Ethics and Economics

The Amateur Radio Club I belong to was busy discussing a recent news item about a Fire Department that had let a house burn to the foundation because the owners had not paid an annual subscription for fire protection. The general consensus was that it was probably illegal and certainly immoral to refuse to put out the fire. While I can agree with the sentiment that standing by and watching a house be consumed in flames reflects poorly on the ethics of the department I certainly needed to research the issues before I reached a personal determination about the actions of the fire department.  For the second time in a year the South Fulton Fire Department in Obion County TN made the news by refusing to put the wet stuff on the red stuff because the homeowner had not paid an annual $75 subscription for their services. While the department’s action is really poor public relations a little research tells more about the issues.

The Town of South Fulton has a fire department that is financed by the taxes of the people living in town. The fire coverage for the town is paid for by the taxes paid by the people who live and work in town. Obion County on the other hand does not provide any fire response and from what I’ve learned refuses to allow the formation of a volunteer department that could provide fire coverage outside the town. So if you live outside South Fulton the Town doesn’t provide any coverage unless you pay an annual $75 subscription. The philosophy is that the townsfolk shouldn’t be expected to provide services free of charge to people who don’t pay to support the fire department.

The two fires that cost county residents to lose their home were the result of these two homeowners hedging their bets. The chose not to pay the annual fee for reasons that made sense to them and they lost their bet. There was some argument that the people [probably couldn’t afford the coverage, but it seems to me that if you can afford to make payments on a house you can probably afford $75 for what is essentially insurance. I’m willing to bet that the residents of the destroyed homes most likely had made more than one purchase of a non essential nature that cost more than the $75 subscription.

The issue for the Town and the Fire Department is that it costs money to staff , equip and operate a fire department and if they put out fires for people who refused to pay for the service in no time at all no one would pay for the service and (I’m sure) the department would go out of business. A few of the people with whom I was discussing the story don’t agree with my thoughts, but then again they are people who have trouble understanding economics and the reality that we are all responsible for the results of our action. The people who lost their homes had a choice and they refused a voluntary contract by choosing to keep their money. The rolled the dice and lost and the community should not have to pay the cost for their short sightedness.

Christmas is upon us

With Christmas fast approaching the time for seasonal decoration of the house is here. My Lady revels in the opportunity to make our home glow with the recurrent story of life and hope. In preparation for the makeover I’ve been listening to Christmas music and this is one piece that I think exemplifies the time of year.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=45VGDNHJ4Zo

Enjoy and anticipate the season

What would you do?

I've been on deployment to Pennsylvania for the past few months and I'm looking forward to going home next week. It's not that I don't like talking with people and educating them about flood recovery and things a home owner can do. But the media incited public babble of the past week me looking forward to being with people who understand the meaning of morality.

For many years Penn State University sheltered a peadophile in their football program, had been informed of the persons crimes and had done nothing to remove the individual from their ranks and turn him over to the police for investigation and possible criminal procedings. As usually happens when the tawdry affair was finally brought to the light of day those responsible for doing nothing are breathlessly claiming that they never knew a thing. It looks like several of them might be going to jail, the perpatrator is looking forward to being "Bubba's best friend" for the rest of his life and the head football coach has been fired after 46 years on the job.

What makes me glad to be leaving and returning home is that a poll of Pennsylvania residents found that well over half of the people they talked to think that firing the coach, a man who knew that his assistant was an active peadophile and only mentioned it in passing to his boss after some one had seen the perp in a criminal act with a minor boy.

When I was growing up that kind of behavior would get you hard time, if the neighborhood even let you live long enough to go to trial. And where I live now there would be no hesitation to "discuss the situation" in private long before the courts cam into the picture.

I'll be glad to see the open plains of the MidWest.

Sign of the times

Vision is Everything

In my last post I talked about the issue of dealing with clouds of people who were willing to spend their day waiting in line. Since then I've moved away from the urban disaster recovery center to a more rural environment that includes some heavy industry and the change in environment is dramatic.

At this facility we see slightly more people who have been damaged by the floods, but there is a lot more structural damage with foundations failing due to hydrostatic pressure and some subsidance of building because the water washed out underneath the walls of the building. These are major events and repair will be time consuming and expensive and many of the people I talk to have lived in their house for several decades. They didn't anticipate their later years to be taken up with finding money to rebuild their home, spending inordanate amounts of time geting the work done and still trying to live a productive life.

Listening to an 80 year old couple tell me that they don't have insurance, live on Social Security and have no friends or family makes me proud of the resiliancy of the human spirit when they tell me that they really feel bad about asking for assistance since "there are others who need help more than I do". Old and frail they might be, but in their minds they are coping and adapting in a way I can only admire.

Working the line

The Disaster Recovery Center I'm working out of is located in one of the (Big Northeastern city) suburbs in a very affluent county. My job is to talk to each of the applicants about how to repair the damage that they endured and also how to prepare and respond to future events that come their way. I speak for the federal program but cooperate with any state programs that address mitigation. In addition the DRC hosts a range of state programs that offer aid and assistance to those in need, and therein lies the root of a problem we had last week

The state welfare department announced that they would be handing out electronic food stamps to qualified individuals and that well intentioned support gesture resulted in a massive turnout of applicants from the city. It was just turning light when I checked into the center (about 3 hours before official opening) and found a line of about 50 people, and by the time the doors opened we had about 650 people in line and since it took the state a minimum of 15 minutes to process each applicant the math indicated we would be working until very late that night to process just the food stamp people. That meant that the applicants were going to be waiting...and waiting...and waiting before they could be processed. A perfect setting for high frustration levels and a potential riot situation.

The Center manager and a couple of the program managers took it upon ourselves to try to cool emotions and keep the peace. We walked and talked, offered sympathy and told everybody the truth about why we had the stack up and what we could and could not do to make their wait in line go faster/easier. Strangly enough the sight of "officials" walking the line and listening to their complaints not only calmed emotions, it even brought smiles and friendly comments. At least one other station lost control of their crowd which makes us believe that we must have done something right.

The old management rule of "managing by waking around" was proven that day.

