A neighborhood house in the winter wonderland following the ice-sleet-snow storm of 28-29 January 2010
31 January 2010
09 January 2010
Cause for Optimism
If you live in the US and have been paying any attention at all to what's going on around you lately, you've probably picked up on some disturbing trends. Let's note a few of them.
o Fewer and fewer people have access to health care. The apparent solution for this is to legislate that all of us will have to have health care insurance, purchased from private insurers who will be able to charge pretty much anything they wish for any set of services they wish to provide, with no insurer of last resort available. Oh, and we'll have to pay a $750 per year fine for not buying health insurance. Having been without major medical insurance for the past year because it was going to cost me $25,000-plus per year, I have great confidence that this is a fine solution to the health care access problem--or more likely it's health care reform turned into a corporate welfare program for medical insurers.
o Last year, the US and the rest of the world was very nearly plunged into another 1930s-style Great Depression. Wall Street financiers made mortgage loan packages, then made bets on the success of those packages, and then made bets on those bets (derivative instruments and mortgage risk swaps). The purpose of finance is to supply capitol and credit for businesses and credit for consumers. What on earth does making bets on bets on bets about how mortgage packages will perform have to do with that purpose? Surely in response to this economic near-death experience, we now have regulations to keep the banks out of the securities business and to create an exchange something like the commodity exchanges for derivatives and similar financial instruments. Wrong. We do have legislation to cut down on scams by credit card companies, with the implementation date placed so far in the future that the companies have had plenty of time to increase their rates and dream up new scams, though. But that's not really the problem. We have not and probably will not protect ourselves from another economic crisis like that of September 2008. When it happens again, we will not be able to afford bailouts. We will likely then experience another Great Depression.
o In the past three decades, median US income (in constant dollars) has remained flat--no increase at all. We're doing fine, though, aren't we? The Dow Jones Industrial Average is way, way up over those 30 years, isn't it? Yes, it is. The conclusion? US businesses are doing increasingly well, while US wage earners are no better off than they were in 1980.
The list could go on endlessly, but here's the problem. The US government, particularly the Congress of the United States is now owned lock, stock, and barrel by big business, including health insurers, pharmaceutical companies, Wall Street finance companies, even US automobile manufacturers. Their power and influence in Washington can now defeat any serious health care reform, financial institution regulation, taxation changes, or other legislation that might change their short-term profitability.
Why is there no outcry, no groundswell of righteous anger from the populace? It's Stockholm syndrome. Many of us, particularly those in the southern and western US states, have positive feelings for our captors. We've been taken to the brink of economic and perhaps political disaster by Wall Street financiers, medical products and services providers, and idiotic automobile manufacturers who can't make money on a car that costs less than $35,000. Having been delivered from stepping over that brink by providing our captors trillions of dollars in ransom, we are now--incredibly--beholden to them as those who will save us from Big Government.
So why is this blog entry titled "Cause for Optimism"? Here's the deal. As it's often been observed, you can fool all of the people some of the time, some of the people all the time, but NOT all the people all the time. Eventually we'll come to our senses and figure out that while bumbling, inefficient government is a BIG irritation, it's not nearly the enemy that well-financed, brilliantly-staffed, accountable-to-no-one corporations are.
But if the corporate world is in control, will we be able to take back the reins when we do finally awaken? It would seem that control so firmly established and financed would endure as long as it wished. In the short run, that very well may be the case. Over a somewhat longer term, however, the outcome is not as clear. Consider the following.
Example 1. This same situation existed in post-Civil War America from the 1870s to the early 1900s. There seemed to be no limit to the power and corruption of the corporate Robber Barrons who ruled that era. Then a pesky, troublesome Republican by the name of Teddy Roosevelt, kicked upstairs into the Vice Presidency to get him out of the way, was propelled into the Presidency by the assassination of President William McKinley. The Robber Barrons were soon ousted from their thrones by the feisty, shrewd, and action-oriented Roosevelt.
