My memory is going! What's Happening in Archland: Miscellany

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Damn.

About ten times a day I get a brilliant idea for a post, and by the time I sit down at the keyboard, I have forgotten it.  This is the first time in a while that I have remembered, and it's about forgetting!!!!

Some of you probably know that I have a program on a Community Radio station, and in a small town like ours, this means that this is almost the only station in which minority folks have some control over the programming.  So there's Hip Hop (which a lot of middle class white youth listen to, but in our conservative community it's still considered black music), classic soul, mellow soul, cool soul, Disco, and so on.  Suddenly, classical music is sticking out like a sore thumb on the programming.  You get a very good idea as to what minority folks are up against everywhere.

A lot of the time, it is a huge battle to prevent some of the volunteers who have come on board from wanting to exclude everybody else from having some control over the programming, and how it's run.  Sometimes it's minority folks fighting to hang onto their cultural turf, other times it's white Middle Class folks who resent what they see as a wholesale slide into the station becoming dominated by non-white volunteers.  We seldom realize how much our mental image of what we expect the Radio Station to be, colors our decisions, often unrecognized by us.  Often, too, we assume that everyone's mental image of the Station is our own, and it is difficult to communicate our image to anyone else without appearing to have a cultural bias of some sort.

Health Care and Health Insurance are major topics in the Talk aspect of our station.  A major syndicated radio show is hosted by someone of whose existence I was not aware: Rick Smith.  He's on in the late afternoon, and at lots of other times, and from all I have heard, he seems to have really sensible opinions, and his correspondents have interesting and reliable and timely information.  Generally speaking, Rick Smith is right plumb spang in the middle of the Left, though I haven't heard his opinions on Health Insurance.  But I would imagine that he has a healthy distrust of any sort of insurance company, but I suspect that, having been born and raised in the US, he would regard Insurance as a necessary evil, whereas I regard it as just an evil.

Many our people at WXPI are innocent, religious, heart-on-sleeve folks, all about prayer and kindness, and most of the others are street-smart, suspicious idealists, if there is such a thing.  Some others are Charlie Browns: "I love Mankind all right; it's people I can't stand!"

Generally, as you can imagine, since our Station is generally about giving the underdog a voice, our volunteers have generally a liberal bias.  There certainly are some enlightened conservatives among them, and even some unenlightened ones, I daresay.  Most of us are neither one or the other: some of my own views would be considered conservative by some.

[To be continued.]

Ideology, what it is, and the women who love them

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Ideology: a definition, or an explanation
The word ideology has been thrown at me ever since I was in college, and I could never figure out what it was.  Now that we have Google, I want to find out.

Ideology:  a system of ideas and ideals, especially one that forms the basis of economic or political theory and policy.
"the ideology of republicanism"
synonyms:    beliefs, ideas, ideals, principles, ethics, morals; (More...)

Now, that was as clear as mud, so of course I had to click on “more”:

doctrine, creed, credo, faith, teaching, theory, philosophy;
tenets, canon(s);
conviction(s), persuasion;
(informal) –ism.

The last entry suggests that ideology is the particular “ism” that you subscribe to.

That was a good first step, but I wanted yet more, so I went to Wikipedia.
Wikipedia:

An ideology is a set of conscious and/or unconscious ideas which constitute one's goals, expectations, and actions. An ideology is a comprehensive normative vision, a way of looking at things, as argued in several philosophical tendencies (see political ideologies), and/or a set of ideas proposed by the dominant class of a society to all members of this society (a "received consciousness" or product of socialization), as suggested in some Marxist and Critical theory accounts. While the concept of "ideology" describes a set of ideas broad in its normative reach, an ideology is less encompassing than as expressed in concepts such as “worldview,” “imaginary” and “ontology.”

Ideologies are systems of abstracted meaning applied to public matters, thus making this concept central to politics. Implicitly, in societies that distinguish between public and private life, every political or economic tendency entails an ideology, whether or not it is propounded as an explicit system of thought.

Now, we have this sort of thing in mathematics, so I think I know where this is going.  To clarify this from my point of view, I have to go into what we call a mathematical theory.

A mathematical theory has these things:

Some basic terminology, consisting of words which are not defined.  But to illustrate their use (which is sometimes almost as good as definitions), some statements are given, using the words, and these statements (called Axioms) are to be considered as holding in this theory.  (In the case of an ideology, unfortunately, it is not about a theory, but about the actual world.  This makes a huge and uncomfortable difference.)

Coming back to a mathematical theory, within a given theory you can prove certain theorems.  They follow logically from the Axioms.  So, for instance in a certain mathematical theory called Projective Geometry, all lines lying in the same plane must intersect.

Now, lines are an abstraction.  We all think we know what a line is, but you have to admit that, when you are looking at what you think are a pair of lines lying in the same plane, they may appear to not cross each other, but we just don’t know, because we can only see a finite portion of the lines.  But in Projective Geometry, it is convenient to play along with this Axiom, and certain math problems can be solved in the theory very conveniently.  But other problems can’t, so we can adopt a different theory to solve those.

As far as Ideology is concerned, reading between the lines, there appears to be a certain subjectivity in the definition of what an ideology is.

It is a system of beliefs.  This means that it is a logical structure based on certain statements (about the world) that cannot be proven, but which are accepted because they lead to the conclusions that one finds desirable.  Suppose we want to accuse Mr. A. of subscribing to a particular ideology.  This means we think that Mr. A has accepted certain statements as axiomatic, because Mr. A. has discovered that the conclusions from those axioms are compatible with Mr. A’s world view.

Normally we would be calling Mr. A’s philosophy an Ideology only if we do not believe in it.  For instance, if we don’t believe in Marxism, we would say that anyone who does believe in Marxism is a believer in Marxist Ideology.  So in one fell swoop we have managed to convey:

(1) We don’t like Marxism,
(2) Mr. A has accepted various Marxist Axioms.

Unlike a mere theory, as we said earlier, ideologies are based on axioms that describe the world of people and society, and by implication, business, economics and politics.  Let’s get away from the idea that the term “ideology” is subtly pejorative, and try to see whether the word can be used in a more precise way.  The main idea seems that someone (Mr. A) has accepted certain Axioms from which he can explain what he observes in society to his own satisfaction.  His system of beliefs is more likely to be considered an “ideology” if he can be observed to stick to his beliefs despite new facts and situations that seem (at least to us) to contradict his axioms.

The problem is that whether or not the new facts contradict those axioms depends on interpretation.  To us it may seem that the new facts and situations clearly contradict Mr. A’s axioms.  To him it may appear that either the new facts do not contradict the axioms at all, or that all the information is not yet in.

So the question of whether someone has an ideology or not is very much in the eye of the beholder.  Unlike mathematical facts, the axioms and the observations are not clearly connected by logical or mathematical links, and (at least in the eye of the spectators) there is a lot that depends on interpretation.

The whole question was recently made interesting by two developments.

The Mid-Term Elections
In a recent post, a certain writer observed that the GOP has related to Barack Obama entirely politically.  In other words, they’re deciding whether or not to compromise and cooperate with the Democrats only based on the issues surrounding getting re-elected, and discrediting Democrat candidates, and not on what is best for the people.  As a case in point, he puts forward that the House Republicans rejected the President’s offer to compromise on the budget, and reduce Social Welfare services, which resulted in no reduction in services, and increased the national debt.  They refused to participate in Health Care reform, to deny giving the ACA the appearance of having bi-partisan support and had eventually to accept features that they did not like.  We could accuse House Republicans of being ideologues, because they stick to Conservative and party axioms in the face of evidence that indicated that compromise is better for both sides.  The word ideology is strongly associated with philosophical inflexibility.

