backfire theory

Protecting his third nest

Did you know it costs US taxpayers $20 billion a year to cool the troops in Afghanistan and Iraq?  That’s right to keep them cooled down we spend more money per year on cooling than we spend on financing NASA.

Have you ever wondered why strange, kookie, peculiar, freakish ideas persist?  Why conspiracy nuts latch on to beliefs and no matter how much evidence is out there to refute it they still believe the untruth and find material to bolster their ideas?

Lately on line there have been articles that refer to studies done by researchers that have determined that when beliefs are threatened by information that doesn’t reinforce the belief but in fact negates it the believer will not give up the belief but will become further entrenched. 

These studies are based upon single instances where the participant is given something to read that disagrees with their ideology, then tested after to see if the factual information changed their mind.  Say for instance one group that believed Saddam had WMD’s was given a paragraph to read that was based upon information correcting this belief and saying there were none.  Instead of believing the new factual information they became more firmly entrenched in their original beliefs.  This condition has been labeled the “backfire effect” and is being pushed on line to influence people not to bother trying to change minds because you won’t succeed.

Nest 2 destroyed last Wed. Now she is on nest 3

Well i decided to research the “backfire effect” and discovered that before it was called “effect” there was other studies done that called a different outcome the “backfire theory.”  The “backfire theory” looks instead at movements that have been created when actions by those in power are perceived as unfair or unjust.  Kind of like what has happened in Wisconsin, where people who were probably ideologically split came together to protect their rights and their jobs.  Where recall petitions have garnered more signatures than those in office received for votes and where those in power have been blindsided by the backlash against their draconian changes.

Anyway

“Conditions for the backfire theory as defined by Brian Martin are “an action perceived as unjust, unfair, excessive or disproportional.”  Martin is one of the originators of "backfire theory", which analyses the political forces at play in cases where repression or injustice inflicted on vulnerable groups in society "backfires" against the perpetrators of

the injustice. According to Martin's theory, authorities commonly use five distinct methods to prevent their injustice from backfiring: cover-up, devaluing the target, re-interpreting events, using official channels and using intimidation and bribery.” Martin

Studies done on the "backfire effect"(which says you won't change your mind) don’t evaluate how a constant stream of factual information can change minds. There is a tipping point at which people can no longer hold onto their beliefs when the facts just don’t support it any longer.  The “backfire theory,” and what happened in Wisconsin is a perfect example of people who can come together regardless of ideology and fight back.

In a study done by Redlawsk, Civettini, Emmerson their abstract says:

“We show experimental evidence that such an affective tipping point does in fact exist. We also show that as this tipping point is reached, anxiety increases, suggesting that the mechanism that generates the tipping point and leads to more accurate updating may be related to the theory of affective intelligence. The existence of a tipping point suggests that voters are not immune to disconfirming information after all, even when initially acting as motivated reasoners.”

If you are continually bombarded with information that trashes what you thought to be true eventually you have to stop believing and re-evaluate. Believing in the “backfire effect” as opposed to “theory” would tend to make one stop trying to change minds. If we bought into “effect” instead of “theory” the powerful can keep us divided and they can get on with squeezing every bit of loose change out of our pockets, shutting down all the social safety nets, and engaging in endless wars.

Right now i believe that there are powerful forces afoot that don’t want us all talking to each other.  If you believe in the "effect" you will stop trying to talk to anyone who doesn't agree with you, but if you believe in the "theory" (like me)you will never give up trying to change minds.

So in my constant work at changing hearts and minds here are a few things we need to do as a country to tend to the deficit and try not to burden the middle class and poor with any more setbacks.

Tax Wall Street fairly

Wind down the wars responsibly

Close down some of our overseas bases

Roll back the Bush tax cuts on the wealthy

Close corporate tax loopholes

As Van Jones says, “We are not stupid. We can do the math.  The pie, the country’s GDP, is getting bigger!  It’s just your slice that is getting smaller. The social contract between corporate America and the rest of America is broken.”

Beautiful pollen at Sunny Isle

The private sector caused the credit crunch, the financial crisis, and the global recession. The public sector bailed out the banks and brought the world back from the brink of ruin, when is the public sector going to get the recognition it deserves?

Pelosi had this to say about Cantor,“Leader Cantor can’t handle the truth when it comes to these tax subsidies for big oil, for corporations sending jobs overseas or giving tax breaks to the wealthiest people in the country, while they’re asking seniors to pay more for less, as they abolish Medicare,”

Tax cuts don’t produce jobs, the Republicans proved during the Bush years, that tax cuts produce deficits.

