Rachel, we Hardly Knew Ye

        We are hearing a lot of media chatter regarding the ethnicity of one Rachel Dolezal, head of the Spokane Washington, branch of the NAACP.  Hers is an interesting family story, as she, blonde, blue eyed, with four black adopted sibs, has apparently recast herself as African American. 

        First of all - who cares?  Whatever her motivation may be, it hardly affects any part of her job performance, and certainly is consistent with the first line in the NAACP charter which reads, "To promote equality of rights and to eradicate caste or race prejudice among the citizens of the United States....."

       The founders of the NAACP were three individuals, one African American, W.E.B. DuBois, and two Caucasians,  Mary White  Ovington and Moorfield Storey. The group of six Americans who were the first national officers  of the newly born NAACP was comprised of five Caucasians and Dubois. Obviously, the founders of the organization made no consideration of ethnicity as a qualification (or disqualification) of any kind .

        What troubles me about this far greater than any personal issues related to Ms. Dolezal, is the minor media feeding frenzy occasioned by the recent revelation regarding her racial self identification.  In truth, both liberals and conservatives have shown their collective posteriors here.

        Some liberals are seemingly angered because they view Ms. Dolezal as a poseur,  and would seem to imply that this voids all the acknowledged good work she has done in revitalizing the organization's Spokane branch.  There also seems to be some thought (in the liberal community) that, while Caitlyn Jenner is accepted, and applauded  for finally and legitimately accepting her true nature, there is some magical (psychological?/social?/emotional?)  difference between racial self identification and gender identification, which denigrates Ms Dolezal. It would take a score of psychologists to drill down to any sort of semi-valid answer to that issue. I won't try.  I would point out that Caitlyn Jenner will profit mightily from her journey, while Rachel Dolezal surely won't.   

        Of course, it's more clear cut on the conservative side of the issue. Liberals who are critical of MS. Dolezal are hypocrites for accepting Bruce Jenner's transition to Caitlyn.  On the surface it's hard to argue their point. A closer look at real motives reveals the  typical Far Rightist schadenfreude which emerges  whenever a progressive's  non compliance with standards established  by doctrine  driven intolerance becomes newsworthy.  It is exacerbated by liberals' willingness to "pile on" in this admittedly unique instance.

        Finally, regarding Rachel Dolezal, ethnic insecurities and all - if she's a happy, functional person, doing what she loves and doing it well, than I guess Nathaniel Hawthorne's description fits, " “It was as if she had been made afresh out of new elements, and must perforce be permitted to live her own life and be a law unto herself without her eccentricities being reckoned to her for a crime.”          

Self Delusion

     Thomas Sowell has done it again! Today's op-ed piece by the once respected elder economist and Libertarian seeks to rewrite history ala a Kansas schoolboard. 

       For brevity's sake, Sowell implies that the current administration is primarily to blame for the current disaster that is Iraq, because President Obama honored the 2008 status of forces agreement signed by President Bush, which required all US withdrawal by 2011.

     The real issue, however, is that Sowell  holds up Japanese  and German post WWII reconstruction as examples of what could and should have happened in Iraq. This is so staggeringly uninformed and naive as to make one wonder if Dr. Sowell lives in an alternate reality. 

     In brief, both Japan and Germany were essentially unified in religion to whatever degree it was of national importance (relatively little in Germany more so in Japan). Religious sectarianism simply didn't exist in Japan, and Germany had largely exterminated their béte noir, their Jewish citizens.  In  Japan, devastated as a people, their God-Emperor, essentially ordered by MacArthur, told them to listen and obey, and they did. Used, as the Japanese were, to being led by central authority, they complied. Additionally, this highly industrialized  nation had  one of the most universally well educated populations in the world. Having been ground into powder, literally as well as figuratively, orderly and compliant rebuilding was a no-brainer.  

     In Germany, weary from two World Wars in 35 years, and missing a significant portion of their adult male population, the situation was similar -  a well educated populace  who understood  the gravity of the situation and the relative barbarity of the Soviets to the East.  The US was seen by many Germans as a savior, or at worst, by far the lesser of two evils.

        Of course, in neither nation was there over a thousand years of intense religious sectarianism, based on a religion which in most  cases, preached Jihad  as a social control mechanism.  What is truly troubling is that Far Right politicans,  over a span of 12 years did an about face with respect to Iraq.  

