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Anti-Capitalism abouds at world economic summit

A couple of quotes from the world economic forum:

"This may be the first Davos where capitalism is widely viewed as a failure, rather than something to be admired," says Ethan Kapstein, professor of economics and political science at French business school Insead, who has been going to Davos since 1994.

or,

"The capitalist myth is lovely and youthful. It kicked off the industrial revolution, but maybe we need a new one," says Richard Olivier.

If this is how the world is starting to think (and it certainly seems like it is), then it's headed down a very dark and dangerous path.

As Ayn Rand would say: Who is John Galt?

"Socialist" is a racial slur

A columnist for the Kansas City star has written an article in which he explains that socialist is really an old-school secret racial slur against blacks.

Seriously.

I know you think I'm making this up, but alas, I am not.  How this guy gets a job as an editor is beyond me, but I assume the pay must be crap otherwise more qualified people might apply.  

The "socialist" label that Sen. John McCain and his GOP presidential running mate Sarah Palin are trying to attach to Sen. Barack Obama actually has long and very ugly historical roots.
...
McCain and Palin have simply reached back in history to use an old code word for black.
...
Shame on McCain and Palin.

Please, sir, tell me you're not serious.

I did a quick google image search for "famous socialists" and this guy came up first:

Meet Mr. (Comrade?) Vasial Glavinov, a black man cleverly disguised as a Macedonian socialist leader... or so I assume.  He was exiled by Bulgarian socialists at some point, I assume because Bulgarian socialists are racist... or... something. 

(What is it with socialists and beards anyway?)

So next time you have a gander at the color wheel, keep in mind that the opposite of "white" is "socialist".  

Stupid Photos

When I see something goofy, I try to take a picture of it with my phone so that I can "blog about it" later. The blogging part seems to seldom happen, but finally I'm clearing out the old iPhone photo bank and I'll put a few shots up here.


This was the sign for the women's restroom at the Chart House where Scott and Kristen held their wedding(ish) reception. The site of the building is next to an old public bathing/swimming house, and thus I assume that's what they are going for here. Nevertheless, it seems this woman is in a suspicious position of sorts.

Next...


Here we have a stuffed gorilla strapped onto the back of a motorcycle. It's just not something you see every day. Should he be wearing a helmet?

Next...

When we made our family vacation trek to Florida, we stayed overnight in Montgomery, Alabama. I took a quick stroll around the hotel area, looking for historical monuments and such, and near the river there was an area formerly used to transport cotton from the South, which now had been renovated into a park and amphitheater. As is the trend, an area was set aside where people could donate money (I presume) and get a brick with their name on it. This one happened to catch my eye. You can see in the lower corner, that Betty J. Piatt is a "Classy Lady", but I would certainly not pick her in a bar fight over Cher Bollinger, the slayer of dragons.

Next...

In a very similar vein, here we have a shot of some of the vanity bricks in front of Lucas Oil Stadium, the new home of the Indianapolis Colts. I decided to try and slip in some props for the Miami Dolphins, and sure enough, they were more interested in taking my money than in ensuring all Colts bricks were, you know, for the Colts. Go Dolphins!

Next...
Not far from our Dolphins-supporting Colts' brick, I spotted this brick in favor of the Chicago Bears. Props to Brian Gajos, who had the cajones to not only buy the brick, but to cleverly disguise the "C" from the Chicago Bears logo as the Colts' horseshoe.

And finally...

This one really takes the cake. Just this week, while in San Diego attending the DEMO conference, we got behind this car with a very special license plate. How this one slipped through I'm not sure, but there it is for the world to see, a la "Assman" from the Seinfeld episode, but I doubt this guy is a proctologist. :)

Gravity treats everyone with fairness and equality...

While I haven't made a post in a while, that shouldn't imply that the world has suddenly become less stupid. Sometimes there's just so much stupidity that it hardly seems worth it to keep up.

But, just when you thought you've seen it all, this little gem pops up from the Dallas Morning News, reporting on a meeting of county commissioners:

A special meeting about Dallas County traffic tickets turned tense and bizarre this afternoon.

County commissioners were discussing problems with the central collections office that is used to process traffic ticket payments and handle other paperwork normally done by the JP Courts.

Commissioner Kenneth Mayfield, who is white, said it seemed that central collections "has become a black hole" because paperwork reportedly has become lost in the office.

Commissioner John Wiley Price, who is black, interrupted him with a loud "Excuse me!" He then corrected his colleague, saying the office has become a "white hole."

That prompted Judge Thomas Jones, who is black, to demand an apology from Mayfield for his racially insensitive analogy.