Riding to the rescue

One of my alternative lives includes periodic employment by FEMA as a mitigation specialist. After a disaster there is an immediate need to set up and staff recovery offices that are tasked with assisting those people who have been impacted by the disaster. Since the government doesn’t maintain warehouses of trained staff it has to call on a group of available and trained people who step away from their normal lives and respond to the needs of others.

So most of the people you see running around in blue shirts are not full time employees of the government, they are folks like you who came to help because they have empathy and sympathy for their fellow humans.  And I’m one of them.

FEMA is best known as an agency that gives people money, but much of our work load comes from helping people cope with the present disaster and preparing for possible future events.  I teach them, among many other things how to remove mold after the flood, build a strong room in preparation for tornado season and how to assemble a survival kit for when you have one of those really bad days.

Right now I’m in Pennsylvania trying to help people cope with the flooding  of August; we work from early in the morning to about 7 at night and process lots of people each day. In our off time I get a chance to fix supper, do laundry and maybe get a good night’s sleep. The Disaster Recovery Center I’m working out of is located at a local fire and police training facility which is a lot better than the school gymnasium, church lobby or even windblown tents that I’ve worked out of before. The people come to us with all flavors of damage, need and desire, but they all have been impacted both physically and emotionally by Mother Nature. It’s the elderly and frail that need help and are being ignored by family and local governments that really get to me.

One lady I talked with yesterday has a small (about 2 feet wide and 6 inch deep) creek running through her property that during the flood grew to a width of several hundred feet and a depth described by her as “several stories”. Of course after the flood receded there was a veritable dam of debris blocking the creek and now the local jurisdiction tells her that the creek they claim as their own when the weather is good is now her responsible to clean up. The lady is a widow in her 80’s, not in good health and with limited income…and no one wants to help.

And that’s why FEMA is on the ground…our job is to make sure that resources, federal, local and volunteer are there to help. We can’t make you whole…but we will try to bring you back to the condition you were in just before the event that brought us to town.

FEMA gets bashed by many people who don’t understand (or want to understand) what our role is...We are recovery people, not rescue people and we really are here to help.

Report from the field

One of my alternative lives includes periodic employment by FEMA as a mitigation specialist. After a disaster there is an immediate need to set up and staff recovery offices that are tasked with assisting those people who have been impacted by the disaster. Since the government doesn’t maintain warehouses of trained staff it has to call on a group of available and trained people who step away from their normal lives and respond to the needs of others.

So most of the people you see running around in blue shirts are not full time employees of the government, they are folks like you who came to help because they have empathy and sympathy .  And I’m one of them.

FEMA is best known as an agency that gives people money, but more of our work load comes from helping people cope with the present disaster and preparing for possible future events.  I teach them, among many other things how to remove mold after the flood, build a strong room in preparation for tornado season and how to build a survival kit ready for when you have one of those really bad days.

Right now I’m in Pennsylvania trying to help people cope with the flooding episodes of the past August; we work from early in the morning to about 7 at night. In our off time I get a chance to fix supper, do laundry and maybe get a good night’s sleep. We’re located in a local fire and police training facility which is a lot better than the school gymnasium, church lobby or even windblown tents that I’ve worked out of before. The people come in all flavors of damage, need and desire, but they all have been impacted by Mother Nature. It’s the elderly and frail that are being ignored by family and local governments that really bug me.

One lady I talked with yesterday has a small (about 2 feet wide and 6 inches deep) creek running through her property that during the flood grew to a width of several hundred feet and a depth described by her as “several stories”. Of course after the flood receded there was a veritable dam of debris blocking the creek and now the local jurisdiction tells her that the creek they claim as their own is now her responsible to clean up. The lady is a widow in her 80’s, not in good health and with limited income…and no one wants to help.

And that’s why FEMA is on the ground…our job is to make sure that resources, federal, local and volunteer are there to help. We can’t make you whole…but we will try to bring you back to the condition you were in just before the event that brought us to town.

FEMA gets bashed by many people who don’t understand (or want to understand) what our role is...We are recovery people, not rescue people and we really are here to help.

Days of Infamy

    11 September 2001                           07 December 1941

                 I cannot forget              I will not forgive


But the earth endures and mankind persists and civilization survives

Rosewood and Music

Last week the Gibson Guitar Company was raided by the Feds, records were confiscated and equipment and product were confiscated. What was their crime? They were in violation of an Indian law and political idealists.

There are American laws on the books that honor foreign environmental laws and it seems Gibson was using Rosewood imported from India without the proper export license being obtained by the Indian export company. So the U.S. authorities seized the illegal wood and in effect have almost shut down the company.

The interesting point in all this is not that the U.S. is supporting foreign laws (which is usually a good thing to do) but that the importer who brought the wood into the country also sold much of the same Rosewood to other instrument and specialty companies. The importer and the other companies have not been targeted and have not had any of their stocks confiscated.

The article I read about this event indicated that one of the reasons for the Gibson raid is that the owner of the company is a strong contributor to conservative party causes, while the importer and other users of the wood seem to be neutral in their political beliefs or supporters of more liberal philosophies.

My only comment is that the law needs to be applied evenly or not at all.

Darth Vador Buses

The President just returned from a three state bus tour that looks a lot like an election campaign tour because he wanted to “connect with the people”. One of the features of this tour was the unveiling of a special built bus that is equipped with state of the art communications and security systems. In reality, there are two identical busses that were bought and paid for by the taxpaying public both, for some reason painted a glossy black. According to news reports each bus also cost in the neighborhood of 1.1 million dollars, and were built, not in the U.S., but in Canada.

Although each bus was tricked out by the Hemphill Brothers Coach Co, of Tennessee the basic buses were built by the Prevost Co. of Quebec and are listed as products of Canada in the legal documents. While I don’t deny that the Hemphill Brothers build a fine vehicle I can’t help wondering why importing the President’s ride from Canada can in any way create the jobs the President is talking about and do anything about reducing unemployment at home rather than over the border.

I wonder what the unions, whose support the President depends on think of this?

Statistics for Politicians

One of the many things government is good at is collecting demographic information and statistical data. And I’ve found that if you dig through the mountains of data that is available on line you can learn some interesting things. For instance, while spending a hot afternoon digging through some Bureau of Labor Statistics data I ran across a table titled Employment / Population Ratio, and the June 2011 figure was 58.5%.