Pope Francis
Again, in a recent post, it was reported that Pope Francis charged, on a certain Sunday in October, that religious ideologues are bad for the Church.  Here he is using the word “ideology” to refer to inflexible doctrinal axioms adopted by certain Catholics, who refuse to moderate their stance or compromise their principles.  ("The faith passes, so to speak, through a distiller, and becomes ideology.")  In human affairs, abiding by rigid principles of conduct has, over the last half century at least, come under justified criticism.  Religious morality, and certainly Christian morality, is all about moderating judgment with mercy.  The attitudes of ideologues is bound to inflexibility, being judgmental, and in inflexible application of simplistic moral principles.  The words of Pope Francis should be read directly, to understand what he means, but I for one believe that, in a sense that I understand, the inflexibility of the Religious Right is what the Pope, along with so many of us, is decrying.  The Pope is further saying that in his opinion, religious morality cannot be applied mathematically; doing so is not what is best for the Church.

As a youth, I have to admit that I was an ideologue.  Among many "ism"s that young people are susceptible to are various sorts of absolutism, the belief that a particular social philosophy, such as Capitalism, Socialism, Marxism, or Christian Morality, can be applied to all situations without modification.  As one grows older, one begins to understand that certain basic principles are certainly widely applicable.  But the application has to be flexible.  For instance, I still believe in the principle that the least financially self-sufficient sector of society has to be assisted by the state, regardless of whether the assistance is taken advantage of by unscrupulous individuals.  If a class of lazy good-for-nothings comes into existence as a result, so be it.  Similarly, I believe in protecting the environment, even if it is at the cost of lowering our standard of living.  Similarly, I believe in the right of every child to better than a basic education, though I also believe that we must work away at [added later] eliminating the stratification of occupation based on social class.  I can't see having to compromise these broad principles, unless compromise is necessary because they are seen to logically contradict each other somehow.

In contrast, there are a lot of people around, many of them House Republicans, who hold certain truths to be self-evident, such as if a Democrat says something, it has to be a lie; or if there is a piece of scientific information that they cannot understand, then it cannot be true, or important.  For instance, at a congressional hearing on Warming, certain Republican congressmen challenged the scientist who was giving evidence saying that there seemed to be a lot of thinking "out there" that suggested that global warming is all exaggeration.

The scientist came right back with suggesting that it would serve the congressman better if he read the scientific literature rather than the opinions of laymen on YouTube.  (It turned out the particular congressman involved had been heavily supported financially by energy companies.)

The congressman responded saying that he could not take seriously the testimony of people who studied climate change for a living, since it was in their interest to exaggerate the degree to which it was taking place.

That, of course, was such a great non-sequitur that it appears that the scientist gave up that particular exchange.  As Jon Stewart put it, it is impossible to talk to someone who prefers the opinions of laymen over those of professionals.  The congressman went on to accuse the scientific community of scare tactics.  In short, messengers who bring bad news must be censored.

I think this qualifies as ideology.  It is the particularly pernicious ideology of discrediting any information that is uncomfortable.  Today, there is very little comfortable information coming in, so it is an ideology of burying heads in the sand, and putting a bullet into any head that remains unburied.

Arch

Howard Dean Puts the Finger on Why So Many Democrat Seats Were Lost

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I was pretty disappointed when the election returns trickled in on Tuesday night.  But, you know, I kinda expected it.  I was looking for publicity in the media from Democrats seeking re-election, and very few of them were to be found.  (Unfortunately, I only get media coverage on the Internet, because I don’t have TV, or I might have been even more upset.)

Well, the point Howard Dean makes is that Democrats running for re-election were too chicken to stand behind Obama.  They thought it would get them more votes to show that they were independent of Obama than to appear to march in lock-step with the Democrat political line.  I was seeing hints of this situation in various opinion pieces and blogs, but it didn’t really connect until Dean pointed it out.

Howard Dean was the Chair of the Democrat National Committee in two years when they got massively good results.  But, he says, he had a terrible time in getting Washington Democrats to stay on message.  His words.  What’s happening here?

Washington Democrats are watching too much Fox News.  They believe the onslaught of disinformation and lies that Fox puts out.  Unfortunately, Congressmen and State Representatives who watch Fox News uncritically absolutely deserve the beating they get.  “Consider the Source” has never been more apt than when talking about Republican propaganda.

Another frightening source of demoralization are “surveys” that seem to show that the population is drifting to the Right.  This may or may not be true, but it is the job of the President to drift with the population, not that of Congressmen or State representatives, who are elected for 2 years.  A Congressman or State Representative, with the much smaller group of people who elected him or her to office, must (1) continue to believe that the political and economic needs of his constituents continue as they were when he or she was first elected, unless proven otherwise, and (2) resist thoughts of trying to attract a larger constituency by waffling.  It is almost impossible to get further to the center of the political spectrum than President Obama.  We can only stay to the left of that line.  But our Washington Democrats tried to be clever, and moved to the Right of Obama, and fell off the platform altogether.

Well, we know it is impossible to find people willing to run for election on the Democratic ticket these days.  People like Hillary Clinton, Elizabeth Warren and Nancy Pelosi run for office out of, I believe, their drive to offer ideological leadership to the Democrat party, and a sense of responsibility.  Others run for office as a means to make a living, and people in that category do not have the courage to stick to their philosophical guns for fear of losing their seats.

Arch

Well!

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Huh. That’s the last time I’ll let people think for themselves. Hello gray skies!

Last night there was what looked like a landslide in favor of the GOP (though sometimes the Media indulges in wishful thinking), and except for a Democrat governor for PA, the turtles have taken over the country!

What does this mean, really? Those who vote Republican, and even those who run for office for the GOP, are far from being unified philosophically (just as Democrats do not walk in lock-step, either) except in their statements to the Media, of course, which are uniformly paranoid. But there are a few things they do agree on, in the majority.

Taxes, Interest Rates, and the Economy

We can say goodbye to raising the minimum wage, though the GOP media geniuses will be able to point back to 2015 as the year when “things began to look better,” though they will not! But the price of oil will go down even further, which will result in jobs of certain sorts.

Despite their stated hatred of raising taxes, the GOP will raise taxes. Republican presidents have always raised taxes more than Democrat presidents have, but I have a feeling a GOP Congress will also raise taxes, and blame it on the President. This is a god-given opportunity to do it. This will increase government spending, and create jobs. Stealing from the Democrat play-book is always a good plan because the Democrats have the ONLY decent plays.

I really don’t know about inflation (and raising interest rates); that sort of thing is done by the Fed, and the link to political philosophy is a little harder to see.

But the political climate will certainly be even more Pro-Business than it has been for a while, and we’ll probably see a certain amount of Pro-Business legislation that favors Business Owners over labor. And probably Big Business far more than Small Business. Banking laws, I hope, will not be liberalized, because everybody knows that Wall Street is dangerous when it gets going. On the other hand, the Top 1% who really pull the strings of the country probably feel that it is fine to relax the chains on Wall Street and let her rip, as long as they keep their private jets fueled, for a quick getaway in case things go kaplooey. And of course, there will be lots of guns on every table, and plenty of drugs in every pot. I don’t know why I suspect that, and I certainly don’t know whether drug crime goes with one party or the other. We do know, however, that most of the drug demand comes from wealthy white-collar folks, though it is poor blacks and Latinos who get caught.

Health Care, Social Security, and Welfare

Welfare and Social Security will both be in serious danger, especially if the new Red Congress has younger legislators in it. There was some thinking already, among members of both parties, that the only way to continue to keep Senior Citizens adequately supported was to cut services to the most affluent retirees.

It is hard to tell what will happen to Health Care, though. If Obamacare is repealed in its entirety, a lot of people will lose health insurance which they have had for a year, and it might be a tough sell for the GOP to convince people that this is a Good Thing. This is especially so if they’re unable to improve all the situations which they claimed were screwed up because of Obamacare. This is the cost of lying: it's tough when you’re called on it.

But, on the other hand, the GOP has lied to the people for decades, the The People have bought it, with little or no impunity few bad consequences (and moderate impunity, actually).

