Sunny Wisconsin Weather

2007-03-29T21:18:00.000-07:00

The notion that education is just a means to an end - that if we just jump through such and such hoops, we'll be happy, healthy, productive participants in the American dream - hurts folks badly - takes a serious come to Jesuss moment to get past that misperception.

The rest of this gets a little far afield from education, but I think it fits as an extension. Our educational pursuits are part of our pursuits of the "American Dream" after all, and I'm becoming less a fan of the stereotyped American Dream these days. In the rest of this, I speak only for myself. Stay with me - I'm going the long way around the barn, but I'm gonna get to the door.

I can't help but think I've bought a bad bill of goods. In every way I can imagine, I am materially better off than my grandparents. I have better access to medical care, I am much better read, much better traveled, live in a much nicer home and I personally do not have to work nearly as hard as my grandfather or my father did. Closing in on 40, I've had no significant health problems, and I have not been ground down by the back-breaking labor that wore them out so quickly.

The person who wrote the old saw "that which doesn't kill you makes you strong" apparently never worked in these sorts of jobs. They don't make you strong, they grind your bones.

With all that - I remain disaffected and troubled. Why? What's missing? What is it that I've lost?

In part - it's the human connection. In responding to the demands of the marketplace, I have lived in 6 different cities since my son was born. I am separated from my extended family by many miles and by schedules that just don't match up. My oldest friends are scattered across the map such that we only see each other perhaps once or twice a year. Though I've lived in my house for three years now, not one of my neighbors has ever been in my home, and I have not been in theirs. I speak now and then to a few of them, but do not even know their phone numbers.

(As a sideline irony, I sometimes find myself able to laugh at the folks in the ownership class of this little ponzi scheme we call an economy when they bewail the social ills which permeate and persist in this nation. All those things - drug addiction, homelessness, child abuse, assorted forms of criminality and social malaise - are the natural and inevitable results of the highly mobile and fragmented family structures required by this "market" economy. They've sowed the poison seed into their own gardens.)

Trust me - this gets back around to education eventually.

My iteration of the American Dream has divorced me from human contact. Is my situation so unique? Does anybody actually do a two week deer camp anymore? With PayPerView, computers, TiVO and the like to distract me, perhaps I've just lost touch with my friends and family. After all, they aren't nearly as interesting as Jack Bauer anyhow.

Now that I can call a plumber, carpenter, electrician, mechanic to take care of any job I can't handle on my own, I apparently have no need of neighbors, right?

I accept that this is all within my control - I can simply decide to live closer to family and friends. I could simply invite my neighbors over. I could offer my services to them with regard to the things that I can do around the house. It is within my power to reach out to people and reestablish these connections.

That said, our society is saturated with advertising. It's a never-ending blitz on your brain. I used to say that if you had a nickel in your pocket somebody was trying to figure out a way to get it from you for a penny. It's even worse now. If you have a chance of making a dollar in the future, there are a ton of people who will give you a nickel for it now, and advertising DOES alter behavior.

If it didn't, nobody would spend money for a spot in the Super Bowl.

Is it possible that I am entirely alone in this condition? That I'm just a looney-tune sitting in the middle of the greatest society the world has ever known saying, "Yeah, but . . . what about this?" It would be comforting to find that I'm just a disaffected whiner - much better than sitting here thinking much of the country has gone mad with an insatiable lust for bread and circuses.

Back to education -

To bring this full circle - if all you're looking for is access to bread and circuses, real education isn't all that desirable. All you really need is the skills and pedigree to convince the marketplace to provide you with the cash to gain that access. Why bother with something so frivilous as actually learning something?

It also strikes me that many students' attitude towards education is much like my attitude towards a plumber who comes in to do a job. If it was me and my neighbor tearing up the pipes, I'd be alot more engaged. Since it's a guy I hired, I care much less about the process than I do about him not marking up my floor and getting the hell out of here so I can resume my customary activities like trolling the internet, half-clothed and in the company of large amounts of Mountain Dew and popcorn.