In effect there were slightly less than 6 adults out of 10 who worked at a job during the month of June. That is the lowest employment percentage seen since 1981, when we were coming out of the Carter presidency.

Yet we are told that the unemployment rate is 9%.

Our Constitution

Last week a women in Florida was found not guilty of murdering her daughter, and today a  baseball player had his trial dismissed because the prosecution showed the jury a film clip the judge had earlier ruled to be inadmissible. In both cases I’ve heard people complain that the individual was “obviously guilty” and they are upset at what they see as a miscarriage of justice.

I disagree.

The laws of our country say that everyone is innocent until proven guilty and that in the absence of proof the accused must go free. In the Florida case it appears that the prosecution had little more than circumstantial evidence to present, in fact they could not even specify the cause of death. While I personally feel the mother is an individual I could nether trust or like the fact remains that the state was unable to prove to 12 jurors that she had done the crime she was charged with.

In the case of the ball player that was charged with lying to Congress the judge had specifically said that a particular film clip could not be introduced as evidence yet the prosecution showed it to the jury anyway. The judge could easily have dismissed the case with prejudice but instead chose to stop the trial and order a future rehearing.

In both cases the decision was based on the Constitution that provides each of us a fair hearing if we are accused of a crime. And I would much rather have an occasional miscreant walk free than further weaken the very document that describes and enforces the rule of law we live under.

I'm Back

I stopped blogging the past few days for a very good reason. My Lady was able to come home for 5 days and I wanted and needed to focus on her and make her visit as enjoyable as possible. I leave it to her to tell you if I was successful, but I know that the time went by all too fast and the parting when she went back to the North West was bitter sweet.

I learned (as I had anticipated) that my cleaning standards are not up to her standards and that I have to do a better job of finding dust bunnies and related items of wifely concerns. Being a well trained husband I used the wise man’s response of “Yes Dear” and promised to do better in the future. But there were lots of moments of just holding hands, offering my troth and reveling in her being home.

Time went by much too rapidly and the house is a lot more lonely, even the pets realize she is away and they are trying to adjust to her absence by reminding me that I need to give them big meals and lots of treats. As a Gaffer however I have a reputation to uphold and I remind them in turn that I’ve got opposable thumbs and know how to use the can opener.

Sunshine

Summer in Kansas is usually bright, hot and dry but the weather gods have lately been bringing us lots of humid weather from the Gulf of Mexico. The farmers have bee appreciative since it looks like we have a very good crop season because of the humidity and the high water table from the winter snow pack.

The annual flooding that follows winter is exceptionally bad this year and the towns and farmers in the river flood plains are getting hammered. I’ve been on deployment with FEMA after flood events in both the northern and southern parts of the Mississippi River basin My experience is that, generally speaking the people in the upper Midwest are resilient and every time a levee is breached the dry out and keep looking on the bright side.  There are few complaints about FEMA or the Corp of Engineers and lots of planning already in place to improve the existing flood control plans.

Because of the humid weather I have limited my outdoor time to early morn or late evening but the last three days have been spectacularly dry because of a high pressure area bring dry mountain air to the region. With the lower air humidity even temperatures in the 80’s and 90’s are pleasant and taking a morning walk is just fun.

Is this an educational idea?

I know that educational loans are usually large and often difficult to repay and that many times the borrower is seriously delinquent in making payment, but when a loan is delinquent there are many ways for the lending agency to recoup the money. But the U.S. Department of Education has really stretched logic with its collection tactics.

A fellow in California came downstairs in his shorts when a heavily armed SWAT type team staged an early morning rain. The guy was allegedly grabbed by the neck and led outside on his front lawn where he was handcuffed and detained. The raiders also woke his three young children, aged 11, 7 and three and held them in a local police car for about six hours while they searched the house.

The reason they were there was the raid was staged by a Dept. of Education Team and was based on a search warrant that was allegedly issued by the Department. They were looking for evidence concerning the ex wife who is delinquent on her education loans.

With all the civil and legal procedures available for collecting a debt I find it hard to believe that an educational loan requires a dynamic entry, particularly when the subject of the search is not a resident. The law describes a wide range of remedy but to my knowledge armed raiders are not included in the list.

Programming Logic (?)

I made a living for a good many years working as an analyst in several data centers. As an analyst it was my job to translate the needs of the customer into simple words and phrases that the programmers translated into computer code so the customer could get the information he wanted in the format he needed. While it was often a chore getting the customer to understand that some of their dreams were not achievable I generally had a much harder time getting the programmer to understand just what needed to be done. As a rule programmers are bright, articulate, eager and without a shred of common sense. Without exception they always thought that the code they produced was sufficient to answer all needs and that others (such as myself) had no business questioning their logic.

Over the years I developed a pretty good skill set in adapting the programmer’s zeal to real world situations and giving the customer a product that answered their need and didn’t obscure the reason for getting there. Now retired from the data world I recently ran across a brilliant illustration of an analysts failure to communicate and control and a programmers need to write “brilliant code”.

One of my email accounts, run by a national company, was hijacked by a spammer who proceeded to make my life “interesting” for several weeks. After attempting lots of hopeful solutions I went through my email provider and asked them to block my account until the issue was resolved. Notice that I had to go through my email account because the provider does not offer any phone numbers to call.

Now that my account is blocked when I try to access the email account I’m directed to a screen that explains the account is blocked and that they will send an access number to an alternate email account. The issue is that the alternate account is one that I had over 10 years ago and dropped about two moves ago and there is no way to change the alternate address, I also have no idea how they got it but that’s a side issue. As of right now it’s a perfect closed loop situation, create a screen that could contain incorrect information and fail to provide an escape route when the screen proves to be a dead end for the customer!

Next week I’ll block out a full day to call corporate and talk my way down the hierarchy until I find someone who can break me free. All because some programmer thought of an elegant way to help the customer and an analyst failed to spot a dead end in the making. Wish me well…it might be some time before I resurface.

Worms and other low life

Blogging was put on an involuntary hold when I checked my email a few days ago and found a full basket of error messages. In my wandering through the internet I had picked of a computer worm that hijacked my system and started sending spam in my name.

