I have a grandmother in San Francisco who’s health has been failing over the last few years. She recently went to the hospital over the weekend due to a number of complications. Although she is now in stable condition, it’s hard to say what will happen next, especially due to her age. Yet she’s already been in the hospital twice recently, it’s difficult to think about the next time she may end up there. So tonight, I’m dedicating this blog to my grandmother.
Monthly Archives: August 2005
Hurricane Katrina
This week, Hurricane Katrina decimated the southern coast of the US, including Louisiana and Mississippi. New Orleans was especially hit hard. Hundreds are already reported dead, and many are trapped because they were unable to evacuate. The amount of damage is so surreal that it makes my problems seem so insignificant. Everyone in the US is also affected financially because a number of fuel refineries were also hit by Katrina. As a result, many of us are dealing with the price of gas surpassing $3 a gallon (and possibly hitting $4 a gallon by the weekend). I’ll make my prediction now and say that the economy will not handle the ripple effect of Katrina’s destructive force. Tonight, though, I’m dedicating this blog to all of the victim’s that live in the areas hit by Hurricane Katrina.
The need for health care reform cannot be any clearer
Senator Herb Kohl (D-Wisconsin) was in the state this week talking with small business owners about his plan to help them cope with skyrocketing health care costs and coverage. But the business owners’ message was more straightforward than that: they suggest a major change in the nation’s health care system. I don’t disagree; health care costs have grown exponentially over the last few years. Every politician knows this, but none have approached the issue directly. The Appleton-Fox Cities Post-Crescent explains:
“While government continues to nibble around the edges of the problem – costs that are rising rapidly, hurting businesses and consumers, and affecting many levels of our society – the people want stronger action. They need it. In some cases, they’re desperate for it.”
So when can we expect some action from our elected officials? When do they stop beating around the bush and start attacking this issue head on? It wasn’t popular back in 1992 when President Bill Clinton made it part of his platform, but costs have gotten out of hand, and the record of those treated for health issues in the world’s richest nation is abominably abysmal.
The Post-Crescent article: Editorial: Small-business owners have message for all lawmakers
Call for Help returns
I had pretty much given up on G4TV (which bought out TechTV) a few months ago, but I still continue to receive newsletters from the network once in a while. So I was surprised when I received an e-mail stating that Call for Help was back on the air in the US. I’m excited because Leo Laporte is a great and very knowledgeable host. He has the skill of explaining technology in layman’s terms. Welcome back Leo and decent tech television!
Great Lakes water to venture beyond its basin?
The City of Waukesha developed rapidly over the past decade with the expansion of new businesses and residential developments. Now it is faced with dwindling water supplies. The City claims that its groundwater feeds Lake Michigan, so it should receive some water from the great lake. Whether this is true or not should first be studied. But other questions need to be answered as well.
Waukesha and surrounding communities grew rapidly since the early 1990′s (if I remember correctly). This means that they have lost a lot of natural meadows and landscapes that would have otherwise retained a lot of moisture and fed their aquifers. With road expansion and new developments, the communities are experiencing more storm water runoff. This results in more street level pollution. Lake Michigan already has a number of problems with storm water runoff from the City of Milwaukee and other coastal communities. And pollution and invasive species continue to plague the Great Lakes. These problems need addressing, and action plans must start happening before Great Lakes water can go to other areas outside of the natural basins.
Finally, the City of Waukesha’s claim needs to be confirmed. This should be done via an independent scientific study, perhaps by contracting with the United States Geological Survey (if that’s the federal agency that could conduct such a study). The findings should be verified by Wisconsin’s Legislative Audit Bureau and either the federal Government Accountability Office. This study should remain outside the political arena as much as possible.
Yet more evidence that Darwin’s theory of natural selection is right
Although I don’t think the loss of life should ever be taken lightly, here is another great example of natural selection and the fact that the “Darwin Awards” are “awarded†posthumously to those that manage to remove themselves from the gene pool. I think it also falls into the “this is an example of bad karma catching up with you” category. In short, police officers are trained to defend themselves and their guns, so reaching for the officer’s firearm after taking a couple of swipes at him or her is typically not in your own best interest.
Technology not living up to the promise in the classroom
Schools face a shortage of public funding and subsidies for computers in their classrooms. For some reason, I’m not surprised (which I’ve stated for some time now). It seems that some folks are unclear as to what technology can do in the classroom. I think Milwaukee Journal Sentinel journalist Amy Hetzner did a great job reporting on this in a three-part series on how computer funding for classrooms is slowing to a trickle.
