Magnifisyncopathological

[Updates below.]

The house has been the target of a grand portion of my attention throughout the previous three weeks. Improving upon a nearly blank slate has turned out to be one of the more pleasant experiences of late. I'll do my best to post photos when things are presentable.

I have always taken small pleasures in certain tasks. When someone or some duty calls for a job that has an element of visual important, I often find myself putting more effort and becoming more emotionally attached to the details of that visual element than elsewhere.

For example, at work, I am the point of contact for a large safety video and paper and electronic publication library. I ship and mail these things to public school district officials all over Texas. This emphasis of mine on the visual manifests itself in two ways: I like to ensure the materials are packaged with as much symmetry as possible and if I'm using a cardboard box, I insist on levelling out and firmly gluing the packing tape to the taped seams. The former has a practical element - even weight distribution so it goes through the transportation process better - so the most "pure" example would be the latter.

It doesn't really matter what brand or what kind of packing tape to be used, because when you tape the seams by hand, you won't get a perfect seal. You'll get a useful and effective seal, let me not mislead you, but all you need to reveal the incompleteness of the seal is to run the flat edge of your thumb down the taped section's length. If you're using clear or transparent tape, the color of the container's surface will be more visible and less hazy from the adhesive. It's easier to do than explain.

There is some issue I have with taping boxes and not getting that "closer stick," so whenever I pack something up, I run a hard plastic edge over the taped section and stick it fully to the surface. I know it won't make that much of a difference to a properly packed and assembled box, but that isn't why I do it. I do it for the visual transformation of something gray and undone into something clear and complete.

I think this is why, even though I've been bitching about it since I started, I quietly enjoyed painting my bedrooms. It's the same process with different materials. It was during the application of the second coat that I recognized what was going on and why I was being so deliberate and relatively slow. I wanted those irregular sections to be uniform in color to the rest of the walls and ceilings. Even now, in sunlight I notice the Red Room's ceiling is not properly finished and has a large section that didn't get a proper second coat. This section cannot be seen in the overhead interior lighting, but I know it's there. It's my Rennovator's Sword of Damocles, the ever-present threat of seeing the less-than-ideal work up there and just stopping in my tracks to lay out a painter's dropcloth, load up a roller with paint, and get the extension handle to obliterate the offending section.

Perhaps I'm just weird. But getting the project to that final stage where imperfections are few and far between is so very satisfying.

Ditto for staining wood. I might have stained two or three wooden objects my entire life until the beginning of this week. But since my baseboards were trashed when we removed them to install the flooring and since the average gap between the floor and the wall was about an inch, I had to fabricate my own mouldings. I also had to stain the raw wood to match the dark walnut of the floor.

You can learn a surprising amount about yourself and your task when you do it on your own. In my case, by not buying pre-made baseboard moulding and staining a complex 3D surface, I discovered what makes hardwood furnishings so appealing: the stain. I'd say 70% of the final product's handsomeness is due to the way the stain adds texture and depth to the raw pine. Now, I'm not so ignorant to assume you can buy raw or even treated wood that needs little work to make it look great, but the changes brought about by the staining process were telling. That kind of learning experience made all the agonizing over cutting the corner angles right, applying wood putty to fill in the gaps, and cursing the cracked boards that broke after nailing them to the wall so completely worthwhile.

The Red Room is done, save for small touch-ups that can be finished later. It just needs furniture and decoration. The Green Room still has the carpet, splattered with green paint. Another project for another time.

For now, I have a great deal of unpacking to do. Instead of travelling to Canada for Christmas this year, the Canuckian side of my family is coming to Texas. I'm playing host for two cousins and I pick them up at 10pm tonight. Crazy time to arrive and that doesn't leave me much time to prepare the house.

I wish my readers, family, friends, enemies, and agnostics safe and pleasant Christmas and New Year's. Posting will be sporadic at best until January.

UPDATED 9/19/2005 9:57am I've successfully sanded and stained a new computer desk and feel just as proud about the work as the above.

Posted by drizzten at 10:46 AM | Permalink

AP via News8Austin: Report: Poor cannot afford most rentals in the U.S.

WASHINGTON -- Small apartments are out of reach for most minimum-wage earners. That's according an annual report from the National Low Income Housing Coalition.

The group finds the typical worker needs to make more than $15 an hour to afford the average rent and utilities on a two-bedroom apartment.

More than a quarter of the population makes less than $10 an hour.

The low-income advocacy group report cites government numbers showing that hourly wage increases over the past year have failed to keep up with increases in rent and utilities.

The group also said government spending on Section Eight vouchers hasn't kept up with demand. That program helps 2 million poor Americans pay rent.

Copyright 2004 Associated Press, All rights reserved.

That's the whole report available on News8Austin's website. It's about as condensed a news blurb as you can get. And it is missing something, and that something is a glaring omission.

A dissenting opinion.

So I went looking for a larger report and found this.

AP via The Seattle Times: Report cites scarcity of low-income housing

Again, zero dissenting opinion from people who oppose having the government "pour money into programs that help poor people pay rent, and must preserve and build more affordable-housing units," as the coalition's executive director, Sheila Crowley, demands. All we get are stats and a whole lot of unspoken tongue-clucking about the obviously low minimum wages and disgustingly high housing costs across the nation. There is but a single direction to go for the uninformed and ignorant readers of this larger article to take: the assumption that of course the state should continue meddling in our affairs and taking our money to redistribute to others. Those who disagree simply hate the poor, have no opinion of the wealthless classes, and have no useful solutions to their problems.

This kind of press release journalism, dear readers, is what I refer to as bias in the media. It is the art of the left out, the unsaid, and the uncovered. It reports a single thing and neglects the greater context. I don't believe any media outlet (including this blog) has an obligation to report all the sides to every story nor even guarantee everything written is completely true and factually correct. I do seriously question how stories are written, edited, and chosen to be published. There's where biases manifest themselves. You can see mine in the topics I choose to cover.