Example 2. By the 1920s though, Wall Street, unencumbered by government regulation, was in a frenzy of buying on margin (buying stocks with borrowed money) on the assumption the stocks would continuously increase in value forever. A financial collapse not unlike the one we just experienced resulted. The collapse was badly mishandled for three long years by Herbert Hoover before Franklin D. Roosevelt (cousin of Teddy) was elected President. Though FDR's programs eased the suffering of the Great Depression, no recovery could be sustained. (Once a deflationary economy is firmly established, it is virtually impossible to undo, given any action short of entry into a global war.) Eventually, the wild speculation on Wall Street was firmly regulated to prevent a recurrence of this exact type of collapse, and things went pretty well until the financial wizards of Wall Street, with the aid of Sen. Phill Gramm, planted another financial time bomb in 1999 (see http://en.wikipedia.org/wi
Example 3. The September 2008 financial collapse precipitated by Gramm's treachery is sill playing out, and will require a decade or more to "settle out" as the control systems folks say. It remains to be seen whether the world and the US, in particular, will successfully emerge from the crisis, brought on by the unfettered speculation that derivative "invesment" (gambling) instruments and mortgage risk swaps engendered.
What's the point of all this? The recurring theme is that big business, left to do its own laissez faire bidding, eventually destroys its own power (or produces its destroyer) and often plays havoc with our economic well-being in the process. In the current crisis, big business has very nearly destroyed our economic well-being, but has not yet destroyed its power to unduly influence and control the government for its own benefit.
We've been here before. The cause for optimism is that corporate political power will eventually ebb, if the past is, in fact, prologue. The worry is whether another economic depression, together with the seeds of political upheaval and war that depressions engender, will have to occur before We the People re-awaken and resume control of our democracy.
In the mean time, let's hope our current President is a Roosevelt, not a Hoover!
o Fewer and fewer people have access to health care. The apparent solution for this is to legislate that all of us will have to have health care insurance, purchased from private insurers who will be able to charge pretty much anything they wish for any set of services they wish to provide, with no insurer of last resort available. Oh, and we'll have to pay a $750 per year fine for not buying health insurance. Having been without major medical insurance for the past year because it was going to cost me $25,000-plus per year, I have great confidence that this is a fine solution to the health care access problem--or more likely it's health care reform turned into a corporate welfare program for medical insurers.
o Last year, the US and the rest of the world was very nearly plunged into another 1930s-style Great Depression. Wall Street financiers made mortgage loan packages, then made bets on the success of those packages, and then made bets on those bets (derivative instruments and mortgage risk swaps). The purpose of finance is to supply capitol and credit for businesses and credit for consumers. What on earth does making bets on bets on bets about how mortgage packages will perform have to do with that purpose? Surely in response to this economic near-death experience, we now have regulations to keep the banks out of the securities business and to create an exchange something like the commodity exchanges for derivatives and similar financial instruments. Wrong. We do have legislation to cut down on scams by credit card companies, with the implementation date placed so far in the future that the companies have had plenty of time to increase their rates and dream up new scams, though. But that's not really the problem. We have not and probably will not protect ourselves from another economic crisis like that of September 2008. When it happens again, we will not be able to afford bailouts. We will likely then experience another Great Depression.
o In the past three decades, median US income (in constant dollars) has remained flat--no increase at all. We're doing fine, though, aren't we? The Dow Jones Industrial Average is way, way up over those 30 years, isn't it? Yes, it is. The conclusion? US businesses are doing increasingly well, while US wage earners are no better off than they were in 1980.
The list could go on endlessly, but here's the problem. The US government, particularly the Congress of the United States is now owned lock, stock, and barrel by big business, including health insurers, pharmaceutical companies, Wall Street finance companies, even US automobile manufacturers. Their power and influence in Washington can now defeat any serious health care reform, financial institution regulation, taxation changes, or other legislation that might change their short-term profitability.
Why is there no outcry, no groundswell of righteous anger from the populace? It's Stockholm syndrome. Many of us, particularly those in the southern and western US states, have positive feelings for our captors. We've been taken to the brink of economic and perhaps political disaster by Wall Street financiers, medical products and services providers, and idiotic automobile manufacturers who can't make money on a car that costs less than $35,000. Having been delivered from stepping over that brink by providing our captors trillions of dollars in ransom, we are now--incredibly--beholden to them as those who will save us from Big Government.
So why is this blog entry titled "Cause for Optimism"? Here's the deal. As it's often been observed, you can fool all of the people some of the time, some of the people all the time, but NOT all the people all the time. Eventually we'll come to our senses and figure out that while bumbling, inefficient government is a BIG irritation, it's not nearly the enemy that well-financed, brilliantly-staffed, accountable-to-no-one corporations are.
But if the corporate world is in control, will we be able to take back the reins when we do finally awaken? It would seem that control so firmly established and financed would endure as long as it wished. In the short run, that very well may be the case. Over a somewhat longer term, however, the outcome is not as clear. Consider the following.
