Day: May 6, 2005

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Mini-fisk of a fisk…

…of teachers’ salaries
 
While I agree in principle with the purpose and some of the content of the article, “The Teacher Salary Myth” on Coyote Blog has to say about public school (prisons for kids) teacher pay, this comment revealed an area where Coyote Blog is sucking swamp gas through a sewer pipe:
 
“… the “9 months” [per year work] estimate is only approximate, and doesn’t count the fact that teachers typically work a shorter work week than many other professionals….”
1.) “9 months”… “only approximate”?  I’ll say.  Now, I can’t speak for all public school teachers, and I know from personal experience that many are lousy, lazy bums, but… OTOH, I know more than a few that are not.  The good ones I know (and I know more than a few*) are “on the clock” for the better part of eleven months of the year, and for the other, well, that’s absorbed in Christmas, Easter, etc., and a couple of weeks real vacation in the summer. In other words, about what most other workers get. Don’t even try to give me the old “they only work from September through May” b.s.  I know better, from both personal experience and intimate acquaintance, backed up by reading policies and guidelines for more than one public school disctrict.
 
2.) “…the fact that teachers typically work a shorter work week than many other professionals….” Oh?  Let’s just take my wife as an example.  When she was a sixth grade teacher, sure, she only worked five days a week, officially.  Then there were those required “volunteer” days on weekends (kinda like the boss wanting salaried white collar employees to “come in on weekends” eh?) and the 7:00—4:30 (with lunch acting as time to be “prison guard” on kids) official times always becoming 6:00—midnight or thereabouts when all the paperwork (grading and remote administration-mandated documentation), planning, parent contacts, etc. were added in on a normal weekday.
 
(I’ll not even get started on the extra extra work over “vacation,” staying late daily, weekends, etc., that her next teaching gig after sixth grade entailed… just to do what was right by the students.  And she’s not the only teacher of her stripe.)
 
Don’t give me that crap about “shorter workweek.” No “business lunches” or “water cooler” or “coffee break” times.  Sure, a planning period (sometimkes three times a week), where lazy bums collecting a paycheck and not teaching goofed off in a so-called “teachers’ lounge”—while the real teachers (or those still trying to be real teachers) actually used the time for—gasp!—planning.
 
The unfortunate thing about “The Teacher Salary Myth” is that much of its analysis hinges on the myth of the nine month work year and the “shorter work week” assumed by the author.
 
And so it fails to convince me, since I know better.
 
Now, if Coyote Blog wanted to address “teachers” who are thieves—incompetent lazy bums taking paychecks for work they are not doing—then I’d be on that train.  I know more than a few of those. But then, we’d need also to start a discussion of the work ethic of white collar workers in general, if we were to be fair in comparing compensation… and I doubt Coyote Blog really wants to go there.
 
I am no fan of the “prisons for kids” experience (see here and here, too) we have called “public education, but a flawed fisk of teacher pay/benefits isn’t the proper road to take in fixing the problems.
 
*”more than a few”–let’s see: I’ve worked with (in the past) a couple of hundred.  Have family and extended family for at least a generation on either side of me filled with teachers, and I know far more I have met and gotten to know since I left the field.  All-in-all, it’s quite likely I know far more teachers and their experiences than anyone (including those who are teachers) else who responded to that article. The particular arguments that teachers work a shorter work year and shorter work week just do not wash.
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“O Blessed Holy Caffeine Tree”

On my second third cup now and cruisin’ toward number three four five …uh, six

A little something for those who love the Holy Bean.

Same gif with a midi file here.