Words can’t express my feelings, but the neighbors tell me the atmosphere around the house was colored a deep blue. Finding the culprit and correcting the problem took more time, energy, and money than I wanted to spend. But it looks like the issue has been resolved.

If I can ever find the scalawag that did this (and I doubt that I ever will) they will find that the 7 levels of Muslim Hell are not deep enough to hide in. Regular blogging will resume shortly.

Unintended Consequences

I’ve had several opportunities to visit the Corning Glass Museum and have enjoyed and learned every time I visited. Of course the highlight of the tour is the walkthrough of the Steuben glass production line where you can see high quality, and very expensive, objects of art being hand blown and engraved. On one occasion I was startled to watch an engraver finishing up an elaborate bowl when he stopped, called a supervisor over to talk about the bowl. After a short discussion the boss took the bow, walked over to a barrel and smashed the piece. I later found out that the bowl was a special design and would have cost (in 1950’s dollars) over $10,000. But art overcame finances and they started over again because of a slight flaw in the glass.

Most people don’t think of Corning as being in the ranks of crime fighting companies, but when it sold its Pyrex brand of glass cookware to World Kitchen in 1999 the company accidentally made the manufacture of crack cocaine a poster child for the law of unintended consequences.

Ordinary glass shatters when it’s heated too quickly. If you pour something hot in a standard glass the inside expands faster than the outside and the resulting stress cracks the glass. Pyrex, which was made of borosilicate glass solved this problem by altering the atomic structure of the glass. Because of the boron the structure of the glass remains the same size regardless of the temperature. 

When World Kitchen took over the Pyrex brand, it started making more products out of pre-stressed soda-lime glass instead of borosilicate. With pre-stressed, or tempered, glass, the surface is under compression from forces inside the glass. It is stronger than borosilicate glass, but when it’s heated, it still expands as much as ordinary glass does. It doesn’t shatter immediately, because the expansion first acts only to release some of the built-in stress.

The lowlifes that cook crack cocaine found out the hard way that Pyrex shatters when they try to produce their product and now they have to make do with metal utensils (that rust and contaminate) or break into the local high school and steal the lab equipment. I don’t know if this has cut down on the manufacture of crack, but anything that makes it more difficult to produce is ok by me.

Something is wrong with this picture

Every year I grumble and pay my taxes. For the past few years the taxes our family owed have exceeded our tax withholding but we, however unenthusiastically, make our contribution for retaining the form government we think is worthy of our trust and taxes. All this time I’ve known that a large segment of the population pays little or no tax but I can accept that there are people who just don’t have a large income and I agree that they shouldn’t be taxed heavily.

But this year I think I reached my breaking point when the IRS announced that 51% of American households did not pay any tax at all. To make matters worse they also said that 30% of the non tax paying household qualified for an “earned income tax credit”. In other words 15.3% of American households will get money for not paying any taxes, and I’m expected to work harder and become a “more wealthy American” in order to pay more taxes and help support those who cannot motivate themselves to earn a reasonable living.

I think it’s about time we took a serious look at some of the flat tax proposals that have been talked about. At least that we would know that each contributed equally to the national burden.

Thanks Mom

While the calendar gives us only one day a year to honor our mother I know that the unending care these ladies gave to us youngsters are what made us what we are today.

I owe Clarinda,  mother of My Lady (who is otherwise known as "my lovely lady") for accepting me as a suitable part of the family.

And for Lucy, my mother who taught me the skills and ability to to find the lady who now is the central part of my life.

Abbie

In the fall of 2003 I flew from the North West to North Carolina to pick up a Rescued Papillion dog that we were planning to adopt. When I got there I was introduced to a very frightened, very small dog whose entire body had been shaved because of a skin condition from being kept in a filthy environment for the first eight years of her life. She had been used as a breeding dog and was in poor shape; in fact the biggest part of her that day was probably her large eyes that begged for acceptance. A couple of days later she flew home with me and became part of a family that included other dogs, cats and humans that were there to help her recover and discover that being a dog wasn’t all that bad.

She came to us without a name but finally selected “Abbie” as a sound she could respond to. In the past eight years she slowly grew back her hair and became a full fledged dog. She did have her moments of confusion, at first not knowing that outside was ok to run around in and that food could be made to taste good and that humans were there to scratch ears and provide comfort when the thunder storms rolled through.

But finally the terrible conditions she endured the first half of her life have caught up with her and her liver has started to fail. We started to fear the worst when she stopped eating and developed a hepatic breath. The lab report came back today and the vet gives her only a few short days to be with us.

There are some who cannot see, or understand the attachment other humans have for their four legged friends, but we find as much comfort from the animals in our life as we hope they get from us. Abbies trip across the rainbow bridge will leave a hole in our hearts, but her memory will keep her alive in our hearts.

Fading Away (Not) Gracefully

1 May 2011

Some people can’t seem to grow old with dignity. Back in the old days when I was still working for the federal government one of the presidents I worked under was Jimmy Carter. As president he made some notably bad decisions that even today have an impact on the country.

As a manager he was, from the perspective of an employee, a disaster. He couldn’t get past the mind set of a peanut farmer and had no skill when it came to running a large enterprise. Faced with an economic downturn one of his solutions was to turn off the hot water in all government facilities and limit the heating and cooling systems. Depending on the season the employees were either wearing coats in the office or sweating heavily.

It was good theater and certainly made for positive newspaper articles except his order also stated that political appointees were not to be impacted by this “cost saving program”. The amount of money expended in providing separate utilities for political appointees far exceeded the “savings” gained by making the working troops uncomfortable.

About two years ago the government of North Korea told all the foreign assistance workers who were trying to help the country recover from decades of bad crops and subsequent starvation that their help was no longer needed. The U.S. pulled its aid workers out, as demanded, and left some 20,000 metric tons of food behind. Since then the North Korean government has overseen more food production failure and wide spread starvation of its people.

Now comes Mr. Carter, fresh from a recent visit to the People’s Republic with a press conference where he accused the United States of committing human rights abuses by withholding food aid from North Korea. I was pleased to see that the State Department didn’t waste any time refuting Mr. Carter and letting the world know the true series of events that have resulted in North Korea deliberately creating a disaster for their own people. I think it’s about time we encouraged him to return to his peanut farm and stop trying to play with the big boys.

