of this (if anything)?

Prop 301 and 302 were put on the ballot in a desperate attempt to find millions of dollars to help balance the Arizona budget. The voters said heck no with emphasis (302 moves funds allocated for "First things First" into the general fund, 301 transfers money from the state land conservation fund into the general fund).

Meanwhile, the Republicans have been running almost religiously on the principle of no new taxes. They also want additional resources on the border and want to expand the police force role to include immigration enforcement (HB1070).

They also have a constitutional mandate to balance a state budget they couldn't balance last year even with the help of the federal stimulus. Do you remember the stimulus is running out and won't be available next year? Meanwhile, of the 50 states, we are one of the most frugal states in the country in terms of per pupil funding on education.

Not to mention we elect Huppenthal who now has a voter mandate to turn all of our schools into charters or something.

I have no idea where all of this is heading, but it doesn't look good for Arizona.

Good luck Republicans. You're in charge of this mess almost completely now. My prayers are with you.

My Ballot Picks

2010-11-01T21:26:00.015-07:00

I've been trying really hard this election to stay up to speed on the candidates and I've been doing pretty well. The night before the election I thought I'd might finalize my picks in one post.

My general strategy is to vote Democrat, although in this post I'll tell you the elections I think where the candidates are pretty even.

For reference, here are my propositions.

Here are the Arizona Republic's picks

On to my picks:

My Ballot

Position	My Vote	Arizona Republic's Opinon	Brief Explanation
Senate	Rodney Glassman	John McCain	Rodney Glassman is young, inexperienced, from a rich family, has some question marks in his past, but he's also smart, energetic, polished, and confident. John McCain brought Sarah Palin to the world and may do his part to end it if for some odd chance Palin wins the presidency in 2012. His presidential campaign, in a word, was awful. He's also changing course on a number of issues, trying desperately to reincarnate himself into the Rush Limbaugh of the Senate. This is really more of a no vote against McCain than a yes vote for Glassman (McCain is someone I've really, really liked in the past, so I'm sad to see McCain's career turn this way).
Congressional District 5	Harry Mitchell	David Schweikert	This is one of those elections where two really pretty good candidates are running against each other. Harry Mitchell has a long, deep and substantive record in local politics. A longtime teacher at Tempe High, the mayor of Tempe, a state legislature, and a Congressman for two terms. He's a moderate all the way, every bill he's authored has had Republican co-signers. I'm voting for him because he voted for Obamacare, despite some of his misgivings, he did what was right. Schweikert is young, energetic and a fiscal conservative. I trust (though not sure) he would be sincere in his attempts to act as a counter-weight to Obama's spending. I'm voting for Mitchell, but Schweikert should be a better representative than J.D. Hayworth (who Mitchell beat in 2006) if he were to win. For now, I believe the election is too close to call.
Governor	Terry Goddard	Jan Brewer	Jan Brewer was not prepared to take over when Napolitano left, but after a slow start she's been competent. I abhorred the 1070b signing, but she did defend it with passion. Goddard, though, is a much more competent governor who would defend our schools in the face of a legislature who will try their hardest to cut its funding. The state is facing hard times right now. The schools are already scraping by. Goddard is in a better position to do the right thing.
Secretary of State	Chris Deschene	Ken Bennett	This one is a tossup election for me and admittedly Ken Bennett has more direct experience and is better prepared to take over as governor if for some reason he's called upon. Both seem qualified to assume the responsibilities of Secretary of State. I want greater participation in the elections and I trust Deschene will work harder to reach out to the disenfranchised. I'm going with Deschene.
Treasurer	Andrei Cherney	Doug Ducey	I agree with Ducey ideologically more than I do with Cherney. I just trust Cherney more than I do Ducey. My heart and gut over rule my head on this one.
Attorney General	Felicia Rotellini	Felicia Rotellini	Wow, the Arizona Republic finally agrees with me :-). This is a no-brainer. Tom Horne is a strong candidate, although he does have a lifetime ban from the SEC (for something he did 40 years ago - but still). But this is more about Rotellini - she's incredible, highly qualified, with a sterling record. Arizona would really muff this one if they chose Horne over Rotellini.
School Superintendent	Penny Kotterman	John Huppenthal	Another no brainer. If you're a school reform ideologue with no faith in teachers or administrators and all it takes to run our schools is in-depth knowledge on the latest research (no matter how sketchy or politicized) - Huppenthal is your guy. He's never taught school, but has a long record writing legislative bills on school policy. Kotterman has been an instructor and a administrator, has a deep knowledge of school issues and a comprehensive view on how to improve them. This choice should also be a no brainer.
Corporation Commision	Gary Pierce and David Bradley	Gary Pierce and Brenda Burns	There are three really qualified candidates running from my view (the second Democrat unfortunately passed away). I prefer a little more emphasis on renewable energy than the Republicans will bring to the table, but I'll be happy no matter what happens here I'm sure.
Central Arizona Water Conservation District	"Tim Bray, Frank Fairbanks, Jim Holway, Arif Kazmi, Sid Wilson	Same	I'm placing my trust in the AZ Republic on this one. There are some tea-party candidates running who just want to cut costs and have no background or experience with water. Be sure to avoid those folks.
State Mining Inspector	Manuel Cruz	Joe Hart	Two good candidates - one is focused more on advocacy for mining in the state, the other is more focused on regulation and safety. I'm going for the second.
Legislative District 17 - Senate	David Schapira	David Schapira	David Shapira is much more qualified and knowledgeable on the issues than Wendy Rogers. Rogers skipped their one debate and has a pretty narrow view of the issues facing Arizona generally. Shapira is by far the better choice.
Legislative District 17 - House	Ed Ableser and Ben Arredondo	Ed Ableser and Ben Arredondo	I never did getting around to blogging about this race. The Republicans did not field anybody even worth mentioning once Steve May dropped out (he was kind of a joke as well). Its inexplicable - this district has plenty of Republicans living in it and we've had substantive Republicans representing it in the past. Ben Arredondo is a rock and the better of the two. Ed Ableser is energetic although a bit idealistic apparently.
County Attorney	Bill Montgomery	Bill Montgomery	I really like Rick Romley who lost to him in the primaries. There are no Democrats running. Montgomery was endored by Arpiro which is a big negative for me, but I'm assuming he's competent enough for the position.
Clerk of the Superior Court	Michael Jeanes	Michael Jeanes	Going with the AZ Republic on this one
Justice of the Peace - Kyrene	Elizabeth Rogers	Unknown	She's the incumbent and the Democrat
Constable	Jon Levenson	Unknown	I've met him and his sign is in my yard.
High School Governing Board	Dave Wells and David Schapira	Unknown	Dave Wells is a professor at ASU and seems knowledgeable and energetic. Schapira is also running for the the Senate (part time position) and can use his influence to help Tempe High schools

Why Its Hard to be a Moderate

2010-10-31T12:56:00.002-07:00

Because moderate arguments are harder to make.

