First Blog

Banking is a subject I know little about.  Trust is a subject I've studied.  Confidence is a subject I do know.  What we have on the table is an issue involving confidence and trust in the Banks of Cyprus. Of late the banks in Cyprus have been closed due to the serious financial conditions in this island country. Cyprus is broke, far extended in credit, and well beyond ability for repayment without serious public pain.  At first there was to be a sur-tax on all bank accounts, then on all accounts greater than a specified amount. And so on as this has evolved.  Currently, people cannot really access their money at all. Sure, we see street demonstrations by the citizens objecting to about everything.  But later, when they return home, they must plan for their possible futures.  What will they plan?  Who will they trust?  In what is their confidence? The bank?  The government?  The EZ?   All of these? What this implies is that, in the blink of an eye, the confidence or trust in

Dateline, 3/25/13: The Strongsville, OH teachers on strike for higher wages. They have been on strike for several weeks. Students are being taught by substitutes.  The District's active goal is to make a deal with the teachers.   A bargaining session is scheduled for tomorrow (Tuesday, March 26, 2013) morning.*  According to Superintendent John Krupinski on the requested demand, his answer was short and to the point: "It's unsustainable and unaffordable."  True or not true?  Let's take a look.  I don't see what the fuss is all about in Strongsville, OH.  The unions are protecting their constituency, namely their members.  When all is said, the students are their product, and the school building is their factory. When has any union going on strike worried about their product or the factory for that matter.  Go union!  As long as they are producing a product of competitive excellence, they should go for the gold, the benefits, the job security, the

A. Waste your time! Lots of it.  Some of my most productive moments have come when I was wasting time. B. Rules of Email. Does someone read your email?  The answer is yes.  For most of us it amounts to an application of data mining by dedicated robots by dedicated servers, but serving whom? 1. Never publish anything on email you don't want the world to see. Never publish to friends or family items you do not wish others to see. 2. Never publish anything that has racist, sexual, or political overtones. 3. Publish only plain commentary such as daily business to family or friends. 4. Publish only political stuff that has no personal connection with your affairs. C. Information corrupts integrity; it justifies inspection; it validates commercial gain; it indemnifies politicians.  Information provides the predictive analytics of our time. D. Suicide terrorists are nothing more than contract killers with an ecclesiastical contract and having an arbitrary target. E. Tax looph

This past week I visited Washington DC as part of an NSF grant.  It was all about creating more science, technology, engineering, and math majors.  Acronym: STEM.  This NSF STEP toward the STEM advocacy program is successful, and the grantees and grant administrators are highly motivated.  The meeting was excellent.  New ideas were presented; old ideas were reaffirmed; alternative ideas were presented.  It is acknowledged that more STEM majors are wanted and are needed.  For the USA, this is correct.  Make no doubt. The foundational question was how to get them? As usual, the keynote speaker cited the well known facts that USA students do poorly, actually very poorly, on international exams in these subjects, particularly math.  So, these sad facts loomed in the background. In short, the basics question was:  How do we get more people to pursue STEM degrees? Remarkably, there is no clear consensus on how this may be achieved.  The NSF project directors wanted us to report out

The Transportation Security Agency (TSA) is on the horns of a dilemma, and a big one it is. In the early days after 2001, just after the TSA was created, a huge corps of highly zealous officers was recruited to monitor those boarding our airlines. (Similar screening is now in place worldwide.)   They looked for the slightest violations in the rules.  Any breach meant the perpetrator would be awarded a thorough search.   Taken aside in front of all travelers, the "perp" was given quite a thorough going over.  With over 50,000 employees the TSA faces formidable problems. Forget to remove your shoes, you were searched; forget to remove your belt, you were searched; forget to remove your computer (horror-of-horrors), you were searched.  That is, you were taken aside and given a careful inspection.  But there is more, there were the pat-downs, sometimes bordering on sexual assault. People complained, and in large numbers.  More was involved in the general search for bombers. 

