Occupy Old People

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Thanks to the "Occupy" movements there's been a lot of talk lately about the wealth disparity between the top 1% and the rest in the US.  Now comes some information about the growing wealth gap between the geezers and the greenhorns in our fair country:

The typical U.S. household headed by a person age 65 or older has a net worth 47 times greater than a household headed by someone under 35, according to an analysis of census data released Monday.

While people typically accumulate assets as they age, this wealth gap is now more than double what it was in 2005 and nearly five times the 10-to-1 disparity a quarter-century ago, after adjusting for inflation.

The analysis reflects the impact of the economic downturn, which has hit young adults particularly hard. More are pursuing college or advanced degrees, taking on debt as they wait for the job market to recover. Others are struggling to pay mortgage costs on homes now worth less than when they were bought in the housing boom.

 

In Praise of a Great Cup of Joe

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Anyone who knows me knows I love a good cup of coffee.  Love is an understatement, but appropriate adjectives would likely be unsafe for young/workplace readers so let's just stick with unadulterated love.  That's why I totally get this letter, written by the the third Secretary of the Smithsonian:

Dear Mary,

I hope this will interest you.

Affectionately,

Your Uncle Samuel

The best coffee in Carlsbad is at the Posthof, and is as good as I know of anywhere. I have been looking into the kitchen this morning and seeing it prepared. The statement that figs or anything of the kind are employed is legendary. There is absolutely nothing but coffee, and it owes its superior excellence to the freshness and the pains taken in its making.

1. The coffee in the berry.

There are four kinds of coffee bean employed: the Menado, Ceylon, Java and Preanger. I do not know the English equivalents for the first and last. They are of very different sizes indeed, and this difference in size of the berry must make it difficult to burn them equally.

2. Roasting.

The roasting is done in a rotary wire mesh over a slow fire. The coffee is renewed three times daily. Each time 10 to 20 pounds of coffee is roasted, a girl turning the handle, and the process occupying in each case nearly an hour. In spite of this care, when the beans come out some of them are very dark and these are picked out.

3. Grinding.

The coffee is then ground to a very uniform fineness, something between the head of a small pin and a coarse sand. It is in no ways ground into a snuff-like powder, but is always clearly perceptible as particles between the fingers. The color of the ground coffee is a light chestnut.

4. Mixing with water.

Somewhat over one-quarter of a pound of the ground coffee is measured in a tin and this is emptied into a tin pail holding, I suppose, four to six gallons. Into this is poured, actually boiling soft water, enough to make 10 portions of the coffee. This softness is considered so important, that if the water be at all hard, a little soda is first added to soften it. The coffee and water are then well stirred with a spoon, and the lid put on and allowed to remain two minutes, when it is poured onto a thick straining cloth placed in a tin vessel with large holes at the bottom through which it drains into a white stone pitcher, which is itself set in boiling water. From this pitcher it is poured into the little ones in which it is served on the table.

5. Serving.

The amount of coffee and water just described will, as I have said, make 10 portions, each of which will be, with the addition of the milk, two of the little cups here, or hardly one good breakfast cup as we have it at home. It is served ordinarily with milk which has been boiled, and which has a little whipped cream on top.

6. Comment.

The one criticism I can make is that the coffee with the above proportion of water, is served too diluted for a café au lait. It would be better made half as strong again and diluted with a larger proportion of hot milk.

Now those who know me also no I can't stand anything in my coffee – cream or sugar is a degradation if you ask me – but I totally get how into the coffee he is.  A lousy cup of coffee is more likely to ruin the start of my day than some jackalope cutting me off in traffic, and a great cup of coffee is almost a guarantee for a great day.

When Morons Are in Charge

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I'm thinking there's a new reality series to be had here – When Morons Are In Charge:

At Wolcott High School one morning this week, an urgent announcement crackled over the intercom: a threatening intruder was in the building and students were told to immediately take refuge in classrooms.

Doors were locked and police, with dogs, moved in. Students stayed huddled in classrooms where they were told to stay away from the windows.

But what sounded like a frightening situation was just a search for narcotics. Drug-sniffing dogs combed the school while students stayed in locked classrooms, believing that an attacker was roaming the halls.

As the columist points out in the rest of the piece there are all kinds of problems with this operation, but I'd like to point out the most obvious – if there's ever a real intruder in the school in the future the kids are now more likely to not take it seriously and to think it's some kind of drill or just another drug sweep.  Have the administrators never heard of Chicken Little?

Forget Being Outsourced, We’re Being Siliconsourced

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An interesting take on disappearing jobs:

…digital technologies are rapidly encroaching on skills that used to belong to humans alone. This phenomenon is both broad and deep, and has profound economic implications. Many of these implications are positive; digital innovation increases productivity, reduces prices (sometimes to zero), and grows the overall economic pie.

But digital innovation has also changed how the economic pie is distributed, and here the news is not good for the median worker. As technology races ahead, it can leave many people behind. Workers whose skills have been mastered by computers have less to offer the job market, and see their wages and prospects shrink. Entrepreneurial business models, new organizational structures and different institutions are needed to ensure that the average worker is not left behind by cutting-edge machines.

Found via Cone.