Mayfield shot back that it was a figure of speech and a science term.

A white hole? Touché, sir. Touché.

Oh my.

Maybe all of science knowledge has ended up in a black hole. Or a white hole. Whatever.

It's Ready in a landslide!

When you think of people winning elections with 100% of the vote, infamous names like Saddam Hussein, Fidel Castro, and Joseph Stalin come to mind.

Add to that list, yours truly, Jeff Ready.

That's right. In fact, I take it one step further. In my first public election, I won 100% of the vote, not once, but twice. See the results for yourself:


Ah but that's not all. As you can see, I received 149 votes in my precinct, White River #12. If I take a look at other vote getters in this precinct, I notice the following:


So while I cleaned up, none of the candidates running for president received as many votes as I did. This is clearly an indication of the leadership people see in me--a mandate, if you will.

I can sense your doubt. Don't make me throw you in the gulag.

In fact, on the entire White River 12 precinct ballot, only our incumbent governor, Mitch Daniels received more votes than me with 160 votes. Better watch out Mitch, I'm gunning for you!

What's even better is that these other fools now have to run in a general election where votes will be split up even more, yet I craftily choose to run for offices that are voted on during the primary only. So 100% of the vote it is. I pledge to use my new found power for good, not evil. Mostly. Or something.

Adolf Hitler sighting?

It appears that Adolf Hitler has taken over the FCC - here's a picture of the chairman, Kevin Martin:

Seriously man... if no one else has ever told you, then let me be the first to say that you need to change that haircut. What the heck. Doesn't this guy have any friends?

Musings from an airplane.

The funny thing about traveling is that, if you travel to the same place often enough, it feels more like an extension of your local neighborhood than it does a far away land. I’m on the plane now for my 5th trip to California this year already. At this point being in Silicon Valley seems more familiar than being in some parts of Indianapolis. It’s like I head out of the neighborhood and commute into work, which just happens to be 2000 miles away. Go figure.

The worst part of the routine to make the trip is trying to sleep the night before. Despite setting two different alarms, I always have complete pessimism that they’re actually going to go off and wake me up. That’s never happened, but I can’t seem to get my stupid brain to realize everything will be just fine, even if I did happen to wake up late and miss my flight.

So, I hit the sack around 10:30pm, with the alarm set for 4:30am. I wake up like clockwork at 12:30am, 1:30am. 2:30am, 3:30am, and 4:00am. Nothing like a restful nights sleep before making a trip.

At 4:30am the alarm goes off (as I knew it would), I shut it off, disable the second alarm, and head into the bathroom. I get ready, pack up my computer, give my luggage a once over in the hopes of not forgetting anything, and head out the door just before 5:00am. About a minute later I come back in the house to retrieve my sunglasses, which I inevitably left on the counter, then head back to the car.

Luckily I was able to print my boarding pass at home this morning, because last night the website was giving me an error, and despite two calls to Frontier, they couldn’t get it working. This is good because needing to stop at the ticket counter would throw a wrench into my otherwise well planned morning itinerary. There are a number of good things about Frontier. The quality of their website and their online check in system are not among then. They are probably the worst in the industry when it comes to online functionality, despite the fact that you’re forced to use the website if you don’t want to pay extra service fees. But I digress…

I head to the airport, drive to the business parking lot, go in the back entrance, and park across from shelter 4 which always has an open parking spot nearby. It’s also the shelter nearest the exit, which is nice for the return trip. A few minutes later the shuttle arrives, the usual guy with the unpronounceable African name picks me up, I say “Good Morning. Frontier, please,” and away we go. I think his name starts with “Aieedi.” I’m not sure what to do with that.

Off to the terminal, head inside, check the time, which of course is 5:31am, as always, and then over toward the C terminal. Just before the terminal, I head into the bookstore, pick up a copy of the Economist for the plane, and since it’s flu season, a bottle of Purell hand sanitizer.

As I walk up to the FlyClear security line, I’m greeted, as usual, by Jonathan Hargrath who works for Clear. “Welcome back, Mr. Ready,” he says as I approach. He hasn’t even seen my boarding pass yet. Of course, I know that Jonathan is a fellow Ron Paul supporter, and so we strike up a conversation about the latest Ron Paul happenings while he looks over my boarding pass, and I’m subjected to the government’s tracking of my location via smartcard and fingerprint just so I can get through the security line faster.

“Did you see that ABC reported he barely won his congressional bid?” he asks.

“Nope. Didn’t Ron Paul win like 70% to 30%?”

“Yeah. Stupid ABC. Nice report, huh?”

