February 2008

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Our will is to keep the torch of freedom burning for all.

-John Paul Jones

October 28, 2007

Today the Call, Tomorrow the Draft!

Chickenhawk!

Apparently the (ridiculous) argument doesn't just apply to combat anymore. Well, I guess if you are making an unreasonable argument, there is no way to limit it to an appropriate topic.

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October 27, 2007

A Principled Litmus Test

A lot of people talk about principles, but it’s sometimes difficult to tell what they really mean. Sayeth KipEsquire:

One man's "litmus test" is another man's "principled stance." Calling it one in one instance and the other in another instance is every man's "hypocrisy."

Actually, the ability to explain the difference between the two could be a useful litmus test for principled persons. If you want one.

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Poor Grammar, Bad Grammar

The Guardian reports: Bad Air From Wildfires a Health Threat… I mean, Poor Air From Wildfires a Health Threat . I was reading an unrelated but interesting article (about a rookie with the Royal Canadian Mounted Police) when I noticed that two of the links along the left side looked really, really similar.

Even at the Guardian, professional writers struggle with the rules of grammar. I just found it amusing and wanted to share it with the world, or at least the small percentage of the world that wanders into AtlasBlogged. Type carefully!

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October 26, 2007

Homeschooling

Through a long chain of links (from XRLQ to I Think Therefore I Blog to Mom is Teaching to Sympathy Pain) I encounter a discussion about home-schooling that really highlights what should already be obvious: the purpose of public schools is not to teach social skills, and in fact they aren’t good at it.

Bryan (at Sympathy Pain) kicks off the conversation with the statement:

I really don’t understand the militant position most homeschoolers or homeschoolees take on their position.

I honestly appreciate that he is willing to admit that he doesn’t understand. But I must note that (in my experience) the homeschooler position no more militant than the position most professional educators take against homeschooling. It’s one of those arguments where most people on both sides tend to rely on their own “common sense”, which means that they are actually relying on their opinions and select anecdotes and articles that support their opinions. Those conversations tend not to result in anybody being persuaded to change their mind, and that’s why folks on both sides come off as being militant. This certainly doesn’t make anybody’s opinion wrong, but I rarely see it well supported.

Now to Bryan’s main point:

I taught for a while, theatre, of course, and would like to put my 17 years of experience up against any home school instructor. I think most teachers feel that way. It’s an insult to think that someone can teach algebra, or physics, or Russian from a pamphlet and a book. I feel the same way about the experience early education teachers bring to the classroom. There is so much now known about the elementary student that I can’t imagine someone trying to arm chair quarterback a classroom of one.

First, of the homeschoolers I know, none has tried to tackle every subject by themselves. There are entire networks of homeschoolers who have different areas of expertise and who help each other out. Just as in the public schools, this becomes more and more pronounced as the children get older and the requisite level of expertise becomes greater. If for some reason I wanted my children to speak Russian, I wouldn’t get a pamphlet and have a go – I would get in touch with somebody who speaks Russian and make arrangements, just the same as if I were trying to learn the language myself.

Second, it’s an insult to think that I can’t teach algebra, or physics, or frankly every subject offered in middle school and high school. I know more about each of these subjects than I did at graduation, and more about every one of these subjects than do ~95% of last year’s high school graduates. I say this as a high school teacher who sees firsthand what is covered in the courses at my school – I’m not just speculating out of my ass on this one. I don’t know more about theater than our school’s theater teacher, but I damn well know more about it than her students do, which means that I could teach them about theater. Everything? No. As much as she does? No, certainly not to 30 of them at a time, a regimented 50 minutes a day. But that’s not the comparison that is being made. The question is whether I could teach my own one or two children more by the time they are 18 than they will learn in public schools. I’ll say it again – it’s an insult to think that I can’t.

Of course, Bryan would have a reasonable point if his argument were limited to parents who are of sub-standard intelligence, motivation, and/or education themselves, or who don't have the time to devote to educating their own children. But he did not limit his argument to those parents. And if he did, I would fall back to the point that homeschoolers don’t operate in a vacuum.

