Just Thoughts

Depression 2.0

2008-10-08T10:05:00.002-05:00

It's almost inevitable at this point.

We've been out of the stock market since 2000, when we sold our last shares of Worldcom – just before the tech bubble burst. Our retirement nest egg has been invested in tax-free municipal bonds, bank certificates of deposit, Treasury Inflation Protected Securities (TIPS), and the occasional Collateralized Mortgage Obligation. Between investments, we held our funds in standard-issue money market funds. In the past few years, we've gotten involved in some real estate syndication deals with a fraction of our portfolio.

Some have run their course and generated excellent returns. The rest are in various stages of development, and we'll see how they turn out. But we made those investments understanding the risk, and took care to diversify. Still, it's looking a little shaky right now. If we lost it all, it would hurt, but not be the end of us.

We invested this way because I've been convinced since the mid-1990s that stock prices had lost any relationship to economic reality. As I wrote in January of this year, as well as back in 2005, my belief is that stock prices were being run up because of all the money pouring into 401(k) plans looking for an investment to buy. While few 401(k) account holders were buying individual stocks directly, they were in aggregate turning over billions of dollars each year to mutual funds, who were in turn investing in the stock market.

I take a very conservative view of stock pricing, not that different than Warren Buffet, or his mentor, Ben Graham. You look at the actual company, how they're performing, what kind of plans they have for the future – and all that to figure out whether the company stands a chance to generate profits going forward.

Then you look at the price of the stock, and the dividends they pay. And you compare the dividend-vs-stock-price (dividend yield) to what we consider our most risk-free investment – US Treasury securities.

And finally, you consider buying the stock only if the dividend yield is more than the interest rate you get on the Treasury security. In fact, you want the dividend yield to be a lot more than the Treasury yield, because the stock dividend isn't a sure thing – it's more risky.

That extra bit of yield you want on the stock dividend is called the risk premium. Each of us can decide how big that premium needs to be. For me, it's always been about double. In other words, if I can get 5% interest on a T-Bill, I won't be interested in purchasing a stock unless the dividend yield is 10%.

For years my friends, and even my stockbroker, have said I'm nuts – that I'm missing one of the best bull markets in history. The only thing I knew was it was bubble, and no one knew how big it would get before it burst. In fact, no one knew for sure what would cause it to burst.

Turns out it was the insanity of the consumer credit market.

Twenty or so years ago, you couldn't get a credit card unless you could convince a bank that you had the means to repay it. One reason is that usury laws prevented banks from charging interest rates above around 18%. That's a boatload, but remember that the interest you pay on a credit card is income to a bank. So a bank makes the same kind of risk-reward calculation that is discussed above, and will make loans only if they are convinced that the interest (revenue) they will actually collect on one product (e.g. credit cards) is better than an alternative product (e.g. car loans). They do that by adjusting the qualifications one must have to get credit vs the interest rate. So if federal or state usury laws require them to keep interest rates low, they can extend credit to only the most credit-worthy people, who will almost all repay the credit card balance.

Then gradually the absolute free-market types convinced lawmakers (via generous campaign contributions) to abolish usury laws. The banks had come up with a new scheme that they wanted to spring on the public: If they could make $x by offering credit at 18% to low-risk people, they should be able to make $x and more by offering credit to everyone at 36%. At 36%, twice as many people could default on their credit card debt as they were seeing at 18%, and they would still make the same amount of money.

But even bad credit card debt has value. Companies sprang up to be in the business of buying bad credit card accounts from banks at deep discounts, and then trying to collect. Let's say Chase Bank has $10 million borrowed on its credit cards that isn't being paid back. Along comes someone who pays Chase $5 million for that debt. Chase ends up with $5 million they didn't have, plus they keep all their other credit card accounts which are actually paying 36% - more than enough to offset the write-off of the $5 million.

The collection company puts their army of phone collectors to work, and over the period of the next year, manages to collect $6 million of the $10 million of debt they have purchased for $ million. That's a 20% return on investment. Even if they never collect the last $4 million, they've made good money.

This is one cylinder of the engine that has been pumping our economy over the last couple of decades.

People were spending way over their head.

But it felt okay because their home values seemed to be going up. Little did they understand that it was another price bubble, just like the stock market.

What benefit is there in having your home value go up if you wanted to stay there? Besides, if you sold your home, you were just going to have to buy another one at a high price.

The way you enjoy your rising home value is to take out a home equity loan – borrowing against that artificially inflated home value. The appraised value of your home was an opinion (you never really know what it's worth until you sell it), but the loan you took out was very real. In the beginning, the banks took a low risk approach here as well. They made home equity loans only on good properties owned by people with good income streams and a reasonable debt load.

But there were sharks in these waters too. Unscrupulous appraisers and mortgage brokers got in cahoots, valuing properties way above reasonable values, then selling mortgages that the homeowners could barely pay. I said 'selling mortgages' because the brokers weren't actually loaning the money, they were getting it from plain old banks who were in turn gathering up bundles of mortgages and selling them as 'Collateralized Mortgage Obligations' – in essence shares in a pool of mortgages.

The trouble is that these CMOs weren't just being bought by individual investors like me, they were also being purchased by other banks and insurance companies looking to get in on the action.

As always happens, the greed got out of hand. Credit had been extended to folks who had no business getting it, and they started defaulting on both their credit card and mortgage obligations. Banks who needed the interest income from those credit card and mortgage accounts in order to pay their interest obligations to holders of savings accounts and CDs had to start borrowing money from each other to make those payments. Then the stronger banks started worrying that the weaker banks couldn't make their payments on this short-term (often days) interbank credit, and the stronger banks started shutting that off. That's when we started to see the first banks fail a couple of weeks ago.

The Federal Reserve stepped in and became the lender-of-last-resort, helping those weak banks stay afloat. However, that's not a long term solution, and what we have seen in the last couple of weeks is the Fed arranging marriages between weak and strong banks.
The bailout plan proposed by Treasury Secretary Paulson was designed to buy up that bad mortgage debt, and get these banks out of trouble. He and Fed Chairman Bernanke knew that it was much cheaper to keep these banks afloat that it would be for the bubble to burst, because the downward spiral begins when everyday consumers close up their purses and begin to hunker down for a tough time. Companies sell less of their product, and lay off workers as a consequence. Consumer spending goes down some more because there are fewer people working.

When the stock market crashed in 1929, a very very small fraction of Americans owned stock. Today, nearly everyone does through their 401(k) plans. When the market takes a big hit, it changes millions of lives. Folks who wanted to retire, or send their kids to college, can no longer do that.

I did something last week that I never thought would happen: we pulled all of our nest egg out of money market accounts and moved those funds into FDIC-insured accounts in several banks. The interest rates we're getting on those CDs is small, but at least the money is as safe as we can make it. We too are hunkering down. It might not help the economy, but we've got to protect ourselves. I know without question that this kind of thinking is the final nail that drives us into an economic depression. But I see where this is going, and I have to protect my family. Folks who have not seen this coming are completely unprepared, and are headed for a lot of trouble.

It really is all about confidence, and our national leadership screwed it up again. This isn't a Democrat vs Republican thing – it's been going on for decades across many administrations and many changes of control in Congress. The common factor was short-term greed. They unwound all the hard-learned lessons of the Great Depression and have brought us back to exactly the same place. And in the end, they took too long to act, and still couldn't resist putting insane pork-barrel spending into the bill designed to save confidence. All they did was give me confidence that they behave on a level of selfishness that I consider to be treason.

Our country might still be screwed up had World War II not happened. Why? Because of two things: a) we built up our industrial capacity to a scale never before seen in the world; and, b) we bombed the rest of the world's industrial capacity into smoking craters. Our economic dominance of the post WWII era wasn't because we were better or smart. It was because we won the war with our homeland unscathed (unlike the British and French). Ironically, Germany and Japan emerged as strong nations after the war because we helped them rebuild their factories, as our allies in the new Cold War against the Soviets.

So how do we get out of this one?

I think it's the same old way. We need the Federal Government to put people to work in a big way. It doesn't all have to be on national defense, although that's a good place to start. The infrastructure of our country, built mostly during the post WWII period, is crumbing and needs a major overhaul. And we need a significant amount of new energy sources.

So let's fix the roads and bridges. And let's build scores of nuclear power plants and hundreds of wind farms for electricity. Let's get the auto industry retooled to produce plug in electric vehicles by the millions, simultaneously eliminating our dependence on foreign oil and putting the foreign auto industry back on its heels.

The key is rebuilding the American middle class, and that means construction and manufacturing jobs that pay a decent wage, not more Wal*Mart and McDonald's associates.

And we need to keep the crooks out of the rebuilding effort. Profiteering should be a treasonous offense, punished by stoning in the town square.

I'm not kidding.

The (Im)Balancing Game

2008-04-05T08:35:00.004-05:00

One image I get when thinking about the current state of American politics goes like this:

Have you ever participated in one of those high-ropes (low-ropes for me) team building exercises? Often one of the elements is a tilting platform that is - as the engineers would describe it - free to move in two axes which is to say that it is like the whole platform is balanced on a pinpoint in the center. The object of the exercise is to get two teams of people (who to this point have been competing with each other) up on the platform from opposite sides without having the table destabilize to the point that it clunks down on one side.

With no one on the platform, it's in balance. If just one person tries to get on - clunk it goes. The winning approach is to have one person from each team step up at the same time and walk to the middle. Eventually you can get everyone up on the platform and it stays in balance.

So it is in America. The two most powerful parties are so equal in strength that a victory can be determined by a few ambiguous ballots cast in Florida.

It doesn't take the teams long to figure out that while the platform can be balanced with everyone in the middle, it can also be balanced with everyone at the edges. In fact, there are an infinite number of configurations that will balance the platform. But everyone has to work together. The movement of any player on either side requires a compensating movement by someone else.

Then they notice that if the goal is to avoid the clunk, and not necessarily to keep the platform level, the platform can in fact be tilted a little in one direction or another.

Now imagine that there is a constant flow of little balls being fed right to the center of the platform, and the object of the game becomes for each team to collect the most balls possible without touching them - ie by making them roll to their side of the platform. We keep the rule that if the platform clunks, the game is over for everyone and no one wins anything.

The two teams now begin to jostle in order to shift from a state of equilibrium to one where little tilts can be introduced to cause the balls to roll to one side or the other. Those advantages last only a brief period before the other side reacts and shifts the tilt back to their favor.

The trouble is that when the object of the game shifts from balance to imbalance, the frequency and magnitude of the forces applied to cause and prevent these transient tilts become more aggressive. The platform becomes more and more unstable, with large numbers of balls flowing from one side to the other.

Inevitably, there is finally one oscillation that's too great and the table clunks. Or one team sees that it's being outplayed and clunks the table on purpose.

Those little balls are power and money. The politicians of the two parties - who are the only folks up on the platform - spend all their time trying to figure out how to tilt the platform in their favor without blowing up the game. The rest of us are standing around the perimeter of the platform hoping a few balls fall off the platform in our direction.

I fear we've reached the point in the game where the oscillations are so great that a clunk is imminent.

Maybe it's time for the game to change. For one thing, the people up on the platform are no longer just the politicians - it now includes the lobbyists. The lobbyists don't care so much which side wins as long as a lot of balls flow into their own buckets.

Then there is the judicial system. They're not supposed to worry about who gets the balls, only that that the game is being played fairly. But they've decided that to acomplish that, they need to get up on the platform as well, instead of judging only from the sidelines.

Such games have been played for centuries. Most of the time, the people don't care as long as they get enough balls to live a decent life.

But every once in a while, the people say 'Enough' and throw everyone off the platform. The question is what will rise in its place?

Greed Gets Us Every Time

2008-01-17T17:43:00.000-05:00

The following is part of a dialog I've been having with a young friend who, like many people in our country, have come to realize that they must become increasingly savvy about investing if they want to have a retirement nest egg when they get old. There is no standing on the sideline and letting one's employer or the government take care of you in old age - you must invest and do so prudently.

The "Graham" I mention is Ben Graham, a legendary investor and mentor of none other than Warren Buffett. Graham wrote "The Intelligent Investor," which should be required reading for anyone thinking of buying stocks or mutual funds. "Schiller" is Robert Shiller, the Yale economics professor who coined the term "Irrational Exuberance" and has written a book by the same title.

You have learned well young Skywalker...

However, Graham was thinking about individuals when he observed that most people in the stock market are amateurs. In the case of the big financial houses, nearly all are MBAs and many have prestigious Ivy League degrees. The problem isn't education - it's just plain old greed. If anything, the folks in the financial industry are lemmings - once one of them starts running in some particular direction with a little success, the rest follow along, right over the cliff.

Reminds of the stories of the gold rush. The first guys to strike gold did okay, and some made spectacular fortunes (e.g. the father of William Randolph Hearst). Then came the 49ers en masse. The early ones who hit and got out did okay, but the early ones who just got a little taste of success and stayed for the long haul ended up spending their earnings on exorbitantly priced supplies just to stay alive.

The guys who came last never had a chance. In the end, the folks who did the best were the merchants who sold the livestock and supplies to the idiots.

The business of a bank is nothing more than buying and selling money. They buy money by soliciting deposits, and their cost is the interest rate they need to pay to attract deposits. They sell money by making loans, and their income is the interest they collect. A wise banker would try to match up the interest rate and term of their deposits to the interest rate and term of loans. In other words, if you want to be able to sell 3 year 8% car loans, you want to offer 3 Year Certificates of Deposit at say 5%. If there are no takers, you might have to go to 6%, but you'll push up you auto loan rate to 9%. A century ago, that's all there was to banking.

It gets trickier when you start talking about 30 year mortgages. It's pretty hard to find investors willing to lock up money for 30 years, so the bankers have to make some risk decisions. When a home buyer takes out a mortgage, the bank must immediately come up with enough cash to pay the home seller. That cash will come from their pool of deposits, some of which are savings deposits due on demand, some is from the stream of cash coming back as other loans are being paid off, and some is in long-term deposits like CDs. Managing the mix of this pool takes sophisticated financial skills, and a successful bank has to be pretty good at it.

Then along came the notion of Collateralized Mortgage Obligations (CMO). In the spirit of matching up the timing and magnitude of inflows and outflows, a bank can take a big bundle of its mortgages, and sell off ownership shares to investors. For example, a bank can take $10 million dollars worth of mortgages (ie the sum of their loan principles) and sell it off as 10,000 CMO certificates each with a face value of $1,000. When you buy one of these certificates, you receive each month a payment that represents 1/10,000th of the principle and interest paid by the mortgage holders the previous month. In 30 years, you would receive back your whole $1,000 plus interest. A CMO certificate can be bought and sold any time during its life, with its market price being a function of the interest rates being paid on the underlying mortgage vs the current interest rate on long term debt (be happy to explain how bonds are priced, and why bond prices go up when interest rates go down, and visa versa).

We've purchased a number of CMOs in the past decade. They have some interesting characteristics. The first being is that if you buy one when mortgage interest rates are high, they look very attractive - usually paying well above CD rates. But when mortgage interest rates go down, as they have, the people who hold 'your' mortgages pay them off and take out new mortgages.

I bought these CMOs thinking they were a long-term, premium interest rate investment. Instead, I got all my money back in a year or two - admittedly at a premium interest rate, but now I had to find another investment for that money, and with interest rates down generally, it ended up being a not so shiny investment after all.

And when mortgage interest rates go up, the mortgage holders are happy to pay out at a low rate and you end up getting stuck with an investment that takes years to pay out at a below-market rate. I have a couple of these now with only pennies/share of value, but I still get a tiny principle+interest check every month. It's not worth selling them because the transaction fee is more than they're worth.

The big money maker for banks for decades has been credit cards. When I was kid, it was relatively tough to get a credit card, but the interest rates charged were somewhat reasonable. For example, you build a $10,000,000 credit card portfolio of blue chip customers by charging 10%. You couldn't charge more because customer with good credit can find money for less than 10% elsewhere.

Then some bright MBA said that you could potentially make a lot more money by extending another $10,000,000 in credit at 20% APY to higher risk customers who you previously would not have considered giving a credit card at all. The math works out something like this:

$10 million loaned out at 10% and completely paid off. At the end of the year, you have your $10 million back plus $1,000,000 in profit, or $11 million.
$10 million loaned out at 20%, but 5% of the borrowers default. You get back $9.5 million of your money and $1.9 million in profit. That's $11.4 million so far. Then you sell the $500,000 in bad accounts to a collection outfit for $250,000. In total you get $11.65 million.

Then the other banks see what you're doing, and jump on board. The next thing you know everyone's mailbox is filling up with credit card offers at crazy high interest rates.

And then the mortgage bankers figure out that there's a game like this for them too. By extending mortgages to a higher volume of higher risk customers, they can crank up profits spectacularly. A few try, and everyone follows. But some interesting things happen...

One thing is that a lot of these high risk folks refinance their homes during the real estate boom and end up taking out a chunk of cash in the transaction. Their $100,000 house with a $75,000 mortgage gets reappraised for $200,000, so they take out a $150,000 mortgage, use $75,000 to pay off the old mortgage and walk away with $75,000 in cash. The lender feels secure because they have a $200,000 house for collateral. The homeowner feels rich with the $75,000 in hand (although he'll soon start making payments on it). Maybe he pays off the credit card debt, and uses the rest to buy a needed car and take a nice cruise vacation.

Then he runs up the credit card debt again, spends the cash from the refinancing, and hits the wall - too much debt and not enough income. The only way to raise cash is to sell the house. Except lots of people are in that boat and house prices start to decline. Eventually the price of the home falls below the mortgage value and the homeowner walks away and lets the bank foreclose.

Now the bank understands that high risk credit card debt is not the same thing as high risk mortgage debt. Credit card debt is very liquid, and can be sold quickly at a discount to someone willing to work hard to collect the money. Selling a foreclosed house in a weak real estate market is something else. Even at deep discounts, there aren't that many folks buying homes right now - not even speculators.

If all things that go up must come down, then I believe the slope of the line on the downside is at least double that of the upside. Maybe it's 10x. In other words, if it took us 10 years to build up to this crazy level of risk in the consumer credit market, that risk will be shaken out (by rapidly falling prices and foreclosures) in one year.

It is just one more brand of speculation disguised as investment, like the 49ers, or last decade's .com investor, or all those other boom/bust cycles Graham and Shiller talk about. And I think it's a mistake for the government to bail those folks out. We need to do a radical risk-ectomy in our economy and give folks a stern lesson about risk and reward. Seems like we have to do this about once every generation. Recessions and depressions happen when spending gets way out ahead of income, and when people fail to recognize risk because of the seduction of greed. The longer it goes and the more out of balance it becomes, the longer it takes to recover. It's going to be bad enough anyway.

Let's not make it worse with a government bailout.

Reading List

2008-01-01T21:21:00.004-05:00

This may qualify as the most boring blog post ever. But I was thinking that it would be good to have an inventory of our books, and thought I might well put that list on the blog for safekeeping. So here goes (nothing implied in the order other than the arrangement on our bookshelves):

Books in our Library That I Have Read % = Kindle
Ambrose: Undaunted Courage
Sullivan: The Arts of China
Giannetti: Understanding Movies
Munsterberg: The Art of Japan
Rice: Islamic Art
Craven: Indian Art
Oster: The Mexicans
Rivera: Family Installments
Pettigrew: Prejudice
Morrison: Sula
Goodbird: Goodbird
Wideman: Sent for you Yesterday
Sandoz: These Were the Souix
Shenkman: Legends, Lies & Cherished Myths of American History
Bobrick: Wide as the Waters
Hawkins: A Brief History of Time
Burke: Connections
Clarke: Report on Planet Three
Gleick: Chaos
Barry: Practical Logic
Gould: Eight Little Piggies
Paterniti: Driving Mr. Albert
Gould: Questioning the Millennium
Sagan: The Dragons of Eden
Trotter: Coal, Class & Color
Dickens: A Tale of Two Cities
Poe: The Short Stories
Verne: Twenty Thousand Leagues Under the Sea
McCartney: Sold Out
Charpentier: How to Read the Bible
The Holy Bible
Borden: Hit the Bullseye
Fox: On Becoming a Musical Mystical Bear
Buechner: Telling the Truth
Thayer: Management of the Hanford Engineer Works in WWII
Sanger: Working on the Bomb
Nicklaus: My Story
Yeager: Yeager
McCain: Faith of My Fathers
Bamford: The Puzzle Palace
Cronkite: A Reporter's Life
Fuller: We Almost Lost Detroit
Cherniack: The Hawk's Nest Incident
Michener: The Source
Woodward: The Bretheren
Clarke: 2010
Crichton: Timeline
Grimwood: Replay
Asimov: The Martian Way
Vonnegut: Timequake
Asimov: Robot Visions
Heinlein: The Past Through Tomorrow
Heinlein: Stranger in a Strange Land
Hebert: Dune
Heller: Catch-22
Magriel: Backgammon
Lavigne: Hell's Angels – Into the Abyss
Pirsig: Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance
Thwait: Afloat on the Ohio
La Plante: Hog Fever
Miller: The Biker Code
La Plante: Detours
Fulton: One Man Caravan
Rogers : Investment Biker
The Boy Scout Handbook
McWhorter: The Power of Babel
Zumwalt: My Father, My Son
Keegan: The Price of Admiralty
Woodward: The Commanders
Ford: The Button
Clancy: Every Man a Tiger
Kernan: Crossing the Line
Rockwell: The Rickover Effect
Tyler: Running Critical
Waller: Big Red
White: They Were Expendable
Cosby: Time Flies
Fulgrum: Uh-Oh
Fulgrum: It Was on Fire When I Lay Down on It
Adams: Dirk Gently's Holistic Detective Agency
Adams: So Long and Thanks for All the Fish
Keillor: Lake Wobegon
Barry: Cyberspace
Luciano: The Umpire Strikes Back
Murphy: Golf in the Kingdom
Feinstein: A Good Walk Spoiled
Feinstein: A Season on the Brink
Warren: A Purpose Driven Church
Rogers: The IBM Way
Lansing: Endurance
Brehm: That Others May Live
Adams: Mostly Harmless
Adams: The Hitchhiker's Guide 'Trilogy'
Clancy: The Sum of All Fears
Clancy: Without Remorse
Clancy: The Hunt for Red October
Clancy: Red Storm Rising
Clancy: Patriot Games
Clancy: Clear and Present Danger
Coonts: Flight of the Intruder
Clancy: The Cardinal of the Kremlin
Gouillart: Transforming the Organization
Martin: The Digital Estate
Adams: Dogbert's Top Secret Management Handbook
Klass: UFOs Identified
Christensen: The Innovator's Dilemma
Doody: Reinventing the Wheel
Iacocca: Iacocca
Iacocca: Talking Straight
Collins: Good to Great
Shiller: Irrational Exuberance
Clarke: Profiles of the Future
Barker: Paradigms
Ambrose: Nothing in the World Like It
Sobel: Longitude
Friedman: Free to Choose
Marx: The Communist Manifesto
Wright: On a Clear Day You Can See General Motors
Clancy: Teeth of the Tiger
Bethany: The Smartest Guys in the Room
Kelly: Out of Control
Diamond: Guns, Germs and Steel
Grizzard: When My Love Returns from the Ladies Room…
Orr: Set up Running
Unwin: The Probability of God
Graham: The Intelligent Investor
Asimov: Foundation
Asimov: Foundation's Edge
Crichton: Airframe
Crichton: Sphere
Sagan: Contact
Orwell: 1984
Tammet: Born on a Blue Day
Rainer/Geiger: Simple Church
Shorto: Island at the Center of the World
Chaisson: Epic of Evolution
Wells: War of the Worlds
Wells: The Time Machine
George: Authentic Leadership %
Clancy/Franks: Into the Storm %
Miller: Blue Like Jazz
Jacobs: Getting Around Brown
Solis/Breakenridge: Putting the Public Back in Public Relations
Levinson: The Box

Books In Our Library That I Plan To Read (* = or need to finish; # = reading now; % Kindle)
Gottman: The Seven Principles for Making Marriage Work
Eggerichs: Love & Respect
Warren: Better Together
Kasich: Courage is Contagious
Ambrose: The Victors
Brokaw: The Greatest Generation
Keneally: Schindler's List
Davis: To Appomattox
Warren: A Purpose Driven Life
Nixon: Beyond Peace
McCullough: Truman
Auletta: The Highwaymen
McManus: An Unstoppable Force
Friedman: The World is Flat
Marx: Das Kapital*
Winik: April 1865
Goodwin: Team of Rivals
Alcorn: The Treasure Principle
Schroeder: The Science of God
Welch: Winning
Dreyfus: On The Internet
Bryson: The Life and Times of the Thunderbolt Kid
Singer: Writings on an Ethical Life
Alcorn: Heaven
Hemphill: Empowering Kingdom Growth
Eldridge: Wild of Heart
Lewis: Out of the Silent Planet
Lowenstein: Origins of the Crash
Mahar: Bull
Godin: Tribes
Bourdain: Kitchen Confidential %
Machiavelli: The Prince %
Tressel: The Winners Manual %
Doggett: You Never Give Me Your Money %
Riley: Ship's Doctor % *

Books I Plan To Read But Don't Own
Kozol: The Shame of the Nation
Rubin: In an Uncertain World

Books in our Library That I Have Resisted Reading
Morgan: The Oxford History of England
Bronte: Wuthering Heights
Hugo: The Hunchback of Notre Dame
Kipling: The Light that Failed
Bronte: Jane Eyre
Butler: The Way of All Flesh
Redfield: The Celestine Prophesy
Mitchell: Gone with the Wind
Doyle: Hound of the Baskervilles
Barnes: Brief Gaudy Hour
Phillips: How to Deal with Annoying People

Books I've Read But Are Not in Our Library (anymore)
Card: Ender's Game (Catherine nailed this one)
Ryan: The Adolescence of P-1
Clancy: Rainbow Six
Clancy: Into the Storm
Clancy: Submarine
Coonts: The Cannibal Queen
Naisbitt: Megatrends
Toffler: Future Shock
Blanchard: The One Minute Manager
Roberts: Leadership Secrets of Atilla the Hun
Asimov: I Robot
Clarke: Rama
Clarke: Rendezvous with Rama
King: The Tommyknockers
King: The Green Mile
King: Needful Things
Koontz: Demon Seed
Jones: Colossus
Jones: The Fall of Colossus
Huxley: Brave New World
Harris: I'm Okay, You're Okay
Covey: The Seven Habits of Highly Effective People
Kidder: The Soul of a New Machine

In the end, this list doesn't look very long. I know there are many other books I've read in paperback and have pitched in some sorting out of junk in our basement. And who knows how many I've checked out of a public library, read and returned without remembering them. But the truth is that I don't read as much now as I used to. Maybe it's because I have to wear reading glasses these days, or maybe that the reading lamp on our headboard has gone kaput and I haven't fixed or replaced it. Regardless, I've decided that Tuesdays are reading days, and will strive to work through the growing pile of books on the 'yet to be read' list.