         In 1991, (then SecDef) Dick Cheney said to David Brinkley: I think for us to get American military personnel involved in a civil war inside Iraq would literally be a quagmire.  Once we got to Baghdad, what would we do? Who would we put in power? What kind of government would we have? Would it be a Sunni government, a Shi’a government, a Kurdish government? Would it be secular, along the lines of the Ba’ath Party?  Would it be fundamentalist Islamic? I do not think the United States wants to have U.S. military forces accept casualties and accept the responsibility of trying to govern Iraq. I think it makes no sense at all. If you can take down the central government of Iraq, you can easily see pieces of Iraq fly off. Part of it the Syrians would like to have in the West. Part of Eastern Iraq the Iranians would like to claim – fought over for eight years.  Today this reads almost like the daily news from the region!

        Cheney was correct then, as Secretary of Defense for Bush 41. Of course by 2003, Cheney, apparently now much smarter, advised the son, Bush 43, in exactly the opposite direction! Cheney's true reasoning will almost certainly remain shrouded in the mists of historical interpretation, since we will never hear any explanation from the man, himself.   

     Unfortunately, just exactly as Cheney predicted in 1991, Shi'ites, Sunnis, Sufis,  Kurds, et al, are still violently sectarian, tribal and territorial.  The US is portrayed as an invader, infidel nation. Dr. Sowell should have listened more closely in World History class.   

And now for crime literature

       Right off the top,  I confess to being an unashamed junkie for crime fiction. Hard boiled private eye, world weary cop, intellectual crime solver - just doesn't matter, I like 'em all as long as they're well written.

         Of course, the genre as we know it, at  least in English, may be traced back to  Edgar Allan Poe's 1841 short story, "The Murders in the Rue Morgue." Poe's  brainy, logical  Auguste Dupin, provides the prototype of  what Conan Doyle  fleshed out in Holmes, as the "consulting detective."  Between Dupin and Holmes, English novelist,  Wilkie Collins, expanded the genre from short story to novel. Collins is generally  credited with the first great mystery novel, "The Woman in White."  Dorothy L. Sayers singled out  Collin's second crime novel, "The Moonstone,"  as  "probably the very finest detective story ever written".  In support of that, even though Collins is unknown to most American crime fiction fans,  "The Moonstone" contains a number of ideas that have established, in the form, several classic features of the 20th century detective story:  The "inside job," red herrings, skilled, professional investigator, Bungling local cops, detective inquiries/ methods, large number of false suspects, the "least likely suspect," a "locked room" murder,  reconstruction of the crime, and a final twist in the plot. Collins incorporates all these in "The Moonstone."

        The genre has been broken down into several subtypes. From the quirky eccentricity of Miss Marple, Nero Wolfe, Hercule Poirot - all civilians drawn into mysteries, to the equal eccentricity of some fictional cops, From Inspector Morse, Special Agent Aloysius Pendergast,  Columbo,  quadraplegic savant Lincoln Rhyme, to Tony Hillerman's  Navajo  master detective, Joe Leaphorn.   

        On the other end of the spectrum, we are presented with world weary, jaded cops, exemplified (in my humble opinion) to its finest example in Connelly's Harry Bosch, with  Burke's Dave Robichaux  a close second.  This group includes  Lennie Briscoe, Ian Rutledge,  Bobby Goren, Thomas Pitt, Jesse Stone,  

        Private detectives in American fiction tend to be descendents of Philip Marlowe, Sam Spade, Mike Hammer, Spenser, Lew Archer, and Elvis Cole/Joe Pike - jaded, sarcastic running to smart ass, and chick magnets.  Some atypical exceptions such as Easy Rawlins,  VI Warshawski, and Kinsey Milhone  also occupy a place on the "private eye"  roster,  different in demeanor and method, but effective, nonetheless.   In the corner all by himself, because he defies definition, is Lee Child's  terrific Jack Reacher, not a detective, but you have to call him something.

        Recently (actually the last several years) while I constantly look for and read books by the staple group above, I  have been immersed in Scandinavian crime fiction. There are some terrific authors and some amazing characters to be explored if you are unfamiliar with this treasure trove of great writing. I started with Norwegian, Jo Nesbo, whose protagonist Harry Hole is an Oslo homicide cop. Read them in order, as Nesbo develops the character sequentially.

       A close second place is actually a tie between Jussi Adler-Olsen, a Dane, and Henkell Manning, Swedish master author.  Adler Olsen's Karl Morck has been relegated to the equivalent of the Copenhagen cold case squad. All you need to know is that there are (so far) five terrific novels.