I was in a lively debate the other day defending Obama's health care plan. And it takes some time for me to defend it because there's a lot to it and my reasons for supporting it (with its flaws) are a bit complicated. In this debate, my friend suggested that if I have to spend so much time defending something, maybe it's wrong? I also sent another person an article that went on for at least 5 pages defending Obama's two years as a president, and he told me he didn't read it because if you can't sum up your position more concisely, if you have to spend that long defending a position, then there may be something wrong with it.

Because the political forces at work are trying to pull you to one extreme or the other

I feel this in my own life a lot. On most issues, I can see good points on both sides and I usually try to find ways to merge these two issues into one. When trying to determine who to vote for, I prefer people who are rationale and reasonable and who seem to have a record of working through compromise with others of different viewpoints.

But its hard because for most people really active in politics, the whole thing becomes a game. Its us verses them, a battle between good and evil. So, right now I happen I find myself being pulled to the left on some issues for very rational reasons, but as I gravitate toward these news sources, its gets easier and easier to be pulled in.

In the end, I just want to believe that most people that run are really pretty outstanding people.

Because an extreme view is just more fun to be passionate about

Gay marriage is a classical example of this. If you're against gay marriage, you are really against it because gay marriage will destroy marriage as we know it. It will depopulate the earth. It will bring about the end of life as we know it. No matter that gays have committed suicide because of bullying inspired by over the top anti-gay rhetoric. No matter that the aids epidemic killed literally thousands through the 1980's who had no institution to support them or guide them toward healthy alternatives.

If you support gay marriage then you really support it. You believe churches who speak out against it are hateful and should lose their tax exempt status.

The moderate view is harder to defend. Of course, I'll say my view is the moderate one :-).

But the church I belong to is taking a complicated view of this complex issue. We have strong religious reasons for being against gay marriage as a religion, but we also have strong religious reasons for being inclusive, compassionate, and charitable toward all.

Bottom line, this issue is complicated and attempts to make it easy tend to be wrong.

Gay marriage is just one issue. I can make the same case for schools, the environment, abortion.

Jon Stewart says it all better than me:

Rally to Restore Sanity.

Loved these quotes:
"We live now in hard times not end times. We can have animous and not be enemies. If we amplify everything, we hear nothing."

Two Debates Over the Weekend

2010-10-25T22:12:00.004-07:00

I'm slowly making my way down my sample ballot. Hopefully by this weekend (post the JDRF walk this Saturday morning, I'll compose a post with a complete set of all my picks. I'm afraid all of the research on the judges will be last minute.

Well, this weekend I watched two debates:

Harry Mitchell verses David Schweikert (and Nick Coons).

Ok, I was already decided on this issue a loong time ago, but it was still fun to watch. Last week I did a little phone canvasing for Harry Mitchell and if I would have watched this debate I would have been better on the phone.

Harry Mitchell is a true moderate Democrat - someone who is used to representing more conservative districts than the party he belongs to. In the debate he emphasized the bills he wrote and received Republican co-signers (one co-signed by Ron Paul to freeze Congressman pay raises). He also emphasizes tax cuts - especially those on capital gains and the estate.

There's also an interesting (though superficial) debate on the health care bill in this debate. Although Schweikert makes some completely wrong points on the health care bill that Mitchell doesn't do near a good enough job refuting.

Moving on to a race I'm still undecided on - the important State Mine Inspector:

The candidates are Manuel Cruz verses the incumbent Joe Hart.

They both seem extremely experienced in mining. Joe Hart is the Republican who seems to be a little more oriented toward the interest of miners and the miner companies. He wants to act like more an advocate of mining and less a regulator. Although, I do believe he is sincerely trying to close and cover dead mines (he's covered I believe 200 since being in office), and I do believe he cares about safety. He just also cares about mining as an industry - and that comes out in this debate.

Manuel Cruz is the Democrat and he's the more environmentalist candidate - someone who wants to emphasize safety regulation and mining safety. He wants to be the regulator (although I'm sure he'll advocate as well). He was extremely critical of Joe Hart on a couple of key points - particularly Hart's slow rate of closing dead mines (Hart claims resource constraints).

So, largely, I suspect that both candidates will run the office in similar ways, I also suspect that each will emphasize certain aspects of the office a bit differently.

Comically, Obamacare came up in this debate (Hart accusing Cruz of using Obamacare-like financing as a way to push his mining agenda :-) ).

I think both candidates are qualified to run this office.

The Arizona Republic endorses Joe Hart, and someone inexplicably endorses David Schweikert.

I have to say I more or less agree with the AZ Republic here on both counts (I'm still voting for Harry Mitchell and I'm leaning toward a vote for Cruz). I think the next two years is going to be (for better of for worse) about debt reduction, and David Schweikert is probably more suitable for this particular task than Mitchell.

However, the thing that worries me is if Republicans take the House (which they probably will) will have a nightmarish scenario where House Republicans hold up all kinds of stuff (including Health care reform) through endless law suits and subpoenas. Diane Rehm goes into this on today's show.

I like Mitchell, a lot and am committed to vote for him, but I probably wouldn't be tooo sad if Schweitkert won (ok, a little sad)...

(Incidentally, Schweikert's the small business owner of a real estate investment firm which given the nature of our bubble and burst in Arizona is probably not a good thing).

Why I'm contemplating a Democratic Party Line Vote

2010-10-17T21:33:00.004-07:00

Just to set this up by stating the obvious :-), all but one of the elections on the ballot are state elections (or below). The one exception is the seat for US Congress. State issues parallel national ones in many ways, but also there are some important differences between the two. Unless you're Sarah Palin, foreign policy views are pretty much irrelevant (ok, for Arizona, border issues with Mexico matters - but certainly not the wars in Afghanistan or Iraq).

This website gives a break down on how Arizona spends its money - largely on education and health care (as opposed to the federal government which breaks down mostly among defense, health care and social security).

So, education and healthcare are two of the big issues state politicians must tackle.

But consider Arizona is one of the lowest states in the country on per pupil education spending and that Arizona ranks 41st in the country in overall tax state and local tax burden felt by an individual.

Over the last decade or so Arizona politics has mirrored federal. We have relied on accounting gimmicks and an unsustainable housing bubble to fuel a growth in spending demands even as we cut state and local taxes. Anecdotally, we have a race to the bottom political mentality. One example is seen whenever a big business wants to move into the valley and each city offers sweetheart tax loopholes in an effort to get the business within their city limits.

The housing boom is over and will probably not return. Arizona can still be a growth state but we need to transform our politics to something sustainable. Furthermore, education is our future, we can't endure much more in the way of cuts if we really want Arizona to remain an attractive destination for families with kids. Additionally, if we ever want to to to create a Silicon Valley clone, or something like it, we need to improve our universities.