Perhaps now is time for one of those hypotheticals: If for whatever reason, I had to live with only ten of these books to read over and over for the rest of my life, what would they be:

1. The Holy Bible
2. Adams: The Hitchhiker's Trilogy
3. Cosby: Time Flies
4. Asimov: The Martian Way
5. Wells: War of the Worlds
6. Clancy: Red Storm Rising
7. Fulton: One Man Caravan
8. Clancy: Hunt for Red October
9. Asimov: I Robot
10. Clarke: Rendezvous with Rama

I guess the thinking is that if the situation is that I can only have ten books, they had be ones that could serve to remove me mentally from whatever situation would bring about such a restriction. I suspect the list will change over time.

The Great Bike Ride – Day 28 - End of the Road

2007-09-23T15:01:00.000-05:00

Sunday, September 23, 2007 ------------- Day 1 of this log is here

John and I arose just before 7am, got our stuff together, and headed out for our final day on the road. I wanted to get home in time to meet Terry for lunch after church, and John agreed to run the freeways today to make that possible. The weather was beautiful - blue skies, a few clouds and just crisp enough to make riding with the leather jacket comfortable. No hassles at all today. We pulled over just before reaching I-270 at Columbus to shake hands and bring the trip to an official end.

We had clocked just over 8,000 miles in 28 days, and stopped for gas 57 times. I'd guess we spent something like 200 hours in the saddle, and yet rode in only one serious rain (in Yellowstone), and one other drizzle (Austin) that caused us to put rain gear on. Rain followed us in many places, but we rode pretty much the whole trip in the sun. Few bikers will experience a stretch of good weather like this.

As I was taking the bags off the bike upon arriving home, I was reminded how I thought several times during the trip that the daily ritual of uncovering my bike, untethering the security cable, and mounting the bags, which includes cinching up various straps and buckles, is much like the process of getting a horse prepared for a day's ride. In the evening, you reverse the process. This routine connected me in some small way to the pioneers who got up every morning, saddled up their horses, and took off into the unknown. John said I won't know how to act tomorrow when I can get up and go without packing clothes into bags and bags onto the bike. Probably a little like those folks from the past when they said "This place will be our home."

One of the most special aspects of this ride was getting to spend a month with big sister Pat and her husband Buss. Motorcycle riding is an interesting activity in that you spend the entire day together, yet you are alone in your thoughts, as it is all but impossible to communicate while riding. We'd have a flurry of conversation when we stopped for gas, but wouldn't really get a chance to talk until we stopped for meals, and in the evening. This trip wasn't really about talking -- it was about sharing an experience -- one of a kind that very few are lucky enough to have. I'm really glad I got to share it with you, BS.

And special thanks to long-time riding partner, John Bennett. This trip was John's dream and idea. It is the second long trip we've taken together - the other was a 5,500 mile outing in 2001 which included Sturgis, Colorado, New Mexico and back on Route 66. We've also gone to Milwaukee a couple of times, and to Rolling Thunder in DC. And on scores of shorter rides. My guess is that we've probably ridden something like 20,000 miles together. We share many of the same interests (ships, trains, bikes), and can ride together for days without getting on each other's nerves (too much). Such friends are rare. Thanks JB

Terry, my wife. You are a blessing to me every day, and I love you. Thank you for allowing me to be gone for a month, and for taking care of all the stuff here at home. Next time take in a boyfriend who will mow the grass...

The Great Bike Ride – Day 27

2007-09-22T20:45:00.000-05:00

Saturday, September 22, 2007

Our first objective of the day was to run across Tupelo and take a look at the house Elvis was born in. It is about the size of a two car garage. You can pay a few bucks and go in, but we weren't that interested...

Then we jumped in the Natchez Trace Parkway to run the remaining half. While the road is smooth, pretty level, with easy curves and therefore very easy to ride, it's mostly a tree tunnel. Because today was Saturday, there were more folks on the road, but we could pretty much ride at our own pace. We finished off the picnic supplies for lunch, and within a couple of hours, reached the northern terminus at Nashville.

From there we jumped on the interstate. We started the day in Mississippi, touched a corner of Alabama, crossed Tennessee, and ended the day in Elizabethtown KY, south of Louisville.

We grabbed dinner at the Crackerbarrel, then said so long to Pat & Buss, who wanted to camp tonight, and tomorrow will head east to Charleston while John and I go north to Columbus.

Hard to believe tomorrow is the last day of this incredible journey...

LAST DAY WRAPUP

The Great Bike Ride – Day 26

2007-09-21T22:53:00.000-05:00

Friday, September 21, 2007

New Mexico gets my vote as having the smoothest roads. Louisiana has the worst. It was a constant thumping and jumping as we ran the 50 miles north on I-55 from Hammond, LA. It was a welcome relief to cross over into Mississippi and hit smooth pavement.

We jumped on the Natchez Trace Parkway at Mile 0 in Natchez. The first big chunk of the ride was very cool, with our three bikes running pretty much alone. The speed limit is 50mph, and the curves are all so gentle that John said he never had to kick off his cruise control (yes, you can get cruise control on a motorcycle). As we came close to larger towns, such as Jackson MS, you could tell that the locals used the Trace as their own freeway, and they pretty much ignored the speed limit. It sure broke the mood.

The hotel was a little hard to find in Tupelo, but we made it about 8pm after running half the Trace. We ordered pizza and had a nice planning session for our last couple of days. It looks like we'll ride with Pat & Buss until Lexington KY, then they'll head toward Charleston while John and I close out the trip in Columbus.

Enjoy the movies from the Trace!

DAY 27

The Great Bike Ride – Day 25

2007-09-20T22:50:00.000-05:00

Thursday, September 20, 2007

Our journey today was a short 287 miles, but it felt like more. We started out from Westlake LA after spending a restful night at the Isle of Capri Casino Hotel. The first 150 miles or so was an easy ride on the I-10 freeway. Then we reached the causeway over the southwestern edge of Lake Pontchartrain and traffic came to a halt. Turns out the DOT was striping the road. Seems like they could have found a better time.

After a quick stop at the HD dealer on the outskirts of New Orleans, we headed into the city. John served as our tour guide, taking us to the St Charles district as well as the French Quarter. For some reason, they don't let bikes park around there, so we just rode around taking in the sights. It was hot and humid, and we soon decided to get out of the city.

When we got back to the previously mentioned causeway, traffic was stopped again. I thought it was incredibly bad luck to get caught again by the stripers, but after a half-dozen police cars and a couple of squad trucks roared by on the berm, we knew it was an accident. We were stuck for a good while - maybe an hour.

Then when we finally got to move, the shifter peg fell off my bike. I pulled the bike over, and since traffic was still moving slowly, I could walk back, stop traffic, retrieve the peg, and reinstall it. However, John and Buss were now far ahead with no place to pull over to wait for me. We had already communicated our next stop, and I could run down the freeway with confidence that eventually I would catch up with them. It's good to ride with experienced and trusted friends.

Dinner was special tonight. Besides the fact that we actually had a dinner (last night was peanuts and crackers), we connected up with John's friends, Noel and Joyce Binder. Noel was a crewman on the USS Kearsarge (CV-33), the ship on which John also served, and both are members of the ship association. They took us to a place called Catfish Joe's, where we had what we all thought was the best meal of the trip. I even had gator as a starter. They were great company as well. Good to have met them.

We have now officially started the final side of the square, and are heading towards home. We had a group discussion last night, and decided to forgo Mobile and Pensacola and instead run the Natchez Trace from Natchez MS to Nashville. John had long wanted to do this, and Buss heard it was a good run as well. We also have some serious rain coming in from the Atlantic to the Gulf that would likely intercept us in Florida if we continue east. So we'll be heading to Natchez in the morning.

Total mileage for the trip is now just over 7,000, and we are less than 1,000 to home according to my mapping software. My rear tire, which was installed new before we left, is now down to about 4/32nds of tread.

My butt feels the same way.

DAY 26

The Great Bike Ride – Day 24

2007-09-19T22:47:00.000-05:00

Wednesday, September 19, 2007

We left our motel in Columbus TX at about 9am to make the 60 mile ride into Houston and the NASA Johnson Space Center. To save time, we took the outerbelt, called the Sam Houston Freeway, around the south side of the city. We knew the Sam Houston is a toll road, and the normal strategy is to have the lead bike pay the toll for everyone. So John got the job today.

Little did we know that there is a toll booth every few miles. Apparently the charge is by the axle, so John and Buss had to pay for three axles each, and two axles for me. It made for lengthy stops at each booth. Paying tolls is a real pain on a bike, and I think the USDOT should just say bikes get to go through for free. During the Harley 100th Anniversary celebration in Milwaukee, the tens of thousands of bikers coming through Chicago clogged the toll booths on I-94 for hours. This is a good assignment for the American Motorcycle Association.

The Johnson Space Center visit was interesting, but also a little disappointing. The visitor center is a little too commercial for me. You have to pay $5 to park, and $18 to get in, plus another $5 if you want the audio tour devices. Then if you want to play with the lunar lander simulator, it's another $10 or so. They run a tram tour through the center, and before you get on they tell you they have to take your picture 'for security purposes.' Of course, when you return from the tour, they offer to sell you the picture for $15 (wallet sizes also available).

But at least you get to see a couple of very interesting things: a) the Mission Control Center where all space missions through Apollo were managed; b) the mock-up center where all the segments of the International Space Station are set up for training; and, c) an entire Saturn V vehicle.

Then we rode over to the USS Texas, the only surviving World War I era battleship. This was the highlight of the day. Bummer that the engineering spaces were closed for refurbishment, but we had a blast touring the rest of the ship.

We then headed east on I-10, having made hotel reservations in Lake Charles. But when we got to the hotel, it was in a bad neighborhood, our room had a chirping smoke detector, and the door handle came off in my hand. We bailed out, and after a couple of tries, we found some nice rooms in a hotel attached to a casino.

By our planned route, we are now 1,500 miles from home. Seems like a lot, but seems like a short hop now.

Off to New Orleans in the morning.

DAY 25

The Great Bike Ride – Day 23

2007-09-18T22:47:00.000-05:00

Tuesday, September 18, 2007

We made it to Columbus!

Columbus Texas that is. We're 70 miles east of Houston, having ridden a solid 400 miles today from Big Spring TX.

First thing out of the chute, Buss noticed that a tire was going flat on his trailer. Fortunately he carries a spare and it took only a few minutes to change the tire and get on the road. The first 3/4ths of the trip was classic Texas ranch country, gradually turning from desert to grasslands.

We stopped for lunch in Fredricksburg, a little slice of Germany in the middle of Texas. Some folks were even conversing in German in the bier und brats place were we ate. Didn't even have a Texas drawl to it.

It was hectic getting across Austin, especially since rain clouds boiled up and prompted us to pull on the rainsuits. Although it poured for a couple of minutes, we probably could have hidden under a gas station canopy for 10-15 minutes and avoided getting wet altogether.

You can tell that we're getting into a more heavily populated area. I suspect we've seen the last of the wide open prairie as we transition into the Gulf coast region. One thing is for sure, the humidity is back!

DAY 24

The Great Bike Ride – Day 22

2007-09-17T22:03:00.000-05:00

Monday, September 17, 2007

Today was a big shorter than yesterday, but still challenging. We left Alamogordo NM in overcast conditions, so I pulled on the pants of the rainsuit just I could stay dry if a storm brewed up. At the beginning of the trip, it felt pretty comfortable as we crested a 7,000 ft pass through the Mescalero Apache Indian Reservation. At that point the terrain ceased being desert and turned into pine trees other flora of the Rockies.

Our lunch stop was in Roswell NM, site of an long-rumored alien spacecraft crash in 1947. We grabbed some HD shirts with aliens on them of course. Roswell is not really the quaint little tourist trap I imagined. It's a small city of which the alien stuff plays a minor part.

I was leading today, and made a mistake at Roswell. None of us thought about getting gas, and we ended up leaving town with partially filled tanks, a big no-no out here. The stress level went up every time we crested a knoll and saw another 10-20 miles ahead of us with no evidence of humanity other than ranch entrances and oil wells. I thought it would be very ironic to run out of gas in a middle of a large oil field (all were pumping by the way). We'd see town names on mileage signs, but when we got there the town might be nothing more than a couple of shacks. Finally, with about a gallon left in my tank (it holds five), we hit Tatum NM and gassed up.

As we rolled into Texas, the terrain became flat rangeland with nary a tree, but plenty more oil wells. Our stop point is Big Spring TX, with a refinery ahead of us, and a ridge full of wind turbines behind us. Opposite ends of the energy spectrum...

DAY 23

The Great Bike Ride – Day 21

2007-09-16T22:25:00.000-05:00

Sunday, September 16, 2007

The day started with a quick 30 mile ride to the site a retired Titan Missile Launch Complex south of Tucson. I had always wanted to go down into one of these things, and I'm quite sure I'll not be close to one again for some time. After the tour, I told John that this thing was like a "land submarine" in that the crew went down in a hole and stayed isolated, but self-sufficient, until the order came to launch their nuclear weapon. As our tour guide - a former launch crew commander - said, "the order never came." And that was the victory. He also said that this kind of warfare works only when the parties have rational governments. I guess that was his two cents worth on today's global situation.

After leaving the missile museum, we ran through the eastern edge of Tucson to see the aircraft boneyard at Davis-Monthan Air Force Base. The boneyard is huge, and you can't see much from the fence. Google Earth is the better way to see what's there.

Our goal was Alamogordo New Mexico, and we made it, but had to ride about an hour in darkness. Along the way we transitioned from the Sonoran Desert, which is pretty green with all the rain of late, to the broad high plain of southwest New Mexico. Leaving Tucson, we dodged some impressive thunderstorms. Because you can see for miles here, and the sky is so clear, it's hard for us to judge how far away they are. Nonetheless, we encountered a fairly small amount of rain. But the clouds blocked the sun for most of the day, making temperatures very comfortable.

Even the ride in the dark from Las Cruces to Alamogordo was nice. The road was straight, smooth, and without a single pothole. Lots of times it gets cold quickly when the sun goes down, but in this case, it remained warm. The only bummer about riding in the dark was that we passed through White Sands Missile Test Range, and I'm sure there was some cool stuff to see.

DAY 22

The Great Bike Ride – Day 20

2007-09-15T22:15:00.000-05:00

Saturday, September 15, 2007

This morning we said goodbye to the Pacific Ocean, which had been our constant companion for eight days.

The variety of weather we faced today was pretty comprehensive. We started out in the cool foggy conditions of the Pacific coast. I wore my leather jacket and leather gloves. In less than an hour, we were getting into the California desert, and I could lose the jacket and gloves. The trick we learned riding out here in 2001 was that a long-sleeved white shirt is the best, as it protects you from the sun and wind.

It wasn't enough. By the time we got to the Arizona border at Yuma, the temperature was well over 100 and we were suffering. We were consuming lots of fluids, but still working our way toward dehydration. So at the first roadside rest we found, we dumped water all over ourselves, and took advantage of the evaporative cooling. This worked great, and we stopped every 25 miles or so to soak down again.

Along this part of the route, we noticed these things that looked like segments of a tower that had been laid on their sides and connected by short lengths of chain. They formed a fence, but I had never seen a fence like this. Seems like overkill for cattle, and not much good for keeping anything else from crossing. We finally realized it was the Mexican border after we came to a Border Patrol inspection station.

Then we came into an area of overcast clouds, and the temperature dropped probably 20 degrees. We could see that it was storming -- BIG lightening -- all around us, and that there were mudpuddles in the fields alongside the road, but we stayed dry -- for a while at least. It made for great riding conditions.

As we came to Casa Grande AZ, we stopped for a brief break at a Starbucks, and noticed the winds starting to pick up. We hopped on the bikes to try to get ahead of it, and ended up in a full-blown dust storm.

And finally the rain caught up with us. We caught a few raindrops, but jumped off the first available exit and holed up in a nice convenience store for a few minutes. It poured for a while. The locals said it hadn't rained around here like that since Spring.

The last 20 miles was easy to the hotel just northwest of Tucson. After grabbing dinner at the Denny's next door, we crashed for the night. Total miles for today, about 407.

We are now officially on the third leg of our ride -- the ride back east. The distance between here and home is diminishing every minute.

That feels good.

DAY 21

The Great Bike Ride – Days 18-19

2007-09-15T00:24:00.000-05:00

Thursday-Friday, September 13-14, 2007

Sorry for not posting yesterday. The internet connectivity at this place is wretched, so I knew it would be an exercise in frustration to try to upload anything. Today, I found an alternative source of connectivity, and things are much better.

These past two days have been spent in San Diego, so no route map is warranted. My main goal for Thursday was to tour the USS Midway (CV-41), an aircraft carrier which served in the fleet from 1945 until 1992, forty seven years. We spent close to four hours on the ship, touring all the areas open to the public.

Then, at John's suggestion, we took a trolley tour of the city, and I got to see many areas with which I'm unfamiliar.

In the evening, I connected with Aunt Betty and Uncle Bob, and rode up to their place in Rancho Bernardo to have dinner with them. They have a beautiful home on a golf course, and it was great to spend a couple of hours with them.

Friday morning, we took the bikes to the Harley dealer in El Cajon to get oil changes before we start the trek across the desert tomorrow. We had lunch at a great BBQ place in El Cajon, and then returned to San Diego to ride out to the end of Point Loma, again at John's suggestion. This national park is hundreds of feet above the city, and gives a great view of the city, the harbor, North Island Naval Air Station, Coronado and the Pacific Ocean. Lots of things are happening in San Diego this weekend, including something called Yachtfest, sailboat racing trials for the Olympics, and the beginning of Fleet Week by the Navy. We wish we had arrived next week.

But tomorrow we begin heading east, and start the process of shorting the distance to home...

DAY 20

The Great Bike Ride – Day 17

2007-09-12T19:22:00.000-05:00

Wednesday, September 12, 2007

Our only real objective today was to reach San Diego. We ran the Pacific Coast Highway from Ventura into Santa Monica, giving everyone a chance to gawk at the houses in Malibu along the way. Unfortunately, there was a traffic jam through much of Malibu, making the trip more tedious than enjoyable.

We stopped in at Bertel's HD in Santa Monica. Nice place but stupid prices - $32 for a decent T-shirt. I don't need another Harley shirt that badly.

We lost John and Diane almost immediately after leaving Bertel's, and we ran about 5-10mph under the speed limit hoping they would catch up. We had set a rally point in San Clemente in case someone got separated, so Buss, Pat and I pulled in as planned. There I found that John had left a message saying he was going to scout around Long Beach a little, his home port when he was in the Navy. He said he found his old apartment.

So the three of us had a nice lunch and made the short run to San Diego and checked in. I'm sitting in the laundry as I write this, waiting for three loads to get done.

We plan on staying three nights in San Diego, checking out the USS Midway, taking a harbor tour, and hopefully connecting up with Aunt Betty and Uncle Bob Lanterman, who live here.

DAYS 18-19

The Great Bike Ride – Day 16

2007-09-12T00:21:00.000-05:00

Tuesday, September 11, 2007

Everyone reported having a good night's rest at our motel in San Simeon. We packed up the bikes and headed directly to the Heart Castle to spend the morning touring this fantastic home of William Randolph Hearst. Our tour guide was informative and entertaining, as was the movie we watched prior to the tour of the grounds. I was surprised to learn that the family fortune was first created by his father, who after discovering a substantial silver lode, used the money to buy up hundreds of square miles of property on the central California coast for use as a ranch. William Randolph took it from there with his publishing empire, generating the money for not only the Hearst Castle, but six other significant estates around the world.

We decided that we had experienced enough of the tight curves of the coastal highway, and stuck to US 101, a four lane expressway, from San Luis Obispo to Ventura. While the traffic was in heavy in places, it was mostly an easy trip.

We stopped at a rest stop mid-afternoon, and pulled over next to another Harley rider. As I went past, I noticed he had Ohio plates. It turns out that he was from Grove City, another Columbus suburb (where brother Jeff lives), and was doing a very similar trip to us. Small world.

Tomorrow we face the gauntlet of getting through LA and on to San Diego.

DAY 17

The Great Bike Ride – Day 15

2007-09-10T23:55:00.000-05:00

Monday, September 10, 2007

We took a leisurely pace getting up and going this morning as there was no use trying to fight rush hour traffic into San Francisco from our motel just across the Golden Gate Bridge. Our first stop was the scenic overlook on the Marin side of the bridge. This overlook was once a gun emplacement for batteries that protected the entry into the Bay.

Once we saw that the traffic had subsided, we crossed the bridge and John led us to a tour of the Presidio (a former Army post), and over the neighborhoods of the western edge of San Francisco, overlooking the ocean. We dropped down onto the beach road, and followed it until we connected with California Route 1, the Pacific Coast Highway (PCH).

We stopped at Sam's Chowder House in Half Moon Bay to meet old friend, coworker and boss, Peter Van Camp. The trouble is that we mixed up days, and thought our meeting was tomorrow. Nonetheless, he hustled over from his office (he's the Executive Chairman of Equinix - EQIX), and we got to spend a few minutes together. Thanks Peter!

We headed south on the PCH with no other goal than to reach San Simeon by dark. But the traffic in Santa Cruz was miserable, and the PCH, while incredibly scenic, once again returned to being a twisty two lane road upon which it is impossible to make good time. We never get tired of looking at the Pacific Ocean and the terrain, but these roads are wearing us out. Between here and Cayucos, there is about 25 miles more of these roads, then it becomes more freeway-like for the remainder of the run into Los Angeles.

The evening ended with the sun setting while we still had about 15-20 miles to go. It gets cold, and tonight the fog was rolling from offshore toward land fast enough that we thought it might envelope us. Fortunately the lights of San Simeon came into view and we piled into the motel about 8:30pm. After a fine dinner in the place next door, we crashed for the night.

Oh, and we heard from Jeff today. He stayed in Big Sur last night, and made it to San Juan Capistrano today. Jeff is a retired US Navy Senior Chief Corpsman who spent most of his career with US Marine units. San Juan Capistrano is just north of Camp Pendleton, one of the two major USMC bases in the US. We expect he's connected up with some old Marine buddies and having a good time. Not sure if he'll rejoin us on the run back toward home, but we're relieved he's okay.

DAY 16

The Great Bike Ride – Day 14

2007-09-10T09:39:00.000-05:00

Sunday, September 9, 2007

Today marks the end of our second week on the road.

John and Diane were in the parking lot at the Motel 6 when I went out to load up the bike at 8am. Actually, it was more than just loading up the bike. As we were hitting the sack last night, two police cars pulled up, answering some disturbance call in the motel. Feeling a little concerned about all the stuff that can be easily removed from my bike, I decided to remove the windshield and the saddle bags for the night. So in addition to strapping on the T-Bag and two other small duffels I've used all week, the windshield and bags needed to get put back on.

We couldn't raise Jeff this morning, and decided he had elected to go it alone from here on out. John has left him several messages, but he has not responded yet. We have to get Diane to San Diego, so we left town as planned and have continued to try to reach Jeff.

The run down the Pacific Coast Highway began in earnest today. While the view was spectacular, the many curves and hills exhausted us. We ran about 300 miles today, but it felt like much more. We barely made it back over the mountains to US 101 before dark. Fortunately, the Holiday Inn Express in Mill Valley had rooms - great rooms in fact - and we are expecting a much better night's sleep.

DAY 15

The Great Bike Ride – Day 13

2007-09-09T00:22:00.000-05:00

Saturday, September 08, 2007

Our journey today was from Coos Bay, Oregon to Eureka, California.

The day started off with a nice breakfast in a little place in Coos Bay, followed by a visit to the Harley dealer to buy some T-shirts. It was pretty foggy when we got up at 7am, but by the time we left the dealer, the fog had burned off. Nonetheless, it was pretty chilly and we all wore layers of clothing to stay warm.

Much of the run this morning was along the spectacular Oregon coast, but we turned up CA state route 199 towards Grant’s Pass as this was recommended to our by our friend and Harley dealer, Carl Becese. He was right. The first hunk of the climb put us in a redwood forest, a new experience for all of us.

After a short run up 199, we returned to US 101 south, and entered the Redwood National Park. The highway runs right through groves of redwoods that tower above you. There is also a more scenic byway through the park, so we of course took it. After losing Jeff, who ran ahead of us, we jumped off the bikes at a trail head and walked a little piece into the redwoods just to get a feeling what it was like to be around them on foot.

It’s pretty humbling. As you can tell from the pictures above, some of the trees had trunk diameters approaching 15 feet, making the circumference close to 50 feet, and stood over 100 feet tall – many much more.

On the south end of the park, we stopped at a nice Mexican place at about 4pm for a late lunch or early dinner.

Once last stretch on to Eureka and we arrived at our hotel, a Motel 6 that I had reserved while in Coos Bay. Jeff had gotten here well ahead of us and checked into a Super 8. John took an immediately dislike to the place and went down the road to stay at the Super 8 with Jeff. At least that’s where he was going when we last saw him. Pat, Buss and I stayed at the Motel 6. Hope we reconnect in the morning.

The next planned stop is the Bay Area. Probably in Marin County.

DAY 14

The Great Bike Ride – Day 12

2007-09-07T23:39:00.000-05:00

Friday, September 7, 2007

The day started with a short run up to the Evergreen Aviation Museum. While there are many nice planes on display there, the star is the Spruce Goose. John and I paid a couple of extra bucks to get a private tour of the flight deck. There we got to sit in the very seat where Howard Hughes piloted this giant aircraft on its one and only one mile flight.

Then we headed for the Oregon coast. Shortly before lunch, we saw the Pacific Ocean for the first time. After working our way through the coastal villages with all their shops and touristy places, we hit what we had been anticipating: long stretches of road with the Pacific on our right side and the evergreen mountains of Oregon on our left. It was spectacular. The pictures above tell part of the story.

Our stop point tonight was Coos Bay, Oregon, for no other reason than when I was on summer duty while in Navy ROTC in 1972, our ship pulled in here on a good-will stop. I don't remember much about it except a mental picture of the harbor with the paper mill at the north end, and the Coast Guard and Army Corps of Engineers piers across the river. Freighters tied up at the paper mill to take pulp and other products to the Far East.

Well, the paper mill is gone, and a casino is in its place. The Coast Guard pier seems to be in the right place, but that would put the pier we tied up to on the wrong side of the river from downtown. There were no ships at all in the port any more apparently.

Tomorrow we cross into California. We need to push a little to get everything in we want to do and have Diane to the San Diego airport in time for her 6am Thursday flight.

