France, Switzerland, Germany, Netherlands, and other countries have recently made news for bans on women wearing Burqas.
CAIR, the Council on American Islamic Relations, has fought against requirements that women not wear Burqas, Veils, and similar head coverings in drivers license, ID card, and passport photos.
Here's one good reason why veils are a bad idea:
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-1328204/Elizabeth-Smart-kidnapper-refused-let-detective-veil.html
Wednesday, November 10, 2010
Friday, November 5, 2010
What if… We Could Train Truckers Like We Train Mice?
Have you ever been driving down the highway, moved to the left lane to get around a slower car, and suddenly, BAM! It ain’t happening. There’s a truck in the way. And he ain’t budging.
You flash your headlights and… Nothing. No effort to move over so you (and the cars that are now piling up behind you) can get by. You can see a half mile or more of completely clear freeway in front of this guy, but you can’t get to it.
Sunday night I was dreaming about mice… and a trucker who’d blocked me earlier in the day.
If you put a mouse in a maze, he’ll wind his way through until he finds the cheese at the end. The first time he doesn’t even know the cheese is there, but by the second or third time he’s learned a bit, and he works hard to get it as quickly as possible.
He continues to learn with each attempt. He learns which paths are dead-ends that slow him down and begins to avoid them. Interestingly, if, on the last straightaway, just in front of the cheese, you put an electrical shock, he’ll remember it, and find an alternative route. Even though he can see the cheese sitting there, and can’t see the electricity, he remembers the shock, and goes around to the back. Smart little critters.
What if, I dreamed… We legislate that every trucker have an electrode in their seat, with universal remotes for them sold at local Target stores? If a trucker doesn’t move over after you flash your headlights, you press the ‘Mild Reminder’ button, and ‘zzzt’, he gets a slight bit of excitement.
Still hasn’t moved over? You can opt for the ‘Moderate Persuasion’ button. This one was fun because I could see him in his rear-view mirror. He jumped a little. Oh the temptation…
Thus endeth the buttons on the remote. But not my dream. If you’re geeky enough to know what Virtual Easter Eggs are, then you’ll have already googled your third alternative. While holding down the power button on your remote, press the ‘Mild Reminder’ twice, and then press ‘Moderate Persuasion’ once. You’ll likely see the truck swerve right and left a bit, but he’s gotten the message, and he doesn’t want to find out if there’s a fourth option.
This could work even if you’re driving a Smart, Mini-Cooper, or Harley. Talk about power to the little guy!
Alas, even my dreams must eventually lean a bit more Libertarian (as enjoyable as the thought of those very un-Libertarian electrodes was).
What if… Every time a trucker needlessly blocked someone, the blocked driver eventually made their way safely in front of the trucker and slowed his left lane blocking self down a bit? Just enough to cause him to have to downshift four or five gears and then upshift back through those same gears to get back up to speed. Would this be enough of a PITA for him to eventually learn that blocking the left lane can be a bit of a dead-end?
If only this weren’t a dream.
After I woke up I thought about my dreams.
What if…, thought I, we didn’t have to treat truckers like mice?
------
Prologue: Since my dream, that every time I see a truck, I imagine a mouse driving it. Hah!
You flash your headlights and… Nothing. No effort to move over so you (and the cars that are now piling up behind you) can get by. You can see a half mile or more of completely clear freeway in front of this guy, but you can’t get to it.
Sunday night I was dreaming about mice… and a trucker who’d blocked me earlier in the day.
If you put a mouse in a maze, he’ll wind his way through until he finds the cheese at the end. The first time he doesn’t even know the cheese is there, but by the second or third time he’s learned a bit, and he works hard to get it as quickly as possible.
He continues to learn with each attempt. He learns which paths are dead-ends that slow him down and begins to avoid them. Interestingly, if, on the last straightaway, just in front of the cheese, you put an electrical shock, he’ll remember it, and find an alternative route. Even though he can see the cheese sitting there, and can’t see the electricity, he remembers the shock, and goes around to the back. Smart little critters.
What if, I dreamed… We legislate that every trucker have an electrode in their seat, with universal remotes for them sold at local Target stores? If a trucker doesn’t move over after you flash your headlights, you press the ‘Mild Reminder’ button, and ‘zzzt’, he gets a slight bit of excitement.
Still hasn’t moved over? You can opt for the ‘Moderate Persuasion’ button. This one was fun because I could see him in his rear-view mirror. He jumped a little. Oh the temptation…
Thus endeth the buttons on the remote. But not my dream. If you’re geeky enough to know what Virtual Easter Eggs are, then you’ll have already googled your third alternative. While holding down the power button on your remote, press the ‘Mild Reminder’ twice, and then press ‘Moderate Persuasion’ once. You’ll likely see the truck swerve right and left a bit, but he’s gotten the message, and he doesn’t want to find out if there’s a fourth option.
This could work even if you’re driving a Smart, Mini-Cooper, or Harley. Talk about power to the little guy!
Alas, even my dreams must eventually lean a bit more Libertarian (as enjoyable as the thought of those very un-Libertarian electrodes was).
What if… Every time a trucker needlessly blocked someone, the blocked driver eventually made their way safely in front of the trucker and slowed his left lane blocking self down a bit? Just enough to cause him to have to downshift four or five gears and then upshift back through those same gears to get back up to speed. Would this be enough of a PITA for him to eventually learn that blocking the left lane can be a bit of a dead-end?
If only this weren’t a dream.
After I woke up I thought about my dreams.
What if…, thought I, we didn’t have to treat truckers like mice?
------
Prologue: Since my dream, that every time I see a truck, I imagine a mouse driving it. Hah!
Thursday, November 4, 2010
Almost Legal
Election day is always exciting for me, even when my candidates or ballot measures lose. It’s democracy in action like nowhere else on earth. Even though I very strongly disagree with his policy positions, it was still kind of exciting to see Barrack Obama elected in 2008 - we elected our first black president and we saw the power of citizens.
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California’s Prop 19, to fully legalize marijuana, didn’t pass. Latest results have it at 46.5% Yes to 53.6% No. Much of the news media are touting this as much more of a defeat than it really is though.
Think back perhaps 10 or 20 years. Would there have even been 20% support for such a measure? My guess is that pot will be decriminalized in California within 4 years. The war on it has simply proven too costly for too little benefit.
For the pro-legalization crowd there may even be a very substantial silver lining in this defeat. If this had passed it would have made California the only place in all of North America where pot could be legally purchased. Similar to what happened in The Netherlands, potheads would have flocked to California to experience smoking pot legally.
It’s one thing for the local populace to smoke it legally, it’s another to have an influx of potheads*.
There will very likely be several additional states joining California with legalization propositions on their ballots in 2012 and 2014. My guess is that California will still be the first, but a handful of others will follow two and four years later.
Just having a proposition like this on the ballot in all of these states will send a message to law enforcement and the judiciary that criminalizing pot is far from universally supported. Having 45% of the citizenry say so in an election sends an even stronger message. This, together with states legalizing medical marijuana, will ease enforcement efforts in these states, and thus, help reduce pot tourism to California.
* Potheads are generally not a problematic bunch. Just compare the crowds in a pot selling coffeeshop in Amsterdam to those in a bar, there or in the U.S. I’ll take the potheads any day.
Amsterdam is, even with their high pot and prostitution tourism, mostly U.S. folk, united in saying that they do not want to again criminalize these vices. They do not want the problems we have with prohibitions. However, as I discussed here, some of the border cities, such as Maastricht, are limiting sales to citizens only.
-----
California’s Prop 19, to fully legalize marijuana, didn’t pass. Latest results have it at 46.5% Yes to 53.6% No. Much of the news media are touting this as much more of a defeat than it really is though.
Think back perhaps 10 or 20 years. Would there have even been 20% support for such a measure? My guess is that pot will be decriminalized in California within 4 years. The war on it has simply proven too costly for too little benefit.
For the pro-legalization crowd there may even be a very substantial silver lining in this defeat. If this had passed it would have made California the only place in all of North America where pot could be legally purchased. Similar to what happened in The Netherlands, potheads would have flocked to California to experience smoking pot legally.
It’s one thing for the local populace to smoke it legally, it’s another to have an influx of potheads*.
There will very likely be several additional states joining California with legalization propositions on their ballots in 2012 and 2014. My guess is that California will still be the first, but a handful of others will follow two and four years later.
Just having a proposition like this on the ballot in all of these states will send a message to law enforcement and the judiciary that criminalizing pot is far from universally supported. Having 45% of the citizenry say so in an election sends an even stronger message. This, together with states legalizing medical marijuana, will ease enforcement efforts in these states, and thus, help reduce pot tourism to California.
* Potheads are generally not a problematic bunch. Just compare the crowds in a pot selling coffeeshop in Amsterdam to those in a bar, there or in the U.S. I’ll take the potheads any day.
Amsterdam is, even with their high pot and prostitution tourism, mostly U.S. folk, united in saying that they do not want to again criminalize these vices. They do not want the problems we have with prohibitions. However, as I discussed here, some of the border cities, such as Maastricht, are limiting sales to citizens only.
Monday, November 1, 2010
ObamaCare and Innovation
A couple of days ago I got to tour the 3M Innovation Center. The products this company makes are truly amazing, both in the technologies involved and in the sheer number of different products. The average person in the world (yes, the entire world) interacts with 31 different 3M products each day of their lives! Do you have a cell phone with a display? 3M product. You see over 21 roadsigns each day that use 3M reflection technology. EVERY semi truck trailer in the U.S. with those red/white blocks along the bottom is 3M technology. Your car uses 3M adhesives as do most planes in the air. If you have fillings, crowns, or braces in your mouth they are very likely made by 3M. If you watched the Chilean mine rescue you saw a number of 3M products from the face masks to the coatings on the Oakley sunglasses they were wearing.
Yes, this company goes way beyond post-it notes and Scotchguard.
For the computer geeks (others can skip this paragraph) who want to measure their overclocking in multiples instead of percents, there’s a new chip cooler using 3M’s Flourinert liquid*. They can produce this liquid with just about any boiling point so the cooler is much simpler, much less expensive, smaller, and does a better job of cooling than any existing liquid cooling solution. Basically there’s a liquid container bonded to the chip, a small radiator in the top of the case with a cooling fan, and one tube connecting the two. The Flourinert boils, vabor bubbles up the tube to the radiator, cools, and falls back down the same tube as liquid. They were running an Intel Core i7 980 at 13Ghz with this little rig. It was fun to watch how much the bubbles increased as the CPU worked harder and got hotter.
One product they’re hoping to have FDA approval for later this year is a new micro-needle technology. It’s basically a half-inch round transdermal patch with anywhere from 50 to 1,500 extremely tiny needles (try 50μm in diameter for small!). The needle tips are pre-coated during manufacturing with the vaccine or other medicine. When the patch is applied to your skin these microscopic needles go just below the surface to what is known as the stratum corneum**, the meds dissolve, are absorbed by your capillaries, and conveyed throughout your body.
There are a number of benefits over syringes such as reduced chance of infections and other complications, higher efficacy (eg, more likely to get meds to where they need to go), and use of solid meds rather than liquid so they’ll last longer and not require refrigeration. Since micro-needles generally require less than 1/10th as much med, vaccine supplies cover about ten times as many people which will help eliminate problems such as we’ve recently seen with the scarcity of H1N1 vaccines.
This is all in addition to MUCH LESS PAIN for recipients. I hate getting shots. I’m very much looking forward to these things!
One really huge advantage to micro needles is cost savings. With a typical syringe injection only about 1/16th of the meds injected actually make it to your blood where it does any good, micro-needles deliver over 90%. This can reduce a $30 vaccine to $3. Because the solid meds are more stable and don’t require refrigeration there is also less waste (an estimated 15% of injectable meds are thrown out each year). And if they can be easily and safely self-administered there are potential savings in doctors office visits.
Now, let’s get down to brass tacks. 3M invested years and hundreds of millions of dollars developing this technology – for one reason – profits. They know, that if they are successful, privately run medical clinics will beat a path to their door. This product represents a lot of cost savings to the clinics as well as a benefit to attract new customers.
Without the profit potential, companies like 3M will not take the risks and make the investments to develop new technologies like this. Competition among medical clinics, drives competition in medical products, that drives 3M to do what it does.
If the U.S. medical care system were like the NIH in the UK, 3M and other companies would not invest in such risky new technologies. There is simply not enough of a payoff.
So, the next time you get a shot, think about it. They are injecting about 16 times as much med in you as needed. Overall this shot is costing about 10 times as much as it will when micro-needles are available. Under Obamacare there will be many fewer technology advances and products such as micro-needles will likely never be developed.
The more government involvement - the less competition. The less competition – the less innovation. And personally, I really like innovation that takes away real pain – like SHOTS!
* Flourinert has been around for about 40 years. It’s none electrical conducting so you can drop entire circuit boards in it. In fact one of it’s first uses was to help cool a Cray Supercomputer (and these always had clear plexi-glass side panels and bubblers in the bottom, purely for effect – very cool).
** Lightly scratch yourself with your fingernail. You may have reached as deep as the stratum corneum.
Yes, this company goes way beyond post-it notes and Scotchguard.
For the computer geeks (others can skip this paragraph) who want to measure their overclocking in multiples instead of percents, there’s a new chip cooler using 3M’s Flourinert liquid*. They can produce this liquid with just about any boiling point so the cooler is much simpler, much less expensive, smaller, and does a better job of cooling than any existing liquid cooling solution. Basically there’s a liquid container bonded to the chip, a small radiator in the top of the case with a cooling fan, and one tube connecting the two. The Flourinert boils, vabor bubbles up the tube to the radiator, cools, and falls back down the same tube as liquid. They were running an Intel Core i7 980 at 13Ghz with this little rig. It was fun to watch how much the bubbles increased as the CPU worked harder and got hotter.
One product they’re hoping to have FDA approval for later this year is a new micro-needle technology. It’s basically a half-inch round transdermal patch with anywhere from 50 to 1,500 extremely tiny needles (try 50μm in diameter for small!). The needle tips are pre-coated during manufacturing with the vaccine or other medicine. When the patch is applied to your skin these microscopic needles go just below the surface to what is known as the stratum corneum**, the meds dissolve, are absorbed by your capillaries, and conveyed throughout your body.
There are a number of benefits over syringes such as reduced chance of infections and other complications, higher efficacy (eg, more likely to get meds to where they need to go), and use of solid meds rather than liquid so they’ll last longer and not require refrigeration. Since micro-needles generally require less than 1/10th as much med, vaccine supplies cover about ten times as many people which will help eliminate problems such as we’ve recently seen with the scarcity of H1N1 vaccines.This is all in addition to MUCH LESS PAIN for recipients. I hate getting shots. I’m very much looking forward to these things!