I felt compelled to check on other new media outlets to see if they followed this pattern. I tried to limit my search to those online newspapers and magazines that didn't just post the whole AP text without changes. The results? Every link below lacks a dissenting opinion, a different take on the causes and fixes for the housing problem, or someone sounding a note of caution to throw more taxpayer money at the issue.

Poor in U.S. struggle to afford rent, group says, Green Bay Press Gazette

Rental Study Released, The Appeal-Democrat

Rental costs in Connecticut among highest in the country, Newsday

SJ ranks No. 7 for expensive rents, San Jose Mercury News

Least Affordable Rents in Nation Found in State, Los Angeles Times

'Housing wage' tells a story, Seattle Post Intelligencer

Mass. wages render affordable housing unaffordable, Boston Globe

Fatter Homes Pricing Out Poor, Forbes

7th least affordable, Honolulu Star-Bulletin

Housing out of reach for many, Portsmouth Herald News

Mininum wage pays for 1-bedroom apartment in only 4 US counties, Minneapolis Star Tribune

Nevada tenth nationally in rent for two-bedroom apartment, KRNV

Minimum Wage Makes It Difficult to Rent, The Ledger

Report: Rent out of reach to workers, Arizona Daily Sun

National survey says rent too high, Colorado Springs Gazette

Working poor are struggling to pay rent, Deseret Morning News

Report: Glaring disparity exists between rent, minimum wage, Cleveland Plain Dealer

Need a 2-bedroom apartment? You must earn $15.37 an hour, Fort Lauderdale Sun Sentinel

Gwinnett out of reach for minimum-wage workers, Gwinnett Daily Post

Out of every link I clicked that wasn’t a sheep-like repost of the AP template was just one that offered an opposing opinion from a local representative:

$5.15 an hour won't pay the rent, Chambersburg Public Opinion

Illustrative? I think so. This is by no means a comprehensive search or an exhaustive study. But it does demonstrate the severe difficulties in getting anti-statist, limited government, or even just status quo cautionary opinions in the news to combate this slow ratchet-like crushing of liberty and private property.

Posted by drizzten at 11:53 AM | Permalink

I am absolutely fucking sick of Opera's repeated and continual errors, memory mismanagement, and personality. It chokes several times a week when all I do is simple web browsing. News sites, MySpace, etc. all throw monkey wrenches into what I must assume are the rotten guts of this poorly-coded program.

And I just lost the last 20 minutes of work on my next post. Not for the first time.

I've got version 7.51 right now and it is the LAST version of Opera I will use.

If anyone from Opera reads this, you guys better fucking fix this shit. You once had a great piece of software and now it's crap. With Microsoft Outlook, Microsoft Word, Microsoft Access, Winamp, and a slew of business-required toolbar applications running, Opera will always be the single greatest memory leech, often reaching deeper than 50 megabytes into my RAM after an hour of browsing...and there's only one damn page of HTML to display. The bastard crashes so often it's become habitual to Control + C everything I type into message boxes just to make sure I don't loose it when the fucker shits itself.

And of course, I didn't remember to do that when the sonofabitch blew a gasket and pissed off WindowsXP again a few minutes ago. See this screenshot for the message. Which reminds me of another thing to complain about: USELESS FUCKING ERROR MESSAGES THAT DO NOTHING TO HELP THE USER TO UNDERSTAND THE FUCKING PROBLEM. Christ.

Fuck you Opera. I'm done dealing with your bullshit.

Posted by drizzten at 11:03 AM | Permalink | Comments (13)

AP via News8Austin: Mother of suicide victim sues Wal-Mart over gun sale

There were serious signs of trouble near the end of 24-year-old Shayla Stewart's life.

Stewart was diagnosed as bipolar and schizophrenic. She had assaulted police officers. She had been arrested for attacking a fellow customer at a Denton Wal-Mart where she had a prescription for anti-psychotic medication.

So she had a history of destructive and psychotic behavior.

Her parents say -- given all those signs -- another Wal-Mart just seven miles away should have never sold her the shotgun Stewart used to kill herself in 2003.

Her mother, Lavern Bracy, last week filed a $25 million wrongful death lawsuit against Wal-Mart.

The suit filed in Denton claims the clerks should have known about her daughter's illness or done more to find out.

Copyright 2004 Associated Press, All rights reserved.

I suppose her parents think Wal-Mart clerks should be able to read minds, diagnose complicated mental illnesses, and do this on the spot when a customer asks to buy a gun. Barring that, I suppose Mrs. Bracy expects store clerks to, upon meeting a customer, pry into their lives for more information regarding their past and their health whenever they ask about certain products and items that may pose dangers to others.

I find these kinds of lawsuits utterly absurd. What a customer does with the items he or she buys bears no responsibility on the part of the business. We ought not to blame Ford for the carnage a drunken driver creates and we ought not to hold GE guilty for the loss of a pet cat locked in a fridge by a small child. Why? Because the individuals working in those companies did not do the acts in question. Providing the means to do something does not confer responsibility on the provider when those means are used for bad ends.

If these were true, then the opposite would have to be true. We'd have to pay these companies extra to compensate them for unexpected benefits we receive from their products. Anyone willing to take up that argument?

AP via the Fort Worth Star-Telegram: Suicide victim's mother sues Wal-Mart over gun

"We know that if they had ... so much as said, 'Why do you want this?' we would not be having this conversation because Shayla would have had a meltdown," said her stepfather, Garrett Bracy.

No you fucking don't. How could you possibly know what the interconnected and ever-changing mentalities, personalities, motivations, likes, and dislikes of several strangers are going to produce in the way of a common conversation between seller and buyer? It isn't the duty of a business person to discover the stated or intended uses of an item under interest. That's just a courtesy spent in the way of being nice and conversational to the customer.