This all takes money (I'm all for education reform but until someone can show me how great schools can be created with no resources you can't tell we don't need money), so tax hikes have got to be a part of the equation in the balanced budget debates.

But the Republican party has demogogued themselves out of tax hikes largely. They talk about how we must learn to live in a more resource constrained environment.

Jane Brewer did get a 1% sales tax proposition on the ballot which passed overwhelmingly, but if it wasn't for 1070B, she probably would have lost in the primaries at least partially because of that tax increase. So, there are definitely reasonable, smart leaders in the Republican party, but they exist in a pretty toxic political environment right now.

More examples: I probably would vote for Ken Bennett for Secretary of State (he seems like a talented, pragmatic and experienced person) if these were different times. Tom Horne probably would make a good Attorney General. Jan Brewer (assuming she's healthy) has been a decent governor (at least in the second half of her term - she had a rough/slow start). I'm torn between Duce and Cherney for treasurer.

But, ideologically, the Republican party has been stifled by an ideology dominated by tax cutting dogma that usually makes no sense (I'm not against low taxes - but what are going to live without and is it worth it).

They want to turn every issue into a debate between the markets and socialism (including schools). The results have been and will continue to be a race to the bottom for most except the truly well off who will always get access to what they desire. There is a reason why we have a growing income gap in this country.

I definitely don't want socialism. I just want greater access to schools and health care for more people. Keep most everything else private. But education is our future. We need to invest in it.

So, yes, despite some of the tough choices, I'm probably going to go Democratic in this election. The stakes are too high and right now, I don't trust the Republicans.

Quick Post on the Corporation Commission

2010-10-15T22:24:00.003-07:00

Just partially listened to the debate on Channel 8:

Sadly, one of the candidates recently passed away and to tell you the truth, he didn't look too healthy in the debate...

I don't have a huge issue with the three remaining (ok four, the libertarian candidate seemed pretty good too).

I think right now I'm leaning toward Gary Pierce and David Bradley.

I actually don't see a lot of differences between Gary Pierce and Brenda Burns, but Pierce is the encumbent and seems to know the issues better in my mind.

Bradley has a stronger emphasis on renewable energy, Pierce's focus is on keeping utility rates low.

Remember, though, the Republican party is the only party in the world that doesn't believe global warming exists.

So, I do think we have to get to clean energy, I do want folks on the corporation commission who agree with that. I do think costs are another very important factor however, and it seems like David Bradley gets that balance.

But I'm not sure you can go wrong, ultimately, with any of the three.

Full Disclosure - Gary Pierce is from Yuma - and yes I knew him, and yes, he's my facebook friend :-).

The State Propositions

2010-10-15T20:02:00.008-07:00

My general approach to propositions, when in doubt vote No.

I actually hate the trend we have in the state to put a lot of pretty technical and complex issues on the ballot. If this is the trend, then why do we have a legislative branch? Why not get rid of it and vote for laws by ballot measure exclusively?

Its tiring and ridiculous. Having said that, I did get talked into one yes vote, but my yes is very tentative, I could easily be talked into a no.

I'm a bit torn on the union measure and on the affirmative action measure. I could be talked into a yes on either to tell you the truth.

Mostly, do, my no's are pretty firm.

The Propositions

Proposition	My Vote	Arizona Republic's Opinon	Brief Explanation
106: Healthcare Freedom Act for Arizona	No	No	I strongly disagree with this - its a backdoor way to use the state constitution to weaken Obama's health care law. Federal law over-rules state law and it will waste our resources. By the way, we need mandates - everyone needs to pay for health care if we expect the guarantees we expect and demand.
Proposition 107: Arizona Civil Rights Initiative	No	Yes	I'm soft on this one. Are we passed the need for affirmative action? I personally am not so sure.
109: Arizona Hunting and Fishing Amendment	No	No	Making it a constitutional right to hunt and fish? Unnecessary.
110: Arizona State Trust Lands	Yes	Yes	Seems reasonable to me.
111: Arizona Lieutenant Governor	No	Yes	The idea is a good one, this law is poorly written - it will provide a barrier for independents to run
112: Arizona Signature Filing	No	Yes	There are already too many initiatives on the ballot.
113: Arizona Save Our Secret Ballot	No	Yes	I don't have a strong opinion on this (right now)..
203: Arizona Medical Marijuana Act	No	No	This is just an excuse to make marijuana legal
301: Arizona Land Conservation Fund Transfer	No	No	We can't balance the budget on the backs of our most precious resources. State lands need to be protected
302: Arizona First Things First Program Repeal	No	No	And we can't balance the budget on the backs of our children.

Central Arizona Water Conservation District

2010-10-10T13:24:00.003-07:00

Wow, today in The Arizona Republic on the front page, there is a rather disturbing article.

That basically the tea part coalition is charging into the Central Water Conservation board elections:

"Most of the tea-party-backed candidates lack experience in managing natural resources. They are campaigning almost solely on fiscal issues, arguing that the district needs to cut costs, rein in spending and reduce the property taxes levied in Maricopa, Pima and Pinal counties to support water deliveries in the CAP Canal."

This is incredibly disturbing on so many levels. I understand we want our government operating as efficiently as possible. But isn't it obvious that water management is a government responsibility? Clean, accessible water has to be managed responsibly especially in a desert. We can't play politics with these kind of positions.

In the words of Sharon Megdal:
"'Our board is a nonpartisan board,' said Sharon Megdal, a University of Arizona water researcher who represents Pima County on the board. 'We don't run with any party affiliation, and I think that's for a good reason. The issue of providing reliable water in a responsible manner is not a partisan issue.'"

Obviously.

So, here are some people NOT to vote for. These are people with no relevant experience who are running on a platform of narrow ideology:

Cynthia Moulton - a retired nurse

John Rosado, a retired software engineer

T.C. Bundy, a business consultant

Raymond Johnson, an insurance broker

This is so disturbing to me.

So, more importantly, who should you vote for:

Well, the Arizona Republic has some recommendations.

Here's some information on Jim Holway.

I'm not sure who I'll vote for, but now I know who I won't be voting for.

Another Alternative to Graduate School

2010-10-08T20:13:00.003-07:00

Seth Godin wrote an alternative to graduate school a while back. I'm casually reading a book called "The Art of Non-Conformity and came across another less daunting alternative to graduate school in this book:

Copied directly from the book, pages 118, 119:

Subscribe to the Economist and read every issue religiously.

Memorize the name of every country, world capital, and current president or prime minister in the world.

Buy a round-the-world ticket or use frequent flyer miles to travel to several major world regions, including somewhere in Africa and somewhere in Asia.

Read the basic texts of the major world religions: The Torah, the New Testament, the Koran, and teachings of Buddha. Visit a church, a mosque, a synagogue, and a temple.

