Mail 696 Sunday, October 16, 2011

It is that time of the year: KUSC is having its pledge drive. I time mine to coincide with theirs, so be prepared to be bombarded for a week with exhortations. I operate this place on the Public Radio Model – it is free, but if not enough donate, it will go away. So far it is healthy. It needs subscriptions and renewals to keep it that way. SUBSCRIBE NOW! RENEW NOW! Thanks!

Letter from Uruguay

Roundup of News Items

Grapes of Wrath Part 2

Education

neglect of the High Flyers

Jerry,

I found this and it points out what you’ve been saying; that we are hurting the high flyers by focusing on the below average students.

http://www.humanevents.com/article.php?id=46896

My daughter works as a tutor, and she sees your concern every day where she tries to make the above average get the extra advancement they can handle.

r/Spike

The study raises a troubling but predictable question: Is the U.S. preoccupation with closing achievement gaps and "leaving no child behind" coming at the expense of our "talented tenth"?
Although this study was done at the elementary school level, it has a direct bearing on higher education. So focused are academics on an egalitarian ethos, that distinctions, once critical in the Academy, have virtually disappeared.
With grade-inflation endemic, the honor roll is little more than a roster of enrolled students. Even Phi Beta Kappa status has been diluted by undifferentiated grading.
To suggest that there is a talented tenth that deserves special treatment would be regarded as a form of "elitism," a pejorative, widely used on campus.

In my judgment one of the two major purposes of tax supported education is to make certain that the high flyers reach their potential. The other purpose is to civilize all the pupils and to make skills available to all those who want them and will learn them. Those who don’t want to learn and refuse to be civilized do not deserve any attention. Those who cannot learn should be pointed in a direction that leads to becoming a valuable citizen – but it is no kindness to them to neglect those who will invent the future in order to do that.

I understand the resentment of the Occupy Wall Street group who say, with justice, and there hasn’t been a lot of trickles down from the bailout; but it remains true that rising tides float all boats, and not much else does. Spending a fortune bailing out an old wreck doesn’t bring as many fish into the village as would sprucing up the best boat, to use a very imperfect analogy.

Education resources are scarce, and taxes hurt: to take money from a childless couple and spend it on upping a test score from 38^th percentile to 42^nd percentile is neither just nor effective.

We need the high flyers as contributors to the society.

Letter From Uruguay

education, money, culture

I’ve followed with attention your comments about injecting funds into the higher education system, something pretty much like it has happened here, a huge amount of funds has been thrown at the whole education process, most of that has gone into salaries, with no discernible improvement. The catch the whole system is government run and (theoretically) free to every citizen, I say theoretically because in many instances if your family can’t support you the class hours in every college make it all but impossible for a student to be self sustaining before graduating.

The public university here in Uruguay has a budget roughly equal to that of the university of Chicago, however most faculties do not have up to date equipment and facilities are mostly in a rather woeful state, some are better managed than others, but unless the dean of a specific college has a very powerful personality it is unlikely that things work well. Many professors teach because they love to do so, but their salaries are low, not because of lack of funds, simply because of gross mismanagement.

Several high schools have been closed down on account of extreme decay in the buildings, it is not lack of money, it is lack of will, the secondary education council has not seen it fit to name someone to look after the upkeep of the different buildings. Let me say this upfront, building maintenance was always a problem, but it used to be that the parents would get together and raise money to see that most things worked. It would seem that they don’t take that approach any more. Why? Because the left leaning government which has run the country for the last 7 years and the capital for the last 20 has taught most of the population that being poor is meritorious, that they deserve money on account of being poor, not in order to help them get up by their bootstraps, but rather to keep them out of work and creating a culture of poverty and (dare one say it?) entitlement.

The downward spiral is evident to everyone by now, but as was unintentionally admitted by one of the government’s senators, this gives them an inside angle with about a third of the country’s population, it also has created a toxic environment where unions, which do have an important role in protecting workers, have entered politics and also they are promoting class warfare, yes in some many words. The net result is that several factories owned by multinational companies are in the process of pulling out of the country.

Need I go on? What I want to convey is that this country which used to be called "the Switzerland of America" is now one more banana republic, not much different from those which were so called in the early 20th century. And by the way, crime is on the rise, because criminals are actually "victims of society" and those they commit crimes against had it coming by being better off than them, never mind that they worked to get whatever was taken away from them, not to mention risk to life and limb.