International Politics and the Military

This is also tricky to predict, but generally speaking, the US will go to war on some pretext or another. Look out, ISIS, here we come. This is especially true if there is Oil in ISIS territory, though of course we don’t really need their oil, since we have so much of our own under the Polar Bears in the Arctic. Look out for Polar Bears to join forces with ISIS.

Education

Well, my thinking is that education is going to take a major hit. What the GOP wants most is to ensure a Republican President in 2016, and they will do all sorts of clever maneuvering to ensure this. But they have very few ideas among themselves, so they will try to resuscitate various Democrat measures that they have succeeded in defeating thus far, but present them in new guises. But one idea that has worked well for them is to vilify teachers, and they will do this with all their might. They will vilify colleges and universities, too, though in fact colleges and universities have really provided them with all the steam they have used to get into power.  Consider this:

Business Departments across the country have educated their students to take advantage of all sorts of political climates. A recession is an opportunity to cut back on employment and raise prices. A boom is an opportunity to raise prices even more, and get the populace hooked on new commodities.

Economics Departments across the country have educated their students to preach the inevitability of the supremacy of business.

Political Science Departments across the country have educated their students to take advantage of both Republican Administrations (in good times and in bad), and Democrat Administrations (in good times and in bad), so that no matter what cloud is passing overhead, there is always a silver lining! This is how we have evolved to such a point that political office is now only held by opportunists, who make their money quickly while in office, and then parlay their connections to business. No electoral district can depend on a congressman or representative to look after their interests long term.

So, colleges and universities have been friends to Business, and conservatives generally.  But they will attack colleges and universities, because it goes over well with the rural conservatives. Colleges and Universities have been trained to sing the praises of Capital even if they're attacked. They grumble, but they lick the whip.

The Environment

Well, we know what’s going to happen to that. We’re going to drill. We’ll know more about how the Environment is going to get beheaded in a few months. It looked as though the gas-guzzling behemoths were on their way out. But now, with gasoline pouring in at pre-2008 prices, maybe it’s time to dust off the old Expedition, or Escalade, or Suburban, and fill her up.

Well, I guess we knew this would happen!  That's why we didn't vote!!  But we had a wonderful six years. Funny, but I can't remember them being that wonderful...

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Jetta was bullied

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Recently, a story was reported on Fox News that a young lady named Jetta was bullied in school after she had donated her lovely long hair for use for kids with cancer.

The photos that are supplied of young Jetta show a really pretty child of about seven or eight, with beautiful long hair, a photograph of the same young lady having her hair cut, and the after photos, showing her looking very reproachful.

The story is that her classmates (or schoolmates) taunted her for having a boy's haircut.  It all depends, of course, on what the words were that were actually used, but, on the face of it, this sort of bullying (and I agree that it certainly is bullying) is hardly terribly painful.  The biggest crime here seems to be that Fox News chose to make a fuss about the whole thing.

OK, we are in a time where bullying is deplored generally, and publicly.  But it seems more that Fox News is trying to get some attention by featuring this very sweet young lady than that it is trying to focus on bullying in schools.

Is all bullying equally bad?  I don't think all bullying is equally bad, just as I don't think all crimes are equally bad.  Kids are often mean to each other, because they envy whatever the other kid has, and try to be hurtful in retaliation.  Are we ever going to eradicate bullying?  Is the situation going to be helped by parental intervention?

The principal of the school concerned remarked that nobody was ever hurt by a few harsh words, and I believe this is the sanest response he or she could have made.  My goodness; vilifying a bunch of kids for taunting a girl about a short haircut probably falls close to zero in the scale of all bullying.  If anyone wants to pursue a zero tolerance policy for schoolyard bullying, they're going to be seriously disappointed.

Physical bullying must absolutely stop.  But bullying of the sort such as "your haircut is stupid" is stupid, but it is even more stupid to be prosecuting it.  On the other hand, bullying a child because its parents have an alternate lifestyle, or because it is from a minority race, or because it has some birth defect is deplorable, and needs to be looked into.

In the present case, I think an enormous part of the problem is that the utter charm of the young lady concerned is almost impossible to resist!  She is not only pretty, but has a lovely smile, so she makes a wonderfully tempting poster child for bullying generally.  But I think she would be better served by being counseled to turn the other cheek, as the saying goes, than to make any bigger a fuss over the incident than has already been made.

Arch

This and That

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Whoa!

The wife and I were just fooling around, trying to stuff up the gaps around the windows in our bedroom, and I came down to check on my blog, and One Hundred and Three people had been viewing the blog!!!  I am totally not accustomed to all this attention.

Only 5 people had read the most recent post; obviously some of them have been reading older posts, and there's no way to tell who read what, when.  (I mean, if I kept track of the count of viewers of all the posts daily, I could deduce this information, but I don't have that degree of interest in the data!)

By the way, do please take a look at our companion blog about Archie's Archives, the radio show.  There is an enormous amount of information, aimed at people just getting started in listening to classical music.  (Please don't listen to the podcasts; I hate the sound of my own voice, and I assume you will, too.)

The latest post was on sets of variations, and Passacaglias.  And there are pictures.

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Does the financial resources of a family impinge on the safety of their pets?

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When I looked on FaceBook recently, someone had posted a picture of a sweet little doggie that had been found (read: caught) in a certain neighborhood.  “Please share,” the post pleaded; “This little lady is very scared here, and is probably missing her home very much!”

I don’t doubt it.  The cute little dog looked distinctly anxious.  Some pet owners are sufficiently affluent to be able to afford a dog tag with the name and number of the owners.  The range of resources that could be brought to bear on keeping a pet safe is enormous.

As most of my readers will know, it is possible to insert a passive RFID, or Radio Frequency Identification tag, which is a tiny microchip that responds to a sensor with a code.  It does not need any extra power; the power of the reader, or sensor, is all it needs to broadcast back its ID.  To use this technology —which currently costs around $10 or less— a citizen must (1) be able to afford the gadget, (2) have access to a veterinary surgeon (or Vet) who is willing to insert the device safely, and to be able to afford his or her services, (3) be aware of the very existence of this sort of thing, by reading this Blog, or from similar educational sources, and lastly (4) care enough about their pet to do it.

It is difficult to tell why a pet ends up on the street.  It is usually any one of: the home is not secure; the owner is too busy and distracted to keep track of the pet; the pet is such a nuisance that it is often banished to an area from which it is easy to escape; the pet has been thrown out of the family car, having become too much of a burden on the responsibilities of the family.  Of course, the pet could wriggle out of its collar and make a run for it; pets often (or invariably) do not know what is good for them.

The RFID, if a pet has it, is only good if the pet is picked up by the SPCA (Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals), also known as the Animal Shelter, or some similar institution which has the means of actually reading whether an RFID is present, in which case of course they can locate the owner of record.  The pet could have met with any number of horrible fates instead of this most fortunate one.

Obviously, I don’t believe that poverty is a culpable crime; it is the crime of society itself that poverty exists.  Bear in mind that poverty in America is extreme only in comparison to other developed countries.  There is extreme poverty in Third World countries that is fueled by the needs of American Capital, compared to which the homeless in the US live like kings.  But, the fact remains: even the poor should be allowed the satisfaction of owning a pet, provided the safety of the pet is supported by things that are easy to do.

In many localities, implanting an RFID, or obtaining a collar with an ordinary printed name-tag, is either free or subsidized.  (This doesn’t help owners who don’t know about them; that’s an educational problem.)  This is something which should be easy and inexpensive to remedy, but certain types of fiscal conservatives do not look upon this sort of initiative with favor.  To pass a Federal Law that enables every locality to offer free or subsidized RFID on demand, it has to pass the test whether the government can afford to give every single pet in the US, numbering in the millions, obviously, one of those devices.  Then, can it afford the bureaucracy that will be needed to get the plan working (which, Fiscal Conservatives suspect, involves putting countless undeserving imbeciles on the Federal payroll, and enabling a large number of unemployed to enter the ranks of the employed, and running the risk of countless numbers of Democrat votes that did not exist before)?