DAY 13

The Great Bike Ride – Day 11

2007-09-06T23:12:00.000-05:00

Thursday, September 6, 2007

This was an odd day. Our main objective today was to gather up Diane at the Portland airport and head towards the museum where the Spruce Goose is displayed. Her plane was arriving about 1pm, so that meant we had the morning to catch up on laundry and sleep.

When Diane arrived at the hotel about 2pm, she quickly changed and we jumped on the bikes for the short run to McMinnville, Oregon - a distance of 53 miles. We thought we might be able to make it in time to visit the museum this afternoon, but the road from Portland to McMinnville was very congested and we arrived at 4pm, leaving only an hour to visit this extensive facility.

I thought maybe the folks at the museum would let us buy tickets ($20 each), look around a little before closing, then come back tomorrow on the same ticket to really look things over. But there were a couple of young kids at the desk who said that would be against the rules. So I asked to speak to a manager. The manager was another young person who said that rules were rules, and that we should just come back tomorrow.

Note to any young folks who are reading this: these kids made a dumb business decision. We weren't asking to get in for free. And it wasn't like were were going to consume something that would cost the museum money. We weren't going to give our tickets to someone else who would then get in for free. If they were worried about that, they could just write our driver's license numbers on the tickets and require us to show our licenses before we get back in tomorrow. I'm sure there was some easy way to accomodate our wishes.

Compare this to the guy who owned the little resturant we walked to last night night in Portland. It was near his closing, but he invited us in anyway, and asked his server if she would stay for a few minutes to take care of us. We had a good meal, and left generous tips in appreciation.

I'm fortunate to have grown up in a company culture where we felt some degree ownership in the enterprise, and therefore tried to find a way to say "yes" to reasonable requests from a customer. For that, we were rewarded with great customer loyalty. It's much cheaper to keep a good customer than find a new one.

Maybe these folks at the museum never have to think that way. Their customers visit once, and likely never come again. And they have a unique product: the one and only Spruce Goose. They'll find out that this situation rarely exists in the real world. Treat a customer badly, and the competition gets the business.

Good dinner tonight in a little pub next door to the hotel. Tomorrow we go back to the see the Spruce Goose and then head for the PACIFIC COAST!!!

DAY 12

The Great Bike Ride – Day 10

2007-09-05T19:39:00.001-05:00

Once again, the weather was beautiful as we pulled out of Richland WA. The first leg of our day was a run west on I-182 through the orchard country of the Yakima valley. It's almost picking season, so the crates were piled up at the ends of the orchards row ready to go.

From there we took WA 221 south through arid and mostly treeless farmland (again). After about 30 miles, we reached the Columbia River Gorge. Rather than run on I-84 on the south bank, we stayed on WA 14 on the north bank all the way into Vancouver. There certainly wasn't much traffic, or any gas stations either. And the views were spectacular.

We did stop at a little roadhouse along the way for a break and something to drink. It looked like it would be fun place at night. The restrooms had very unusual wallpaper, at least in the men's room. Pat reported a similar theme in the lady's room as well.

The Columbia is a formidable river at this point, the better part of a mile across. We were surprised by the amount of wind that blows upstream - enough that at one point I thought that something was wrong with my bike - as though it were losing power. I was put at ease when we stopped for lunch and both John and Buss said they were getting tired of fighting the headwind. However, the scores of windsurfers we saw must have loved it.

We stopped at Bonneville Dam, about 40 miles from Vancouver. We got to see the generator gallery this time, but could not go down on the generator floor -- post 9/11 security tightening again.

One of the coolest things at the dam was the fish ladder. At some point as these dams were being built, folks figured out that the migration paths for salmon to their spawning grounds were being cut off. So structures were added to the dams so the salmon could work their way around. At Bonneville there is a viewing gallery below water level so you can see the fish making their way through the ladder. Some of the salmon were huge - probably 24" and 15-20 pounds?

I was surprised to see a bundle of lamprey clinging to the windows. Lamprey are parasitic fish that spend their life in the ocean attached to larger fish. But they spawn in the freshwater of their birth, just like salmon. Apparently they don't swim as well as salmon, and have to take a break by clinging to the glass, as they cannot get a grip on the concrete in the ladder.

Diane arrives at the Portland airport around 1pm tomorrow. John is going to ride the shuttle over to pick her up and bring her back to our hotel, where we will load up and head southwest, ever closer to the coast.

DAY 11

The Great Bike Ride – Day 9

2007-09-04T23:05:00.001-05:00

Tuesday, September 4, 2007

After a good night's sleep, and a fine breakfast, we ran over to the Visitor's Center at Grand Coulee Dam to take the tour. Unfortunately, the special inclined elevator they use to take visitors down into the Third Power House was down for repair, so no tour. With a little disappointment, we hit the road.

My main drive for coming to this part of the country was to visit the Manhattan Project sites where my granddad, A.G. (Tom) Lambert worked during World War II. The key site was the Hanford Engineer Works, which was run by duPont. From its construction in 1944 until just a few years ago, this was a top-secret facility, where the plutonium for nuclear weapons was manufactured. Today, it is being decommissioned. However, twice a year they give tours of the facility, and it turns out tomorrow is one of those days. I called the tour office and tried to beg my way onto the tour. They said no way – the list had been closed for security reasons.

The ride from Grand Coulee to Richland was beautiful, following the shores of Banks Lake for about the first 60 miles. With the black rock buttes around us, it felt like a scene from a cowboy movie. As we came out of the canyon, we hit some strong crosswinds which stuck with us for about 50 miles. Fighting against these take a lot of steam out of you.

When we got to our motel in Richland, I saw a flyer for jet boat rides on the Columbia River, which include a run past the Hanford reactor sites. I was excited again! So I called the number to get reservations on the trip tomorrow morning, only to be told that there weren't enough reservations and they had cancelled the morning trip. Not a good day for satisfying my interest in the Manhattan Project. At least we visited the little museum here in town.

Tomorrow we had planned to run into Portland to pick up Diane at the airport. But her flights are actually on Thursday, so we're taking our time by riding the Lewis & Clark trail into Portland. Should be beautiful.

So after a great Mexican dinner at a place next door, we're crashing for the night.

DAY 10

The Great Bike Ride – Day 8

2007-09-03T23:37:00.001-05:00

Monday, September 4, 2007

Today was the first day of our second week on the road. Once again we were blessed with clear blue skies and temperatures from a pleasant chill in the morning to a hot afternoon.

The intention was to take US 2 from Kalispell MT to Spokane WA, but the GPS (not mine!) directed us south on US 93 toward I-90, and none of us figured it out until we were far enough down the road to make it not worth going back. Nonetheless, we ended up on a couple of great roads, virtually alone through the ranch country along Montana state route 28. At Thompson Falls, we found a cool local place for lunch, and got a recommendation from a couple there to take the road over Thompson Pass. This meant we missed going past Lake Pend Oreille (pond-o-ray), the site of the 1969 Boy Scout National Jamboree, which I had attended. Oh well. It was still a nice road.

After crossing over the Thompson Pass, we ended up on I-90 to run through Coeur D'Alene Idaho and Spokane WA before heading north on US 2 and WA 174 to the site of Grand Coulee Dam. The terrain changed from the green forests of the Montana Rockies to the arid prairie of western Washington.

On that 1969 trip to the National Jamboree, we flew into Seattle and rode buses across Washington to the camp grounds. Along the way, we stopped at Grand Coulee Dam, and I've always wanted to come back, particularly once I came to understand the role of the dam in the Manhattan Project, and my granddad's connection to all this. One of the neat things about this dam is that water actually flows over the top of the dam, as a sort of man-made waterfall.

So I was little disappointed that there was no water going over the dam when we arrived here today. Maybe it's because conditions are very dry out here this year, or maybe because with the third powerhouse operational, they use all the water spinning the turbines.

At 8:30pm, after it becomes dark, a laser light show is displayed on the face of the dam. Interestingly, they release water over the top of the dam during the show to create a white screen on which to project the lasers. Of course it's dark, but you can hear the rushing water. After the show is over, they shut it back down again.

Tomorrow we plan to tour the dam, then head to Richland WA, another key Manhattan Project site. Jeff is heading to Seattle for a couple of days to see friends, and will rejoin us in Portland on Wednesday evening.

Oh, and we now have ridden about 3,000 miles.

DAY 9

The Great Bike Ride – Day 7

2007-09-02T17:53:00.001-05:00

Sunday, September 02, 2007

Great deal of riding today! Because of our unexpectedly long day yesterday, we started out pretty close to Glacier National Park, and were able to enter the park mid-morning.

The Going to the Sun Road in Glacier NP is undoubtedly one of the most beautiful rides in America. I guess I'll probably end up saying that a lot on this trip.

We made it to the hotel about 4pm, and get to have a relaxing evening for the first time in our initial week on the road. We needed it. The bikes have taken us about 2,625 miles so far, and we're just getting started.

Well, enough words, enjoy the pictures...

DAY 8

The Great Bike Ride – Day 6

2007-09-02T00:22:00.001-05:00

Saturday, September 2, 2007

At our motel in West Yellowstone MT, the morning was chilly and foggy when we woke up. After a quick stop at the McDonalds for breakfast, we ran back into Yellowstone to watch Old Faithful. On the way in, we were stopped by a pair of young bull bison who were sauntering across the road just feet in front of us. We all felt pretty exposed, and were glad they seemed pretty bored with us.

After watching the eruption, we jumped on the bikes and headed for the north gate of the park. I had not been in this part of the park before. Unlike the other areas, the northwest quadrant of Yellowstone begins the transition to the browns of the arid high plains of southwestern Montana.

US89 north followed the Yellowstone River for a good distance, then climbed up to the prairie where we came to understand where the term "Big Sky" came from. It was brown ranch land all around us, to the distant mountains at the horizon. Not a telephone pole for miles. In some ways, it was like the run across Wyoming of a couple of days ago, but not nearly so hot. In fact, it was about perfect riding conditions in some of the more beautiful territory in the country. US 89 gets my vote for a top biking road in the USA.

We planned to stay in Great Falls tonight, but there was apparently not a single hotel room in this decent sized city. The folks at the Super 8 sent us 50 miles further north to Conrad, where we found rooms in a little complex that included the hotel, a truck stop and a casino. Dinner was at the Subway.

It was another late, 400 mile day. Tomorrow we plan to go only 200 miles to Kalispell, MT, but 50 of those miles is the Going to the Sun Road in Glacier National Park. At least we have already booked rooms in Kalispell.

DAY 7

The Great Bike Ride – Day 5

2007-09-01T00:16:00.001-05:00

Friday, August 31, 2007

Everyone slept well in Hardin, so we were eager to get on the bikes and make the run to Yellowstone.

The first 60 miles were on I-90 into Billings, where we caught US 212 to Red Lodge Montana. This is a funky little town full of tourist shops and pubs, and of course a Harley dealer where everyone got T-shirts.

The main point of going to Red Lodge was ride over Beartooth Pass into Yellowstone. Terry and I didn't get to do this last fall as Beartooth had already been closed for the winter. Wow, was this some ride. Red Lodge sits at about 5,500ft of elevation, and the summit of Beartooth is about 11,000. The climb is steep and full of curves, but the view was breathtaking.

We then entered Yellowstone at the northeast portal, and followed the Lamar River valley to the center of the park. Along the way we saw several bison herds, but the main attraction was the scenery. At Tower Junction, we headed south for Yellowstone Lake. Terry and I never made it to this part of the park last year, and that was too bad because the lake is one of the most beautiful parts of the park. We even went into the lodge to see if we could get rooms there, but no luck.

So we headed for West Yellowstone to crash. Unfortunately, we got caught in a cold rain, and were pretty wet by the time we got our rainsuits on. At the hotel, we all grabbed hot showers, and walked to dinner – no one wanted to get back on a bike just then.

Tomorrow we'll start the run to Glacier National Park, probably ending up in Great Falls MT.

DAY 6

The Great Bike Ride – Day 4

2007-08-30T23:15:00.001-05:00

Thursday, August 30, 2007

The day started off in Kadoka SD. After breakfast at the local greasy spoon, we jumped on I-90 West for the quick run to the Badlands. It was the first time for John and Jeff, and they were appropriately impressed with the area. Pat & Buss had visited the Badlands the when they rode to Sturgis last year, and Terry and I had chance to visit last fall. It was a pleasure to run through again, this time on a bike.

From there we stopped at Wall Drug for Jeff. It's the very definition of a tourist trap, so we didn't stay long.

The next stop was Sturgis. After the Rally, it's a pretty sleepy town. We had no problem parking the bikes on Main Street, or getting a table at Ben's.

Then came the long stretch. We left Sturgis with the goal of reaching Hardin, Montana. My mapping program indicated that there was no lodging on US 212 between Belle Fourche SD and Hardin, a stretch of about 200 miles. It was correct in that regard. In fact, there was virtually nothing on this road except range land and cattle. We found gas in Broadus MT – 100 miles from Belle Fourche. The next gas was another 100 miles later where US 212 joined I-90, at the Little Big Horn (yep, that one).

For most of the day, it was 100 degrees with cloudless blue sky. Not a tree to be seen for the first hundred miles.

While we were eating in Sturgis, some folks at the next table struck up a conversation (there's always someone who wants to talk with the bikers), and upon finding out we were headed for Glacier said that: a) US 2 west of the park is under repair and pretty much a dirt road (no thanks); and, b) the forest fires in the area make many areas uncomfortable to be in. We're a little bummed by these developments, but still plan to head up there next week.

Tomorrow we head into Yellowstone.

DAY 5

The Great Bike Ride – Day 3

2007-08-29T22:51:00.001-05:00

Wednesday, August 29, 2007

We started our day in Omaha, digging out of the rush hour traffic to head west. The skies were overcast, and the temperature cool enough that my leather jacket and gloves felt comfortable. The run across US20 was through rolling terrain that gradually shifted from flat Midwestern cornfields to the sandy soils and arid conditions of the rolling upper plains.

Today was the day that we had to start remembering that gas stations aren't always handy. Jeff and I ride older bikes, and therefore have only 5 gallon gas tanks, while the 2008 models ridden by John and Buss have six gallon tanks. But we all have about the same range since John and Buss are pulling trailers – about 150 miles. We were on fumes as we rolled into Valentine Nebraska, and were very glad to find a Shell station there. Another Harley rider pulled in for gas while we were there, and reported that the road north of Valentine to Murdo SD was being resurfaced.

The folks out here are particularly fond of a road surfacing technique called "chip and seal." What that means is that they put down a thin layer of tar and pour fingernail-sized chips of rock over the tar. The idea is that as cars drive over the rock chips and the chips are smashed into the tar, making a very tough road surface without the expense of paving machines and rollers. In practice, they pour way more chips on the road than they need. The effect is that the road behaves as is it were loose gravel, a nasty road surface for riding a heavyweight road bike. To make things worse, car and especially trucks coming the opposite way fling chips into the air, scratching our paint and whacking us in the legs.

Knowing all that, we decided to take an alternate route, staying on US20 Merriman NE, then north on SD 73 to I-90 and back east to Kadoka. At least that was the plan.

This stretch of US20 was empty except for us. That's the good news. The bad news was that a few miles of it had recently gotten the tar & chip treatment as well, although most of the loose gravel had been ground in. After all that extra riding, and a few leg dings, when we got to the leg of SD 18 north from US18, we found it also under construction. In this case the road surface had been removed down to the dirt, and was impassable to our bikes. The flagger there directed us to head further east, to SD63, then north to SD44, the west to SD73 into Kadoka. In the end, we went about 50 miles further than our original route, but it seemed like much longer – I'm sure because of the frustration and time lost. In the attached picture, the planned route is in yellow, and the one we actually took is in green. You can see why we got a little nuts.

But just to prove that sometimes the best things happen when plans have to be adjusted – the last few miles were through the eastern edge of the Badlands just before sunset. It was spectacular.

We pulled into the Best Western at about 8pm, got some rooms, had a nice dinner and crashed. Total of 489 miles today.

DAY 4

The Great Bike Ride – Day 2

2007-08-28T21:42:00.001-05:00

Tuesday, August 28, 2007

We got off to an early start and spent the day crossing Iowa, with our day's goal being to reach Norfolk, Nebraska (birthplace of Johnny Carson).

Our route for most of the day was US24, an excellent road that runs through farm fields that stretch from horizon to horizon, with an occasional small town along the way. The morning was cool, but a long-sleeved t-shirt was plenty to stay warm. By the afternoon, we were roasting in 90+ degrees and high humidity.

As we got closer to the Nebraska border, we could see a storm front building to the northwest – right in our path. After fighting through the late afternoon traffic in Omaha, we hit the western outskirts just as the weather began to look really nasty. We pulled over for gas, and turned on Jeff's weather radio to see what we could find out about the storm. The first thing we heard was that a tornado warning was in effect for the area we needed to go through to get to Norfolk.

So we decided to just take cover in Omaha for the night. We got the bikes parked, unloaded, and covered just before the worst hit. We weren't sure whether the covers would protect the bikes, or act like sails and dump them over like dominos. Gladly, they rode it through the high winds just fine.

Unlike our accommodations last night, the Best Western here at 108^th and L is a new facility with great amenities, not the least of which was a free cocktail hour. Well, actually, it was free beer in a little room with a few munchies. It was a great way to unwind after a long hot day.

We leave at 8am in the morning – destination, the Badlands of South Dakota.

DAY 3

The Great Bike Ride – Day 1

2007-08-28T21:17:00.001-05:00

Monday Aug 27, 2007

Our once-in-a-lifetime trip began for us when Buss, Pat and I left our house at 7:15am to gas up and ride to C&A Harley-Davidson to meet John Bennett and Jeff Holloway. It was a little tough just getting to C&A as school is back in session, so the traffic in both Hilliard and Dublin was thick. But we still got underway at 8am as planned, heading up US33 toward northwestern Ohio.

The trip didn't start well. My bike had been acting a little strange lately, especially after I replaced the stock horn with a new Harley air horn. The bike had become prone to stalling at idle, which I assumed was caused by my pinching the gas tank vent hose while installing the horn. Then one day the bike would not start, or even turn over, and I had to have Terry come give me a jump. My next diagnosis was a bad battery, so I put a new one in.

The bike ran great the next several days, so I assumed everything was okay. Then at one of our stops this morning, at the intersection of US33 and OH127 in northwest Ohio, the bike would not restart. Dead battery again. We got it started by pushing, and fortunately we were with about 3 miles of Jim's Harley-Davidson in Mendon OH, a dealer we know well. We all rode over there, and asked the service guys to look at it. They got it right in, and diagnosed the problem as a bad stator (think alternator in your car). Two hours and about $300 later, we were on the road again.

The rest of the ride today was wonderful. US 24 across Indiana and Illinois, ending in Galesburg, IL. Cheap but clean hotel. John and I are going to try sharing a room. We'll see who kicks the other out first. About 450 miles today.

DAY 2

Catherine's Journey Begins

2007-08-13T10:06:00.000-05:00

We had the great pleasure of attending Catherine's White Coat Ceremony last Friday, marking her induction into the University of Cincinnati College of Medicine. She has four years of hard work ahead of her on the way to becoming an MD, but we know she has the smarts and the motivation to do well.

The last week she was home, we went to Bodies ... The Exhibition at Easton Mall. If you get a chance to see this here, or in your city, I highly recommend it. It is a magnificent collection of dissected human bodies, treated by a method which infuses the tissue with clear plastics which preserves the detail, but prevents decay. It's not gross - it really isn't.

It's very gratifying when the kids become experts in their fields, and can teach the parents. Elizabeth certainly knows more about music, in theory and in performance, than either of her parents. She's putting it to work serving others, as a teacher.

And as Catherine and I walked around this exhibit, I loved hearing her talk about the systems of the human body, and how they worked. She was the teacher, I was the student

Today, Catherine's classes begin. Hope it's a blast for you kid! We're very proud.

Alaska: Land Tour

2007-07-28T09:54:00.001-05:00

At Seward, we left the Radiance and boarded a tour bus for the next part of our journey. We met our Tour Director, Joanna, as well as John, our Driver.

The first leg of the trip was the drive from Seward to Anchorage, about 120 miles. This area is within the Kenai National Wildlife Refuge, and we made a stop at an animal rescue center along the way. This center cares for animals which are orphaned or injured and not able to live on their own in the wild. We arrived at Anchorage by lunch time, and pretty much just puttered around town. Anchorage is the largest city in Alaska at about 300,000 people, and while interesting, it is not what we came to see.

The next day, we started the trek to the interior of Alaska by making the 120 mile drive to Talkeetna. Along the way, we were blessed with a clear view of Denali, aka Mt McKinley, the highest peak in North America at over 20,000 feet. Denali is covered by clouds most of the time, and it is said that only 20% of the visitors to Alaska ever see the peak. The lodge at Talkeetna was fabulous, and we were happy to stay there two nights.

We boarded the train at Talkeetna on the 11^th day of our trip, and set off into Denali National Park. These were magnificent train cars, with comfortable leather seats and panoramic windows. It was too bad that the dining facilities were on a lower level, because the view was much more constrained.

After arriving at Denali village, we set off on a Jeep excursion into an area on the north of the Denali village. It was a little lame, with no real serious four-wheeling involved, but I have no complaint with getting to spend time outdoors in a place like this.

The next morning we took a ride into Denali Park on a park bus. We saw caribou and Dall Sheep. We learned that caribou and reindeer are the same species, with the only difference being that reindeer are domesticated. And once more the summit of Denali showed itself above the clouds. In the afternoon, we boarded the train toward our final stop, Fairbanks.

On our way to the El Dorado Gold Mine, we had the chance to stop at a place where the Alaska Pipeline runs above ground along the highway. I was hoping that we'd get to see the pipeline. As interesting as the line itself was, there is a place across the road where a guy had collected various pieces of equipment no longer needed when the pipeline was completed. One was this enormous transporter vehicle that carried sections of pipe. He had taken one of the trailers of this transporter and made it into a deck for his house. Utility comes before aesthetics in the north country.

One thing which surprised us all – it never gets dark in Alaska in the summertime! I think we all knew that north of the Arctic Circle, the sun never sets on the summer solstice. Fairbanks is only about 150 miles south of the Arctic Circle, so while the sun did set (at about 11:15pm), it remains twilight until the sun fully rises again just five hours later. We all said that we were looking forward to getting back to dark nights.

On the last day, we needed to have our bags out at 3am, and ready to board the bus to the airport at 4am. We sat in the plane on the ground while the mechanics confirmed that a hatch was latching properly, and then the toilet needed to be unplugged. We barely made our connection in Seattle, and then only because they loaded us up into three electric carts for the long trek across the airport. Next was a relatively short hop into Salt Lake City, and then another long flight home. We landed around 11pm only to find that our luggage didn't make the connection in Seattle. It was finally delivered to our home at about 5pm the next day.

Glad to be home, but thrilled to have taken this trip.

Alaska: Aboard Ship

2007-07-28T08:37:00.001-05:00

The first leg of our Alaska trip was aboard the Radiance of the Seas, a massive cruise ship operated by Royal Caribbean. Our group of five couples had adjacent balcony staterooms on the starboard side, Deck 8, just below and aft of the navigation bridge.

This was the third cruise for Terry and me, and quite different than our prior voyages in the Caribbean. The obvious difference was in the latitude: there would be no sunning on a deck chair through the afternoon this time around, although we did have some warm days were we could sit on our private balcony and enjoy the sun. Southeastern Alaska is rainy and chilly, similar to what many of us think of Seattle. The capital city, Juneau, is one of the wettest cities in the country.

The cruise began when we boarded the Radiance in Vancouver, British Columbia, Canada. We had never been in Vancouver before, and our first impression was of the rattier parts of town on the route between the airport and the harbor. The Cleverleys have friends who live in Vancouver, so they came out a couple of days before to visit. Their impression of Vancouver was that it is a beautiful city. As is always the case in a big city, there is wealth, and there is poverty. At least everyone has access to the healthcare system in Canada. We sailed in the early evening.

The next day was spent at sea. It was sunny, warm and smooth. We were accompanied part of the way by Dall's porpoises, who apparently get a kick out of surfing in the wake of the ship. It was formal dinner night, when we got to meet our waiter, Darko (no kidding). He was a tall and intense Croatian man who I thought would make a good Count Dracula. Compared to the waiters we've enjoyed on other cruises, this guy was humorless. His assistant was a Bahamian named Leaford who spent most of his time getting ordered about and criticized by Darko. Nonetheless, the ten of us had a table to ourselves, and enjoyed the food and company each night. The evening closed with a stage show and a stunning sunset.

Our first port of call was Ketchikan Alaska. We arrived in the early morning, escorted by a Coast Guard patrol boat on which the forward 50cal machine gun was manned and ready. We never learned why we got this escort, and it was the only port in which this happened. One can understand a cruise ship being a juicy terrorist target, but I'm not sure Alaska is a primary target area. Who knows in this crazy world. Ketchikan is just a tourist trap, with most of the businesses owned by Royal Caribbean as we understand it. We walked around the block and came back aboard the ship.

The next day, we arrived in Juneau. Although it is the capital, Juneau's population is only about 30,000. An interesting fact about Juneau is that it cannot be driven to; one must go there by either air or sea. In the morning, we rode a bus out to the Mendenhall Glacier. When we booked this excursion, we didn't know that we would later be seeing the Hubbard Glacier from the ship. The trip to the Mendenhall wasn't a waste by any means, but these land excursions are kinda pricy, and on that basis I don't think I would recommend spending the money if you are going to see the Hubbard anyway that is.

The afternoon was spent whale-watching with Barb and Jim, and we had the opportunity to see several mother-calf pairs of humpbacks. Afterwards, we looked around town a little, and stopped for a snack of reindeer sausage at the Red Dog Saloon – a fun place to go.

We arrived at the tiny town of Skagway to find three other cruise ships in port. This is an amazing thing since Skagway has a permanent population of under 1,000, while each cruise ship carried around 2,000 tourists. The high point of this trip was the ride to the White Mountain Pass on a narrow gauge railroad. After the ride, we stopped in the Red Onion Saloon for lunch, another fun place.

Next was Icy Strait Point, where the Hinkles, Cleverleys and Krzykowskis rode the mile-long zip line. They said it was a blast. We looked around the little village which had been constructed there just to host cruise ships, and hopped back aboard.

After working our way out of the Inside Passage, the Radiance sailed to the Hubbard Glacier. This was by far the most spectacular part of the cruise. The glacier is massive, with a face several times the height of our ship and six miles wide. The weather was clear and sunny, and the captain was able to maneuver us within a few thousand feed of the face. Every few minutes, we would hear a rumble. If you were quick enough, you could see a hunk of ice fall from the face into the ocean.

From here, we sailed due west toward Seward, the terminus of the cruise half of our journey.