 
This post is a clone of this one.  Just bumped to top with minor edits and the addendum below. After an inquiry about recording an mp3 of “O Blessed Holy Caffeine Tree” I’m now posting this “license” for its use:

1.) Sing it anywhere and any time you darn well please, no performance fees in any venue that’s not for pay.  Ask about licensing for paid venues.  *VBG* 🙂
2.) Any recordings you do not sell, same deal, with these additional provisos:
a.) I get a copy.  Post it somewhere and send me the link
b.) You link back to the manuscript at O Blessed Holy Caffeine Tree
c.) Post your comments on the hymn and if possible trackback to me.
d.) You include my copyright info in any posting of a recording
3.) Any numbers of copies you want to make of the printed music, feel free as long as you
a.) do not sell them and
b.) include my copyright info and
c.) let me know you printed copies

I’ve heard this sung a cappella and it’s the way I “hear” it in my head.  If you want to make an instrumental/vocal arrangement, please feel free, but please adhere to the above when you do.

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Time is getting short!

[BUMP to top: time IS getting short.  See IMAO shopping tips for Blogmothers Day™ at bottom of post]
 
Be sure to get in on spreading the Blogmothers Dayâ„¢ meme! And if you don’t have a Blogmother, consider “adopting” one, eh?
 
And remember also that Blogfathers Dayâ„¢ is coming up in a month or so…
 
I don’t care if you’re a member of The Dysfunctional Blogfamilyâ„¢, we can all share a little Bloglove® on these special days.
 
Let’s swamp the Blogosphere Meme Pool™® with warm fuzzies for these days, eh?
 
(Anyone want to take point on spreading the “Blogosphere Meme Pool™®” meme? LOL)
 
Last minute shoppers! See this at IMAO.  It just might answer your Blogmothers Day™ shopping needs!
 
Oh, and Whizbang ! is doing a roundup of “posts you may have missed”—and if I did the trackback right on that puppy, this one may well show up there, too… in the trackbacks section.  Some interesting stories there, including a rant about a school that banned playinng “Louie, Louie.” Spread the word about Blogmothers Dayâ„¢ , folks… time is running out.
 
UPDATE: check out the comments on this over at Bou’s.
 
ANOTHER UPDATE: My Blogmother has now acknowledged her progeny (of course, she had no idea what she had “birthed” until I mentioned to her my thanks for being directly instrumental in my “blog birth”… and her early encouragement with a simple and thoughtful email).  Thanks, Carol. And, as always, you can CLICK through to her site from my blogroll.  Sharp observation and analysis from a perspective of “…American political and religious liberty, free enterprise, limited government, military strength and traditional values…”

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Make the Punishment Fit the Crime

Alan Woody asks for suggestions on appropriate punishment for OBL and tickles my inner Curmudgeon into outright explosion
 
I posted a comment on Alan Woody’s “Bush’s Cowboy Attitude Rubbing Off On CIA?” after he asked for suggestions on appropriate punishment for Osama bin Laden.  Maybe I went a wee tad over the top.  You tell me:
 
RANT: ON
 
I’m kinda partial to
 
1.) Throw him in a pen of hungry swine and let nature take its course.
2.) Gather all the resultant excrement and save it for #3
3.) Salughter the swine; mix the blood, bone, and all other portions in a slurry with the excement and
4.) Air-drop the slurry over Mecca and Medina
 
Now, I know you’ll probably think the last 3 steps a little harsh, perhaps provocative. But if we do it after sending a company of Marines into Saudi Arabia to shut that country down (except for oil exportation, of course) and put a lid on wahhabism, and simply shoot all Muslims who protest the actions, no matter who or where they be, I think jihadism might be dealt a setback.
 
Yeh, the Mecca/Medina thing might alienate some Iraqis. So? Arm and train the Kurds (you know, once known as Saracens?) and let them loose (on Turkey as well as anyone else). Their ties to the Mecca/Medina brand of Islam are weaker to begin with, and heck, they could scare the living daylights outa the Iranian mullahs while they’re at it, probably wipe them and their ilk out.
 
Don’t know if it shows, but I’m just about outa patience with Islamic acceptance of jihadism.
 