One really huge advantage to micro needles is cost savings. With a typical syringe injection only about 1/16th of the meds injected actually make it to your blood where it does any good, micro-needles deliver over 90%. This can reduce a $30 vaccine to $3. Because the solid meds are more stable and don’t require refrigeration there is also less waste (an estimated 15% of injectable meds are thrown out each year). And if they can be easily and safely self-administered there are potential savings in doctors office visits.
Now, let’s get down to brass tacks. 3M invested years and hundreds of millions of dollars developing this technology – for one reason – profits. They know, that if they are successful, privately run medical clinics will beat a path to their door. This product represents a lot of cost savings to the clinics as well as a benefit to attract new customers.
Without the profit potential, companies like 3M will not take the risks and make the investments to develop new technologies like this. Competition among medical clinics, drives competition in medical products, that drives 3M to do what it does.
If the U.S. medical care system were like the NIH in the UK, 3M and other companies would not invest in such risky new technologies. There is simply not enough of a payoff.
So, the next time you get a shot, think about it. They are injecting about 16 times as much med in you as needed. Overall this shot is costing about 10 times as much as it will when micro-needles are available. Under Obamacare there will be many fewer technology advances and products such as micro-needles will likely never be developed.
The more government involvement - the less competition. The less competition – the less innovation. And personally, I really like innovation that takes away real pain – like SHOTS!
* Flourinert has been around for about 40 years. It’s none electrical conducting so you can drop entire circuit boards in it. In fact one of it’s first uses was to help cool a Cray Supercomputer (and these always had clear plexi-glass side panels and bubblers in the bottom, purely for effect – very cool).
** Lightly scratch yourself with your fingernail. You may have reached as deep as the stratum corneum.
Wednesday, October 27, 2010
Happiness: Union vs. Non-Union
Are union bus mechanics happier than non-union?
Well, it turns out I’ve got a couple of friends who are bus mechanics to fill me in.
We have 7 bus companies serving our metro area. Two have union mechanics; our public government run transit system, and a private company. Five are private non-union shops.
One friend works for the public transit system. The other worked there for about 15 years but now works for one of the non-union shops. He’s been a bus mechanic for almost 3 decades and knows mechanics at all of the bus companies, thus knows of what he speaks.
Between these two I’ve developed what I think is a fairly accurate, though anecdotal, picture of things. Both are also in agreement on their assessments’. The upshot… Mechanics at the five non-union shops are much happier than those at either of the two union shops.
Mechanics in the union shops spend considerable time focused on, and complaining about, pay, benefits, and work rules. Those in the non-union shops rarely complain about these issues (or apparently any issues).
Mechanics in the union shops have an adversarial relationship with management, non-union mechanics have a friendly, common-good-for-the-company, relationship.
Mechanics in the non-union shops earn slightly lower base pay* (but better benefits) and yet are happier and work harder**.
Both said that working in a non-union shop is much more enjoyable - with happier fellow employees, friendly relationships with management, and a straightforward work environment not grunged up with union rules, meetings, and pressure.
-----
A similar comparison can possibly be made with airline flight attendants. I’ve long thought that Delta’s flight attendants seemed much happier and friendlier than Northwest’s. Guess which is union?
Based on discussions on AirlineCrew.net, Delta’s non-union FA’s make more money (overall and per hour) than their unionized NWA counterparts, but also lack union job protections such as work rules or the hours they can be required to work. It is also much easier to get fired by Delta than NWA though there is no indication that Delta is any more likely to fire FA’s than NWA. These discussions also reveal the happiness quotient - with Delta the clear winner. It’ll be interesting to see the outcome of their current unionization vote.
------
Money never makes us happy, but someone telling us that we should be unhappy certainly seems to work.
* Not including union dues that union mechanics are ‘required’ to pay. The non-union mechanic said that his company is also rolling out a profit sharing plan in 2011 that, based on past performance, will more than make up for any pay differences.
** The working harder (or smarter?) is anecdotal as well as statistical. Anecdotal based simply on their experience and, in the case of one of them, being told by fellow union members to work slower. Statistical in some very quick comparisons on how long certain jobs take with the union shop taking almost 50% longer for several common jobs than the non-union shops. Also, though there is little published data, union busses seem to generally be out of service for maintenance a greater part of every year. This could also be due to other factors such as age or harder use so more analysis would be necessary.
Well, it turns out I’ve got a couple of friends who are bus mechanics to fill me in.
We have 7 bus companies serving our metro area. Two have union mechanics; our public government run transit system, and a private company. Five are private non-union shops.
One friend works for the public transit system. The other worked there for about 15 years but now works for one of the non-union shops. He’s been a bus mechanic for almost 3 decades and knows mechanics at all of the bus companies, thus knows of what he speaks.
Between these two I’ve developed what I think is a fairly accurate, though anecdotal, picture of things. Both are also in agreement on their assessments’. The upshot… Mechanics at the five non-union shops are much happier than those at either of the two union shops.
Mechanics in the union shops spend considerable time focused on, and complaining about, pay, benefits, and work rules. Those in the non-union shops rarely complain about these issues (or apparently any issues).
Mechanics in the union shops have an adversarial relationship with management, non-union mechanics have a friendly, common-good-for-the-company, relationship.
Mechanics in the non-union shops earn slightly lower base pay* (but better benefits) and yet are happier and work harder**.
Both said that working in a non-union shop is much more enjoyable - with happier fellow employees, friendly relationships with management, and a straightforward work environment not grunged up with union rules, meetings, and pressure.
-----
A similar comparison can possibly be made with airline flight attendants. I’ve long thought that Delta’s flight attendants seemed much happier and friendlier than Northwest’s. Guess which is union?
Based on discussions on AirlineCrew.net, Delta’s non-union FA’s make more money (overall and per hour) than their unionized NWA counterparts, but also lack union job protections such as work rules or the hours they can be required to work. It is also much easier to get fired by Delta than NWA though there is no indication that Delta is any more likely to fire FA’s than NWA. These discussions also reveal the happiness quotient - with Delta the clear winner. It’ll be interesting to see the outcome of their current unionization vote.
------
Money never makes us happy, but someone telling us that we should be unhappy certainly seems to work.
* Not including union dues that union mechanics are ‘required’ to pay. The non-union mechanic said that his company is also rolling out a profit sharing plan in 2011 that, based on past performance, will more than make up for any pay differences.
** The working harder (or smarter?) is anecdotal as well as statistical. Anecdotal based simply on their experience and, in the case of one of them, being told by fellow union members to work slower. Statistical in some very quick comparisons on how long certain jobs take with the union shop taking almost 50% longer for several common jobs than the non-union shops. Also, though there is little published data, union busses seem to generally be out of service for maintenance a greater part of every year. This could also be due to other factors such as age or harder use so more analysis would be necessary.
Monday, October 18, 2010
Sanctified Darkness ?
Interesting discussion at a church recently. They had rented a large front projection screen (22’ x34’) for a production and were given the option of purchasing it fairly cheaply.
The idea of keeping it permanently as a backdrop on their stage/platform and projecting on to it during worship was very appealing. One potential drawback however was that in order for any projections on it to be seen they’d need to very significantly lower the stage lighting level, otherwise the lighting would wash out any projected images.
Turned out there was no drawback to this at all. Just 2 benefits they thought of.
Benefit the first. Having the worship band nearly dark takes everyone’s attention off of the band and puts it on worship – where it belongs. Even the band members said that this has improved their own worship since they feel less like performers on a stage.
Benefit the second. Takes guys minds off the gals. Several years ago in a couple of surveys of Christian men I asked how often they were distracted by attractive women on stage, such as singers, and how often they had mentally undressed them. If I remember correctly 81% said that they had been distracted ‘often’ and 64% said that they had mentally undressed a woman on stage ‘multiple times per month’.
After determining that there were only benefits to the screen and lower lighting level they purchased the screen and have been using it successfully for some time now.
I wish I had surveyed this church prior to this change and could do it again now to see how it looks statistically. Anecdotally though, from a few brief conversations, it’s worked terrifically on both benefits.
The idea of keeping it permanently as a backdrop on their stage/platform and projecting on to it during worship was very appealing. One potential drawback however was that in order for any projections on it to be seen they’d need to very significantly lower the stage lighting level, otherwise the lighting would wash out any projected images.
Turned out there was no drawback to this at all. Just 2 benefits they thought of.
Benefit the first. Having the worship band nearly dark takes everyone’s attention off of the band and puts it on worship – where it belongs. Even the band members said that this has improved their own worship since they feel less like performers on a stage.
Benefit the second. Takes guys minds off the gals. Several years ago in a couple of surveys of Christian men I asked how often they were distracted by attractive women on stage, such as singers, and how often they had mentally undressed them. If I remember correctly 81% said that they had been distracted ‘often’ and 64% said that they had mentally undressed a woman on stage ‘multiple times per month’.
After determining that there were only benefits to the screen and lower lighting level they purchased the screen and have been using it successfully for some time now.
I wish I had surveyed this church prior to this change and could do it again now to see how it looks statistically. Anecdotally though, from a few brief conversations, it’s worked terrifically on both benefits.
Tuesday, October 12, 2010
American Toughs
For exercise I ride my bike. The two wheels with pedals variety. My knees won’t let me play football or run anymore so cycling (and skiing in the winter) is my primary exercise. And it’s a very enjoyable one. I ride about 140 miles per week and average 19 – 21 mph*. Not bad for an old guy.
I also wear the funny tight black shorts and pro team jersey that are, for better or worse, a practical necessity. The need for the shorts is rather obvious. There are three reasons for the jersey; a loose jersey flapping in the wind not only becomes an annoyance, but actually irritates my skin after a while, I need the lower back pockets for mid-ride food and sometimes an extra water bottle, and the sharp lines, letters, and bright contrasting colors of the pro-team jerseys are much more prominent to drivers than solid color, striped, or similar jerseys**.
Maybe 3 or 4 times a year someone will yell some snide comment out their window along the lines of “you look like such a dink in that outfit.” Well, duh. Like I don’t already know that. Do they think I have no fashion sense at all?
It’s interesting to me who makes these comments. It’s always some large ‘tough’ guy, usually driving a large pickup or SUV. Most are in their 30’s or 40’s.
I usually just ignore them, but a handful of times I’ve looked at them quizzically and asked “and your point?” which always leaves them sputtering for a bit while they try to figure out what their point is. On two occasions I’ve been invited to pull over so they can “show me their point by beating my face in.” “And that will prove what?” shut one up. The other required me to add “that you can beat up an old skinny guy?”***
We may have learned everything we needed in kindergarten, but apparently some people think they’re still there.
So, what is their point? Why do they feel the need to say something? Do they think that they’re helping me in some way? Does it make them feel better?
A couple of psychologist friends told me that comments like these are rooted in these guys having some kind of inferiority complex. Really? Because I have a nicer bike than they do? My cycling jersey looks better than their Brett Favre jersey? They’re jealous of my new svelte figure? Problems in bed so they’re taking it out on me?
How come women never make comments like this? Or people driving Lexus’s, Porsche’s, or Mercedes?
Not all big ‘tough’ guys driving trucks are this mature. Most people driving pickups are actually quite courteous and always move over a ways when they pass. Many will even wave me through at intersections so that I don’t have to stop (a royal PITA with clip-in pedals).
I have a number of friends who look the part of the guys who have the inferiority complexes. They’re rather big, pot-bellied, maybe a bit Neanderthal looking (and proud of it), and drive pickups. They’re also among the nicest people I know. They’re mostly trades workers who are quick to offer their skill, muscle, and expertise. And these guys have no inferiority complex. Nor any reason to have one. A couple have even taken up cycling. Lycra shorts and all.
BTW, though I’m skinny now, I still drive a big, decade old, V-8, SUV.
* For the exercise types reading this; I'm currently riding a Scott Addict with HED Ardennes wheels and a Garmin 705. I typically ride about 25 – 40 mile loops 3 to 5 days per week and average between 190 and 203 watts with a peak this summer of 880 watts in a sprint. My average heartrate for these is 152 and I usually see a max of around 175 on each ride. My highest heartrate this year was 182.
** Being seen by drivers is extremely high on my survival list and experimentation with a number of jersey’s has indicated that the pro team jersey’s appear much more visible based on the number of cars that pass way too close in different jersey’s. Even within the pro team jersey’s we’ve found that the ‘Saxo Bank Swiss’ and ‘Aqua Sappone’ jersey’s are the best. A psychologist friend told me that the large lettering itself actually probably helps a lot since it triggers thought processes in the drivers brain whereas solid colors, stripes, and other designs do not.
*** I’m not very thrilled with the old part, but I’m quite proud of the skinny part. I used to be more like these guys. It took considerable discipline to change my diet and exercise to lose the weight and keep it off.
I also wear the funny tight black shorts and pro team jersey that are, for better or worse, a practical necessity. The need for the shorts is rather obvious. There are three reasons for the jersey; a loose jersey flapping in the wind not only becomes an annoyance, but actually irritates my skin after a while, I need the lower back pockets for mid-ride food and sometimes an extra water bottle, and the sharp lines, letters, and bright contrasting colors of the pro-team jerseys are much more prominent to drivers than solid color, striped, or similar jerseys**.
Maybe 3 or 4 times a year someone will yell some snide comment out their window along the lines of “you look like such a dink in that outfit.” Well, duh. Like I don’t already know that. Do they think I have no fashion sense at all?
It’s interesting to me who makes these comments. It’s always some large ‘tough’ guy, usually driving a large pickup or SUV. Most are in their 30’s or 40’s.
I usually just ignore them, but a handful of times I’ve looked at them quizzically and asked “and your point?” which always leaves them sputtering for a bit while they try to figure out what their point is. On two occasions I’ve been invited to pull over so they can “show me their point by beating my face in.” “And that will prove what?” shut one up. The other required me to add “that you can beat up an old skinny guy?”***
We may have learned everything we needed in kindergarten, but apparently some people think they’re still there.
So, what is their point? Why do they feel the need to say something? Do they think that they’re helping me in some way? Does it make them feel better?
A couple of psychologist friends told me that comments like these are rooted in these guys having some kind of inferiority complex. Really? Because I have a nicer bike than they do? My cycling jersey looks better than their Brett Favre jersey? They’re jealous of my new svelte figure? Problems in bed so they’re taking it out on me?
How come women never make comments like this? Or people driving Lexus’s, Porsche’s, or Mercedes?
Not all big ‘tough’ guys driving trucks are this mature. Most people driving pickups are actually quite courteous and always move over a ways when they pass. Many will even wave me through at intersections so that I don’t have to stop (a royal PITA with clip-in pedals).