         It was with almost a sense of loss that I recently finished Henning Mankell's final Kurt Wallander novel, "The Troubled Man" There are 11 novels and 1 volume of short stories in the series, again best read in order. All the novels were feature length movies, played on BBC with subtitles, and so loved in the UK that they were all remade in English starring  Kenneth Branagh  in the title role.  A second superb Swedish series are the novels of Helene Tursten,  featuring Stockholm  police inspector Irene Huss.  These have all also been made as films with subtitles.

        A final recommendation is Icelandic Author Arnaldur Indridason, whose  series set in Reykjavik and environs (pretty much all of Iceland ) features Inspector Erlandur. There are 14 books in the series, the last 12 of which are available in English.

        I have found all these authors  extremely refreshing in their great detail to character development and in may cases the international  connections and scope of the material.  Henning Mankell now 68 and recently diagnosed with cancer will be a great loss to the genre, but the others mentioned above remain productive, I urge you to give them a try.  

Rand Got it Right (yes, I know, I can't believe it either)

Rand Paul got it Right

        There, I said it and I meant it! I'll probably never utter those words again, since I actually view almost everything about Rand Paul as about as intellectually instructive  as the "Wally gets a Zit"  episode of  Leave it to Beaver. All that said, recently Paul did make some statements re: Dick (Vader) Cheney that resonated.  

        These comments were made recently in response to yet another episode of the Far Right' s favorite game "Blame it on the Black Man."  Paul said those who have questioned the president's approach to the recent surge in violence should ask the same questions of those who supported the 2003 invasion of Iraq: "Were they right in their predictions? Were there weapons of mass destruction there? Was the war won in 2005, when many of those people said it was won?         They didn't, really, I think understand the civil war that would break out," Paul said. 

        The real tragedy here is that  Rand Paul is dead on with respect to his doubts  and allegations concerning the obfuscation of truth and subplots thereto which resulted in the destabilization of the Hussein government. The larger tragedy is that one of, if not the preeminent, principal  involved in the decision had, only 12 years earlier warned against just such a desert adventure. Yet last week he was singing a radically different tune.

        Darth Cheney, writing an op-ed in 2015 (last week, in the NY Times, specifically) said: "Rarely has a U.S. president been so wrong about so much at the expense of so many. Too many times to count, Mr. Obama has told us he is 'ending' the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan -- as though wishing made it so. His rhetoric has now come crashing into reality...he abandoned Iraq and we are watching American defeat snatched from the jaws of victory."   {editorial note: The "abandonment" referred to is the current President's actions required by  a written commitment made by his predecessor to the Iraqis in the form of a "status of forces agreement signed, oddly enough, on  November 27, 2008. This was, conveniently, after George W. Bush knew his President Elect Democratic successor would have to deal with his (Bush's) mess and commitment to depart.}  

        Cheney's statements also attracted the attention of  Senator Barbara Boxer:  "That is sick, when you really look back at the record," Sen. Barbara Boxer, D-Calif., said of Cheney's criticism Sunday on 'Face the Nation."  "The fact is, what we're seeing now is an outgrowth of that bad policy the neocons got us in, that crowd, on false pretense that said, go in there. And, as a result, ISIS was born. Let's face that fact," she continued. "It was Vice President Cheney and Condi Rice working for George W. Bush and Rumsfeld and all those folks -- that's just like, you know, a nightmare come back to haunt me, just frankly -- who are basically telling us, get right back in there again. The American people don't want it. The president doesn't want us in."

        Are we just piling on Cheney, using hindsight to beat him up? Not at all. Dick Cheney in his own words, perspicaciously enumerated  most, if not all of the reasons for not  toppling the Hussein government in 1991, following the successful and surgical removal of Iraqi forces from Kuwait.  A summary follows:

        On April 7, 1991 Cheney appeared on ABC news’s This Week. Then  U.S. Secretary of Defense in the George H.W. Bush Administration, Secretary Cheney was asked by the late elder statesman of ABC News, David Brinkley, why the U.S. government did not invade Iraq proper after the liberation of Kuwait in Operation Desert Storm. The conversation was exactly as shown:  

BRINKLEY: "One other question — it keeps coming up. Why didn’t we go to Baghdad and clean it all up while we were there?"