Home from Alaska

2007-07-28T07:15:00.001-05:00

Our two weeks of travel in Alaska is over, and we're back home in Ohio. It's a shame that wonderful vacations like this start and end with the aggravation which is air travel today, but soon the memories of the crowds and inconsiderate fellow passengers fade and the good times are what sticks.

It was a blessing to be able to take this trip with friends from our church: Steve and Lynne Krzykowski, George and Cindy Hinkle, Bill and Linda Cleverley, Barb Hix and Jim Murdoch. We participated in many activities together, yet went on our own at times to pursue our own interests. This is a great way to travel, and I hope we have other opportunities like this in the future.

One goal of mine was achieved on this trip: after visiting Alaska, I have now been in all fifty states of our union, and Terry is missing only a handful. While each one has something special to offer, I am partial to open country, away from crowds and development. West Virginia will always be our homeland, and the southeastern part of the state my favorite part of it. But for sheer beauty, Colorado has been number one on my list -- that is until this trip.

Alaska has it all: the highest mountains, the ocean, unspoiled rivers and glaciers, and miles of vistas with no evidence of human impact. At Denali National Park, the rangers make a point of telling folks that there are no trails because they want to maintain this aspect. They tell you to make a new trail, and there is a chance you will walk where no human has walked before. Awesome.

One term we heard frequently is that there are many people in Alaska who live 'off the grid.' This means they have no public utilities; no water, sewer, electricity, gas, telephone or cable TV. There were folks who live this way within the city limits of Fairbanks. They get their water from creeks or water stations, use outhouses, and heat and cook with wood. We saw homesteads where the only means of supply was the Alaska Railroad, as there are neither roads nor navigable streams. And we heard stories from young Native Alaskans who came from villages north of the Arctic Circle where the hunting of whales and seals are key to survival.

We also saw what I call the Disney World version of Alaska. In Fairbanks we toured the El Dorado Gold Mine, and got to pan for gold. We took a ride on the Riverboat Discovery, and visited a staged Indian Village. All while be herded around with a couple thousand fellow tourists. It was the last day of our two weeks, and the complete antithesis to the days we spent in Denali. I guess it was a good preparation for the gauntlet of airports and airplanes the next day, but I would have preferred to spend the time just gazing into one of those endless Alaska vistas.

We took nearly 600 pictures and video clips during the trip. The cool thing about digital photography is that you can just snap away and never worry about wasting film or developing costs. I shoot at the highest possible resolution, yielding 2MB image files. In total we have 3GB of images. We'll post a few here, and a few on the family website, but to see them all, you'll just have to come visit us.

Paul & Terry

Alaska: The Day Before Departure

2007-07-12T09:33:00.001-05:00

We're off to Alaska in the morning (leaving the house at 4am!!) with a group of friends from our church. Here's our route

Light blue = flights
Red = aboard ship
Green = bus
Purple = train

I've decided not to take a PC, so no pictures or travel diary as we go. But expect a trip report when we return!

Congratulations Catherine!

2007-06-12T22:39:00.000-05:00

Well, our youngest is now a fully recognized graduate of The Ohio State University. Her major was Microbiology, but the goal has always been medical school, which she is starting this fall at the University of Cincinnati.

Notice the seal in the lower left corner. It says Magna Cum Laude, with Honors in the Arts and Sciences. This is awarded for students with a final grade point average in excess of 3.7.

Way to go kid. We're very proud of you.

Disappearing Middle Class

2007-05-24T12:06:00.000-05:00

Our satellite TV service includes a bunch of educational channels, including one from the University of California at Berkeley. A faculty member there named Harry Kreisler hosts an interview program called "Conversations with History" which I record, and often watch. I very much enjoyed one a few weeks back with Cosmologist James Peebles from Princeton. Another good one was with philosopher Hubert Dreyfus. A complete list of Kreisler's interviews are available via the link above.

The interview this week was with Elizabeth Warren, a professor of Law at Harvard. She has done extensive research and writing on the topic of personal bankruptcy in the US, and has been an advisor to some public officials on this topic.

Professor Warren said she went into this area of research with the assumption that most people who declared bankruptcy were undisciplined consumers who spent well beyond their means and used bankruptcy as an easy way to dump their debts. What she found was that the skyrocketing backruptcy rates were being driven by two elements: a) the dependence of families on two incomes because of the rising costs of goods, especially housing and education; and, b) the relaxation of consumer protection laws relative to credit which have been enacted as a result of extensive lobbying by the financial services industry. The consequence is that families are using more and more credit to fund middle class lifestyles, and when any burp in income happens (layoff, sickness, etc), the credit terms are so oppressive so as to drive people quickly to bankruptcy.

By the way, she tells an interesting story of an encounter with Hillary Clinton. When she was the First Lady, Mrs. Clinton invited Professor Warren for a brief chat about some of her research. The professor quickly made her point about the potential damaging impact of the new consumer financing bill working its way through Congress. Mrs. Clinton understood, and presumably expressed that concern to the President. When the bill made it's way to President Clinton's desk, it was vetoed. However, later as Senator Clinton, she voted for the same bill. As the professor said, it was dispairing to see that the power of lobbyists and the campaign contributions they direct, could cause this kind of behavior in a US Senator (trust me, this isn't a Hillary bashing -- this happens in politics all over our country).

She made a connection I hadn't thought of: people are spending a lot of money on housing because the price of the home you buy often reflects the quality of the school system. In other words, if you want your kids to go to a good school, the price of admission is an expensive home. This dynamic is widening the gulf between the haves and the have-nots in the society. While there is a growing number of families who can afford upscale housing in nice school systems, and still be able to build wealth and send their kids to college, an exploding number of families are barely able to afford their suburban homes, are building little wealth, and must send their kids off to college with student loans. Many of today's children will start their adult life already tens of thousands of dollars in debt, and their parents will be of little help because they are also strapped.

Professor Warren makes the case that the future of America depends on having a well-educated workforce, meaning through college, and that these dynamics are threatening that. I'm not so sure this is exactly true, although I believe we must have a competitive workforce in terms of skills and labor rates.

But I completely agree with her on one thing -- the middle class of our country is in danger of disappearing, and it is the middle class which currently funds just about everything in our society. As the economies of the world begin to normalize, the equalibrium point is only a little higher for most countries, but way below the standards Americans have enjoyed for the past 50 years.

Finding an Old Friend in Philly

2007-05-16T07:50:00.000-05:00

I'm just back from a two-day 800 mile road trip to Philadelphia with pastor and friend Kevin Snyder. We were visiting his home church, First Baptist of Collingswood NJ to see if we could help them with some planning and organizing. On the morning of the second day, Kevin and his brother Jeff got up very early to get in a round of golf, and I decided to run back over into Philly. As we had crossed the Ben Franklin Bridge the evening before, I saw what looked to be a current vintage US Navy destroyer tied up to a pier, and hoped they were giving tours.

It turns out that the ship was the USS Winston Churchill (DDG-81). It had been in Philly for Navy Week, but sadly when I got there Tuesday morning, she had cast off and the pier was empty. So I thought I would just drive on down the waterfront and see what I could see at the Phildelphia Naval Yard, where there is a decent sized mothball fleet. Suddenly I saw the funnels (smokestacks for you landlubbers) of a large passenger ship. It was the SS United States!

I hadn't thought about this ship in years, but there was a time when I thought of it every day. When I was a kid, we had a model of the United States that was about three feet long, mounted on a stand. It was lit from the inside by a single white Christmas tree bulb. It sat on the chest of drawers, just a couple of feet from the foot of my bed and constantly visible from my upper bunk. The light was usually left on as a night light. Over the several years we lived in that place, I'm sure I looked over every feature of that ship a hundred times.

At some point, we moved and the ship didn't make the transition. I wonder what happened to it...

Anyway, it was a thrill to see the grand old ship again, even as a rusting hulk. The website says that it is now owned by Norwegian Cruise Lines, and they have plans to restore it to service. NCL did this once before, bringing a contemporary of the United States, the Isle de France, back to life as the SS Norway. The Norway sailed for many years. My mom sailed on her once, when cousin Cindy Swisher was the cruise director, and we saw the Norway once in Miami when we were sailing on another cruise ship. Today's mega cruise ships dwarfed what was once one of the largest ships in the world.

Unfortunately, the Norway suffered a boiler explosion a few years back. Few if any modern passenger ships are powered by high pressure steam turbines, and it sounds like a boiler room crew just made a mistake, which unfortunately cost them their lives. NCL has decided it wasn't worth repairing the ship. The rumor is that it sits off the coast of India waiting to be scrapped.

So I hope NCL does decide the bring the United States back in to service. I think I might make an effort to sail on her if she puts to sea again.

Good seeing you old girl.

Sharing America, Saving America

2007-05-02T15:23:00.000-05:00

An old friend sent me a link to a presentation about population growth and immigration. This point of this presentation is simple: American cannot allow immigration to continue at current levels and maintain our way of life.

Some would say this is an outrageously selfish viewpoint. America is a land of plenty, these people would say, and we have a moral responsibility to share the bounty with the rest of the world. While I understand that perspective, I doubt that there are many people who really want to practice it. I expect that the Great Depression would seem like a time of plenty compared an America after a sudden massive influx of immigrants.

The current population of the More Developed Countries (MDCs) is 1.2 billion, of which 300 million, or 25% live in the United States. The natural population growth rate of the MDCs is 775,000/yr (0.6%), but net immigration is nearly 2 million, half of which is coming into the United States.

The population of the rest of the world, the Less Developed Countries (LDCs), is 5.4 billion, with a natural growth rate of 77 mllion/yr. This is 1.4% annual growth, or 22 times the rate of the more developed nations. Net immigration in the LDCs is negative 2 million, as one would expect.

How many of those 77 million new people each year should be allowed to come to the United States? If we're taking half of all immigrants now, should we be taking 38 million or so new folks each year? This would increase our annual growth rate to 3.21%/yr, or 50-fold. Meanwhile, the growth rate for the rest of the world would be lowered only 50%.

Let's put that in perspective. This 38 million is about the same as the population of the entire state of California. Or New York and Pennsylvania put together. It is more than three times the population of Ohio. Per Year.

Can you imagine what America would be like if an influx of this magnitude were allowed?

One of the characteristics of MDCs is a stable population. For many reasons, family sizes are smaller in MDCs, to the point that some countries are projected to have negative growth. For example, Sweden's natural growth rate is projected to be -0.1% by 2025. Even China, after a few decades of purposeful population control, is projected to achieve a natural growth rate of 0.2% by 2025.

Meanwhile, the people of the LDCs continue to pump out kids. While women in the US bear on average 2.1 children and in China 1.7; in Somalia the average is 6.8 and the natural population growth rate is 2.9% per year.

The mission of America is to not let the rest of the world pull us down unto poverty. Rather, I believe it is our mission to practice some tough love. For a country to get our assistance, I believe it must show that it has taken the appropriate steps to bring its population under control. China figured out how to do it -- it just takes the willpower.

All population data is from the US Census Bureau International Database.

First Amendment for Christians too?

2007-04-30T10:42:00.001-05:00

The following is quoted from the website of the Association of College Unions International:

Ohio Union Smudging ceremony
On Jan. 30, the Ohio Union at The Ohio State University closed its doors for the last time, but not before faculty, staff, and students gathered in the main lounge for a smudging ceremony, facilitated by the Native American Indian Center of Central Ohio.
“Native American elders have taught that before something can be healed, it must be cleansed of negative energy and then purified with offerings of thanks,” said Heather McGinnis, assistant director of the union.
“The smudging ceremony was used as a way to purify the Ohio Union of negative energy as preparation is made for deconstruction of the current space and the future construction of the new building.”
During the ceremony, sage was burned to replace bad feelings with good ones and send up prayers with the smoke. A bowl containing sage was taken to each person and they fanned themselves with the smoke.
“Native American songs were sung during the entire ceremony. The audience was instructed to turn towards the different directions—north, south, east, west, sky, and ground,” McGinnis said. “A prayer of reflection was said and each person was given the opportunity to reflect on their own personal experiences in the building.” Around 200 people gathered to pay tribute to the union.
“Thanks to the Smudging Ceremony, the Ohio Union, empty as it may look, is now filled with positive energy and even more positive memories,” McGinnis said.

Where was the ACLU on this one? They made a point of protesting an event in which Christian groups wanted to bless a Columbus City school prior to the start of the school year. This event was to take place on Sunday, when school was not in session, but still the ACLU argued that it violated constitutional protections.

At Hilliard City Schools, Muslim students are permitted to leave class for prayer on the school grounds during Ramadan.

Why is it I am feeling oppressed?

First Amendment: Protection FROM Christianity

2007-04-26T13:42:00.000-05:00

The following story was published in Hilliard This Week, April 26, 2007:

Prayer in the schools became an issue recently when a resident questioned the "disruption" of it during a regular Hilliard school board meeting.

The only thing that surprised Darby High School Principal Dave Stewart about Jim Slubowski's concern that students were leaving the classroom in the middle of a teacher's presentation to pray was the timing. "It is during a very specific period of time," Stewart said, "at a very specific time of day."

Typically during Ramadan, he said, students who are of the Muslim faith, or believe in Islam, seek out a room at the school to pray.

"It's only during Ramadan," said Stewart.

Ramadan is the ninth month of the Moslem year and a time for 30 days of fasting as well as prayer.

"During that period of time for Muslim students, it is much more critical, according to their faith, that they pray at very specific times," Stewart said. "There is only one time during the school day that happens. This is not something that goes on on an ongoing basis all day long or all year long."

Ramadan was in the fall. Stewart was surprised to learn that Slubowski, a resident of Packard Drive, attended a meeting in March to voice concerns about the "disruption" in the classroom because of students leaving for prayer.

Michelle Wray, school-community relations coordinator, said the school district can neither encourage nor prevent prayer in school.

"I think a lot of people think that with the whole separation of church and state, that prayer isn't allowed in school," she said. "That is not the case. We can't endorse it, and we can't require it. We can't discriminate against anyone either, so we need to do what we can to make sure we are meeting the needs of students without disrupting the education of themselves and others."

Stewart said he has never had a request from anyone of the Christian-based faiths for prayer time, but schools in the United States are typically scheduled around the religious holidays of Christianity.

"With the Christian religion, you could be praying now, and I wouldn't know it," said Wray.

Students sometimes participate in "See You At The Pole," in which they gather at the flag pole to pray, but, Wray said, that is usually held before school starts for the day.

In the practice of Judaism, she said, students are granted absences to observe their religious holidays.

The litmus test, Stewart said, is based around the word disruptive.

"We do retain the right for a teacher to say, on a given day, that it would be disruptive," he said, referring to examinations or other presentations. "The Muslim students, that's the give and take, they understand that and respect it."

Slubowski said she is not sure what is taking place at the school.

"There is a lot of hearsay back and forth," he said. "That's why I am throwing this out to you and saying maybe we should look into this."

If the program is causing a material disruption of classroom procedures, Slubowski said, it should be ended.

Stepping out of the classroom for approximately five to 10 minutes of prayer, according to Stewart, is less disruptive than having to excuse students for an entire day. He said it is not uncommon for students to go in and out of the classrooms to use the restroom, go to the office, see guidance counselors or attend other functions.

The Ohio Association of Secondary School Administrators issued a legal note stating that students have the right to pray individually or in groups or to discuss their religious views with their peers as long as they are not disruptive.

An example used in the legal note is that students may not decide to pray as the teacher is calling on them.

"It is a minimal number of students who ask to leave for religious prayer," Wray said.
Fifteen to 20 students, both male and female, ask to leave the classroom to pray during Ramadan, said Stewart.

Once the obligation of prayer is fulfilled, he said, the students return to the classroom.
While Davidson High School probably has students ask to be excused, Wray said Darby has more Somalian students, many of whom are Muslim.

"Dave has worked with it more," she said. "I have never heard of a request at the elementary school."

A room at the school is not specifically designated as a prayer room. She said it is generally a space which offers some privacy for a brief period of time, before returning to its designated use.

--------------------------

There are just a whole bunch of undercurrents in this article:

Thinking the best of him, we might believe Mr. Slubowski was be expressing concern that his child is being impacted by having the Muslim students leave the room. Except that Mr. Slubowski lives in the Davidson HS attendance zone now, and will remain there after the new attendance zones are put into effect. One cannot imagine he's trying to stand up for the Somali students and say their education is being negatively impacted by the customs of Islam. Thinking not so generously, it could be that Mr. Slubowski is simply objecting to the Somali kids getting what he perceives to be 'special treatment.' I can see a little of that. After decades of having their faith suppressed in school and government settings, it may be valid for Christians to ask if everyone is getting the same deal.
The school officials defend their actions (which I think are reasonable by the way) by saying that they have never been asked by Christians for the same kind of latitude. I think the situation may be that the ACLU has been so aggressive in their war against religion (in particular Christianity) in public schools that no one thinks there's any a latitude at all. Read this article to get a sense of what I mean: the ACLU thought that having a Christian group come on the school grounds on the weekend was a violation of Constitutional protections. Why would any Christian think it was okay to do anything in regard to their faith during actual school hours?
Ms. Wray's comment that "With the Christian religion, you could be praying right now, and I wouldn't know it" was perhaps not the brightest thing that could have been said. I'm sure her meaning was that it is impossible for schools to ban all practice of religious customs because one can pray without others knowing it. But it sounds more offensive to me, because it could be taken to mean that it is okay to ban visible Christian acts because we have a slealth mode available as well.
I'm surprised that it is generally acceptable for students to get up and leave class. I'm sure things have changed since 1970 when I was in high school, when it was very very rare for a student to be pulled from class, or to be excused in the middle of class. I don't know how a teacher can be expected to complete a lesson if kids are coming and going as they please. Is it truly as common as the school officials would have you believe, or was did they give that answer just to head off further controversy?
The reporter noted that this is an issue at Darby HS and not so much Davidson HS. This will only add fuel to the conversation that Davidson is better than Darby somehow. I tend to think the opposite by the way. The Darby kids are going to benefit from their exposure to and interaction with other cultures. And if we're not careful, the Davidson kids will develop a sense of superiority and of permission to discriminate which will not serve our country and our world well going forward.

The community of the Hilliard City School District now numbers over 75,000, with 15,000 kids attending school. Hilliard will continue to grow more diverse in terms of ethnicity and religion. We can either embrace that, or watch another cycle of 'white flight' in which the white folks who can afford it move out.

That's just what the developers would like to see happen by the way...

Labor Unions: Solution or Problem?

2007-04-21T09:08:00.000-05:00

I ran across this posting on the blogsite of the Ohio Civil Service Employees Association, the union representing folks who work for various Ohio state agencies. The thrust of their post was a conclusion that Bob Bernanke, the Chairman of the Federal Reserve had suggested that the American economy is suffering because we don't have enough unionized workers filling the middle class -- as though increased unionization of workers would solve the problems of our economy.

America seems to have become a nation of special interests. We don't know how to work for the common good anymore. There is an association for every big and little group, and they spend all their time carving out narrow positions that benefit their members, regardless of the impact on the whole. This writer for the public workers' union has become so polarized with his union rhetoric that he could grab these few observations from Bernanke and turn it into a call to embrace unions as the solution to our problem. Here is my response:

I believe you may be putting words in Dr. Bernanke’s mouth.

Another way to look at his statements is as an indictment of the unions. The failure of the unions to do their part to keep the American manufacturing workforce employed has resulted in the shrinking of the working class to the point that it is comprised mostly of public employees who now enjoy some of the best wages and benefits in our economy.

I grew up in a manufacturing town where many workers were members of the Oil, Chemical and Atomic Workers Union. My father-in-law was employed by the largest company in the area, and he was a member of OCAW. Repeatedly through our life, the union went on strike for better wages and better benefits. Sometimes the strikes lasted many months. During one particularly long strike, the company simply moved a significant portion of its manufacturing operations to a non-union facility in Texas, never to return. Eventually the issues were resolved, and my father-in-law went back to work because he had enough seniority. But the jobs that had been relocated to Texas never returned, and the younger workers lost some of the best jobs they could ever have.

Unions have a role; I'm not anti-union. There is little question that had the unions not fought for worker safety and decent pay and benefits, our country would be worse off. Nor do I deny that I individually benefitted from growing up in a union town, where my Dad could make a comfortable wage and have excellent benefits.

There aren’t many middle-class manufacturing jobs left in my hometown. My father and my grandfather both had 40 year careers with the same employer, but nearly all the kids of my generation had to leave to find work. So now instead of a viable manufacturing economy, my hometown has rich folks (mostly bankers, lawyers and doctors), poor folks (both the African-Americans of the inner city and those living in rural poverty), and lots of unionized public employees and health workers in the middle class.

The key to prosperity in any economy is the ability to bring in money from outside the economic zone. A city prospers when its commercial entities can sell a product outside the city. Not only are people put to work, but the public facilities and public services can be funded by reasonably taxing revenues on the sales of good shipped outside the region. That revenue is money from outside the economic zone – Other People’s Money.

To sell products outside the economic zone, the prices have to be competitive. During the first thirty years following WWII, the US had a virtual monopoly on the combination of manufacturing capabilities, a skilled work force, and the capital needed to be a global supplier of manufactured goods. We could charge premium prices for our exported products and in turn pay premium wages to our workers.

But in the last twenty years, other countries have developed all these things as well, and their labor force is willing to work for a lot less than the prevailing wage here. We also got sloppy and let other countries take our product quality edge away as well. Consequently, most manufactured goods can be made overseas with both higher quality and lower cost.

So we have a choice to make: regain our competitiveness in terms of quality and cost, or continue to shrivel into a welfare state where the only people working are those employed by the government.

Welcome to the Soviet Union. That worked out well. One would argue that the most successful communist country ever, the People’s Republic of China, understands that full employment for its workers still means being competitive on the world market. The middle class in China and India may never have the material wealth of the Americans of today. But they are coming from such poverty that even a low-paying job creates a huge lift in economic status.

The Golden Age for the US is over unless we step up to the challenge of competing with the Chinese and the Indians. American labor unions can either help lead our country back to manufacturing competitiveness, or drag us to third world status. It’s either take the pain now, or leave the mess for our children.

Gun Control

2007-04-19T13:39:00.000-05:00

In the wake of the Virginia Tech massacre, the debate is once again raging about handgun control. Here's what I think on that topic:

The framers of the Constitution wanted to ensure that no government, at any level, could enslave the people. Exactly what kind of weaponry the people need at any given time to achieve that protection can be debated. Back in the 18th century, the King's soldiers were equipped with pretty much the same weapons available to any citizen: rifles, pistols, swords and horses.

Not so today. If the Governor orders the National Guard to roll into my town with tanks so he can force us to work in the license plate factory, then I'd like to have some RPGs, or at least a little C4 to rig an IED... all the stuff we gave Osama bin Laden to fight the Soviets.

I suppose the next best thing is a deer rifle with a good scope. I'd much rather pick off the oppressors from a distance.

Some of our troops are issued handguns, but rarely as a primary weapon (e.g. tank crewmen are issued pistols, but their primary weapons is, well, a tank). A handgun is useful only for close proximity fighting, with the primary objective being to put the other guy down before it comes to hand-to-hand combat.

Does the limited utility of a handgun in warfare mean that we can ban handguns and satisfy the protections intended by the 2nd Amendment? I'm not ready to go concede that point. I think that if I wanted to be prepared to go to war with a government that intends to enslave me, I'd like to have that handgun. After all, they get to use tanks, helicopters, mortars, assault rifles, heavy machine guns, grenade launchers and all kinds of stuff that are already banned from private ownership.

I can have a semi-automatic rifle, a semi-automatic shotgun and a handgun. Oh, and a crossbow. Doesn't seem like a fair fight. I'm going to have to fight dirty (like the Minutemen hiding in the trees vs the Redcoats), and so I'd like to keep the handgun.

And yes, the consequence is that bad things can happen when handguns are broadly available.

But lots of people are killed by cars, maybe more than are killed by guns. In fact, I was almost wiped out on my motorcycle last night when a girl talking on her cell phone made a left turn right into me, stopping only a few feet away from the collision. My personal experience is that a driver talking on a cell phone while driving is way more dangerous to me than someone with a handgun.

Yes, 33 people died in this one incident, and that's a tragedy. How many were killed yesterday by impaired drivers?

We don't even care anymore. It's not newsworthy.

School Vouchers & Economic Segregation

2007-04-07T10:25:00.000-05:00

I have watched my community be systematically harvested by residential developers and the politicians on their payroll, and a couple of years ago decided to do something about it. As a business executive, the first thing I wanted to understand was money flows -- where did money come from, and where was it going. It was only then that I understood the complex relationship between suburban development and school operations.

It comes down to this: the public school system has the authority to suck up money from the local taxpayers to build a school system which is has sufficient quality to attract more people to the community. That creates the demand for more houses, and the developers get rich. In fact, they get so rich that they spend a lot of money supporting the local politicians to make sure the developers are granted all the zoning and infrastructure support they need. Every anti-development politician in our community has been ridden out of town on a rail.

The trouble is that this is a Ponzi scheme. People build houses in our community because they love the schools, not knowing that their incremental tax contribution doesn't come close to paying the full cost of the demands they place on the school system. So the school board keeps coming back to the same taxpayers over and over to get more money to cover the funding shortage. Meanwhile the developers are getting richer all the time.

Having read and studied the proposed amendment language a couple of times, I'm quite sure that it will cost me more, and our school system will get less. The clue is one sentence in the amendment which says something like "no district will get more than it needs." I'm confident that it means districts like our will be capped, just as we are under the current budget.

If the stereotype is that right-wingers like big business and left-wingers like big government, then I’m as centrist as one can get. I think both are bad because all big entities seek self-preservation above all else, including their reason for existence.

My recommendation is to transform to a pure voucher system, where the money follows the kids. The vouchers are paid for by tax dollars, and every kid gets exactly the same dollar value assigned to their vouchers. Only accredited schools can turn in vouchers to the State for cash. To be an accredited school, the school must accept any student from Ohio, accept the voucher as 100% of tuition, and operate as a not-for-profit entity (ie no shareholders and no distribution of ‘profits’). The staff of the school must consist of licensed teachers, and the curriculum must meet the current state requirements. The kids must be able to pass whatever standardized testing is administered today. The State would have the responsibility of providing a transportation system which would take a kid from their home to any school within a reasonable distance at no cost.

I think we would end up with a combination of multi-building systems and individual boutique schools. Some would offer broad curricula and others would specialize. I envision the current school administrators running these schools (with some tune up of their business skills) under the supervision of a Board of Directors elected by the parents of the students who attend the schools.

I don’t understand why we give kids and parents a choice where to send their kids for post-secondary education, but not for primary and secondary education. Do we suddenly become better consumers of educational services when our kids graduate from high school? Why don’t we dictate where kids can go to college?