Federal law prohibits stores from selling guns to people who, like Stewart, have been involuntarily committed to mental institutions or declared by a judge to be mentally ill and a danger to themselves or others, or who are incapable of handling their own affairs.

A federal background check is conducted on all gun buyers to weed out those who are prohibited. The form that must be filled out to buy a gun asks about mental health. Stewart, who had been committed to an institution and declared dangerously mentally ill by a judge, lied on that form, according to her mother's attorney.

The background check system has other problems as well. For example, the system approved Stewart's purchase because her name didn't show up in the FBI database. That happened because the database contains no mental health records from Texas and 37 other states.

Texas doesn't submit mental health records because state law deems them confidential, said Paul Mascot, attorney with the Texas Department of State Health Services. Other states have not computerized their record-keeping systems or do not store them in a central location.

There you have it, right in your face. The System failed on its own. So why hold Wal-Mart legally responsible?

Her parents said they wished that Wal-Mart had been more diligent by checking security files and prescription records. But those records are confidential under the Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act of 1996, so stores cannot use them when deciding whether to sell a gun.

Copyright 2004 Associated Press, All rights reserved.

I rest my case. How the hell is a Wal-Mart employee supposed to check this without breaking the law, wasting vast amounts of customer time, and not offending them in the process? This kind of expectation makes their jobs (which I have worked in the past) considerably more difficult.

AP via the Houston Chronicle: Mother of suicide victim sues Wal-Mart over gun sale

"Lavern went to the store the other day to buy over-the-counter headache sinus medication and they limited the amount of sinus medication she could buy at one time," Garrett Bracy said, his voice trembling with emotion. "But Shayla can walk into a store and buy a gun and they could care less. That's got to change."

Copyright 2004 Associated Press, All rights reserved.

No, if my son or daughter killed themselves with a firearm, I wouldn't point fingers at the store that sold it, the clerk who sold it, the manufacturer who built it, the trucker that transported it, the marketers who promoted it, or the contractors who built the infrastructure involved in every step of the process. I also wouldn't force businesses to act the way I want them to.

What I would do is blame my son or daughter and want to know what drove them to take the most final of all actions.

Posted by drizzten at 10:15 AM | Permalink | Comments (4)

Washington Post: Cropped Out of the Picture

Late Tuesday night, in the 11th hour of a marathon D.C. Council meeting, chairman Linda W. Cropp blew to smithereens the deal that MLB thought it had in place with Washington to build a ballpark on the Anacostia waterfront. With that single blow, which leaves baseball no alternatives, the return of major league baseball to the nation's capital is now dead.

The bits of charred ash and shattered fragments that you see falling from the sky are the remnants of the destruction that Cropp wrought. With one amendment to a stadium-funding bill, she demolished the most basic pillar on which the District's agreement with baseball was built. By a 10-3 vote, the council demanded that at least half of the cost of any new stadium be built with private financing, which does not exist, rather than public funding, as stipulated in D.C.'s deal with baseball.

A stadium in search of hypothetical funding, funding that may never be found, is not a stadium at all. It is just a convenient political lie. The entire purpose of baseball's long search for a new home for the Expos was so the sport could sell the team. Who is going to buy a team to play in a stadium that isn't funded and may never be? Nobody. Nobody on earth.

© 2004 The Washington Post Company

Here's what this fuck Thomas Boswell is saying.

He wants millions of people (this being D.C., you know federal dollars will eventually be involved) to be forced to contribute to building, maintaining, and supporting a sports franchise. He thinks it's beyond reproach that such a business should be kept afloat by anything other than the voluntary economic transactions done by its customers. He thinks the reality of the situation - that not enough people will invest in the deal to keep it viable - is something that can be overcome by raw, outright coercion in the form of taxes.

Fuck him. If it's so damn important to have a national-level sports team in your city, pay for it out of your own gawddamn pocket.

Via Jim Henley.

Posted by drizzten at 02:28 PM | Permalink

[Updates below.]

Pfft. The house has progressed beyond the horrid paint primer stage and past the bedroom painting stage and has moved into the wood laminate floor installation stage. Me, I'm ignorant of how these things are put in and set up, so roomie-to-be Cameron says adamantly the tongue-and-groove glueless flooring is easier to install than the...well, the kind that need to be glued.

He, his girlfriend, his father, another friend, and I spent last night proving the relative ease which Dupont's Real Touch Elite Walnut laminate flooring goes in. I'd rank it just below one-armed broadsword combat during mid-July in south Texas and just above really understanding reverse Polish notation. This was mostly due to the group's almost complete ignorance of the install process, of course, but with a tough old bastard and his miter saw, two chicks who love to fabricate and build things, a rough-and-tumble DIY ex-country boy, and a slowly recovering science geek, I expected more efficient operation.

Personally, I'd like to try the glue flooring to see what it's like, strictly for comparison purposes.

At least I'd get a buzz from the fumes...

Expect blogging to be light for the next few days until I get my computer gear out to the house and FINALLY hook it back up to broadband. When DSL is just $27 a month from SBC, you know I'll be all over that.

UPDATED 9/19/2005 9:53am
Soon to be added in: a freshly sanded and stained computer desk.

Posted by drizzten at 05:03 PM | Permalink

[Updates below.]

Associated Press via ABCNews: Former Pantera Guitarist Killed on Stage

A gunman charged onstage at a packed nightclub and opened fire on the band and the crowd, killing top heavy metal guitarist "Dimebag" Darrell Abbott and three other people before a police officer shot him to death, authorities and witnesses said.

Columbus police department spokeswoman Sherry Mercurio identified three of the victims of Wednesday's shooting as Abbott, guitarist with the heavy metal rock band Damageplan, and two other men, Nathan Bray and Erin Halk.

Damageplan had just begun their first song at the Alrosa Villa when the man opened fire, first targeting Abbott, shooting him multiple times at point-blank range, a witness said.