Sec. CHENEY:  "Well, just as it’s important, I think, for a president to know when to commit U.S. forces to combat, it’s also important to know when not to commit U.S. forces to combat. I think for us to get American military personnel involved in a civil war inside Iraq would literally be a quagmire.  Once we got to Baghdad, what would we do? Who would we put in power? What kind of government would we have? Would it be a Sunni government, a Shi’a government, a Kurdish government? Would it be secular, along the lines of the Ba’ath Party?  Would it be fundamentalist Islamic? I do not think the United States wants to have U.S. military forces accept casualties and accept the responsibility of trying to govern Iraq. I think it makes no sense at all. If you can take down the central government of Iraq, you can easily see pieces of Iraq fly off. Part of it the Syrians would like to have in the West. Part of Eastern Iraq the Iranians would like to claim – fought over for eight years.

In the North you have the Kurds, and if the Kurds spin loose and join with the Kurds in Turkey, then you threaten the territorial integrity of Turkey. It’s a quagmire if you go that far and try to take over Iraq.

        Rarely, if ever, has a politician been more prescient or  more  hypocritical.  Never, has one reversed his course more diametrically and then blamed another when his predictions become reality. For Dick Cheney to blame President Obama for the disaster that Iraq has become is similar to jumping off the Empire State building and blaming the sidewalk below for the result. 

Misinformation, fact, and opinion.

      The willingness of persons with minimal knowledge to bloviate and pontificate as if they actually know something has always amazed me. As a fact based writer, I try to ensure that what I present as real information is just that, real data.

      As a man who came to teaching and loved it for 20 years after 26 years in military service, I have always been astounded by the diametrically different regard with which my two vastly different careers have been viewed by others, including friends who are top professionals in their own, non-education related, fields. I would not presume to critique their job or job performance, either generically or specifically, having no actual experience of knowledge of their specialty. In like manner they have never presumed to critique my job as a Submariner, Nuclear engineer, or leader. However almost anyone can be coaxed into lambasting practitioners of the teaching profession, as well as speaking on subjects of which they have zero experiential knowledge as if they were sages. These are of several, fairly distinct varieties.

     On one hand we had George Carlin, in his "angry old man" persona, proffered as an expert on education, even though anyone actually having read his writings would realize that as a young man he was hardly in a position to judge and as an adult, paying off his cocaine related debts and trying to reassemble a family fragmented by his addictions, he hardly qualifies as an expert on public education, especially being a product of a parochial school system.

    Then we have a number of other adults whose only connection to teaching, other than as students years ago, is that they know it's hard and they can't do it, but they somehow feel competent to critique those who do.

     Add to that the union haters who are absolutely convinced that the only reason US education is lagging other developed nations is the existence of educator's unions. These generally opine their all too familiar diatribes along these lines, "The damned unions protect bad teachers, and make it impossible to fire one."

     In consonance with this negativity, we see the Finnish system held up (as it should be) as the example of why their system works and "our" doesn't. Unfortunately, the meme shown in the usual photo with short caption is incomplete and even worse, glaringly incorrect.



     Let's start with the first statement: "We pay teachers like doctors." If it were true, it would be truly meaningful, but it's simply not true! Remember facts? Well, here are some:

     In Finland general practitioners earn, on average, about $70,000 per year, which is less than half of what doctors earn in the United States. The average salary for primary education teachers with 15 years experience in Finland is about $37,500, compared to $45,225 in the United States. Moreover, the cost of living in Finland is about 30% higher. In short: higher teacher salaries are not what make Finland’s education system better than ours. And I suspect it isn’t recess either.

     However, there are some of Finnish factoids relevant to the discussion. Note that we are now far, far past the surface gullibility of those who mindlessly post/ share/tweet/ etc memes like the one above. We're actually finding, or at least searching for, truth. Of course, a prime Common Core objective is teaching kids to think critically and differentiate between fact and opinion or, in this case, blatant bullshit.

     Fact:Finland beats the U.S. in math, reading and science, even though Finnish children don't start school until age 7. By age 15, Finnish students outperform all but a few countries on international assessments. What is actually creditable for this excellence is what is sometimes referred to (in Finland) as the "Finnish way." Every child in Finland under age 7 has the right to child care and preschool by law, regardless of family income. Over 97 percent of 3- to 6-year-olds attend a program of one type or another. But the key to Finland's universal preschool system is quality. Entry level day care teachers have Bachelor degrees. Finland's approach is pretty laid back, but, first and foremost, its standards — like what preschoolers should know and be able to do — are set by Finland's National Curriculum Guidelines for early childcare. Yes, head in sand, US trolls, - a Common Core!

     Finnish children are almost all in some kind of day care, all of whom are working in the same curriculum that's aligned with what they're going to learn in school, a level of coherence and congruence that most U.S. kids will never experience because we don't have a coherent system with highly trained people in almost every classroom. As long as Common Core is vilified and purveyors of instructional materials see it as just a cash cow, we remain as we are - kids stuck between politicians and Far right sycophants who hate science and controversy on the one hand and publishers who don't care as long as money can be made on the other.