I have not seen the report but I assure him I’ll check it out when I can, although given the state of reporting on Ron Paul, I wouldn’t be surprised if some media outlet did report a 70-30 win as “razor thin.”

Anyway, through security I sail, breezing past the long line by means of selling out my own privacy, and next it’s off to the FoxSports restaurant-ish thing next to the Frontier gate.

“Good morning. The usual?” asks the guy behind the counter. “That was with sausage, right?”

Okay, so it’s one thing for the FlyClear guy to recognize me, since we always talk about Ron Paul. It’s probably another level that I know the first *and* last name of that same guy. But being greeted twice within 5 minutes as though this was my neighborhood hangout? Seems a bit much.

I sit down at my usual seat where I can keep an eye on the Frontier gate. I do this just in case my usual schedule has gone wildly awry and I need to cut short my breakfast in order to board, but that’s only happened once.

They call my number, and I grab my “Eggs Classic” with sausage and a medium Coke. For some reason, when I get up early in the morning a Coke always sounds better than coffee. It’s probably for the best because, if I’m going to have a Coke, I’d rather have the fountain Coke here, than get the crappy Coke-from-a-can on the airplane. Yuck. And the coffee on Frontier is marginally not-so-bad so it all works out.

Anyway, I sit back down with my breakfast and check the clock that hangs from the ceiling in the terminal. 5:54am. Hmm, I am running a little later than usual, it’s normally 5:51am at this point. I briefly ponder why all of my time-checks seem to end in “1” and then pull out my cell phone to confirm the time.

5:51am.

Ah yes, I forgot that the clock in Indianapolis airport is always running a bit fast. Better that than a bit slow I suppose.

I finish eating at (as you might have guessed) 6:01am. I toss my trash, and walk across to the restroom even though I don’t feel like I need to go. On the way out the door I notice the vending machine that has various medicinal products in it for headache, cold symptoms, and motion sickness. And gum. Who buys gum from a vending machine in the bathroom? It’s a question I ask myself every time I see that thing on my way out the door.

The plane is to start boarding at 6:10am, so I’ve got just a couple minutes to wait. I open up my phone and download my mail, just in case something besides spam has arrived between the hours of 4:30am and 6:00am.

Nope. Just spam.

I have a seat on the floor in front of the payphones. I realize that most people gave up sitting on the floor sometime in the third or fourth grade, but not me. One look at the crowded sea of people all slouching in the ugly grey seats is enough to drive me away. Sometimes I sit in the arcade that’s across from the Frontier gate because it has a couple of chairs in it, and it allows me to admire the video game selection circa 1988, but somebody else has already grabbed those spots. So, the floor is good enough for me, and I have my hand sanitizer to clean myself up with when I stand back up.

“We’d like to welcome you to Frontier, flight 615, with service to Denver.”

Why do they say “with service to Denver” as though they were (1) doing something *besides* taking me to Denver, and (2) acting like ending up in Denver was some kind of secondary offering? “We’d like to welcome you to Frontier, where you are invited to sit in seats that are too small, watch a limited television selection on a 4 inch screen, and enjoy ‘complimentary’ Coke-from-a-can for the next 3 hours. As a special bonus today, we’re going to take you to Denver!”

With that thought running through my head I glance down at my cell phone to see if we’re boarding on time.

6:11am.

Uncanny.

“At this time we invite anyone needing extra assistance down the jetway and families traveling with small children under the age of three to board. Also, our Ascent and Summit members are invited to board at their leisure.”

This also strikes me as an odd phrase: “at your leisure.” What a strange way to say, “whenever you feel like it.” I know it’s a commonly used phrase, but has anyone ever really though about it? “Leisure” implies that I’m relaxing or otherwise enjoying myself. Should I board the plane when I think it sounds like fun? Or when I’m feeling good and relaxed? Does boarding the plane “at my free time” make even a lick of sense?

See, this is what happens when you get up at 4:30 in the morning.

In any event, I guess I was feeling leisurely since I got up and get in line to board the plane. Even though I’ve seen it 1,000 times, I’m still bewildered that there are always 3 or 4 people (or more) that try to board the plane before it’s their turn. Here’s the conversation between the gate agent and the two people in front of me:

“Are you boarding row 12?”

“No sir, this is the courtesy preboard.”

And then the very next person in line,

“Are you boarding row 9?”

“No sir, this is the courtesy preboard.”

We're 45 seconds into the trip, and already 30% of the passengers aren't paying a bit of attention.

“Good morning, Mr. Ready. Welcome back to Frontier,” the agent says as I’m shaking my head at the two guys who tried to board in front of me. That makes three personal greetings this morning, two from people who knew my name before they could read it off the boarding pass. I’ve truly reached celebrity status. LOL.