And finally, we have to recognize that public school systems in Ohio remain segregated, despite several decades of desegregation laws. But we do it in a more subtle and nefarious way than the days of explicit racial segregation. Our line today is: “anyone can attend our schools as long as you can afford to live in our neighborhood.” Consequently, the urban schools are poorer and less White than ever. Of the three largest districts in the state, Columbus, Cleveland and Cincinnati, the non-White population is 71%, 84% and 76% respectively. And they have among the largest per-pupil spending in the state. Blue Bexley did a beautiful analysis showing that there is no positive correlation between per-pupil spending and standardized test scores. Sending more money into these school systems won’t make the kids any less poor or the schools any less segregated. What we need to do is give those inner city kids a chance to attend the lily white suburban schools.

Sadly, as our own school district (Hilliard) has grown larger, the same kind of implicit segregation has crept into our community. While we are only a suburban district, our population is now over 75,000 and there are 15,000 kids in our schools. The affluent neighborhoods are in the northern part of the district and the multi-family and low-income housing is in the south. With 22 neighborhood school buildings, they are beginning to take on differing profiles that match the economic geography. With a third high school scheduled to come online in three years, our community is now engaged in a reassignment of neighborhoods to schools. Some, including me, want to use this opportunity to rebalance the demographics across the three buildings. Many, particularly those of the most affluent neighborhoods, want the attendance boundaries drawn simply on the basis of proximity. One person even got up and said that “those people” live in “those neighborhoods” because they want to! Like if a poor black family hit the Lotto they would say “hey, let’s stay here in the ghetto.”

If I wanted the state to spend more money on anything, it would be by creating affordable housing in the suburbs. I’m not talking about another generation of ‘The Projects’ but rather a community development policy which says that x% of any new housing development must be dedicated to affordable homes, interspersed through the whole development. Of course, this has zero chance of being implemented. Most of our suburban neighbors would gladly pay more and more taxes to make sure the poor blacks folks are kept in the ghettos where they belong. When we want to help the black folks, we’ll go to their community and work in the soup kitchens and homeless shelters. Then we’ll go back to our safe affluent neighborhoods, go into our big house with two cars in the garage, and set the alarm just in case we were followed.

We can’t keep feeding money into the same old system and expect it to get better. We need a new system. We need to let Americans – all Americans – do what they do best: Have a choice.

Schools: Natural Monopolies?

2007-03-19T13:33:00.000-05:00

Bad voucher ideas have given vouchers a bad name.

Monopolies are rarely a good thing. Economists have a concept of 'natural monopoly,' which refers to a situation where the cost of infrastructure is so great that once one entity stakes out the territory, there is no economic incentive for a competitor to build a parallel infrastructure. For example, once one company builds a natural gas distribution network through a city, no one else will bother. Generally, when such a natural monopoly exists, the government takes the role of regulator to protect the consumers. Hence the ICC and its offspring, the FCC, and all the state public utility commissions.

We used to think telephone networks were like this, which is why Congress granted AT&T monopoly status years ago. But technology changed (cable tv and cellular in particular) and now we have lots of choice in our local phone service -- at least if you live in a metro area.

We have a similar situation with the schools I think. Many believe school systems are a natural monopoly, but I don't think that's necessarily true. In a metro area, in Ohio at least, we typically have a poor urban core surrounded by a collection of wealthy suburbs. This is nothing more than new age segregation, just as surely as if there were "po' folks keep out" signs on the suburban town limits. I think one of two things should happen: a) all the metro area school districts should be merged and any kid in the district should be able to attend any school they want (transportation provided); or, b) every kid in the metro area is given a voucher worth the average per-student spending in the metro area, and that voucher can be used to pay 100% of the tuition in any school in any district in the area.

In the rural areas, the situation is different. Population density is too low to afford much in the way of choice. Land values are low as well. But there are two distinct situations here too. In the case of agricultural areas, there is a sustainable economy with high employment, but not a lot of wealth (land poor as they say). It is reasonable public policy, in my opinion, to make it worth being a farmer, and if that means subsidizing the schools, so be it.

But there are other rural areas which aren't farmland, such as southeastern Ohio. My family settled in Lawrence County in the 1790s (my gggggrandfather was a Revolutionary War veteran), and there are many generations of my family buried there. But there aren't so many of my relatives left there today. Just as my ancestors left Europe to seek a better economic climate, my generation bailed out of post-industrial Appalachia to find better places to raise our families. We should not subsidize the cost of living for families in places without a viable economy just because there are many who would rather take Welfare than move.

Therein lays the most difficult problem of all. How do you incent the parents to go find a better place to live, yet not punish the kids of the parents who are too stupid or lazy to move?

Sam Kinison once said we shouldn't be sending food to Ethiopia, we should be sending them U-Hauls.

Same idea.

Ohio Governor on Iraqi Immigrants

2007-02-20T09:39:00.000-05:00

Our newly elected Governor drew criticism this week when he said he didn't think any of the 7,000 Iraqi refugees President Bush plans to bring to the United States should be sent to Ohio. He has subsequently said he wishes he could retract his comments.

I wish he hadn't wimped out on this one. I'm hoping that Stickland will be an effective governor, and I've liked what I've seen up to this point. Ohio, and particularly Columbus, is already home to a substantial immigrant population, and it is straining our public assistance and school systems.

I watched a documentary recently about the effects of Somali immigrants on the little town of Lewiston, Maine (Columbus has one of the two largest Somali communities in the United States, along with Minneapolis). Lewiston once had a decent factory-based economy based primarily on the lumber industry. Today, Lewiston is struggling, with many of the sawmills shut down. On top of that comes a large population of Somalis who receive US government assistance, far in excess of the unemployed workers of Lewiston says the townspeople.

There, as is the case here, the Somalis are are well-organized, family-based Muslim community. They know how to reap the benefits of the government assistance programs, and the locals feel they are being pushed out of the way. It is breeding a troubling level of discord in this little town.

In another posting, I wrote about my concerns that the local Habitat for Humanity program seems to be yet another public assistance program which has been taken advantage of by the Somalis and other African immigrants. If you go by the house our group built last year for an west African family, you'll see two DishTV satellite antennas on the side of the house. This is the setup required by DishTV for a high-definition TV setup. I have to admit feeling taken advantage of.

So Governor Strickland -- please don't be sorry for your remarks. You said what I feel, and I suspect many others in Columbus would say. Our state has its own needy to care for, and our communities cannot take the stress of the concentrated and well-organized groups of immigrants right now. We're an old-economy state that needs its resources to make the transformation to the new economy. Let's welcome our Iraqi friends to areas where the new economy is already underway (e.g. Silicon Valley, Seattle, Florida).

The Big Wedding

2007-01-16T17:12:00.000-05:00

After nearly a year of planning, the wedding of our firstborn, Elizabeth, and Matt Schultz took place on Saturday January 13, 2007, in the presence of about 150 family members and friends.

It was a grand affair: ceremony at Mountview Baptist Church and reception at The Four Seasons - Columbus.

We'll be getting digital copies of the wedding pictures soon. For now, here's a few shots from the rehearsal.

More Thoughts on Iraq

2006-12-24T10:42:00.000-05:00

In response to http://jimblake-wv.blogspot.com/2005/07/national-will.html

Folks in our society have an expectation of immediate results in general. The first Gulf War fit very well in that regard -- over in 100 hours (if you don't count the months of logistics build up and the air prep). The problem is that lots of people, including our President, thought invading Iraq was the same kind of engagement as driving Iraqi troops out of Kuwait. We watched it on the news with live feeds, and thought it was over when the statues of Saddam Hussein were toppled.

Wrong. That was just the beginning.

Our military is not designed for engagements like Vietnam and Iraq. We train and equip our armed forces to engage uniformed forces who are holding territory. We believe victory occurs when the enemy government surrenders and ceases hostilies. Then we come in and help rebuild the country as a democracy. At least that's the WWII model.

This is a revolutionary war, where the good guys and the bad guys are both citizens of the same country. If one takes a close look at our own War of Independence through the eyes of the British, we never really defeated the British, we just fought on until the British nobility lost its will to continue. They went home (returning for the War of 1812), but we did not pursue them in an attempt to conquer the British homeland. We didn't even try to take Canada. Our victory was their loss of will. The Vietnamese communists had to feel very much the same way when we pulled out.

In Iraq, like Vietnam, we're letting the fighting drag on because we're letting the enemy keep their supply lines open. The fighting will never be over until we put a stop to that.

Here's the real shame: We are once again putting our young people in a position of deciding whether the person in their gunsight is a friendly or an enemy, knowing that a wrong decision will cause himself, his buddies, or an innocent person to die. How we can scar another generation this way?

Are we not fighting hard enough? Are we not bringing enough force to bear on the situation? We pretty much bombed Germany and Japan to rubble in WWII. Is that what we have to do to Iraq? I don't think the shooting will stop even if that happens.

Do we have to put a fence around Iraq so that the enemy can no longer be supplied? I think we must, or we have to get out before we sacrifice another wall full of our children.

We went into Iraq for trumped-up reasons, a half-assed plan and an ill-defined mission objective. How did we let that happen again?

Finding Lucho

2006-12-20T10:48:00.000-05:00

I was building a PhotoStory from some old pictures my Mom had, and was struggling to find some music to accompany the video. Mom was born in the Panama Canal Zone and lived there most of her young years. When we were kids, Mom loved to play records by a Panamanian organist named Lucho Azcarraga, and the sound of his music is deeply rooted in my psyche.

Sadly, Mom's old records are pretty much shot, and I don't have an operational turntable anymore besides. But you gotta love the web -- Lucho's granddaughter has a website where she sells CDs of his recordings, and I ordered one last night. Here is a sampling of his sound.

Can't wait for the CD to arrive.

Westward Ho: Day 12

2006-11-02T11:02:00.000-05:00

We rolled into our driveway last night at 6pm EST. Mission accomplished, and it's good to be home.

The day started out with a futile search to find a place on the Illinois side of the Mississippi to take a picture of downtown St Louis and the Gateway Arch. After a few minutes of wandering through industrial streets and poor neighborhoods, we came across a ramp back onto the freeway and decided to just get underway towards home.

Nothing special about today's drive: 428 miles in 7:48 of drive time at an average of 62.8mph. Familiar vistas to those of us who live in this part of the country: farm fields and orange barrels.

TOTAL FOR THE TRIP: 5,413 miles and just short of 100 hours of drive time.

The inventory of states we visited:

Indiana
Illinois
Iowa
Minnesota
South Dakota
North Dakota
Montana
Wyoming
Utah
Colorado
New Mexico
Texas
Oklahoma
Missouri

The high point of the trip for me was the visit into Yellowstone National Park, but I enjoyed all of it. A map of the whole route we took is attached below.

As we entered into western Ohio, Terry commented that she never would think of the farms around here as 'big fields.' Once you've seen the vast open farmland of Texas, most of the farms in this part of the country look quaint.

We enjoy this kind of traveling. There were times when I thought that buying a motorhome and touring the country would be a grand thing. But I don't think the economics make sense. You start with the purchase price of the motorhome itself, and it's not unusual to spend $100,000 or more for that (I worked with a guy who had a $300,000 motorhome!). Then you have the maintenance and upkeep, which is a mixture of owning another vehicle and another house. During all those days when you aren't using your motorhome, you need to have a place to store it. Once you get on the road, you've got this big beast that consumes large amounts of increasingly expensive fuel. And it would seem that you are a bit limited as to the roads you can take.

Compare that with traveling in our Suburban: it's my everyday vehicle, so no additional capital cost. Admittedly, it gets pretty poor mileage (maybe 15mpg in typical driving), but I don't put that many miles on it around town -- especially in the summer when the Harley is the prefered mode of transportation. I really like having a vehicle that is reliable, big enough to haul stuff, 4WD so we can get around in snow or to places off the beaten path, and frankly old enough that I don't get wound up about a few dings and scratches.

Beyond the capital costs, when you are on the road with a motorhome, you still need to find a place to park and hook up to utilities. I don't have a sense what this costs, but it certainly isn't free. The notion that you can just pull off the road anywhere you please and set up camp is not quite true. Although most motorhomes have holding tanks for potable water and wastewater, onboard generators for electricity, and LP gas storage for heating and cooking, the fuel for the generator and the LP gas aren't free.

So we stayed 11 nights in hotels at a total costs of under $1,000. Breakfast was free every morning, and many times we made our own picnic lunch from items we bought at supermarkets and kept in the cooler (ice obtained free from the hotel). We had a nice dinner every night, making our total food costs under $400.

When we crossed the high passes in the snow around Yellowstone, we had the security of 4WD whenever we needed it, and could pull off anywhere to admire the scenery and take pictures.

The nice thing is that when got home, we just pulled the Suburban into the garage and our vacation expenses ended. Would we buy another Suburban if this one wears out (nearly 200,000 miles now!)? Probably not -- the Suburban is a little larger than we need. But we might consider a Yukon or a TrailBlazer or something of that ilk.

So we've made our trip to New England, and a grand tour of the Great Plains and the Rockies. We've been around a good deal of the Southeast, including last year's trip to south Florida. We've driven the Pacific Coast Highway from San Francisco to San Diego. Next July, we'll be taking a cruise to Alaska with several friends (and I'll complete my quest to visit all 50 states). And yes, we've seen the Grand Canyon.

I'm not saying that we've seen everything in America, but we've seen a lot. At the moment, I have no compelling need to go anyplace except places to hang out with the family (see my rant about touristy places). I'm looking forward to our planned trip to the Myrtle Beach area with the extended family next June.

PL

Westward Ho: Day 11

2006-10-31T11:10:00.000-05:00

This was a day of hard driving, as we covered the 501 miles from Oklahoma City to St Louis in a little over 7 hours. It was 100% interstate driving through country that felt familiar -- hardwood forests, green fields, rolling hills. We've gotten spoiled by the 75mph interstate speed limits in the western states (heck, the speed limit on their 2 lane roads is 65mph!), so we know the 65mph interstate limit in Ohio is going to make those last miles home really drag out.

We ended the day visiting with Terry, Christina and Zack Shields, including dinner at a great little Italian place they took us to in their neighborhood (The Hill). The Shields are great folks, and we pray that the burden of Zack's illness is lifted from all of them soon.

Home tomorrow....

Westward Ho: Day 10

2006-10-30T11:13:00.000-05:00

Today was a long day on the road as we made our way from Santa Fe to Oklahoma City. By the time we checked in to our hotel, we had traveled 539 miles in 8.5 hours of seat time.

The oldest church in the United States is in Santa Fe, and Terry suggested that we make it our first stop. It is a beautiful and historic building in the central plaza of the city, and well worth the visit. In the eastern part of the United States, the American history we learn in school is very much focused on the relationship between the English colonists and the English government, with some mention of the French and Spanish. When you travel the western part of the country, we are reminded that while the English and French settlers were struggling to survive in New England, the Spaniards had already established colonial capitals in the west. This church in Santa Fe was built nearly 400 years ago when Santa Fe was first settled.

The capitol building for the State of New Mexico is the furthest thing from the domed Greek themed building found in many of the eastern states. The New Mexico capitol is an adobe two story building constructed in the shape of the sun symbol on the New Mexico flag. The old narrow streets around the capitol are remarkably free of traffic, as is the whole plaza area. There are no tall buildings in Santa Fe, and most are in keeping with the pueblo style. All in all, Santa Fe seems like a very laid back city. It might be a great place to live.

From Santa Fe, we took US285 due south to catch I-40 eastbound, on which we traveled for the rest the day. In New Mexico, I-40 cuts through ranch country and small canyons. Soon after crossing into Texas, the terrain completely flattened out and it seemed like we could see 20 miles in all directions. While there are plenty of ranches in the area, we began seeing some row crops, notably cotton. I know Montana is called Big Sky Country, but we've never been anywhere where you have a largely unobscured level horizon for 360 degrees around you. Somewhere soon after entering Texas, we stopped at what must be one of the nicest public rest areas in America. At Groom TX, we saw the giant 190ft tall Cross as well as the Leaning Water Tower.

Crossing into Oklahoma, the terrain became a little more rolling. We came across yet another collection of maybe fifty wind generators spread across a hilltop west of Oklahoma City. We have been impressed at the amount of wind power farms we've seen in practically every state on this trip.

Now that we're back on standard time, sundown is at 5:45pm, and we were treated to a great sunset, albeit in the rear view mirrors. We had a nice Italian dinner and are relaxing in our room for the evening.

Westward Ho: Day 9

2006-10-29T11:37:00.000-05:00

This was another driving day. We headed due east out of Durango on US160, enjoying the classic Colorado vistas of snowcapped peaks and evergreen forests. At Pagosa Springs, we turned south on US84 crossing into New Mexico in the backcountry where we watched some ranch hands load cattle onto trucks.

We were suprised at the altitude of the pass we crossed, which reached over 10,000 ft for a stretch. We weren't up there for long, but the effects of the altitude were definitely felt.

In New Mexico, we broke out into the broad Rio Grande valley. At the center of the valley the river runs through a very scenic gorge. We crossed the gorge once, then soon afterward the highway dropped into the gorge for some great views.

On US64, east of US285, we noticed a number of little houses -- shacks really -- that I thought must be the homes of some truly independent people. None of them seem to have any outside utilities. Then just before reaching Taos, we came across a wild set of houses. They had the kind of whimsy in their design that I enjoy about French movies (e.g. Fifth Element). It turns out that they were homes designed and built by an outfit called Earthship Biotecture. You can even rent some of them for a night.

We didn't stop in Taos as it was Sunday and there were lots of folks there enjoying the bright warm day. On the way from Taos to Santa Fe, the access road to Los Alamos branches off to the west. The Los Alamos National Laboratory is where the Manhattan Project got started, and I felt compelled to make the drive over the to see what we could see. To my delight, the Bradbury (not Ray) Museum was open, and we stopped for a few minutes to check out the exhibits. Neither of us realized that LANL is involved in biomedical research in additional to their primary mission of managing the health of our nuclear stockpile.

We completed the day with an easy cruise into Santa Fe. After a fine Mexican dinner, we retired to our room at the Hampton Inn and crashed. Mileage today was 444, trip total now 3,817.

Westward Ho: Day 8

2006-10-28T11:59:00.000-05:00

No stops were planned for today -- our objective was simply to drive from Provo UT to Durango CO and take in the countryside.

After restocking our provisions and taking on gas, we headed east from Provo on US6, which follows the pass also taken by the railroad. I took a wrong turn at the US191 intersection, and we ended up enjoying a side trip to Duchesne UT over a very scenic route through the Ashley National Forest. It has always been interesting to us how the colors change as you move about this part of the country. As soon as we got on the east side of the Wasatch mountains, the colors turned from the browns of the Salt Lake Valley to the reds of much of Utah. But once we got into this high country, things became gray and green.

After backtracking back to US191 south, we came to the town of Helper. Railroad enthusiasts know that 'helpers' are one or more locomotives added to the end of a train to help push the train up a mountain. The helpers usually stay at the base of the mountain, hooking up to the train before it begins the climb. Once the train reaches the top, the helpers disconnect and return to the bottom to assist the next train. I wonder if Helper UT got its name because it was the place the helpers stood by while waiting for trains.

After a short blast eastbound on I-70, we jumped back onto US191 to south. The intersection of I-70 and US-191 is a high point with a rest stop where we took most of the pictures attached. I found myself humming 'I can see for miles and miles, I can see for miles and miles' by The Who.

We retraced (in the opposite direction) the route of a trip we took with the kids about fifteen years ago, passing Arches National Park, Monticello UT and Mesa Verde in Colorado. We settled into the Hampton Inn at Durango CO and had a great meal in a little place almost across the street.

Mileage today was 444 in 8 hours of drive time. Tomorrow we're off to Taos and Santa Fe New Mexico.

By the way, we have now officially started the return leg of our trip...

Westward Ho: Day 7

2006-10-27T12:05:00.000-05:00

The AmeriTel hotel in Pocatello Idaho was a great place to stay, and we woke to a clear cool morning. After a quick breakfast, we jumped on I-15 and headed south with great views of the Wasatch mountains to on both sides.

Our only planned stop was Promontory Summit UT at the site of the driving of the Golden Spike marking the completion of the transcontinental railroad. While the short movie was informative, if you really want to know about the great endevour, I recommend Nothing Like it in the World by Stephen Ambrose.

On the way back to the freeway, we encountered the ATK Rocket Motors complex. Like the Idaho National Laboratory we passed through yesterday, this is one of those places where very advanced research and engineering takes place -- stuff that would seem like science fiction to most of us. Like INL, what goes on in there is just a bit dangerous, hence the remote location.

After several days in the backcountry, running into a Salt Lake City traffic jam was shocking return to the urban world, including smog (we assume that's what the haze is). We jumped off the Interstate at Temple Square and spent a few minutes admiring the beautiful grounds of the Mormon Temple and the Tabernacle. I have been to Salt Lake City a number of times on business, but have never really seen the Great Salt Lake. If you drive through the city on I-15, you never see the lake. So we found a street that headed west, and kept going until we reached the lake shore.

From there, we fought the Friday evening rush hour traffic all the way from Salt Lake City to Provo, and checked into our hotel. I was happy to find an email from my cousin Diane Hirsh Pennington, who was in Salt Lake City with her husband Gene. Diane's daughter Julie recently gave birth to her fourth child, and Diane and Gene came out to help. We connected up at our hotel, and had a great visit.

Tomorrow we head across eastern Utah, with our planned destination being Durango CO.

Trip odometer: 290 miles in 5.5 hours of drive time. Total mileage now 3,057

Westward Ho: Day 6

2006-10-26T12:17:00.000-05:00

We woke to a beautiful clear and cold morning (14F) morning in West Yellowstone, MT. Our first stop was to head back into the park to watch Old Faithful. There were very few folks around, so we got to drive the Suburban right up to the entry way of the Old Faithful Inn and wait for the next eruption. The geyser came through in only 30 mins or so, and it was a good show.

For anyone who wants to visit Yellowstone, we whole-heartedly recommend coming in the Fall, near the end of the season. Kids are in school and it seems that few folks make the trek to the park once all the main facilities close. I abhor the crowds at popular tourist destinations, especially something like Yellowstone where the remoteness and solitude is a big part of the attraction (to me at least). We could just imagine the park in mid-July, teeming with people all getting in each other's way at every scenic view and every encounter with the animals. Most of the time, we couldn't tell there was any other humans in the park.

After the 30min drive back out of the park, we gassed up and headed for the Craters of the Moon National Monument in Arco Idaho. This is a beautiful drive on mostly level high plain (about 5,000ft) with a great view of the Grand Tetons to the east. Along the way, we passed through Idaho Falls.

On US20 to Arco, we passed through the vast (900 square mile) Idaho National Laboratory, operated by Battelle for the Department of Energy. The first reactor used to demonstrate the generation of electricity for residential power, the EBR-1, is now open for tours, but closes after Labor Day. I would have enjoyed seeing this site. INL is still a big part of America's nuclear energy program, employing 8,000 people. Their public mission is to do research on reactor designs and fuels. I have no doubt that there's a fair amount of classified military stuff going on in there too.

I hate to say it, but the Craters monument was interesting, yet not worth the drive. We expected something we had never seen before, but it was really much like the lava fields on the Big Island of Hawaii. After we left, I realized that I hadn't even taken any pictures.

We've settled for the night in a very nice hotel called the AmeriTel in Pocatello ID after 381 miles and 7 hours of driving time. Tomorrow we'll head into Utah for what we expect is a short day.

Westward Ho, Day 5: Yellowstone

2006-10-25T12:25:00.000-05:00

Today started off at the crack of dawn in Miles City, MT with the goal of reaching Yellowstone. We knew it was supposed to snow in the mountains, but hoped that we could get through the park on the main roads. We made the 250 miles to Cody WY by late morning, only to find out that the east entrance to Yellowstone was closed due to the morning snowfall. So we backtracked 80 miles to a scenic route through the Crandall Ranch and over the Beartooth Highway to the Northeast entrance. While the fog obscured most of the view, we could tell that this drive would have spectacular vistas. I'd like to ride it on a motorcycle sometime.

We spent the rest of the afternoon traversing the nearly 100 miles across the northern part of the park. We saw multitudes of buffalo, many elk, and even had a pair of wolves cross the road in front of us. At most times, it seemed like we had the whole park to ourselves, as we only occasionally ran into other people. One of those enounters was very odd however.

On Monday morning, two days ago, as we were getting ready to leave our hotel in Ladoka SD, we ran into a couple from Lancaster OH who was also traveling west on a sightseeing vacation. Lancaster is a town about an hour southeast of Columbus, so they were practically next door neighbors. We bid each other safe journeys and went on our way.

Today, as we were just about leave Yellowstone, we decided at the spur of the moment to follow a sign directing us a quarter mile off the road to a geyser field. As we circled the parking lot, I saw a red pickup with Ohio plates -- it was the same couple we had talked to in Ladoka!! I'm sure we both made dozens of little choices along the way, including the fact that they entered Yellowstone from the west portal and we entered from the northeast. How we ended up in exactly the same obscure location in a park covering 3,500 square miles, at the same instant after two days of travel is one of the great mysteries of the universe...

Total distance covered today was 459 miles in 9 hours of seat time. Total miles now are 2,386.

We had dinner tonight in a place in West Yellowstone MT called Bullwinkles. It's probably been here for decades. I had an elk burger and a local beer called Moose Drool. Terry tried a beer called Trout Slayer. We've crashed for the night at the Yellowstone Lodge Motel, and plan to head into Yellowstone in the morning to see Old Faithful. From there, we'll head into Idaho and see how far we get...

Westward Ho, Day 4: North Dakota & Montana

2006-10-24T12:38:00.000-05:00

Today was another LONG day in the saddle: 496 miles in 8 hours. So far our journey has covered 1,927 miles, and we're just getting started.

We begain today in Custer SD, driving west to Newcastle WY on Route 16. There was still much evidence of the forest fire that was ignited by a severe thunderstorm just as we entered Rapid City on our motorcycle trip in 2001. In fact, the area was mostly obscured by smoke in 2001, so this was the first view I've had of the devastation.

From Newcastle, we ran up to Devil's Tower (you know, from Close Encounters?). We stopped and visited a little while with the prarie dogs at the base of the mountain.

By way of Hulett and Belle Fourche, we got back on US85 and headed toward North Dakota. Neither of us anticipated the miles and miles of open range all around us for most of the day. While western South Dakota is heavily forested, North Dakota and Eastern Montana is barren and mostly treeless.

Our stop tonight is in Miles City MT, right on I-90. The hotel shares a parking lot with a Chinese place, and the food was good.

We went back to the hotel to map out tomorrow, and I thought I would take one more look at what we might do around Yellowstone. Before we left Columbus, I checked out the Yellowstone website, and it said the roads would be closed to wheeled vehicles on Oct 15. Too bad, I thought, we'd be there a week late to get in. Well, tonight the website said the roads would be closing on Nov 5th. Great news! We've made reservations at a hotel right outside the west entrance, and tomorrow will be hustling down as quickly as possible.