Recent studies have shown that states that cut spending have also seen their economies tank.  Jobs have been lost in the states where cuts have been made. In fact the more money cut the more jobs have been lost.  States that have increased spending or maintained the spending levels have seen their states enjoy more private sector jobs and actual increases in the employment statistics. According to the study spending cuts have gone hand in hand with job losses.  http://thinkprogress.org/economy/2011/06/27/255010/chart-states-cut-most-spending-jobs/

And finally,

When the history of America's decline as a great power is written, it will be stories like this that are used to illustrate how warped our priorities had become, and how we as a people allowed the corrupt and greedy to hijack our political process to enrich themselves at the expense of the nation, and to use the military to secure corporate objectives not essential to national security. 

The public is you

Jacks

Why is it we always hear that “Big Government” strangles small business but i’ve never seen any proof of this?  By strangle do they mean making them pay taxes or putting them out of business?

i was recently reminded of our not so distant past when small towns and cities had local hardware stores, family pharmacies, small grocery stores, clothing shops, shoe shops, and electronic shops where you could get all your appliances fixed, candy and ice cream shops and i think you get the picture. Now you can hardly find one and almost every place in America has lost those businesses to the corporate behemoths that we know as Wal-Mart, Home Depot, Best Buys, K-Mart, Cost-Co, Krogers, Exxon etc.

All over the country large corporations have put small family run businesses out of business through competition, bulk buying and marketing. They have the resources to take a loss at one store and count on sales at another to balance their books until the store takes off.  Small business owners can’t do that, they can’t compete and must depend upon their customers to remain loyal and supportive. If they loose that customer base they have no other option but to close or go bankrupt.

Beach just below Point Udall

Most of those corporations i listed above make billions of dollars a year all over the world. Their influence is much more powerful than any individual business owner trying to get a break, so they use it, they use their profits to buy influence, they lobby Congress and state governments all over the nation to do their bidding, they finance think tanks to get the electorate confused and focused not on them but on government. They want you to believe that lower taxes will help your business because it’s “BIG GOVERNMENT” that is ruining small family businesses.

And you believe that right?  Was it taxes that put these small business out of business, can someone show me the proof that taxes ruined small business or was it something else? And if low taxes make more jobs why do we have record unemployment after a period of unprecedented low taxation?

I think you can answer that for yourselves.

Large corporations have been putting people out of business for a long long time but that is not all they can do.  Since the early 2000’s large financial companies have been setting up in house departments that are strictly focused on purchasing public property. That’s right, purchasing property that you the tax payer have already paid for. They will privatize the property and charge you to use it.

Cane Bay mini wetlands

All over the nation towns and cities that have finalized the process of privatization of infrastructure are realizing it wasn’t such a good deal. In Indiana where they sold off a highway in 2006 to pay their debts the reality of a 75 year lease is coming back to bite them. Tolls that had seen no price increase since 1985 doubled from $18 to $35 and will still increase every year, alternate roads can’t be improved any where near the toll road if it will affect its revenue stream, the public is responsible for paying the bill for flooding that resulted in lost revenue and the money gained from the purchase was used up in a few years. This deal constrained the public’s ability to use roads it had built fifty years before.

In Chicago the city parking meters now belong to a wealth fund based in Abu Dhabi but partnered with Morgan Stanley. Parking fees increased almost immediately, meters broke and no one fixed them but when people parked at the broken meters they got tickets from the new consortium.  The deal was done by Mayor Daley for approximately 1 billion but should, according to the actuarial reports, bring in more than 11 billion for the consortium. Bad deal for the public, great deal for the company.

Private companies will buy the assets for much less than they are worth and extract every penny of profit. If there should be a disaster that destroys the asset, the company will walk away, and the public will be left with the rubble. The assumption is made that anything run by the government is so inefficient that the private sector can run it better, make a huge profit and the public will still be better off. What a laugh!

Selling off our public assets is akin to selling off your living room furniture then renting it back so you can sit on it, where is the benefit to the public?

Taking the public out of everything in American life is driving us towards a future where only the privileged will have access. So you decide, do you still think government is ruining businesses, are you ready to auction off American public property? If not you better start speaking up cause the public is you.