Much to my surprise (and admittedly, a bit to my delight), this was a different flight crew than I normally have. At least I can take solace in the fact that I’ve not yet memorized every Frontier crew that works the Indy to Denver leg.

The plane is only about half full, and before we start taxiing, I grab my stuff and switch to a row that has no one in it. Sitting in coach with no one in the immediate seat next to you is acceptable, but getting a whole row to yourself is practically first class, and on Frontier, which has no actual first class, this is as good as it’s going to get.

I start flipping through the Economist as the flight attendants go through their little game of charades where they pantomime the use of the modern invention known as the “seat belt” and then point up and down the aisle as though, in the event of an emergency, I was going to turn to my right and bang my head against the little plastic window instead of walking up or down the, you know, only place on the plane where you can actually walk. On the other hand, I did get up at 4:30 in the morning, so who knows.

“Federal regulations require that all passengers comply with crewmember instructions and posted placards…”

Placards? When was the last time that word was actually used in the common vernacular? 1882? 1765? Whenever it was, I’m quite sure it was before the invention of the airplane, much less the federal rules regulating how we are allowed to ride in them. Who came up with that goofy phraseology?

“Bill, the passengers are really bored on these trips. Our focus groups suggest we need to spice up the safety demonstration. Hire some marketing consultants and see what you can come up with.”

A dozen brainstorming sessions later we get Marcel Marceau impersonations and “placards” as a way to say, “This is how a seat belt works. Please read the signs.”

Thanks, Bill.

At any rate, we’re over Kansas at this point and the turbulence has begun. I may know how to fly a plane myself, but that doesn’t make getting tossed about at 38,000 feet while traveling 500 miles an hour any less bothersome. Hopefully everything is on time in Denver, but I’m pretty sure we’ll be slightly delayed because my connection is one of the first of the day for that aircraft, and the plane will need to be deiced before we go.

Apparently the fact that you would need to defrost a plane that has been sitting overnight in Denver, in the winter, is quite surprising to the airline. It never seems to be factored into the scheduled time. I’m supposed to get into San Jose at 10:10am local, but maybe I’ll get in at, dare I say, 10:31am? We’ll see.

Who knew you could turn an otherwise completely repetitive morning into a 2100 word blog post?

Chicago to ban little baggies

(Jeff puts down the drumsticks and puts on his Crusader Against Stupidity hat...)

Life is a funny thing. Every time you think that you've seen the absolute stupidest, most asinine thing ever, someone, inevitably a politician, comes along and ups the ante.

Last night, the City Council in Chicago put a ban on small, self sealing baggies. You know, the kind that your extra buttons come in when you buy a new shirt or whatever. The rationale is that drug dealers use these little bags to package small amounts of drugs for sale in the $10-20 range.

The move bans baggies that measure less than 2 inches by 2 inches, which really is brilliant because IT'S NOT LIKE THE DRUG DEALERS WILL THINK TO USE BIGGER BAGS INSTEAD.

What in the frickin' heck are these people thinking. Oh yes, I'm sure the margins on that $10 bag of crack are so tight that the move to using a sandwich bag that costs $0.005 instead of the mini self sealing bags that cost $0.003 is really going to put the squeeze on these drug dealers.

Heck, half of them might be out of business within a month.

Please.

And all the businesses that legitimately use these bags are going to be hosed because, even though they don't have "intent to misuse" them (or whatever the councilmen said), it's not like it's worth the business risk of having some kind of issue. I know for sure that homebrew stores use these things for hop pellets and the like... as if the average cop is going to know that a bag of weird green hop pellets in a plastic mini bag is "legitimate use" and not some type of drug. Yeah, right.

It's sad enough that some idiot councilman even came up with this idea. It's sadder still that enough of them agreed to pass it. What's really unbelievable is that people vote these jokers into office.

Regulation of plastic baggies. Ugh. What could possibly be next? I hear terrorists have been known to use copper wire and Phillips head screws in their bombs. Maybe we should ban those too.

8 more virtual miles walked

I'm loving this conversion of drums to miles thing. LOL. I practiced two more hours today, and about an our into it finally got the jam session out of my system. That means I walked 18 miles over the last 2 days. Kinda-sorta.

For the first hour I just played along with music again, and as time wore on I realized that either I was playing worse than yesterday, or more likely, I was now actually hearing myself play instead of just rolling along.

So, it was back to actually working on rudiments and timing (i.e. actually practicing) for about an hour.