I have a number of friends who look the part of the guys who have the inferiority complexes. They’re rather big, pot-bellied, maybe a bit Neanderthal looking (and proud of it), and drive pickups. They’re also among the nicest people I know. They’re mostly trades workers who are quick to offer their skill, muscle, and expertise. And these guys have no inferiority complex. Nor any reason to have one. A couple have even taken up cycling. Lycra shorts and all.
BTW, though I’m skinny now, I still drive a big, decade old, V-8, SUV.
* For the exercise types reading this; I'm currently riding a Scott Addict with HED Ardennes wheels and a Garmin 705. I typically ride about 25 – 40 mile loops 3 to 5 days per week and average between 190 and 203 watts with a peak this summer of 880 watts in a sprint. My average heartrate for these is 152 and I usually see a max of around 175 on each ride. My highest heartrate this year was 182.
** Being seen by drivers is extremely high on my survival list and experimentation with a number of jersey’s has indicated that the pro team jersey’s appear much more visible based on the number of cars that pass way too close in different jersey’s. Even within the pro team jersey’s we’ve found that the ‘Saxo Bank Swiss’ and ‘Aqua Sappone’ jersey’s are the best. A psychologist friend told me that the large lettering itself actually probably helps a lot since it triggers thought processes in the drivers brain whereas solid colors, stripes, and other designs do not.
*** I’m not very thrilled with the old part, but I’m quite proud of the skinny part. I used to be more like these guys. It took considerable discipline to change my diet and exercise to lose the weight and keep it off.
Wednesday, October 6, 2010
Unions are so beneficial.
I have an interesting friend. His grandfather ran what is today a Fortune 100 company. His father was very successful as well. My friend went to university for business and accounting and was himself fairly successful in his business endeavors. In his late 30’s he tired of the corporate world and went to work for a non-profit that ran a number of organizations including homeless shelters, facilities and programs for underprivileged youth, and a very successful program to help single mothers obtain life and job skills.
He’s always loved engines and working on cars and trucks though. A couple of years ago he decided to take a well deserved break from the non-profit and find a job as a truck mechanic. He enrolled in a local tech school to get his mechanics certificate and began his job search. Now you have to imagine this. A 50-something guy with a masters degree and 3 decades of successful experience in upper management schlepping around trying to find a job as a truck mechanic. One other thing, he owns homes, very nice ones, in Arizona, Florida, Colorado, Wisconsin, Switzerland, and London. He wasn’t looking because he needs the money.
As an entry to becoming a bus mechanic he drove busses for a short bit. A few days ago though, he celebrated one year as a bus mechanic. And he’s happier than ever, especially when he solves some strange problem on one of their hybrid busses.
HOWEVER, that’s all background.
He works in a union shop. Where once he represented his company in union contract negotiations, today he’s himself a union member. This has given him a very interesting perspective.
His first real encounter was when other mechanics would tell him to slow down and not work so fast. That’s not in his repertoire. His boss was soon assigning him three busses per night while others, all senior to him, got one. He couldn’t have been happier.
He and I have both worked as mechanics in non-union shops and he now has experience in two union shops. He said that there’s a clear difference. The non-union folks, though all are working because they need the money, enjoy what they’re doing. They enjoy solving problems or making a car or truck run better. They’re happy that they can have a job doing something that they enjoy. Across the board though the union mechanics have replaced that enjoyment with angst. Their world is ‘us against the company.’
Similarly, the union guys have lost all sense of accomplishment. After 3 years they reach seniority. There’s nothing to attain nor nothing at risk. Their jobs are ‘union protected’ so they would have to try hard to get fired. And, no matter how hard they work, they’ll gain nothing more. Fixing one bus per night or three makes no difference to them so why work three times as hard? They come, they do their mediocre thing, they go home. And never go home with any sense of having accomplished anything.
When I worked as a mechanic I started on ‘straight time’ which meant I was paid an hourly wage, just like the union guys, and did what I was told. The difference is that I could be fired, and didn’t want to be, and I wanted to impress the boss so that I could start working ‘flat rate’ Flat rate is when you’re paid per job. For instance, replacing a water pump on a 1972 Volvo was rated as 45 minutes. Replacing a cylinder head was 3:15 (three hours, fifteen minutes). I think my rate was $20 per hour so I’d get $15 for the water pump and $65 for the cylinder head, regardless of how long it took me.
My first water pump took about 2 hours - not very profitable. After a few months though I was doing most jobs pretty close to time and soon I was coming in a bit under.
Screwing up wasn’t a good option. If I didn’t do a water pump correctly, I had to fix it, for no additional pay. I was far more careful after my first such experience.
Also, while I was paid $20/hour, my employer actually charged my time out at about $40/hour. This covered costs for the building, utilities, and stuff. More importantly, it was where profit came from. The more money I made, the more my employer made. Mechanics not billing enough time (or who screwed up and made customers unhappy) weren’t making money for our employer and didn’t keep their jobs very long.
My pay was a very direct reflection on how well I did my job. I was incented to work well and work hard. Most days I went home with a great sense of accomplishment, either because I’d made a bit extra money from working harder, or had solved some strange problem, or both. Every employee also shared in the profits (and we were very profitable) so every 3 months we’d get a profit sharing bonus. Every one of us made sure to keep our customers happy and coming back.
Back to the union guys. They work for a company that is subsidized by taxpayers – you and I. The fares they charge only cover about 30% of their expenses. Think about my friend who repairs three buses in the time the other 14 mechanics repair one each. Might it cost us taxpayers less to run this bus system if all of the mechanics did three buses per night? The savings wouldn’t be just that they’d need one-third the personnel (and one-third the benefits AND one-third the pension expense), but they’d only need one-third the facilities, utilities, training, insurance, and other costs of running the maintenance operation.
Interestingly this isn’t our only bus system. We have six other bus companies, all privately owned, serving the same area. All six have nicer and cleaner buses than our public bus system. Three charge the same fare and yet run profitable enterprises. The other three charge higher fares but also provide a much higher level of service. Guess what? None of their mechanics (or other employees) are union. Their mechanics also earn more money than the union mechanics and based on anecdotal experience, are much happier.
Hmmm….
BTW, I'm generally a supporter of public transport.
He’s always loved engines and working on cars and trucks though. A couple of years ago he decided to take a well deserved break from the non-profit and find a job as a truck mechanic. He enrolled in a local tech school to get his mechanics certificate and began his job search. Now you have to imagine this. A 50-something guy with a masters degree and 3 decades of successful experience in upper management schlepping around trying to find a job as a truck mechanic. One other thing, he owns homes, very nice ones, in Arizona, Florida, Colorado, Wisconsin, Switzerland, and London. He wasn’t looking because he needs the money.
As an entry to becoming a bus mechanic he drove busses for a short bit. A few days ago though, he celebrated one year as a bus mechanic. And he’s happier than ever, especially when he solves some strange problem on one of their hybrid busses.
HOWEVER, that’s all background.
He works in a union shop. Where once he represented his company in union contract negotiations, today he’s himself a union member. This has given him a very interesting perspective.
His first real encounter was when other mechanics would tell him to slow down and not work so fast. That’s not in his repertoire. His boss was soon assigning him three busses per night while others, all senior to him, got one. He couldn’t have been happier.
He and I have both worked as mechanics in non-union shops and he now has experience in two union shops. He said that there’s a clear difference. The non-union folks, though all are working because they need the money, enjoy what they’re doing. They enjoy solving problems or making a car or truck run better. They’re happy that they can have a job doing something that they enjoy. Across the board though the union mechanics have replaced that enjoyment with angst. Their world is ‘us against the company.’
Similarly, the union guys have lost all sense of accomplishment. After 3 years they reach seniority. There’s nothing to attain nor nothing at risk. Their jobs are ‘union protected’ so they would have to try hard to get fired. And, no matter how hard they work, they’ll gain nothing more. Fixing one bus per night or three makes no difference to them so why work three times as hard? They come, they do their mediocre thing, they go home. And never go home with any sense of having accomplished anything.
When I worked as a mechanic I started on ‘straight time’ which meant I was paid an hourly wage, just like the union guys, and did what I was told. The difference is that I could be fired, and didn’t want to be, and I wanted to impress the boss so that I could start working ‘flat rate’ Flat rate is when you’re paid per job. For instance, replacing a water pump on a 1972 Volvo was rated as 45 minutes. Replacing a cylinder head was 3:15 (three hours, fifteen minutes). I think my rate was $20 per hour so I’d get $15 for the water pump and $65 for the cylinder head, regardless of how long it took me.
My first water pump took about 2 hours - not very profitable. After a few months though I was doing most jobs pretty close to time and soon I was coming in a bit under.
Screwing up wasn’t a good option. If I didn’t do a water pump correctly, I had to fix it, for no additional pay. I was far more careful after my first such experience.
Also, while I was paid $20/hour, my employer actually charged my time out at about $40/hour. This covered costs for the building, utilities, and stuff. More importantly, it was where profit came from. The more money I made, the more my employer made. Mechanics not billing enough time (or who screwed up and made customers unhappy) weren’t making money for our employer and didn’t keep their jobs very long.
My pay was a very direct reflection on how well I did my job. I was incented to work well and work hard. Most days I went home with a great sense of accomplishment, either because I’d made a bit extra money from working harder, or had solved some strange problem, or both. Every employee also shared in the profits (and we were very profitable) so every 3 months we’d get a profit sharing bonus. Every one of us made sure to keep our customers happy and coming back.
Back to the union guys. They work for a company that is subsidized by taxpayers – you and I. The fares they charge only cover about 30% of their expenses. Think about my friend who repairs three buses in the time the other 14 mechanics repair one each. Might it cost us taxpayers less to run this bus system if all of the mechanics did three buses per night? The savings wouldn’t be just that they’d need one-third the personnel (and one-third the benefits AND one-third the pension expense), but they’d only need one-third the facilities, utilities, training, insurance, and other costs of running the maintenance operation.
Interestingly this isn’t our only bus system. We have six other bus companies, all privately owned, serving the same area. All six have nicer and cleaner buses than our public bus system. Three charge the same fare and yet run profitable enterprises. The other three charge higher fares but also provide a much higher level of service. Guess what? None of their mechanics (or other employees) are union. Their mechanics also earn more money than the union mechanics and based on anecdotal experience, are much happier.
Hmmm….
BTW, I'm generally a supporter of public transport.
Thursday, September 23, 2010
Proud Papa
It’s been a busy and hectic and amazingly awesome few weeks. My son got married.
I got to realize the dream of every father. To be able to look at my son and feel extremely and hugely proud of the man he’s become.
He’s doing well at university, has been elected head of his university’s broadcast arm, and has a good job offer for after he graduates next spring.
But that’s all just surface (though still very wonderful!)
He persuaded a terrific Christian woman to marry him. Knowing and seeing the love that he has for her makes me proud. That may seem like a strange thing to be proud of, but I am very proud of that in him. His love for her is not a selfish love. It’s a love for who she is and for her love of God. It’s a love that prefers her over himself. It’s the love that Paul talks about when he says that Christ loves us as a husband loves his wife.
Now we’re getting below the surface.
Almost any dolt can find someone to marry them. My new daughter isn’t just someone. That she choose to marry my son (and that her parents agreed) says a lot about him. And it’s the qualities that she sees in him and that I’ve seen develop in him throughout his life that has me bursting.
His Leadership – This is something that extremely few posses, that I don’t think is important for everyone to develop, and that I didn’t necessarily expect in him nor would have been disappointed had he not developed these. Leadership is a rather strange beast. There is often a fine line between leading and serving. A good leader does both and knows when each is needed. He’s learning these (and will continue to throughout his life) along with when direction is critical and when to leave people to do their own thing and contribute in their way. He’s learning what goofs are important to deal with and which to let slide. He’s learning what attributes are most important in people you hire (like character and integrity!).
His Family Leadership – OK, I sort of lied when I said that leadership isn’t important for everyone. Leadership in the home is important for all husbands and fathers. And wives and mothers. Like public leadership, it’s a balancing act of leading and serving, of knowing what’s important to deal with and what’s not. It’s accepting our own failures as the imperfect people we are and knowing what to realistically expect of others. And most important, looking to God to guide us as we guide our families. Seeing him develop in to the husband that God wants him to be is truly joyful.
His Character – A big huge bundle of really important stuff! He has a strong work ethic. He’s compassionate and caring. He has a good sense of humor (and is learning to laugh at his own humanness – like referring to his new wife as his husband in a toast at his reception). He’s developing a good sense of when to be serious and when it’s not so important. He’s learning more and more to appreciate and respect the good in others, to not judge others, but also to choose his friends and close associates carefully. He’s always been fairly even keeled, but he’s gaining a better realization that on the other side of every valley is a hill or mountain (and that hills and mountains don’t last forever) and that eventually there is light at the end of every tunnel and that over time things work out and that a positive attitude goes a long way towards overall happiness.
His Integrity - Truthfulness and honesty and accuracy are important to him. As they should be to all of us. ‘nuff said.
His Faith – Above all else, he is continually deepening his relationship with Christ. Just like all of us he still occasionally has his struggles and doubts, but he’s learning to take these in stride.
So I get to bask for a bit in being a very proud papa. For the man my son has become and for my new daughter - the woman he chose and who agreed to marry him.
I got to realize the dream of every father. To be able to look at my son and feel extremely and hugely proud of the man he’s become.
He’s doing well at university, has been elected head of his university’s broadcast arm, and has a good job offer for after he graduates next spring.
But that’s all just surface (though still very wonderful!)
He persuaded a terrific Christian woman to marry him. Knowing and seeing the love that he has for her makes me proud. That may seem like a strange thing to be proud of, but I am very proud of that in him. His love for her is not a selfish love. It’s a love for who she is and for her love of God. It’s a love that prefers her over himself. It’s the love that Paul talks about when he says that Christ loves us as a husband loves his wife.
Now we’re getting below the surface.
Almost any dolt can find someone to marry them. My new daughter isn’t just someone. That she choose to marry my son (and that her parents agreed) says a lot about him. And it’s the qualities that she sees in him and that I’ve seen develop in him throughout his life that has me bursting.
His Leadership – This is something that extremely few posses, that I don’t think is important for everyone to develop, and that I didn’t necessarily expect in him nor would have been disappointed had he not developed these. Leadership is a rather strange beast. There is often a fine line between leading and serving. A good leader does both and knows when each is needed. He’s learning these (and will continue to throughout his life) along with when direction is critical and when to leave people to do their own thing and contribute in their way. He’s learning what goofs are important to deal with and which to let slide. He’s learning what attributes are most important in people you hire (like character and integrity!).