     It's a level of coherence that President Obama has repeatedly called for, but until there's some sort of national consensus on standards and what quality preschool should look like, early childhood education in the U.S. will remain fragmented. 

     Then, of course, as there always will be, there's the money issue. In Finland, preschool and day care are basically free, because people pay a lot more taxes to fund these programs. Another, possibly even more significant, glaring difference is the child poverty rate, which is almost 25 percent in the U.S. — five times more than in Finland. In most countries, governments see poverty and education as linked. Most knowledgeable educators see them as inseparable. If you invest in early childhood education, in preschool and day care, that will lead to better results. It's a simple enough concept: In Finland, children from poor families have access to high-quality preschool. In the U.S., most poor children get poor quality preschool, if they get any at all.

      As regards mandatory testing, the strange idea that education should function on a business model, even though numerous local efforts to prove that idea have failed miserably, lives on in some sort of folkloric, group mentality twilight zone. Mandatory testing is seen (incorrectly, in my opinion) by legislators as the way to prove results and judge teachers. Charter schools either fail or don't (many in Florida do), but the difference is never whether they follow the business model as much as it is quality of students, teachers, constructive parent involvement, and adequate facilities.

     Evaluating teacher performance is one of those annoying things which just doesn't lend itself to technological modernization to a significant degree. This includes high stakes testing , especially where the stakes are higher for the teacher than for the student. What matters in any educational setting is what happens in the classroom. My original "capo de tutti capi", Admiral Hyman Rickover, was an eccentric, but he had it right when he held that the Naval Nuclear Power program would succeed not because of modern buildings (we taught for years in miserable, non air conditioned buildings which the rest of the USN wouldn't use), but because instructors were dedicated, highly trained, and equally important, frequently critiqued, observed and given feedback.

     Nuclear Power School (NPS) Instructor duty was a highly sought after assignment which most were not offered. No instructor ever stepped before a class (of 30 to 40 students, on average) without having been observed by peers (instructors in the same discipline, supervisors and even the commanding officer of the school as well as a civilian technical consultant. Even having been certified, this frequent observation was continued. As a public school classroom teacher I welcomed any administrator at any time to visit. It is good for students and teachers as well to know that administration cares.

     Of course, this is based on an assumption, not always valid, that the supervisor, (principle, vice principal, etc) also has a background as a successful classroom teacher. Four of six high school principals I worked for actually had those credentials, but at one time three of four administrators who were my supervisors were ex athletic coaches who had zero knowledge of pedagogy or classroom instruction. Being evaluated by any of the three would have been insulting, had they actually done it. My district had/has a three year probationary period and at the end of each year, an underperforming teacher could be terminated without recourse. That only matters if administrators have actually done due diligence during those three years to ascertain competence and that they would recognize it if they saw it. Many do, and are that good, but, unfortunately, some move into administration, not as much for financial gain, but because they either don't like, or are not particularly good at, classroom teaching. Having worked under two such persons, I can attest to the morale detriment they represent. Promoting such marginally competent persons to even higher responsibility at the district level compounds the crime.

     It is not unusual to hear an administrator complain about the difficulty inherent in removing a "bad" teacher. While unions do represent teachers , I can attest that the union of which I was a director for years, guaranteed simply due process, not protection from the consequences of bad behavior. The tragic truth is that, as difficult as it might be to remove a teacher, it is done as appropriate and they are removed from the educational system. Happens every year. An unsatisfactory administrator, on the other hand, is seldom (never seen it) fired outright, rather usually shuffled laterally to screw up another school in some lesser capacity.

     In my humble opinion, there are a number of ways to ensure teachers are qualified, highly motivated and, most of all competent not just in theory, but in the classroom.

First: make sure that those hired for this important job are among the brightest and best. As a union director, I was sometimes baffled by the angst displayed by member teachers on temporary contract because they were required to pass a basic (and believe me, I mean basic) college level skills test for permanent licensure. Really? Once hired watch them, critique them as appropriate, encouraged them to watch others in their discipline, let them know they are valued when they are, and that they need improvement when they do.

Second: Make the career highly sought after, challenging to enter, and well compensated. I've seen too many bright teachers leave after four or five years for financial gain. In some cases it's been a tearful decision. Pay these people commensurate with the degree of trust and responsibility implicit in their career choice. In Florida, a entry level corrections officer with a high school diploma,  charged with guarding some of society's worst, makes almost the same salary as a teacher with a college degree plus, charged with molding and educating our most precious resource.