On one hand, I realize that I'm much further along in learning to play these things than when I started. On the other hand, I have no idea how my progression is vs. where I should have expected to be by this point. My first drum lesson was August 6th, which means that, later this week, I will pass the 7 month mark of playing. While I can't say that I've practiced as much as I would have liked, I have, at the same time, been legitimately and consistently practicing, probably on the order of 5 hours a week if you were to average out the time when I'm on trips and get only limited practice. When I'm at home it's more like 7 hours I'm sure. And there are more intense weeks, like this week where I've practiced 4.5 hours over 2 days.

Anyway, that's something between 150 and 200 hours of practice. Yet I'm not even remotely capable of really playing a song of any complexity at all. With my sheet music in the "Rockin' Bass Drum" book (LOL - what a name), I'm about half way through it and can mix and match the rhythms pretty consistently. For any drummers that might be reading this, it consists of using the bass on any of th 16th note beats, which is good, but the snare is always just 2-4 and the hi-hat is 1+2+3+4 always closed. Basically, my hands are coasting along and my one foot does something interesting. But some of them do sound pretty cool anyway.

However, then when I go to play a song, my ability to apply any of that is dramatically limited. I basically can play along with just the most basic rhythms like snare on 2,4 bass on 1,3 or 1,2,3,4, hi hat closed on 8ths. Maybe (and only recently), I can go all crazy and hit the crash on 1 once in a while, or go way crazy and hit it on the "ah" or "and" of 4 AND on the 1. Woah. All the fancy Rockin' Bass Drum footwork goes right out the window.

And I can do some basic fills, although if the music is not a basic 3e+a 4e+a fill or something like that (and it seems like it seldom is), I'm lost. And even then I'm pretty limited. Luckily I can work a simple 1 count, 4 beat snare fill in after I've already heard the drummer in the actual song start his break, so I can act like I'm kinda doing something.

(I realize I completely lost the non-drummers. Sorry about that).

Anyway, I suppose as with any instrument there comes a point where you think "Shouldn't I be farther along?" and I'm at that point. Sometimes I feel stuck, sometimes I make a little progress, but the ability to actually sit down and play songs consistently seems quite a way off yet. So much for my plan of paying off the mortgage with my mad drum skills as a second career. LOL.

Ah well. I realized that I'm really just ranting to myself, but you'd think over 100 hours of something and you'd be pretty good at it. With drums, apparently that's not hardly enough. But at least I'm enjoying it, so I'll just keep at it and hopefully see steady improvements.

Next up... the Boston Marathon

Because of a trip to California followed by a trip back to Griffith for the baptism of the latest Bartinicki family addition, I haven't had any drum practice since my last lesson on Monday, nearly a week ago, and even that's only a half hour long. The week before wasn't much better, with the logistical aerobics brought on by Amy's necessary trip to Evansville, and me doing my best (and failing miserably) at juggling the kids schedule while she was gone.

Long story short is that I hadn't had much time on the actual drum kit, and since I've put my official lessons on hold, I've been anxious to get back at it so that I didn't fall into the habit of not playing at all. Annoying the guy sitting next to me by drumming on my lap throughout a cross country flight doesn't really cut it.

So, I headed down this evening after the kids went to bed and decided just to have some fun on the drums. No real practice drills - just popping in the iPod and attempting to kinda-sorta play along. I put on my top-25-most-played play list and drummed all the way through it. Twice.

Not me.
Amy popped her head in about 10:30pm to check on me, which isn't too surprising since I did head down to the basement at 8:30. I could see what she really wanted to say was "Have you lost your flippin' mind? You've been in here for over two hours!" It may have been the actual question and declaration of "Are you drunk? It stinks in here!" that tipped me off. This is the kind of insight you gain with 10 years of marriage. (For the record, I had had only one drink, and that was 2 hours earlier, so, no, I wasn't drunk. Although I'm sure I did stink. What kind of second-class, pretend-rock star am I? The stinky, sober kind, apparently. Pathetic.)

Nevertheless, I was on the last song of my playlist run anyway, and I decided that, while I had played so poorly as to be classified as "worthless" by any sort of band, I could still be identified as "a guy who is attempting to play drums" as opposed to, say, "a guy who is attempting to fish." Good enough. I decided to call it a night.

When I finally stood up, I realized that my legs and arms were actually pretty tired. So I looked up how many calories you burn while playing the drums.

Much to my surprise (and excitement!) an hour of drumming (for a person of my weight) burns 345 calories. This is the same as walking "at a very brisk pace", playing volleyball, playing hacky sack, gymnastics, or (ironically) fishing.

Here's the website where I found all this info.