RANT: OFF
 
Realistically, his head in a bed of dry ice (after a few hours of serious torture) would be fine by me. (Various other OBL body parts to be used creatively in interrogating other jihadists… )
 
So, what works for you?
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Global Warming? Blame it on cleaner air.

If (and it’s not yet been scientifically demonstrated) Global Warming freaks are right and we are heading for the furnace, they can thank the clean air freaks
 
Yep.  As anyone with more than two active brain cells knows, the “global warming” hypothesis is as yet not really tested. (The link is to comments of but one of many, many folks who just want some genuine research on the topic. See a few more here. Just a few of thousands such. See here and here and here for a couple of smart folks’ comments, even if one is a congresscritter. :-) The “studies” that support the hypothesis so far are about 90% propoganda with about 10% scientific gobbledegook thrown in (including in both percentages the numbers of complete fakes).
 
But this seems to indicate that if global warming is a genuine issue, then it may well be due to cleaner air allowing more sunlight to reach the ground.
 
“…a downward trend in the amount of sunlight reaching the surface, which has been observed since measurements began in the late 1950s, is now over.
 
“The researchers argue that this trend, commonly called ‘global dimming’, reversed more than a decade ago, probably following the collapse of communist economies and the consequent decrease in industrial pollutants.”
 
And that, the article asserts, could be a problem.
 
Talk about the law of unintended consequences…
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Skimming at a higher level

Not exactly soaring, but two posts led the way to 150 more hits than average
 
This isn’t a particularly high-traffic blog, so I don’t usually get all that pumped by a few extra visitors, but two posts led the way yesterday splitting 150 visits above my average visitor count. (150 “extra” pairs of eyes is a pretty significant jump for this blog.)
 
My “O Blessed Holy Caffeine Tree” post and my “Blogmothers Dayâ„¢” post.
 
huh.
 
Not my trenchant observations on the state of society or my witty humor.  Just two rather simple ideas: an homage to coffee and an homage to Blogmotherhood™.
 
What does this tell me? There are some bandwqagons leaving the station, folks (yeh, mixed metaphor, but that’s what metas are for, anyway, IMO): drink more coffee; send your Blogmom an eCard for Blogmothers Dayâ„¢.  Just. Do. it. (Them, whatever.)
 
BTW, after an inquiry about recording an mp3 of “O Blessed Holy Caffeine Tree” I’m now posting this “license” for its use:
 
1.) Sing it anywhere and any time you darn well please, no performance fees in any venue that’s not for pay.  Ask about licensing for paid venues.  *VBG* 🙂
2.) Any recordings you do not sell, same deal, with these additional provisos:
a.) I get a copy.  Post it somewhere and send me the link
b.) You link back to the manuscript at O Blessed Holy Caffeine Tree
c.) Post your comments on the hymn and if possible trackback to me.
d.) You include my copyright info in any posting of a recording
3.) Any numbers of copies you want to make of the printed music, feel free as long as you
a.) do not sell them and
b.) include my copyright info and
c.) let me know you printed copies
I’ve heard this sung a cappella and it’s the way I “hear” it in my head.  If you want to make an instrumental/vocal arrangement, please feel free, but please adhere to the above when you do.
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Dan Riehl is an evil, evil man…

Just read his confession
 
“… I’ve done something I’m not proud of and can probably never live down. But I know from past experience that being honest is the first step in any recovery. So, in the interest of being honest, so that maybe one day some people will forgive me for deceiving tme, betraying them, even – I’ve decided to show everyone who I can be when I get like this and what I am actually capable of when I get lost like I have the past few months.”
 
Go, read.
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Barnett doesn’t get it

As is par for such rants, Randy Barnett just doesn’t “get” the idea of software choice
 
Yeh, I know he doesn’t frame it that way, but his rant “I Hate Mocrosoft Word” talks past the simple fact that word processors, like all software, are matters of personal taste as much as anything else. So he’s been using Wordperfect for years and feels it’s much superior to MS Word.  So? Perhaps for some niche markets it is.  But then that might be said of MS Word or any other word processing software.  (Yes, there are more choices.)
 