Helping keep pets safe is obviously a business fraught with unintended political consequences, and probably left alone, at least by a Republican Congress.  But seriously, the number of conservatives whose reasoning follows this cynical path are probably very few.  But they are in charge of the GOP machine.

Arch

Politix Today

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You know, I have been thinking.  I don't think it's easy to divide Americans into liberals and conservative anymore.  This is because the list of articles of faith of the Tea Party is so (1) extensive, and (2) so extreme, that many conservatives probably have trouble subscribing to them.  On the other hand, that List is inducing increasingly more Articles of Faith on the liberal side, some of which are (2) almost as extreme as those on the other side, especially pertaining to how evil all conservatives are.

In the short term, I suppose, we have to deal with one thing at a time, as it becomes necessary to foil various ploys that the sinister strategists among the conservatives dream up.  Conservatives are not, however, all of the same stripe.  There are several kinds of conservatives, and we need to be aware of this.

Conservative politicians are some of those who arouse the most suspicion in me.  They often spout lies and disinformation which must be countered strongly with accurate information and analysis, and if absolutely necessary, counter-propaganda, though that seems a rather extreme thing to do.  But other conservative politicians are probably very unhappy with how things are developing; it has been my theory for a long time that there is a sector within the ranks of the conservatives that is deeply embarrassed by the lies of some of the conservative politicians.  If conservatives plan to be in control for any length of time, they must see that they have to put forward more substantial ideas than simply manufactured lies, and pandering to business interests.

Conservative businessmen are of two kinds.  Some of them can only see that their resources are being eroded by high taxes.  (But we know that most of the taxes go towards unbelievably high salaries for congressmen, and towards the Pentagon and its dreams of glory.)  Others only see that the Government is mishandling its financial resources (which, of course, came from taxes, in the first place).  Businessmen of all kinds are deeply offended by others mishandling money.

A very important sector among conservatives, especially reasonable ones who are strongly religious, is that they feel that liberals seem to be getting Government to do the charity on their behalf, whereas these conservatives would rather have control over their own charitable endeavors.  This is a completely reasonable attitude, except that it seems to us liberals that the government —when it functions as it ought— has the potential to be far more organized and effective than private organizations.  Let's not forget that private organizations have been on record as squandering a far larger percentage of their resources on remuneration of high-level officers than we have been accustomed to expecting.  But of course, conservative businessmen are perfectly ok with big salaries for the high-ups in any organization (except a liberal President, of course).

So that is quite a major division of opinion between liberals and conservatives: conservatives want to do their own "charity" (which of course we liberals consider rights of the poor), whereas we liberals would like it to be organized in such a way that people of small means can get the assistance in a systematic way.  Of course there is corruption, which we liberals think is inevitable, whereas conservatives cannot tolerate it.

Lots of individual conservatives are idealists, and innocent, and tend to regard clever-dick liberals as sly cynics.  A lot of liberals are clever people.  But generally speaking, very few liberals are as willing to manipulate the truth as the conservative media.  Conservative media and conservative money together have taken the responsibility to be the arm of the Conservative movement that spreads deceit and out-and-out lies, all in —to them— a good cause.

Conservatives have been, some of them, thinking very long term, over the past several decades.  How can they get in power, and stay in power, so that they make taxes lower, the military stronger, take away government services, erode the strength of Music and the Arts, NPR, PBS, and all things that really represented the high aspirations of those classy conservatives of a bygone era, to which the conservative billionaires of today can never aspire?  Culture, for this latest crop of moneybags, is a hot dog in the reserved seats of a ball park.  I suppose someone has to support baseball.  But I just have no respect for the uneducated rich, who are willing to sacrifice public support for the arts and public education in order to lower taxes, and further stretch out the difference between the standard of living of the very affluent and the very poor.  All this gerrymandering, all this maneuvering to get conservatives into the Supreme Court, all this frantic legislation to give political power to corporations; for what?  To systemically ensure that liberals are kept out of government.

Liberals, too, are guilty of some things.  Some of this rhetoric about enslaving animals for food must be reserved for small, special-interest groups.

[To be continued]

The Basic Idea of Lossy Compression

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Since around 1980, when the Internet followed closely on the heels of personal computers, we live in a world in which music and images are sent back and forth in highly compressed form.

How is a text file stored?

A text file basically consists of characters.  Long ago, the computer folks got together and decided that each character on a typewriter would be represented by a number.  Here are a few of them:

“A”=65,	“B”=66,	“C”=67,	“D”=68,	“E”=69,	“F”=70,	“G”=71,	“H”=72,
“I”=73,	“J”=74,	“K”=75,	“L”=76,	“M”=77,	“N”=78,	“O”=79,	“P”=80,
		... and	so	on ...			“X”=88,
“Y”=89,	“Z”=90,

Which is all the capital letters.  After this come a few odd things, namely "[", "\" and so on.  Presently, we come to the lower-case letters:

“a”=97,	“b”=”98”,	...				...	“x”=120,
“y”=121,	“z”=122,	“{“=123,	“|”=124,	...

and so on; you get the idea.  The entire correspondence can be found here.  So if you made a text file that contained the single word zab, it would contain essentially the numbers 122, 97, 98, appropriately organized so that there is absolutely no mistaking it for 1269798, so don't worry.  Modern text files are actually word-processor files, so they contain, in addition, italics information, boldface information, etc, etc, so they're bigger.  (They also contain a lot of information of interest mainly to Microsoft Corporation, which adds to their size a tiny bit, e.g. This file was created in Word; aren't we awesome?)

Lossless Compression

Even text files can be made smaller by studying them carefully.  This is what happens when you use something like WinZip to compress your file.  Such utilities use tricks to represent the most common letter in your text by very short codes, the next most common letter using a slightly longer code, and so on.  Working backwards, your file can be expanded to be exactly the way it was.  This sort of thing is called lossless compression,  because the document can be reconstructed exactly at the receiving end.  This procedure, called encoding, depends on creating very compact lists of numbers to represent lists of number that are not so compact.

Make no mistake: the procedure is highly complex, and consists of multiple methods, each of which makes the resulting file smaller and smaller.

GIF Files

Compuserve, a computer company, invented a method for compressing certain types of pictures using a lossless compression; this method is still widely used today.  The compressed files have the extension "gif".  Here's essentially how it's done.

(1) A picture is first processed so that it has only 128 colors.  Many pictures look okay when the number of colors is reduced; for instance a chart, or diagram will probably only contain 5 or 6 colors to begin with.  The colors are numbered 0, 1, 2, and so on, to 127.  This is called the palette for the picture.  (It's a great feature that each picture's palette is individualized.  But still, the restriction of the number of colors is a sacrifice.)

(2) Next, the picture is divided into little 8x8 pixel blocks, and each block is encoded individually.  The color number is assigned to each of the 64 pixels.  Now it boils down to compressing these 64 numbers as much as possible.  Suppose the rectangle of numbers looks like this:

11122233
11223333
12233232
12333343
13344434
...
and so on.

(3) At this point, a clever trick called run-length encoding is used.  The numbers are stretched out in a single long line, starting at the top left, and going in a diagonal pattern.  I'm not sure, but it could look something like this:

 Following the arrows, you get the number list:
1,1,1,1,1,1,2,2,2,1,2,2,2,2,1,2,3,3,3,3,...
As you can see, this method of scanning the picture optimizes the likelihood of long strings of repeated colors.  Such a list of numbers would be encoded something like:

1(6),2(3),1,2(4),1,3(4)

and so on.  This means: "six 1's, followed by three 2's, followed by a single 1, then four 2's ..."

 There is obviously great potential to get a very small file indeed, if there are large stretches all of a single color.  If you ever had to store a GIF file of mostly white with a few black dots, you would have found it miniscule!

Lossy Compression of a list of numbers

In "lossy" compression (which means there is some loss; a typical computer type term...) the picture is approximated.  It is such a good approximation that nobody really minds.

First, let's see how a single row of 16 numbers can be approximated.  (Remember, this is a very rough explanation for laymen.)