Subscribe to a language-learning podcast and listen to each 20-minute episode, five times a week, for the entire year. Attend a local language club once a week to practice

Loan money to an entrepreneur through Kiva.org and arrange to visit him or her while you're abroad on your big trip.

Acquire at least three new skills during your year. Suggestions: photography, skydiving, computer programming, martial arts. They key is not to become an expert in any of them, but to become functionally proficient.

Read at least 30 nonfiction books and 20 classic novels

Join a gym or heatlh club to keep fit during your rigorous independent studies.

Become comfortable with basic presentation and public speaking skills. Join your local Toastmasters club to get constructive, structured help that is beginner-friendly.

Start a blog, create a basic posting schedule, and stick with it for the entire year. You can get a free blog at WordPress.org. One tip: don't try to write every day. Set a weekly or biweekly schedule for a while, and if you're still enjoying it after three months, pick up the pace.

Set your home page to http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Special:Randompage. Over the next year, every time you open your browser, you'll see a different, random wikipedia page. Read it.

Learn to write by listening to the Grammar Girl podcast on iTunes and buying Bird by Bird by Anne Lamott.

Instead of reading the entire Encyclopedia Britannica, read The Know-It-All by A.J. Jacobs, a good summary

You can spend one year on this for a total cost of $10,000 or less.

Much less than a typical graduate school program and much more valuable.

State Treasurer - I can't decide

2010-09-30T23:15:00.004-07:00

If you want to feel like you need a shower after watching a debate, watch this one:

On the issues, I have to say I think Doug Ducey makes more sense to me than Andre Cherney.

Here's what I can pull from this debate:

Doug Ducey wants to be a responsible banker of the state's finances, fine. They both do. More radically (but its only slightly more radical), he wants to work with the governor to find ways to entice businesses to move to Arizona. How he would do that? Its unknown. But he definitely wants to use the office to be sort of an assistant to the Governor?

Andre Cherney wants to use the Treasurer's office to audit the state's finances and to expose wasteful state spending. I agree with Ducey on this point, I'm not sure a Democratic Treasurer playing partisan games with what is most likely going to be a Republican controlled legislature is a good idea. I think that's an over-reach and will probably be a pretty ineffective tactic.

He also states he wants to use state funds to invest in Arizona companies to promote clean energy and biotech technologies. Again, I agree with Ducey, this seems risky and not an appropriate use of state funds designated and allocated for schools.

Ideologically, I agree with much of what Cherney advocates - ensure money for schools, I wouldn't mind seeing state funds invested in clean energy and biotech and other areas to spur innovation in the state. I also agree that legislature needs better oversight.

But should the person to advocate for these sorts of things be the State Treasurer? Maybe. But he definitely shouldn't be pushing for ideological causes with state funds. If the legislature wants to allocate a slice of the state funds for these kinds of purposes, it should be decided upon there - the legislative branch working with the governor. The treasurer simply should not be risking state funds in this way.

I also disagree with Cherney that Dean Martin has done a poor job as the Treasurer. I'm not knowledgeable enough to know for sure, but my sense is that Dean Martin is a stand up guy whose done a good job in a touch economic climate. He would have been a much better candidate for governor than Jan Brewer. He gets no blame for the fact that we lost a lot of money because of the stock market crash (everything crashed - there were no safe places to put your money in 2008).

Having said that, Doug Ducey rubs me the wrong way. He's this smooth talking corporate guy who says all the right things but you wonder if he's just telling you what you want to hear. His failure to pay his taxes on time is concerning. I also have heard that there were issues with Cold Stone Creamery - too rapid growth, too many franchises too close together which hurt the individual franchise owners in order to boost corporate profits.

And the way he tried to group Cherney with President Obama and then blame Obama for our recession was dreadful. I realize it was a political ploy, but it was stupid and dishonest (I know Ducey realizes Obama did not drive our economy into the ditch, it was pretty well in the ditch when he took office).

And who cares anyways, Cherney is not Obama. Stick with the issues.

So, it seems like we have the choice between uninspiring candidates for Treasurer, which is too bad.

By the way, I endorsed Barbara Leff for Republican nomination for treasure. I stand by that. I think she would have been the the better choice between these two.

But again, I'm basing this opinion off of one flimsy interview. I'm open to your suggestions.

Wow, A journalist doing his job

2010-09-26T21:10:00.002-07:00

I wish more journalists would ask tough questions like these of politicians of all parties. We would be much better off if they would.

Local Elections Update Part III

2010-09-24T22:55:00.004-07:00

So, I recently watched the debates on Secretary of State debates here:

Watch the full episode. See more Arizona Illustrated.

Both candidates seemed perfectly reasonable to me from the perspective of who is best qualified for the position of Secretary of State. In Arizona, however, the Secretary of State has a really good chance of becoming governor, and I have no idea who would make a better governor from this debate.

Of course, it looks like I'm voting Democratic party line (I'm persuadable on some of these candidates, though) with maybe one or two exceptions - we'll see, so I'm probably going to vote for Chris Deschene here for a couple of pretty small-sounding reasons.

First, Deschene seems like he is more sensitive to the needs of making it easier to vote - to try to outreach to more people (I don't have strong evidence of this but it came up in the debate).

Another issue that came up in the debate was the issue about how Republicans recruited sham Green candidates in hopes of diluting the vote. For me this was a triviality. These Green candidates were awful and would maybe garner a handful of votes and it would be quite doubtful that any of them would turn an election.

But Robert Robb has interesting commentary hear on Deschene:

"Democratic secretary of state candidate Chris Deschene has been attempting to beat up incumbent Republican Ken Bennett for watching silently as the Democrats and Republicans litigated over the political inner thoughts of some vagabonds. According to Deschene, Bennett should have demanded an investigation, held a denunciatory press conference and maybe even held up the printing of the general election ballots.

This likewise is deeply troubling. The secretary of state administers our elections. It is even less appropriate for the administrator of an election to be rendering public judgments about the sincerity and motivation of candidates than for a judge to do so."

This did come up in the debate. I guess I have no idea on how I feel about any of this, it all seems like such a small issue.

I did think Deschene had a stronger answer to regarding proposition 111. I have yet to study the propositions, but my first impression is that they are all bad.

Here's Robb on Prop 111:

"* According to the co-chairmen of the Proposition 111 campaign committee, Tom Simplot and Jonathan Paton, “there is nothing in the proposition that would preclude the election of an independent candidate for governor and lieutenant governor.”

But there is.

Proposition 111 plainly says: “each nominee for the office of governor shall run on a ticket as a joint candidate in the general election with the nominee for the office of lieutenant governor from the same political party as the nominee for governor.” (Emphasis added.)