His Family Leadership – OK, I sort of lied when I said that leadership isn’t important for everyone. Leadership in the home is important for all husbands and fathers. And wives and mothers. Like public leadership, it’s a balancing act of leading and serving, of knowing what’s important to deal with and what’s not. It’s accepting our own failures as the imperfect people we are and knowing what to realistically expect of others. And most important, looking to God to guide us as we guide our families. Seeing him develop in to the husband that God wants him to be is truly joyful.
His Character – A big huge bundle of really important stuff! He has a strong work ethic. He’s compassionate and caring. He has a good sense of humor (and is learning to laugh at his own humanness – like referring to his new wife as his husband in a toast at his reception). He’s developing a good sense of when to be serious and when it’s not so important. He’s learning more and more to appreciate and respect the good in others, to not judge others, but also to choose his friends and close associates carefully. He’s always been fairly even keeled, but he’s gaining a better realization that on the other side of every valley is a hill or mountain (and that hills and mountains don’t last forever) and that eventually there is light at the end of every tunnel and that over time things work out and that a positive attitude goes a long way towards overall happiness.
His Integrity - Truthfulness and honesty and accuracy are important to him. As they should be to all of us. ‘nuff said.
His Faith – Above all else, he is continually deepening his relationship with Christ. Just like all of us he still occasionally has his struggles and doubts, but he’s learning to take these in stride.
So I get to bask for a bit in being a very proud papa. For the man my son has become and for my new daughter - the woman he chose and who agreed to marry him.
Monday, August 30, 2010
Death of Internal Combustion Engines ?
This morning I heard an interview on the radio with an executive of Ford Motor Co. Interestingly, the bulk of the interview turned in to him defending the internal combustion engine. At least 3 times he said "it's not dead yet, it has a lot of life left in it." Well, it certainly has some, but based on this interview, "a lot" might be a stretch. Nissan won't be able to make Leaf's fast enough to meet demand for at least 3 years. There appears similar clambering for Mercedes' electric Smart, Tesla's S, Mitsubishi's MiEV, and electric vehicles announced from BMW, Porsche, Toyota, and others. Even Chevy is seeing demand for it's Volt.
It'll be interesting to see what percent of new cars sold in 10 years are internal combustion vs electric.
It'll be interesting to see what percent of new cars sold in 10 years are internal combustion vs electric.
Friday, August 27, 2010
Benevolent Drug Dealer
This morning I talked with a benevolent drug dealer. Lest you think this is a play on words, it’s not. We’re talking genuine drug dealer here. He sells pot, hash, cocaine, crack, and a small variety of other substances.
Benevolent? You betcha.
His goal is to either get his customers off drugs or at least get them using responsibly.
And he’s having pretty good success. On the latter one anyway. In the past year he said that 12 of his customers have gone from irresponsible, jobless, heavy drug users, to something much better. 3 have stopped drug use altogether and 9 have quit everything but pot which they smoke only moderately (though he said in a couple of cases moderate is in the eyes of the smoker.)
All of them have begun taking more responsibility for their lives. 10 have had jobs, 8 are currently employed, and every one who’s unemployed is looking. 4 of them have started taking responsibility for their children, 3 for the first time since they were born.
He said every single one of them is focused on improving their lives and that of their families.
But why a drug dealer?
“Not more than one or two of these would ever have even talked or listened to anyone from any kind of organization. They talk and listen to me.”
He started by selling his dope for slightly less than other dealers. Today, partly due to pressure from who he gets his stuff from, he sells for about the same as others. He has a steady supply of customers though, probably about 40 regulars. “I’m not worried about losing customers, for every one that I get to cut their use, 2 more come.”
He doesn’t push redemption on anyone. If someone becomes a regular customer he’ll let them know that there are options that he can help them with. From there it’s up to them to ask him for help. Well, sort of.
Similar to how my wife weaned me off of whole milk by suddenly buying only 2%, then 1%, and finally skim, he very slowly weans some of his customers off of heavy use. “It only works for about half though.” He says fairly unemotionally. He’s not underhanded about it, he just tells them that he thinks their use is getting out of control and that he doesn't want to lose them as a customer so how about buying and using just a little less.
“If I wasn’t here they’d all be buying from someone else so I’m not increasing drug use any. And I’ve helped a couple of dozen folks who probably wouldn’t have been helped otherwise.”
Let’s not fool ourselves though. I don’t think many of the folks he’s helped are people most of us would want around our kids. They haven’t become angels and I doubt most of them would even be candidates for Curtis Sliwa’s Guardian Angels. But they’re all doing much better than they were before. They’re less likely to commit any real crimes (as opposed to personal vice), they’re productive instead of welfare expenses, and it sounds like, as imperfect as they are, that some are becoming parents to their children which means that their kids will be less likely to become social problems.
This isn’t a perfect solution and certainly not as successful as our drug war that’s so effective in keeping drugs off our streets in the first place.
Benevolent? You betcha.
His goal is to either get his customers off drugs or at least get them using responsibly.
And he’s having pretty good success. On the latter one anyway. In the past year he said that 12 of his customers have gone from irresponsible, jobless, heavy drug users, to something much better. 3 have stopped drug use altogether and 9 have quit everything but pot which they smoke only moderately (though he said in a couple of cases moderate is in the eyes of the smoker.)
All of them have begun taking more responsibility for their lives. 10 have had jobs, 8 are currently employed, and every one who’s unemployed is looking. 4 of them have started taking responsibility for their children, 3 for the first time since they were born.
He said every single one of them is focused on improving their lives and that of their families.
But why a drug dealer?
“Not more than one or two of these would ever have even talked or listened to anyone from any kind of organization. They talk and listen to me.”
He started by selling his dope for slightly less than other dealers. Today, partly due to pressure from who he gets his stuff from, he sells for about the same as others. He has a steady supply of customers though, probably about 40 regulars. “I’m not worried about losing customers, for every one that I get to cut their use, 2 more come.”
He doesn’t push redemption on anyone. If someone becomes a regular customer he’ll let them know that there are options that he can help them with. From there it’s up to them to ask him for help. Well, sort of.
Similar to how my wife weaned me off of whole milk by suddenly buying only 2%, then 1%, and finally skim, he very slowly weans some of his customers off of heavy use. “It only works for about half though.” He says fairly unemotionally. He’s not underhanded about it, he just tells them that he thinks their use is getting out of control and that he doesn't want to lose them as a customer so how about buying and using just a little less.
“If I wasn’t here they’d all be buying from someone else so I’m not increasing drug use any. And I’ve helped a couple of dozen folks who probably wouldn’t have been helped otherwise.”
Let’s not fool ourselves though. I don’t think many of the folks he’s helped are people most of us would want around our kids. They haven’t become angels and I doubt most of them would even be candidates for Curtis Sliwa’s Guardian Angels. But they’re all doing much better than they were before. They’re less likely to commit any real crimes (as opposed to personal vice), they’re productive instead of welfare expenses, and it sounds like, as imperfect as they are, that some are becoming parents to their children which means that their kids will be less likely to become social problems.
This isn’t a perfect solution and certainly not as successful as our drug war that’s so effective in keeping drugs off our streets in the first place.
Monday, August 23, 2010
Questioning God's Word - Is OK.
A woman once said to me “there are some things in the Bible that you just shouldn’t question.”
Why? What is she afraid will happen?
Many people take a somewhat passive approach to Bible study. They read it, think about what they’ve read, maybe read a commentary on the passage, hopefully pray about what they’ve read, and that’s about it. This is good. And we should all do this. “But” as Billy Mays often said, “wait, there’s more.”
I take a slightly different tack and one many contemporary Christians often don’t care for. Along with passive study, I’ll often use sort of a ‘devil’s advocate’ approach. I’ll take a position (and one that is often contrary to our Christian pop culture) and see what God’s Word has to say about it. I’ll cover anything from smoking pot or drinking alcohol to pre-marital sex or church attendance.
It’s interesting the fear people have that God’s Word might actually say that whatever their favorite sin is - isn’t really a sin. Why, that would take some of the fun out of judging others.
If ever there was a manuscript that can withstand questioning (and attacks), the Bible is it. And you know what? We just might learn a few things from God in the process.
Why? What is she afraid will happen?
Many people take a somewhat passive approach to Bible study. They read it, think about what they’ve read, maybe read a commentary on the passage, hopefully pray about what they’ve read, and that’s about it. This is good. And we should all do this. “But” as Billy Mays often said, “wait, there’s more.”
I take a slightly different tack and one many contemporary Christians often don’t care for. Along with passive study, I’ll often use sort of a ‘devil’s advocate’ approach. I’ll take a position (and one that is often contrary to our Christian pop culture) and see what God’s Word has to say about it. I’ll cover anything from smoking pot or drinking alcohol to pre-marital sex or church attendance.
It’s interesting the fear people have that God’s Word might actually say that whatever their favorite sin is - isn’t really a sin. Why, that would take some of the fun out of judging others.
If ever there was a manuscript that can withstand questioning (and attacks), the Bible is it. And you know what? We just might learn a few things from God in the process.
Friday, August 13, 2010
A Flight Attendant Who Needs To Grow Up !
This guy who lost his cool and then slid down the emergency chute with a couple of beers in his hands.
People seem to either revile him or worship him. I just think he needs to grow up.
His job is frustrating. He snapped and said some stuff he shouldn’t have to a passenger and then over the intercom. I get it.
It’s his next step where I have a problem. He could have stepped back for a moment, apologized to all the passengers for his rant, and then pleaded for a few weeks or months off before maybe coming back to work. Next best, he could simply have done nothing. Just stopped, gone to the back of the plane or elsewhere, and done nothing.
But stealing a couple of beers, pulling the emergency slide handle, and going for a slide? Really? Time for him to grow up and act like a man instead of a 7-year-old child.
People seem to either revile him or worship him. I just think he needs to grow up.
His job is frustrating. He snapped and said some stuff he shouldn’t have to a passenger and then over the intercom. I get it.
It’s his next step where I have a problem. He could have stepped back for a moment, apologized to all the passengers for his rant, and then pleaded for a few weeks or months off before maybe coming back to work. Next best, he could simply have done nothing. Just stopped, gone to the back of the plane or elsewhere, and done nothing.
But stealing a couple of beers, pulling the emergency slide handle, and going for a slide? Really? Time for him to grow up and act like a man instead of a 7-year-old child.
Wednesday, August 11, 2010
Embarrassment Works !
A brief follow-up to my previous post…
Peer Pressure is very powerful.
Most of us are, and often rightly so, hesitant to speak up to people violating social etiquette. It’s often simply not worth it and just creates conflict where it’s not really necessary or beneficial.
But sometimes it is worth it.
My guess is that my speaking up to the folks who broke in line and hogged a bunch of tables in Ess-a-Bagel made an impression on them, and others, and that at least a few will be less likely to hog tables in the future, because they now realize how boorish their behavior was, or simply for fear of being called out.
I spend just about every morning, whatever city I’m in, in a café, writing. There are 2 or 3 that have become favorites and that I frequent fairly often. Besides really good cappuccino’s, I like a place where I can have some level of privacy for my laptop screen and where the noise is a sort of a non-distracting murmur.
Occasionally, if someone is talking a lot louder than others and keeps on and on with it, I’ll give them a look that usually gets the message across. If that doesn’t work I might ask them, nicely*, if they can use their inside voices. On several occasions I’ve been thanked by others for saying something to someone who was annoying many. In one café I was recently told that the annoyingly loud talking has noticeably decreased since I’ve been coming in there (and I’ll note that I rarely even say anything anymore). Apparently others have also taken up the ‘inside voice’ banner when I’m not there.
One particularly interesting comment was a gal telling me about a guy I’d said something to almost a year ago. His reaction at the time was to tell me to mind my own business (I responded that I was finding that difficult since he seemed so intent on making his business mine). She said that the next couple of times I came in he quickly quieted down and after a while began talking quieter all the time. Bravo!
My goal, by the way, isn’t to embarrass anyone but simply to communicate that their actions are negatively impacting others around them.
Full Disclosure: The loud talking thing is interesting because I’m far from innocent on this one. I don’t naturally talk very quietly and have had to very intentionally talk quieter so that I don’t annoy others.
What Would Jesus Do?
Well, I’m pretty confident he wouldn’t have acted like I did. Would he have said anything at all? Called down a lightning strike on the dude? I really don’t have a clue what he would have done. Sometime I hope to do a Bible study on Christ’s social etiquette.
One scenario I can imagine is one of his disciples effectively playing my role and then Jesus calmly saying to his disciple (and loud enough for those around to hear), “This man is ignorant of what he is doing, leave him be, he doesn’t know any better.” Likewise I can imagine Jesus totally berating his disciple for actions similar to mine with something like “Ignorant fool. Do you think you are better than this man? Do you never act boorish? Are you perfect in all ways?”
I’m not very good at allowing people to negatively impact me. If someone breaks in line I’m very likely to say something. Likewise if the kid (or adult) behind me on a plane is kicking the back of my seat, or any number of similar things. I don’t believe that being meek means rolling over, but has more to do with self-control and not loosing our cool or being an arrogant jerk. I could have exhibited a bit more meekness in Ess-A-Bagel and still gotten my point across.
Chitlins in Paris
Some time ago I intended to start a blog called Chitlins in Paris for discussion of café culture, food, and travel. Done.
* And nicer today than yesterday. My family has pointed out to me on a few occasions that my rather direct demeanor, while not intended to, can come across as anger.
Peer Pressure is very powerful.
Most of us are, and often rightly so, hesitant to speak up to people violating social etiquette. It’s often simply not worth it and just creates conflict where it’s not really necessary or beneficial.
But sometimes it is worth it.
My guess is that my speaking up to the folks who broke in line and hogged a bunch of tables in Ess-a-Bagel made an impression on them, and others, and that at least a few will be less likely to hog tables in the future, because they now realize how boorish their behavior was, or simply for fear of being called out.
I spend just about every morning, whatever city I’m in, in a café, writing. There are 2 or 3 that have become favorites and that I frequent fairly often. Besides really good cappuccino’s, I like a place where I can have some level of privacy for my laptop screen and where the noise is a sort of a non-distracting murmur.
Occasionally, if someone is talking a lot louder than others and keeps on and on with it, I’ll give them a look that usually gets the message across. If that doesn’t work I might ask them, nicely*, if they can use their inside voices. On several occasions I’ve been thanked by others for saying something to someone who was annoying many. In one café I was recently told that the annoyingly loud talking has noticeably decreased since I’ve been coming in there (and I’ll note that I rarely even say anything anymore). Apparently others have also taken up the ‘inside voice’ banner when I’m not there.