Bryan then moves on to an argument I find baffling:

Some of these kids would rather be at school…because it was warm and relatively safe…That is why we need public schools.

Not to teach them Russian, algebra, and physics… but to provide them with a haven from their abusive home lives. And your children should be in that riotous classroom he describes, with those abused children, because it’s an insult to teachers to say that you can do better than that for your kids in your own home.

The real issue here is that Bryan does not understand the premise behind home schooling. He says,

If you want to improve the world of education, stop tearing down the public school system, and help.

But who homeschools because they want to improve the world of education? People home school in order to improve their own children. Not mine. Not the kids downtown. Their own children. If you think this is not helpful to them in the long run, then no, you don’t understand the militant position most homeschoolers or homeschoolees take on their position. And that failure to understand is yours. The proper response to it is not hubris – it’s to get educated.

At Mom is Teaching, Summer responds to the notion that kids become socially stunted if they are home schooled. I have often heard it argued that they are incapable of normal interactions as adults – Bryan specifies the time right after “graduation” as the most problematic, because these kids are released from the proverbial cellars and into jobs or colleges that are completely foreign to them. But there is a big problem with that logic. Summer notes:

I feel that the best place to prepare them for college and for life as an adult is by letting them be a part of the real world. Where they have to get to class on time of their own accord and not because of some distant bell ringing or adult lecturing, where they must manage themselves, and where they can direct their own educational futures… [Bryan]’s right. It takes a village. The baker, the farmer, the police, all the people in the real world who haven’t set foot in a classroom since they graduated. Luckily homeschoolers don’t spend 8 hours a day stuck in a brick bubble…they get to be a part of the real world every day.

Exactly. As a teacher, this is the aspect of schools that frustrates me the most – parents and students somehow assume that school prepares children for the “real world”, but school is not the “real world” and we go to great lengths as a society to ensure that. In the real world, you don’t have to take gym class if you’re fat or scrawny or just don’t like it. You don’t automatically get promoted when you show minimum competence. You don’t get detention for chewing gum, and you don’t just get two weeks off work if you beat somebody up at the office. You choose which interests to pursue, and when to choose them, and your level of success and happiness is dependent on those choices. I have no idea why people think the artificial society that exists in fifth grade would in some way prepare children for the “real world”. It can be a rewarding, enriching, wonderfully educational experience, but it certainly isn’t automatically these things, nor is it at all clear that public schools are the best way to have these things.

Or, in the words of Kate at I think therefore I blog:

I suppose if you believe the purpose of an education is to teach a child to deal with being treated like crap then, sure, the public school system provides many more opportunities for such experiences to be told to shut up, put up with bullies and disregarded by someone whose approval they seek.

To Bryan’s immense credit (I can’t emphasize that enough), he says the following in his own comment section:

I realize I am biased…teaching and working in schools. I’m going to take Summer’s advice and find some 3rd party publications and studies, and visit this again later. I am going to stay away feom the overly pro public school and the militant homeschool pages and try to find some actual studies from outside sources. If you have any, please shot them to me in an email.

Off the top of my head, I don’t know of any, but I hope he will consider what I’ve had to say, and I will keep an eye out for the type of sources he is asking for. And I’ll refrain from making some smart-ass comment about how that kind of information could best be researched in a school, and not at home.

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October 13, 2007

A thought experiment for civil libertarians

Let’s pretend that my co-blogger Rammage is a criminal. Let’s further pretend that the police (at any level, I don’t care) are aware of his activities and have obtained a warrant to tap Rammage’s phone and eavesdrop on his telephone conversations. And let’s pretend that he and I have enough free time to carry on a conversation via telephone. I grant that all three of these are a stretch, but let’s pretend it all anyway.