The Protector

The Protector

i’ve taken to calling a local bird the Protector.  He spends most of his day perched on my railing ready to attack anything.  He is stealthy, fast and an incredible defender; spending long hours standing at attention, listening and watching for incoming predators.  He rarely takes a break to eat or wash because his main concern sits on a rickety nest, and i mean rickety.

The Protector is a Grey Kingbird that is locally indigenous and not threatened.  They have adapted well to life on the island and are one of the more prolific birds here, but the ones around my house have been failing to reproduce for about four years now.  Every late May or early June i have a pair that builds a nest in the West Indian Cedar tree which is also an indigenous tree.

Grey Kingbird Nest

This year they built a nest and laid some eggs in a Cedar tree just out of the wind, unlike years past, where they were completely un-protected.  The nest looked pretty good and i thought maybe this year they would finally succeed but the rains took it out so they built another one.  The nest in the picture is the second one they have built in the same tree this year.  They finished it in no time and are sitting on eggs again. 

The whole nest building process and guarding is tough work.  The Protector’s job is not easy as he is burdened by Pearly Eyed Thrashers that try to dive bomb the nest.   The Thrasher's lie in wait in the Turpentine tree and when they think he is derelict in his duties they do a surveillance tour.  He usually spots them on the incoming flight and dive bombs.  Sometimes the female will come off the nest and the two of them will attack together, bashing and pecking until the Thrasher flies off.  None of the other small birds that visit the tree bother the Protector and he lets them suck the nectar out of the flowers or perch on a branch with nary a look.

The Thrasher is an aggressive, opportunistic bird that is rarely put in its place by other birds, but the Grey Kingbird is a formidable foe and battles relentlessly to protect his family; quite a feat for such a small bird.  The even bigger Red Tailed Hawk never even gets close to the nest because if the Protector sees one flying in he is on its back in no time, pecking and dive bombing, keeping it far away from even seeing what he is protecting. 

Watching this little bird work hard every day to protect his family just warms my heart, but makes it ache too when i think about those in our nation that want to deny that we humans have played a negative role in the state of our environment.

This little bird is representative of all of nature out there trying as hard as it can to keep the cycle of life going, while we cut down his trees, pollute the air, rape the land and force him into narrower and narrower environments to survive.  When are we going to wake up and be real stewards of this earth?

Oh Yeah, the answer to last weeks logic problem is the German.

rain rain go away

It’s still raining here, we have been under some kind of stalled system that is now producing flash floods and thunderstorms so we are still under a watch.  For days we have been in a band of weather that is coming out of the west and heading north east, an unusual direction for us this time of year.  The air is warm and heavy with moisture, and the seas are suffering from run off.  All along the shore muddy gook has replaced the beautiful blue. The hillsides are so saturated that i worry when ever anyone drives down our steep roads that they may not hold. The long term forecast is for more rain maybe petering out sometime this weekend.

Even with all this rain St. Croix is a beautiful emerald green and everything is growing like mad.  Good for the trees and grasses but it’s not so good for the farmers who are having a hard time with their crops.  Their fields have been flooded, re-planted, and flooded again. My favorite farmer has closed his vegetable stand because his crops have been ruined.  He’s still selling meat and poultry but on a more limited schedule. Usually this time of year all sorts of goodies can be found along the roadside but now it’s not the case, so we all have to buy imported stuff which doesn’t taste as good.

So enough of the weather…i have been collecting tid bits from around the net and thought i’d put a few up today.

1.  Louis de Sousa at the Oil Drum goes into a detailed discussion on why he thinks peak oil is what brought down the Soviet Union.

“The causes of the fall of the Soviet Union are thought to be inefficiency and the Soviet response to the Reagan Administration’s military buildup of the early 1980s. However, a more plausible explanation is the decline in Soviet oil production caused by peak oil. This gives the world an example of a modern economy confronted by peak oil and what lessons we can learn from it.”

2.  Wisconsin Republicans just passed a new law that allows a property owner the right not to replace his septic system even if his land is swimming in s**t as long as it hasn’t impacted his neighbors land.  The old law, which had advised cutting edge septic systems for replacement of old dysfunctional ones, is being replaced by one that will allow sewage to lie openly upon a piece of private property. Doesn’t this sound like a case of individual rights going out of control.  i’m glad i don’t live in Wisconsin.

3.  Free markets don’t exist.  A book just came out that explains that there is no such thing as a free market. “23 Things they don’t tell you about Capitalism” by Ha-Joon Chang who teaches at the Faculty of Economics at the University of Cambridge.  i’ve never read it but the review looks interesting.