So, do try to get rid of most of those decrees and laws, make it mandatory to work, teach policemen to be civil to people on the street (yes I mean it) and civil servants to be civil to servitors of the people and you may yet get out of the current mess. Otherwise look south to see what you may become.

All the best

Ariel Fabius

I am sorry but not astonished to hear it. It appears to be the way of the world: an Iron Law ruling class is locking itself into place here and there and everywhere. See Pareto on the circulation of elites.

anecdote on reading & education

Your comment the other day about reading and literacy and so forth brought some of my childhood to mind in an interesting way. You said:

Jerry: "If you can read you can read. You may not know the meaning of many words, but you can read them. But we have forgotten that this was ever true."

I was a youngster learning to read in the 1971, or so. And the funny thing is, I had no idea that there was such a thing as grade level reading. My parents, in fact, encouraged me to read whatever I could put my hands on and was interested in reading. There were a few exceptions they made because a 5 year old boy just wasn’t going to grasp the topics of the book. But, those were few and far between.

By the time I was in first grade, I knew who Napoleon was, for example, and had a reasonable grasp of what the French Revolution was about, how Napoleon cam to power, what the Napoleonic Wars were and so forth. One day in first grade, I went in the library and found a very interesting book about Admiral Nelson and the Battle of Trafalgar. So, I grabbed it and took it up to the counter to check out. The librarian was almost horrified when she saw that this 6 year old boy wanted to check out a book that was for children much older. She carefully pointed out to me that it had "big words" and didn’t have many pictures (she showed me the only section that had pictures, the rest was all words). I had to insist that I could read the book, that I really wanted to read it and that no, I didn’t want a book that was "easier". She made me promise to bring it back right away if I didn’t like it.

This idea that there is "grade level reading" and appropriate reading material based on your age has been going on for at least forty years, apparently. My son (who is now a student at a very nice private university in Tacoma, Pacific Lutheran) was shocked to discover that Heinlein’s "Tunnel in the Sky" had been considered a juvenile book when published. He was 13 at the time, and made it very clear that no other 13 year old boy he knew was reading anything even close to this in terms of complexity of language or plot. When I was 13, Heinlein’s juveniles were still considered okay for adolescent boys. Apparently we have degraded from there.

Just one more point about where all this leads. When I attended Sac State, as an engineering major, I was 12 – 13 years older than many my classmates since I had spent about 11 years in the Army before going to college. Even though I’d been out of high school that long, my SAT scores were high enough that I could register for calculus and freshman English without having to take a test to see if I was ready for the classes. I was a bit concerned, but decided that taking the bonehead classes was a bad idea since the GI Bill wouldn’t pay for them.

I found myself sitting next to 18 & 19 year old students in calculus and English, many of whom had to take bonehead classes before they could take freshman level classes. And they were, for the most part, in engineering and science majors, rather than some sort of liberal arts or social sciences major. And this 30 year old guy who hadn’t been in school for over a decade was getting better grades and performing better in those classes, fundamental classes if you want to be an engineer, than the kids were. That is the end result of a government run school system that insists on "grade level" reading and age appropriate education and learning. The freshman engineers in the State Universities of the richest state in the richest country on earth are nearly functionally illiterate.

Some days I am very optimistic and some days not so much. Today seems to be in the latter category.

Eric

I understand thoroughly. I discovered Adventures in Time and Space when I was in high school. Fortunately the Brothers encouraged me to read such things. But those were different times. Despair is a sin – and there is good reason for hope.

Good points on Perry

http://pajamasmedia.com/blog/last-nights-debate-means-nothing-perrys-pluses-are-still-undeniable/?singlepage=true

About how I feel about it as well.

Phil

Perry began in politics flying his Piper Cub around in Texas. He’d land in a field. Get out. Wearing a suit. To be met by a farmer/rancher with a shotgun, because who flies around in Texas wearing a suit. Perry would explain. Fifteen minutes later the rancher would be writing him a check. He doesn’t come off well in debate.

He has many strong points. His chief negative in the debates other than his general inability to look like a debate team captain, was the cervical cancer vaccination issue.