A personal note: with today's journey, I have passed through two of the remain three states (North Dakota and Montana) on my goal of visiting all 50 states. The only one remaining is Alaska!

Westward Ho, Day 3: Badlands and Custer

2006-10-23T12:54:00.000-05:00

We traversed 256 miles today, most of it was inside Custer State Park, south of Rapid City SD. I had been in this part of the country in August 2001 with the Motorsports Harley Owners Group, but it was brutally hot, and for much of trip through the area, I was following a leader (and as the saying goes, if you're not the lead dog, the view never changes). We saw much more today.

We left our 1950s motel in Ladoka and stopped in a 1950s diner just up the street for breakfast (great meal). It was short drive to the Badlands National Park, which alone was worth the trip. We were virtually alone in the park, and could stop pretty much any place we wanted to just gawk at the beauty of this place.

Then we highballed into Rapid City and made the short drive to Mt Rushmore. Terry had long talked about wanting to visit there, and said it more than met her expectations.

Next was a drive over Iron Mountain Road in Custer State Park. Lots of curves and great scenery. Since it was getting to be mid-afternoon, we decided to run into Custer to reserve our room, and make the run up to the Crazy Horse Memorial.

With an hour or so left until sundown, we decided to go back into Custer State Park and drive down the Needles Highway. We still had some daylight left, so we drove around the Wildlife Loop, where we ran into multitudes of deer, turkeys, donkeys, and of course, buffalo.

Dinner was in a great little steak and ale house in Custer called The Bank, which was located into a building that was constructed in 1820 as the First National Bank of Dakota Territory. I had buffalo -- what else.

Our hotel is the Super 8 in Custer, a clean modern place, and one of the few open this time of the year.

Westward Ho, Day 2: Cedar Rapids to Badlands

2006-10-22T13:16:00.000-05:00

With the time zone change and our tendency to wake pretty early, we were up in our hotel in Cedar Rapids IA by 6am, and out the door by eight. It's a good thing because today was all about miles. We pulled into our hotel about 7pm local time (MDT) after running 621 miles in 9.5 hours, for an average speed of 66mph (the speed limit on South Dakota interstate highways is 75mph).

When building the route (in Microsoft Streets & Trips 2006), I hadn't realized that we would be spending so much time in southwestern Minnesota. Until we crossed into South Dakota, the landscape remained vast vistas of cornfields, most which were being harvested in the bright cool sunlight. We were surprised with the number of large-scale wind generators, including a complex of approximately 100 units.

We stopped for lunch at a Subway in Blue Earth, MN, and were treated with a statue of the Jolly Green Giant.

As soon as we crossed into South Dakota the terrain shifted to rolling hills and more grassland than row crops. Dinner was in the GTO Diner in Murdo just as the sun was setting. There was a dusting of snow in the grass, and the news reported several inches on snow in Black Hills. Tomorrow is supposed to be around 50, although we're expecting lower temperatures in the higher elevations.

In Mitchell SD, we took a brief side trip to see the Corn Palace.

Our hotel, the Best Western in Kadoka SD is a throwback to the 1950s. It's a long one-story building with parking spots right in front of each room. The rooms have screen doors and a porch complete with lawn furniture so you can visit with the neighbors. I don't think anyone had stayed in this room for a while judging by the musty smell. Thankfully it cleared when we got the heater fired up. However, whenever the fan comes on, it blows the curtains open. Fortunately I had three vice-grip pliers in my toolbag which I clamped onto the curtains to weigh them down and hold them together. Anyone ever watch "My Name is Earl"? ....

Westward Ho, Day 1: Columbus to Cedar Rapids

2006-10-21T13:27:00.000-05:00

We packed up the truck and got underway about 11am, about two hours later than plan (my fault). Today's route was simple: I-70 to Indianapolis (we drove by the Speedway), then I-74 to Davenport IA. From there we traveled I-80 to Iowa City, and I-380 to Cedar Rapids.

Lunch was a quick stop at McDonald's near Dayton, and dinner was at a Crackerbarrel in Morton IL, on the outskirts of Peoria. It started raining right after we got back in the truck after dinner (about 6pm), and rained all the way to Cedar Rapids, where it is 33degF. It's supposed to snow a little here tonight, but warm up to the 40s or 50s tomorrow.

We crashed for the night at a Hampton Inn in Cedar Rapids, arriving about 8pm local (CDT). No pictures to post. Imagine cornfields. We crossed the Mississippi in the dark unfortunately. We'll cross it again on the return.

Total travel distance today 554 miles in 10hr 11min at an average speed of 54mph. The truck consumed about 34 gals, yielding about 16mpg. I didn't get an accurate measurement because the gas station had their pumps set to shut off at $75.00, which is annoying when you're paying with a credit card (i.e. I can't run off without paying).

At least gas prices are "reasonable" out here -- about $2.15 for 87 octane at a Phillips 66 station in Cedar Rapids. Oddly, the 89 was cheaper, about $2.05, but it was an ethanol blend, and I wasn't going to experiment.

The plan for tomorrow is another long haul, from Cedar Rapids to Murdo SD.

PL

Evolution: Superbugs

2006-09-14T13:32:00.001-05:00

Superbugs a growing threat to hospital patients

CTV.ca News Staff Updated: Wed. Sep. 13 2006 11:32 PM ET

Superbugs are a growing threat in Canadian hospitals, and better medication and infection controls are needed, a new study suggests.

The number of one powerful bacteria strain's resistance to antibiotics has jumped dramatically: From five-to-15 per cent to 20-to-50 per cent. That's a significant increase from previous estimates, according to the report by the Canadian National Intensive Care Unit.

Researchers examined 4,180 specimens from patients in 19 intensive care units across Canada. The resistance figures pertain to the most common virulent strain of bacteria, methicillin-resistant Staphylococcus aureus (MRSA), which is a major cause of hospital-acquired wound and skin infections. Scientists also found an increase in the resistance of vancomycin-resistant enterococci (VRE) and E. coli, with levels at 6.8 per cent and 4.7 per cent, respectively.
"The stark reality in this country today is the MRSA and other drug-resistant bacteria are posing a serious threat to our ICUs," primary investigator Dr. George Zhanel, a professor at the University of Manitoba, said in a news release. "People infected with these superbugs are more likely to have longer hospital stays and require multiple drug treatments to fight them off.
And even then, it's often too little, too late.” About 8,500 Canadians die each year from complications arising from infections acquired in hospitals, according to the Community and Hospital Infection Control Association. Zhanel says stronger infection control measures are needed to limit the impact of the superbugs. Strict compliance from patients for less complicated infections is also vital, he said.

Another disturbing trend found by researchers is the increase of MRSA acquired in the community, not in the hospital setting. The strains were found among athletes, soldiers and intravenous drug users, the study showed. At least seven cases of the community-acquired strains, usually found in drug users and First Nations communities, are currently being treated across the country, the report said. "In Canada, sporadic cases (of the strains) have started to appear over the last decade," said Dr. Tony Mazzulli, a University of Toronto professor and medical microbiologist and infectious diseases specialist. "They tend to involve different strains and different antibiotic resistance profiles than hospital-acquired infections."

© Copyright 2006 CTV Inc.

Above all, Gospels tell of God’s love

2006-09-09T13:50:00.000-05:00

I really liked this article, and hope the Dispatch doesn't mind that I've saved it...

COMMENTARY
Above all, Gospels tell of God’s love
Friday, September 08, 2006
STEPHEN SMITH

I remember once asking a parishioner about his vision of God. "Who or what do you envision God to be?" I asked.
He replied by telling me that he thought of God as the one who keeps track of our rights and wrongs. We are punished for our wrongs by the consequences of our actions, and rewarded for our goodness. And God is always trying to steer us toward the good.
I agreed with his last statement but challenged the rest, saying: "You make God sound like a giant traffic cop in the sky. Where’s the good news in that? "
What happened to the Gospel, which is literally translated "Good News?" I always thought Christianity was meant to be defined by the Gospel. And what is that good news? That God loved the world so much he sent his only Son so that all who trust in him may have eternal life (John 3:16).
I do not remember the New Testament telling me that God sent his Son in order to be sure we always did right, or to keep track of all our deeds. In fact, much of Christian theology assumes that God sent his message of love through his Son because we humans were so often incapable of doing the right and the good.
In recent years, Christianity seems obsessed with right and wrong. As the religion injects itself into the public debate, it does so around hot-button issues like abortion and sexuality, and around party politics.
Increasingly, Christianity seems to be identified with being "right" on the issues or voting for the "right" party. As Christian leaders join the political discourse, they often sound just like politicians: attacking the other side (rather than loving our enemies as Jesus commanded) and giving the spin to a position (rather than speaking the truth in love).
Such public discourse divides people into groups of those who are right and those who are wrong. It also influences the way we envision God, turning the Deity into a bean counter. Where’s the Good News in that?
Early Christianity grew because of its strong message of love. In the dehumanizing world of the Roman Empire, the outcasts heard good news. Slaves heard that God loved them, even if they had no power or standing in society. In the church, slaves became brothers and sisters with those who were not slaves, and were called children of the God of the universe. A woman, living in a maledominated culture, where a husband or boyfriend could legally demand that she have an abortion, found herself treated as an equal to a man. The poor found dignity because they realized they were loved by God just as much as the rich. It was good news.
Christianity was not obsessed in those days with being "right." Rather, it was obsessed with sharing the love of God with all who needed it. And then, the church watched in awe and wonder as that love transformed lives. It was good news.
We live in a modern, dehumanizing world, where we allow ourselves to be defined more and more by our productivity, consumerism and accomplishments. I have found very few people who get up each morning fully aware of Christianity’s great proclamation that God loves them and each and every one us very much. And now the Christian Church fails to proclaim this, its own, most basic message, and instead joins in political bickering. Where’s the love? Whatever happened to the Gospel?
The Rev. Stephen Smith is rector of St. Patrick’s Episcopal Church, Dublin, and a member of We Believe Ohio, a group that unites diverse religious voices for social justice.
revd.up@ameritech.net
Copyright © 2006, The Columbus Dispatch

New Orleans: Who is to Blame?

2006-09-04T20:26:00.000-05:00

For purposes of this discussion, I'm going to divide the people of New Orleans into these groups:

Group A: You heard the warnings to get out, and got out. Good for you. You may have lost property, but you exercised good judgement and consequently are not part of the current problem. Thank you.

Group B: You heard the warning, and chose to stay either out of stubborness, or to protect your property, which was lost anyway. Your stubborness has needlessly added to the rescue effort. You're at the end of the help line as far as I'm concerned.

Group C: You wanted to get out, and had the means to get out, but felt you needed to stay to protect loved ones who were unable to get out. Your willingness to sacrifice yourself was noble. Some folks will say that you just added to the number of victims (one of the arguments for NOT jumping into save a drowning victim unless you are trained). I won't be that harsh, because I'm sure I couldn't leave an invalid parent behind if I couldn't get them out.

Group D: You wanted to get out, but didn't have the means. These are the people we failed.

So the specific question: Who should have been taking care of Group D?

US Army Corps of Engineers: I hope the Corps of Engineers gave an adequate appraisal of the risk of the levies failing. It seemed to me that the civilian authorities were most worried about a storm surge coming over the levies. That would have been bad, flooding a great deal of the city. But the presumption would be that once new water stopped coming into the city, the pumps could begin getting it back out immediately. By now (a week later), the water level would be much lower.A complete failure of the levies is clearly much worse. Not only does the water rise to the highest possible level, it's going to stay there until the levies are repaired and a great deal of water is pumped out. It just doesn't seem like anyone considered this possibility...

The Mayor of New Orleans: The Mayor has been making a lot of noise, emphasizing his words with profanity presumably to show the people how mad he is. However, it seems to me that no government official should have been more acutely aware of the potential risks and therefore have taken precautionary steps. It seems like it would have been entirely within his power to commandeer the Superdome before the storm and get it stocked with all the supplies needed to handle a worst-case-scenario, which is pretty much what happened. New Orleans has been threatened with this kind of catastrophic flooding for decades. Why didn't this mayor or any of his predecessors take the initiative to get a disaster plan put together? He could have been on the news a year ago saying: "I want to prepare for a total flood out that traps tens of thousands of people in the city. I can't do it alone -- the state government and FEMA needs to help." I would rather hear him bitch about not getting help in making a plan than point fingers after the disaster takes place.

The Governor of Louisiana: Like the Mayor, she could taken some initiative to prepare for a disaster of this magniture. She has lots more resources than the Mayor, including the Louisiana National Guard. The plan should have been drawn up years ago, and activated in stages as the probability of the storm hitting went up. She could have helped provide resources for the evacuation of the folks in Group D. She could have had Louisiana National Guard bases prepared to be temporary shelters for evacuees. She could have worked deals with governors of other states to lend resources (e.g. National Guard and police units) and evacuation sites.

The Federal Government: Gee, back in the Cold War days, these guys drew up a zillion plans for going to war with the Soviets, and ran enormously expensive war games to try out elements of those plans. Someone, the Corps of Engineers, FEMA, the Pentagon -- someone could have drawn up those plans and mobilized thousands of troops to be ready.

Hopefully we learned some lessons with this disaster. New Orleans is not the only city which can be impacted this way. What about the Big Earthquake on the west coast? Can't say we don't have warning. How about a tornado that finally rips through a big city, like Columbus OH where I live? What if the terrorists had loaded the airliners with nuclear waste before crashing into to the World Trade Center and the Pentagon?

When I was a kid, the entire country had made preparations for a nuclear war with the Soviets. The military had its bunkers in Cheyenne Mountain (and maybe deep under the Pentagon). The Congress was going to bail out to the Greenbriar (those guys are no fools). The President and Cabinet would go to Mount Weather. The rest of us were told to build fallout shelters in our basement and stock them. In the cities, every building had signs posted directing people to the public fallout shelters.

Seems like it is worth it to apply similar effort to preparing for city sized disasters. We know what is needed. Let's not get lazy again.

Mr Mayor: If you want to be a real leader, be a man and admit that you could have done more to prepare your city. Then volunteer to run a federal commission that oversees the development of a plan in cooperation with the state and local governments of our largest cities.

Mayors of other major cities: Use this as a lesson and TAKE RESPONSIBILTY FOR MAKING A PLAN.

FEMA: This is your job, and you blew it. Heads should roll.

Mr President: Put LtGen Honore in charge of FEMA. Make it a 4 star CINC command under the DoD. They're the only guys with the resources, leadership and organization to run something of this magnitude.

Citizens: When the man says "Get Out!" - LISTEN!!

Funerals and Connections

2006-09-02T13:54:00.000-05:00

My Dad, Ted Lambert, passed away on August 20, 2006. He was 83 years old, living independently in his own home (Mom died in 1991), and in full control of his intellect. While he had suffered many years with chronic health problems, and was in the hospital for treatment of an acute episode, his death came suddenly and unexpectedly. You are invited to visit our family website to learn more about Dad and our family.

Certainly there are tragedies in our lives, such as when death comes at a young age. But death is inevitable, and I find that while I mourn the ending of an earthly relationship, I am also able to find joy in the 'gathering of the clan' which happens around a funeral.

Our family has always been a little far-flung. Terry and I have lived in Columbus our entire adult lives, and have raised our kids here, a four hour's drive from our parents. My brother Jeff and Terry's sister Elaine also came to Columbus many years ago. Other siblings are in Charleston WV, Huntington WV, Ripley WV, and Virginia Beach VA. Our collective children are now beginning to spread out: Colorado, North Carolina, Indiana, and Iraq. We have first cousins in Florida, New Jersey, Kentucky, and California.

As our individual families grow, it seems that the horizontal connections in the family tree get a lot less attention than the vertical ones. Our primary focus is on our children, and in time, on their children. We also retain that strong bond to our parents, but the frequency of contact diminishes, especially if they aren't close by. And as we have now experienced, there comes an end to their time on earth, and you never feel you spend enough time with them.

The bond to siblings never diminishes, but again, the frequency of contact goes down as we deal with all the demands on our own time. The contacts beyond that -- with aunts, uncles, and cousins -- become quite rare. Some families are better than others at getting everyone together. Our family, driven by Mom and sister Pat, had some great family gatherings in the 1980s. But after about three of those, we just never got one together again. I really think it's about the logistics. A family gathering is a big deal, and it's simply hard to find a time when everyone can attend, and not be excluded simply because of scheduling conflicts.

When a close family member dies, that trumps everything. The time from death to funeral is a matter of days, and you simply have to drop other commitments and get yourself there.

Terry's Dad died completely unexpectedly, at age 63, when he still had a lot of life to live. His death was tragic because he might well have survived had they lived closer to a emergency medical center. It was a sad time.

Our mothers both died of cancer, with a lot of time to come to grips with the fact that we were experiencing the end of their days. Terry's mom had a beautiful traditional service, and it was an opportunity for me to meet a number of members of Terry's family that I didn't know. For my Mom, we held a gravesite service in the morning, then a memorial service and visitation that evening. People got up and told funny stories about times with Mom, which we all knew she would have loved. The gathering time afterward was wonderful, getting to see many of our family and friends.

A few months ago, Jay White, the younger brother of a very good friend Jim White, passed away suddenly. When Jim and I both worked at CompuServe in the 1970s, we became very close and took part in many activities together. I got to know Jim's family well, including Jay. When Jim married Karen and moved back to his hometown of Pittsburgh to raise their family, our contact became limited to the annual exchange of Christmas newsletters. When Karen called to say Jay had died, there was no question that I would head to Pittsburgh to honor Jay and support Jim. We had the chance to spend the whole following day together, and found that we still shared common interests and enjoyed spending time together. It was a funeral that created the priority to connect once again.

Dad's death was not expected, but then it was. He was in the poorest health of our four parents, but ended up outliving them all. His funeral created that excuse for the gather of the clan, beginning with a wonderful dinner by Rita Shaffer, the granddaughter-in-law who had been taking care of Dad's housekeeping and being his weekly companion (along with her daughter Sarah). For the visitation and funeral, we saw many friends and family, including the last two members of my parents' generation: Dad's sister Betty and Mom's brother Don. Aunt Betty was accompanied by cousin Jane, while Uncle Don came with cousin Donna and her husband Mike. We got to see old neighbors such as Jim and Marg Hively, Chester Flick, and Sada Douglas. Denver Rucker, one of Dad's dearest friends came with his wife. Mrs Whitman, and two of her daughter, Alice and Rebecca were there. While together for dinner at a local restaurant, we ran into Rose Marie, a high school classmate of ours and childhood friend of Terry's. And friend Jim White came down from Pittsburgh to spend the day with us as well.

The following day was one for me and my sibs to get together and begin the tasks of getting Dad's stuff in order. I got to spend a fair amount of time with Sammie and Josh Lambert (Joe and Becky's kids, Ted Lee's grandchildren) and Kristen Casanave (Vikki's daughter, Pat's granddaughter), grand-nieces and nephews that I didn't know very well beforehand. New connections.

I hope that when the day comes, my funeral is a time when lots of people gather to reconnect and celebrate our interwined lives. I wish I could be there!

The ACLU goes too far

2006-08-28T14:02:00.000-05:00

I am really annoyed by the ACLU on this one -- this is stepping over the line:

This ceremony was held on Sunday, when the school was not in session.
No student or member of the faculty was required to attend
No religious object was left at the building

While the ACLU states that its mission is to monitor the separation of church and state, it seems to me that what it really wants is to prohibit religion entirely...

... or at least it wants to prohibit Christianity. I very much doubt that we would have seen a protest from the ACLU if there had been dancing and chants by a Native American tribe instead. How about if an African-American Muslim community had held a similar ceremony?
Our Bill of Rights does not prohibit religion -- it prohibits the government from mandating religion.
Don't let the ACLU prevail in this one!!

CHURCH SUPPORT AT MIDDLE SCHOOL
Blessing of school draws protest
Ceremony violated separation of church and state, ACLU says
Monday, August 28, 2006
Matt Zapotosky
THE COLUMBUS DISPATCH

Pat Miller, right, and Carol Fry, center, of Karl Road Christian Church, lead about 180 people from four different North Side churches in a verse of Kumbaya outside Woodward Park Middle School. The group gathered yesterday to read a prayer and bless the school before the start of the school year.
About 180 members of four local churches surrounded a public middle school yesterday to bless the building and those who use it, despite objections from the American Civil Liberties Union about the constitutionally mandated separation of church and state.
Led by a minister from Epworth United Methodist Church, members of Epworth, Karl Road Christian Church, Karl Road Baptist Church and Ascension Lutheran Church joined hands and circled halfway around Woodward Park Middle School at 5151 Karl Rd. In unison, they asked the "great divine one, creator of us all" to bless each "student … teacher, staff and administrator" entering the building.
"Rain or shine, ACLU or not, nobody can stop those who have spirit-filled hearts," said Patricia Miller, who led the ceremony.
The nearby churches have an ongoing relationship with Woodward Park, providing supplies and other support. Miller said the ceremony at first was planned for inside the building and had the approval of the school’s principal, Jill Spanheimer.
Last week, Spanheimer said she didn’t remember that conversation and that the ceremony would have to be outside. Yesterday, she watched the ceremony from her yard, which borders the school grounds. She would not comment afterward.
The ACLU of Ohio sent a letter to Spanheimer and Superintendent Gene Harris last week, saying that permitting the event would violate the constitutional requirement that public schools remain neutral on religious matters. District officials responded with a letter stating the event was constitutional according to a U.S. Supreme Court case from New York state. In Good News Club v. Milford Central School, the court ruled that any group is permitted to rent and use public-school facilities.
"Anyone can walk onto the school grounds during the weekend," said Columbus Public Schools spokesman Greg Viebranz.
Gary Daniels, litigation coordinator for the ACLU of Ohio, said this event differed from the renting of school buildings, even those rented for a religious use.
"There’s not that appearance of endorsement by the school," he said. "There are worse scenarios that can be presented as far as being problematic from a church-state perspective, but this by no means is something that in my mind would pass constitutional muster."
Several participants said yesterday they did not think the ceremony, which lasted less than a half-hour, violated the separation of church and state, and some said they didn’t think church and state should be separated anyway.
Residents near the school who were interviewed by The Dispatch said they were not upset. In fact, they thought the event was a positive way to kick off the school year and benefited the neighborhood.
mzapotosky@dispatch.com
Copyright © 2006, The Columbus Dispatch

In Favor of Nuclear Power

2006-08-19T22:42:00.000-05:00

With gasoline at $3.00/gallon and climbing, we’ve got to think seriously about building some new nuclear-powered electricity generating stations.

I suspect that there are millions of us Americans who would drive electric vehicles to work if the economics make sense. The vehicle needs to have the necessary features, of course. It needs to be comfortable for at least two people, have a little room for cargo, be able to operate at freeway speeds, can be recharged in six hours or less, have air conditioning and a decent sound system, and be available at a price point that makes sense.

A good deal of the freight in our country could be hauled between cities on the railroads, using trains powered by electric locomotives.

All the public transportation in our cities could be electric trolleys and buses.

If the electricity for all those applications comes from nuclear power plants, then we will make a huge dent in our demand for oil. The objective is not to lower the price of oil by reducing our demand, it’s to substantially eliminate the need for oil in our economy all together. Instead of being dependent on good relations with the oil-rich countries of the Middle East, we can tell them to keep their oil and find someone else to terrorize.

It is possible to have a safe nuclear powered infrastructure. The French have been doing it for years. One of the keys is their standardized reactor/generator design which can be replicated over and over. You get continuous improvement in both safety and efficiency only when you can apply your learning across the whole installed base of technology. In fact, I would be in favor of licensing France’s reactor design so that we get a head start with a known model.

What about the waste? We have to stop letting a few folks dictate the strategic energy policy of the whole country. We seem to have built a safe storage facility in Yucca Mountain, and we have safe mechanisms for transport. If we put the power plants in the right places, we don’t have to run the shipping casks through populated areas to get to the storage facility. What about the potential for bad guys high jacking a shipment? Why don’t we deploy troops to guard the power plants and the shipment trains instead of protecting our oil interests in the Middle East?

The alternative is to keep competing with the Chinese for oil until we both suck the world dry and end up going to war over what’s left.

Yes, keep working on all the other alternative fuel sources: wind, hydro, fusion, solar, etc. And let’s get serious about conservation. Tell my neighbors, commercial and residential, to turn off all the damn lights that create light pollution and waste energy. Let’s figure out how to store energy on a massive scale so don’t have to match generator capacity to the peak demand. The guys who designed the Niagara Power Project figured out a neat way to do this.

In the mix, there is still a need for an electrical power source which functions when there is no wind, or it’s cloudy, yet doesn’t rely on oil as an energy source. Nuclear power fits that bill.

Opponents of nuclear power – cut back your electrical energy consumption by 80% and your fossil fuel consumption by 100% for a month or two. That’s what life would be like when the oil runs out. Then let’s talk about the best way to make lots more power.

The Price of Gas, Part II -- Gouging & Inflation

2006-08-04T14:36:00.000-05:00

Gouging – most people don’t understand what this term means, or at least when it is a bad thing. Folks see Exxon/Mobil posting $10B earnings in a quarter and say we’re being gouged at the pump for gas. Meanwhile they pay a higher price/gal for bottled water without blinking an eye. If the oil companies are operating substantially without government subsidy, then I think they should be able to keep raising the price until they feel they’ve maximized profits. Of course, they do get government subsidy in the form of tax incentives, so that makes things a little messier. But we won’t wean ourselves off petroleum until we are individually driven to change our behavior and seek alternatives. Classic economic theory would argue that the best thing for our country would be for the oil companies to raise the price, generate huge profits, and pay out a substantial fraction of those profits as dividends. That releases capital to be invested into other enterprises, some of which are likely to seek what comes after oil (which might not be limited to energy – it might be about further upgrades to the telecom system so that telecommuting is even more practical).

To me, gouging happens only in the face of a disaster, when an absolutely essential commodity is in the hands of a few, and those few raise the price to exorbitant levels, taking advantage of the situation. This happens rarely, and almost never in this country. What would you say if a cabbie in Manhattan on 9/11 said he would give you a ride, but for 10x the meter? If you a pregnant woman who needed to get to a hospital, I’d call that gouging. If you were a snotty upper East sider, I might say it’s just capitalism.

Inflation is another concept most people don’t understand. Properly defined, inflation occurs when the government adds currency to the economy faster than the growth in GNP. Having gas prices go up is not inflation. A key component of capitalism is the process where a producer raises prices to the point that consumers seek alternative answers to their needs and desires. If increasing gas prices causes me to lack the disposable income to buy other stuff I would like to have, then I am motivated to solve the problem of higher gas prices. I might buy more efficient car, or use more mass transit, or move close enough to my job and food source that I don’t need a car anymore (which is why poor people across the globe flock to cities).