4.  The Pentagon under the auspices of National Security is ignoring the climate skeptics in Congress who have scuttled legislation to combat climate change. In a 2011 report called, "A National Strategic Narrative" (pdf), written by two special assistants to chairman of the joint chiefs of staff Mike Mullen, it was argued, "We must recognize that security means more than defense." Part of this entails pressing past "a strategy of containment to a strategy of sustainment (sustainability)". They went on to assert climate change is "already shaping a 'new normal' in our strategic environment". They believe climate change is real and that plans must be implemented now to deal with it as a strategic issue.

5.  Real Estate news:

             According to Core Logic Nationwide, 10.9 million mortgages (22.7 percent)          were upside down in the first quarter vs. 11.1 million (23.1 percent) in the fourth quarter.

• Nevada had the highest negative equity: 63 percent of all mortgaged properties underwater.
• Next came by Arizona (50 percent), Florida (46 percent) and Michigan (36 percent.)
• California only had 31 percent underwater — to an average $93,000 shortfall.
• As for big regions? Las Vegas was tops at 66 percent upside down; followed by Stockton (56 percent), Phoenix (55 percent), Modesto (55 percent) and Reno (54 percent).

6.  Einstein said 98% of the world’s population couldn’t figure out this logic problem.

Clues:

• The Brit lives in the red house.
• The Swede keeps dogs as pets.
• The Dane drinks tea.
• Looking from in front, the green house is just to the left of the white house.
• The green house's owner drinks coffee.
• The person who smokes Pall Malls raises birds.
• The owner of the yellow house smokes Dunhill.
• The man living in the center house drinks milk.
• The Norwegian lives in the leftmost house.
• The man who smokes Blends lives next to the one who keeps cats.
• The man who keeps a horse lives next to the man who smokes Dunhill.
• The owner who smokes Bluemasters also drinks beer.
• The German smokes Prince.
• The Norwegian lives next to the blue house.
• The man who smokes Blends has a neighbor who drinks water.

Who owns the pet fish?

Answer next week unless you look it up on the net, but that is cheating.

See ya

$2,000 for a rainy day

Wednesday June 1, 2011

St. Croix, Virgin Islands

8:00am Salt River NDBC weather station

Water Temperature…82.8

Air Temperature…….82.4

Did you know that half of all Americans do not have access to $2,000 for a rainy day? Half could not come up with the money right now if they had to, without taking out a loan or maxing out their credit cards. When asked if they could come up with it in 30 days 28% said they wouldn’t be able to do it.  According to a survey done of 1,900 participants the National Bureau of Economic Research found that only 25% of the American population could come up with $2,000 in an emergency, 34% said they could get the money by asking family or friends.

Some may say that a lot of those people who can’t come up with $2,000 smoke, drink, have cell phones, big screen TV's, cable, internet, Ipods, a new car, X-box, designer clothes and shoes, and/or buy their lunch or at least coffee everyday.  Maybe even some of them are on welfare. The point being that the way they spend their money would exhibit a lack of delayed gratification and no financial planning. This would be attributed to half the American population with no basis in fact.  Its very easy to accuse half the population of this even when its not true.

Top 1% owns 42.7% of the total net worth of the nation
Bottom 80% owns 6.9% of the nations net worth

Average Net Worth of bottom 80% : $48,600
Average Net Worth of top 1%: $23.77 Million
Average Tax Rate on bottom 50%: 20%
Average Tax Rate on small business owners: 32%
Average Tax Rate on the top 1%: 18.8%
Average Tax Rate on the top 100 corporations: 9.7%

Source FRB Survey of Consumer Finances

Today the Federal Reserve is punishing people for saving money.  Interest rates are hovering at around 1% for regular bank and CD savings, which is less than inflation and the cost of living. Houses are losing value and the stock market is too risky for some. On the opposite extreme the media is telling you to spend or the economy will collapse. You are encouraged to go into more personal debt even as you are bombarded with deficit talk, because without demand the economy can’t expand.

No wonder so many people are living on the edge.  Wages have not been going up and with the outsourcing of manufacturing those high paying jobs are disappearing at a rapid rate.  With so many not able to reach into their pockets and pull out $2,000 in an emergency don’t you think that this is more like the fallout from decades of the "trickle-down" myth. Most Americans can't come up with $2,000. . .but a select few can reach in their pockets and pull out $2,000,000. . .and those are the important ones that get the tax breaks.   