Abbott, 38, one of metal's top guitarists, and his brother, Damageplan drummer Vinnie Paul Abbott, were original members of Grammy-nominated thrash rock pioneers Pantera, one of the most popular metal bands of the early 1990s.

Copyright 2004 The Associated Press. All rights reserved.

I first got into Pantera when, of all places, I read a positive review of their Far Beyond Driven album in USA Today. That, combined with excellent word-of-mouth opinion, convinced me to take the plunge. I immediately got hooked on their style: raw, hard, and uncompromising. In short order I bought their Vulgar Display of Power and Cowboys from Hell and then The Great Southern Trendkill. I haven't kept up with them in a few years and missed many opportunities to see them live.

Dimebag's guitars were amazing. His recorded work was detailed and different and always screamed "metal!"

I'm at a loss for words. The world of music has lost one hell of a good musician. My condolences go out to all the families involved.

UPDATE 12/10/2004 12:50pm
Associated Press via ABCNews: Shooting Suspect Obsessed With Pantera

The man who shot former Pantera guitarist "Dimebag" Darrell Abbott and three other men to death at a nightclub was obsessed with the popular heavy metal band and made bizarre accusations against it, a onetime friend said in reports published Friday.

Jeramie Brey said gunman Nathan Gale once showed up at a friend's house saying he wanted to share songs he had written. The pages of lyrics were copied from Pantera, but Gale claimed he had written them, Brey said.

"He was off his rocker," Brey told The Columbus Dispatch. "He said they were his songs, that Pantera stole them from him and that he was going to sue them."

He later told Brey that he planned to sue Pantera for stealing his identity. Brey and friend Dave Johnson said Gale's behavior frightened them and they distanced themselves from him several years ago. But other friends said they never considered Gale capable of violence.

I was talking about this with some of my friends. Some people often dream about making it big in the world and becoming household names. One of the primary reasons why I neer want to be popular in that sense or anything approaching that sense is a case like this. Some guy loses it and tries to hurt or kill you. Family kidnappings, extortion, and the loss of privacy also factor in.

On Wednesday night, the 25-year-old former Marine charged the stage at a show by Abbott's new band, Damageplan, and gunned down four people including Abbott before a policeman fatally shot him.

Police said Friday they still didn't know Gale's motive, and they may never find out. Some witnesses said Gale yelled accusations that the revered guitarist broke up Pantera, but police had not verified those reports.

I take the music I listen to seriously. At work I have gigabytes of MP3s at any given time and unless I'm away or on the phone, something is playing. I rarely listen to the radio in my car because I'd rather pick what I want to hear. If I were to win a large lottery, I'd immediately spend a few thousand bucks on CDs.

But I'd never kill a musician over a decision they made with their music that I opposed. I abandoned Smashing Pumpkins after Mellon Collie and the Infinite Sadness when Billy Corgan started getting too experimental for my tastes. I dumped Metallica after the Black Album once it became apparent they were not going to sound like they had in the past. Even though I loathe Rage Against the Machine's politics and a lot of what they advocate, I still enjoy their music and their style.

Gale had served with the 2nd Marine Division at Camp Lejeune in North Carolina until November 2003, when he was discharged after less than half of the typical four-year stint, Marine spokeswoman Gunnery Sgt. Kristine Scarber said. She declined to explain the discharge, citing privacy rules.

I haven't see them yet, but I have no doubt there will be commentary on the necessity for stricter gun laws, the corrosive moral impact violent music has on society, and the degenerative effect the military has on soldiers during wartime.

The violence at the smoke-filled Alrosa Villa club came just after the opening notes by Damageplan, the band formed by Abbott and his brother, drummer Vinnie Paul Abbott, after they left Pantera. Gale dodged two band members, grabbed Darrell Abbott and shot him at least five times in the head, witnesses and police said.

In less than five minutes, Gale had also killed Erin Halk, 29, a club employee who loaded band equipment; fan Nathan Bray, 23, of nearby Grove City; and band bodyguard Jeff Thompson, 40.

Two other band employees, Chris Paluska and John Brooks, remained in a hospital Friday morning with undisclosed injuries. Paluska was listed in good condition and Brooks in serious condition.

Copyright 2004 The Associated Press. All rights reserved.

Jesus. Five times in the head. And three people killed who were unrelated to the music aspect of Gale's alleged complaint. How completely senseless.

WFTV: Nightclub Shooter Said Pantera Stole His Lyrics

Police said Officer James Niggemeyer, a five-year veteran of the force, was the first at the scene within two minutes of the first call. He went inside and shot Gale, who at that point had a hostage.

"The community has a hero," said Columbus police Sgt. Brent Mull.

According to police and eyewitnesses, another police officer from out of town who was at the concert got the gunman's attention. A security guard led Niggemeyer to a side entrance by the stage, by the gunman who was holding the hostage.

Niggemeyer, who was about 20 feet away, fired one shot, which contained nine slugs from his 12-gauge shotgun, and shot Gale in the right side of his head and upper body. The shooting happened within seconds, less than one minute after the officer arrived at the scene.

© 2004, WFTV.

Officer Niggemeyer, you did the right thing. As often as I denigrate government, I will never dismiss the good things it and its agents do. Someone had to stop that psycho before he killed again and you stood up to the challenge.

Posted by drizzten at 08:31 AM | Permalink

New things I've learned over the last few days?

I utterly suck at painting interiors. I'd do more damage with a gallon of satin latex paint and a roller than a freakin' sledge.

Posted by drizzten at 04:59 PM | Permalink

"The time will come, though, when these people who today are preoccupied with the grossly unimportant will suddenly realize that they've been robbed blind."

Neal Boortz correctly identifies the important issue in the Mandated Government Retirement Fraud:

You do know, don't you, that there is absolutely no legal guarantee that you will receive one single penny of the money that is taken from you. No guarantee at all. The congress can vote tomorrow to end the system and keep every dollar that has been paid in Social Security taxes. There would be nothing you could do about it. Nothing except, that is, to vote against the jerk who stole your money.