Example 1. This same situation existed in post-Civil War America from the 1870s to the early 1900s. There seemed to be no limit to the power and corruption of the corporate Robber Barrons who ruled that era. Then a pesky, troublesome Republican by the name of Teddy Roosevelt, kicked upstairs into the Vice Presidency to get him out of the way, was propelled into the Presidency by the assassination of President William McKinley. The Robber Barrons were soon ousted from their thrones by the feisty, shrewd, and action-oriented Roosevelt.
Example 2. By the 1920s though, Wall Street, unencumbered by government regulation, was in a frenzy of buying on margin (buying stocks with borrowed money) on the assumption the stocks would continuously increase in value forever. A financial collapse not unlike the one we just experienced resulted. The collapse was badly mishandled for three long years by Herbert Hoover before Franklin D. Roosevelt (cousin of Teddy) was elected President. Though FDR's programs eased the suffering of the Great Depression, no recovery could be sustained. (Once a deflationary economy is firmly established, it is virtually impossible to undo, given any action short of entry into a global war.) Eventually, the wild speculation on Wall Street was firmly regulated to prevent a recurrence of this exact type of collapse, and things went pretty well until the financial wizards of Wall Street, with the aid of Sen. Phill Gramm, planted another financial time bomb in 1999 (see http://en.wikipedia.org/wi
Example 3. The September 2008 financial collapse precipitated by Gramm's treachery is sill playing out, and will require a decade or more to "settle out" as the control systems folks say. It remains to be seen whether the world and the US, in particular, will successfully emerge from the crisis, brought on by the unfettered speculation that derivative "invesment" (gambling) instruments and mortgage risk swaps engendered.
What's the point of all this? The recurring theme is that big business, left to do its own laissez faire bidding, eventually destroys its own power (or produces its destroyer) and often plays havoc with our economic well-being in the process. In the current crisis, big business has very nearly destroyed our economic well-being, but has not yet destroyed its power to unduly influence and control the government for its own benefit.
We've been here before. The cause for optimism is that corporate political power will eventually ebb, if the past is, in fact, prologue. The worry is whether another economic depression, together with the seeds of political upheaval and war that depressions engender, will have to occur before We the People re-awaken and resume control of our democracy.
In the mean time, let's hope our current President is a Roosevelt, not a Hoover!
10 October 2009
How to Tawk Texan 2009-09-13
CLOates
13 Sept 2009
Norman, Okla., USA
How to Tawk Texan
Texas: it's like a whole other ... planet. Here's your guide to speaking Ang-lish like a native when you visit.
Enjoy!
Prof. Oates
May We Debate the ISSUES, Please? 2009-08-15
CLOates
15 AUG 2009
Last Rev.: 19 Aug 2009
Norman, Oklahoma, USA
May We Debate the ISSUES, Please?
The crazies and the propagandists have, as usual, come crawling out of the woodwork in an effort to derail the overhaul of the current U.S. (non-)health care system, a bizarre aggregation of practices that will soon leave virtually anyone who needs medical care in the U.S. unable to obtain it--unless, of course, they happen to spend an entire career working for an unbroken string of Fortune 500 corporations, a pattern that seldom occurs for most of us.
More or less as expected, we have the Democrats trying to provide everyone with health care and having trouble finding the funding, while the Republicans try to scare the hell out of everyone by dragging out the fear phrase book containing old standards like "socialized medicine," "government take-over," and "health care rationing" (what on earth do you call the current system when it effectively throws about 1/6th of the U.S. population under the bus when they need care--that's a pretty severe form of rationing, I'd say, but I digress).
The level of discussion reached a new height of irrelevance recently, however, when those trying to create fear and panic dreamed up Federal "Death Panels" to decide who should live and who should die in medical contexts. (See, for example, http://news.yahoo.com/s/politico/20090813/pl_politico/26078 .) This horror fantasy is purported to be somehow based on Section 1233, Advance Care Planning Consultation, of H.R. 3200, the comprehensive health care bill currently before the House of Representatives. (See http://frwebgate.access.gp..o.gov/cgi-bin/getdoc.cgi?d..bname=111_cong_bills&docid..=f:h3200ih.pdf , a large .pdf file, starting on page 424 for the text of the bill and its Section 1233. BTW, official copies of all legislation pending in Congress can be accessed through the search facilities athttp://www.gpoaccess.gov/bills/index.html . Try it with "comprehensive health care" for the search phrase.)