Science or Miracle?

I ran across a report about the smallest premature baby to survive and I’m astounded at the rate medicine has progressed. In a former life I was a paramedic and had many opportunities to deliver babies in the field, and let me tell you a successful field delivery is a wonderful experience. Back then the common wisdom was that a fetus under a thousand grams weight and less then 27 weeks of gestation would “most likely” not survive. Usually because the child’s lungs had not developed to the point of being able to breathe and the kid would not be able to breathe.

The smallest child I ever delivered weighed into life at right around 900 grams (just about a pound) and was small enough to hold in the palm of one hand. My personal miracle was that we were able to keep that kid warm and breathing until we got to the hospital and then transport her onward to a Level 1 neonatal facility. That made me feel good and I’ve occasionally wondered how it all turned out, but as usual, we never heard.

The article I read discussed a little girl that was born in Germany last fall. She was only half way through the second trimester (21 weeks and 5 days) and weighed at birth just 460 grams or just about half a pound.  Don’t know if that young lady is alive today because of science or if a miracle happened. I just know that a physical event that just a few years ago was not considered possible has been proven wrong.

Faith of our fathers

I was looking for a subject to write about when I ran across an article about several thousand small stone monuments, or stele, that are located high above the shoreline of coastal Japan. All are different but it seems that all of them have a common theme, “Don’t build your house below this point”. These small stones represent the high water mark of previous tsunami that have devastated the area. Unfortunately, as human nature goes many people failed to heed the warning and built below the marker anyway. And as recently proven, with disastrous results.

In my mind’s eye I can see someone who is grieving and has lost a family to a tsunami taking time to think about those who follow us and giving them a warning of the strength of nature. I can also see those future generations thinking it will never happen here but overall I can see the faith of the stele builder that had hope for future generations and wanted to pass a little bit of wisdom.

The timing is appropriate for this is a time of the year where Christians pause to remember a momentous moment in their history and pass on the promise that out of despair came hope and expectation for a bright future. Like the Japanese who made the stele I also have hope for the future and confidence in those who will be here long after I’ve departed.

Have a most peaceful and happy Easter.

Taxes

Like most of the country I am mesmerized by the “budget battle(s)” that are keeping Congress busy these days. That politicians can proclaim that cutting spending by .038 of a percent is a good thing strikes me as ludicrous, disingenuous and morally deficient. As an individual and as part of a family I know that if I spend more money than I earn I’m pretty soon going to be in trouble if not in jail.

The President in a recent speech laid out his agenda, one that includes raising taxes and not really cutting programs. Since our current debt is in the trillions of dollars I suspect that under his program the tax rate would soon be 100%. But what really frightens me is one of the ways he proposes to raise taxes.

His proposal is that if by 2014 (three years from now) the ratio of debt to the Gross National Product exceeds an unspecified amount than taxes would be raised automatically. Not only does this evade the central issue that the country is spending more than it’s earning it appears to me to be in violation of the Constitution that specifies only Congress can raise taxes.

I can only conclude that the people we have elected to run our country are either deluded or deliberately spending us into bankruptcy. They don’t want to face the reality of simple economics and ignore the social and economic controls in our Constitution. In truth I fear for the future of my children and their children, they will be justified in cursing my generation and the evil we have left them.

Spiders

My Lady doesn’t like spiders in any form or fashion, especially if they are indoors. Over the years I’ve learned that if I hear the sound of sharply indrawn breath it is time for me to don my white knight armor and go spider hunting. She has good reason to fear the eight legged buggers and I do my best to keep her safe, comfortable and spider free. But there are times when spiders actually can be a good thing. Take the situation in Pakistan.

The record flooding in that country in 2010 disrupted the lives of some 20 million people and there are still areas of the country that have yet to dry out. With more than a fifth of the country flooded it seems that spiders climbed into the trees to escape the water and survive. Because the water took so long to recede the trees became literally covered with spider webs as the little bugger competed for food.

But with all that web building it appears that it is also a blessing in disguise. In the area of flooding the number of malaria spreading mosquitoes has plummeted and fewer than expected cases of malaria have been reported. I’m also sure My Lady appreciates that the hungry arachnid are on the opposite side of the globe.

Religion

It’s unfashionable to talk about religion, for the most part because a small percentage of people seem to be embarrassed discussing their concept of faith and they have persuaded all the rest of us that talking about religion might “insult” or “bother” the few of use who are unsure of our feelings about religion.  But I think the majority of people I know are comfortable with their world view of why we exist and what the purpose of life is. In some cases the concept of faith might not mirror any of the organized religions but it’s something the individual takes comfort in and doesn’t want to force on others.

Perhaps the best measure of any religion is a belief system that allows others to ask questions and doesn’t mind the fact that those others might view the world in different terms. Recently the creators of a TV show called “South Park” put together a musical stage show called “The Book of Mormon” that depicts Mormon missionaries and even the prophet Joseph Smith in less than complimentary fashion. I think it’s important to note that the LDS church did not boycott, or picket the show and the press reviews even indicated that faithful Mormons had travelled far in order to see it.

I think the Muslim community would react very differently if an entertainment were put together called “The Koran”. A gesture of disrespect in Florida, indeed a stupid gesture of disrespect in Florida led Islamic mobs in Afghanistan to murder UN workers who were innocent of any wrongdoing and only were there because they wanted to help.

So while I’m comfortable in my faith and I wish you comfort in yours I cannot understand those who treat even the slightest disrespect as potentially lethal to an ancient but very troubled religion.

Dreams can come true

One of my recurrent peeves is waiting at a stoplight and the moment the light changes some driver behind you blasts his horn. I don’t why I react that way, but it just frosts me at the impatience of some people.

But Volkswagen accidently came up with the perfect solution, not that they intended it to be that way. They announced a recall last month of over 71,000 cars that have a wiring issue. When the horn is activated it turns off the motor. A potential short circuit in the engine power supply is the culprit but to my mind I can find nothing more satisfactory than having the impatient driver stalled by the side of the road.