I do not dispute the right of the State of Texas to make getting a vaccination the default in a non-contagious malady (that is, making it opt-out rather than opt-in). I would argue against that as a policy, but I also understand the impulses involved in the decision. The States have a residual sovereign power that the Federal government not only does not have, but was explicitly forbidden; and that Perry understands full well. It’s one of his strongest points. He very much understands the concepts of states’ rights and the limited power of the Federal government.

Perry remains strong. Of course I agree with Newt that anyone on that platform is preferable to Mr. Obama. Obama is below the magic 43% approval – and falling.

: Rick Perry energy plan

http://pajamasmedia.com/tatler/2011/10/14/rick-perry-unveils-energy-plan-to-get-government-out-of-the-way-and-get-america-working-again/

Sensible and allows congress to catch. Why can’t he debate?

Phil

Copyright violation apps?

Dr. Pournelle:

I don’t know if you’ve seen this yet, or something similar.

http://www.absolutewrite.com/forums/showthread.php?t=227542

Tom Brosz

I have passed the information along to our agent, and I understand that measures are being taken. Thanks. Thanks to Harlan for calling attention to this.

Obama Sends Combat Troops to Central Africa | The Blog on Obama: White House Dossier

Jerry,

I suspect that you are aware of the latest war that Obama has gotten us into, but I also wanted to draw your attention to this Blog

http://www.whitehousedossier.com/2011/10/14/obama-sends-combat-troops-central-africa/

I see absolutely no national security interest at stake and it is difficult to justify when it has become open season on Coptic Christians.

Jim Crawford

It is the Great Guilt Trip from the Rwanda massacre: Clinton sent the troops to the Balkans, making enemies of the Slavophilic Russians and aiding and abetting the Albanian atrocities in Kosovo, rather than sending a much smaller force to Africa to stop the machete genocide. Now we must all pay for that.

One might justify not sending Legions to Africa; but then to send them to Europe? As if Europe cannot manage its own territorial disputes? So we become involved in territorial disputes in Europe, but we cannot send a thousand Marines to Africa to avert the massacre of a million Tutsi. The guilt lies heavy.

NYPD busted for planting drugs

Dear Dr. Pournelle,

I apologize for cluttering your email box for a third time in a week, but I thought this story absolutely fascinating and worthy of your attention.

http://www.nydailynews.com/news/ny_crime/2011/10/13/2011-10-13_excop_we_fabricated_drug_raps_for_quotas.html

"

A former NYPD http://www.nydailynews.com/topics/New+York+City+Police+Department narcotics detective snared in a corruption scandal testified it was common practice to fabricate drug charges against innocent people to meet arrest quotas.

The bombshell testimony from Stephen Anderson http://www.nydailynews.com/topics/Stephen+Anderson is the first public account of the twisted culture behind the false arrests in the Brooklyn http://www.nydailynews.com/topics/Brooklyn+%28New+York+City%29 South and Queens narc squads, which led to the arrests of eight cops and a massive shakeup.

Anderson, testifying under a cooperation agreement with prosecutors, was busted for planting cocaine, a practice known as "flaking," on four men in a Queens bar in 2008 to help out fellow cop Henry Tavarez http://www.nydailynews.com/topics/Henry+Tavarez , whose buy-and-bust activity had been low"

This isn’t the way you were trained to view the police, was it? But that seems to be the new facts on the ground. The police serve the bureaucracy and its quotas, not the citizenry. They are therefore best avoided if at all possible.

Respectfully,

Brian P.

An Iron Law ruling class is an Iron Law ruling class.

”There were very strong voices calling for democracy and rule of law and bringing the party under supervision.”

<http://www.smh.com.au/world/the-partys-no-fun-for-children-of-the-revolution-20111016-1lrm0.html <http://www.smh.com.au/world/the-partys-no-fun-for-children-of-the-revolution-20111016-1lrm0.html#ixzz1axODoIli>

”The Communist Party is like a surgeon who has cancer,” Ms Ma told this almost unprecedented unofficial gathering of powerful families that took place in a conference room at the China World Trade Centre on October 6. ”It can’t remove the tumour by itself, it needs help from others, but without help it can’t survive for long.”