Let's illustrate with a strip from a black-and-white photo.  The actual method is 2-dimensional, and not 1-dimensional, but the principles are very similar.  Suppose the strip of image resulted in

1

3

5

8

11

15

19

24

30

36

43

51

59

68

77

87

Remember, these number are supposed to represent colors, which usually vary smoothly in a photograph, for instance.  Since these are single numbers, rather than triples, they represent a grayscale image.  (Each pixel of a color image is represented by three numbers.  But you can easily imagine that a color picture can be split into three grayscale pictures.  If I show you how a grayscale image can be stored lossily, you can easily see how the full color picture is stored.)  Just to get a feel for what these sixteen numbers might mean, here is a chart, where each number is represented by the height of a bar, instead of a pixel:

Now, each number is actually stored as bits; that is, a number consisting of a row of zeroes and ones only.  Just keep this in mind.

First, we store the average of the entire list of numbers, which is ... 34, to the nearest integer.  So we put that in as our first number, in storing the “picture”.

34.

Now, we subtract 34 from each number, which gives us a new list:

-33, -31, -29, -26, -23, -19, -15, -10, -4, 2, 9, 17, 25, 34, 43, 53.

Let’s average the left 8 numbers, and the right 8 numbers:  we get -23 (roughly), and 23 (roughly).  We store these, as well.  So now, we have:

34, -23, 23.

Now, we subtract a -23 from the first 8 numbers, and 23 from the second 8 numbers.  We get 16 much smaller numbers:

-10, -8, -6, -3, 0, 4, 8, 13, -26, -20, -13, -5, 3, 12, 21, 31

We average the numbers in groups of 4:  we get (roughly) -7, 6, -16, and 17.  We store these, too:

34, -23, 23, -7, 6, -16, and 17.

We subtract -7 from the first four numbers, 6 from the next four, and so on.  We end up with even smaller numbers than before:

-3, -1, 1, 4, -6, -2, 2, 7, -10, -4, 3, 11, -14, -5, 4, 14

At this stage, we can simply stop.  If we restore the entire list of 16 numbers, pretending that the list contained all zeros at this stage, you know we're only going to be off by, well, 14, at the most!  We could do another step, and be off by 7 at the most.

The fun part would be to compare the "picture" we assemble using these numbers with the original list.

Start with all zeros, and add -7 to the first four, 6 to the next four, -16 to the next four, and 17 to the last four, we get
-7, -7, -7, -7,  6, 6, 6, 6, -16, -16, -16, -16, -16, 17, 17, 17, 17.

Now we add -23 to the first 8, and 23 to the last eight:
-30, -30, -30, -30, -17, -17, -17, -17, 7, 7, 7, 7, 40, 40, 40, 40,

Finally we add 34 to every number:
4, 4, 4, 4, 17, 17, 17, 17, 41, 41, 41, 41, 74, 74, 74, 74

Compare with the original file:
1, 3, 5, 8, 11, 15, 19, 24, 30, 36, 43, 51, 59, 68, 77, 87

As you can see, it is horrible!  I was feeling pretty depressed, thinking that this was a terrible example to show you, but this file of 16 numbers is just too small for any lossy compression to be illustrated.  I started again with 32 numbers, got an average, got two averages, got four averages, and got 8 averages, and threw out everything after that.  (In other words, I pretended that after I took the last 8 averages, that I was left with all zeroes.)

Here is a graph of the original file (in blue), and the compressed file (in red).  As you can see, the compressed data tends to look blocky, just as you've noticed JPEG files do.

Finally, I explain why this procedure results in even greater space savings than you might imagine.

Suppose the color intensity of the original picture varies from a pixel that's pure black (0) to one that is pure white (255).  All the pixels must have values between these two extremes.  The average, too, must lie between these two numbers.  These sorts of numbers take 8 bits (of zeros and oness) to express in binary.

But, usually, the average is about 128.  If a picture is such that the average value of its pixels is about 128, it will compress well, otherwise it will compress poorly.

Once you subtract the average out, the remaining list of numbers must be typically between -128 and 127, which can be represented by 8 bits, again.

Once the second set of averages are subtracted out, the numbers will lie between -64 and 64, which only need 7 bits!  The next set of averages will lie between -32 and 32, which can be represented by 6 bits!  Once you get to the point where you think that the itty bitty leftovers don't need to be stored, you don't use any additional space at all.

If your picture had 32 pixels, uncompressed, you would need 32×8 = 256 bits to store it.

Compressed using this primitive method described above, the first average is 8 bits, the next two averages are 7+7=14 bits;
the next four averages are 6+6+6+6=24 bits, and the next eight averages are 5+5+5+5+5+5+5+5=40 bits.  So the whole package would only take up 126 bits.  Additionally, it is possible to cheat by only storing those averages approximately!  It is done using binary digits, but it is comparable to storing highly-rounded versions of the averages, which take even less space.  It is done cautiously, based on how the eye perceives the image, and whether a minor misrepresentation of an average color of a block, or sub-block, makes a big difference to the appearance of the image.

With larger files, the savings are enormously greater; with photographs, if they vary smoothly across the picture, the savings will be great, but if there is a lot of detail, you just can't throw out the last remaining residues.  More and more averages need to be retained, which all contribute to the size of the file.

The actual method, though basically similar to what was shown above, uses sines and cosines and trigonometry to make the calculations easier.  This article in Wikipedia might make more sense, now that you have read this introduction.  Even if you just look at some of the pictures, you could get a handle on how it's done, completely disregarding the mathematics.

Arch

Is it imperative to raise more money than the Republicans?

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Certain elements of the Democratic Party, and Liberals generally, have bought into the belief that elections can only be won, and GOP propaganda can only be countered, by engaging in an expensive media war.

Of course, nobody really knows, since for more than a decade we haven't looked at any alternatives.  Move On, and various machines that have been set up to work on behalf of liberals, are constantly asking people on their mailing lists to "Chip in a few dollars" to do thus and so.  It's a media campaign in North Carolina, or a media campaign in California.

One can't help but wonder where all this money actually ends up.  In the hands of the GOP, right?  Because most owners of the media are conservatives.  Unless I'm very much mistaken, the offices and the media owners of even liberal media are actually owned by conservatives.  In any case, media companies are hungry for cash (as are we all, I suppose) and tend to encourage this trend to buy media time and resources to fight propaganda battles electronically.

The public, it appears, is getting less and less intelligent, and more and more gullible, and it seems to take a lot of money to persuade anyone of facts that are self-evident.  Fox news has only to hint that there's something wrong with Barack Obama, such as that he has something absolutely improbable, such as epileptic fits, and the Liberal Media immediately goes into a panic overdrive to persuade everyone that it is not so.

Good government has to be deserved.  If all our neighbors insist on being idiots, insist on getting inferior services, insist that, for instance, dietary information on food products are not needed, that music is not needed in schools, that we don't need clean air, and that we don't need clean water, that we only need a lot of energy at any cost, and that only dirty energy such as gasoline and coal is any use, and that we don't need to protect endangered species like fish, wildlife and whales, then there's little we can do.  It is a theorem that stupidity can only increase!  It's a form of entropy.

But there's actually reason to believe that a lot of people actually do want clean energy, they do want inexpensive health care, they do want safe job, and information at the grocery store, and honest government.  They're just tired of arguing with illogical conservatives!  They're just waiting for Election Day.

Getting people to the polls is most definitely a priority.  Forget the media campaigns.  It is important for people who stand for the things that we stand for to reveal themselves.  It isn't important, in my humble opinion, to raise a lot of money for massive media campaigns.  Let's just say no to fundraising.

My Book List

(These days, everyone seems to start with “So,” so here goes.)

So, people are nominating each other furiously to publish their ten most favorite books.  The phrasing seems to be different in each case; sometimes it is the ten books that stayed with them the most; sometimes it is the ten books to which they return most often, othertimes it’s something else.  Perhaps for some people, picking ten books out of all those you’ve read is easy.  But that’s like picking ten of your favorite people.  Like picking ten people to thank if you win the Academy Awards.  It’s silly; you just can’t do it!  I certainly couldn’t.