I call Rammage. He and I converse. The police have eavesdropped on me without a warrant to eavesdrop on me. But they don’t need one, because the only conversation they overheard was one that is covered by the warrant they have for Rammage’s conversations. It is not legally necessary to have a warrant for both parties of the conversation. I wouldn’t have a leg to stand on if I tried to take this to court and claim my rights had been violated. But if the police think I am a person whose conversations are interesting in a criminal sort of way, and they decide that they would like to eavesdrop on my conversations with other people, then they do have to get a warrant with my name on it. Not to listen to me talking to Rammage. But yes for listening to my calls otherwise.

Okay, I don’t expect there are any legal complaints thus far except from anarchists, which would beyond the scope of this thought experiment and which we will therefore not address. Moving on…

Suppose the CIA wants to eavesdrop on Vladimir Putin. They don’t need a warrant. They just listen in on his phone conversations and they are legally within bounds as far as US laws are concerned. Vladimir calls Kim Jong Ill, they listen in. Vladimir calls Osama bin Laden, they listen in. Everything is kosher so far. And then Vladimir calls me. The CIA does not have the legal authority to eavesdrop on my phone calls, but they do have the legal authority to eavesdrop on Putin’s. Can they legally listen to that phone call Putin has with me? Keep in mind that domestic police can legally listen to Rammage’s call to me, despite having no legal authority to eavesdrop on my phone calls. The domestic police do not have to drop that call on account of my rights and run out and get another warrant, this one with my name on it, in order to listen in to the conversation with Rammage. My question to you – should the CIA have to? Please provide some reasoning with your opinion.

You may feel that these two situations are dissimilar. You may feel they are exactly the same. This is, of course, the great FISA debate. I think it should be understood that reasonable people can disagree on whether or not these two situations I have described are dissimilar. I post this here both to establish that reasonable people can disagree on the issue and to get some feedback from our readers.

Update 10/15 My question has sparked some commentary by two bloggers I really enjoy reading - Doug Mataconis at The Liberty Papers and Michael W at A Second Hand Conjecture.

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Wearable Computing

You may have missed the International Symposium on Wearable Computers that was held in Boston this past week. Some products displayed there are
described as “ready for mainstream commercial production”:

- The Swiss Federal Institute of Techonology - "stretchable, threadlike sensors that can be woven into shirts to detect their wearers' posture." Help for those with back pain.

- Germany's University of Bremen - "shoe-borne sensor whose tiny accelerometers perform electronic dead reckoning — providing real-time location tracking in places satellite navigation systems either can't reach or can't describe with precision." For helping firefighters and emergency responders. (Wait until the Vice Squad gets ahold of those! ~Wulf, Ed.)

- MIT - "black plastic badges around their necks that analyze multiple factors – including motion and speech patterns”.

The last one will be useful when you need to tell the TSA that the device you’ve strapped to your chest right before walking into the airport is some kind of engineering geek art, and not a crude and colorful bomb.

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Of Running and the Weather

Today I ran in the 5th Annual 5K/10K Walk/Run to benefit Children's Hospital Foundation of Richmond, VA. I finished the 10K race in 54 minutes and change, I didn’t catch it exactly but it is essentially the same time I had in the last 10K I ran (the Carytown 10K back in late May). The weather was beautiful – clear, sunny, a high around 70 today.

Which reminds me. In the wake of last weekend’s Chicago marathon, there has been a flurry of conversation regarding marathons and the responsibilities of the organizers of these races, especially marathon and especially in extreme weather conditions. The fact that a runner died during the Chicago race has really raised emotions and concern, though the autopsy shows that contrary to initial suspicions, race conditions were not to blame in the death of 35-year-old runner Chad Schieber. (It has not yet been determined why a runner died in the Army 10-Miler in DC and surrounding areas last weekend.)

Even in ideal weather conditions, runners need to hydrate a lot. All athletes should consider this:

Performance starts to decline when you lose 3 percent of your body weight in sweat. For a 150-pound person, thats 4.5 pounds. Beyond 3 percent, performance falls off even more sharply. Dehydration becomes a life-threatening condition when it reaches 15 to 20 percent of body weight, usually through illness.