[...]

This is absurd, folks. We're supposed to be living in free country that recognizes property rights. You own you, not the government. You work for you, not for some stranger. In a free country your government should not seize your money by force and put it into a phony "retirement" fund that earns you a sub-par rate of return and to which you have no legal right beyond what politicians are willing to grant. When you die the money you earned during life shouldn't be seized by government to be transferred to another individual you don't know while your family scrambles about looking for a way to keep their home and pay for your funeral, but that's exactly what the AARP is fighting for.

Good stuff and entirely accurate. But what does he propose to replace this nationwide fraud?

Chile used to have a Social Security system that was a virtual copy of ours. Chile, however, didn't have an AARP. What Chile did have was politicians who realized that their system was doomed to collapse, and who did something about it. Chile privatized every individual's retirement benefits.

[...]

Today in Chile workers pay 10% of their pretax earnings into their own retirement plans. They can elect to pay an additional 10% in pretax earnings if they wish. The companies who manage these funds are prohibited by law from engaging in any other type of business. The sole business purpose of these companies is to take these privately owned retirement accounts and grow them.

Stop. Just...stop.

What the fuck is this obsession with people who want the government to force us to save money? Mr. Boortz is on record barely five paragraphs above with a firm statement in support of property rights and self-ownership. The corollaries to these statements are available to those with functioning mental faculties. Unfortunately, the collapse begins and he jumps right into upholding what he just said he opposes. The Fuck-Me-This-Is-Crazy moment arrives at the end:

If they die before the retirement age the money goes to their families. If Chileans live to retirement age they have three options:

1. Purchase a family annuity from a life insurance company.
   
2. Leave their funds in a personal account and make monthly withdrawals adjusted to match their life expectancy.
   
3. Any combination of 1 and 2.

The government steps in to guarantee a "minimum pension" for people who have worked at least 20 years and who's benefits don't meet the minimum monthly amount required by the Chilean law.

So...rather than a system that allows us to own our money and do with it as we please...Mr. Boortz wants instead to have a system that forces us to save, limits our options with that money, and subsidizes (through theft) a certain chunk of this "privatized" pension market.

Here's another way of putting this: the man said he likes cheeseburgers and he doesn't like the cheese or the burger.

If you read this Mr. Boortz, I hope you come to your senses and realize the gross error you've made. This kind of disjointed and contradictory commentary is what friends of liberty don't need in the fight against the government and its idolaters.

Link and image via Billy Beck.

Posted by drizzten at 10:51 AM | Permalink | Comments (6)

Who lost the most braincells of us all?

I spent the weekend with some buddies prepping the bedrooms for new paint. My arms are speckled with Kilz primer and my head was swimming in fumes. Buckets of drunken fun were had and we topped Saturday off with a visit to Beerland for a Flametrick Subs show, making it the second time last week I got to see Satan's Cheerleaders. Hmmm.

Mind the pause in blogging. I'm taking tomorrow off to wait for the satellite guy to arrive at his scheduled time of "noon and five 'o clock." Jackals.

Posted by drizzten at 08:41 AM | Permalink

Christian Science Monitor: Property taxes rising nationwide:

From Madison, Wis., to Bucks County, Pa., the local tax assessor is dipping deeper into homeowners' pockets as real estate prices rise and states share less of their tax revenue with local governments.

With people starting to receive their 2005 tax bills, the levies are squeezing the middle class and senior citizens - leaving them less to spend on everything from restaurants to roof repair. There is also concern the taxes could particularly hurt the home-buying chances of the young or civil servants such as firefighters. States such as New Jersey now have grass-roots efforts - verging on revolts - for reform.

Here's my solution for the problem:

End the public school system. Abolish government-run schools. Privatize public education. Whatever form or label this takes, get the state out of the education business.

Why pick on public education? Because that's where the money is:

"There is a property tax crisis," says Myron Orfield, a property tax expert at the University of Minnesota in Minneapolis. "It's especially bad in states like New Jersey, Ohio, Connecticut, and Illinois, which are property-tax dependent."

Part of the problem lies in demographics and the rapid growth of exurban communities. Young couples who can't afford suburban homes have moved to "edge" communities further from the cities. Those are filled with children, and to educate them the communities have to jack up property taxes to build new schools and hire teachers.

Revenues for public elementary and secondary schools, by source and state or jurisdiction: 2000-01:

• Of Connecticut's education revenue of more than $6.4 billion, $2.5 billion (39.5%) came from the state and $3.5 billion (54.6%) came from local governments. Mean Uncle Sam tossed in $276 million (4.2%).
  
• Of Illinois's education revenue of more than $18.2 billion, $6.1 billion (33.6%) came from the state and $10.3 billion (56.6%) came from local governments. Mean Uncle Sam tossed in $1.4 billion (7.8%).
  
• Of New Jersey's education revenue of more than $15.9 billion, $6.6 billion (41.8%) came from the state and $8.3 billion (52.3%) came from local governments. Mean Uncle Sam tossed in $628 million (3.9%).
  
• Of Ohio's education revenue of more than $16.6 billion, $7.1 billion (43.2%) came from the state and $7.8 billion (47.1%) came from local governments. Mean Uncle Sam tossed in $1 billion (6.1%).

According to the feds, American taxpayers handed over more than $500 billion for public schools in the 2003-04 school year on the federal, state, and local levels. That is up from more than $372 billion in 1999-2000. In 1999, state and local governments spent 35% of their funding on public education.

I want that cut that out entirely, completely, and without exception, as quickly as possible. Those taxpayers handed that money over under the explicit threat of violence against them if they did not. An explicitly immoral way to "invest in our future," if you ask me. I think the solution is obvious: pay for education on your own.

Taxpayers nationwide would thank you, assuming they aren't so tied to this ugly system of forced wealth redistribution that they feel they need YOUR money to educate THEIR kids.