For most mere mortals it won’t matter a bit which word processing software they use, as long as it does what they want.  And any word processor can be made to do darn near anything any other word processor can do.  For some, it seems (to particular users) that one is “more intuitive, easier-to-use, more elegant” than others. That’s usually simply because they have used other software that’s set up in a similar fashion, or they’ve used the so-called “more intuitive, easier-to-use, more elegant” piece of software they’re rhapsodizing about for years and its way of doing things seems right to them.
 
N.B.–I have yet to use any software that’s “intuitively” set up*.  Heck, keyboard and mousing skills are not intuitive; they’re learned. And the normal keyboard layout is clumsy, inefficient and extremely counterintuitive.  Hmmm… I wonder if Barnett uses am “elegant” keyboard layout with his “elegant” word processor?  Or does he use the same clunky keyboard layout the rest of use mere mortals use with regular old plain jane vanilla word processors?
 
Here’s a humorous quote from the Barnett article:
“…have I ever mentioned how much I detest Microsoft Word? Word reformats paragraphs and everything else as it wishes and it is sometimes next to impossible to trick it into keeping it to the format you prefer.”
Here’s just one of the ways you can customize how much (or how little) you want Word to  intrude with autoformatting, etc.
 
TOOLS>CUSTOMIZE “Always show full menus.”
TOOLS>AUTOCORRECT OPTIONS
 
Bob’s your uncle.
 
Now, catch this: I do not use Microsoft Word. Took me less than 30 seconds to drop into a google session, find the answer and type it. (I did check that process on a computer that does have Word installed.  Gee.  Had to walk 20 feet to do it. Woo Hoo!)
 
“…next to impossible” my fat white… arrggghhh! 
 
Barnett’s attitude is similar to the war between PC users and Mac religionists: PC users ocassionally notice gnats nibbling at their ankles crying, “The Mac is intuitive and PCs aren’t!”  The fact that Macs and PCs are both counter-intuitive to just about an equal degree matters not.  The fact that the 3%-4% worldwide market share Macs have is beneath the notice of most PC users is of no import, either.  Or that any Windows user can sit down at any 80% or more of “unfamiliar” Window machines and just start working, while it takes them quite some time to get used to a Mac (and vice versa–the stories I have! heh) —if they can find one in the wild to try out—is besides the point as well.
 
Diff’rent strokes,  Willis  Randy
 
Barnett is free, of course, to hate Microsoft Word and ankle-bite all he wants.  I’d submit that for the real world user, there’s no substantive difference between Word and Wordperfect, and Barnett’s just baying at the moon.
 
(BTW, I use OpenOffice, now, for all my office suite software needs. Read and save in other office suite formats? Sure. Save as pdf? Yes. Free? YES!  While there’s not a dime’s bit of difference between Word, Wordperfect and whomever, there’s several hundreds of dollars difference between commercial office suites and OpenOffice.  I prefer free, as long as I don’t give up functionality I need.  http://www.openoffice.org )
 
*One, and only one I have found, near exception to the “no intuitive software” observation is the music transcription software I have come to rely on as my primary music writing tool. “Near exception” because it depends heavily on some shared values, experiences, etc. It’s pretty much, fire up the software and start playing on a midi keyboard.  Music notation appears.  It’s more complex than that, of course, but the interface seems close to intuitive for someone who reads music well and can play a keyboard.  In fact, when I bought it and started using it, I didn’t even crack the manual (a manual!—”back in the day” indeed! and “heh” 🙂 for nearly a year.  And the help file? There was no stinking help file, cos it didn’t need one! Really easy to use, unlike the “other” now dominant music transcription software. Far greater contrast between my fav music transcription software and “the other one” (now dominant music transcription software) than between Word and Wordperfect, but I won’t make blanket “I hate _______” statements as a result of the fact that my fav doesn’t work like the other one.