She indicates in the first article how using technology in the classroom is not resulting in academic outcomes that were anticipated. Although some use has resulted in a better understanding of the technology by teachers and students, it does not seem like it has allowed kids to develop their academic skills as well as expected. Instead, many computers are not used, and when they are, teachers are using them for administrative work (such as reporting grades). Now there is some debate as to whether or not kids should even be taught the programs that will be obsolete by the time they reach college or the workforce, and even if keyboarding skills are really necessary (my answer to both is no, but then again I was pretty adept at learning how to use Microsoft Word on my own when it was competing against the mighty WordPerfect).
I think the saddest part of this article is that a seventh-grade geography class uses, “PowerPoint presentations, word processing, Internet research on cultures and countries of the world, spreadsheets to compare data, graphs and video configurations.†Although the class uses many tools for their work, the sad part is that there is no mention of one of the most powerful geography tools out there: geographical information systems (GIS). GIS has posted itself to become a major data warehouse in many fields. Knowing this tool would help prepare many geography and cartography students for the future. However, GIS is complicated to learn (in my experience), but it’s a skill that many can learn in late high school and college. Even using it as a visual tool in the earlier grades will promote it. I think that it is truly sad that the computer in a geography class does not have the most important software tool that would make sense in a geography class.
In article two, Hetzner describes the reduction of public funding and how to maintain and replace the equipment. Even those of us that work with this stuff daily know that when you buy a PC, it has a lifecycle of about three to five years (five years is pushing it). Plus the behind-the-scenes stuff (servers, network hubs, wiring, software) works only for so long before it needs replacing. Although proponents of classroom computer technology advocated their use because they are used in the workplace, they seemed to overlook these long-term needs and costs.
Article three explains how proponents believe that the reason why students are not excelling as expected is because they do not have as much access to the technology. Thus a number of schools have embarked on providing computers in front of each student. Even with this one-to-one ratio of computer use, though, the results do not show remarkable improvements in academic achievement. Even students at these schools view computers more as tools than magic bullets. One student is proficient at repairing the hardware when it goes down, while another lost her homework in the system and recognizes that computer use is not truly integrated in their work. Even their use in math and science is limited, versus usage in English for writing and history for Web searches.
Hetzner does a great job of giving a very balanced approach to how technology is being used while also providing insight as to how it is and is not being utilized. Her articles are skillfully written and show both sides of the argument. Still, some of my questions remain: How much more capable, if at all, are students becoming in the academic basics? Are they truly learning and retaining more history and science? Are they writing with grammatical proficiency? Are they able to solve complex mathematical, physics, and chemistry equations?
Unfortunately, she doesn’t answer the most important question:Â Will these kids be prepared to deal with these same problems when the computers break down and stop working?
JSOnline Article one: Is technology in schools the future or just a fad?
JSOnline Article two:Â Schools must weigh costs vs. benefits of technology
JSOnline Article three:Â Some push schools to put computers in front of all students
More evidence decrying intelligent design
Yesterday I wrote an article about the flaws in intelligent design theory. So my friend Jason added this link to his web site. Again, this stuff is so obvious, how can we accept intelligent design as a valid possibility? It’s narcissistic and ludicrous.
The wrong approach to solving gas prices
Wisconsin Congressional Representative Ron Kind is not wrong in asking why gas prices are high now. Neither is Republican Party Third Congressional District Chairman Gary Arneson. However, Arneson suggests that Kind is wrong by looking at alternative energy sources. Furthermore, he blasts Kind for voting against drilling in the Arctic Circle for more oil. That is extremely short-sighted of Arneson.
Arneson’s argument has major holes. First, alternative energy sources for powering our homes affects fuel prices. By using less fuel in power plants, producers can provide more to motorists. We see prices change with the seasons because of production of facility (homes and businesses) heating fuel. That same fuel comes from crude oil.
Second, crude is a limited resource. By drilling for more of it, we’re only postponing the problem. Former President Jimmy Carter proposed looking for alternative fuel sources over two decades ago when people were literally sitting in line to put gas in their cars. Instead of becoming more independent of fuel, we Americans entered the 1980′s with a new “manifest destiny” mentality, thanks to President Carter’s successor killing the alternative energy program. We started buying vehicles (that is, sport utility vehicles) that consumed more gasoline, and when the industry responded with vehicles that guzzled more fuel, we bought more of them (like anyone would need a Mercedes-Benz or Cadillac SUV). We are only now reacting to the prices when we should have been actively looking for alternatives more than 20 years ago (and who says history does not repeat itself).