Madison, Wis., is an example of how some of these changes are affecting both the town and some of its residents. Assessments climbed 9 to 10 percent for several years in a row as housing prices have risen, reflecting the city's buoyant economy. This is happening once more, so even though the city is actually reducing the mill rate (the multiple of property value used to determine residential taxes) from 8 mills to 7.8, property taxes are going up 5.5 percent.

The city's rising property taxes are squeezing retirees Diane and Donald Brockman, who have lived in the same house for over 40 years. Now, the retirees estimate it takes them two full months of their fixed income to pay their property taxes.

"We don't go out to eat, we don't go to theaters, we don't travel a lot," says Mrs. Brockman, who worked as a operating-room nurse for 40 years. "You have to give up your pleasures that you have worked all your life to do," she says, suggesting that it might be appropriate for the community to give some kind of tax credit to them for all the years they have faithfully paid their taxes.

Mayor Dave Cieslewicz, an unabashed liberal, is sympathetic to their plight. "We've moved away from progressive forms of taxation to more regressive," he says. "This is of great concern to me that the tax structure is less fair."

Oh fuck you, Cieslewicz. I'll tell you what isn't fair. Picture this.

A single man living on his own. He has no children. His job earns him enough to pay his bills and have some left over for savings and entertainment. He lives in an apartment and wants to buy a house. His broker says he can afford to pay the principle and interest on the loan as well as the finance charges, but explains the taxes to factor in are going to be upwards of $2,000 a year. At the margin of the single man's income, that makes homeownership impossible. As the Brockman's illustrate, since we are under the threat of force to pay our taxes, we tend to cut our spending in the enjoyable areas of our lives.

This hypothetical scenario isn't limited to just singles, but I mention it specifically because this man does not have children in public schools and therefore gets no benefit from those taxes. Suppose this man were to decide that his child, should he have one, will be educated either at home or in private schools. In that case (one increasingly common), the tens of thousands of dollars ostensibly taxed from him to pay for educational expenses will never go to the educational expenses of his kid. He, in essence, is paying for multiple educations when he should be paying for one.

THAT isn't "fair."

In many states, the tax bite is finally causing taxpayers to bite back. For example, in New Jersey, a grass-roots group, Citizens for Property Tax Reform, says it has 500,000 participants after 15 months of existence. The group's mission is to force a property tax reform "convention."

"For 30 years the New Jersey legislatures tried but they couldn't come up with a ... solution, so we thought we should take the process out of Trenton," says Cy Thannikary, a retiree and revolt founder. "We want fundamental reform of the way to fund schools and municipal services."

Copyright © 2004 The Christian Science Monitor. All rights reserved.

The only legitimate and honest way to fundamentally reform the way those services are financed is to abolish them and let free markets form. Everything else is just moving one pile of lies and bullshit from one superficial issue to another.

Posted by drizzten at 01:54 PM | Permalink | Comments (2)

[Updates below.]

This is the final draft of the paper I'm submitting for my Introduction to Public Administration class at St. Edward's University. Long time readers will note the distinct lack of any advocacy against public-funded education; that wasn't the purpose of the essay. As much as I'd like to rail against the system, to get the grades I want I have to conform to the professor's expectations to a certain degree.

With that in mind, have at it.

Charles Hueter
Professor Parsells
Introduction to Public Administration
1 December, 2004

THE THEORETICAL IMPACT OF SCHOOL CONSOLIDATION ON THE ROLE OF SCHOOL SUPERINTENDENTS

In the 1937-38 school year there were an estimated 119,000 public school districts. That number has steadily decreased, leveling off around 14,500 for the 2001-02 year. During the same period, the total number of public schools dropped from over 229,000 to 94,000. Even more dramatic, during the same period, the number of single-teacher elementary schools has deflated from over 121,000 to a barely measurable 400 (United States).

Several studies have examined the pressures which drove this massive institutional change (Berry; Killeen and Sipple; Louisiana Department of Education). This paper's purpose is to discuss the nature and consequences of school consolidation and then look into the impact this change has brought upon the administrators of public schools and theorize how it might affect their duties and responsibilities. Since the school district superintendent is the primary public administrator for a given district, I will focus on the impact this widespread consolidation has imposed on that job.

The Functions of the Superintendent

Though the details vary state-by-state, a superintendent functions much like many other public administrators and entertains many of the same duties and roles. As the figurehead of the local school organization, the superintendent must act in many capabilities to perform effectively. The superintendent must be able to lead his or her subordinates and guide them along to accomplish educational goals. This places a premium on the superintendent's ability to liaison and negotiate amongst the employees in the education system. In addition, education professionals, school board members, the media, parents, and teachers unions all have a stake in the outcome of a school district's educational output. The political expertise and personal networking required to navigate these waters is important to cultivate in order to have a smoothly running and productive organization (Meier and O'Toole).

Therefore, the superintendent's skills as a disseminator of information are highly valuable. To function as such, he or she performs as a lightning rod for the public, drawing away the emotions and disturbances that can distract secondary and tertiary administrators from the primary job of overseeing the district's education system. The superintendent is responsible for disclosing information during emergencies and acting as the central voice for local education concerns. Everything from the publication of test score data to stumping for school bond issues demands the superintendent to be an effective custodian of school and district information.

Of course, these two vectors of interpersonal relations and information management coalesce into the critical juncture of decision making. Action must eventually be taken in order to accomplish anything. As the principle manager of human and financial resources, the school superintendent must juggle a number of roles. The superintendent has a range of freedom to set and negotiate education policy, yet the school district has limited resources and must answer to the public and the larger government if they are misused or wasted. Continuing on in the same direction as before and enshrining the status quo will not survive the reality of societal and cultural change; entrepreneurial skills and the ability to adapt to challenges are worth possessing. Some degree of disorder is unavoidable and unexpected situations will always develop, so the able superintendent ought to adjust policies and priorities in order to maximize outcomes.

