A great commencement speech, given by a high school English teacher who happens to be the son of historian David McCullough, is getting quite the buzz online. You should give yourself 13 minutes to watch it.
Fec points to a piece at Naked Capitalism that takes the unions and President Obama to task for creating the environment that led to voters in two California cities, San Jose and San Diego, voting overwhelmingly to cut city employees' pensions:
This is not a Republican initiative – the San Diego Mayor is a Democrat. And pension cuts like this are happening nationally, mostly with full support from voters in the Republican Party and a good chunk of the Democratic Party as well. The union representing city workers, of course, went to the courts rather than pursuing a strategy of engagement with the public. These unions will probably end up losing the fight, because they have no ability to persuade voters that they represent anything but a self-interested group of insiders.
The states and localities suffering from budget crises are having problems because Wall Street blew up the economy, and in many cases, ensnared these municipalities in extremely bad deals. The wealth of taxpayers was and is being transferred to banks. In 2008, the choice before Bush, and then Obama, was clear. They could hand taxpayer resources to Wall Street and oversee a series of budget crises in states and localities, with the opportunity for later privatization of public assets and the breaking of public sector unions. Or Bush, and then Obama, could crack down on Wall Street, and make sure that bailout monies went to states and localities, and, with record low interest rates, spur tremendous investment in new energy, infrastructure, and education initiatives. It was a choice. Bush picked Wall Street. Obama also picked Wall Street, with public sector unions supporting Obama like turkeys cheering on Thanksgiving.
Now voters are making their own choice. Once again, this is a direct consequence of how Barack Obama has led the Democratic Party and redefined liberalism, into a party and an ideology that is defined by wage cuts, foreclosures, debt, and acceptance of dramatic political and economic inequality. Voters don’t want to pay for a government and for government workers who they perceive as out of step with their interests.
Maybe. Another consideration is that people tend to not like seeing people that they perceive to be peers, or even worse, people lower in class benefiting at their own expense:
Instead of opposing redistribution because people expect to make it to the top of the economic ladder, the authors of the new paper argue that people don’t like to be at the bottom. One paradoxical consequence of this “last-place aversion” is that some poor people may be vociferously opposed to the kinds of policies that would actually raise their own income a bit but that might also push those who are poorer than them into comparable or higher positions. The authors ran a series of experiments where students were randomly allotted sums of money, separated by $1, and informed about the “income distribution” that resulted. They were then given another $2, which they could give either to the person directly above or below them in the distribution.
In keeping with the notion of “last-place aversion”, the people who were a spot away from the bottom were the most likely to give the money to the person above them: rewarding the “rich” but ensuring that someone remained poorer than themselves. Those not at risk of becoming the poorest did not seem to mind falling a notch in the distribution of income nearly as much. This idea is backed up by survey data from America collected by Pew, a polling company: those who earned just a bit more than the minimum wage were the most resistant to increasing it.
It's awfully hard for the average person not to be resentful of a public employee, someone who is ostensibly your employee, pulling in a livable wage and "Cadillac" benefits while everybody else has watched their IRA evaporate in the heat of the Great Recession. It's even harder to accept that their taxes might have to go up to cover deficits that are caused in part by those benefits, so it's not surprising at all that people would vote to cut those same benefits.
Sure, the "macro" politics described in the Naked Capitalism piece played a role in creating the environment that led to the recent votes curtailing public pensions, but it would a mistake to ignore the role of "micro" politics in these results. Let's face it – people don't like seeing their neighbors doing better than they are.
It was only a matter of time until some group questioned the North Carolina practice of allowing polling places in churches:
The Appignani Humanist Legal Center says it has "serious legal concerns" with the use of churches as polling places and says the state violated the First Amendment's Establishment Clause that outlines the separation between church and state.
The group stops short of threatening legal action, but a spokesman says he hopes for a change in state policy.
A spokesman for the State Board of Elections said Monday it would be up to legislators to make any changes to polling locations, but that the use of churches is completely legal. Previous appellate court rulings have backed the practice of using places of worship.
The practice of voting in church is strange to someone who may be new to the area – in fact in all the places I lived in Northern Virginia I always voted in the nearest school. Upon moving to Lewisville I was stunned to find out my polling place was the church right down the street. Voting in church doesn't bother me, but I try to imagine how non-religious people feel about it by thinking about what it would be like to vote in a building being used for something I find mysterious or spooky like seances or girl talk. It would be off-putting to say the least.
With the current political environment in North Carolina this group's request will likely fall on deaf ears, but it's something state leaders will eventually have to consider as the state's demographics continue to shift away from its traditional "Bible-belt" roots.
Next week my Grandmother, Lettie Fae Lowder – GG to her family – will turn 93, and as the saying goes, turning 93 beats the alternative despite all the challenges that come with each passing year. That saying doesn't begin to address the subleties of dealing with the changes that each stage of life brings, but my Aunt Debbie does a wonderful job of addressing those issues in a post on her blog about dealing with GG's increasing dementia and her move to a new wing at her retirement home that offers closer care:
The biggest difference for GG at this stage of life is the power of imagination she substitutes for loss of vision and hearing, and what we usually refer to as “being in touch with reality.” I guess she’s getting bored with some of the stories we’ve all heard about a gazillion times, so she is gracious enough to create some new stories for our entertainment. If you’ve not yet heard of Pony Boy you really should spend a little time with GG. Pull up a rocker and ask a few questions and off you go to the barn and beyond…
She still remembers each of us, but many, many details are lost to her. The line between fact and fantasy is sometimes clear and sometimes thin….very thin. This is part of an aging process we are all experiencing. We’re just at a different place…for this moment. Mom’s life’s-work has changed from being a daughter to young wife and mother, to working woman, to grandmother…even great-great grandmother. It’s usually easier to see the meaning and purpose of our life during these earlier stages. And harder to understand the meaning and purpose of life in the latter stages.