Third: The best/most experienced teacher in any academic department ought to be the department chair. Only sometimes is that the case. Why? Foremost, the extra responsibility carries a pittance in extra compensation. A close second is that the system as structured at present gives responsibility but essentially zero real authority to a department chairperson. This most seasoned of teachers (ideally) ought to be mentoring, observing and helping new hires to be better teachers. An assistant athletic director is compensated more for what amounts to secretarial skills than a high school Social Studies department chair. If there needs to be a new level of supervisory certification for department chairs, create it, train them, test them, and pay them commensurately. Make the position one which is sought, vice taken because no one else wants the responsibility. Currently in my former school district, tenth largest in the United States, a department chairperson with a department of 11 teachers, is paid $720 dollars annually. Teaching one extra period is paid $4400 annually. Which would you choose? Unions need to recognize the need and support the initiative.

     Per usual, those who pile on educators will care little about what I've written here. Unfortunately, the greater their ignorance, the louder they shout. The anti Common Core sentiment , in vogue in some quarters is a classic example. In second seat are the legislators who seem to feel that, all other factors to the contrary, flogging teachers who are and have been, demonstrably excellent by all yardsticks for years, makes sense. A current example in Florida might be making experienced consistently superb teachers with outstanding credentials waste scarce and valuable time because a Dr. Robert Marzano, who has never been a classroom teacher, says he knows a better way.

Really, Rick?

        Rick Perry (remember him, the only human on earth who actually ever made Michele Bachmann seem sane and bright by comparison?) says he wants to "Get America Back on Track."

        This is actually a fairly common  statement by politicians, some Left, many more Far Right. They seem to feel it is an aphorism, full of pithy reality and meaning, but, looking at their beliefs, I feel otherwise. What they really are doing is making a statement that sounds good, like "Chocolate,"  but really has no real basis of either meaning or contextual form.

        I Have heard far more of ex-Governor Perry's mindless meanderings than any human should be subjected to, and therefore I feel qualified to examine what ol' Rick really means when he says "Back on track."  Fortunately, we have his own brain droppings to help us.

        Regarding the famous BP oil spill that cost billions and damaged the Gulf: "From time to time, there are going to be things that occur that are acts of God that cannot be prevented." As far as the term "Acts of God" is concerned, he is correct. These things are tornados, hurricanes, blizzards, etc (although human accelerated climate change and earthquakes due to "fracking" may be involved, too, but that's another discussion.) Using the term to explain away BP's gross negligence is quite another matter.  The exact term used in the court ruling  was "Grossly negligent." The label was applied proportionately to BP, Halliburton, and Transocean.  The details are technical but unarguable. Apparently, God just hates the oil business.

       "The reason we fought the American revolution in the 16th century was  ......"  Apparently the Gov is a little rusty in History as well as (just about everything else), since the American revolution occurred 200 years after the 16th century!

       "There is still a land of opportunity, friends, it's called Texas. We're creating more jobs than any other state in the nation." While that factoid is true, the nature of those jobs is such that in almost every other family welfare statistic, Texas is near the bottom of the barrel. These areas include:                    

        Low wages: In Texas, nearly one of every three employees worked in a low-wage job.

         Home ownership:  much lower than the national average in Texas at 61.8 percent, ranking No. 43.

         Banking: Texas is No. 47 in consumers with subprime credit and No. 41 in unbanked households.

         Low savings rate: In Texas, 64 percent of households have a savings account, ranking No. 40 and below the national rate of nearly 69 percent.

        Education: Texas ranks  50th (dead last)  for the number of people age 25 and older with a high school degree,  44th for student loan default rate and 38th in 8th-grade reading proficiency.

         Health care: Texas has the nation’s highest uninsured rate, with a quarter of its residents without health insurance. Texas, of course, did not expand Medicaid or avail thenselves of the Affordable Care Act.

        "It's time to just hand it over to God and say "God, you're gonna have to fix this." Really, Rick? How did that work for the six million Holocaust victims, most of whom were undoubtedly more truly devout that you strut and pronounce yourself to be? How did it work for the million and a half Armenian Christians killed or starved to death by the Turks? In fact, Rick, how has it ever worked except in Biblical fiction?

        "George W. Bush did an incredible job in the presidency, defending us from freedom."  Wow! Maybe being a babbling malaprop artist is just a Texas thang. 