Time Flies

Blogging has been slow the past week because I've been spending time in the Evergreen State visiting with My Lady. She got a job working with the Washington State Government while I manage the homestead in Kansas. The eonomic environment makes it silly to sell our home and relocate, but the being apart is not something we need at our stage in life. But we are muddling through the seperation and our occasional times together are sweet.

And that's why I hven't written much recently, but blogging will resume shortly.

Nature or Nurture?

I spent a lot of time these past few days following the events in Japan. One major disaster (the earthquake) linked to a second major disaster (the tsunami) was not unexpected on an island nation situated in a geologically active area. But when you add the coolant failure that occurred at a nuclear power plant you have an event of staggering proportion.

When the plant was built it was designed to withstand a magnitude 8.0 to 8.5 earthquakes and when the 9.0 quake struck it performed as designed. The plant went into automatic shutdown and had gone off line. Cooling water to the system is delivered by electrically driven pumps that failed when the electric grid was damaged by the quake. As designed the backup system of diesel powered generators took over and was doing its job. The plant was shutting down the four piles safely and as designed.

The estimated 30 meter high tsunami wave that hit the plant was far beyond design specifications and the backup system was drowned out. A disaster such as that on top of a natural disaster is something that nobody ever considered. That was the initiating failure that has caused the present crises. Call it a lack of morbid imagination.

From what I’ve gleaned from the literature the proximal cause of the failure of the coolant system appears to be a rupture in the return system that is allowing water to escape. My feeling is that when the plant was designed the engineers merged the return systems for all four reactors into a single discharge pipe and, perhaps, did not consider the vulnerabilities of the cooling water discharge valves and piping. Technically that could be labeled a “single point of failure”.

Rather than endlessly discuss the failure of the system (both human and mechanical) I would like to focus on the resiliency of the people affected by the terrible turn of events. I haven’t seen a single report of rioting or looting or gangs running amok. Pictures show long lines of people patiently waiting tor their turn. I’m impressed by a culture that presumes that the greater good overrides the individual need.

Typical of that attitude is the story of a family that lost their home and is now living in a shelter. Their dogs had survived the earthquake and the tsunami and were found living in the ruins of the destroyed home. The owners spend a large part of each day returning to the home and caring for the dogs and will not try to bring the animals back to the shelter. The owner is quoted as saying: "There are lots of people dead and it's too much to ask to bring the dogs," said Mr. Kikuchi. "It would be inconsiderate to other people's sadness."

I have to admire a people that in times of crisis thinks first of others before considering their own needs.

Teaching to the test

When Congress passed the “No Child Left Behind” educational bill My Lady was adamant that requiring students to pass a centralized test and making the test score the only requirement of proficiency would eventually lead to an environment of “teaching to the test” where instruction would be focused on passing the test and not on the ability to understand and apply the subject matter.

I silently agreed with her, but since I grew up in a state that had a state wide final exam where no one knew the test questions prior to the day of testing I had hopes that her prophecy would not come true. Silly me. As time went by I saw more and more cases of teachers being lazy and not teaching the subject but merely teaching the students how to take and pass the test. But I was unprepared for what I recently read about in a legal journal.

It seems that a group of teachers at one school, and their school administration (not to be named in order to protect the guilty) took advanced copies of the test and drilled the kids by showing them the questions and answers to the exam. As a result a number of kids will be held back a grade and forced to repeat their studies.

Isn’t that great! Teachers and adults conspire to rig an exam and when the scam comes to light the kids will suffer while the school superintendent is quoted as saying “In their minds they thought they were doing what was fair for the students”. In other words, it’s ok to cheat and to allow cheating if that makes the test scores better.

If the teachers, and administrators, aren’t fired I’ll be disappointed, but firing them would anly give them more time to hang out the state capitol protesting educational reform.

E-Books

Reading is a fact of life at our house. Both My Lady and I love the printed word and the knowledge that can be found in books. Every time we move the weight of books we have to ship raises exponentially, on the last move I think it came to just under 2 tons of books we want to keep and can’t bare to part with. And just about all of them have a subject area that is technical, historical and professional development, if we want fiction we go to the library and borrow because fiction is ephemeral while knowledge is lasting.

My briefcase always has a book inside for those moments when I’m waiting for a judge or a client to give me a moment of time. Because of that need to keep my mind occupied I’ve thought about getting an E-Book, such as Kindle, where I could store multiple books and not take up too much space in the briefcase. But a few days ago I heard about a Kindle “feature” that has me reconsidering going electronic.

Kindle has the ability to scan books I’ve been reading, see if I’ve underlined selected passages, compare it with what other readers of the same book have marked and annotate my copy with notations and comments. I don’t mark up books like that and I don’t like reading books others have defaced with scribbled comments they thought were important to them.

Listen up Amazon, I will buy your device for my pleasure and I expect my privacy to be honored. No one has the authority to invade my (or any one else’s) personal space and compare my likes, dislikes or even my thinking with that of others. Nor can you reach out to my privately owned device and alter or delete the contents, which a scan of legal reporting seems to be what you believe is your right from the number of complaints and legal actions I found.

My personal (and publicly stated) opinion is that anyone searching my private library has the same rights as someone picking my pocket and browsing through its contents. You are a thief and should be treated as such!

Preparing for Changing Times

We moved to the Midwest when my wife was offered a job as an emergency manager in a large, urban county near the geographic center of the country. Coming from a state on the Ring of Fire one of her first concerns was an absence of any plans in place for dealing with movement of the ground such as the New Madrid Fault, which had its last major event in 1811 and 1812. The geologic record for this young and active fault seems to indicate that past events have usually been in magnitude 6.0 to 8.5 range which makes any event a major disaster. And statistically the fault is overdue for a large event.

Nevertheless when my lady suggested that planning for an earthquake in the center of the country might be a good idea she was immediately told that “something like that will never happen here” and told to focus on floods and tornadoes. Now several years later the government is planning a regional exercise covering all of the Midwest in response to (don’t say we didn’t tell you) a magnitude 8.0+ earthquake focused on the New Madrid Fault.