Read more: http://www.smh.com.au/world/the-partys-no-fun-for-children-of-the-revolution-20111016-1lrm0.html#ixzz1azWbyeAF

I do not think this will cause much change in Chinese policy. Nor will it be much comfort to the Uighers.

climbing fithp

Greetings! Every semester, at midterm (just about now, for the Fall) I assign an optional reading project to my intro Physics classes.* This term, it’s _Ringworld_ – ho, Niven! – but I change it up regularly, and I’ve chosen _The Mote in God’s Eye_ and _Footfall_ before. So… will we ever find out what Herdmaster Dawson does next? Are we arboreals going to pay the snouts back – or show them up by interpreting their own podo in ways they never considered, and make them part of *our* fithp? (Nice of them to bring the manual with them….) Your other sequels having come out so well, I’m hopeful that you and Niven might come up with something during one or your hikes. And I promise I’ll buy one – in hardcover, if we still have that option then!

Ryan Droste. TTC Physics

*About two weeks before classes end, I distribute a set of questions; these count as a take-home exam for extra credit. I always include at least one question regarding specific content (e.g., who killed Fathisteh-Tulk?), along with questions requiring calculations from situations in the story (calculate the speed of the Foot on impact with Earth, assuming the Fithp gave it just enough speed to escape from orbit around Saturn). Some of their best efforts now hang on my office walls.

Ryan Droste

Thanks. For those concerned with the story, you can find it here. It’s still a good read. The late publishing giant Judy-Lynne Del Rey wanted us to do a sequel to be called Harpanet for President, but alas she died before she could talk us into a contract. It’s a bit late for a sequel to an alternate history work, isn’t it?

Oath of Fealty

Jerry

The Arcology – the concept at the center of Larry’s and your book The Oath of Fealty – has arrived:

http://pajamasmedia.com/lifestyle/2011/10/14/san-joses-santana-row-the-future-of-shopping/?singlepage=true

Ed

Oath of Fealty was a best seller, and remains one of my favorite collaborations. It still holds up well. I was on a panel of experts consulted by the California State Legislature on future plans, and found myself having lunch and then dinner with Paolo Soleri, which is where my interest in arcologies became highly activated; he is a very stimulating man. And Niven and I visited a number of places as research. I enjoyed writing that book

Some Hope

Alaska’s lone congressman may be reading your column. I hope so.

www.politico.com/news/stories/0911/64612.html.

Mark Harriger

Thanks! I am given to understand that he may be but I do not have direct communication.

Re: A Roundup of News Items

Jerry,

If fish can form a school and baboons bring a congress into session, then I can round up these news items that you might find interesting or worthy of note and drive them to Rancho de Chaos Manor for you.

I believe this relates to the concept of hormesis, which you have occasionally mentioned:

"It’s been hidden in the bowels of the Atomic Energy Commission for decades until I found it. They revised it to remove the one sentence suggesting this experiment might provide evidence for the threshold model."

UMass Amherst Researcher Points to Suppression of Evidence on Radiation Effects by 1946 Nobel Laureate <http://www.umass.edu/newsoffice/newsreleases/articles/136706.php>

A mother-load of titanium on the moon:

Subtly Shaded Map of Moon Reveals Titanium Treasure Troves <http://www.europlanet-eu.org/outreach/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=360&Itemid=41>

The (predicted) bad news from Egypt:

"In the eight months since Mubarak’s ouster, the military has tried and convicted some 12,000 Egyptian civilians in military tribunals, often after using torture to extract confessions. "

"As for Egypt’s Coptic Christians, their plight has gone from bad to worse. Post-Mubarak Egypt has seen “an explosion of violence against the Coptic Christian community,’’ the international news channel France 24 was reporting as far back as May. “Anger has flared up into deadly riots, and houses, shops, and churches have been set ablaze.’’

With Islamist hardliners growing increasingly influential, hate crimes against Christians routinely go unpunished. Copts, who represent a tenth of Egypt’s population, are subjected to appalling humiliations."