One particularly interesting comment was a gal telling me about a guy I’d said something to almost a year ago. His reaction at the time was to tell me to mind my own business (I responded that I was finding that difficult since he seemed so intent on making his business mine). She said that the next couple of times I came in he quickly quieted down and after a while began talking quieter all the time. Bravo!
My goal, by the way, isn’t to embarrass anyone but simply to communicate that their actions are negatively impacting others around them.
Full Disclosure: The loud talking thing is interesting because I’m far from innocent on this one. I don’t naturally talk very quietly and have had to very intentionally talk quieter so that I don’t annoy others.
What Would Jesus Do?
Well, I’m pretty confident he wouldn’t have acted like I did. Would he have said anything at all? Called down a lightning strike on the dude? I really don’t have a clue what he would have done. Sometime I hope to do a Bible study on Christ’s social etiquette.
One scenario I can imagine is one of his disciples effectively playing my role and then Jesus calmly saying to his disciple (and loud enough for those around to hear), “This man is ignorant of what he is doing, leave him be, he doesn’t know any better.” Likewise I can imagine Jesus totally berating his disciple for actions similar to mine with something like “Ignorant fool. Do you think you are better than this man? Do you never act boorish? Are you perfect in all ways?”
I’m not very good at allowing people to negatively impact me. If someone breaks in line I’m very likely to say something. Likewise if the kid (or adult) behind me on a plane is kicking the back of my seat, or any number of similar things. I don’t believe that being meek means rolling over, but has more to do with self-control and not loosing our cool or being an arrogant jerk. I could have exhibited a bit more meekness in Ess-A-Bagel and still gotten my point across.
Chitlins in Paris
Some time ago I intended to start a blog called Chitlins in Paris for discussion of café culture, food, and travel. Done.
* And nicer today than yesterday. My family has pointed out to me on a few occasions that my rather direct demeanor, while not intended to, can come across as anger.
Friday, August 6, 2010
Café Etiquette: Holding Tables
Had an interesting experience in New York this past weekend. Went to a place called Ess-A-Bagel, somewhere about 50th and 3rd. Long line of people – not unusual for a New York bagel place. The 4 of us got in line, ordered, got our food, paid, and then went to sit down.
They have about15 small tables (30” round?) and maybe 45 chairs. 3 tables and 6 chairs were being held by a man and his 2 kids – one at each table. His wife and other 2 kids were in the back of the line – about 20 minutes or more from ordering. All other tables were full of people who had their food. I asked, nicely, if we could use one of the tables and 4 of the chairs. Dad said no “We’re holding them.”
We looked around - no other place to sit with our trays of food. Stood for a couple of minutes then asked a second time. He again said no. I looked around and nobody else appeared to be near finished. Only other potential was 1 guy with coffee sitting at a table with 2 empty chairs. I told the dad holding the 3 tables that they shouldn’t hog a bunch of tables when they hadn’t yet gotten their food (I was losing my nice). At this his wife stepped out of line and berated me. I responded that common courtesy is to get your food first and then get a table. A couple of guys in line behind her yelled at me. My son wisely stepped in at this point and told me to just ignore them.
While we stood waiting for another table to finish the cashier cleared some loaves of bread off a table and gave us 2 chairs. I was able to get another chair so 3 sat and 1 stood. BTW, this wouldn’t have bothered me if the place were full of people who were eating – that’s life. It was that I stood while this guy and his two kids sat with no food in 3 chairs and held 3 empty chairs and tables when they didn’t yet need them.
When we were done and headed out the dad and his kids were still sitting there holding the tables and empty chairs, and still without any food. Mom and other 2 kids were still waiting on their food. Interestingly my son noted that the 2 guys behind the mother who’d yelled at me had joined the coffee drinker who, when they came in, had purchased a coffee quickly so he could grab a table and hold it for his 2 buddies. No wonder they were so sensitive over the issue.
-------------
Holding tables is like breaking in line. The line in self-serve cafés goes something like; order, get food, pay, get table. Or sometimes; order, pay, get table, food delivered to table.
Tables have time value. During the time that the dad was holding the tables with his kids waiting on his wife to order and bring their food, 6 to 12 other people could have used those tables*. And while they wait in line other tables will free up for them to use.
On average, if people hold tables like this a café needs 30% to 90% more tables (and thus expensive space) to accommodate the same number of people as they will if nobody holds tables.
Hogging a table before getting your food isn’t fair to those who arrived before you and have already waited in line and gotten their food. Most people understand this and are courteous enough to not hold tables in a busy place. Unfortunately the number of people who lack common regard for others seems to be growing. More and more cafés are having to put in signs about common decency such as “Do NOT get your table until you’ve ordered and paid for your food.”
Ess-A-Bagel should do the same for the few inconsiderate folks who want to hog tables.
Conclusion of the story… As we were leaving my son hung back a bit and apologized for our yelling at them. He said that they were wrong for hogging the tables when they didn’t have food, but that didn’t make it right for us to yell at them. Ah, nothing like learning maturity from your kid (though I’m quite proud to!) He also noted that the guys kids seemed quite embarrassed by the whole thing.
* Let’s do some math. Assuming 3 people per table, the 15 tables in Ess-A-Bagel can accommodate 45 people for an hour each, 90 people for 30 minutes each, or 135 people for 20 minutes each. If it takes 20 minutes to get your food and 20 minutes to eat, then twice as many people can eat sitting down if nobody holds tables as can if people like this man hold tables while waiting on someone else to order and bring their food.
They have about15 small tables (30” round?) and maybe 45 chairs. 3 tables and 6 chairs were being held by a man and his 2 kids – one at each table. His wife and other 2 kids were in the back of the line – about 20 minutes or more from ordering. All other tables were full of people who had their food. I asked, nicely, if we could use one of the tables and 4 of the chairs. Dad said no “We’re holding them.”
We looked around - no other place to sit with our trays of food. Stood for a couple of minutes then asked a second time. He again said no. I looked around and nobody else appeared to be near finished. Only other potential was 1 guy with coffee sitting at a table with 2 empty chairs. I told the dad holding the 3 tables that they shouldn’t hog a bunch of tables when they hadn’t yet gotten their food (I was losing my nice). At this his wife stepped out of line and berated me. I responded that common courtesy is to get your food first and then get a table. A couple of guys in line behind her yelled at me. My son wisely stepped in at this point and told me to just ignore them.
While we stood waiting for another table to finish the cashier cleared some loaves of bread off a table and gave us 2 chairs. I was able to get another chair so 3 sat and 1 stood. BTW, this wouldn’t have bothered me if the place were full of people who were eating – that’s life. It was that I stood while this guy and his two kids sat with no food in 3 chairs and held 3 empty chairs and tables when they didn’t yet need them.
When we were done and headed out the dad and his kids were still sitting there holding the tables and empty chairs, and still without any food. Mom and other 2 kids were still waiting on their food. Interestingly my son noted that the 2 guys behind the mother who’d yelled at me had joined the coffee drinker who, when they came in, had purchased a coffee quickly so he could grab a table and hold it for his 2 buddies. No wonder they were so sensitive over the issue.
-------------
Holding tables is like breaking in line. The line in self-serve cafés goes something like; order, get food, pay, get table. Or sometimes; order, pay, get table, food delivered to table.
Tables have time value. During the time that the dad was holding the tables with his kids waiting on his wife to order and bring their food, 6 to 12 other people could have used those tables*. And while they wait in line other tables will free up for them to use.
On average, if people hold tables like this a café needs 30% to 90% more tables (and thus expensive space) to accommodate the same number of people as they will if nobody holds tables.
Hogging a table before getting your food isn’t fair to those who arrived before you and have already waited in line and gotten their food. Most people understand this and are courteous enough to not hold tables in a busy place. Unfortunately the number of people who lack common regard for others seems to be growing. More and more cafés are having to put in signs about common decency such as “Do NOT get your table until you’ve ordered and paid for your food.”
Ess-A-Bagel should do the same for the few inconsiderate folks who want to hog tables.
Café Etiquette:
If a café is crowded, order and pay for your food BEFORE grabbing a table. This allows others who arrived before you and already have their food to use the table.
Conclusion of the story… As we were leaving my son hung back a bit and apologized for our yelling at them. He said that they were wrong for hogging the tables when they didn’t have food, but that didn’t make it right for us to yell at them. Ah, nothing like learning maturity from your kid (though I’m quite proud to!) He also noted that the guys kids seemed quite embarrassed by the whole thing.
* Let’s do some math. Assuming 3 people per table, the 15 tables in Ess-A-Bagel can accommodate 45 people for an hour each, 90 people for 30 minutes each, or 135 people for 20 minutes each. If it takes 20 minutes to get your food and 20 minutes to eat, then twice as many people can eat sitting down if nobody holds tables as can if people like this man hold tables while waiting on someone else to order and bring their food.
Thursday, July 29, 2010
Rescue Operations: Prostitutes and the Gulf Oil Spill
Time to get myself in trouble again…Have you kept up with the gulf oil spill? Seen the pictures of oil coating plants and animals in the marsh areas? Read stories of the various clean-up operations? Held your breath at the latest attempt to stop the leak (which fortunately seems to be working!)?
What would you think if BP and the U.S. Government had said that the leak could not be plugged? That there was no way to stop the flow. That best they could do would be to capture some of the oil, perhaps as much as 90%, but the remainder would continue to leak in to the gulf forever. ‘Instead of trying to capture the oil we’re going to put all of our efforts in to clean-up operations and we believe that in any month or year we’ll be able to clean up as much as 10% of the oil that spills during that period and we’ll be able to help 10% of the birds and other animals impacted.’
Dumb idea?
This is kind of what we’re doing with rescue operations to help enslaved women. All of the focus is on the clean-up and none on stopping it at the source – preventing it from happening in the first place. We save 20 girls, but 400 (4,000?, 40,000?) others are enslaved during the same period*.
The answer, according to many, is that we simply need to end prostitution. Good luck.
In this post Tom Davis talks about ‘Sex divorced from the Love that created it.” This is perhaps a dangerous (and ignorant?) perception. Especially if you want to help girls enslaved into the sex industry. It’s all nice and everything to think about sex and love together, but it’s not reality.
If you ask a woman about sex and love you’ll get a long dissertation on love and romance and maybe a brief mention of sex with the man she loves. If you ask a man you’ll get “I Love Sex.”
For women, sex and love (and emotions) are all intertwined. For men they are pretty much completely separate**. And you know what? This is the way God made us. He made women to desire sex only (or primarily) with the man she loves. He made men to desire, and I mean really really really desire, sex with every cute girl that walks by. And God didn’t stop here, he gave men a nearly unquenchable desire for variety in sex partners.
This is why we have a prostitution industry. Why we’ve had one since the beginning of time. And why we’ll likely have one for at least another year or two.
In his 5 level Hierarchy of Human Needs, Abraham Maslow lists sex twice (and it’s the only thing listed twice btw) ***. He includes Physical Sex as a Physiological need at the base of his pyramid along with air, water, food, and sleep. He lists Sexual Intimacy in the 3rd level of Love and Belonging. In discussions on this, more than a few women ask why it’s included on the 1st level. Men know why. However, as intimacy, both male and female can relate.Many well-meaning Christian men very vocally disagree with me on all of this. Of those who have done so publically, several have later been caught with their hand in the nookie jar.
I don’t know why God made men and women the way he did. Why he didn’t give men a sex drive similar to women. It would have made life in our society much easier. He didn’t though and there’s not much we can really do about it.
At this point I want to interject something. If your husband’s sexual monogamy is important to you and he is sexually monogamous in your marriage – you are extremely blessed! The title of a popular book by Stephen, Fred, and Mike, ‘Every Man’s Battle’, is quite an understatement for many men.
Reality isn’t very romantic, and we ignore it at our own peril.
Do you believe that we can ever eliminate prostitution? Reduce it? If you answer yes to either of these I’ve got some miracle holy water I’d like to send you (for a small donation of course).
As long as we have men in society we will likely have a huge demand for prostitution. It won’t abate. It won’t go away anytime soon. We can call for an end to prostitution all we want, but to the average horny male, that doesn’t mean a lot. We can spout all the horrifying statistics we can come up with legitimately or illegitimately, but they’ll either get lost in the din of other such horrifying statistics about a host of other issues or, more likely, dismissed as exaggeration and lies.
So what do we do? With this reality how can we more effectively alleviate women being forced to work as prostitutes, effectively raped, in the first place? Instead of saving 20 after they’ve been enslaved and raped, how can we prevent 200 (or 2,000, or 20,000) from being enslaved or raped at all?
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Note: None of the above should be construed as support for men visiting prostitutes - just as pointing out traffic fatalities should not be construed as support for someone intentionally causing a traffic fatality.
* I am not saying that we shouldn’t be helping women caught in bondage. We should certainly continue these efforts.
** Men do enjoy sex (and air, food, and water) more with a woman they love than with a stranger - but they still very much enjoy them, including sex, otherwise. And ‘very much’ is rather an understatement.
*** Maslow was, to the best of my knowledge, not in any way a believer in any Biblical scriptures and was likely a humanist. This is particularly evident with the top level of his pyramid, Self-actualization. However, his model does accurately portray basic human needs and behavior and does so even for Christians.
Thursday, July 22, 2010
Christians - Loosing Our Moral Authority (Part I)
In my previous post about the 40,000 sex slaves I included a link to Tom Davis’s blog (linked under the phrase ‘ignorant Christian’). This has gnawed at me ever since. Davis didn’t just parrot the 40,000 prediction, which would be bad enough given the shakiness of it, he went a step further and made up a story that it had actually happened.
After the 40,000 number was proven so grossly inaccurate after the 2006 world cup, the vast majority of NGO’s, government officials, politicians, and journalists shied away from it this time around. David Batstone a good example. In all of my searching and interviews I’ve found few who would touch it as a prediction for 2010, and not a single one, save Davis, who would say that anything even remotely close actually happened.
I asked Davis about this on his blog. In 3 replies and 1 blog post he chose to try diverting attention from his lying rather than fess up. Has he, in effect, been saying that whatever he says, truth or lie, is worth the reward? That for him, the end justifies the means, in this case lying?
This wasn’t a mis-statement or mis-quote on Davis’ part. It was a blatant and intentional lie. I’ve been a writer for a number of years. You don’t write the words he did by mistake. He knew what he was doing. He knew he was lying.
Confession. I’m very far from perfect on this score. I am a poster child for adult ADD (which I view as more of a blessing than a curse btw). My memory is often a rather strange jumble of things that often takes concerted effort to sort out. Much to the chagrin of many I often think out loud which then leads to either me correcting myself on things or to others doing so. The problem I’ve found with sorting things out before opening my mouth is that by the time I sort them out the conversation has traversed 2 or 3 other topics…
Writing unshackles me. I can, usually, take the time to sort through things and make sure that what I’m saying is both what I actually think and is factually correct.