If you think that sounds like an extraordinary amount of weight to lose in a single sporting event, you clearly aren’t familiar with how extremely taxing some sporting events (like marathons) actually are on the body. Distance runners are typically very thin – 3% of body weight doesn’t translate to that much fluid loss. And drinking water is not enough. Most experts recommend sports drinks instead of water for runs over half an hour or so. This is why many races supply (and get sponsorship from) sports drinks. Personally, I’ve had Powerade provided at every race I’d run in the Richmond area besides this morning’s, and I am told it will be available at each water station for the upcoming Richmond Marathon.

This brings us back to preparing for these runs. Mayor Richard Daley defends the race organizers in Chicago, quoted in the Chicago Tribune saying that the cancellation of the Chicago Marathon four hours into the race was just “an unfortunate incident" – which means it requires no blame or accountancy, of course. Also from the Tribune,

After polling their 15 aid-station captains, race officials stood by their claim there were enough fluids, despite widespread complaints from runners who said they went without in the record-setting heat.

But not every aid-station worker agreed.

Volunteer Sharon Pines said she was surprised to learn race officials already have completed their investigation. Pines said she and other volunteers at the mile-10 aid station "ran out of everything" and had to reuse cups from the ground. They took a cooler to a nearby restaurant three times to replenish water needed to make Gatorade, she said.

The way I see it, the fact that this is even a question means that officials were not adequately prepared and stations were not at full capacity. There is no way around that. So the next step for race organizers was to assert that their lack of preparedness was not the real issue. Mayor Daly:

"You get out there, you have to take responsibility -- a bike rider, anyone who does sports outside in warm or cold weather."

Yes, Mr. Daly, that is true. That’s why marathon runners don’t go out and run 26.2 miles on their own, without making arrangements for somebody to provide them with a traffic-free route, plenty of fluids and (if necessary) medical aid. They instead pay a registration fee and sign up to an organized race. That fee, incidentally, is not being refunded, despite the fact that expectations were not met and runners had to seek relief in stores and public fountains.

That last link above gives an excellent quote from one runner: "I thought if I could prepare, they should be able to do it, too."

There is a level of individual responsibility to know what kind of weather conditions one is capable of racing in, yes. But when the race is in October, it means runners have been training all summer long, in the heat. They can handle running in hot weather. That is not inherently dangerous. It is the lack of proper fluids that makes it so. Keep in mind that the Chicago Marathon is the fifth largest race in the nation. It has more than 30,000 finishers each year. The budget is in the millions. There is no excuse for their lack of preparedness.

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October 11, 2007

Al Gore is Special (updated)

The same could be said of me - or of you. We will soon learn whether we have won the Nobel Prize. But Al Gore's uncertainty about his award status gets top billing on Google News because... um...

(article here for masochists)

(updated 10/12 at 10:12) So now that he's officially won (and I haven't - I preferred Time magazine's approach), somebody please explain to me how he has advanced the cause of Worldwide Peace. I'll settle down and congratulate him if you can. In the meantime I tip my hat to McQ and again direct you to Scott Ott:

Gore Wins Nobel Prize, High Court Gives It to Bush

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October 8, 2007

The War on Government Funded Science (updated)

I love science. I hate the entitlement mentality of scientists. Below is a comment I left on an article about exactly that at The Intersection:

Why is it that this post only discusses the federal budget? Aside from the issues you raise about the DOD and the "War on Terror", I think you might address the question of where scientists can get money other than from the federal government, whose moral and legal role in supporting scientific research is always political - in other words, inherently nonobjective. Rather than wade through the murky waters of what research deserves to be funded at the expense of taxpayers who may or may not support it (or the researcher), shouldn't scientists be looking for ways to further separate ourselves from politics, e.g. by cutting the purse strings?