Sentiment Analysis of the Bible

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Biblesentimentanalysis
I was taught to never talk about politics, religion or sex in polite company, but since neither you or I is polite I'm going to talk a little religion here.  Some smart people applied sentiment analysis to the Bible and created a very interesting graphic.  I also like their little descriptor:

Things start off well with creation, turn negative with Job and the patriarchs, improve again with Moses, dip with the period of the judges, recover with David, and have a mixed record (especially negative when Samaria is around) during the monarchy. The exilic period isn’t as negative as you might expect, nor the return period as positive. In the New Testament, things start off fine with Jesus, then quickly turn negative as opposition to his message grows. The story of the early church, especially in the epistles, is largely positive.

Here's their description of sentiment analysis:

Sentiment analysis involves algorithmically determining if a piece of text is positive (“I like cheese”) or negative (“I hate cheese”). Think of it as Kurt Vonnegut’s story shapes backed by quantitative data.

I'm beginning to understand why Bible study sometimes creeped me out.

Ugly Signs and Fish Wrap

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Wells Fargo is trying to make a splash here in the home territory of the former Wachovia Bank it absorbed a while back.  It did a full wrap of today's Winston-Salem Journal, Greensboro News & Record and Charlotte Observer, and apparently some GNR readers aren't thrilled with it. I know this because John Robinson, the GNR's editor, maintains a blog and wrote about it, but I have no idea what WSJ readers' reaction has been because the Journal's folks don't do the blog thing that I know of.

Wells Fargo has a long way to go to win Carolinians' hearts and I don't think buying any amount of fish wrap will do it, although I guess they have to try.  Its western roots and garish red and gold signs don't help here in the land of Carolina Blue either. 

Dull is Totally Underrated

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One thing about having three teenagers is that life never seems to be dull.  Yesterday's a perfect example.  Our daughter turns 18 today (Oct 23) so we had a birthday dinner for her last night.  Unfortunately our youngest, a sophomore at West Forsyth HS, couldn't participate because he's in the Marching Band and they had a competition at North Forsyth HS.  The party went as well as you'd expect a party with a gaggle of 18 year old girls to go, and after dinner my lovely wife, Celeste, and I settled down to relax a little.  We called a friend who was at the band competition to see how it was going (West performed well) and she offered to bring our son home when the buses dropped the kids off at West.

That's when the "life is never dull" really kicked in.  About an hour after the first call our friend called back to ask if we'd heard from our son, and to tell us that there'd been an accident involving one of the buses carrying the band (it ended up there were two buses involved).  Her son was on the bus, but she wasn't sure if ours was.  Celeste called our son's cell and he answered and said that he was on a different bus and that they were pulled over at the scene of the accident.  Celeste then traded calls with our friend and found out that her son was banged up, but was being released to them by the EMTs.  Unfortunately six students and the bus driver had to be sent to the hospital.

We've heard varying reports from our son and other folks about the accident (fuel was leaking from the bus, one of the sax players had his mouth piece driven into his arm, one girl couldn't remember where she was, etc.), and there was a brief story on WXII's website, but the best info I've seen came in emails from the band's director Mr. Kirkpatrick and West Forsyth's principal Mr. Telford.

Before I share them I want to tell you that our son's experience in Marching Band has been a revelation.  As someone who's spent many of his years on a variety of courts and fields playing and coaching different sports I thought I understood teamwork.  Honestly I think marching band is exponentially harder in many ways.  It's hard enough getting 11 kids moving in tandem on a soccer field, but the marching band pulls it off with 100 kids and to do it they spend innumerable hours rehearsing, often in stifling heat or brittle cold, and by engaging student leaders and dozens of parent volunteers. I'm also blown away by the camaraderie that the kids show – I've seen tight teams before but I've never seen a group of kids like this.  Like I said it's been a revelation, and it explains why I'm not surprised that things unfolded the way Mr. Telford and Mr. Kirkpatrick describe:

From Mr. Telford:

Good morning. It is Sunday morning and I want to take the opportunity to touch base with you. Last  night I was at the scene of the bus accident shortly after Mr Kirkpatrick called me. Six West students and a bus driver were transported to the hospital for treatment. They are all OK. This does not dismiss the emotional duress that your student may have experienced.

I am extremely proud of the students, parent volunteers and staff members. The students were cooperative and did all that was asked of them. The parent volunteers were level headed making sure all students were accounted for. Mr Kirkpatrick and Mr Spencer took charge making sure that appropriate steps were taken.

Work closely with Mr Kirkpatrick and Mr Spencer obtaining personal items that may have been left on the bus.  I am sure that all students are tired due to the late evening.

Have a restful Sunday.
Kurt Telford

From Mr. Kirkpatrick:

Parents and Students,

I want you to know how proud I am of each of you in how you handled last night's accident.  As you can imagine, this was a Band Director's worst nightmare.  Fortunately, injuries were minor and everyone is
going to be OK.  I am grateful to have an amazing group of parent chaperones who kept a level head and remained very supportive of the students throughout the ordeal.  Thanks also to Mr. Spencer for being equally helpful in assisting students.  Much appreciation also goes to Mr. and Mrs. Telford and Mr. and Mrs. Powell for coming to the scene immediately to assist.  Belongings can be picked up in the upstairs band room in the morning.

Students, you were amazing on the field and, in this case, especially amazing off the field in a situation that wasn't rehearsed. This was an amazing feat in teamwork from all people involved.

Get some rest, see you Monday.

Speaking as a parent I'd like to thank Mr. Kirkpatrick, Mr. Telford, all of the parent volunteers, the bus drivers and other school staff who did such a great job keeping a bad situation from getting worse.  I'd also like to thank Mr. Kirkpatrick for helping make Marching Band such a great experience for our son.