I read like a fury until the age of, oh, forty, I’d say.  Then I started writing, and began to read my own stuff—writing, I mean— which sounds silly, but, well, that’s what I do.

Some of the books I’ve read, I’d much rather nobody knew about.  Other books I’ve read won’t mean much to anyone unless they’re in my field, or share my interests.  Yet other books I’ve read just don’t bear reading today, simply because we don’t talk like that anymore, and the stuff is obnoxious.  I just picked up one of them the other day, and some passages were appalling, for how badly they were written, or how ignorant the author comes across as being.  Let’s face it: I read a lot of crap.

It’s that fact, more than anything, that makes me determined to join the hordes of those who want to air their dirty reading laundry.  But I have to editorialize and comment on many of the books.

G. A. Henty: The Cat of Bubastes

This has to stand for about seven books by Henty that I read, including the gruesome “With Cortez in Mexico,” which began my political awakening.

Arthur Conan-Doyle: A Study in Scarlet

There’s not much to say about this, but it stands for nearly fifteen books I read as a teenager, after my Dad laid a Sherlock Holmes treasury on me.  Great style.

Leslie Charteris: The Lady or the Tiger

See what I mean?  Again, this one must stand for a ton of Saint books I read.

Louisa May Alcott: Little Men

(I read “Little Women” too, but off the record.)  I loved this book, and my writing was influenced greatly by Ms. Alcott’s style, which, I know, tends to the sentimental.

Edgar Rice Burroughs: Son of Tarzan

One of the most romantic books, especially for a sixteen-year-old, who doesn’t know much about anything.

Gertrude Norman: Letters of Composers

This is an anthology, and is probably one of the books that influenced me most.

C. P. Snow: Variety of Men

It would have been more impressive if I had said Two Cultures, but I started that one when I was, like, seventeen, and quickly put it down, and read this one instead.

Herbert Goldstein: Classical Mechanics

I wasn’t sure whether textbooks were allowed on this list, but I see a few in other people’s lists, so why not?  This is a brilliant book, and I love this gentleman dearly (through his books.  I have never met him).

Laura Ingalls Wilder: The Long Winter

I read these a lot later in life than most people, but I only learned of them when I was an adult.  Describes the Pioneer experience to the rest of us.

Laura Adams: Seeds of Fire

Laura Adams is a pseudonym of Karin Kallmaker.

Donald Johanson and Maitland Edey: Lucy, The beginnings of Humankind

I can’t believe people have forgotten all about this book.

Terry Pratchett: Wyrd Sisters

You’ll never know what humor can be unless you give this one a try.

I think I’ve gone a couple over.  I’ve also left out a ton of books by Marion Zimmer Bradley, starting with Darkover, and ending with Avalon, and the tragically neglected Firebrand.  I have also read almost everything Anne McCaffrey has written, as well as Arthur C. Clarke, James P. Hogan, and numerous science fiction writers.  And I’ve left out the crazy books by Douglas Adams: the Hitchhiker set and Dirk Gently, as well as books by Agatha Christie, J. R. R. Tolkien, and David Eddings, especially the Belgariad series of the latter.  I’ve also left out the lovely novels by Jessica Duchen: Rites of Spring, and Muriel Barbary: The Elegance of the Hedgehog.  But I’m more concerned with conveying the variety of books I have read, than in listing the ones most folks are likely to recognize.

Oops, forgot Harry Potter!  Also forgot Susan Haley's Buffalo Jump, and Rebecca West's The Fountain Overflows, which Susan brought to my attention.  This is going to be bad; I'm going to be screwing around with this list every time I remember another book.

Guess what: I also forgot ... wait ... I've forgotten.

[Added later:
If any of you are Anne of Green Gables fans, yes, I have read the books, and I love them :)  I first read them just a few years ago, at an age when I was a lot more difficult to bowl over!

Piers Anthony wrote a number of series, and I have read several of them.  Unfortunately, they're not easy to get into.

I have read the Hardy Boys books, and I must say that I agree with my wife that they (the Hardy boys) were fatheads.  Nancy Drew was a lot more likeable.

Few of you could possibly remember a series about a village priest in Italy, and the communist mayor of the town: Don Camillo, and Peppone.  These characters were created by Giovanni Guareschi, and serialized in a magazine, and published only posthumously as novels.

A couple of books by Morris West got read by me, as did a number of James Bond books, a couple of books by Alistair McLean (Ice Station Zebra, Where Eagles Dare), but I prefer books without too much mayhem in them.  Dan Brown's Da Vinci Code comes close to my tolerance level.

A book that impressed me deeply was Isaac Asimov's Guide to the Bible, well worth reading by anyone who wants to demythologize their understanding of so-called Biblical times.

The Physics and Chemistry of Life, an anthology by Scientific American, which the famous journal kept hidden from my eyes for more than 20 years, is an amazing tour of the mechanics of the life processes.  Anyone with a little basic chemistry can understand it.  It is now available online from Cengage.

Feynman, Leighton and Sands's The Feynman Lectures on Physics was actually an enjoyable read, and taught me a lot of mathematics.  Feynman had the same power to explain as Leonard Bernstein, using beautiful, conversational language.  (It was actually a transcript of spoken lectures.)

I loved reading my daughter's copies of Tamora Pierce's stories, especially the Alanna books, and the Keladry books!

A.

Yet another writer who knows what's wrong with schools

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A recent post on Slate tries to focus a little more attention on a person who has a lot more influence on the quality of a school than teachers: The Principal.

Well, okay, sure.  But this looks like one more fad that won't provide the answers.  Just remember: there is no single culprit in the crime that is American Education.  But certainly, a good principal can do more to influence the quality of a school than all the teachers combined.

What do you think an ambitious teacher getting his or her first appointment in a school wants to do?  Get into the administration.  It's more money, and a lot more opportunity to get away from the drudgery of classroom work, and a lot more power.  So, generally speaking, you can expect a typical principal to be in it for the money.  Teachers who, after many years, are still in the classroom, are probably there because they like to teach, or they prefer to deal with kids than with their parents.  Among teachers and principals alike, parents have a reputation for whining and complaining about their good-for-nothing kids.  Good parents will deal with their kids head on.  Bad parents want the school to deal with their kids.  (If you have kids in school, do not be offended; I'm making broad generalizations, and you may not fall into either category.  If you see yourself in these words, there's nothing to stop you adjusting your behavior: your kids are the legacy you leave the world, not the school's legacy.)

The article correctly identifies the biggest single factor in the quality of the school: whether the school is in a poverty-stricken area, or whether it is in an affluent area.  But the author continues to point at principals as the ones to watch, rather than the economics of the area.  Poor people in America have very little, and education is one of the principal tragedies in the experience of the poor.

The turnover rate of teachers in poor schools is high.  But guess what: the turnover rate of principals in poor school districts is also high. Teachers and principals are not more mercenary than anybody else.  After a while, the salary provided by a school in a marginal school district will no longer serve to support the family of an educated man or woman.  (Pay attention: the wealthy are greater consumers of everything than the Middle Class, and members of the Middle Class are greater consumers of all sorts of resources than the indigent.  I keep saying that the wealthy are in a better position to avail themselves of resources such as airports and harbors and highways to remote resorts (at least partly built at public expense) than the masses.  If a tollbooth were set up, say, on a highway through Grand Teton State Park, and every vehicle was required to report the entire gross income of its occupants for the previous year, I daresay it would be far greater than that of a typical traveler on, say, I 80.  The wealthy use more of the people's resources, which is why they should pay more taxes.)

The second major factor contributing to the ineffectiveness of American education is simply this: because of the materialistic nature of our society, education is a means to the end of a higher paycheck.  No one is valued simply for their erudition.  The educated person is not held in high regard unless he or she is very well employed.