Well? Shouldn't we be? Bonus points to the first person to ask me whether or not I am teaching at a public (i.e. taxpayer funded) high school.

Update: (10/12 at 09:20) The best commentary I've seen on the issue comes from Scott Ott:

Criticized by Sen. Hillary Clinton, D-NY, for waging a “war on science” by limiting taxpayer funding of embryonic stem cell research and refusing to sign the Kyoto protocol on climate change, President George Bush today vowed to “win that war too.”

...He also said he’s committed to protecting the American taxpayer from “zealous academics whose research is so important to society that no one but government would voluntarily fund it, and Congress only does so because they’re spending someone else’s money.”

Hey, that's a great point. And they call Scrappleface a comedy site. Well, it's funny because it's true, my friends.

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Hating on Columbus

A friendly coworker has forwarded to me a short essay about Christopher Columbus. It was written by a 17-year-old and published by Tolerance.org, which is “a web project of the Southern Poverty Law Center”.

The essay begins,

Since childhood, the notion that Christopher Columbus is a man to be celebrated has been forced into all our heads.

First, it always stops me short when a 17-year-old says something to me about something that has been going on “since our childhood”. And yes, as a high school teacher I experience that somewhat regularly. It’s an interesting reminder that they think of themselves as adults, yet aren’t very good at recognizing that my personal experiences predate their lives by nearly two decades. These generalizations they make are not always inaccurate, so the author’s age is no reason to dismiss the comment. In this case, it should be dismissed on its merits.

What is it about this opening sentence that endeavors for understanding and tolerance? Keep in mind what exactly Tolerance.org purports to engender:

Tolerance is respect, acceptance and appreciation of the rich diversity of our world's cultures, our forms of expression and ways of being human. Tolerance is harmony in difference.

Ah, the old can of worms… should those who value “tolerance” practice such toward those whom they believe do not value it? Is it not “intolerant” to devalue certain cultures that are less egalitarian than one might prefer? What is the reason for valuing tolerance? Have you any justification for valuing it, or does it dangle unsupported like a trapeze artist in the circus of your philosophy?

Columbus was not the only person who believed the world was round nor was he the first to venture out into the unknown. If we celebrate Columbus Day based solely on the fact that he accidentally discovered the Americas and from this discovery evolved the United States, we prove how closed-minded we are. How can we ignore everything else?

We should be proud of the United States and all that it stands for. But we should not cover up the mistakes it took to get here. Celebrating Columbus Day does just that. It glorifies the good and covers up the bad.

I absolutely abhor this kind of nonsense. I don’t think this young woman has any appreciation for how her argument actually defeats itself. If we did not celebrate Columbus Day, we would not have an opportunity each October to hear reminders of the brutality and arrogance of European explorers towards every population they encountered. Contrary to the young author’s implication of systematic indoctrination and propaganda, I have spent twice her lifetime hearing the opposite - that is, that Christopher Columbus was a fool, a fraud, a violent buffoon who accidentally stumbled into the history books without even recognizing what he’d done. This is as much an inaccurate myth as is the image of one heroic man seeking to prove the world was round and bring Christian peace and civilization to the noble savages. And when was I treated to this misunderstanding and intolerance? Why, October 12th. If Columbus Day were abolished, we wouldn’t have our annual opportunity to examine these extreme viewpoints and recognize that the truth isn’t quite so sensational and one-sided. In fact, the traditional and unrealistically heroic view of Columbus would probably be dominant if the holiday had been abolished when I was 17. The author might consider that before demanding to eliminate the historical discussion (and day off from school) from the calendars of those who will follow her.

So, how about a little tolerance? How about an attempt to place Columbus’s voyages in a historical context that need not propagandize him as hero or villain?

At least she indicates at the end of her editorial that she hasn't been taken in by those who hate on George Washington, Abraham Lincoln, and the Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. It's a start.