With that image, I bid you a-dew,

The Habeas Corpus fiasco

2007-03-23T19:17:00.000-07:00

had a boss once who, when I objected to a particular method, informed me that he found it expedient to act in that way and would do so until somebody forced him to stop. The only control that mattered to him was an opposing force. I mentally thank him frequently for showing me very early on most of what I needed to know about the abuse of power - in personal relationships, in the workplace and in government.

With that in mind, I'm gravely disturbed by the Attorney General's habeas corpus comment -

It's hard to know exactly where Gonzo is at with that. It almost sounds like a testing of the waters - just seeing what the reaction might be. In my estimation, the reaction should be nothing less than a hue and cry from the population. I really don't give a crap what Ann Coulter called John Edwards, but our representatives should be jumping out of their skins over this.

Habeas corpus (a tradition dating back centuries - check Article 39 of the Magna Carta) is nothing less than the core guarantee that government will be accountable to the people. It's importance cannot be overstated. Toss habeas corpus and the executive becomes a king.

As disturbing as it was to hear the highest law enforcemnet offical in the nation whittle away at a centuries old legal concept, the reaction from the chief executive is even more disturbing.

Mr Gonzales states that there is no expressed guarantee of habeas - while he is technically correct in that the United States Constitution never states these exact words "all person have a right to habeas," perhaps he should read the sixth amendment.

"In all criminal prosecutions, the accused shall enjoy the right to a speedy and public trial, by an impartial jury of the State and district wherein the crime shall have been committed, which district shall have been previously ascertained by law, and to be informed of the nature and cause of the accusation; to be confronted with the witnesses against him; to have compulsory process for obtaining witnesses in his favor, and to have the Assistance of Counsel for his defence. "

Gonzo, my good man, that IS habeas corpus! As one of the few rights spelled out in the afirmative by the amendments, it could scarcely be made more clear. Far more disturbing than this is the fact that Mr Gonzales was not called to answer immediately for this remark. It says to me that the President stands behind his appointee.

It concerns me that 8 US Attorneys might have been fired in part to cloud investigations, but it is very nearly a justification for revolt for a member of the executive branch to tramp like a drunken sailor around a legal principle firmly in place for something like 800 years. Gonzales should have been tarred and feathered, and if the President cannot be clear about his Administration's stance concerning habeas, he should be removed.

Thomas Jefferson nailed it -

"We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable [inalienable] Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty, and the Pursuit of Happiness. That to secure these Rights, Governments are instituted among Men, deriving their just powers from the consent of the governed...."

Those rights are our birthright - it is self-evident that human beings possess these rights. That last bit is the cornerstone of it all. The kingpost of just government is the idea that power is derived from consent of the governed. If habeas corpus is damaged, our consent could be made meaningless by an executive who could simply order the detention (perhaps even execution) of any person who objected to executive actions.

Without habeas corpus and an independent judiciary, there is little recourse to executive power

. . . except the right protected by the second amendment of course.

warmest regards - Bingo

Soldier's Angels

2006-11-02T11:13:00.000-08:00

Check in on Soldier's Angels.

http://soldiersangels.org/valour/index.html

These folks get laptops and voice software to wounded soldiers unable to use a keyboard. They're in the process of a big fundraising push at the moment - until 11/10/2006, but it's a damn fine organization regardless of timing.

Go Army Team!

2006-08-11T10:21:00.000-07:00

I'm sick of idealogues, hangers-on, cronies, politicians and others flapping their yaps about education. I'm especially targeting recent attacks made on the Wisconsin system.

Education is a local issue, and the Feds and the think tanks should butt the hell out. I'd like to hear what a Wisconsin think tank including education people, industry people, corporate people and others might say about the products of Wisconsin public education. That might actually be worth considering.