As Christians we should take the moral high ground. We should be more honest than the rest. God does not need us to lie to accomplish his goals. Truth will win out over lies EVERY TIME.
When we lie we lose our moral authority. And do so collectively. Tom Davis telling a lie doesn’t impact only Tom, but his entire ministry Children's Hopechest* and all of us who are Christians or work in social justice organizations. How can we expect someone to believe us when we’re telling them about Christ when they know they can’t believe us otherwise?
And quite frankly, “I’m not perfect, just forgiven” doesn’t cut it.
Raising liars
This culture of Christian lying seems to start with our teens. We’ve built a little box that defines what a good Christian is. We are quick to condemn anyone who falls outside our little box. Peer pressure and acceptance, for teens, is extremely powerful. What to do when we inevitably then find ourselves outside the little box? Lie about it. It’s a bit tough the first time, but gets easier and easier each successive time.
How often is our little box, defined by our Christian Pop Culture, more restrictive than what God says? How often is someone condemned for something that is a sin in man’s eyes, but not in God’s? If you haven’t already, I suggest reading Phillip Yancey's Soul Survivor for a start on this topic.
This is all then massively exacerbated at many Christian colleges. At Northwestern College, Bethel University, and Bethel Seminary, all in Roseville, MN, lying is part of the daily routine for many. Students are required to attend chapel every day but many find it too easy to check-in quickly (yes, proof of attendance is required) and then sneak out the side door. Most professors require students to sign a statement on tests that they have read ALL of the assigned material. Not doing so will cost you a letter grade. Just a guess, but I’m betting a chunk of students lie about this one.
Many Christian high schools, colleges, and universities require students to sign ‘lifestyle statements’. Most of these don’t just govern on-campus behavior, but ALL behavior, 24-hours per day, until the day they graduate. These almost universally include prohibitions against any form of sex outside of marriage and any alcohol or drug use. Many also include prohibitions against smoking cigarettes, dancing, holding hands, listening to secular music, going to bars, and a host of other prohibitions. I know a lot of students who attend these institutions. Extremely few go more than a week or two without violating the lifestyle statement they signed. And when asked by authorities if they’ve violated it?
One friend told me that for her the greatest thing about moving to her local state university from the Christian college where she’d spent 2 years was the much higher level of integrity and honesty at the non-Christian university. That’s a very sad statement from a committed Christian.
Next comes adulthood. Adult Christians lie to keep their outward appearance inside the little ‘good-Christian’ box. We lie about some of our beliefs and questioning so that we remain ‘Christianly Correct’ to our Christian friends. And we lie, as Tom Davis did, not to protect ourselves from others opinions, but to accomplish our own goals.
And we wonder why Christians are held in such low esteem by so many.
More next week.
* Children's Hopechest appears to be a very worthwhile organization that I have supported in the past. The problem I have now is how much of anything they say can be believed given their leader's willingness to lie so easily.
After the 40,000 number was proven so grossly inaccurate after the 2006 world cup, the vast majority of NGO’s, government officials, politicians, and journalists shied away from it this time around. David Batstone a good example. In all of my searching and interviews I’ve found few who would touch it as a prediction for 2010, and not a single one, save Davis, who would say that anything even remotely close actually happened.
I asked Davis about this on his blog. In 3 replies and 1 blog post he chose to try diverting attention from his lying rather than fess up. Has he, in effect, been saying that whatever he says, truth or lie, is worth the reward? That for him, the end justifies the means, in this case lying?
This wasn’t a mis-statement or mis-quote on Davis’ part. It was a blatant and intentional lie. I’ve been a writer for a number of years. You don’t write the words he did by mistake. He knew what he was doing. He knew he was lying.
Confession. I’m very far from perfect on this score. I am a poster child for adult ADD (which I view as more of a blessing than a curse btw). My memory is often a rather strange jumble of things that often takes concerted effort to sort out. Much to the chagrin of many I often think out loud which then leads to either me correcting myself on things or to others doing so. The problem I’ve found with sorting things out before opening my mouth is that by the time I sort them out the conversation has traversed 2 or 3 other topics…
Writing unshackles me. I can, usually, take the time to sort through things and make sure that what I’m saying is both what I actually think and is factually correct.
As Christians we should take the moral high ground. We should be more honest than the rest. God does not need us to lie to accomplish his goals. Truth will win out over lies EVERY TIME.
When we lie we lose our moral authority. And do so collectively. Tom Davis telling a lie doesn’t impact only Tom, but his entire ministry Children's Hopechest* and all of us who are Christians or work in social justice organizations. How can we expect someone to believe us when we’re telling them about Christ when they know they can’t believe us otherwise?
And quite frankly, “I’m not perfect, just forgiven” doesn’t cut it.
Raising liars
This culture of Christian lying seems to start with our teens. We’ve built a little box that defines what a good Christian is. We are quick to condemn anyone who falls outside our little box. Peer pressure and acceptance, for teens, is extremely powerful. What to do when we inevitably then find ourselves outside the little box? Lie about it. It’s a bit tough the first time, but gets easier and easier each successive time.
How often is our little box, defined by our Christian Pop Culture, more restrictive than what God says? How often is someone condemned for something that is a sin in man’s eyes, but not in God’s? If you haven’t already, I suggest reading Phillip Yancey's Soul Survivor for a start on this topic.
This is all then massively exacerbated at many Christian colleges. At Northwestern College, Bethel University, and Bethel Seminary, all in Roseville, MN, lying is part of the daily routine for many. Students are required to attend chapel every day but many find it too easy to check-in quickly (yes, proof of attendance is required) and then sneak out the side door. Most professors require students to sign a statement on tests that they have read ALL of the assigned material. Not doing so will cost you a letter grade. Just a guess, but I’m betting a chunk of students lie about this one.
Many Christian high schools, colleges, and universities require students to sign ‘lifestyle statements’. Most of these don’t just govern on-campus behavior, but ALL behavior, 24-hours per day, until the day they graduate. These almost universally include prohibitions against any form of sex outside of marriage and any alcohol or drug use. Many also include prohibitions against smoking cigarettes, dancing, holding hands, listening to secular music, going to bars, and a host of other prohibitions. I know a lot of students who attend these institutions. Extremely few go more than a week or two without violating the lifestyle statement they signed. And when asked by authorities if they’ve violated it?
One friend told me that for her the greatest thing about moving to her local state university from the Christian college where she’d spent 2 years was the much higher level of integrity and honesty at the non-Christian university. That’s a very sad statement from a committed Christian.
Next comes adulthood. Adult Christians lie to keep their outward appearance inside the little ‘good-Christian’ box. We lie about some of our beliefs and questioning so that we remain ‘Christianly Correct’ to our Christian friends. And we lie, as Tom Davis did, not to protect ourselves from others opinions, but to accomplish our own goals.
And we wonder why Christians are held in such low esteem by so many.
More next week.
* Children's Hopechest appears to be a very worthwhile organization that I have supported in the past. The problem I have now is how much of anything they say can be believed given their leader's willingness to lie so easily.
Wednesday, July 14, 2010
The Magic of 40,000 Sex Slaves
In the year or so prior to the 2002 World Cup in Korea and Japan there were sporadic predictions here and there about the numbers of women who would be enslaved and trafficked to meet demand for prostitutes during the games. About a third mentioned the number 40,000.
In the months leading up to the 2006 World Cup in Germany rhetoric heated up and there were thousands of headlines about the predicted 40,000 women who would be trafficked, against their will, in to Germany to work in Germany’s legal brothels. Churches, NGO’s, and other groups spent enormous sums of money to find and help these women. The German government allocated a large number of police, social workers, and others to help out.
Reality? They found 5 (4 women, 1 man). And the extent to which any of them were forced became questionable. The brothels all said that they had plenty of women willing to work and had no need of enslaved women.
Some don’t learn their lessons. Prior to the 2010 World Cup in South Africa a few groups, politicians, and one David Bayever, deputy chairperson of South Africa's Central Drug Authority, toted out the 40,000 number again. Some NGO’s, newspapers, websites, and ignorant Christians* picked up on it. A few NGO’s who work with children began their own twist saying that 40,000 African children would be enslaved into the sex industry to meet demand during the World Cup.
After being burned so bad in 2006 many groups and newspapers wisely shied away from 2010’s hyperbole so the number and placement of headlines was down significantly and many fewer groups spent money to do anything in South Africa.
But why is it always 40,000? Is there research to back this up in any way?
One Group, NotForSaleCampaign.org, founded by David Batstone took a better path with their ‘Red Card’ campaign. For 2010 they wisely steered clear of the 40,000 enslaved women hyperbole and focused on the global slave trade which unfortunately does have way too much basis in reality. They handed out their own version of red cards with quotes such as “The youngest pro footballer signed at 14, which is old if you're a sex slave."
Batstone has spent a number of years working with enslaved women and children around the world. Most of his hyperbole is, unlike that of someone like Melissa Farley, at least based in reality. While in his book ‘Not For Sale’ he ignores the numerous studies that indicate countries with legal prostitution, such as The Netherlands, appear to have significantly lower levels of enslavement or trafficking than countries such as the U.S., at least what he does include is generally factual.
While David and I may disagree about the impact of legalizing or criminalizing prostitution, we do agree on the harm of human slavery and I fully support everything he does.
And the final reality for the 2010 World Cup? Pretty much the same as 2006. Brothels reported more willing sex workers than they needed. Initial reports indicate no known enslavement or trafficking of adults or children.
CNN just reported similar findings in their interviews with brothel owners and prostitutes in South Africa. The prostitutes said that they were looking forward to the end of the world cup so that their regular customers, who’d stayed away from the crowds, would start coming back.
So, what is it about the number 40,000? Has someone somewhere done a study and determined that no matter what and where, the number of enslaved women for prostitution will really be 40,000? Is it some weird axiomatic number? Maybe some study determined that 40,000 was the number to garner the best emotional response in people? Big enough to get people worked up, but not so big as to seem unrealistic – at least without thinking about it? It’ll be interesting to see how often we see 40,000 with the 2014 World Cup.
One final note: Both Japan and Korea, hosts of the 2002 World Cup, have a Tier 1 rating by the U.S. State Department when it comes to human trafficking. This is the best rating any country can get. HOWEVER, my own research would seem to support a much higher rate of human trafficking in both countries than in most Tier 1 countries. I would find it believable that there was a significant increase in human trafficking for the 2002 World Cup. 40,000? Not even close. 1,000 or 2,000? Possibly.
* Amazing how a wild and unsubstantiated prediction one place became "The Facts Remain" that "40,000 HAVE poured in...". And we wonder why Christians are held in such low esteem. As Christians we should be the purveyors of truth not the creators of lies. Note added 15 July: The author of the blog I linked to works with a respected organization. I'm hoping that he will be able to substantiate his claim.
In the months leading up to the 2006 World Cup in Germany rhetoric heated up and there were thousands of headlines about the predicted 40,000 women who would be trafficked, against their will, in to Germany to work in Germany’s legal brothels. Churches, NGO’s, and other groups spent enormous sums of money to find and help these women. The German government allocated a large number of police, social workers, and others to help out.
Reality? They found 5 (4 women, 1 man). And the extent to which any of them were forced became questionable. The brothels all said that they had plenty of women willing to work and had no need of enslaved women.
Some don’t learn their lessons. Prior to the 2010 World Cup in South Africa a few groups, politicians, and one David Bayever, deputy chairperson of South Africa's Central Drug Authority, toted out the 40,000 number again. Some NGO’s, newspapers, websites, and ignorant Christians* picked up on it. A few NGO’s who work with children began their own twist saying that 40,000 African children would be enslaved into the sex industry to meet demand during the World Cup.
After being burned so bad in 2006 many groups and newspapers wisely shied away from 2010’s hyperbole so the number and placement of headlines was down significantly and many fewer groups spent money to do anything in South Africa.
But why is it always 40,000? Is there research to back this up in any way?
One Group, NotForSaleCampaign.org, founded by David Batstone took a better path with their ‘Red Card’ campaign. For 2010 they wisely steered clear of the 40,000 enslaved women hyperbole and focused on the global slave trade which unfortunately does have way too much basis in reality. They handed out their own version of red cards with quotes such as “The youngest pro footballer signed at 14, which is old if you're a sex slave."
Batstone has spent a number of years working with enslaved women and children around the world. Most of his hyperbole is, unlike that of someone like Melissa Farley, at least based in reality. While in his book ‘Not For Sale’ he ignores the numerous studies that indicate countries with legal prostitution, such as The Netherlands, appear to have significantly lower levels of enslavement or trafficking than countries such as the U.S., at least what he does include is generally factual.
While David and I may disagree about the impact of legalizing or criminalizing prostitution, we do agree on the harm of human slavery and I fully support everything he does.
And the final reality for the 2010 World Cup? Pretty much the same as 2006. Brothels reported more willing sex workers than they needed. Initial reports indicate no known enslavement or trafficking of adults or children.
CNN just reported similar findings in their interviews with brothel owners and prostitutes in South Africa. The prostitutes said that they were looking forward to the end of the world cup so that their regular customers, who’d stayed away from the crowds, would start coming back.
So, what is it about the number 40,000? Has someone somewhere done a study and determined that no matter what and where, the number of enslaved women for prostitution will really be 40,000? Is it some weird axiomatic number? Maybe some study determined that 40,000 was the number to garner the best emotional response in people? Big enough to get people worked up, but not so big as to seem unrealistic – at least without thinking about it? It’ll be interesting to see how often we see 40,000 with the 2014 World Cup.
One final note: Both Japan and Korea, hosts of the 2002 World Cup, have a Tier 1 rating by the U.S. State Department when it comes to human trafficking. This is the best rating any country can get. HOWEVER, my own research would seem to support a much higher rate of human trafficking in both countries than in most Tier 1 countries. I would find it believable that there was a significant increase in human trafficking for the 2002 World Cup. 40,000? Not even close. 1,000 or 2,000? Possibly.
* Amazing how a wild and unsubstantiated prediction one place became "The Facts Remain" that "40,000 HAVE poured in...". And we wonder why Christians are held in such low esteem. As Christians we should be the purveyors of truth not the creators of lies. Note added 15 July: The author of the blog I linked to works with a respected organization. I'm hoping that he will be able to substantiate his claim.
Thursday, July 8, 2010
Policy or Politics ?
Someone today commented that I’d be against any Democrat policy, just because it’s from a Democrat. Another person was surprised to hear that, thinking that I am a Democrat.
The reality is that I’m neither Democrat, Republican, Libertarian, nor anything else. If an Obama or Pelosi policy worked well for our nation I’d be all for it.