The social and economic impact of such an event will be enormous and, sadly few people are prepared for any type of disaster event. Here in what is considered the heart of tornado country very few homes have any type of built in severe weather protection and people routinely tell me that they don’t need a weather radio “because the TV and local government” will inform them and take care of them. Even stocking extra food in the pantry frowned on and nobody wants to take responsibility for their own well being. I fear the emotional toll of any disaster will far exceed the economic impact of the event.

Be it human causation, rogue water, high wind or shifting ground we are all vulnerable to having a disaster visit when we least expect. Take time to learn what your local exposure is be going to your local emergency management office at local or state level for information concerning personal and family readiness. You can also visit www.fema.gov for lots of good information and resource referrals.

Remember that the first few days after a disaster you will most likely be on your own while government focuses on restoring essential infrastructure and gearing up to help individuals. You will be on your own…so plan ahead and be prepared.

Curses...Foiled Again

Spring is starting to peek over the horizon, days are getting longer and the birds that disappeared last fall are filtering back looking for good nesting sites. Now is the time for me to be out and about getting the yard cleaned up from the winter snows and making sure all the yard tools are ready to go to work.

The house we presently call home doesn’t have a lot of storage space so we routinely use the garage for shop, work space and extended storage. The yard tools are separated from the rest of the garage by shelving and assessable only through the lift door. It usually works well, but as I started to prepare for Spring I’ve found that the garage door motor decided to go on strike and refuse to perform its allotted task in life.

The lawn area and the trees will just have to wait until I can repair the recalcitrant motor…as for me I think it’s time for a fresh cup of tea, while I catch up on my inside jobs.

Hope

I woke up this winter Kansas morning to a fresh layer of snow on top of a layer of ice. Shoveling the snow off the sidewalk and cleaning the car I couldn’t help but notice a large robin red breast that was working for his food in an environment that was suddenly frozen over.

We have a small crab apple tree next to the drive that still has a few frozen apples hanging on the branches and that’s what he was trying to feed on. To his evident dismay the apple he wanted was too far from the branch he was sitting on to make grabbing it easy. Instead he would lunge forward, grab the apple in his beak and frantically try to hover like a hummingbird. For a large thrush like that robin hovering just isn’t an option and several times he ended up hanging ingloriously by his beak and looking slightly out of sorts. But after several valiant attempts to pluck the fruit from the tree he finally managed to dislodge it and flew off with his prize. A tiny, wizened, dry and frozen apple that probably didn’t  justify the energy expended in retrieving it.

But the bird was happy and the snow will melt in a day or two and once again life will be good for birds and snow shovelers.

Ethics

The tumult in Wisconsin (and other states) over the rights of governmental employee unions got me thinking about concepts of rights and the responsibility of the individual to act appropriately. Today when I saw a news report that a firefighter in Arizona refused to respond to the shooting of his US Congresman I am even more concerned that we have lost our vision of morality and ethics. 

Over the years the varied levels of government have agreed to formalize many proposals put forth by their employee unions until now there are numerous employee privileges that could be described as “featherbedding”. The unions are merely perpetuating actions they took when organizing industry so it should come as no surprise to see them acting like a stepped on cat when the government asks them to assume some responsibility for the employee benefit programs they have pressured into being over the years.

I have worked for the government and on occasion represented the government in talks with the unions. Since most government employees are restrained from “job actions” the power of the unions at government level usually consists of persuading the legislators that their programs should be voted into law. All too often I had to sit back and observe the union do absolutely nothing to support one of their members who needed, or asked, for their help. From my limited viewpoint it looked like the only benefit received was by the union and its officers, the individual was merely a dues production unit, not a guy with an issue.

I actually do believe in unions, since they are more able to oppose bad management or work together with management to achieve a common goal. All to often management, union leaders and politicians forget that the people depend on them to act morally and to have a sense of ethical behavior if we are to have the type of society that Constitution envisioned.

John Wayne is quoted as saying “A man’s got to have a code, a creed to live by, no matter his job” and I have to agree with that thought. Recently I ran across an article that said the Montana State Senate had passed a bill that said it was the sense of the Senate that the state should operate under “The Code of the West”. I was curious and looked it up and found it in a book written by a Jim Owen called Cowboy Ethics and on reading I can see where we all would be better for it if individually and collectively we lived by this simple code:

            1. Live each day with courage                  6. When you make a promise, keep it

            2. Take pride in your work                      7. Ride for the brand

            3. Always finish what you start                8. Talk less and say more

            4. Do what has to be done                      9. Remember that some things aren’t for sale

            5. Be tough, but fair                                10. Know where to draw the line

Montana Governor Schweitzer has said he will veto any frivolous legislation. I guess he consider ethics "frivolous." He wants the legislature to focus on important things like jobs and a budget shortfall. He’s right that those things are extremely important. But the ethics and values deficit in this country is just as important as the fiscal and financial deficits…If life is just about dollars and cents then we are in bigger trouble than I thought.

Unintended Consequences

One of the more active “green” states is Oregon and following a very active campaign encouraging drivers to switch to electric cars no has learned the bitter truth that those who do switch will avoid paying tax at the fuel pump. As all good politicians do they are planning to fix that problem as soon as possible. They plan on introducing an odometer fee.

A bill in the Legislature is aimed at the growing fleet of cars and trucks that plug in rather than guzzle in lieu of paying the gas tax that helps cover the cost of state and local road construction and maintenance

They plan to charge a fee of 0.6 cents per gallon (interesting thought…that watts can be compared to gallons for tax purposes) and would cost an owner that drove his car 15,000 miles some $90 in “user” fees). Drivers would pay a "vehicle road usage charge", starting with model year 2014 electric vehicles and plug-in gas-electric hybrids. The state is now trying to devise a method of automatically recording the odometer reading of the vehicle in order to encourage honest reporting. Drivers would need to use a log book, or other method of documenting driving off Oregon roads in order to claim a refund from the state.

A well meaning driver, wanting to be socially appropriate goes in hoc to buy an overpriced electric car, gets hit with a humongous battery replacement bill when the original batteries fail and now has to pay a user fee that cannot be claimed as a deductable tax. We really are living in interesting times.

Peace...Is it possible?

The Muslim world has for the past 30 years been a defining force in the world, and the glue that holds it together has been Islam. Almost from its beginnings in the 6^th century Islam has been a religion divided by internal strive and tribal animosity. All religions have their procedural divides and sects but Islam’s history is replete with the sectarian violence that followed the death of Mohammed.