“Each” means every single candidate, no exceptions. “Shall” means it's mandatory. “From the same political party” means, well, from the same political party. Independents don't belong to a political party. So, by the clear and explicit language of Proposition 111, they are ineligible for either the office of governor or lieutenant governor.

Moreover, this is a constitutional requirement that cannot be amended or fixed by legislation.
Asserting differently doesn't make it so.

* Simplot and Paton were writing in rebuttal to a column of mine that also said that it was a dumb idea to put the administration of elections into the office of governor, as Proposition 111 would provide.

Although Proposition 111 clearly says that the lieutenant governor would assume the duties of the secretary of state, Simplot and Paton say that might not end up to be the case. The Legislature would ultimately decide.

The lieutenant governor might be in charge of economic development. Or might not. The lieutenant governor might administer elections. Or might not.

In other words, Proposition 111 proponents want to establish the office of lieutenant governor now, but have the Legislature decide later what, if anything, the office would actually do.

Now there's a plan."

Deschene opposes this proposition, Ken Bennett, in the debate, declared neutrality, but seems inclined to support it.

To be honest, I could probably care less which of these candidates monitors our elections (the primary responsibility of Secretary of State), I do care, however, which of these ends up as our next governor if something should happen to the elected one. However, I have no idea which candidate would make a better governor and this debate did little to help me with that.

Some Election Updates Part II

2010-09-24T22:46:00.003-07:00

This post is more of the national variety, but the Republican party just pushed out their "Pledge to America and there's been a tooon of commentary about it already.

Its probably not noteworthy to say there's nothing much in it. And I know its too much to ask that they would put serious policy in a document like that especially if they will probably win a lot of seats back no matter what they do this election time.

But just so everyone is perfectly clear that the Republicans are not really serious about balancing the budget check out this commentary:

"On taxes, it promises to 'stop all job-killing tax hikes' -- that is, to retain all of the Bush tax cuts-- but says nothing about the comprehensive tax reform that will be needed to raise new revenues and balance the budget without avoidable damage to growth. The Pledge maintains the pretence that spending cuts can do all the necessary fiscal lifting -- and even here it is slippery. It promises to 'roll back government spending to pre-stimulus, pre-bailout levels', which seems fair enough. But it also promises 'common-sense' exceptions for "seniors, veterans, and our troops". Those common-sense exceptions are the whole ball of wax. The idea that you can control public borrowing without higher taxes and by squeezing only non-defense discretionary spending is, I'm afraid, delusional."

And this is the troubling part about the Republican party right now. They claim they can balance the budget by cutting taxes. They talk the talk about their drive to cut government spending, but they lack any serious proposals on how to do so. And then demogogue the Democrats who really tried to inject modest Medicare cuts in the health care bill.

I wish we had a saner political environment right now.

Some Election Day Updates

2010-09-24T22:39:00.002-07:00

So, It's a busy season. We're really trying to raise money for JDRF and I'm trying to get ultra-informed about the incoming election and doing my part to inform whoever else who might be reading these blogs.

I wanted to link in Robert Robb's opinions on the Superintendent of public instruction.

In his opinion, he feels both candidates are solid:

"The nominees of both parties, Republican John Huppenthal and Democrat Penny Kotterman, were well informed and articulate. The exchange was, as the contestants described it, spirited, but very constructive.

This race features what competitive democracy promises but rarely delivers: a clear policy choice, honestly conveyed and debated, between two candidates well-qualified to deliver on what voters decide."

and

"Huppenthal is a longtime state legislator who has specialized in education issues. He's also a policy geek who likes to wallow in data.

Huppenthal is as informed a champion for conservative education reform as the state could ask for. His general approach would be to improve student performance through better and more comprehensive accountability measures.

Kotterman is a longtime teacher. She's steeped in educational policy matters through her activities with the Arizona Education Association, including a stint as its president.

Her general approach is more traditional. According to her, teachers need more support and money to do a better job. She doesn't oppose accountability but is skeptical about basing it principally on student performance on standardized tests, rather than a more holistic approach."

Robb prefers Huppenthal's approach. I guess I prefer's Kotterman's approach, but it seems to me if the choice is between a long time educator and a long time legislator who specialized in education the educator would be the one to choose. But, maybe I'm missing something here.

JDRF Walk For a Cure

2010-09-21T19:34:00.003-07:00

We are kicking off our drive to raise money for JDRF research for a cure. Our video is here:

We are sending this letter out to everyone we know:

We are writing to ask for your support in a very important cause. As most of you know, our daughter, Elizabeth, was diagnosed with Type 1 Diabetes in November two years ago. This October, we will be participating with thousands of other families in Juvenile Diabetes Research Foundation’s Walk to Cure Diabetes.

Since it’s founding in 1970 by parents of children with Type 1 Diabetes, JDRF has awarded more than $1.1 billion to diabetes research. More than 85 percent of JDRF’s expenditures directly support research and research-related education.

Type 1, or juvenile, diabetes, is a devastating, often deadly disease that affects millions of people—a large and growing percentage of them children.

Many people think Type 1 Diabetes can be controlled by insulin. While insulin does keep people with Type 1 Diabetes alive, it is not a cure. Aside from the daily challenges of living with Type 1 Diabetes, there are many severe, often fatal, complications caused by the disease. Diabetes is the sixth leading cause of death in the United States.

For Elizabeth, diabetes means that she must have her finger poked an average of eight times a day to check her blood glucose level, and that she must have a tiny plastic tube lodged under her skin keeping her connected to an insulin pump 24 hours a day. The pump has improved her life considerably, but it cannot prevent her from still experiencing frustrating high and low blood sugars and the accompanying symptoms of fatigue, frustration, and grogginess.

Elizabeth will never outgrow diabetes, but we have hope that JDRF will find a cure for this terrible disease within her lifetime.

Won’t you please help Elizabeth and all of the 200,000 children with diabetes by joining "The Greatest Cause On Earth” on October 30, 2010? There are three ways you can help:

1. The easiest way is to give a tax deductible donation via the website http://walk.jdrf.org/ then select Arizona as your state, and search for the “Live for Lizzie” team. Donate to the walker and fill in the information required.
2. You can join our team, and walk with us. To join our team also go to http://walk.jdrf.org and search for “Live for Lizzie” and register as a walker. If you’d like to collect pledges in addition to walking, just forward this information to every you know.
3. Send us a donation made payable to JDRF.

No donation is too small. No amount of support is too little. Your consideration is greatly appreciated.

State Superintendent of Public Instruction Debates

2010-09-18T12:23:00.004-07:00

Ok, I started watching this debate with some bias. The Republican candidate is John Huppenthal who has spent the last 17 years in the state legislature, a lot of that working in education committees. So, I probably dismissed his qualifications a bit. If you google his name on the web, top on the list is the link to his interview with the Corono High School student. According to wikipedia:

"As Wagner continued questioning him, Huppenthal stood up and left the room to retrieve more information about the vote, eventually returning to the interview. A video of the interview which was edited to exclude Huppenthal's return received wide circulation on the internet."