        So here we have, in summary, the standard to which apparently Perry is referring when he says "Back on track."  It is, therefore,  germane to examine exactly where the train was (on that metaphorical track) when the "incredible" George W. Bush left office. 

       By just about every measureable economic indicator, the economy in 2015 is far better than when "W" left in January 2009.   Deficit - down by a factor of 4!, Unemployment - 5.6%, down from almost 10% in Jan 2009, Dow Jones averages - almost double that of 2009! US crude oil production - up 76%, petroleum imports down by 55%,  number of uninsured Americans down by about 14 million, Wind and solar power up by 248%, exports of goods and services up 39%.

        While no number can tell the whole story, it seems quite obvious (to you and me, but maybe  not to  Rick Perry) that the track today is significantly better than the track of January, 2009, when his idol left the White House . In addition, while crowing about no  income tax and generally lower high earner taxation in his state, the facts for the rest of Texas, as graded on the national infrastructure report are: Drinking water- D minus, Education - D minus, Transit -C, Dams, D minus, Roads -D, Flood control -D, wastewater - C minus. The right track?    

        Then again anyone who can state , and believe this, " We believe in government involvement that leads to independence: good schools, quality roads and the best health care." when his own state is diametrically opposite in all three categories, might just as well might believe in the tooth fairy, Creationism, and the great pumpkin.  

Katrina and Me

Phone rings:  (me) - "hello" (silence),"hello?" (more silence)   Just about to hang up, then I hear that little  'clicky,'  sound which tells me the telemarketer's auto dial system has picked up. As it's a lazy afternoon, I decide to see what fun there is to be had.

"Hello , Michael?" Right off the bat, I love it when someone obviously far  younger then I and who has never met me feels comfortable with calling a perfect stranger by their first name! (Of course, that's part of Cold Call Telephone Solicitation 101) , but as I said it's a lazy day...

"Yes?"

"Good afternoon,  Michael, this is Katrina, calling from the dealer processing department."

"Yes, what dealer? "

.......moment of dead air , as she looks at the script...

"I'm calling about your  2007  Saturn."

"You're calling from the Saturn dealership? "

another moment of silence, waay off script by now.... 

"Yes, and  I would like to offer you the opportunity  to purchase an extended warranty for your 2007 Saturn." (brightly optimistic tone, back on script)

"Katrina, Saturn has been out of business for  over five years"

"Oh, I'm sorry to hear that, but do you wish to purchase an extended warranty on yours?"

"Katrina, I haven't had that vehicle for 4 years."

"Oh, I see, so you don't have a car at all?"

"Yes, I have a car."

"Well, do you wish to purchase an extended warranty on the car you do have?" (at this point I'm considering awarding points for sheer endurance!)

"No, thanks, the car I do have has a ten year or 100,000 mile warranty already"

"Well that's very nice, thanks and have a blessed day" 

A Bridge Too Far?

     Michelle Malkin is undoubtedly highly educated and demonstrably literate. Having said that, one wonders at some of  outrageously illogical things she writes in her op-ed column. Her most recent discusses the Brooklyn Bridge, its construction and its architect, John Augustus Roebling. All she states regarding Roebling's ability as an engineer and innovative bridge designer is true. All things Brooklyn Bridge  can be read, written in far more entertaining prose, in "The Great Bridge" by Pulitzer Prize winning author, David McCullough.   

  

      Ms. Malkin's point, if there is one, is entirely missing from the first half of the essay, which simply chronicles Roebling's journey from German genius to American Bridge builder. Halfway through, we get the message: "Did he have "help" along the way?  Plenty - from other capitalists, that is."  And then we get to the reason for all this Roebling love in. She is trying to make a point;  that point being that numerous American innovators benefitted the public by benefitting themselves. She claims then, as an aside cheap shot,  that "White House progressives and  'Common Core Historians' "  won't teach this history. Balderdash and poppycock!!  Ms Malkin apparently has never read the common core standards, or she'd know that there is zero guidance therein regarding what to teach in the History area. None, Zip, Nada!  The only common core relevance to History is that related to reading for comprehension, main idea, etc, etc. 