Should an educated person be held in higher regard than one who is not, other things being equal?  In America, no, because poverty can be an obstacle to education.  In a country where education is free, yes; a person who scorns the opportunity to learn has to earn our pity.  It is fashionable for demagogues to profess scorn for education, but it is education that could lead us out of this cycle of viciousness and destruction, this illogic that passes for cleverness in today's society.  Public spokespersons everywhere: TV anchors, political leaders, heads of corporations, all arouse embarrassment and pity in our hearts.  We can't just give up, of course, but it certainly would be a lot easier if our fellow-citizens really knew what they were talking about.

No, principals alone can't fix education, but they certainly have the power to push in the right direction.  Teachers can't fix education, and it does not help to start witch-hunts to discover the 'bad' ones.  But uninterested teachers must certainly be discouraged from taking up the profession.  Politicians alone cannot fix education, but they can certainly make the problems of education a million times worse by indulging their instincts for opportunism.  Parents certainly can help improve education, just by educating their own children better.  But parents on their own can't fix the entire problem.  I can't see a solution, but making Principals the scapegoats is certainly not going to fix the problem.  To be honest, the writer of the piece in question was not doing that; it was just a suggestion that it was as well to ensure that we appoint principals of the right quality.  We're all desperate for solutions, and this is probably a reasonable response to the situation.

Arch, exhausted

The Best is the Enemy of the Pretty Damn Good

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There is a true saying, and worthy of all acceptation, that the good is the enemy of the best.  This aphorism meant, back in the old days, that if someone could get away with doing a merely good job, he or she would not deliver their very best.

Today, it is a greater temptation to want to postpone doing anything at all, until one has the time to do a perfect job.  So, they just don't do anything, since they have a good excuse to not do it, and in the case of many things that are cumulative, where a little effort by a vast number of people adds up to something significant, the lack of any effort means that the individual contributions simply aren't there, to add up.

Education.  I was just talking to a friend, saying that much of the prejudice and the bigotry out there is fueled by ignorance.  The best lesson one can give is, of course, example.  But these days, it is really worth the effort to say something.  It is futile to wait until you have an enormous platform.  Just saying something to the people around you is a good start, and often all you need to do.  Just to your kid.  To your spouse.  To the mailman.  I don't know: you decide.  Maybe it's a blog, like this one.  People are actually reading this; I'm up to something like 40,ooo views (unfortunately, most of the views are of posts that have pictures in them), so some of my points are being made.

Starting a Blog.  My wife wants to make a blog for herself, but she's waiting until she has the time to do it properly.  Chances are, she'll never get around to it.

Recycling.  Some people just don't do it because they can't get organized to do it systematically.  Now, in theory, doing a sporadic job of recycling can result in you never getting organized.  But from where the rest of us sit, doing a sporadic job is good!  Do it!  Get the flat white paper to where it can be shredded, and recycled.  Get the bottles out to the recycling center.  Stop there, if you must.  If you drink beer from cans, recycle the cans!  If every beer drinker recycled his or her cans, the world would be a better place.  But even if one hundredth of them recycled, the world would be, well, pretty good.

Volunteering.  I'm getting bold about talking about volunteering because my wife drove me to get involved with the local community radio station, so I'm the token Classical Music person for the station, which means that we have a little less than two hours a week of classical music, because I also play a lot of other stuff.  Choose something you would enjoy, like shelving at the local library, especially if you're old and decrepit.  Or even young, and decrepit.  It is a good opportunity to be around young people, which is a refreshing thing to do.

Reading.  If you're reading this, getting started with reading is probably not a problem for you.  But we must encourage people to read, one person, and one book at a time.  Get to the local bookstore, which will almost invariably have recycled books from libraries for sale for a dollar or two.  Choose carefully; this is where your inside knowledge of the person is invaluable.  Young people, for example, might respond better to a book that comes with materials, such as teach yourself how to juggle, which comes with a set of juggling balls, or build your own Liverpool Cathedral (cut-out cathedral pieces), or dinosaur, or whatever.  Or even a beginning Origami book.  Or throw them straight into a thriller, why not?

I'll stop here.  But here's a few more:  Playing the piano: it is better to have played the piano badly, than never to have played at all.  Camping at a State of Federal Park.  In ten years, who knows whether we will have a single wild bird out there?  If bees are dying, what will be next?  Get out and enjoy!  Bridge!  Have you ever wanted to learn the game of Bridge?  Be careful; I'm told it's addictive.  Riding a bicycle?  Another addictive pastime.  If you're too old to balance on a traditional bike, there are pedal tricycles, which I have not tried, but which look like they might be fun.  Cooking.  My wife and I recently taught ourselves how to make Egg Foo Young.  It is easy (there are just a couple of unusual ingredients: Oyster Sauce, and Bean Sprouts), and wowed our friends.

Arch.  [pictures to be added next year.  We just have a little colored text to begin with.]

Dances, and Dance Forms in Music

As some of you might remember, I have a regular radio program on WXPI radio, and I have completed 4 shows thus far: Two one hour shows, on Trios, and on National Anthems, and national and folk music.  Then I was asked to expand to 2 hours.

The next two shows were on Songs and Arias, and on Dances.

The show on Dance, and Dance Forms and Dance Rhythms (I hadn't thought out the title in that detail, but that was about what the program was), made me think of this topic, and it is interesting.

The show started out with a Waltz (Voices of Spring), and then a few minuets, from Beethoven, Mozart, and (later in the show) from Haydn.

Then we got into the Baroque dances: Allemande (Bach, from the French Suite no. 2), Courant (Bach, Orchestral Suite no. 1), Sarabande (Orchestral Suite no. 2), and Gigue (from French Suite no. 5).  We played a couple of Gavottes, one of which was a song by British composer Herbert Howells, entitled Gavotte.

Bolero has to be figured in, as well as a couple of Hornpipes from Handel.

Then we went into Latin dances in earnest, and played a Tango, Rumba (Light my fire), Samba, Cha-cha (why not Cha-cha-cha?  I wonder about what happened to the third Cha; anyway, it was Autumn Leaves, of all things), Bossa Nova (Desafinado).

It turned out that Hernando's Hideaway, a Tango, had connections with the town in which I live, and another song featured in the same Broadway Musical, I'm not at all in love, happened to be in Waltz rhythm.

I was just fooling around with the Do-Re-Mi song, and realized --too late for the radio show-- that it was clearly a Polka.  The Laendler from the Sound of Music was also played, observing that it was an ancestor to the Waltz.

Arch

It was never between you and them, Anyway.

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Somebody recently posted this quote from "Mother Teresa" on Facebook.

It is phrased in the language of Christian Morality, which is frustrating because of course the so-called Church has appropriated to itself the teachings of Jesus, sort of copyrighting the entire thing.  Teresa manages to articulate in simple language some of the problems we face with right conduct, and right action.

An important idea within modern Christian teaching is that of forgiveness, which affects how we behave towards one another.  If we were perfect in every way, we would not have to forgive anybody, because of course we would automatically do what is right every time.  But being the people we are, our history with each other interferes with what we feel we should be doing, so, in a brilliant stroke, Jesus focuses on forgiveness as an important first principle.  And Jesus makes clear that forgiveness doesn't depend on being deserved; you just do it automatically.

Many of the remaining suggestions have to do with how we imagine our actions will be received.  Are we hesitant to be kind, because we would be misunderstood as having ulterior motives?  Just do it, says Teresa.

As we grow older, we accumulate a store of knowledge about ways in which we might be taken advantage of.  But be forthright notwithstanding, says Teresa.  It might not be good advice for any but the most saintly.

For those of us who do not believe that the Big Daddy in the Sky is watching, and totting up points for us, doing good is often associated with being given credit by our fellow creatures.  This is a big problem, because credit is usually not forthcoming, and if it is, in the degree to which we feel we deserve it.  To do one's best, without regard to possible credit being awarded is a tough assignment.  But once you set your hand to the plow, checking on your credit just gets in the way.