Could we spend our time teaching to the test and boost our scores? Sure. Would it help our kids compete? I doubt it.

Of course we should always seek to improve, but let's keep out eyes on the real prize instead of nonsense national test measures and think tank opinions.

The core of education is the reinforcement of a solid work-ethic, the practice of using resources and finding new ones and applying your knowledge, skills and resources to coping with real world problems. All the learning and schoolwork the kids do from k-12 is mostly about producing adults that can do that. The fact that they learn a certain knowledge base in the process should not distract from the fact that it's those abilities we're trying to train.

Of course we should always be looking for ways to do better. Find me a national test that measures these things and shows Wisconsin failing, and we'll talk. Until then, this all smacks of outsiders carping about a system and a people that work pretty damned well.

If Wisconsin residents feel that serious educational reforms are needed, we should be working from our own numbers and our own strategies in towns, cities, and our rural communities, not on the assumption that some national publication and Washington DC think tank mining databases from hundred or thousands of miles away can tell us how to improve our schools.

Listen to the teachers. Listen to the students. Listen to the parents. Listen to the employers. Listen to the marketplace. Let the politicians, wannabe politicians and their hired hands pound sand.

2006-08-10T09:51:00.000-07:00

My unsolicited and probably well-biased view point on the marriage amendment in Wisconsin. For many of us, there are actually two marriages. I was married in a Catholic church by a Catholic priest (in spite of not being Catholic). This is the marriage that resounds for me – the promise I made in front of God and everybody I hold dear. This is the construct that promotes stable families.

There is another marriage – the legal status we enjoy with regard to government bodies and my employer. This one is important to our financial state, but really is entirely devoid of deeper meaning. In my mind, the two are wholly separate. Either can exist wholly independently of the other.

From the polls I've seen, Wisconsin voters might be inclined to accept a parallel legal status (civil unions), but the amendment that's on the table would whack this. Put me down for "no" on this one in November.

I agree with some objections to the Mass decision that this seems to be a legislative matter and not a judicial one, but I think the legal activity of the past couple years may have helped push it into the center ring more quickly than it would have otherwise traveled. Whether that's good or bad remains to be seen.

Is it activism on the part of judges in expanding their scope? Perhaps. There's also been plenty of scope creep in the Executive Branch the last few years, but I don't hear a lot of conservative complaints about that. In the end, activists may have found the only avenue they had to move the debate forward, so I'll give 'em points for persistence and ingenuity. I doubt we'd be talking about this without the goings on in Mass, VT and SF.

Bingo

aphorisms

2006-08-07T21:59:00.000-07:00

Wisdom is where you find it.

Dick Cheney is a white cat and a bad accent away from being a Bond villain.

Life is a brutal, nasty, ugly business, and the quicker you come around to that the better.

We're all broken people in one way or another.

Education is something you do - not something done to you.

80% of most jobs is thinking and giving a shit.

How you respond to a call for help at 4:55 on Friday just says it all.

If you're wondering about a person, pick up the lunch check and see what happens.

Reading Shakespeare is like reading the libretto for an opera. Go see the play dammit.

If Truth can be found, you can find it yourself. Trust no one who tells you otherwise.

Marriage is mostly about choice - choose to focus on the good things - dump the rest.

Reading a great book should change something about your life. If not, you wasted your time.

As with all unsolicted advice - take what helps, dump the rest and recognize that I'm mostly talking to myself here.

2006-08-06T01:24:00.000-07:00

Well, L’il Kim and the Iranians are doing a fine job of doing just enough to scare people. That’s a little shocking to tell you the truth. We’ve really dealt with much worse. Is it possible that people honestly do not understand that fear of an "enemy" is one of the founding pillars of a fascist state?

To begin with the history of living memory, my grandparents helped knock global fascism back into the Stone Age, forced Japan into a very small box, and served notice on the Soviet Union that we were not to be trifled with, and they did it in about the same amount of time it’s taken us to get to where we are in Iraq.