If government welfare programs were beneficial I wouldn’t mind paying for them. If they helped people that needed the help and encouraged people to get off of welfare and begin to support themselves I would vote for them. They don’t though. Government welfare, individual or corporate, provides some short-term benefit, but in the long-term just encourages people to make bad decisions and stick their hand out for more. We might benefit one-hundred children this generation but encourage one-thousand to be on welfare next generation.
Likewise, if vice prohibitions worked, I’d be for them. They don’t. They don’t reduce drugs, gambling, or prostitution, and they do cause a plethora of problems.
So far I’m sounding pretty Libertarian. But I disagree with many Libertarians too. While I’m not pro-war, I’m also not nearly as anti-war as the Libertarian plank espouses. And while I believe we should have about 10% as much government as Democrats believe we should and maybe 30% as much as Republicans believe we should, I probably also believe we need twice as much as Libertarians.
In the end I don’t care whose policy something is, as long as it’s a policy that is good for our nation. (What I’ve determined though is that most policies aren’t likely good for our nation, regardless of who they come from. This usually because of unintended consequences, not so much the policy itself.)
I’m amazed how often I hear people trying to defend a policy only because it’s the policy of their chosen party or their favored politician. Even when they agree with all of the reasons it’s a bad policy and that these outweigh anything good about it, they still try to defend it. I’ve even heard people say that they support it just because it’s part of their party’s or favorite politicians plank – no questions asked.
We need to stop being lemmings and start focusing on getting our nation back on track.
(BTW, who are ‘policies’ good for? Mostly government and politicians.)
The reality is that I’m neither Democrat, Republican, Libertarian, nor anything else. If an Obama or Pelosi policy worked well for our nation I’d be all for it.
If government welfare programs were beneficial I wouldn’t mind paying for them. If they helped people that needed the help and encouraged people to get off of welfare and begin to support themselves I would vote for them. They don’t though. Government welfare, individual or corporate, provides some short-term benefit, but in the long-term just encourages people to make bad decisions and stick their hand out for more. We might benefit one-hundred children this generation but encourage one-thousand to be on welfare next generation.
Likewise, if vice prohibitions worked, I’d be for them. They don’t. They don’t reduce drugs, gambling, or prostitution, and they do cause a plethora of problems.
So far I’m sounding pretty Libertarian. But I disagree with many Libertarians too. While I’m not pro-war, I’m also not nearly as anti-war as the Libertarian plank espouses. And while I believe we should have about 10% as much government as Democrats believe we should and maybe 30% as much as Republicans believe we should, I probably also believe we need twice as much as Libertarians.
In the end I don’t care whose policy something is, as long as it’s a policy that is good for our nation. (What I’ve determined though is that most policies aren’t likely good for our nation, regardless of who they come from. This usually because of unintended consequences, not so much the policy itself.)
I’m amazed how often I hear people trying to defend a policy only because it’s the policy of their chosen party or their favored politician. Even when they agree with all of the reasons it’s a bad policy and that these outweigh anything good about it, they still try to defend it. I’ve even heard people say that they support it just because it’s part of their party’s or favorite politicians plank – no questions asked.
We need to stop being lemmings and start focusing on getting our nation back on track.
(BTW, who are ‘policies’ good for? Mostly government and politicians.)
Sunday, July 4, 2010
Environmentally Concious Drug Smugglers !
In this article on FoxNews we learn that drug smugglers are, if nothing else, Green. My first thought was that if drug smugglers can build an electric boat, certainly our recreational boat companies in the U.S. can. On second thought though, the drug smugglers are probably much better funded. Speaking of electric boats, no recent news from Correct Craft on their experimentation with a Tesla provided drivetrain.
Thursday, July 1, 2010
Obama Becoming Irrelevant ?
Seemingly, President Obama is becoming almost irrelevant. He still holds the office of President of the United States. He still wields a tremendous chunk of power. But he seems to be viewed less and less, even by Democrats and media, as leader of the Democratic party, not to mention leader of our country.There’s a difference in ‘holding’ the office of POTUS and actually ‘being’ POTUS. Obama never made the transition from politician to POTUS. He still thinks he’s a politician. Rather than President of the United States, he views himself as President of constituent groups (and dictator of others?). He doesn’t see himself as the leader and representative of
Even foreign leaders have begun to dismiss him. The President of the United States has, for some time, been viewed by many as the most powerful person in the world and is often called ‘The Leader of the Free World’. At the recent G20 conference Obama was clearly not viewed that way. In fact, European leaders were lecturing him on budget deficits like he was a school child spending too much of his allowance.
In political speak, Obama is losing the conversation. And in a way perhaps unparalleled in the past century.
Friday, June 25, 2010
FoxNews: Fair and Balanced Misinformation?
This morning on Fox News a reporter in their series on legalizing pot made a statement to Bill Hemmer that “The Netherlands has closed down thousands of pot dispensaries because of crime and illegal activity.”Really? Thousands closed?
In 1997 there were a total of 1180 in the entire country. In 2004 there were 740. This decline, btw, attributed to a slight decline in demand, a natural consolidation similar to what happens with restaurants, and a push by border cities for shops not to sell to tourists. Today there are an estimated 820, down from 2008’s 852.
Amsterdam police records indicate 1 shop was closed in 2003 because of crime or illegal activity. Yes, the number is one. Not two, not ten, not one-hundred, and not ‘thousands’, but one. Maastricht also closed 1 shop - in 2007.
In 2008 some local councils, including Amsterdam and Rotterdam, passed laws limiting where a coffeeshop (where pot in sold in The Netherlands) can be in proximity to a school. Mostly they said that they had to be greater than 250 meters away. This resulted in approx 85 coffeeshops throughout The Netherlands either closing or moving.
Thousands closed?
The biggest problem with the coffeeshops, according to Dutch police, is with German and Belgian tourists crossing the border and thus some local cities push for their coffeeshops to sell only to Dutch residents. Unlike the average patron elsewhere in The Netherlands, both Dutch citizens and tourists from further away, these cross border tourists tend to be a rowdier and more transient crowd with less respect for the local populace.
More to come…
More... The FoxNews reporter who made these comments was Dan Springer. He also posted similar comments in his blog post on this topic. Thousands closed? Really?
Tuesday, June 15, 2010
Did anyone notice? Alvin Greene is black.
Well, back from a well undeserved vacation in Hilton Head, SC. There was a lot of news and discussion there about Alvin Greene's primary win. After his win the South Carolina Democratic Party asked him to pull out. Interestingly not a single media outlet that I saw criticized the Democrats for this by accusing them of being racist. Not a single one said that the only reason they asked him to pull out was because he's black.
Had Mr. Greene run in and won the Republican primary and then been asked by the Republican Party to pull out, I can assure you that media outlets all over would have criticized the Republicans for being racist.
Thursday, May 27, 2010
Mr President: Plug The Damn Hole !
Yesterday, referring to the oil spill President Obama said “Plug the damn hole!” I agree. And it sounds like they're getting there. The 'top kill' they've been planning for several weeks seems to be working.Obama seems to get it when it comes to the oil pouring forth from the ocean floor. He gets that the most important priority is to plug the damn hole. Stop the leak. Once that’s done we can move our focus to what to do about all the oil that’s there. If we don’t plug the damn hole first we’ll be overwhelmed.
Obama doesn’t seem to get it when it comes to the illegal immigrants pouring forth from the border. He doesn’t get that the most important priority is to plug the damn hole. Stop the leak. Once that’s done we can move our focus to what to do about all the illegals who are already here. If we don’t plug the damn hole first we’ll be overwhelmed.
It’s only after we plug the damn hole that things differ. The illicit oil we don’t want. We’ll want to get rid of every last bit of it. The illicit immigrants we mostly want. A few bad apples we’ll want to throw in jail or send back from where they came. We need immigrants. Immigrants are important to our country. And we are obviously extremely important to them.
Thursday, May 13, 2010
A cops death.
A cop being killed in the line of duty, just like soldiers in our armed forces, has always given me serious pause. Their death was very likely a result of their doing something to protect me, and all of us, and to make where we live a better and safer place.
The newspaper articles and TV news coverage always talk about what a great cop they were, how many people they helped, how well liked they were, and multitudes of other platitudes.
What I wonder though, and what is ignored by the media, is how corrupt was he. Did he make a little money on the side letting the local drug dealer know when a sting was coming up? Did she over-reach with forfeiture of ‘criminal’ assets and take a few nice things home for herself? Was he a drug dealer himself? Did she sometimes smoke some of the pot confiscated in a drug bust?
Or did he not do any of these things himself but held to the blue code of silence and watched as others did?
An estimated 30% of cops are in the first group and nearly all of the rest are in the blue code of silence group. Only an estimated 1/10 of 1 % aren’t in either group.
When a cop is killed in our state I often see the funeral parade. The coffee café I spend many of my mornings in is not far from our state capital and the parades start in front of here. As I write this there’s a parade of an estimated 800 police cars lining up to honor a cop killed this past weekend.
What group was this cop in? Was he part of the 30%? The 69.9% who kept silent? Or was he part of the 1/10 of 1%, the 1 in 1,000 who didn’t keep silent?
Very likely we’ll never know.
A former prostitute I interviewed told me about a cop she knew. I remember his funeral about 8 or 9 years ago. Like the cop being honored today he was killed in the line of duty and the accolades of what a great cop he was filled all of the local media. There was a story of his saving someone’s life and another of his finding a young child who’d wandered away from home. He had put in considerable time coaching a softball team for underprivileged kids. There were pictures of his wife and kids at his funeral on the front page of the paper. The following May he was inducted into the police memorial in Washington DC.
Her experience with him wasn’t so good though. He and some other cops had setup a sting in a local hotel and busted 4 girls for prostitution. As best she could tell she was number 5, but they made her an offer. If she’d give them each a freebie, they’d let her go. Compared to having an arrest for prostitution on her record and paying a fine that would have required servicing the same number of clients anyway, this was an OK deal from her standpoint.
But that wasn’t the end. Occasionally he or one of the others would stop by her apartment with the same ‘offer’.
She said all of the media attention he got and everyone talking about what a great cop and person and husband and father he was made her ill. “If he’d paid me like any other client I would have liked him, but he didn’t. He raped me.” She said. Several months after his funeral she found out that another girl had a similar relationship with him from a different sting and apparently a different group of other cops.
Interestingly she said that after his death neither one of them ever heard from any of the other cops again.
The newspaper articles and TV news coverage always talk about what a great cop they were, how many people they helped, how well liked they were, and multitudes of other platitudes.
What I wonder though, and what is ignored by the media, is how corrupt was he. Did he make a little money on the side letting the local drug dealer know when a sting was coming up? Did she over-reach with forfeiture of ‘criminal’ assets and take a few nice things home for herself? Was he a drug dealer himself? Did she sometimes smoke some of the pot confiscated in a drug bust?
Or did he not do any of these things himself but held to the blue code of silence and watched as others did?
An estimated 30% of cops are in the first group and nearly all of the rest are in the blue code of silence group. Only an estimated 1/10 of 1 % aren’t in either group.
When a cop is killed in our state I often see the funeral parade. The coffee café I spend many of my mornings in is not far from our state capital and the parades start in front of here. As I write this there’s a parade of an estimated 800 police cars lining up to honor a cop killed this past weekend.
What group was this cop in? Was he part of the 30%? The 69.9% who kept silent? Or was he part of the 1/10 of 1%, the 1 in 1,000 who didn’t keep silent?
Very likely we’ll never know.
A former prostitute I interviewed told me about a cop she knew. I remember his funeral about 8 or 9 years ago. Like the cop being honored today he was killed in the line of duty and the accolades of what a great cop he was filled all of the local media. There was a story of his saving someone’s life and another of his finding a young child who’d wandered away from home. He had put in considerable time coaching a softball team for underprivileged kids. There were pictures of his wife and kids at his funeral on the front page of the paper. The following May he was inducted into the police memorial in Washington DC.
Her experience with him wasn’t so good though. He and some other cops had setup a sting in a local hotel and busted 4 girls for prostitution. As best she could tell she was number 5, but they made her an offer. If she’d give them each a freebie, they’d let her go. Compared to having an arrest for prostitution on her record and paying a fine that would have required servicing the same number of clients anyway, this was an OK deal from her standpoint.
But that wasn’t the end. Occasionally he or one of the others would stop by her apartment with the same ‘offer’.
She said all of the media attention he got and everyone talking about what a great cop and person and husband and father he was made her ill. “If he’d paid me like any other client I would have liked him, but he didn’t. He raped me.” She said. Several months after his funeral she found out that another girl had a similar relationship with him from a different sting and apparently a different group of other cops.
Interestingly she said that after his death neither one of them ever heard from any of the other cops again.
Monday, May 10, 2010
Universal Sports let me down...
A couple of weeks ago, on April 22, I posted about the coming world of TV that will unshackle us from the cable TV and Satellite companies. Well, one of my favorite companies in this brave new world, Universal Sports, almost let me down. I wanted to watch the Giro d’Italia which Universal Sports has the U.S. rights to. Universal had other ideas. Despite Universal Sports best efforts to keep me from giving them revenue, in the end, I won.
The first battle was figuring out that for the first time Universal was indeed charging for what had always been free in years past. Clicking on their 'Live Now!' tab, where we've always previously clicked to watch video, produced... Nothing. They thought this would throw me off and I would think they were simply having technical problems or perhaps weren’t really broadcasting this year. Not me. I pressed on.
I am not at all against Universal Sports charging for this btw. I just wish they’d be a bit more clear about it.
Battle the second, now that I’d determined that they were charging for their programming this year, was figuring out how to pay them revenue. Nothing I could find on any of the cycling pages led me to anywhere that would take my credit card. I did though find a couple of pages that confirmed that they were charging. One offered me Stage 15 for 99 cents. Well, that’s fine, but stage 15 is over 2 weeks away. (Cycling stage races like this or the Tour de France are usually comprised of multiple individual races or ‘stages’, usually 1 per day.) But I persisted and to the persistent often goes the battle. Then it happened. I noticed a tab on their home page for ‘Premium’. And there I found the elusive prize I was looking for. I forced my credit card number on Universal and was rewarded with a receipt for my purchase.
But for Universal, the war wasn’t over. They may have my revenue, but someone there thought that if they could simply thwart my efforts to find what it was I’d thought I’d purchased then I would call and cancel my subscription leaving them the winner.
They tried the ‘buttons that lead nowhere’ trick again, but I’d seen that tactic before and wasn’t fooled. Like the voice menu systems with 132 levels of choices, Universal Sports led me through page after page of anything but the live broadcast I thought I’d purchased. I still persisted. Persistence had paid off once, it would again. Finally I clicked on a button labeled ‘Watch Live’ or something to that effect on a page with a bunch of Giro stuff on it and was pleasantly greeted with video of people racing bikes and pretty decent English commentary!