The Framework of School Consolidation

The consolidation of public education resources generally occurs along two broad levels: a district merging with another district and a school merging with another school. Both levels of consolidation can be accomplished through annexation, reorganization, dissolution, or co-oping (Sell, Leistritz, and Thompson 2-3). Co-oping is the most flexible method; it presents opportunities to pool resources so, for example, participation in sports can increase, bulk pricing deals for office supplies can be made, and specialized teachers can be utilized across a wider area (Sell, Leistritz, and Thompson 3). Dissolution is the process where "an existing school district ceases its active functions in its present organizational form and [its territory] is attached to one or more adjoining existing operational districts" (Decker, qtd. in Sell, Leistritz, and Thompson 3). This might be the first picture that materializes in the minds of people when they think of school consolidation: the assimilation of a district (usually the smaller organization) by another district (usually the larger organization). Reorganization, on the other hand, is the process that results in "the formation of a new school district by [...] the unification of two or more existing operational districts into one larger district" or the "separation of territory from one or more operating districts to create one or more new operating districts" (Decker, cited in Sell, Leistritz, and Thompson 3). Since annexation implies the acquisition of land not already owned by the government and given that the United States has remained mostly unchanged in terms of land area, annexation has fallen by the wayside and is no longer used (Sell, Leistritz, and Thompson 2).

In the first decades of the twentieth century, there was one champion of school consolidation who stood out. During the 1920's, Ellwood P. Cubberly advocated three central arguments: small schools suffered from a percentage of too many bureaucrats to teachers, consolidated schools offered higher quality facilities at costs lower than smaller schools , and larger schools offered the opportunity for teachers to concentrate in certain instructional areas (Berry 3). Cubberly's position amounted to the idea that "consolidated schools [...] provided economies of scale in administration, instruction, and facilities" (Berry 3). The merger of schools and school districts also occurs due to demographic and political trends such as old, antiquated buildings and floundering student enrollment, financial and legislative mandate pressure from state and federal governments, and inflation (Killeen and Sipple 4; Sell, Leistritz, and Thompson 3, 11). Newer research shows that "increased bureaucracy "tends to significantly increase attendance rates and significantly reduce dropout rates" (Smith and Larimer 734). An analysis of West Virginian high schools found "a modest negative impact of rurality on school performance," whereas rurality was used "as a proxy for district size" (Hicks and Ruskalkina 31).

Those opposed to relentless public education consolidation fought against a rising tide until the mid-70's when the consolidation movement slowed down and more research was conducted into the educational outcomes of larger schools and school districts (Berry 6). For example, Kieran Killeen and John Sipple found that "economy of scale arguments fail rural school districts in terms of transportation policy" (19). John Bohte, while examining Texas public school data, discovered both increased campus and district bureaucracy had a "negative impact on student performance" on the Texas Assessment of Academic Skills test (95). Without these new studies to support their opposition and given the intense pressure from so many sides to acquiesce, some say the "small-school advocates were usually dismissed as ignorant, cranky laypeople unaware of their own best interests" (Hampel 15). The results of this renewed interest in empirical data and a shift towards measuring the outcomes other than standardized tests have both vindicated some of what the consolidators had to say and raised important questions at the same time (Smith and Larimer).

Today, several growing consensuses are becoming apparent. One states that while there are economies of scale to be had on a simple spending-per-student basis, when you look at the cost per graduate, the costs are actually less (Mitchell). Many say increased student alienation, violence, drug use, weapons violations, and other social ills are a result of large schools (Cushman 37-38; Galletti 16-17; Mitchell). A common argument against mergers resurfaced in a study the demonstrated the increased numbers of children that had to utilize school transportation arrive at school and the higher transportation costs incurred by the education system to deliver them (Killeen and Sipple). Liability issues surrounding abandoned schools arose in North Dakota (Sell, Leistritz, and Thompson 14). In line with contemporary educational trends, one study discovered that "increasing class size has a negative effect on the return to education" (Berry 12). And empirical blows have been thrown against the concept that bigger schools equate to more comprehensive curricula (Mitchell).

The Impact on the Superintendent

The importance of this issue as related to the administration of public education is expressed well by Christopher Berry:

"Indeed, the mix of school and district size is central to issues of authority and governance in education. The number and size of schools within a district directly influence the extent to which central authorities, such as superintendents and school boards, can be directly involved in the operations of their schools. In other words, school board members may face a conflict of interest between good education policy and the maintenance of their own authority over schools. [...] A shift toward smaller schools would require central authorities either to spend more time and money on oversight or to become less directly involved in the operation of individual schools. Thus, any consideration of moving towards smaller schools is intertwined with the decentralization of authority within school districts" (19).

For administrators considering a reversal of consolidation, there are also problems to consider. For example, corruption exploded throughout the New York City public school system, resulting in a culture of "patronage [that had] completely eclipsed education" as the primary goal (Segal 142).

So what does all this mean to the public administrators in charge of government school districts who face consolidation? I believe that while the various roles a superintendent plays remain the same, they are impacted in different ways.

First, no small amount of weight can be placed on the importance of effective communication to the parents of students who would be affected by consolidation (Sell, Leistritz, and Thompson). In small communities, the school is perceived to be a critical part of the social infrastructure (Hampel 18); some residents can be expected to worry about the "end of their community's viability" (Sell, Leistritz, and Thompson 44). A superintendent that assuages fears of community implosion and settles concerns about the unknown is making a very good long-term investment. The subject of property tax changes, something never too far from a homeowner's mind, must be addressed as well. Though I was unable to uncover significant research into the impact the loss of a school or school facilities has on the overall picture of a community's retail economy, residents will worry about it (Sell, Leistritz, and Thompson 17). However, unless the geographic areas that will be consolidated are for the most part culturally homogenous, the diversity of opinion, traditions, and institutions will increase within the new school district. A superintendent unaware of the diversified makeup of his or her enlarged realm of responsibility might not be prepared to handle cultural clashes as they arise, undermining the stability of the entire project.