Third, our wasteful consumerism has driven the price of crude oil to skyrocket. The United States now relies on foreign manufacturing, and foreign manufacturing relies on fuel to power their plants. Because the finite supply continues to decrease and the demand across the planet continues to jump, economic supply and demand kick in and require costs to go up. As I stated, drilling for more oil is merely a temporary solution. Once all of the fuel is used up, what do we do then?
Finally, Arneson argues that wind power, solar energy, and ethanol cannot be quickly integrated into the economy, so we must remain dependent on gasoline. But he fails to mention that this technology is not new. Ethanol has been available for over two decades. Wind power was used in Europe in the form of windmills when the Native Americans were the only people on this continent. And solar collector technology continues to move forward as researchers develop more economical ways for it to be used in many parts of the western United States.
These arguments are not new. They’ve been around since the last fuel crisis. As a nation, though, we just decided to ignore it and focus on our own grandiose ambitions instead of acting as proper stewards of the world (since we have the power to). But any person with an ounce of intelligence and some awareness of recent events does not have to read this to know the facts… they merely need to look at the historical record to find that out.
Everyday evidence of evolution
The debate between creationism and evolution is again at the forefront of our psyches (we obviously are tired of hearing about all of the US soldiers dying in Iraq, only 27 months after major combat had been declared “ended,” and we only have more important issues to really deal with, such as our dependence on foreign oil, state and federal deficits, and the offshoring of our jobs). The latest argument that I’ve heard is called “intelligent design.” This theory suggests that we could not have evolved by chance; some divine power was involved in the creation of all living beings. To me, it seems like an attempt to bridge science and faith. But it’s too simplistic, and it lacks any empirical evidence that evolution offers. And now there’s a push to require it to be taught in our schools.
The “proof” that I recently read about refers to the development of the eye. Certain creatures have special photo receptors that allow them to see things that other creatures cannot. Per intelligent design advocates, this could not have developed by chance; some form of intervention was involved. But biologists point to the fossil record and show that a slight mutation that led to survival is the explanation for its development. The fossil record has plenty of evidence of that. I further argue that there are creatures that have eyes that are not very useful. For example, bats have eyes that they do not fully exploit; since they are nocturnal hunters, they rely much more on their sonar abilities. And since the nocturnal carnivores tend to live in caves, the need for an alternative to the eye further shows that evolution had a greater part in the development of sonar; it could not have evolved by design. If that were the case, creatures with similar lifestyles would also have this ability.
But there is more evidence that intelligent design has less viability than evolution. And this evidence exists in our everyday lives. For the past fifty years, we’ve relied on antibiotics to destroy unwanted bacteria that invade our bodies and wreak havoc on our health. During that time, bacteria that escaped the demise brought about by penicillin and such have come back stronger and more resistant to the drugs that we’ve developed. It’s probably a simple example of evolution, but there is plenty of empirical evidence, and it was not the result of divine design (but rather of human ingenuity and overuse).
I think additional evidence is apparent in the cultures of the world. If you look at the different languages that are spoken, many of them developed quite differently across major regions. Spoken languages in Europe differ from those in Africa and Asia. The sounds vary, some are still only spoken, and some use sounds (such as clicking) that are considered bizarre in other cultures. The way different cultures write are further evidence that human language was not developed by design. If they were, I would think that we’d see closer similarities to the languages. Although the Bible’s Old Testament explains these differences away in an incident with lightning striking a very tall tower in Babel, it’s too simplistic and does not explain the huge disparities in language and culture (or as I like to say, the Onion is America’s finest news source). It’s so obvious that one cannot miss why European languages are written from left to right, yet middle-eastern (including Hebrew) are written from right to left, or why European names are in given name, surname order while oriental names are surname, given name order.
These are simple yet compelling examples of how life evolved by chance rather than by design. Simple explanations of “because it’s in the Bible†don’t hold water. It makes no sense to believe everything you read. And the argument of development by design does not have much credibility either, as I’ve just demonstrated.
Time Magazine article, “The Evolution Wars” (the full online article is only available to subscribers; look for the August 15 issue at your newsstand or library)
Time Magazine article, “Face-Off: Darwinians vs. Anti-Darwinians”