Just look back up at that chart again? Who's getting screwed here?

i truly wish people could see it. Factors like ingenuity, competition, corruption, and just dumb luck will always play a role in anyone's measure of success. Reality dictates that we all cannot be corporate executives, bankers, doctors, lawyers, and rock-stars. Not everyone will be able to become rich.  Fresh invention and hard work can pay off...But the real truth is that the majority of Americans will work their lives away as car salesmen, real estate brokers, policemen, firemen, construction workers, nurses, janitors, clerks, waitresses, exercise specialists, military personnel, bus drivers, teachers, etc. dreaming of hitting the lottery some day. 

Please remember that success is not guaranteed and a lot of people are suffering despite how hard they worked.

So for all these reasons i continue to keep the signature on my e-mails front and center.

"Taxes do not "take money out of the economy" they enable the economy.  The rich do not "create jobs, We, the People create jobs through demand."

"Entitlements are cost-cutting business like efficiencies that save money for society as a whole." 
Lets not reduce the deficit on the backs of the middle class and poor, bring home the troops from Iraq, Afghanistan, Libya and all the rest of the places around the world.  Tax the wealthy making over $1,000,000 per year and corporations that are getting away with no taxes that will solve the deficit problem.

See ya next week

Too much rain

Rain

This piece today is going to hit on two topics.

First off the Global Peace Index for 2011 has just been released.  A few weeks ago i wrote about the peace rankings of the 50 states.  Today it is the world index being released and 153 nations are ranked, unfortunately the news is not so good.  For the third year running the world is less peaceful.

Beautiful clouds

We have all been watching the events in the Middle East and realize there is much unrest all over.  Ordinary citizens in Tunisia, Egypt, Syria, Yemen, Bahrain, Libya and even Spain and Greece have clogged the streets of their main cities to clamor for change through peaceful demonstrations that have led their governments to use violence to combat the threat.  Afghanistan, Iraq and Pakistan have experienced continued unrest as have large parts of Africa.  These hot spots have contributed to a less peaceful world.

The index is the worlds leading measure of peacefulness and measures twenty three separate indicators that reflect the existence or absence of peace. Iceland bumped out New Zealand and now occupies the top spot while Iraq has moved up one and let Somalia lay claim to last place.  The US is 82 rising three slots upwards but still two spots behind China at 80. Canada has moved into the top ten residing at number eight while Western Europe remains the most peaceful region in the world.  In Mexico, at 121, organized crime and the drug trade contribute to low scores.

Buck Island in the rain

“The US rank reflects much higher levels of militarization and involvement in external conflicts than its northern neighbor.  Several measures of societal safety and security also receive higher scores, including access to light weapons and the proportion of the population in jail(the largest of the 153 countries surveyed).” Institute for Global Economics and Peace

According to the report if the US reduced its violence to the same levels as Canada it could save approximately $360 billion and create a stimulus that could generate 2.7 million jobs.

Some of the findings found that societies that had lower discrimination, more informed citizens, high levels of trust within society, and gender equality tended to be more peaceful. For a more in depth look at the index visit http://www.visionofhumanity.org/

The other topic i wanted to visit briefly has to do with privacy. i’ve been thinking a lot about this topic as more and more of us use social media instead of one on one to connect with our “friends.”

Flooding

Privacy has to do with selective information.  We choose or think we choose what we want to broadcast to our “friends” and the world at large which includes government.  The boundaries of this information vary for each individual with some maintaining total blackouts while others spill their guts voluntarily. 

The right to privacy can be found in each countries laws with some claiming no privacy rights while others like our own lay out the parameters.  Privacy is not a universal concept, but we in the west have used privacy laws to protect ourselves from an intrusive government.

My only point here it that when anyone collects information about you it is harmless until that time that the collector decides to use it against you. In his essay The Value of Privacy, security expert Bruce Schneier says, "Privacy protects us from abuses by those in power, even if we're doing nothing wrong at the time of surveillance."

community and racism

And so it is.

Last night a meeting was called so that a developer could present his plan to the local community.  His project would impact a local beach by diverting a road through his property, taking it away from its place next to the ocean.  The issue is thorny and i'm not getting into the nitty gritty details of all the whole sordid mess.

What i wanted to write about is two people, one a white woman and the other a black man, both of whom attended the same meeting last night, but came away with vastly different outcomes.  This story is about community and racism in that community.