Things are somewhat neutralized if my employer feels some obligation to raise my pay enough to offset the increase in gas price. But this still isn’t inflation. Presumably the employer must divert some resources away from other things to raise my pay. The employer might try to raise the price of their product to pass the cost on down the food chain. That still isn’t inflation, because the buyers of those products have the opportunity to pay the higher price or find another supplier. The rise in oil prices definitely has a ripple effect through the economy, but it’s exactly what needs to happen. Everyone feels a little piece of motivation to solve the macro problem.
Inflation happens when the government comes to the conclusion that the economy is slowing down, and that a way to stimulate it is to make money cheaper. They do this by massively increasing the amount of debt instruments they offer at the primary auction, in which the primary bond traders bid on the instruments by offering how much interest they are willing to pay. When government bonds are plentiful, they bid lower rates, which causes that influx of money to get passed on to the economy at a lower rate. When debt is cheaper for employers, they might be able to restructure their debt at a lower rate and free up some cash flow to pay higher salaries and higher prices for their other purchases. At the end of the day, nothing has changed as far as relative price (e.g. everything except money costs 1% more), and there is no motivation to change behavior.

But these money supply infusions are an addictive drug. The underlying dynamics aren’t changed, and the free market forces which would flow from the behavior changes driven by individual purchasing choices get squelched and perverted. As the new money is absorbed into the economy, it can seem like things are okay, but they're really not. Lenders begin to take note that long term debt is getting risky because the buying power of a dollar is being diluted, and so they increase lending rates. That wave works its way through the economy as higher borrowing costs for everything from houses to credit card debt to school loans.

The Fed is doing exactly the right thing by keeping the money supply under control (they don't control interest rates, they control the money supply -- notice that they talk about interest rate 'targets' they hope to achieve by controlling the amount of Treasury debt that place on the market -- see above). The last thing in the world we want is for them to dump a bunch of money into the economy to lower interest rates in the short term, because it starts a dangerous cycle and ultimately causes interest rates to go up.

So the let the gas companies charge all they can get away with. It's good for all of us.

Slave Reparation

2006-07-22T23:25:00.000-05:00

I'm honored to have the opportunity to serve on the Board of Directors of the National Black Programming Consortium. This organization does important work bringing the story of the African-American community to a broad audience, primarily through films which are aired on PBS. I have learned much, and expect to learn much more.

One topic about which I have much to learn: the movement for paying reparation to the descendents of slaves in America. Here's some of my questions (I'll fill in answers as I learn them). The first set of questions are an attempt to understand why reparations are appropriate. These would seem to be the assertions:
Americans who are not the descendents of individuals held as slaves in America have benefited from the contributions made by the former slaves while they were in slavery. The time of such benefit would start at the moment the first slave landed in America and end when the reparation payment were made. For example, if slaves were used to clear a section of land later used to plant crops, every year that land has been in use, someone benefitted.

The fact that these people were, captured, deprived of their freedom, and made slaves is in of itself an injury, and should be compensated.

In the time after the emancipation of the slaves, discrimination continued, causing economic injury to the former slaves and their descendents. In general, the level of discrimination has diminished over time, but it is not yet been eliminated from our society.

What are others?

I don't think anyone would question that all of the above statements are true. But that's the easy part. The BIG problem is to assign a monetary value to these injuries. Some of the issues in this regard:
What is the fair value of a slave's labor? What were hired workers paid to do the same kind of work?
Many slaves were commanded to perform unspeakable acts in addition to their work duties. How is that compensated?

Slaves were treated like livestock in many cases. Men and women were forced to sire offspring, regardless of their relationship (men were loaned out like stud horses) and those children would be taken from them and sold like a calves.

The master could take the life of a slave without consequence.

I once read an essay by Thomas Sewell where he warned the African-American community that accepting reparations was not a good thing for the African American community. His logic was that with the payment of reparations, the rest of the American society might say "okay, that's settled." Then any perceived obligation to continue the effort to wipe out the lingering effects of slavery and discrimination would end. This could mean the termination of many programs which are targeted to bring the poor kids of the inner cities, which tend to be African-American, into the mainstream of opportunities in America. I think he has a point, but I don't treat it as the conclusive argument.

My education continues...

Articles I've found so far:

http://www.blacksense.com/articleview.php?ID=168

Iraq and Vietnam

2006-06-29T14:45:00.000-05:00

There are some who call World War II the last 'good war.' I don't know who those people are, nor do I believe that any war can be judged to be 'good.' But I think I understand the comment.

In WWII, the enemy troops wore uniforms, used well-labeled equipment, and held defined positions of geography. There was 'friendly territory' and 'enemy territory.' The war ended when the leaders of the enemy government surrendered, after which their troops laid down their arms and ceased hostility.

Then came the wars in Korea and Vietnam. While the American troops were in uniform, the enemy might be a uniformed soldier, or he might be the teenager who stops by the post every day to mooch a cold soda. The definition of 'friendly territory' became a little more transient as the fighting moved from the battlefield to the village. An American Army or Marine unit could sweep through a village and drive out all the bad guys, but the Americans didn't stay to occupy and defend the village, and the bad guys just moved back in. In fact, the villagers might not have been good guys in the first place.

Or they might be folks who are just trying to survive. While some of the civilians might be fervent followers of whatever revolutionary movement is seeking control, most are just trying to get along without getting killed. The trouble is, it's hard to tell the revolutionaries from those who just want the fighting to stop. American policy has alway been to give the benefit of the doubt to the people, assuming them to be good guys unless they are actually observed trying to do harm. And so, American soldiers and Marines got regularly killed by bad guys hiding in plain sight.

Eventually, our guys get tired of getting picked off this way. After seeing a few of their buddies turned into goo by people they thought they were helping, the fuse finally blows and our guys kill everyone and everything not in an American uniform. And then they get called murderers.

The crime is in putting our troops in this position in the first place. If we can't tell who the enemy is by looking at them, then our troops don't belong there. If the mission isn't to drive invaders from our soil or that of our allies, we shouldn't go. Anything else is a pre-emptive invasion on our part -- and few Americans feel good about being invaders.

WWII wasn't the last 'good war,' if you accept my definition that a 'good war' is one in which our troops can have confidence who is a good guy and who is a bad guy, and that their objective is to get the enemy to surrender by taking away their battlefield positions and destroying their logistics capability.

That distinction goes to Desert Storm -- the operation to kick the Iraqi invaders out of Kuwait. We got to do all the stuff we're good at -- bring all of our technology and organization to bear on a uniformed enemy in defined positions. It was over when the bad guys were driven off our ally's land, and we could declare the mission to truly be accomplished. Admittedly, fighting Iraq isn't like fighting the Soviet Union or China, so it doesn't carry the magnitude of accomplishment of winning WWII. But it was the real deal.

In any war, we ask the young men of our country to point deadly weapons at other human beings and, with little analysis, take the lives of those they have been trained to identify as our enemy. Once they pull the trigger, they will have committed an act that otherwise in our society would been considered one of the worst crimes, punishable by a life in prison or even execution. If we are going to ask them to violate that standard of morality, we need to be sure the identity of the enemy is unambiguous and the mission is just. Otherwise we risk putting them in a situation where they have to quickly evaluate whether the 'civilians' around them are good guys or bad guys, and then act decisively. We doom them to live forever with those decisions.

Iraq is Vietnam all over again. Our mission can't be to drive the invaders out, because the revolutionaries are citizens of that same country. We can't take territory because we are already in the country we're trying to 'free.' Note that I'm not saying that this is a bad thing to do. Helping a country move from dictatorship to democracy is a good thing. But it's not a mission our military forces are built to carry out.

Big wars are won with strategy, tactics, training, leadership and execution. To that you add heroism and a little luck. But it also takes massive manufacturing and logistics capability. To fight a sustained battle, and to win a war, an army needs a constant and massive supply of weapons, ammunition, food and medical supplies. We're pretty good at that, and it's one of the reasons we did so well in Desert Storm.

But when the winning move for the revolutionaries is simply to get the outside power to tire of the pain and leave, you don't need to have, or even want to have, big engagements on the battlefield. This is how the American revolutionaries drove the British from the American colonies. Think about the American Revolution from the perspective of the British sometime. The first battle of the American Revolution took place because the British sent a company of soldiers from Boston to Concord to destroy a weapons cache (I suppose it was the 18th century version of the search for WMDs). The colonists drove the British out of Concord not by lining up and fighting in the civilized manner, but rather by picking them off from the woods. There were a couple of big battles in the Revolutionary War, but we never really defeated the British -- we just made it more painful (and expensive) than they cared to endure. After all, the outcome of the American Revolution was not to have the Americans gain control of the British Isles. We just got them to leave here.

Taking sides in a civil war, or a revolutionary war, is not something we Americans have the stomach to do. Our own Civil War remains the bloodiest conflict we ever engaged in. That's just the way civil wars go -- fighting between brothers always gets nasty. If you want to take sides and win in a civil war, you have to be willing to fight nasty, and we don't like our soldiers and Marines to do that.

It's immoral to send our troops to fight in a nasty war but not let them fight nasty. Let's bring them home before we destroy the minds and attitudes of another generation of our young people.

The Price of Gas

2006-05-11T15:04:00.000-05:00

The price of gas has gone up 100% in the last year. Whose fault is it?

You know, it's the question which is the problem, and the symptom of the state of affairs in the United States today. Our country has become so huge and so complex that it is all but impossible to manage. Even at the township level, where I am most directly involved, the rhetoric is not about what is good for our community, but rather what is good for particular individuals.

Maybe things have always been this way in politics, and I'm just finally getting old enough to recognize the reality. That reality is that we have a shadow government which is "owned" by a small set of greedy and ambitious individuals, and the elected officials are pretty much their hand-picked pawns. As I commented in another blog entry, the difference between Democrats and Repblicans is negligible, and the struggle over who is in control of the White House and Congress isn't about ideology, but rather which set of puppetmasters get the keys to the kingdom for the next term. Of course, many of the puppetmasters play both sides.

So gas prices might be where they are because the puppetmasters have decided that this is the price the economy can withstand, in the same way drug pushers have to figure out how much their addict-customers can afford to pay. The pushers don't care whether the addicts thrive, only that they survive to buy drugs another day. Maybe that's exactly what the puppetmasters are thinking, and they'll keep pushing up the gas prices a little at a time, forever.

But it could be that gas prices are what they because of purely market-driven supply-and-demand microeconomic forces. Why is it not okay for the oil companies to push up gas prices until they see demand soften?

We have to be assured that the oil companies aren't engaging in price fixing -- where they get together and conspire to raise prices. But let's for a moment believe that they aren't. Why isn't it okay for them to keep raising prices until they see a decrease in demand? It's not like there is some law that says gas has to be cheap. Gasoline is not the easiest stuff in the world to make and distribute after all. First you have to find the crude oil (expensive), then you have to get it out of the ground (expensive), then you have to transport it (expensive), then you need to refine it into gasoline (expensive), then you have to transport it to market (expensive), and then you have to sell it at carefully engineered and operated gas stations (expensive). And we get to buy it for less than $3.00 gallon.

Compare that to the cost of soft drinks. Those are made from water (available pretty much everywhere), corn syrup (the grain elevators are stuffed and there's another crop on the way), and a few chemicals for color and taste. The manufacturing step is pretty straightforward compared to gasoline, and the logistics chain is much simpler. Nonetheless, we consider $4.50 for eight 20oz bottles of Gatorade to be a good price (per the current Kroger ad). That works out to $3.60 per gallon by the way.

Many folks note that the oil companies are making record profits with the gas prices so high, and think it is immoral. But don't we, the buyers, make the choice whether or not to pay that price? Our memories are so short. Back in the 1970s, we were all driving those big gas-guzzling Detroit battleships when gas was 50cents/gallon. Then the oil crisis hit, and Americans flocked to little American cars like the Ford Pinto and the Chevy Vega -- and to Hondas, Datsuns and Toyotas.

But then the oil prices stuck around $1 per gallon for the 90s, and we bought SUVs by the millions and continued moving further and further into the suburbs. It only took us a decade to forget the pain of high gas prices and go right back to gas gluttony. So now we start another changeover, with the early adopters buying up all the hybrid vehicles while SUVs are sitting unsold at the dealerships.

From a pure economic standpoint, it's entirely understandable that the oil companies should test the price elasticity of their product. Elasticity is the relationship between changes in price and changes in demand. The price/demand relationship is said to be elastic if raising prices lowers demand (and lowering prices increases demand), and inelastic if changes in the price don't have much effect on demand. The price/demand relationship for gasoline seems to be completely inelastic right now: regardless of the change in price, our demand stays the same. If I were the oil companies, I would keep pushing up the price until some weakness in demand is created, and then would try to figure out which combination of price and demand yield the maximum profit. That's what every other enterprise tries to do -- why is it inappropriate for the oil companies to do the same?

But you really have to be sure the oil companies are actually competing with each other. Many industries will have a 'price leader' who is big enough to set a price point for their product. Everyone else can be expected to cluster around whatever price that leader set. But some will sell for less and try to snag a little bit of the market on price alone. Others might try to charge more than the price leader by adding features or services to the product. Sometimes the little corner vendor grows up to be Wal-Mart, taking the market away from the leaders (when is the last time you shopped at Montgomery Ward?).

I guess I believe the big oil companies are still competing with each other, in the same way Coca-Cola competes with Pepsi. Coke and Pepsi spend millions on advertising to convince us that there is a really difference in between two products which are about 99% the same (water, sugar, food coloring), and they do so because taking away one point of market share from the other is worth a great deal of money. The gas companies also spend a vast amount of money on advertising? If they aren't competing with each other, why advertise at all?

I also think it's appropriate for the oil companies to make decent profits because it will give them capital to find more oil, and maybe even develop new energy sources. I heard it once said that if the railroads understood themselves to be in the transportation business, we would now be flying New York Central Airlines. But they viewed the airplane as a fad and not the future of transportation (Western Union made the same mistake with the telephone). I hope the railroads are figuring out that passenger rail travel may come back in vogue, and are investing in appropriate equipment, personnel and facilities to catch an increase in demand.

In the same way, I hope the oil companies are viewing themselves as energy companies, and are using a lot of that profit to develop better ways of making and distributing ethanol and hydrogen. They should also be the largest researchers in areas such as batteries and fuel cells. Otherwise, they should pay out some huge dividends to release capital to investors who can put it back into companies who are investing for the future. Either way, they should not be ashamed about making a profit. It's those profits which fund growth and innovation. Even if you tend to left-wing politics, you need profitable businesses to pay corporate taxes to fund your programs. Robin Hood is unemployed if there aren't any rich folks...

Bottom line, if you don't like the gas prices, get a cheaper car, use public transportation, ride your bike to work, or find some other solution. The oil companies don't owe you a cheaper price. Isn't our economy healthier in the long run if we let these high prices be the impetus to lessen our addiction to oil?

Illegal Aliens

2006-03-28T15:07:00.000-05:00

Here's what I believe:

If you are inside the borders of the United States of America, you had better be a citizen or a registered guest. You can't just sneak through the back door and think we don't care. The first time you get caught, we'll ship you home. The second time we'll throw you in jail for a while, then ship you home anyway. The third time, we'll throw you in jail for life.
We don't owe illegal aliens free healthcare, or free schooling, or free anything else. It shouldn't even be a question. See the first point.
I don't believe we need immigrant workers in the US because they will do jobs Americans refuse to do. We Americans do some pretty crappy jobs (just watch "Dirty Jobs" on TV). How about the guy who squishes cow manure in his bare hands to figure out if the feed mix needs to be adjusted? Or how about the guy who sucks the stuff out of the Port-A-Johns?The truth of the matter is that employers can hire illegal aliens to do these kinds of jobs for a fraction of the pay that most Americans would demand. If you offered me $200,000/yr to clean out Port-A-Johns with a toothbrush, I might consider it. The point is that if we cut off the supply of illegal aliens to employers, the employers would have to bid up the pay scale until workers accept the jobs.However, there are also many cases of jobs that had been filled by Americans who get replaced by illegal alients who will do the job for less. Around where I live, most every American framing carpenter and drywaller has been replaced by a Mexican crew. Those aren't crappy jobs that Americans won't do! Some will argue that if we have to pay more for labor, the prices of goods and services will go up. Yes, that's probably true. But we're paying for it anyway through our taxes, to pay for free healthcare, and free schools, and all that stuff. Reread the prior two points. I'd rather let the free market forces figure out what labor is worth, and what products and services are worth, than have a system based on government subsidy -- which is what we have now.
If you come in legally to work for a little while, then go back home, you are a welcome guest. It enrichens both of us to have that kind of cultural interaction. I hope I am as welcome to be a guest worker in your country as you are here.
If you are here as our guest, and don't intend to ever go home, then in some ways, you are insulting us. You want all the benefits of citizenship without the obligations. Maybe your spouse is American, and you both decided that you wanted to live here. I guess I understand loyalty to the home country. But it seems like you are saying "I want to live in America, I just don't want to be one." That's the insult.
If you have have come to America as a legal guest, with the dream of becoming an American citizen, then I look forward to the day you take the oath of citizenship. Welcome to your new country!

British Prime Minister Tony Blair said one of my favorite things recently when he was getting pummeled by his countrymen for his support of the US: He said it still seemed like more people were trying to get in than to get out...

Amen.

Trust

2006-02-14T15:15:00.000-05:00

I was thinking about the concept of trust the other day.

There's a version of trust that has to do with whether I think you will do me any harm. I like to be able to walk around in a mall or a park any time of the day without worrying that someone will mug me. I certainly feel that way in my little town, even if I don't really know all the folks around me. But if I drive into the city, my level of trust towards strangers drops a little because I'm not quite so confident that there isn't a 'bad guy' in the crowd, or in the shadows.

There are places in the city where I'm quite sure my chances of walking around unscathed late at night are about nil. I would feel that no one automatically gets my trust in that situation - everyone is a potential threat. So this kind of 'trust' is about perceived risk of danger. Fortunately, I can almost always control this risk by making the choice whether or not to be someplace.

There's a non-violent form of this trust as well. For example, one wants to be able to trust friends and co-workers not cause unsolicited harm. It would be horrible to work in an environment where you felt at risk from malicious co-workers who could make life miserable, or even get you fired. But it happens. A lot.

Then there is the kind of trust that comes from what you could call Mutually Assured Destruction (MAD). I first heard this phrase in connection with the Cold War when I was a kid. The theory is that neither the US nor the USSR would start a war because the other side had enough nuclear weapons to destroy the world thousands of times over. It turns out that it worked. Some even feel the world is less stable today than it was during the Cold War because it was clear who the 'enemy' was, and you could feel fairly confident that no one was going to start anything, despite a lot of posturing and even a little pushing and shoving.

This is the same kind of trust you have when cops are patrolling a tough urban neighborhood. The bad guys have guns, and the cops have guns. In general it's better for everyone to not elevate a situation to gunfire.
Siblings often engage in MAD when they are young. "You tell on me and I'll tell on you" or something similar signifies an agreement to not engage their common enemy -- the parents.

Then there is the trust that one can nuture though what I call the Trust Spiral. It starts when one person make a commitment to another, then follows through on the commitment, and finally, ensures that both parties know the commitment was fulfilled. It usually starts off with something small, and each time a trust cycle is completed, the more risk the parties are willing to take (hence the spiral imagery, or even better, an ascending helix).

This is a very positive kind of trust. Parents figure out how much they can trust their kids with responsibility and kids figure out if the parents really do what they say. I think the depth and quality of the relationship between parents and kids is a function of how often they go around the Trust Spiral. Some kids and parents get alienated from each other because they quit making commitments and doing what it takes to follow through. Kids who don't develop that kind of relationship with their parents often find someone else to trust. Or they just 'drop out' and disconnect from society. These are the kids who go into a school with a gun and blow their classmates away.

The best kind of trust of all is when you know you have a friend who will protect you from harm. You grow up counting on your parents to behave this way. In the military, bonds often become so strong that one soldier will sacrifice himself to save his buddies. This goes way beyond the first case -- the "don't worry, I won't hurt you" kind of trust. This is "don't worry, I will protect you with my life." Even when you screw up. Over and over.

Amen.

Intelligent Design -- Liberal Style

2006-01-27T15:21:00.000-05:00

I've finally figured it out...

... The Liberals actually believe in Intelligent Design while Conservatives believe in evolution. Sounds backwards, right? But hear me out:

A key characteristic of Conservative thought is that there should be minimal interference from government, allowing individuals to seek their own potential, with the opportunity to both excel and fail. This is exactly the way natural selection, or evolution if your prefer, works.

On the other hand, Liberals feel that the economic system needs to be managed and controlled. In their opinion, a purely market-driven, free-choice economy will fail to invest in the "right" things, therefore the government has a responsibility to substitute its will upon the public. In other words, Liberals don't really believe in allowing natural selection to take place without outside influence. They believe in Intelligent Design alright, and furthermore believe they play the role of the Designer.

I entered into this line of thinking while shaking my head at our Governor's announcement that starting with the high school Class of 2011, students in Ohio would have to show proficiency in Algebra 2, Chemistry and Physics in addition to all the current standards.

The public education system in this country is one of the greatest examples of liberal thinking -- the government knows what's best for everyone. The government mandates the existence of public schools, requires taxes to be paid to support them, and sets standards for student proficiency.

Meanwhile our economy is a train wreck in progress. The Governor's pronouncement is a bad idea because it will take resources away from the brightest students and redirect it to students who have neither the aptitude or desire to learn about math, chemistry, and physics.

He cites the increasing global competition for labor, and says that by having better trained high school graduates in Ohio, our state will be able to compete for new jobs more successfully. He forgets that the problem isn't that our workers are undereducated compared to other countries. In fact, the probability is that the skills of our workers versus those in other regions of the US and other countries compare favorably. The issue is that our cost of labor is much higher than the rest of the world. That is the legacy of 100 years of unions and government expansion, not a problem with how much education our residents acquire in high school. If you are going to add any subject matter to the high school curriculum, how about Economics?

The governor's plan will be expensive. It will cause either an incremental funding load to pay for the additional teachers required to teach everyone these subjects, or it will take away resources from "optional" programs in the school systems (e.g. programs for gifted students). He may be a Republican, but he's thinking like a Democrat in this case. I'm glad he's out of office this year.

If we want to fix our schools, we need to allow the kids and parents to have a choice where they go to school. I'm okay with a national policy which says every kid should have a chance to go to school, and would support vouchers as a way to make sure every kid has the money to do so. Schools that deliver the results the customer wants (ie - the parents & students) will attract kids and money, and those who fail to deliver will starve and die. Kids who have aptitude and desire will seek out the schools that will actually give them an education in their chosen field. The rest can be trained in a trade, or join the military, or be free to starve to death. America is the land of opportunity, not the land of guarantees.

Liberals: you support evolution -- this is how it works. Quit playing Intelligent Designer.

E=mc2 for everyone

2006-01-26T15:31:00.000-05:00

From the Columbus Dispatch, January 26, 2006:

To better prepare Ohio’s high-school
graduates for college or work, Gov. Bob Taft proposed a bold new plan yesterday
during his final State of the State address that would require all students to
take more math, science and foreign-language courses.

Starting with students who graduate in 2011, a new core set of courses
would be required, including Algebra 2, physics and chemistry.

The new requirements would apply to all high-school students whether
they plan to attend college or not, although parents could sign a waiver opting
out of the courses and accepting the consequences.
For example, students
opting out wouldn’t be able to attend a state university under Taft’s
plan.

Bad idea Governor.

I'm okay with the notion that there is are a core set of subjects in which every high school graduate should be able to demostrate proficiency. But I don't see the sense of including Algebra 2, Physics and Chemistry in that set. Other nations take a more pragmatic view of school: sort the kids out by skill, potential and motivation before they get to high school. Some will go to schools which focus on science and mathematics. Others go to arts academies. Some go to learn a skilled trade.

The countries recognize that resources aren't limitless, and that an effort to raise the knowledge level for all students takes away resources from that fraction that can really make a difference. Our country thrived when it was contribute or starve. Only now are we seeing the harm of expending ever-increasing resources on protecting the weakest in our society -- creating a tax burden drag and preventing resources from being used to nurture our most promising young people.

Another thing most of those countries have -- compulsary military service. Most serve as enlisted personnel where they learn a skill, then those who wish can attend college. Some will attend college first, deferring their service until they graduate, and then serve as officers. Rich or poor, everyone serves -- notice that Prince William, the future King of England, is just beginning his military service.

You can't make Ohio a better place for business with this approach. Ohio was an economic powerhouse in the past century because: a) heavy industry grew around the Great Lakes; and, b) immigrant labor was cheap. Today, the major economic regions of the US are on the coasts -- east, west and south -- because state governments and unions in the Great Lakes region got greedy and ran industry out.

Major corporations have very little geographic or national loyalty. They move their production facilities to wherever their total costs are minimized. That includes cost of raw materials (including transportation), production labor costs, tax burden, and the cost of distribution. Once upon a time that meant the Great Lakes. Today it means Asia.

We've made it very hard for heavy industry to survive in the US. If we are going to participate in a global economy, then the steel workers in Cleveland are going to have to work for the same wages as the steelworkers in China. The information industry workers in Columbus are going to need to compete with the talented folks in India. The auto workers in Toledo need to work for the same wages as their opposite numbers in Korea. And the state government needs to get out of the entitlement business.

In which class will you teach our kids that they'll never have it as good as their grandparents? That's a new thing in the history of America...

Wow -- this is what a charter school should be

2006-01-18T15:40:00.000-05:00

The following was announced today in the Columbus Dispatch. For readers outside our community, Battelle Memorial Institute is one of the largest and most respected private research organizations in the country. Some of the more famous examples of their work: a) invented xerographic photocopying, which they spun off as a little company called Xerox; b) the candy coating on M&Ms; c) key technologies required for the Manhattan Project in WWII (they still operate the DOE Labs in Hanford WA); d) the lifting mechanism installed in the Glomar Explorer used to retrieve a sunken Soviet submarine. The list is massive. The Ohio State University is the second largest university in the country (behind the University of Texas), and it operates a vast research program. Battelle and Ohio State have been closely linked for years, and the two campuses are side by side.

I pray this experiment will be overwhelmingly successful, encouraging other pairings of universities and successful businesses to operate schools for science, leadership, public service, business and a myriad of other fields. It's high time American businesses quit sitting back and hoping our failing pubilc schools would produce their future leaders and contributors!