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October 7, 2007

Potato, Potahto

I just want to highlight a letter to the editor that was printed in the Sept 8th edition of the Economist:

SIR – Your article on Mexico and drugs stated that “Mexican victims of drug violence are often killed with firearms smuggled in from the United States, where slack gun laws make automatic weapons easy to obtain” (“Plan Mexico”, August 18th). Actually, automatic weapons (those that continue firing when the trigger is held down) are costly and difficult to obtain legally and illegally in the United States. A buyer must first pass a thorough background check and apply for a permit that costs nearly as much as an ordinary firearm. If you meant semi-automatic weapons, then the distinction should be clarified. Semi-automatics are easier to come by and are used for a variety of legitimate reasons, including hunting, but the rate of fire is slower. I hope this helps inform those who think the United States is akin to a Yemeni gun bazaar.

The failure to make that distinction irritates the hell out of me. It happens in the press all the time - though I hold the Economist to a higher standard than the local paper or any televised report, so it was disappointing to see them make this error. At least they allowed themselves to be corrected by printing the letter. Thank you for catching it and writing in to educate them, Josh Nims, whoever you are.

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October 5, 2007

License to Drive a Recreational Vehicle

A few days ago, McQ blasted Eliot Spitzer (Democrat, Governor of New York State) for his plans to allow New York’s approximately one million illegal immigrants to get driver's licenses. It has been reported that Republicans in the NY State Senate think the plan will lead to another 9/11.

Among McQ’s comments:

I have no idea if it would or wouldn't lead to another 9/11, but it is hard to argue that it isn't probable that the licenses could be used for other than intended uses. i.e. driving. To call his idea "sound policy" seems ludicrious. The potential for fraud seems unlimited.

All other thoughts aside, this is the home run point. This struck me as hysterically funny. Of the last 20 times I was asked for my driver’s license, exactly one of them was driving related. So in the comments section I wrote a reply:

Maybe that’s the point... the intended use is just for driving. What we need is a separate form of photo ID for everything we currently use drivers’ licenses for. A drinking license/ID. An airline passenger license/ID. A verifying-the-name-on-your-credit-card license/ID.

I call it "original intent". A driver’s license is not a living, breathing document that needs to be interpreted by activists!

Today, Jim Harper (director of information policy studies at The Cato Institute) writes:

Governor Elliot Spitzer has taken a sensible approach -- treating his state's driver's license as simply that: a license to drive.

The part that cracks me up is that I know this comes across as a ludicrous position to the average American. Or at least, to the average person I know. Harper continues:

It's a welcome -- and somewhat surprising -- move, to see a Democrat and law-and-order-type former attorney general resist mission creep in a state bureau and hold fast to the federal system devised in the constitution. But he's done the right thing. Thanks most recently to Governor Spitzer, and to state leaders from across the ideological spectrum, REAL ID is teetering on the brink of death. But Congress has yet to fully acknowledge its error. And advocates for a national ID, and all the surveillance that comes with it, will not give up without a fight.

I think Harper may be missing a bigger picture with this – something I alluded to in my comment at QandO. If Spitzer’s plan were to go through, having a valid NY State driver’s license would not be any indication of one’s citizenship. This would raise the level of alarm for authoritarians who demand a national ID. If a driver’s license is only good for driving, then we need something that would be good for determining who is old enough to drink, who is (maybe) safe to let on an airplane, and who ~~was lucky enough to be born~~ deserves to be here in the US, versus who’s a no good dirty ~~below-minimum-wage worker~~ potential al Qaeda terrorist.

Mark my words – Spitzer’s plan would breathe new life into those demanding a national identification card. At that point, I would have exactly one question to post to my movie loving friends (especially Rammage and Buckshot): Do you think they will let me live in Montana?

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October 3, 2007

Ricky Williams wants back?

I credit Jim Caple and Kurt Snibbe at ESPN.com's Page 2 for this instant classic. They dug up a letter sent by Ricky Williams to Roger Godell asking for reinstatement.

Enjoy!

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An evening well spent

Sometimes, you have to accomplish something. I feel better now.

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