Then, of course, there is the problem of futility.  We recycle, we clean up graffiti, we try to reduce our footprint, but all around us people gleefully undo everything we do.  The latest in this direction is the new fad of 'blowing coal', which is this amusing trick of owners of diesel truck revving up their engines as they pass hybrid, or fuel-efficient vehicles, just to annoy the perceived "tree-hugger" driving it.  No matter how much one does, it seems never to be enough.  But, says Teresa, do it anyway, and I must say, we don't have an alternative.

Teresa, of course, gave a lot of her life to helping the poor in Calcutta, though detractors were persistent in pointing out numerous shortcomings in her service or her lifestyle.  I seem to remember that she was accused of being harsh, of not being impartial, of appropriating various comforts to herself, or of claiming undue credit for one thing or another.  In a way, this quote sets out her attitude towards credit and criticism.  But, in the end, these suggestions are good.  It isn't between us and Them, it's between us and us!

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Has Wall Street Subverted Either the Democrats or Liberals?

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In a recent post in Salon, Bill Curry (a former aide to Bill Clinton) charges that the Democrat party has come under the influence of what he calls "Wall Street Democrats".  While many of the details of his post are difficult for me to follow, not being an insider to the history of the party, he certainly seems to have some good points.

His post takes as a unifying theme the relationship between Ralph Nader and the Democrats.  Initially, when Ralph Nader originally came to national attention in his denunciation of certain Ford cars, he worked with the Democrats to get certain important pieces of legislation passed, despite the enormous influence of the automobile industry lobby.  Since then, however, it has become more convenient for a certain type of Democrat --precisely those Curry terms the Wall Street Democrats-- to cooperate with Big Business than stand up against Big Business, whereas Nader has continued to firmly oppose anything Big, including Big Business, and (surprisingly) Big Government.

These days, the only way I can make sense out of a closely argued political piece is to copy it out, delete all the references I don't understand, and all the advertising, and then give it a try; until them I'm not going to give an opinion on the entire thing.  However, there are some major points that I think I understand.

• Deregulation (of the Media, of Communications, of Banks and Lending and Investing) has caused enormous damage.  I don't get all the details, but it certainly seems as though something has hastened the demise of newspapers, and deregulation seems as good a culprit as any.  The same is true of Banking, though Curry says that Bill Clinton continues to claim to support it.  I don't know why Bill Clinton does this, and even whether he does this, and he usually has good arguments for things he claims to support, even if he secretly doesn't.
• Small businesses, (Curry claims that Nader claims,) hate Big Business.  Big Business is not on the side of small businesses; they want to swallow them up, or destroy them.  Bill Curry (perhaps picking up on something Ralph Nader says) remarks that Small Business has not been completely grabbed by the GOP even now, and if the Democrats can show themselves as supporting Small Business, they could find a staunch ally there.
• Barack Obama has not yet delivered on a large number of election promises, especially those about openness of government.  To Curry, this is evidence that Obama is a populist.  I'm suspicious of these labels, which are political insider terms, and often mean something different to specialists that they do to us amateurs.  It appears, judging from how Curry uses the word, that the word describes politicians who make false election promises (of a particular sort).  I thought it described someone running for office who was for the rank and file against the inner political circle.  I guess I was wrong, and they were right.

[To be expanded]

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A (moderately) Easy Way to Alleviate some of the Peculiar Dynamics of College Teaching

One of the first things that bother new college faculty is that, for the first few weeks of class, things are going swimmingly; the students are eager to learn, and they believe, for the most part, that the teacher is on their side; then, one awful day, it is time to administer a test.  This is where, in many cases, things begin to go downhill.  The teacher --in the view of the students, of course, not in actual fact-- becomes the Enemy, the Giver of Grades, the Dispenser of Red Ink.

It is difficult, but not impossible, to recover from this setback.  But it is a setback that returns intermittently, especially in the sciences, because there is a greater proportion of what might be called mechanics in the sciences: standard skills that must be mastered by the student, and verified by the instructor, which are crucial to progress, even within each course, and certainly for subsequent courses.

People familiar only with US education have lived with this contradiction all their lives --or at least, the portion of their lives that they remember.  The teacher is both the Coach, and the Examiner.  But in grade school, the Examiner aspect is downplayed, and most kids remember their grade school teachers with some degree of fondness.  In recent times, teachers have been confronted with external examinations, which are outside the ability of the teachers to control, so the teachers (who have been able to set their own tests thus far) are completely discombobulated with the fact that the students are no longer able to rely on the benevolence of the teacher to adjust their grades.  But look on the bright side: the teacher is now firmly in the position of the Coach, and not the Examiner.

In College, however, the tension between the teacher's role as Coach and Examiner persists, and results in students regarding the friendly advances of their instructors as being two-faced.  Here is old professor C- trying to schmooze me again.  And it is no surprise.  (The negative stereotype of the slime-ball professor is probably reinforced at home, especially by parents who struggled in college, and are still paying their student loans!)

There are two, entirely different, solutions.  I will describe the easier, more innovative solution first, and the more traditional solution later.

Solution One.  Make it easier for the student to raise his or her grade, by repeating the course.  At present, my school like most schools, charges the full tuition rate for a student who repeats a course, despite the fact that they've already made their money from the poor kid the first time around.  This certainly has the desirable effect of forcing the kid to take the first pass through a course more seriously.  But having to pay anything for a repeated course is deterrent enough, in my humble opinion.  Why not allow any student to repeat a course for a fraction of the cost, or even for free?  Why not allow better students to carry a repeated course as an overload (that is, as extra credits, beyond the usual full credit load)?  And why not completely erase the unsuccessful earlier attempt from the transcript? The only reason for keeping the bad grades on the transcript is to bolster the impression that the school has high academic standards: Look, we give bad grades.  We're awesome.

It seems unnecessary to emphasize the dollars and cents aspect of this idea, but for the sake of the cash-hungry administrators: it is probably more likely that a student will stay in school and complete a degree if repeating courses was made easier, than if a student was thrown out of school for getting below the required course point average to stay in school.  Classes will be larger, if more students repeat courses.  But if students are encouraged to lose weight, more of them can be squeezed into the classrooms.  Lots of things to think about.

Remember, also, that if students are encouraged financially to repeat courses and raise their GPA, the average GPA of the student body will rise, which is always a good thing.  And it is done honestly.  And don't forget the advantage to this system in recruiting.  We need not advertise this program to stronger students, but for students with parents fearful about the success of their offspring, an honest way to improve their chances of success will be very encouraging indeed.  In any case, this simply codifies a discretionary course of action that deans and other administrators could have followed in any case, but codifying it makes it possible to administer the policy more uniformly.

Solution Two.  Have every course final set by an external examiner.  This is an idea used extensively in Europe and many other foreign countries, at least in the past.  This puts the instructor firmly in the role of Coach, which makes it much easier to develop a rapport with the students, and establish a friendly relationship with them.

There's no need to get sentimental about student-faculty relationships, but every teacher knows that some of the most enduring relationships are between faculty and their best students.  The question is: are the relationships strong because the students were strong, or were the students strong because the relationships were?  Why not try to extend your relationship to all your students?  Many's the time I thought a student and I were friends, only to find that the relationship was completely soured by a bad grade.  The easiest thing in the world is not to give any bad grades, and that path of least resistance is the slippery slope that leads to intrusive Assessment, and ultimately government interference in academic standards.  All a student needs, sometimes, is a second chance to ace a course, without it costing an arm and a leg.

Finally, one of the advantages of distance learning is that a student can, in most cases, take a dry run of the course first, and then take the course "for real."  This is a parallel plan to the one I suggest in Solution One: some students just take longer to pick up certain sorts of material.  Unfortunately, administrators are more happy to go whole hog into distance learning than to try more innovative approaches to raising academic achievement, simply because administrators are more focused on marketing than on the services they have been hired to deliver.  But this is America; everything is at the service of the marketers.

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