Universal Sports doesn’t give up easy though. I wasn’t fooled for long. I know the difference in what I was expecting for Sunday’s Stage 2, a mass start road race, and what I was seeing on my screen. They labeled it ‘Live’ but gave me a replay of the previous day’s Stage 1 Time Trial through the streets of Amsterdam. I quickly realized what it was since on Saturday I had watched Stage 1 live online in Dutch, thanks to a Belgian TV broadcaster. Universal Sports won this day’s battle since I had to leave for church before I could find what I thought I’d bought. You don’t fool around with being late to church on Mother’s Day.
The fourth and final battle commenced this morning. Stage 3 was a road race from Amsterdam to Middleburg. I clicked around a bit sure I’d find the secret passage to the actual live broadcast Universal had so reluctantly sold me. I found a screen that listed stages 15, 14, and 4. Was there a code hidden in these seemingly unrelated stages I was given an option of? Was this kind of like the TV show where the guy saw future newspapers every morning? Could I click on these and see future results? Not. Clicking on them led to a description of the race, nothing more. I did though notice that below the big buttons for this 3 stages was some small text that simply said ‘more…’. I clicked, and behold I now had numerous buttons for a number of stages. They were in random order but scanning brought be to one that said ‘Stage 3’. The moment had arrived. I’d be able to watch Stage 3 live with commentary in English instead of Dutch, Italian, or Russian. Not. Nothing. Nada. Universal made a final valiant try by giving me a video player with nothing in it.
I backed up and tried again. I held my breath. The video player came up. I heard what certainly sounded like English commentary suddenly pour forth from my speakers. Then I saw it. Video. Live video of the Giro! Success! I’d won! There it was, the Giro d’Italia bike race, live from The Netherlands. I’d given them revenue and managed to find what they sold me so I could avoid demanding my money back. I’ll savor this victory for the remainder of the 3 week race.BTW, this broadcast in Dutch is available free and generally runs from about 6am – 11am EDT. http://bvls2.yolasite.com/ch-39.php
Thanks to the-pedal-pusher.com for the images,
Friday, May 7, 2010
Does Caribou Coffee just want to sell paper cups?
Caribou Coffee recently made a big deal out of ‘major improvements’ to their chain of coffee cafés. They changed their logo and introduced new paper cups with all kinds of slogans on them. Well, I have to say, the reason I go to a café is for the logo and slogans on the cups so I’ll certainly be sure to stop by Caribou.
NOT.
What should they do? They can start by teaching their barista’s how to make a proper cappuccino. A proper cappuccino has froth with a bit of espresso in the froth. A Caribou cappuccino has milk suds with no espresso. Good smooth froth with a bit of espresso is a delight. Your first sips of a Caribou cappuccino are of plain white milk suds. Yuk.
A proper Cappuccino is served in a warmed ceramic mug. Caribou uses paper cups. Paper cups allow the cappuccino to cool too fast, a proper ceramic keeps it warmer longer making for a much more pleasant experience.
The typical Caribou has nothing to absorb sound – namely the two people out of the 18 in the café who are intent on sharing their conversation with everyone else. Sound absorbing materials in the ceiling, on the walls, and perhaps a rug or two on the floor would help immensely.
Many people like to use laptops in cafés. Bright light isn’t good for being able to see laptop screens. Reducing the number of windows (especially in all of the Burger Kings and Carl’s Jr’s that have been converted to Caribou’s) would help. Tinting the windows and putting in blinds could help as well.
Speaking of converted fast-food places. A few walls here and there could help. They’d reduce noise and provide laptop users with darker places with more privacy that are more conducive to working.
Finally, the barista’s. A barista is kind of like a bartender. You don’t want an obnoxious bartender who doesn’t know how to make drinks and you don’t want an obnoxious barista who talks too loud and doesn’t know how to make cappuccino’s.
On the plus side the pseudo fresh baked pastries is an improvement. Healthier and lower calorie options would be better. Fresh natural ingredients, no processed sugars, sized to be maybe 150 calories instead of 500, etc.
NOT.
What should they do? They can start by teaching their barista’s how to make a proper cappuccino. A proper cappuccino has froth with a bit of espresso in the froth. A Caribou cappuccino has milk suds with no espresso. Good smooth froth with a bit of espresso is a delight. Your first sips of a Caribou cappuccino are of plain white milk suds. Yuk.
A proper Cappuccino is served in a warmed ceramic mug. Caribou uses paper cups. Paper cups allow the cappuccino to cool too fast, a proper ceramic keeps it warmer longer making for a much more pleasant experience.
The typical Caribou has nothing to absorb sound – namely the two people out of the 18 in the café who are intent on sharing their conversation with everyone else. Sound absorbing materials in the ceiling, on the walls, and perhaps a rug or two on the floor would help immensely.
Many people like to use laptops in cafés. Bright light isn’t good for being able to see laptop screens. Reducing the number of windows (especially in all of the Burger Kings and Carl’s Jr’s that have been converted to Caribou’s) would help. Tinting the windows and putting in blinds could help as well.
Speaking of converted fast-food places. A few walls here and there could help. They’d reduce noise and provide laptop users with darker places with more privacy that are more conducive to working.
Finally, the barista’s. A barista is kind of like a bartender. You don’t want an obnoxious bartender who doesn’t know how to make drinks and you don’t want an obnoxious barista who talks too loud and doesn’t know how to make cappuccino’s.
On the plus side the pseudo fresh baked pastries is an improvement. Healthier and lower calorie options would be better. Fresh natural ingredients, no processed sugars, sized to be maybe 150 calories instead of 500, etc.
Thursday, April 29, 2010
Food, Sex, and Self Control
In a survey I asked a bunch of former drug addicts which they believe more difficult to give up; drugs or sex. Female respondents largely said drugs. Male respondents overwhelmingly said sex.
I wish I’d asked the same question about giving up drugs vs giving up high calorie diets.
Obesity is a major problem in our society and is only getting worse. It is one of the key factors in increased healthcare costs. It is becoming a significant issue for airline flyers who find the rolls of fat of the person next to them flowing over in to their already tight space. The Army recently noted that recruitment efforts are becoming more difficult because many who want to join are too obese to even start training and the numbers who begin training and then are kicked out because they can’t attain a minimum level of fitness is increasing.
A doctor I heard speak once said something to the effect of this: It used to be that we couldn’t avoid physical labor and that calories were difficult to come by. Today we can’t avoid calories but physical labor is difficult to come by.
I understand where he’s coming from, and agree that things have changed, but not to the extent that he espouses. Stop by any major construction site and you’ll see a number of obese people doing physical labor. It’s not just a lack of labor among the general population. Exercise is critical to good health, but almost no amount of exercise can overcome a high calorie diet. A 490 calorie scone from Panera Bread will require about 3 hours of brisk walking (8 miles in 2 hours, 35 minutes) to work off.
Calories are certainly more prevalent today than in the past, but just because they’re available doesn’t mean we have to partake. We can choose to eat healthier. We don’t have to eat Big Mac’s or Alice Springs Chicken (a menu item at Outback Steakhouse that alone has as many calories as many people need in an entire day.)
I’ve done it so I know how difficult it is. Over about a 10 or 15 year period I’d very slowly put on 3 or 4 extra pounds a year until I was noticeably pudgy. I reduced my calorie intake to about 1,800/day to lose the extra 35 lbs and now generally stick to about 2,100 to maintain it. I eat out over 90% of my meals, travel a good bit, and eat at formal dinners and other events. It’s not even remotely impossible to choose to do it and then do so.
This does pose a question. Is every person capable of the self-control and self-discipline necessary to limit their diet to something appropriate like 1,600 – 2,200 calories per day?
How many of the obese people around us are or are not capable of controlling what they eat. Is it different for men and women?
How would you rank sex, drugs, and high calorie food on the self-discipline scale?
I wish I’d asked the same question about giving up drugs vs giving up high calorie diets.
Obesity is a major problem in our society and is only getting worse. It is one of the key factors in increased healthcare costs. It is becoming a significant issue for airline flyers who find the rolls of fat of the person next to them flowing over in to their already tight space. The Army recently noted that recruitment efforts are becoming more difficult because many who want to join are too obese to even start training and the numbers who begin training and then are kicked out because they can’t attain a minimum level of fitness is increasing.
A doctor I heard speak once said something to the effect of this: It used to be that we couldn’t avoid physical labor and that calories were difficult to come by. Today we can’t avoid calories but physical labor is difficult to come by.
I understand where he’s coming from, and agree that things have changed, but not to the extent that he espouses. Stop by any major construction site and you’ll see a number of obese people doing physical labor. It’s not just a lack of labor among the general population. Exercise is critical to good health, but almost no amount of exercise can overcome a high calorie diet. A 490 calorie scone from Panera Bread will require about 3 hours of brisk walking (8 miles in 2 hours, 35 minutes) to work off.
Calories are certainly more prevalent today than in the past, but just because they’re available doesn’t mean we have to partake. We can choose to eat healthier. We don’t have to eat Big Mac’s or Alice Springs Chicken (a menu item at Outback Steakhouse that alone has as many calories as many people need in an entire day.)
I’ve done it so I know how difficult it is. Over about a 10 or 15 year period I’d very slowly put on 3 or 4 extra pounds a year until I was noticeably pudgy. I reduced my calorie intake to about 1,800/day to lose the extra 35 lbs and now generally stick to about 2,100 to maintain it. I eat out over 90% of my meals, travel a good bit, and eat at formal dinners and other events. It’s not even remotely impossible to choose to do it and then do so.
This does pose a question. Is every person capable of the self-control and self-discipline necessary to limit their diet to something appropriate like 1,600 – 2,200 calories per day?
How many of the obese people around us are or are not capable of controlling what they eat. Is it different for men and women?
How would you rank sex, drugs, and high calorie food on the self-discipline scale?
Tuesday, April 27, 2010
Welcome and Thank YOU!
This blog was originally created for a small group of friends and associates. Looking at the traffic stats it appears there are a number of others who’ve stumbled upon it and even continue to read. So, to all those who suffer through my often hastily and poorly written posts - Thank You! It’s always very gratifying when anyone takes their valuable time to read something I’ve written, whether it be in a national magazine or a simple anonymous blog.
Will posting calories help control obesity?
The one thing in Obama’s healthcare bill that I have been supportive of is the requirement that restaurants post calorie information on menu’s. Panera Bread cafés began doing this recently of their own initiative. Does it work?
My wife and I ate in Panera for dinner last night. Based on the calories posted I chose a half Cuban chicken sandwich and half cobb salad. 680 calories was within my 900 calorie dinner allowance. So far so good. They also have a promotion for a bakery item for 99 cents. That 490 calorie orange scone (my future daughter-in-law makes real (and very good) scones, Panera’s are not real but more like scone shaped muffins) sure was good.
Based on this study, posting calories is of little benefit
FitBit
While we’re talking about calories… I read an article recently about a device called a fitbit. It measures your activity throughout the day and tells you how many calories you’ve burned. Sounds like a good thing.
This morning I heard a group of POS (persons of size) talking about something similar that they all have. They were all excited because their devices showed that they burned 250 calories going on a 40 minute walk. “I can eat a candybar.” one said.
There’s a danger in this. Thanks to our metabolism we naturally burn a bunch of calories throughout the day, usually between about 1500 and 2500. I burn about 60 calories per hour when I’m sleeping, about 80/hr for the approximately 12 hours I’m fairly sedentary sitting at my desk, and about 190/hr for the 4 hours I’m somewhat active which includes things like taking a shower, grocery shopping, or cutting the grass. For all of this I can eat about 2200 calories a day and not gain weight. Eating anything more than my base metabolic rate will destroy my svelte figure.
If, for one of my ‘active’ hours, I go for a long walk that burns 250 calories, I haven’t burned an extra 250, but only an extra 60 or so. I’d actually have to walk a 250 calorie per hour pace for a bit over 4 hours to burn off that candybar. I do a lot of bike riding and burn about 1000 calories per hour (approx 20mph pace). That doesn’t mean that I can eat an extra 1000 calories though. Realistically I’ve only burned about an extra 800 calories. In reality though I find that for that 1000 calorie ride I can only eat about 600 calories over my 2200 calorie metabolic rate or similarly 1200 calories on a day I’ve supposedly burned 2000 calories on my bike. I’m not sure if my computer and various charts give high calorie burn information or if it just takes more than a calorie to burn a calorie.
Moral of the story – be careful how many calories you think you’ve burned.
My wife and I ate in Panera for dinner last night. Based on the calories posted I chose a half Cuban chicken sandwich and half cobb salad. 680 calories was within my 900 calorie dinner allowance. So far so good. They also have a promotion for a bakery item for 99 cents. That 490 calorie orange scone (my future daughter-in-law makes real (and very good) scones, Panera’s are not real but more like scone shaped muffins) sure was good.
Based on this study, posting calories is of little benefit
FitBit
While we’re talking about calories… I read an article recently about a device called a fitbit. It measures your activity throughout the day and tells you how many calories you’ve burned. Sounds like a good thing.
This morning I heard a group of POS (persons of size) talking about something similar that they all have. They were all excited because their devices showed that they burned 250 calories going on a 40 minute walk. “I can eat a candybar.” one said.
There’s a danger in this. Thanks to our metabolism we naturally burn a bunch of calories throughout the day, usually between about 1500 and 2500. I burn about 60 calories per hour when I’m sleeping, about 80/hr for the approximately 12 hours I’m fairly sedentary sitting at my desk, and about 190/hr for the 4 hours I’m somewhat active which includes things like taking a shower, grocery shopping, or cutting the grass. For all of this I can eat about 2200 calories a day and not gain weight. Eating anything more than my base metabolic rate will destroy my svelte figure.
If, for one of my ‘active’ hours, I go for a long walk that burns 250 calories, I haven’t burned an extra 250, but only an extra 60 or so. I’d actually have to walk a 250 calorie per hour pace for a bit over 4 hours to burn off that candybar. I do a lot of bike riding and burn about 1000 calories per hour (approx 20mph pace). That doesn’t mean that I can eat an extra 1000 calories though. Realistically I’ve only burned about an extra 800 calories. In reality though I find that for that 1000 calorie ride I can only eat about 600 calories over my 2200 calorie metabolic rate or similarly 1200 calories on a day I’ve supposedly burned 2000 calories on my bike. I’m not sure if my computer and various charts give high calorie burn information or if it just takes more than a calorie to burn a calorie.
Moral of the story – be careful how many calories you think you’ve burned.
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