A related concern is the communication amongst employees, professional staff, and the superintendent. Like any organization going through a consolidation and reformation, the workers within will probably be concerned about the future of their jobs. On the other hand, given the "high observed correlation between school size and teacher salaries," the superintendent does possess some bargaining chips to use with teacher's unions (Berry 19).

I'd propose thinking ahead and generating at least a policy framework before going public with consolidation plans as another suggestion. A perfect example would be the changes in school transportation. Given the great worry parents feel about increased bussing distances, the prudent superintendent should already have transition strategies developed that address how the educational foci of the school district will change within some communities (Sell, Leistritz, and Thompson 26). Given the significance principals have in the process of implementing policy, including them in your deliberations is critical (Hope and Pigford). However, just charging ahead without the input of the public can break with the primary importance of communication to the superintendent's constituents.

Some studies indicate that, rather than a magic administrative bullet, school consolidation can create new organizational problems as a result of the new "economies of scope" enlarged districts would wield. For example, since it has been found that "poverty dampens student achievement most in larger schools" (Louisiana Department of Education 9) and there are an increasing number of non-educational tasks demanded of schools (Smith and Larimer 731), a paradox occurs: larger school districts spend a greater and increasing percentage of money on those tasks and less on teachers and primary learning materials (Louisiana Department of Education 13). Functions like fighting higher levels of criminal activity, higher dropout rates, and faculty and student emotional isolation are likely to soak up funding normally allocated for direct educational purposes. Superintendents should be aware of these issues before they arrive as nasty surprises at a PTA meeting or from a reporter's question. Administrators should keep in mind - with a healthy does of good humor, I might add - the finding that "teachers, as street-level bureaucrats, generally add more to the education process than administrators" (Bohte 95).

In summary, I believe the roles most important to an administrator who faces district or school consolidation are the interpersonal and informational. Kenneth J. Meier and Laurence J. O'Toole concluded that "network management can contribute to program performance" and it is hard to find fault with the logic behind it (697). The school district superintendent's primary goal of overseeing a local system of education depends on this.

Works cited

Berry, Christopher. "School Size and Returns to Education: Evidence from the Consolidation Movement, 1930-1970." Education Next 4.4 (2004) 28 Nov. 2004 http://www.educationnext.org/unabridged/20044/56.pdf

Bohte, John. "School Bureaucracy and Student Performance at the Local Level." Public Administration Review. 61.1 (2001): 92-99.

Cushman, Kathleen. "Shrink Big Schools for Better Learning." The Education Digest. 65.6 (2000): 36-39.

Hope, Warren C. and Aretha B. Pigford. "The Principal's Role in Educational Policy Implementation." Contemporary Education. 72.1 (2001): 44-47.

Galletti, Susan. "School Size Counts." The Education Digest. 64.9 (1999): 15-17.

Hampel, Robert L. "The Long Road to Small Schools." The Education Digest. 67.8 (2002): 15-20.

Hicks, Michael J. and Viktoriya Rusalkina. "School Consolidation and Educational Performance: An Economic Analysis of West Virginia High Schools." Center for Business and Economic Research. (2004) 30 Nov. 2004 http://www.marshall.edu/cber/research/SchoolConsolidation.pdf

Killeen, Kieran and John Sipple. "School Consolidation and Transportation Policy: An Empirical and Institutional Analysis." The Rural School and Community Trust. (2000) 28 Nov. 2004 http://www.ruraledu.org/docs/killeen_sipple.pdf

Meier, Kenneth J. and Laurence J. O'Toole. "Public Management and Educational Performance: The Impact of Managerial Networking." Public Administration Review. 63.6 (2003): 689-699.

Mitchell, Stacy. "Jack and the Giant School." Institute for Local Self-Reliance. 2000. 29 Nov. 2004 http://www.newrules.org/journal/nrsum00schools.htm

Segal, Lydia. "The Pitfalls of Political Decentralization and Proposals for Reform: The Case of New York City Public Schools." Public Administration Review. 57.2 (1997): 141-149.

Sell, Randall S., F. Larry Leistritz, and JoAnn M. Thompson. "Socio-economic Impacts of School Consolidation on Host and Vacated Communities." Department of Agricultural Economics. Agricultural Economic Report No. 347. (1996).

Smith, Kevin B. and Christopher Larimer. "A Mixed Relationship: Bureaucracy and School Performance." Public Administration Review. 64.6 (2004): 728-736.

State of Louisiana. Louisiana Department of Education. "Small School Districts and Economies of Scale." (2003) 28 Nov. 2004 http://www.louisianaschools.net/lde/uploads/3475.pdf

United States. Department of Labor. National Center for Education Statistics. Digest of Education Statistics, 2003. July 2003. 28 Nov. 2004 http://nces.ed.gov/programs/digest/d03/tables/dt085.asp

UPDATED 3/9/2005 8:47am
I've written another final paper for the same professor in a different class: A Conceptual Analysis of Public Goods - The Case of Nationalized Defense

Posted by drizzten at 04:24 PM | Permalink

We've become accustomed to talking about all kinds of abstract capital in recent years - human capital, social capital, intellectual capital - but Bush's definition of political capital makes the metaphor particularly inapt. For one, you don't spend capital. You invest it. But Bush's understanding of the idea dictates that it be spent rather than saved. As Karl Rove put it in 2001, "If you don't spend it, it's not like treasure stuck away at a storehouse someplace. It is perishable. It dwindles away." What kind of economic message is that from a president who wants to encourage an ownership society?

-Chris Suellentrop, in America's New Political Capital on Slate

Bonus points for mentioning the Review of Austrian Economics and "hyper-inflating cash that has to be spent before it becomes worthless"!

Posted by drizzten at 10:08 AM | Permalink