If the rioting and turmoil in Egypt is about freedom there is little evidence that the Arab world has any talent or desire for the concept. Iran is a psychiatric prison nation. Syria is ruled by a family of dictators while Hamas rules Gaza with a heavy and corrupt fist. The monarchies that exist in the region are all self centered and unable to act in a democratic fashion. Right now I think I’m seeing a repeat of the 6^th century wars that occurred between the Sunnis and the Shiites over who was holier in the eyes of a god that encouraged killing all nonbelievers as a matter of faith.

The story of that divide is convoluted and but can be reduced to a struggle for control of Islam with the Sunnis believing that Ali (Mohammed’s cousin) was the forth and last of the “rightly guided caliphs” While the Shia believe that Ali should have been the first caliph. In short it was an argument not over discipline but over power and control.

The line of Mohammed’s direct descendants ended in 873 when the last Shia imam disappeared at the age of four. The Shia branch of Islam do not believe he died, but that he had “gone into hiding and would return”. Their version is at the heart of  Iranian (Shia) theology which says that in order for him to return the world must sink into complete chaos with massive loss of life. Something akin to the Christian Armageddon.

It boggles the mind to realize that the core believe of Islam is to live with a conflict that began some 1400 years ago and where all the laws, particularly Shia law is based on seventh century values and diverge with hard won modern values of civilization.

In Egypt President Obama insists that the Muslim Brotherhood play a role in any future government. But ignores the fact that the Brotherhood is sworn to subjugate all who are not Muslim. Their guiding principle 9taken from their own web site) is “Allah is our objective. The Prophet is our leader. Qur’an is our law. Jihad is our way. Dying in the way of Allah is our highest hope”

I hope our government is not intent on advancing the agenda of a collection of 6^th century thugs who would like nothing better than to cleanse the world of all who are not of their faith. Only time will give us an answer to that thought and I have concerns for the future.

Regime Change

Some regimes change periodically when the electorate decides they want a different party in power. Other regimes are reluctant to leave their position of power and need to be “nudged” so another party can take over and usually corrupt the government just like the old regime did.

I’ve been watching with interest the regime change that is about to take place in Egypt. Of all the Muslim societies that country is about the most liberal government you could find in the region. They allow their citizens a periodic vote, the all enveloping burka is generally not encouraged and they allow women to participate in government and education with opportunities equal to the male population. There is corruption and there is a repressive structure to their government but compared to other Muslim countries in the region it’s moderate.  

The uneducated and the ultra conservatives they support have been convinced by the mad mullahs into believing that they have an opportunity to build a government based on a 6^th century culture and way of life. I fear that any regime change we see in Egypt will look more like the Taliban of Afghanistan than the democratic countries we see outside the Muslim world.

The Lesson of History

Pursuing a vacuum around the house gives me plenty of time to think of things other than the task of chasing dust bunnies and other bits of random detritus. With little else to do I counted and have found that we have a total of 30 fully loaded bookcases scattered around the house. And I didn’t even count the desks, side tables and racks that hold a fair portion of our printed wealth. If we want to read fiction we go to the public library, but if our needs are for workable information we first start with the books in our own collection. Part of my enjoyable reading is history, literature telling me how others reacted in adversity and perhaps teaching me ways to deal with stress and the people who cause it in my life.

March 8, 1862 is a notable day in history in that the first recorded battle between two iron glad ships occurred. But there are other dates in that story that are important. On Dec 31, 1862 one of those two ships, the USS Monitor sank in a storm, not to be found until 1973, off Cape Hatteras in 235 feet of water. (As a side note the people who found the Monitor were looking for a WW II German submarine reported sunk in the area, proving that mayhem is an important part of history) In 2001, as part of the recovery process the ship’s engine was returned to shore where it spent the past few years in a pool of purified, alkaline water. Only recently have the conservators been able to drain the pool and start the task of cleaning the gunk of a century and half from the engine.

Now that’s just ho-hum history to lots of people, but to me it is a straight line connection with the past that made us what we are today. I’m envious of the conservator who uncovers a bronze engine valve, gleaming like new in all that accumulated muck and considers that the last person to touch that valve has made contact with a society he probably never imagined. That is the power of history that makes our collection of books, moving with us, wherever we go so valuable.

History teaches us by allowing us to make mistakes in the hope that we can learn from those mistakes and apply correction to our actions in the future. Looking around me I can see that the lessons of history are indeed our hope for the future…I can only hope we learn.

Economics...Not for the Faint of Heart

A few posts back I complimented the President on a speech he made in Tuscon, unfortunately I can’t say the same for a speech he made a few days ago to Congress. The national debt has increased to a level that trying to explain it with economics 101 is impossible yet he, and his wing of the party, seems to think that the solution to all problems is to throw money at it. But adding to an already bloated national debt does not make a lot of sense.

We have to back away from the daily policy fights in Congress and think how the economy can grow. One way is to get people to work harder or longer to create “things” and to build a need for more jobs. One of the ways to do that is for the federal government to contribute with policies that reward work and investment by lowering the general and specific taxes we all complain about.

A second step would be to encourage and protect innovation such as new inventions or processes that increase productivity. Seed money from the government would always be welcome, but private investment, luck and human ingenuity are the primary ingredients to innovation. The present fiscal policy of the government inhibits innovation and rewards the status quoi.

There is a third point I wish to make in that our national fiscal policy needs to be changed. We must evaluate all government programs and redirect our monies towards those that produce and innovate rather than divert and consume. I’m starting to believe that the Federal Reserve policy for interest rates and the programs they supported need to be evaluated and restructured. I don’t necessarily agree with those who say the Federal Reserve should be abolished, but I do believe its role in fiscal policy needs to be reevaluated and restricted.

Fiscal policy today says that it is better to use federal money to build condo’s in Las Vegas and housing developments in the suburbs than to redirect the funds towards building infrastructure and plants in areas that can then become more productive, In my mind the answer to this problem is easy, but then again the politicians and money managers who make these types of decisions don’t think as I do.

And that’s a pity, because I believe more people think as I do than do the politicians.