More Evidence of the Repressive Nature of the New Egyptian Government <http://volokh.com/2011/10/13/more-evidence-of-the-repressive-nature-of-the-new-egyptian-government/?utm_source=feedburner&utm_medium=feed&utm_campaign=Feed%3A+volokh%2Fmainfeed+%28The+Volokh+Conspiracy%29&utm_content=Google+Reader>

Also predictable:

Missing Libya Missiles Find Their Way to Gaza Border <http://abcnews.go.com/Blotter/missing-libya-missiles-find-gaza-border/story?id=14729363>

Predictable on the home front:

Coast Guard member spit on near Occupy Boston tents <http://www.myfoxboston.com/dpp/news/local/occupy-boston-protesters-spit-on-coast-guard-member-20111013>

In my own view the legitimate protesters have been left high and dry by the hollow campaign chants "Yes we can! Yes we can!" and the empty campaign promise of "Hope and change! Hope and change!" Learning that people you emotionally buy into are totally willing to lie to you and care nothing about you is painful. Sadly, they are now being used as pawns by all manner of political vermin, both those pushing the occupations for their own party’s gain as well as the many fringe elements (such as those who spat upon the Coast Guardswoman) who would tear down society and remake it in their own flea-ridden image.

How many major institutions failed as a result of being too closely intertwined with Goldman Sachs? Peter Wallison points out "none".

The Myth of Systemically Risky Institutions <http://volokh.com/2011/10/13/the-myth-of-systemically-risky-institutions/>

At least they paid for parking:

Drug Smugglers Tunnel Into Arizona Parking Spaces <http://news.yahoo.com/drug-smugglers-tunnel-arizona-parking-spaces-193126687.html>

Another example of enlightened leaders who should be trusted with all our personal information, whether related to health, a nation’s security, or otherwise:

Government minister dumps documents in park bins <http://nakedsecurity.sophos.com/2011/10/14/government-minister-dumps-documents-in-park-bins/?utm_source=feedburner&utm_medium=feed&utm_campaign=Feed%3A+nakedsecurity+%28Naked+Security+-+Sophos%29&utm_content=Google+Reader>

A Technology Review blog post on one physicist’s explanation of the faster than light neutrinos, and why they did not actually travel faster than light. He believes the experimenters did not correct their time calculations to account for the motion of the GPS satellites (used to synchronize the earth-bound clocks) relative to the location of the experiment:

Faster-Than-Light Neutrino Puzzle Claimed Solved by Special Relativity <http://www.technologyreview.com/blog/arxiv/27260/?ref=rss>

Regards,

George

Thanks! I have dealt with some of those. The CERN Opera experimental data are still in discussion; it is unlikely that the CERN team overlooked anything obvious. They understand general relativity.

The grapes of wrath part 2

Dear Dr. Pournelle,

http://www.zerohedge.com/contributed/you-know-your-city-has-become-hellhole-when%E2%80%A6

http://theeconomiccollapseblog.com/archives/american-hellholes

I thought you might find this article on different issues in American cities interesting.

The 1000+ people living in tunnels in Las Vegas sounds a bit like H.G. Wells’ "Time Machine"

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-1326187/Las-Vegas-tunnel-people-How-1-000-people-live-shimmering-strip.html

There’s also SpiritWood, ND, which is ripping up its paved roads to replace it with gravel.

http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424052748704913304575370950363737746.html

Despair is a sin, as you say. This was not the America of the 1940s or the 1950s. If we can jettison the remaining 1960s’ "Great Society" garbage and re-discover the meaning of ‘opportunity’ and ‘economic freedom’, these trends can be reversed. We built this society in the first place, after all, so we can do it again.

Respectfully,

Brian P.

November 2012 may be as important as was the hot summer of 1787. We could have a circulation of elites and a reset on the Iron Law Establishment. We could have.

Foreign Policy Research Institute

Over 50 Years of Ideas in Service to Our Nation www.fpri.org You can now follow FPRI on Facebook and FPRINews on Twitter

E-Notes

Distributed Exclusively via Email

~MIDDLE EAST MEDIA MONITOR~

POST-MUBARAK EGYPTIAN ATTITUDES TOWARD ISRAEL by Michael Sharnoff

October 14, 2011

Middle East Media Monitor is an FPRI E-Note series, designed to review once a month a current topic from the perspective of the foreign language press in such countries as Egypt, Iran, Iraq, Israel, and Turkey. These articles will focus on providing FPRI’s readership with an inside view on how some of the most important countries in the Middle East are covering issues of importance to the American foreign policy community.

Michael Sharnoff is a Ph.D. candidate in Middle East Studies at King’s College, London. His research focuses on Egyptian perceptions of peace after the 1967 War.

Available on the web and in pdf format at:

http://www.fpri.org/enotes/2011/201110.sharnoff.egyptandisrael.html

A good summary of the situation.