Now, granted, the last two throw the creditability of this whole thing into question. Both of the girls are in gymnastics, and so I've seen the kind of things the older girls (or my girls, for that matter) have to do, and there is no way on this earth that an hour of that stuff is the same as an hour of drumming, hacky sack, or speed walking.

Also I also don't know how many fish I'm *supposed* to be catching while fishing, or how much those fish are supposed to weigh, but clearly I'm doing something wrong. Outside of harpooning for Moby Dick, I can assure you that when I spend an hour of my time fishing, my calories burned are a lot closer to what I might burn when, say, "sitting in a chair, largely motionless, drinking beer" (just as an example). This is probably not the same as what I might burn when "playing competitive volleyball in a gymnasium." I mean, come on, let's use a little common sense here for Pete's sake.

Anyway, I don't believe everything I read, but I will believe, based on how I feel alone, that drumming is comparable to walking at a brisk pace or playing hacky sack. So the 345 calories burned an hour adds up to 862 total calories for the 2.5 hours I was playing, which is going to be far and away more than I would have burned by playing World of Warcraft, which in inevitably what I'd have been doing otherwise.

And it sure was a lot more fun than walking 10 miles to nowhere on the treadmill.

Boston Marathon, here I come!

Tasty advice for Startups

Between my work with the Indiana Venture Center, random speaking engagements, and just meeting different people, I get a lot of questions about starting businesses, raising money, hiring people, and gardening tips.

Well, okay, not so much on the gardening tips.

Anyway, I decided to launch a new website, McStartup, where I can post some of the questions that people ask me, so that others can benefit (or suffer) from reading the answers as well. A lot of times I get the same questions over and over, and maybe this will help a few people who I never would have met otherwise. This gives me a chance to screw up their businesses from afar.

So go check it out, and ask a question, tell your friends, or spontaneously sponsor a billboard on my behalf in your hometown.

Interesting Interview for 9/11

An interesting interview from Shep Smith's show with Michael Scheuer, the former head of the CIA's Bin Laden unit. He discusses the root causes for terrorism, and how continued denial of those causes continues to endanger us.

Seriously, why do people continue to believe that the terrorists "hate us for our freedoms?" Yes, there is a cultural clash, but no one is suicide bombing us because we eat double cheeseburgers. Only lunatics would do something like that, and there are tens of thousands of Al Qaeda fighters, not a handful of serial killers.

The hatred stems from political and foreign policy. If you want to believe the policy is a correct one, and that the consequences of it are better than what would happen with a different policy, then you have formed a logical, valid opinion. But, to deny the link between policy and consequence, instead choosing to blame "America's Freedom" for the rise of Al Qaeda, is just naive, stupid, and very, very dangerous.

Junie B. Jones - unemployed gas station attendant

I'm taking a break from my regularly scheduled Ron Paul plug to focus on my core task of crusading against stupidity.

Today's topic is Junie B. Jones. For those of you that don't know, Junie B. Jones is the main character for a wildly successful series of books by Barbara Park, aimed at kids in the 5-8 age range to read by themselves.

Junie B. is pretty much a bratty kid with bad manners, terrible grammar, and who is 5 or 6 years old, depending on the book. She writes about her adventures and misadventures in a journal she keeps, the books are generally pretty humorous, and kids seem to like them.

However, I have a serious issue with these books. Kaitlyn has now read two of them, and this most recent will be the last. The grammar in the books is beyond atrocious, and any benefit she's getting from reading is being destroyed by the learning--or at least confusion over--the bad English.

Here's an example:

"He clapped his loud hands together... All of us got relief on our faces. And we hurried to the auditorium as fast as we could go. And we quick put on our costumes... I tapped Sheldon very giggly."

That's just part of one page... a page I opened at random just now for purposes of this blog. This page (page 74 of "Shipwrecked") has nine sentence fragments in it, and nine other grammatical errors by my count. There are a total of 16 sentences on the page, including the fragments.

You read that right: 18 errors in 16 sentences. There are two complete sentences that are error-free.

As you might expect, using these books in school has caused a bit of controversy. Some people want them banned, others think they are fine. I think both groups are full of idiots.

First, just because a book is a piece of trash is no reason to make it's use or ownership illegal. Second, to think that having kids who are just learning grammar read books that contain almost no grammatically correct sentences is plain dumb.

From what I've read online, the controversy has been boiled down to some debate between teaching phonics and teaching "whole language." This is also complete garbage.

"Whole language," as we've been exposed to it, has consisted of letting Kaitlyn write stories and such without over-correcting spelling and grammar. This clearly makes sense: why spend 10 minutes trying to spell a word when it's the process of converting thoughts into text that the real skill you want to teach, and where the real learning takes place.