So, even the interview wasn't quite as bad as it appears, although he should have been much better prepared than he was.

Having said that, Penny Kotterman, is the superior candidate. While Huppenthal has been in the state legislature, Kotterman has been in the classroom since 1978, working as an educator at every level.

This difference in experience shows in the debate. Huppenthal takes the more Republican ideological positions pretty consistently. For example, with school reform, his focus is on high stakes testing and "accountability" and keeps referencing data from the most recent research. He talks a decent game and he makes good points, but it sounds like someone whose read a lot about education, not someone who has had first hand experience with it.

Kotterman on the other hand understands teaching from the perspective of one whose pursued it as a long term professional. Its literally been her career. An educator becomes better as they gain experience, staying abreast of the latest research, and continually improving. Diane Ravitch makes this point clearly in her book. Huppenthal seems to come from the mindset popular in today's political class today (especially among Republicans) that anybody can teach as long as they apply a kind of formulaic research based formula against it (granted this is a cynical interpretation of their viewpoint) and more people should have easy access to the profession. You see that as people from business try to use "school reform" as a way to inject business and free market principles and competition into our schools with very poor results.

I think its interesting that Mr. Huppenthal, again from a qualifications point of view, has an engineering degree and a MBA and now he considers himself an expert on schools.

The most poignant part of the debate for me was when they entered the phonics verses whole language debate. Huppenthal describes whole language as something that has been "nuclear bombed" by research. Kotterman explains that there is no one way to teach reading. A teacher uses every tool in her toolbox to teach a child.

Huppenthal's view makes sense from someone whose read about reading in a book. Kotterman's point of view comes from someone whose actually done it.

In my experience, with our kids, Kotterman's perspective is more accurate. Phonics is really important, but so is exposure to vocabulary and simply just surrounding your kids with words and with stories and with books. Ultimately they have to recognize the words on the page and get beyond working through each letter's sound, and I believe (though I'm not sure) that's basically what whole language is all about.

Personally, I think Kotterman is by far the superior candidate in this election.

Some final Douthat on Gay Marriage

2010-09-17T21:45:00.002-07:00

So, Ross Douthat after a weeklong vacation finally gets around to finishing the second of his two part posts in response to Andrew Sullivan's response to the gay marriage issue: Part 1 and Part 2. I thought his part 2 post was the stronger of the two.

In part 1, he condemns pretty harshly the conservative response to the emerging gay scene in the early 1980's:

" There’s no question that conservatives had an opportunity, amid the end of the closet and the crisis of the AIDS epidemic, to think constructively about what kind of public accommodations should be made for gay relationships, both to avoid the cruelties that the disease cast into sharp relief (longtime lovers denied access to their dying partners’ bedsides, etc.) and to recognize that committed gay relationships, too, have value for society. Instead, conservatives tended to interpret the spread of HIV as a case of an inherently self-destructive culture reaping what it had sowed. And that “inherently” assumption led them to ignore or downplay the conservative turn in gay culture that the disease inspired — a turn that led, eventually, to the arguments for gay marriage as the most stable and plausible alternative to the closet."

The alternative solution he proposes is pretty weak in my humble opinion:

"So what should conservatives have done instead? Basically, they should have pushed (in, let’s say, the early 1980s) for what Ryan Anderson and Sherif Girgis have urged as a contemporary compromise: A domestic partnership law designed to accommodate gay couples without being sexuality-specific. "

Its a weak solution because, well, I heard this before. But its true, if this would have been offered in the early 1980's, it would have been a radical proposal. But that bridge has been crossed a long time ago, as Douthat readily admits.

But Part 2 is stronger because he gets off the subject of solutions (we are heading toward gay marriage) and back on the subject of lifelong monogamy.

" The benefits of gay marriage, to the couples involved and to their families, are front-loaded and obvious, whereas any harm to the overall culture of marriage and childrearing in America will be diffuse and difficult to measure. I suspect that the formal shift away from any legal association between marriage and fertility will eventually lead to further declines in the marriage rate and a further rise in the out-of-wedlock birth rate (though not necessarily the divorce rate, because if few enough people are getting married to begin with, the resulting unions will presumably be somewhat more stable). But these shifts will probably happen anyway, to some extent, because of what straights have already made of marriage. Or maybe the institution’s long decline is already basically complete, and the formal recognition of gay unions may just ratify a new reality, rather than pushing us further toward a post-marital society. Either way, there won’t come a moment when the conservative argument, with all its talk about institutional definitions and marginal effects and the mysteries of culture, will be able to claim vindication against those who read it (as I know many of my readers do) as a last-ditch defense of bigotry."

Actually Douthat links to an article that deserves its own post - for another time.

Anyway, I am now off the Ross Douthat bandwagon.

In Defense of TARP

2010-09-17T07:35:00.002-07:00

I've been making the case for TARP for a long time, not that I have some brilliant insights on TARP but because I've read a lot of papers explaining its necessities and those articles that criticized focused mainly on how to make it more effective or more comprehensive. I've never read or heard an argument that explains how doing nothing would have been better.

So, it amazes me why its so unpopular now.

Well, its been two years to the week of the TARP, here's some literature looking back:

Matt Yglesias:

"TARP was both a good idea and nothing less than an exposure of the myth of the free market. There’s an idea out there about a free market that operates “naturally” and produces a certain distribution of wealth and income. Any further interventions into that marketplace to ensure that prosperity is broadly shared constitutes some kind of illegitimate “redistribution” of wealth and income from its natural state. This is not, however, an accurate description of how any economy featuring a modern banking system works. A world in which we simply didn’t have banking and finance would be, overall, a much poorer world. But a world with banking and finance requires various forms of management—monetary policy, regulation of the financial system, and intervention amidst panics and crises. TARP and the associated activities of the Federal Reserve were examples of such intervention and were good ideas. But they highlight that public policy decisions are integral to the creation and sustainment of modern capitalist economies."

Karl Smith:

" If no one else will defend TARP, I will defend it. I will defend it through any medium, at anytime, under any circumstances. I will be the lone voice in a town hall full of Ron Paul supporters. I will say it at a Code Pink Regional Conference. I will not let this go.

There are few moments when I have shed a tear over policy. Despite initial missteps what I saw was lawmakers coming together in the face of overwhelming public opposition to protect the future of our society. It made me more confident in our government than any other single event I have ever experienced."

Ben Smith:

"Rammed through Congress in the final months of the Bush administration by a political and financial establishment that felt it had looked into the abyss, TARP had the support of not just President Barack Obama but also his likely foes in 2012, such as former Govs. Mitt Romney and Sarah Palin. But it has been only sporadically defended, or even explained, by leaders of both parties who have shown decidedly little courage of their convictions."