Although it was a full moon, the sky was obliterated by thundershowers.  Most people arriving late had to make do with standing room only. The facility was overflowing, the rain was coming down in buckets and the attendees were antsy.  Keep in mind this is one of the few communities on the island where the out turn was a melting pot of young, old, black, white and in-between.

i’m the white woman and my impression of the evening was one of glee. So many had turned out on such a wet soggy night to listen to and discuss an issue that could impact beach usage permanently.  i was proud of our community, proud of the cohesiveness when the final vote was taken, and proud of all the people who took the time to voice their concerns.

As i was walking out a local West Indian friend stopped me to chat.  She told me she was worried that the Caucasians would vote in favor of the change but that she was so happy with the vote against it that her fears had been dissipated.  The final tally of the evening was all in attendance against and no one raising their hands to vote in favor of the road change.

Even after the meeting finished and i was able to talk with people of all shades of white and black the glow remained.  i was so thrilled that so many people were of one mind and were willing to fight this to the end. The community i have always loved came through.

This morning i got an e-mail with this story about the same meeting.

Before the meeting started, but in an area where it was standing room only, one white man who was agitating in favor of the project addressed a black man as “You People” while he was describing 20 years of business at Cane Bay.  He went on to accuse “You People” of leaving garbage on the beach that he and his workers that he hired cleaned up daily.  When asked who he meant by “You People” he went off and used the F word.

My friend was offended and rightly so.  He was there at a community meeting hoping to learn something and possibly contribute constructively to the conversation. “You People” most positively meant that black people and only black people were responsible for trash on the beach. 

Now as an aside we all know that is not so.  In fact the area of the beach that sees a lot of trash accumulating in front of the restaurant and especially on weekends is probably frequented more by whites than blacks.

To accuse one man and every other black person by association, just because he is black of wholesale littering is the epitome of racism.  Having grown up in the 50’s and 60’s on the continent my friend had been here before, but hadn’t expected it last night.  The altercation ruined his evening and he left with a bad taste in his mouth and a belief that this man was one small example of the attitude that would come as more developers tried to implement their idea of change on a small West Indian island.

So... here you have two completely different experiences at the same community meeting, one filled with joy and a feeling of connectedness with everyone and the other experiencing a racist, not for the first time and probably not the last either. Luckily i was informed of this on the day my blog comes out because it needs an airing.

It shouldn't be ignored and it should be discussed. Racism is a problem on St. Croix and it exists.

Being a strong man my friend is following up with a letter to the local newspaper exposing who and what this man is and rightly so.

power surge and planets

Sunset clouds

Last night we had a power surge, not anything new, happens all the time.  Most of our appliances and computers etc. have surge protectors that kick in when the power goes out. Booting back up is usually no problem and we get back to normal.

My main computer is old and last nights surge did it in. i'd been thinking it wasn't long for this world but i wasn't actually ready to move it out. Fortunately the only thing i hadn't backed up was yesterdays work and eerily enough i had second thoughts when i decided not to print anything out or back up.

 i should have listened.

Cool clouds

We have been having cloudy weather here with much needed rain. So this morning it was touch and go as to whether we would get rained upon during the morning walk. Fortunately the clouds had broken up and the sky was visible. i commented to my friend that as i was walking to meet her i saw really bright planets or stars in the eastern sky. As it turns out it was one of those rare optimal viewing times to see Venus, Jupiter, Mars and Mercury. i guess i got really lucky and was one of the few to see it.

After a bit of research i found out that Jupiter and Venus were so close together this morning that they almost looked like a supernova. That must be why i thought it looked so unusual. If you are out tomorrow morning you should be able to see them again but looking more like a triangle with Mars in there too. NASA has a piece up about the configuration through out the rest of the month.  Between 5:00 and 5:30am is a great time to see them if its not too cloudy.  Do go its definitely a lovely sight.

Yellow-crowned Night Heron

Sticking with the stars and planets, there is a new theory out that suggests some black holes predate the big bang and could be part of the Big Crunch. All very interesting stuff if you have ever wondered about the Big Bang theory.  Way back when i was in college and taking Astronomy i found myself having a difficult time believing in the Big Bang. Why, thought i did the universe have to have a beginning? Was it because we all are born and then we die, so everything else has to too?

i had always thought back then that we thought ourselves too significant in the whole universal scheme. Who were we to come up with a Big Bang theory when we couldn't see any edge to the universe? Expansion did not mean explosion and what exactly was it we were exploding from?