So that's fine. HOWEVER - that does not mean that you should expose the kid to all kinds of bad grammar which they will then, in turn, copy. Every person reading this blog knows someone that can't write worth a crap, because when they do, it's all grammatical garbage. You don't have to wonder why, because the person who has the bad grammar when they write, it the same person that has the bad grammar when they speak.

People write like they talk. People speak like what they hear (other people, TV, radio, music), and what they read. If your parents use incorrect grammar, chances are you do to.

Saying that kids shouldn't be overexposed to this kind of incorrect English is to advocate phonics vs. whole language is also dumb. Phonics has nothing to do with it. First, for the reasons I just listed, and second, because no one really reads using phonics anyway--you only sound out new words using phonics until you memorize the word. You want proof?

Engilsh is a pretty scrweed up langauge.

I'm sure you had no trouble reading that, despite the fact that most of it is grossly misspelled. That's because it's been proven that people only really look at the beginning and ending of a word, and scan the middle for the correct letters. If the letters in the middle are ok, even in the wrong order, and the word starts and ends correctly, then people will read it as though it were spelled correctly, often without even noticing.

So my problem with Junie B. Jones is not her desire to teach using whole language, or that I secretly have a love affair with Hooked on Phonics. My problem is that you learn proper grammar by being exposed to proper grammar, and you will emulate the language structure of your environment.

For all the millions of books out there kids could read, there is absolutely no reason for these books to be read, unless of course they were being used to discuss bad grammar.

If the books only used the bad grammar in the journal parts (where Junie B is writing herself), then I think it would be fine. The kid reading the book could easily compare that to the rest of the correct grammar used in the story. Unfortunately, the grammar is deliberately destroyed throughout, and gives no point of reference to the 6 year old kid who's trying to decipher it.

Junie B. Jones is well on her way to becoming an unemployed gas station attendant who is begging for a shot to appear on the Jerry Springer show. More power to her, but that's not who I want my kids emulating.

Hasta la vista, Junie. I hoping that you'll get a very goodly life when you do.

PS - if my English is incorrect, I blame the fact that I just had to read a whole chapter of this claptrap to Kaitlyn. The last sentence is supposed to be messed up, as, of coursely, you could most plain to tell.

Hurray for me! I have a patent!

Just found out that on August 14th of this year, the US Patent office finally granted out patent that encompassed the anti-spam technology we invented quite some time ago now.

And so goes the efficiency of the US Patent & Trademark office.

We applied for the patent in 2003. The company we owned at the time was acquired in 2004. Now, some 3-and-a-half-years after that acquisition, the patent is finally granted, long after the rights to the patent were assigned to someone else.

By comparison, the company that it was invented under only existed for 2 years.

LOL

But hey, I can say I was granted a patent. How about that.

Link to US Patent # 7,257,564

Enjoy! :)

Voice Mail Annoyances

Ok, perhaps people don't know that there are certain things you can do when leaving a voice mail. For one, you need to leave your name and number, the time you called, and most importantly... WHY ARE YOU CALLING ME?

For Gods sake, does the world really need me to spell this out for them? I just got a voice mail this morning that went like this:

"Hi. This message is for Jeff. My name is John ______, with Chase Bank on County Line Road. I'm a banker here. You can reach me at 555-1212. Again, my name is John _____, and you can reach me at 555-1212. "

Are you kidding me?

First of all, you clearly know that I have no idea who you are, otherwise you wouldn't explain who you were, twice, and what you do (and thanks for telling me that you are a "banker"... I wouldn't have guessed that seeing as you WORK AT THE BANK).

Secondly, not once in your minute long voice mail did you bother to tell me why you were calling, why I should call you back, and why I should care who you are. Seriously, do I not have better things to do than have a casual chat with John, the fancy-pants "banker" from the Chase branch down the road?

Has someone robbed the bank? Am I a suspect? Does he need someone to fix his computer? Does he want a Ron Paul bumper sticker?

For all I know, maybe this is something important, but if so, PLEASE TELL ME WHEN YOU CALL.

How annoying.

A Physics Teacher Begs for His Subject Back

I really, really, really hope that this isn't how physics is being taught in U.S. high schools. Holy smokes...



read more | digg story

Airport Philosophy

If you’re like me, traveling alone gives your brain all kinds of time to think about the most random things. Normally, this gives me the chance to ramble on about whatever the political topic of the day is and post it to my blog.

But I already did a bit of that this morning, and I make no promises either way as to whether or not I post about something else after the next leg of my journey. But for now, I’ll take a break from politi-speak to opine on a few other things, and give you a glimpse into the chaotic mess that is my brain.