'It’s become demonized on the left and the right by screamers — Glenn Beck and Rachel Maddow — who have no interest in the facts; they’re just interested in hyperbolizing and generating attention,' lamented New Hampshire Sen. Judd Gregg, a key player in guiding the measure through the upper chamber and one of the few Republicans willing to talk about TARP in positive terms."

"While Obama last week made reference to having narrowly avoided another Depression, he and other leaders have generally avoided trying to explain that mechanism, in favor of trying to change the subject.

All that, despite a broad consensus of economists who think things would have been worse without the bank rescue — and perhaps far worse: In one simple example, American workers’ paychecks might well not have arrived. Think bread lines and cat food.

“The TARP is probably the most effective large-scale government program that the public has vehemently decided was a bad idea, and, therefore, has only the most tepid political defenders,” said the Brookings Institution’s Douglas Elliott. “Unfortunately, the right thing to do for the public just sounds so wrong to Main Street in this case.”

The policymakers who emerged shaken from a Sept. 16, 2008, briefing by Treasury Secretary Henry Paulson never managed to win credit for the apocalypse avoided from an American public furious at them for allowing the mess to develop in the first place."

"A study this summer by former Fed Vice Chairman Alan Blinder and Moody’s chief economist Mark Zandi was representative of that consensus. They projected that without federal action — TARP and the stimulus — America’s gross domestic product would have fallen more than 7 percent in 2009 and almost 4 percent in 2010, compared with the actual combined decline of about 4 percent.

“It would not be surprising if the underemployment rate approached one-fourth of the labor force,” they wrote of their scenario. “With outright deflation in prices and wages in 2009-11, this dark scenario constitutes a 1930s-like depression.

Back in 2008, that view was persuasive. Republicans like McConnell and Blunt swallowed their distaste for government action and persuaded their colleagues to vote with them for TARP. Liberals like House Speaker Nancy Pelosi and Massachusetts Rep. Barney Frank swallowed their dislike of Bush and distrust of the bankers."

Ok, just read this whole article..

More Deep Thoughts on Gay Marriage

2010-09-15T23:58:00.002-07:00

In my late night browsing, I encountered two pretty intense articles from Eve Tushnet:

First here:

"I think this worldview denigrates the importance of the body. Our physicality--our incarnation--goes far beyond function. That's why kids who grew up with really amazing, sacrificial stepfathers or father figures or male role models, or adoptive parents, very often express both intense gratitude toward the people who loved and raised them, and intense longing or anger or sorrow toward the biological parents who didn't, or who loved intermittently and from afar. It's possible (I know this, because it happens) to both honor non-biological parents and yearn for the connection of DNA, of flesh. Something is missing when parental love is separated from the fleshly, sweaty, physical union which created the child."

"But the other is what I'm going to call aesthetic sensitivity. I'm calling it that because I think attention to the meaning of the physical is essentially a function of the aesthetic sense. People who feel the loss of the biological parent most keenly are, I think, expressing an insight--not a weakness, not a handicap created by their culture, but an insight into what it is to be human.

These are two separate spectra. Someone can be both intensely sensitive to the loss of the biological parent, and extremely resilient. Someone can be really flailing or self-pitying, and not at all interested in the biological connection. But just as resilience is a good thing in itself, so a deep sense of the importance of physical, fleshly relatedness is a good thing in itself. The "family diversity" movement tends to praise resilience and downplay or even denigrate what I'm calling aesthetic sensitivity. It's hard to avoid the conclusion that they do this because resilience makes the adults' lives easier and the other thing does not."

And then as if she's making an argument with herself, then here:

"Gay marriage promises that, for those of us lucky enough to grow up with parents in a loving/good-enough marriage, we truly can fit our own futures and dreams into the family story we grew up with. We can step into our parents' shoes. You all know that I think this promise is based on some really false beliefs about sex difference and family structure, but believe me, I feel the power and attraction of the promise.

And this longing for home is one reason the Church's silences, clinical language, and general lameness w/r/t speaking to actual gay people is so frustrating. Because the truest and best alternative to the home promised by gay marriage is precisely the home promised by Christ, the loving embrace of the Holy Family. When I say that the cure for alienation is in kneeling at the altar rail, this is not especially believable if the actual Catholics you've known were clueless at best and bullying at worst."

Tea Party Reactions

2010-09-15T19:20:00.006-07:00

My first reaction from the tea party rhetoric and electoral success is fear and sadness. The tea party agenda seems to be based on fear and ideological purity. Obama and Pelosi are their enemies who should be fought against not fellow Americans with whom to work and with whom to solve problems in the spirit of compromise. Its depressing because its seems like in many cases the Tea Party candidate will win in the generals as well (we'll see).

Why has the electorate after only two years from the conclusion of the Bush disaster, decided to return to something even further extreme? (Well, they didn't of course, Obama is still in the white house for at least two more years).

Well, the Democrats had the office in two of the most challenging political years in a very long time. And they just didn't have the office, they really had the office. With a pretty transformative president. I continue to believe that every single thing Obama did or attempted to do was pretty moderate considering the circumstances. But he did a lot, and collectively, it added up to something big.

After all, he was governing with overwhelming majorities in both the House and the Senate, so he had the political power to move a lot of agenda quickly. But not only that, I believe the circumstances demanded it. Of course, David Brooks imagines an alternative reality where he vetoes the expensive pork filled budget, passes a more modest stimulus and chooses to tackle energy instead of health care. I'm not sure how that would have worked. Largely, it would have kicked the health care can down the road (to when?) and the states would have received much less money from the stimulus resulting in much more drastic and more painful cuts at the state level.

Instead Obama spent a great deal of his political capital fighting the economic fire that started before he took office. Today is the two year anniversary of Lehman's bankruptcy by the way. But even with all of that political capital spent, he went after health care reform. Arguably, the times called for it. Pre health care reform (well we are still living pre-health care reform, it doesn't really take affect until 20140), we had a health care system that leaned far too heavily on an employer based system propped up with government subsidies and regulation. A recession with unemployment hovering around 10% for closing in on two years now, I think, shows you why this system was always a flawed historical accident. Consider, even with the subsidies, many companies (especially small ones) were not able to keep shouldering the burden of our broken health care system. It needed fixing. Obama's plan was an incremental step in a certain direction. Nonetheless, the bill took everything Obama and the Democrats had to get it passed and there's really nothing left going into the primaries.

Now, we have a landscape of angry voters who just want to throw the bums out. And with the Democrats holding the office and calling the shots for the past two years, they will pay the price for it. I'm not sure how avoidable this was. Unemployment would have been high no matter what the government did - much higher without the bank bailouts, marginally higher with the kind of stimulus Brooks proposes.

So, if the Republican party gets pulled toward the right. If the Tea Party anger gets a lot more representation in Congress, is this a bad thing? Not necessarily.