     Her other point, would seem to be that the Brooklyn Bridge was the private idea and product of entrepreneurs and capitalists. In this she is also dead wrong. Without government interface the bridge would never have been built.  The  charter originally and provisionally fixed the capital at $5,000,000 (with power of increase), and gave the cities of New York and Brooklyn authority to subscribe to the capital stock of the company such amount as their Common Councils respectively should determine.  By the time the foundations of the towers had been, however,  there  much concern over public funds being controlled by private investors. Proponents of the bridge then  prepared a bill to that effect, which was approved by the Legislature and accepted by the city governments. Under the charter thus amended, the bridge is public property, 662/3 per cent. to be paid for and owned by the city of Brooklyn and 331/3 per cent. by the city of New York, the actual payments by the private stockholders having been reimbursed and their title extinguished. In other words concern over the greed of the capitalists originally involved, caused the city government to take over and see the project through to completion. This is in direct contravention to Ms. Malkin's thesis. 

        A bit of examination shows Ms Malkin to be fiercely Roman  Catholic, anti-feminist, and apparently not a student of history. She is a frequent Faux News talking head. From the tone of this op-ed piece one is puzzled regarding the question of for whom Ms Malkin  has respect. Donald Trump, capitalist loudmouth,  should  be a fave, but he has bankrupted several corporations while demonstrating that benefitting him and his family has benefitted very few others. The same is true of the Kochs, Adelsons, and Waltons.

         Of course none of the three true 20th century entrepreneurs would appeal much to the arch conservative Ms Malkin. Bill Gates has an annoying habit of giving his money away, frequently to some people of whom MS Malkin wouldn't approve.  Steve Jobs was notably liberal, even proposing to President Obama  that  any foreign student who got an engineering degree at a U.S. university should automatically be offered a green card.  Facebook founder Mark Zuckerberg rode on a float with employees in a San Francisco LGBT parade and supports Corey Booker.  

       I'll bet it makes her head hurt trying to sort it out. 

Fresh? Local? Maybe, maybe not!

I  saw a discussion this morning re: "Farmer's Markets."  Right off the bat let me be clear - eating fresh and local is a great thing; minimizing processing of food is, as well. All that said, the issue with farmer's markets is that they are free to do or sell almost anything they wish, depending on the state regulations. Here's how that plays out in, say, California:

        "Although the fare sold at farmers markets often is perceived as more wholesome than what’s available on grocery shelves, there is no evidence that it is less prone to cause food borne illness — and it generally receives less federal and local oversight. While few pathogen outbreaks have been linked to farmers markets, most sources of food borne illness are never identified, and small outbreaks often go unreported. For instance, for every confirmed case of salmonellosis, at least 29 cases go unreported, according to federal estimates.

       Congress exempted small farms from the more rigorous safety requirements of the new Food Safety Modernization Act. The exemption applies to farms that gross under $500,000 annually and sell the majority of their products directly to consumers, restaurants or stores in their state or within 275 miles of the farm."

"Within 275 miles?   In local terms, that means your tomatoes could be sold in Orlando as local, yet be grown in Homestead (Fl) or southern Alabama/Ga  with no way of knowing how they were grown.

       In Florida, it's  even less regulated. Here's what is required to be able to sell fresh produce: "If you’re selling fresh produce You need a Growers Permit. These are free. Simply ask Jim DeValerio to register you as a Grower. His number is 904­966­6224 or email: jtd@ufl.edu" Yeah, that's right. All you have to do is ask for the free permit,  and oh yes, if you're selling by weight:  "Your scale must be a certain kind and it must be inspected. Otherwise, sell by the bag, basket or handful."  

For $50, (no questions asked) you can see your produce under the label "fresh from Florida" even though no one will ever ask you to prove that!

For your $50 you have access to logos and pretty posters.

         So, unless you are labeling your produce as "Organic"  (in Florida) you can buy produce grown  anywhere, fertilized  with anything,  and sell it as your own. My suggestion: If you love the idea of fresh, local veggies, plant a garden. In truth buying fresh, unprocessed vegetables regardless of source is far safer in the US than most anywhere, and far more regulated in commercial venues.  

        If that sounds too harsh, here's a softer way of putting it: If you just like buying vegetables off folding tables on the weekends, and don't care where or how they were grown, ignore this. Same if the lure of your local market is mostly the coffee cart and the nicknack vendors.  But if you shop at the farmers market in part to vote with your food dollars—for a stronger local economy, say, and for better stewardship of the land, and for a food network that lets you know exactly what you're putting in your mouth—and if you'd prefer not to feel like a dupe, it turns out that going to the farmers market isn't enough anymore, and it comes with absolutely no guarantee of  "localness" or freshness.   Now you actually have to find out exactly who's behind every folding table, how their business is really doing, and accept the disappointment the answers are bound to bring.

        Want a better idea? look here:  http://www.squarefootgardening.com/