Now scientists are  theorizing(that again) that we collapse over and over again, which creates new questions like if we are only a mere dot in the universe maybe our view is limited and these expansions and collapses are always happening.  Maybe there is no edge(which has always been my theory) and if we are exploding over and over could it be normal and natural?  If black holes are surviving the blast, leaving their signatures and sending out gamma rays that we examine could it be there never was a Big Bang that started it all? Could it be we can't see enough of the universe to develop a Big Bang or Big Crunch Theory?

i'd like to think so.

Public schools and vouchers

Pond reflection

Public schooling has been taking up a lot of my time lately. During an e-mail back and forth with my brother-in-law in California i asked him if there was anything positive he could say about Democrats.  He responded back that he was supporting what Jerry Brown was doing there for public education. Although surprised, i was thrilled to read his response.

South Shore

Here on St. Croix i volunteer three days a week in a public elementary school helping kids to read. i’m working in a second grade classroom with twenty nine students, a few of whom English is a second language.  With that many children the slower ones stand out like a sore thumb and need an incredible amount of individual attention that they aren’t getting.  i can see how children, even in the first few years, get left behind.

But to get to my point, all good politicians need a wedge issue to drive a stake through the status quo. In order to achieve the end goal of total privatization of education baby steps must occur.  Inflaming those who hate paying anything for anyone else through taxes is easy when you use vouchers as the wedge.

Hibiscus Show

First you start by claiming that public education is a socialistic regime and needs to be dismantled.  Claim that private education does a better job and you can get your children into a private school through the simple process of vouchers.  Don’t tell anyone that vouchers won’t pay the whole private school bill nor will the schools accept you if you are not an A or B student. Do tell them that this is a bipartisan issue and it will make education better for everyone.

In order to achieve the goal of total privatization and the evisceration of public education vouchers are the gold standard.

Historically public education was created so that schooling could be under the control of the government, free from religious biases, and available to all people irrespective of their status in society.  Jefferson saw that education was highly localized and only available to the wealthy; i'm going to say that again, education was localized and only available to the wealthy.  Jefferson wanted to change that scenario and make it available to all children regardless of wealth.

Pretty Chicken

As the state and federal government’s got more and more involved in financing public education the percentage of educated Americans increased. By 1996 the number of teenagers that had graduated from high school increased from a low of 6% in 1900 to 85% today. That is one heck of a statistic that is not ever talked about.

The reason it’s not talked about is because the voucher folks don’t want you thinking about the positive aspects of public education. All those educated folks came to be because of public schools. If Jefferson and his supporters hadn't supported public education those numbers might be significantly different. If you think about that statistic from 6% to 85% it makes public schools look pretty successful. 

i'll bet many of you reading this were public school students.

According to government data only one tenth of the total student population (55,203,000 in 2010) attends private schools. Where are all these private schools that you will use vouchers to attend coming from? Who is building them?

Well you already built them with your taxes but the voucher folks want you now to flip them into private institutions so they can start making money off of educating your child. Remember, making money is the only goal in life.

A voucher is a government issued certificate which allows parents to apply the amount given toward tuition in a private school.  Now keep this in mind, a voucher does not pay for the complete bill involved in private education.  It only pays for a part of the bill.  The main argument in favor of vouchers is that it allows choice and will create competition that will increase savings and educational outcomes. Makes you wonder who is going to save and get better educated?

The argument against vouchers is that they will decimate public schools.  Those same public schools that are graduating 85% of the nations children. That there will be a lack of accountability to the taxpayer, and that the real risk is not everyone will be able to afford school if all of them eventually become privatized; meaning a larger population of uneducated citizens.

Jonathan Kozol, a former public school teacher and prominent public school reform thinker has called vouchers the "single worst, most dangerous idea to have entered education discourse in my adult life.”

Please also keep in mind that private schools select their students; they are not mandated like public schools to accept everyone.

Working in the public school system this is abundantly clear. These kids are all across the board in ability levels, some of the kids i work with in second grade could be in fourth grade they are so skilled while others would be barely starting kindergarten their skills are so lacking, but they are all in one classroom and learning regardless.

In private schools this kind of broad ability in one classroom is an oddity.  Most of the kids there are working at the same approximate level.

Sunset

Remember vouchers are a wedge issue to get to the final point of no public education.