The Tea Party has spent a lot of time blaming the Great Recession on too much government. The Democratic party has blamed this Recession on an out of control and unregulated free market.

Actually, I think to some extent both sides have a point. Our government has grown and grown, through Democratic and Republican rule. The eight years of Bush were particularly bad and particularly corrupt. Throwing Bush out didn't change this fact, at least not enough.

We're spending too much and getting too little from our government and the poor and middle class and bearing the brunt of the consequences. Which is why people get so fed up when they see bank bailouts that help the ruling class (the bankers and the CEO's) while the lower class continue losing their jobs and their homes.

But its not just a problem of too much government, its also a problem of a broken government. They have too often been ineffective or absent failing to do the work that only a government is capable of doing. And a big reason for the Great Recession wasn't just out of control government, but more importantly, it was an out of control and unregulated financial industry creating an unregulated ponzai scheme of credit layered on top of layers of credit. The housing bubble was the underlying foundation, but the real problem was credit.

So, what should happen if the Tea Party gets more representation in our legislative body? For two years, the Republicans got away with obstructionist behavior because they really didn't have the numbers to truly obstruct. The Democrats didn't get everything they wanted, but they got a lot. After November, if the Republicans obstruct, government will grind to a halt and the electorate will notice. This is not what most people want.

I think the next two years will be telling. Can the newly designed Republican party compromise and work with the president?

If they can, we have a shot at creating a nice balance, moving toward a leaner more effective government that pursues necessary infrastructure projects but also creates space and empowers individuals and industry to innovate and create in the free market. If we succeed, we will be following the foundations America was built on proving that government and its citizens can work together in complementary roles.

So, yes, the Tea Party movement from the right might be just what we need. An angry and fired up legislative body that works to cut out the fat. But if they start going after real government meat (think schools and health care or financial regulation or the Federal Reserve) or if they simply refuse to work with Obama "the socialist", we will have 2 years of painful deadlock and Obama wins in 2014 and the Democrats gets some of those seats back.

What This Election Means Part II

2010-09-13T21:10:00.003-07:00

This is just a quick addendum to my last post because as always Andrew Sullivan says it better than me.

In this post he quotes Yuval Levin from the Weekly Standard:

"Democrats, as the president’s chief of staff Rahm Emanuel explained in 2008, have sought to use the ongoing economic crisis to achieve all kinds of unrelated goals: health care policy they have craved for decades, environmental policy that has little to do with the economy, more protections for unions, a greater role for government in the financial and automotive sectors, and on and on."

So, in my last post I focused on 9/11 and the bank bailouts in reaction to the greatest collapse of our economic system in modern times.

But really, the attacks on Barack Obama have been so over-the-top. I understand people may have principled reasons to be opposed to the health care bill or his energy bill or the specific ways Obama tried to deal with the economic meltdown.

But you really need to put it into perspective:

Health Care

"The health-care plan to provide access to insurance for the tens of millions was a clear part of Obama's election campaign. It eschewed the left's dream - single-payer - and eliminated a public option. It was supported by the drug and insurance companies. It needs constant monitoring and improvement if it is to control costs, but it has set up a market in insurance that could be a model for future conservative innovation. It strongly resembles Mitt Romney's legacy in Massachusetts. None of this was snuck through in the stimulus package described by Rahm Emanuel's infamous aside. It was the result of almost two years of painful attempts at some kind of bipartisan agreement. It reduces the deficit over the long run if the CBO is to be believed - unlike the unpaid for, budget-busting Medicare D that Bush and Cheney foisted on the next generation."

In fact, this bill could have been labelled a Republican bill for many reasons and as I truly believe (I don't think I blogged about how but I've had many facebook debates where I've laid it out - I'll post it later), there are plenty of opportunities to move our health care in much more free market direction than even in our current system.

Environmental Policy

Yuval then writes the befuddling phrase: "environmental policy that has little to do with the economy." In fact, as we know, no gains have been made in curtailing climate change, unless you include some of the green energy components in the stimulus package, and Obama's biggest gesture was to endorse off-shore oil-drilling, to make his environmental policy close to identical to John McCain's. Climate change legislation - cap-and-trade - didn't occur, but even there, that strategy is designed to minimize disruption to markets and came from the right, not the left in the 1980s and 1990s. Again, Yuval makes it seem as if this comes from nowhere, as if the evidence that America is being trounced by China in this vital new industry and if the climate isn't clearly veering toward unpredictable crises were phantasms of the mind."

Unions????

Then: protection for unions. Again, there is no card-check legislation. It was not a priority. It was not snuck into the stimulus package.

This is just another example where people on the right are just making stuff up.

Greater Role in the Financial Sector

Lastly "a greater role for government in the financial and automotive sectors." What you will notice is that there is no reference in any of this to the appalling economic circumstances Obama inherited which determined both policies. It's like describing FDR's policies as if the Great Depression never happened. What a leap toward Kenyan anti-colonialism that was. Indeed, in the Weekly Standard's headline "madness". Levin, of course, makes no reference to the deregulated chaos that precipitated the financial meltdown that created the worst recession since the Second World War ( or are Richard Posner and Alan Greenspan Kenyan anti-colonialists now as well?). And what Obama has done to rein in some of the abuses is relatively modest, wrought by such radicals as Tim Geithner and Larry Summers, to the consternation and contempt of the left.

And Automotive Sectors

As for the auto companies, the emergency aid given has been a gleaming success with Detroit managing to turn things around far more quickly than most imagined. Ditto the banks, where the government may actually be making money off its bailout soon, just as GM is eager to sell off its government-owned stock to the private sector.

Conclusion

All this Yuval knows. He is not a Beck or Palin with no grip on reality at all. And yet this is what the intellectual right at its best is now dedicated to: pure propaganda on the crudest old right-left axis, arguing that a recession caused in part by a Republican administration's neglect and in part by failed Republican policies can be rectified merely by Republican rule.

Again, I thought it would get worse before it got better on the right. But that we have propagandistic, intellectually dishonest dreck like this coming from their brightest stars - and that large swathes of the American public seem to be buying it - brings one close to despair.

I mean Barack Obama has taken heat on the left for being just another Bush. The fact is that Obama has tried to be as respectful to the markets as he possibly can while dealing with real problems that need to be solved.

You can respectfully disagree with the core of Obama's policies, I'm fine with that. Especially, if you bring to the table alternative ideas and show specifically how they will deal with our world.

(You can't say we need to get more competition into our health care unless you're willing to eliminate employer subsidized health care and then show me how someone with a disability or chronic illness has any hopes of getting the health care they need).

But to label him a socialist or to reduce the debate to "pure propaganda on the crudest old right-left axis" is simply just frustrating.

And the fact that Republicans are campaigning for election on this kind of stuff at every level of government is mind-boggling to me. Can someone please explain it to me?