One way I try to understand Mom’s purpose at this time is that of Preparation for Death…the process of dieing. And part of this process is leaving the care of this world and its inhabitants to others… after she takes her leave of us. She asks constantly, “what are the children doing?” She actually needs to know what we are doing so she can stop her doing.
Mom cannot see to read. She no longer has a telephone because her hearing and memory render a phone fairly useless. When I heard she would now be living in a supervised (“locked”) environment, I panicked. Her world had already seemed unjustly small. Now it seemed another door…a locked one…was closing.
I took a deep breath. The 2-hour drive from the farm gave me plenty of time to remember lots of times when Mom was young and strong and…well, greatly determined. I walked into the lobby and where I would have turned left to go to her room, I walked straight to the locked doors and rang the door bell. A door opened.
Mom looked pretty content and believed she was living in Old Salem. (she loves Old Salem) The staff is loving and fun. She always refers to me as the fun one…I want her to have lots of fun one’s. Because actually, I am not that much fun…she needs a lot more fun than I can conjure up! Her room is large and pretty and peaceful…and near the staff”s laughter and loving oversight. I was scared to walk down that hall…into a new phase of life…but it wasn’t that hard. Mom is there….just not like she used to be. I am there…changed, for sure. And many others are willing to explore this time of life with us…thank you. We are all teachers and we are all learning. We all hope and we all know fear. We are not alone. Mom has a great capacity for the subtleties of life….don’t be afraid to speak of these things. And don’t be surprised if she is able to cut more quickly to the truth of the matter…thus unraveling our carefully formed beliefs about what is real.
What a beautiful way to look at GG's new adventure. I'm sure my Aunts, who have done a lot of heavy lifting with GG's care over the last few years, might have moments when it's hard to see things in such a light, but they've also done a great job of sharing the Adventures of GG and Pony Boy with the rest of us so I'm fairly confident they feel the same way.
The wonders of family will never cease to amaze.
NASA astronaut Don Pettit took some photos from the International Space Station that were posted on Flickr and called ISS Star Trails. In short, they're incredible and it's pretty cool reading how he created them:
“My star trail images are made by taking a time exposure of about 10 to 15 minutes. However, with modern digital cameras, 30 seconds is about the longest exposure possible, due to electronic detector noise effectively snowing out the image. To achieve the longer exposures I do what many amateur astronomers do. I take multiple 30-second exposures, then ‘stack’ them using imaging software, thus producing the longer exposure.”
Today is graduation day for the high schools in the Winston-Salem Forsyth County school system. Hopefully the graduates' families will be jubilant in their support of their graduate, yet respectful of the other graduates and their families. If not the school system might decide to pull a "Cincinnati" on them:
A suburban Cincinnati high school held onto four graduates' diplomas and required community service as punishment for what it describes as overly boisterous cheering by their families during the graduation ceremony.
The mother of one of the graduates, who was one of the leading tacklers on the Mount Healthy school football team, doesn't think he should get flagged for excessive celebration.
Schools Superintendent Lori Handler said Wednesday the problem wasn't the loudness of the yells, but their long duration, which she said halted the ceremony.
After past disruptions, a new policy was implemented this year aimed at making sure that all parents can hear their children's names called and celebrated. When they ordered graduation tickets, parents agreed that "any disruptive behavior" would result in their child's diploma being held until 20 hours of community service is completed, she said.
**Update** Apparently this was a hoax, but I think the point's still valid.
This is the kind of thing that keeps event planners up at night. It's also the kind of thing that reminds me why boring is sometimes better.
According to the Winston-Salem Journal Lewisville has wooed Hank Perkins away from North Wilkesboro.
Hank Perkins, who has been town manager of North Wilkesboro for 10 years, is leaving his position to become town manager of Lewisville.
Perkins announced his resignation at the end of Tuesday night's North Wilkesboro town commissioner meeting, according to town officials. He'll work out a 30-day notice and begin his new job in July.
You all have friends who did the "crunchy" thing, so don't judge.
Tennis, like golf, is one of those sports that's hard for non-players to appreciate how difficult it is to master. On the other hand, it would be hard for anyone to underestitmate the difficulty of mastering blind tennis:
Like tennis for sighted people, the game requires speedy court coverage and precise shot-making. Blind players rely on their ears to follow a foam ball filled with ball bearings that rattles when it bounces or is struck…
Other adaptations include a smaller court with a badminton net lowered to the ground, string taped along the lines and junior rackets with oversize heads. Players with some sight get two bounces, the completely blind three. Only one set is played, and an umpire calls the lines.
The first sound-adapted tennis ball was designed in 1984 by Miyoshi Takei, a blind high school student in Japan. Now, about 300 players compete in tournaments there; blind tennis is also played in China, South Korea, Taiwan, Britain and Russia…
And for a local angle, here's a quote from a dean at UNCG:
An expert on orientation and mobility for the blind, William R. Wiener, dean of graduate studies at the University of North Carolina, Greensboro, said that sound localization “is so important when blind people navigate the world,” and added, “Listening to the ball, locating where it is and swinging at it probably helps you with the sport and also with your mobility.”
Be sure to check out the video that accompanies the article.
Befuddled 