“Whether or not the public generally supports vouchers is debatable. Majorities seem to favor improving existing schools over providing vouchers, yet as many as 40% of those surveyed admit that they don't know enough to form an opinion or don't understand the system of school vouchers.” Wikipedia

Although this was very brief if you are at all concerned about educating the nation and not just your own child, do more digging. An educated nation means less poverty, more skilled workers, longer life spans etc. But if your pining away for tax cuts then by all means support the dumbing down of America.

Peace Index for the United States

The Peace Index for the United States came out while i was in California. i had a notice in my in box but with all the confusion i decided to wait until now to write about it. Being passionate about peace i couldn't let this one pass.

Every year the Institute for Economics and Peace puts out a global peace index that is a collection of data that has been compiled over the previous year.

Reflection of the sun as it is going down

This year for the first time they tried something different by focusing on each state in the nation instead of the global community. They will do a global index that will be released the end of May.

Accumulating statistics about the United States took place in five main areas, Education, Health, Politics and Demographics, Crime and Economic conditions. These five main areas were again divided up to cover things like high school graduation, educational funding, percent of females in the labor force, single parent families, voter turnout, infant mortality, teenage pregnancy, life expectancy, access to basic services, poverty, internet access, homicide, violent crimes, jailed population, availability of small arms, numbers of police in a state, and more categories too numerous to mention. The main crime delineations had the heaviest weight.

All in all a pretty concise use of a broad range of categories leading to a score that details the peacefulness of each individual state. For me an interesting outcome was that the data has shown that since 1995 the US has become more peaceful as a result of reductions in violent crime and homicide.

One of those knock out gorgeous, flat, glassy days

Now sit up and take notice, Peace, for all you political junkies out there, is politically neutral in the US. Neither Republican nor Democratic states showed an advantage when it comes to peace.

The report does say that if we as a nation were to reduce our homicides and violent crime to levels seen in Canada we could create 2.7 million extra jobs and reap $272 billion in additional economic activity, certainly not something to ignore.

Peace affects all of us in many positive ways and is directly correlated to economic opportunity, education and health. Below is a ranking of the states, Maine being the most peaceful while Louisiana is the least.  You can visit http://www.visionofhumanity.org/info-center/us-peace-index/ for more information. i don't know about you but if a peaceful environment means more money and more jobs whats not to like?

1. Maine
2. New Hampshire
3. Vermont
4. Minnesota
5. North Dakota
6. Utah
7. Massachusetts
8. Rhode Island
9. Iowa
10. Washington
11. Nebraska
12. Hawaii
13. Oregon
14. South Dakota
15. Connecticut
16. Idaho
17. Montana
18. West Virginia
19. Wisconsin
20. Kentucky
21. Pennsylvania
22. Ohio
23. Wyoming
24. Indiana
25. Virginia
26. New Jersey
27. Kansas
28. Colorado
29. New York
30. Alaska
31. Michigan
32. North Carolina
33. California
34. Mississippi
35. Illinois
36. Delaware
37. Arizona
38. New Mexico
39. Georgia
40. Missouri
41. Maryland
42. South Carolina
43. Oklahoma
44. Arkansas
45. Texas
46. Alabama
47. Florida
48. Nevada
49. Tennessee
50. Louisiana

St. Croix is so beautiful

"Wow, Mom, its really clear out there," yelled my son as he left for work this morning.
i realized when he said it that i had been tucked away in the family room looking at real estate listings for work. i hadn't noticed how beautiful the day was until his call to come out got me up from my seat and on the deck.

It really is a beautiful day today, one of those crystal clear types that jolt you out of your routine to take it all in. It's the kind of day when you wish everyone got to enjoy it just like you did.

Green Cay framed by palms

i live on a beautiful island and everyone who hasn't been here yet should come, but if you can't come enjoy the pics.

Looking down on Carambola

We make good music.
Kurt Schindler has a few St. Paddy's days video's up of his music...he is so good.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=r20rAE4Hr8E&feature=related
The Reggae Bubblers
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sd2NAouzbR4&feature=related

We make good rum
http://cruzanrum.com/

You can learn all about us at this website, even has web cams.
http://www.gotostcroix.com/

And some of my most recent pics from around the island taken this past week while entertaining visitors from California.

Cactus and view

So incredibly clear

The Baths

Coral sculptures at Issacs

So here is a little video of my favorite sound at the baths and some more pics.

The Hut at Issacs

Green Cay and Buck Island off in the distance