(1) Why is it that, when connecting through an airport, you never really feel like you are in the city you’re actually in? Sometimes, you can be there for hours, and in my case, I’m in Minneapolis for the next hour and a half.

The thing is, there is really no mistaking the fact that I am in Minnesota, unless someone has hijacked this city and replaced it’s citizens with an army of people that sound unmistakenly like native Minnesotans.

(Apparently “unmistakenly” is not a word according to my spellcheck. I henceforth declare it to be one. It also says "spellcheck" is not a word. A self-hating spelling checker?)

(2) Why do they use so much gray color at airports? I assume it’s to conceal dirt, but really it makes the entire air travel experience to be a muted version of itself. I think this adds to the “I’m not really there” aspect of connecting flights.

(3) The NWA WorldClub at terminal F in Minneapolis sucks. Normally, I’m quite amazed at how these membership-only clubs manage to make the airport terminal experience seem more like sitting in your living room (although maybe this has only to do with their use of color instead of yet more shades of gray)..

In this case, my amazement is only that someone would pay for access to such things. I think there is less noise and fewer people outside the club than in it. Normally, I can take solace in the fact that this is one of the few places I’ve found where I can enjoy a non-skunky Heineken.

How so? Well, they have free beer at the club (its only saving grace), and they have Miller Lite and Heineken on tap (and if you only have two things on tap, why NOT make them both nearly identical lagers?). So, even though I could care less about Heineken, I’ve enjoyed the fact that I can taste what it actually is supposed to taste like at the NWA Club in Minneapolis.

But not today--they’ve got a padlock on both of the taps. Maybe it’s because it’s only 10:30 local time, but I’ve been up since 5am local and I want my beer. Come on.

I’m also sitting about 3 feet from the “Free Wi-Fi” sign and I keep losing my signal.

(4) If you’ve been in the business world, I’m sure you’ve heard someone use the phrase “I’m out of pocket.” In case you haven’t heard this bit of business hyperbole, it means “you won’t be able to communicate with me during this time.” I hear it all the time, and I don’t think I’ve used it myself but if I have, I apologize.

My question is, where in the hell does this phrase come from? Out of pocket? What pocket? And does that mean you can only answer your phone when you are *in* someone’s pocket? Is it some bizarre football reference, a la the quarterback is out of the pocket?

You hear some pretty stupid phrases in business, and I assume most of them have root in something that makes sense, but I don’t any idea where this one comes from.

Never Too Late for a worthy cause

I almost forgot to mention (actually, I did, but someone reminded me) Amy's fund raiser for Never Too Late. It's like the Make-a-Wish foundation, but they focus on nursing home and hospice patients. It's a great cause. From her website:

I'm sure some of you are wondering what the chart is on the right side of the page. It is a fundraiser I'm doing for a group called Never Too Late. They grant wishes for the elderly in nursing homes, hospice patients and others in adult day care situations. This organization is so amazing that they try and grant one wish a day to someone! The wishes they grant are simple ones, but can end up making a profound difference in the outlook in an elderly person's life. It gives them something to look forward to, something to hope for, and in the end, something they can think back about in a positive way. I am currently trying to raise $1000 for them, so they can continue doing the wonderful work that they do.

So reach deep into those pocketbooks, and send a few bucks Amy's way, and help her reach her fund raising goal!

Gun control, illegal immigration, and 9-year-old clay pigeon champions

(Update: This article turns out to be false. The snopes page is here. This is why you can't trust everything you read!)

For those out there that think either (a) we need more gun control laws or (b) illegal immigration is not a problem that needs immediate corrective action, take a read of this article.

It seems that 11 year old Patricia Harrington was home alone when 2 illegal aliens broke into her house shortly after her father had left. One of these criminals (it was later found out), had broken into another home earlier, and left a 50-year-old man dead from stab wounds.

But young Miss Harrington had no plans of ending up dead (or kidnapped, or raped) this afternoon. As it turns out, Patricia has been a clay pigeon shooting champion since she was age 9. When she heard the break-in, she ran to her fathers room, and took his shotgun.

When the first "undocumented citizen" reached the top of the stair, Patricia opened fire (at slightly-below-the-waist level, as it turns out), and dropped the man from point blank range. When the second of these upstanding young men ran to the base of the stairs in response, Patricia took aim and dropped the second man with a shot to the shoulder. Both intruders died from their wounds.

Can you imagine what would have happened to this girl if owning a gun had been illegal, or if this had been one of these "gun free zones" ? What a story.

I found this article on Digg - if you like to digg, then digg the original to give credit where it's due. Link is here.