My father’s generation stood up against the North Koreans (also China and, by proxy, the Soviets as well) and created that odd little stalemate we call the DMZ.

Of course, there was that little soiree with Cuba occurring just a few years before my unnoticed entry to this world.

I won’t get into Vietnam – I was a child when the last helicopter left the embassy, and that one is still too close in the American psyche for me to get too mouthy about it. Be it sufficient to say that the shades of the man who gave me life, his fellows in arms, and the now graying heads in Legion and VFW halls bear witness to a time which – if national election rhetoric means anything – yet stands as an open and bleeding American wound.

Fast forward to my own youth when in 1986 I volunteered to serve under then Commander in Chief Ronald Reagan. Whatever your opinion of the former President, no people ever stared across the potential battlefield at a more fearsome military foe. For those of you even younger than I, the Soviet Union might look like a historical joke. I assure you, back in the 1980s, nothing could have been further from the truth.

I relate this all to come to this point. It is insulting that our government now expects us to quake in our boots about the Iranians, North Koreans and quote/unquote Islamofascism. The Global Caliphate is a fantasy - you couldn't get the Islamic world united if Mohammed was buyin’ drinks..

It is even more disgusting that American citizens are willing to permit the 1st, 2nd, 4th and 5th Amendments to begin to erode under the pressure of that fear.

The violation of these ideals concerns me less than the erosion. Violations get swiftly corrected and guarded against – erosion passes mostly without notice until it’s too late. These are the essential guards against tyranny here at home. You might feel these incursions are warranted during this time of conflict, but in your experience, how frequently do those with power willingly relinquish it? I fear less for the present than for the future.

I believe with all my heart that, for all its faults, this experiment called America holds the best chance for humanity.

Our entire lives are permeated with the notion that, barring harm to others, we have the right to live our lives as we choose. That’s the foundation of it all – we can haggle about exactly what the Constitution and the Bill of Rights actually mean and how they apply in real life, but all those leaves grow from the great stem of personal liberty. “We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal. That they are endowed by their creator with certain inalienable rights. That among these are life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness.” Those words ring high and clear above the historical chatter.

Thomas Jefferson was a fucking genius.

Those in the world (on the international left and right and here in the US) who stand against these truths are wrong. They’re not pursuing another path, they’re not living their lives as they see fit, they’re not merely adhering to another political, economic or societal outlook – they’re wrong. Insofar as they are not causing us troubles, I’m inclined to leave them alone, but make no mistake, they are wrong.

We should always stand ready to face these enemies on the field of battle. Though I am a portly, closing in on 40, diabetic government computer nerd, I would not hesitate to stand with any American force in defense of those ideals, and unlike millions of Americans, I can still shoot straight.

Our present government has so lightly discarded this essential American heroism that it assumes the only way for American ideals to remain intact is to take the fight to the enemy in another field. The oft-repeated notion that we fight terrorists in foreign lands so as not to fight them here is bullshit – for stripped of its mask, it translates to this, “Yes, liberty and freedom should be defended, but they should be defended by someone else and somewhere else. And it should be done in such a way that my pretty little life is not disturbed. Now why are there onions on my fucking Whopper?”

We have failed to learn the lesson of flight 93 – and no I didn’t see the movie, don’t need to. I know my job as a citizen. And though I be pudgy and gray, god willing if I am ever presented with the opportunity to perform my duty, I will discharge it faithfully and well, so that, if I don’t see the end of the struggle, my family may toast my life and name with pride – in doing so, add my name to the only role that matters: the list of those who stood up when needed.

There are worse things in life than dying, my friends. No, Misters Bush and Cheney, I am not particularly afraid of Koreans, Iranians or Muslims in general, and if you insist on pillaging my country's inherent freedoms, I'll be pleased to show that I'm not particularly afraid of you either.

Bingo