I teach at a large university here in middle America.  We give an online math placement test to all incoming students.  It was the thought that by giving the test online, while the students are still in high school, their math skills would be better than if they took the test in the summer when they come to campus to enroll.  Theory sounds good?  Yes, I thought so. We advise them over and over again that cheating on this test is basically cheating on themselves.  Now we have some evidence that their teachers may be helping them on this exam.  This is absolutely incredible for a number of reasons.  The foremost is that it is not in the interest of students to be placed in a course for which they are unprepared.  The second, and surprise reason, is that teachers are abetting this process.  Just what sort of message is conveyed by this?  Is the teacher gaining gratification their students are admitted to a more difficult course?  Does the student learn that cheating is ok - if only to g

The new health care plan (ACA - Affordable Care Act) suggests that seniors and others in need of medical care will have their cases reviewed by panels of experts to determine merit.   On their recommendation, you may or may not get needed treatment.  Alternatively, you may need to wait a month or many for treatment.  So we hear... But let us note that without all the government sponsored research, eliciting so many do's and dont's we may not be available to review their somber judgement - even with hearing aid, spectacles, and all.  The decades of medical research has produced a bounty of evidence, of clues, of guidelines on how to conduct our lives more sensibly. Many of us have listened and are now so advanced, so far beyond, and so linked with age that we think we always knew what to do. So!  There is now a possible downside.  Panels! The government gives and it takes away.  Unless, of course, you have resources to by-pass the panels, by-pass the guidelines, and by-pass

One must wonder that Andrew Jackson ascended to the highest office in American politics.  His beginning was inauspicious.  Fatherless before birth, and motherless as an early teen, he fought his way though life as that was his personal mission. He was by almost all accounts a wild and resolute boy and then man.  He gave stubborn people an icon for a model.  He put his life at risk, even as a teen, to protect lives of the rebellious soldiers.  He did this even to the distraction of his own well being.  He stood on principles, the likes of which would condemn him as an abject scoundrel today. He fought duels when personally challenged.  He endured gossip and condemnation when he "married" his wife Rachel.  Yet, he studied law and eventually could make a legal argument, though as some said, he argued mostly with passion, and not with legal precision.  It seems his new wife, Rachel, exacted upon him a vision for life. Though they spent many years apart, mostly due to his pub

John Kerry is our new Secretary of State.    This is an Administration appointment at the very highest level.   This puts Kerry as fourth in  line for ascension to the presidency after Joe Biden, Patrick Leahy, and John Boehner. This is a heady job. Wow. Yet Kerry believes he should be the actual president.  (Once you got the bug, it never goes away.  So I'm told.)  Really, he campaigned for the job.  He almost won.  He has his credentials fully in order.  He believes he's the guy that should be making all the big decisions.  So, how will he perform as a distant administration advocate? We'll  see.  My goodness, he just did an interview with FOX news.  What the...?  My (cynical) guess is that if he sees the future presidency is in there somewhere, anywhere, he will go along and play along.  If not, he will follow his own recognizance.  He may do a great job in his new post.  Who knows?  Let hope for him, i.e for us. 

The energy future of the United States is at the edge of an energy cliff. For more than a half century, this country has wrangled with the issues of fossil fuel availability, pollution, and energy (in)dependence.   With one exception, energy resources have concerned and befuddled every President over this period.   The populace is intoxicated with cheap energy, and who wouldn’t be if it was available?   Cheap energy resources, like the Erie Canal almost two centuries earlier, changed the energy and consequent economic landscape of a nation.   And, it had been just that amounting to, up till now, the insignificant transference of our wealth to other nations.   But what the… We’re rich, and became richer.     Well, we were rich. One particular, more-or-less conservative, solution has been to approve and issue more licenses for drilling and resultant production to prove more energy reserves. This view was concomitant with alternative energy sources as they became competitive.

We have... a. The most difficult profession on earth. b. The twisted, torn, and tarnished profession - that pays little. c. The profession with a half-life of about five years. The current goals places teacher between a multiplicity of forces. Many just don't know what to do.  To teach, to monitor, to reflect, to test, to teach values, to act as an alternate parent?  Whatever are teachers to do? Nature of teaching:  It is a profession for very caring folks that enjoy human interaction, that are pleased to see a youngster learn, that get juiced on meeting and learning, that value education, and that see themselves as students. Yet: " The more students fail to perform, the more teachers are asked to do ." Overall: The blame game covers a gauntlet of components, many of which have little to do with classroom teaching. High stakes testing, yes or no.  yes, but it must change; yes, but it must better reflect what is taught; yes, but multiple choice testing is unf