From the Columbus Dispatch: 18 Jan 2006:

A new high school? Big deal.
But this high school has the backing of Battelle and Ohio State University, behemoths that will put muscle behind its math and science focus. It will be small, free and open to students in the 16 Franklin County public school districts.
And there’s nothing like it in Ohio, and few if any comparisons in the country.
The Metro School will open this fall to ninth-graders and add a grade each of the next three years. Only 100 students will be admitted in each grade.
"It’s an unprecedented partnership," said Brad Mitchell, CEO of the Educational Council, a consortium of the Franklin County school districts. "It’s a unique public-private partnership. This will help make high school more relevant, successful, rigorous."
Education leaders nationally and in Ohio have said schools need to produce more students skilled in science, technology, engineering and math — the socalled STEM disciplines, which are viewed as being important job-generating fields. "In the 21 st century, science, technology, engineering and mathematics are too important" to ignore in schools, said Ohio Department of Education spokesman J.C. Benton. More schools with similar focuses are in the pipeline, he said. The partnership, which will be officially announced today, along with the Metro School’s location, goes beyond the ties many schools have with private business — tutoring and mentoring. The university and Battelle — together, worth billions of dollars — will maintain an intimate relationship with the school and its students.

In addition to the $1.2 million donated by Ohio State for building leases, university faculty members will be involved in training teachers at the school. It’ll be a learning lab of sorts, testing new methods of teaching math and science.

Battelle, a science and technology company based in Columbus, donated more than $500,000 for startup costs and also will help students discover math, science and engineering. "By investing in this new school, we’re investing in the future of our community," said Carl F. Kohrt, president
and CEO of Battelle. Here’s how the school is planned to work: Slots will be allotted to each district based on its size. Columbus Public Schools, with almost 60,000 students, would get the most slots at about 140. Students interested in college hoping for a nontraditional high-school experience may
apply, write a letter of interest and interview with school staff. The staff will select the "best fits," then allow the school district to select from the list of candidates. Metro School students won’t all be the best and brightest, officials say, but a mix of different abilities.
If students want football, band or drama, they’ll get it at their home high schools. "We’re looking for a student who is motivated, wants to go to college, but needs a little extra help," Mitchell said. "Every district has students like this, and a big, comprehensive high school can only do so much."
There will be diversity requirements. Teachers, who haven’t been hired yet, will come from the
school districts. They won’t stay at the school permanently but will learn new teaching methods there and take those methods back to their home schools and pass them on to other educators. State funding will follow the students who attend the Metro School — much like it does when students leave districts for charter schools — but additional costs will be funded through grants and support from the university and Battelle. In time, the school hopes to be self-sufficient. Officials yesterday wouldn’t say how much it will cost to run.

Students’ ninth- and 10 th-grade years will be spent doing required coursework and preparing for the Ohio Graduation Test, which sophomores take. Upperclassmen will spend most of their time getting work and internship experience. "The school’s unique academic focus and learning opportunities
will help put Columbus and the state of Ohio at the cutting edge, enhancing math
and science education for students and educators alike," said Ohio State President Karen A. Holbrook. The school will be led by Marcy Raymond, a former Reynoldsburg High School administrator who has school-reform experience, said Reynoldsburg Superintendent Richard Ross. School districts say they’re pleased to have another option for kids with interest in math and science. There
are few local options now, save Horizon Science Academy, a charter school. "Reynoldsburg is always positive about choices for kids and families," Ross said. "We see this as another opportunity for our kids and parents to choose."

The Metro School also is designed to make traditional public schools more competitive with charter schools and private schools, which will be eligible this fall for students using state tuition vouchers.
"We’re living in an education market where public schools have to be as adept and responsive as
they’ve ever been. We want to make public education in Franklin County the first and best choice," Mitchell said.

An interesting survey

2006-01-16T15:52:00.000-05:00

I was called to participate in a survey yesterday. While my inclination is to say 'No thanks' and hang up when I get one of these calls, this one was about the Hilliard City Schools - a subject on which I have passionate opinions. The questions were interesting, and I found myself regretting that the only acceptable answers were in the form 'mostly agree,' 'disagee,' etc. I wanted to say much more.

Good thing I have a blog -- so here goes:

"What is the single largest problem facing Hilliard City Schools?"

I answered that I felt it is unbalanced residential versus commercial development. In the current funding structure, one-third of the money comes from residential property taxes, one-third from commercial property taxes, and one-third from state income taxes. When a new home is built, there is on average one new kid added to the student population. The property tax revenue from that house contributes one third of the cost of educating the new kid, and the income taxes paid by the parents should kick in another third. However, there is no new commercial tax revenue just because a new house is built. So where does that missing third come from? Well, the state surely isn't covering it, at least in the suburban districts. If anything, the state share is going down. So that means that the missing third must be covered by increased millage, which affects current residents and current businesses alike. EVERY TIME A NEW HOUSE IS BUILT, THE CURRENT RESIDENTS ARE SUBSIDIZING THE INCREMENTAL COST OF EDUCATION THAT NEW HOUSE CAUSES.

"Now that the Environmentally Sensitive Conservation District (ESCD) has been opened for the construction of a school, is that where a third high school should be built?"

Absolutely not. There are plenty of places within the school district where another high/middle school campus can be built without having to invade the ESCD. The real problem is that these places are outside the current and potential boundaries of the City of Hilliard. The Hilliard City School District is the #1 payer of income taxes in the City of Hilliard, and the city administration wants very much for any additional high schools to be within the city limits. But half of the kids in our district live in other municipalities, notably the City of Columbus. Why not build the high school in an area which is in the southern part of the district, but not in the City of Hilliard? The other issue is that there are developers who are clamoring to get their hands on the land in the ESCD. If we allow the construction of a high school within the ESCD, including all the utility infrastructure required, how much further is the leap to allow residential construction? Not much!

"What do I think about Board Member [fill in the blank]?"

I was surprised this question was even asked, and wonder if when the survey results are published, these items will be included? Many of these folks have been my friends for several years, so my responses were favorable.

"What do I think about the Superintendent?"

Complex situation. As an educator, I hold Dale McVey in very high regard. As an administrator, he seems to be very good. However, as a strategic thinker he seems to be weak. I'd prefer to think that than believe he is allowing himself to be influenced by the wrong people.

"What do I think about Mayor Don Schoenhardt?"

Don't trust him. He seems to be unwilling to take responsibility for the damage unbalanced residential vs commercial development is having on both the city and the school district. The opening of the ESCD for residential development is a bad thing unless he finds a way to bring a significant amount of commercial development in at the same time. Columbus, Dublin, Worthington, New Albany, and Gahanna all seem to understand this, and have already attracted most of the commercial tenants in our metro area. How can Hilliard now attract commercial entities to the city without offering tax incentives (e.g. Tax Increment Financing schemes) that bring no benefit to the schools or the whole of the city?

At the end, the million dollar question was asked: Would I vote for an $80 million levy if it were placed on the ballot in May? Understanding that I have voted in favor of every single levy placed before since we moved to the Hilliard School district 28 years ago, my answer was "no." It feels like the only vote I have to stop this irresponsible development is to make the schools unattractive for additional residents. Shame on our community leaders for allowing this to be the case.

[UPDATE: March 14, 2006]

It turns out that the school officials have no intention of publishing the results of this survey. Their claim was that the survey was paid for by the political committee which is supporting the levy issue, and therefore the results are their confidential property. I'm going to see what I can do to get the results declared to be a public document, because the elected school officials may have been given the opportunity to read them and use them in their decision making.

... Oh, and I voted in favor of the levy once again.

Milton Friedman on School Vouchers

2005-12-16T16:08:00.000-05:00

In their 1979 book, “Free to Choose,” Milton and Rose Friedman wrote an essay entitled “What’s Wrong with Our Schools.” It should be required reading for anyone who wishes to debate the current state of the American public school system and the changes which are needed. One of the observations the Friedmans make is this: if every family in every district had the same income and wealth, then schools could simply be paid for by tuition assessments while each family had kids in school.

But that’s not the way things are. There is a broad spectrum of wealth and income, and those with wealth are prone to form exclusive (i.e. discriminatory) communities with other wealthy families. In this country, we may not discriminate by race, creed, color, or national origin, but we most certainly discriminate by wealth.
The cost the wealthy bear for being allowed to perpetrate that discrimination is that they must pay a ransom, in the form of school taxes, which is used to subsidize schools in poor neighborhoods.

Here in Ohio, schools are funded by a mixture of local taxes and state taxes. The local school district may collect both property and income taxes, although most use property taxes alone. The state tax is entirely income based. While the local taxes collected remain within the district, the state redistributes the income taxes it collects in inverse proportion to the taxes collected locally. The residents of wealthy districts pay out much more state income tax than they receive back, with most of their state income tax money going to the poor districts.

Why doesn’t this socialist approach to funding work? Because crummy schools run by inept administrators get money anyway! The urban district in our city spends more per child than many of the suburban districts, yet is among the worst districts in our state in terms of attendance, graduation, college admission and on standardized testing.

Giving that district more money won’t solve the problem. Giving the parents and kids a choice WHERE they go to school will. A voucher system as outlined by the Friedmans can work.

Let’s give it a try.

Four Days in NYC with your kid: Priceless

2005-12-16T16:03:00.000-05:00

I needed to attend a meeting in New York, so I invited my 20yr old daughter, a pre-med major, along for the ride. I was delighted that she accepted. We got in two days of fun experiences:

- Harlem (NBPC headquarters)
- Upper East Side & Central Park
- FAO Schwartz
- Trump Tower
- Tiffany's
- Macy's
- St Patrick's Cathedral
- Times Square
- Today Show broadcast (okay, we were outside on the street)
- Empire State Building (we had the whole 102nd floor to ourselves)
- World Trade Center site
- Wall St
- Chinatown
- Little Italy
- Grand Central Terminal
- Penn Station
- Toys R Us Times Square
- Dave Letterman Show (we were in the audience)
- Lots of subway rides, and a couple of train rides (out to the NJ suburbs)

We had a GREAT time. A father is truly blessed when his child eagerly spends time with him. Thanks kid!

No Child Left Behind -- How do you pay for it?

2005-11-24T16:17:00.000-05:00

Still no well-developed thoughts yet, but one angle hit me this morning: Does NCLB place any requirements on a school system that should not be there?

Let's forget about administrative costs for the moment, and just think about what outcomes NCLB is after. Are there any of those outcomes which are bad or fruitless?

I hear school administrators (including the ones in my family) say NCLB is an unfunded mandate, as though that is something new, or something necessarily bad.

There are all kinds of requirements placed on school systems that aren't necessarily followed by funding from the government entity that issues the requirement. For example, school buildings are required to have fire alarm systems and sprinklers for the safety of the students and staff. This requirement is usually set by the state or municipal building code. But there is no expectation on the part of the school administration that either one of those government entities will provide the money to add the fire safety systems to the school buildings.

After all, the people that would be taxed by the municipality are the same folks who get taxed by the school system. So in the end, it doesn't make any difference which entity collects the tax, the same people are paying for the safety systems.

Maybe we should think of NCLB as a "safety standard." What one labels things can make a big difference in how others think about it (you can sell “manure” at the garden store, but not “feces”). The intended purpose of NCLB, at least as I understand it, is to ensure that school systems don't just give up on the kids that are challenging or expensive to educate.

Like the installation of a fire safety system, implementing NCLB will cost more in districts that don't already pay attention to the kids on the margin. The question is where that money should come from, and that question takes us back to libertarian vs liberal political views (more labels).

My view, which I guess you could label as libertarian, is that you should leave local matters up to local governments, and the more localized the better. In the case of NCLB, I can accept that the federal government has the duty and power to set national education standards that have to be met if you want to run a school. I’m also supportive of the concept that every American kid must have access to a decent education.

So now the question becomes: To how small a government entity can we delegate the funding duty?

A single school system is too small, at least here in Ohio. The approach of having urban, suburban and rural school districts, funded primarily by property taxes, means there is a broad diversity in the economic capacity across districts. So you need to have some kind of Robin Hood taxation system which pulls money from the wealthiest areas and gives it to the poorest ones.

In Ohio, we perform the redistribution function at the state level. Another choice is at the county level, and that might work pretty well here in Franklin County. But then Madison County, our neighbor to the west, might be in trouble. It is almost all farmland, but with suburban sprawl moving over its borders. That means more kids but an insufficient tax base, because of the lack of significant commercial activity in that county. I suppose that we could contemplate school funding zones which are comprised of multiple counties – something on the order of economic zones as defined by the US Dept of Commerce. Maybe we match them up with Congressional districts – wouldn’t that put on new spin on gerrymandering?!

That bring us to exactly where Ohio is today – overlaying the district level funding with a statewide funding system. It may not be working well, but it could if our elected officials fulfilled their duty. Ohio has a broad enough economy that we should be able to fund and administer our NCLB duties entirely within the state.

But what about my home state of West Virginia? The population of the entire state is about the same as Greater Columbus, but WV has very little commercial underpinnings, and it is shrinking every day (one bright spot is the major presence Toyota has established near Charleston). WV schools need help from other states to if they are to operate at higher standards.

Seems to me that if you argue that the federal government should fund any standard they put in place, then you are saying that the Robin Hood system for school funding should be broadened to the federal level. In other words, there are states which cannot raise the money to fund NCLB within their own borders.

Remember, every school system in every town, in every county, in every state has to meet the same standard. Every citizen of the US that the federal government would tax is also a citizen of a state, a county and a community.

If we think NCLB should be funded at the federal level, then why not federalize all public schools?

Which brings up situations like New Orleans. At what point does it become the duty of the head of a household to say, “it sucks around here, let’s move someplace better.” During the middle of the 20th century, there was a mass migration from Appalachia to the manufacturing centers in Ohio and Michigan. During the Depression, waves of people moved from the Ozarks to California. Those folks didn’t wait for the government to come make their life better – they lashed everything they could to the pickup and headed for the promised land.

When we use federal money to rebuild cities wiped out by natural disasters or to fund schools in failing economic zones, it seems to me like we are underwriting the bad decisions and fear of risktaking (in terms of moving) on the part of folks who want to stay in those areas. Maybe one of the key problems in America is that we built such a comprehensive social safety net that folks no longer feel at risk for much of anything, expecting someone else to bail them out (a thought planted by a friend). If insurance doesn’t cover our loss, there’s always someone to sue for insult and injury.

Without that sense of being already 'at risk,' we've lost our motivation to take risks. It was that motivation that caused our ancestors to come to America and give the great experiment a try. I bet the Fall of Rome began when the Roman citizens lost their fear of being invaded. I think that's where we are in the US today.

Fat, dumb and happy indeed.

Nationalized Legal Care

2005-11-24T16:12:00.000-05:00

While we're contemplating the wisdom of a national health care system, why don't we talk about a nationalized legal care system as well?

I mean, I feel kinda deprived because there's lots of lawsuits I might be able to file if I only had the money to hire a lawyer to examine my life and figure out what injuries and insults I could make someone else pay for. If we had a nationalized legal care system, I could just go down to my local legal aid office and get a public servant/lawyer assigned to me.

I bet I could figure out a way to take just about all the risk out of my life with a comprehensive set of contracts, court orders, and settlements that specify the terms of all my relationships with friends, merchants, service providers, and even members of my church congregation. There would be no action whatsoever which I could take that would cause me personally to bear the cost of an unexpected negative outcome. And if someone else does me wrong -- look out.

Oh wait a minute, I forgot that everyone else would have all these things too. Sounds like it could be a statemate. At least it would be full employment for the lawyers...

Education = Prosperity?

2005-11-23T16:23:00.000-05:00

In his blog, Professor Jim Horn observes

"What makes this morning’s New York Times
school demonization editorial
any different from the average garden variety one, is that this time, in its
haste to lambaste the schools by making test score comparisons with other
nations, Staples does not bother to note that the other better nation, this time
Japan, has been in economic recession for over 15 years, despite its seemingly
advanced education strategies grounded in homogeneity and groupthink. I ask you,
Mr. Staples, is this the kind of model that we should emulate to keep America
from becoming “a second-rate economic power?”

I think Professor Horn is trying to get our public education system off the hook for being the chief cause of all ills in America, and I agree with him on this point. He makes a great observation that Japan has an education system which is widely viewed as a producer of well-educated kids. Yet their economy is not doing well at all. You could say the same thing about Germany.

But if you buy into this perspective, I think one of the actions you would have to argue for is allocating fewer resources to something we're not so good at (running the public education system), and allocating more to developing the economy to drive up employment and GNP.

Did America become a great economic and political power because our educational system was exceptional -- producing a smarter population than anyone else? If you go back to the dawn of the American industrial age, I don't think that was the case. America's strength flowed from: a) a political environment that allowed entrepreneurs to have a shot of success; b) a wealth of natural resources for the taking; c) a labor force that was willing to work hard to get their shot at the good life; and, d) having the good luck to form our country at the beginning of the Industrial Revolution.

You didn't need much education to work in a steel mill and earn a good wage. But that was because we had lots of steel mills, and came to dominate the world market. We've lost many of those manufacturing jobs to other countries. The whole middle class is disappearing from our economy. We increasing have only highly educated professionals and hamburger flippers, with not much in between. We need to have industries that employ lots of people. Even better if those products are desired outside our country and we can generate export income.
Many American jobs have been lost to uneducated workers elsewhere in the world. Maybe its more important to have employed Americans than educated Americans. These aren't mutually exclusive conditions, but you can't eat a diploma.

Subscription TV

2005-11-21T16:28:00.000-05:00

The following was a response written to a comment on Mark Cuban's log: blog maverick

As we saw at CompuServe, technical capability/capacity and the uses of those capabilities/capacities ratcheted steadily upward over the years. When everyone was timesharing via line oriented text user interfaces on monochrome monitors (and teletypes!!), 300bps modems were sufficient. When higher speed modems appeared (especially 9600bps), some said "wow, we'll be able to print out those long reports to the local printer a lot faster now." But others said, you know, I think we can transmit color graphics and whole files with that much bandwidth. The same kind of thing happened when broadband came into the home. At first, it just seemed like a faster way to do old things the old way. But there was always something waiting in the wings that just needed the greater capacity. Music sharing became the killer app.

On demand HDTV over the internet is one of those applications we all see coming down the road, but only because we've seen primitive video over the internet already, and now want a more variety and more quality. Consumers see the internet as a vehicle to get whatever they want whenever they want, and are impatient for the world's video archive to be put online (sounds a little like Audionet, huh?)

Meanwhile, I think television could turn into a subscription medium. You don't just watch "Desperate Housewives," you subscribe to it. With that subscription, you purchase the right and ability to download and record the current episode when it is broadcast. It doesn't matter when you watch it, although the really hot shows will be broadcast during "prime time" so that its audience gets a chance to see it at the same time as all their friends (don't want to be the last one to see a really juicy episode).

For many other kinds of shows (think "American Chopper"), the broadcast time might be in the middle of the night. But no one cares because you're recording it to view later anyway.

The key is that the show is distributed via a one-to-many broadcast technology, either directly from satellite or from a local terrestrial station. I don't know enough about the comparative economics of the two, but suspect that satellite distribution is much cheaper, although the customer-end equipment is more expensive.

My satellite TV service, DISH, broadcasts something like 150 channels all the time. That means that in one day, they could broadcast 3,600 unique one hour programs. In a week, it would be 25,200 unique one hour programs. Right now, a lot of those slots are filled up with informercials and junk. Why not instead fill them with subscription feeds?

It could be very democratic. Create a website with a library of all the possible programs. At any given time, viewers could submit bids for the programs they want to see broadcast. Since each hour represents 150 hours of broadcast capacity (using the DISH network as an example), at say 30 mins prior to the top of the hour, the top 150 vote getters would be retrieved and queued up, and at the top of the hour, they would get broadcast. Any show not making the top 150 that hour would be in the running for the auction in the following hour. There might be a show that takes a month to collect enough bids to make it to the top 150. That's okay too.

Maybe you pay for every bid, or maybe you get 100 bids/month for your monthly subscription. Maybe you can only record a show you bid on, or maybe you can record any show that gets broadcast as long as you pay your monthly subscription.

What's the money trail? Boy, lots of possibilities here. One is that the broadcaster (satellite company), pulls off a slice of every subscription for their trouble, and then the show producers get paid directly based on the proportion of total downloads their show gets every month. The producers are free to bury ad spots and product placement in their feed if they want to try to make a little extra money. Viewers can decide whether the show is good enough to put up with this stuff.

Let's preserve the wires for time-critical and narrowly focused telecommunications, at least until the wire-based technology gains a couple of orders of magnitude of price/performance. We can push 'television' to satellites if we're willing to experiment with radically different revenue models.

Charter Schools, Vouchers and Privatization

2005-11-19T18:13:00.000-05:00

I'm a big fan of the theory behind charter schools and vouchers because they give a choice to consumers (parents, kids, and even teachers) and cause money to flow to the schools that are getting results. This is exactly how our college system works in the US, and there's no reason why it can't work for elementary and secondary schools as well.

Would I be even happier if all schools were private? Maybe, but we need to ensure that everyone has access to a good education regardless of their ability to pay. There's no way to do that except to figure out a way to get money from the wealthy to subsidize the education of the poor.

The typical way of achieving this is to collect taxes and then let government entities make the decisions how to redistribute the money to public schools. The problem is that the people who make the decisions about how to distribute and use the money are politicians and bureaucrats who rarely demonstrate the ability to perform this function well. The charter school fiasco is an example. Once the vultures of our society learned that money was being handed out without adequate controls, all kinds of unqualified folks opened up charter schools to make a fast buck. The money was wasted and the kids got nothing.

Again, the college system provides a model. My eldest attended a private school here in Ohio. It was expensive, and our financial condition was such that we could not qualify for any financial aid. But this school is also known for giving generous scholarships to promising kids, which no doubt contributes to the excellence of the school. I’ve always joked that when you paid full tuition to a good private college, you are paying for both your own kid and one on scholarship. But I think it’s the truth, and it’s also okay with me.

The youngest considered Northwestern before choosing the Honors Program at Ohio State. One of things that really impressed me about Northwestern was that they said they select the students they want first (which is based on much more than academics), then figured out the funding. The student who gave us the campus tour said she came from the ghettos of Chicago, but was attending Northwestern for free. That’s the way it should be done.

For K-12, it would be a daunting task to go through same kind of admissions process used by colleges. That’s where vouchers come in. Every kid gets a voucher that’s worth say $10,000 per year, and can spend it at any accredited school. Each school can decide how to allocate that money to buildings, equipment, staff, books, extracurricular activities, and so on. Some may choose not to have sports, and put all the money into PhD level teachers in math and science. Others may focus on what we today call ‘vocational education.’ Others may have an athletic orientation, but not as a taxpayer-funded all-day playground. The athletics would have to be tied to a rigorous academic program.

A voucher could not just automatically be redeemed for cash. I propose that the number of vouchers which get redeemed is tied to performance on standardized tests. For example, if you have 500 kids in a school, but only 450 pass the tests, the school can only redeem 450 vouchers. You have trust that the test are valid measures of academic achievement, but we have already crossed that bridge. With this approach, bad schools are rapidly starved out, even if the parents don’t care, as is sometimes the case.

For parents who are really concerned about their kids’ education, the voucher system allows them to select schools which provide the education and environment they want for their kids, regardless of the family’s financial status. For the parents who don’t care, the tie of the voucher reimbursement to test scores keeps the parents’ ambivalence from letting bad schools carry on anyway.

Okay, so here’s the more radical component of vouchers: I believe that the public school system should be disbanded and converted to a 100% private system. A school corporation must be accredited and chartered by the state to be able to redeem vouchers, but the management of such a school is selected by a Board of Directors, and the Board of Directors is elected by those who turn in vouchers to attend the school. Each school corporation determines it own compensation program for staff, including the school calendar, salaries and benefits. Teachers are free to form unions, and school corporations are free to decide whether they will be union shops.

Some school corporations will specialize in K-6 perhaps, running just one building or hundreds of buildings across the state. Other school corporations will do K-12, but only in one community. There might even be school corporations that run only 9-12 schools that specialize in music and the arts. The combinations are endless. Larger school corporations might use their economies of scale to enable academic programs which smaller corporations just cannot afford. As an example of what I mean, as a computer science major I attended Ohio State in the 1970s because they had one of the largest academic computer complexes in the country, something a little school like my eldest’s private college could never afford. However, she studied music education, which doesn’t require a big capital budget. It was much more important for her to have access to well-respected faculty and to get to go on performance tours.

It could work. But it means wrestling power away from the politicians. And that takes an involved and informed public (whoops, slipped into another rant).

PL

Free TV a Goner?

2005-11-15T16:37:00.000-05:00

WSJ 11/14/05 p B8 "Hollywood Writers Push Back Against Product Placement"

The Writers Guild of America wants a code of conduct developed which requires disclosure at the beginning of each TV show of the products which were incorporated because of placement deals (i.e. as opposed to being part of the writer's storyline). If the studios don't go along with this, the writers intend to seek support from the FCC.
One of the signs of the end of an industry is when its incumbents seek the government's help in maintaining the status quo, rather than let free market forces drive sellers to produce what buyers desire.

It's not that I don't understand where the writers are coming from. Their ability to get future employment is heavily influenced by how their prior work is perceived by future employers. If the requirements of a product placement deal make a writer's scripts look like a joke, potential future employers might disregard that writer as a candidate for future scripts. The writers are probably just as concerned that their peers will look down their noses at them unless the writer can say "they made me put that big speech about Lime Coke in the love scene."

Television writers misunderstand their role. They aren't journalists, who have a higher calling to seek truth and communicate it to the public. Writers get paid when they produce something for which someone is willing to pay, like a TV script with embedded product placement. Seems to me that if a writer is really good, they might be able to weave product placement into a script almost seamlessly. If the scripts the writers produce are valuable and scarce, they have more power to set terms and conditions. But if that were true, they wouldn't need the government to intervene.The folks who produce and distribute TV shows are realizing that their world is at the beginning of a radical change, and they're desperately trying to figure out what the new revenue model will be.

Advertising revenue from discrete 30sec commercials is about to evaporate. The people who run the television business aren't going to let their ability to participate in the future of video entertainment get screwed up by the writers. For every Guild member who refuses to write for a show because they don't like something, there will be multiple underemployed writers willing to take their place. The Writers Guild needs to adopt or be rendered irrelevant.

Very few creators of art get to make a lot of money and also have complete control of their product. Mozart died penniless because he value art over wealth. We're all thankful for that. "The Fountainhead" by Ayn Rand is a classic story of artist freedom versus art-for-money. I'm sure television writers are frequently asked to change their scripts to meet someone else's needs (e.g. to support a political position). Is there a real difference here?

So to the members of the Writers Guild, you have a choice:

Resist change, and cry to the government for help if you don't get your way. Your employers will find a way to do without you.
Work on updating your craft, and figure out how to blend the commercial requirements of your business with your artistic vision. Be part of the solution, not part of the problem.
Get out of the business now. If you want freedom, write a book --- oh, wait a minute, I forgot about the editors.

Guess you need to write a blog...