It takes a few minutes to read the text of Section 1233, but even a cursory inspection reveals that it is aimed at permitting the health care system to pay physicians for a periodic medical consultation with patients on use of advance health care directives like living wills and durable powers of attorney that express the PATIENT'S desires for end-of-life care, should they become unable to express those wishes for themselves, as sometimes happens in cases of head injury, dementia, Alzheimer's, and many terminal illnesses.
These health care directives have been in use for decades--Sue and I made ours in 1993--and give the patient the CHOICE of, for instance, whether they want feeding tubes used if they enter a persistent vegetative state and other such horrendous situations. No one is or will be required to make such directives, and the directives can be revoked at any time while one is competent. If no directive exists, the default action is to do absolutely everything to keep the patient alive as long as possible without much, if any, regard to quality of life issues. If this is what the patient wants, they need do nothing with respect to health care directives and nothing in the proposed legislation requires it. If the patient considers the all-out approach a form of medical torture, and I certainly have seen it become just that, the patient MAY choose to direct physicians to use less than all-out means in the situations THEY (the patient) designate. It's the PATIENT'S choice, not that of some non-existent and non-proposed Federal "Death Panel."
With hundreds of millions of people's lives, economic fortunes, and physical well-being at stake, it is time to formulate a working U.S. health care system to replace the non-sustainable, non-working, citizen-bankrupting mess that now exists. Reasonable people can certainly disagree over how that is to be accomplished, and well-thought-out debate can result in a better system than any one individual can create alone. However, use of propaganda techniques like the "Death Panel" straw-man is decidedly un-helpful, is likely to backfire, and has no legitimate place in the workings of a democracy.
Can we behave like grown-ups and conduct a serious debate about a very serious topic, rather than engage in antics more often associated with high schoolers at Boys'/Girls' State? It remains to be seen. (http://www.txlegion.org/boys_state.htm)
-------------------
You can help. Visit sites such as http://www.propagandacritic.com/ to arm yourself with information about propaganda techniques, and learn to recognize their use in political debate. Use critical thinking skills when listening and reading the pronouncements of stakeholders in the health care debate. Get the facts about what's being proposed from the original sources, the U.S. Congress in this case, using the links supplied earlier. Talk with others about the ISSUES, not fear-mongers' fantasies, and contribute to the long over-due creation of a workable, sustainable U.S. health system. I wish you good luck for all our sakes!
Prof. Oates
P.S. Since I gave Sara Palin's views a plug earlier, I'll put a link to the views of Pres. Obama here: http://www.whitehouse.gov/realitycheck/ . --CLO
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Grandpa/Prof. Oates Chuck Oates |
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Retrospective: How to Become a Medication-Math Instructor without Really Trying (To) (repost) 2009-07-15
The following is essentially the same story told in Fourth Quarter (see blog entry of 02 May 2008), but from a considerably different perspective. Enjoy! --CLO
There are those who are goal-driven with highly focused goals who say things like, "I'm going to be a neurosurgeon by age 30." There are also those with more broadly focused goals who, like World War II P-51 pilots, arm themselves with all the fuel and ammunition they can find and then go out to shoot at targets of opportunity. Here's a step-by-step road map for those of you who prefer highly focused goals and whose fervent wish and life goal is to teach Math for Health Careers.
o Obtain a bachelor's degree in an engineering field. Industrial or manufacturing engineering works well.
o Spend "the seven lean years" fresh out of college working for the US Air Force automating the testing of everything from jet engines to get engine fuel injectors (fuel controls) to large materials handling systems.
o While you're at it, piece together a master's degree in computing science or some other math- or engineering-related area while you're working full time.
o Take a year off and work full-time on a Ph. D. while you teach half-time as a GA (graduate teaching "assistant"--but you don't assist anyone, you teach the assembly language programming courses by yourself). See if you can get your spouse to work full-time while you do this, since your whole GA salary won't quite make your house payment. This step is not required, but it will definitely make you appreciate your previous job.
o Oh, be sure to come down with appendicitis just before school starts, stay in the hospital for three weeks, and come close to dying because of incompetent surgery and post-op treatment. That'll make it more interesting.
o Finish the year. Return to sanity--or what passes for it in software engineering--and full-time engineering employment for another 25 years or so.
o Wake up one fine morning (July 9, 2002) to a call that your birth mom, who broke her hip a month ago, has unexpectedly and suddenly died at an Amarillo, TX hospital. Shed some tears, get yourself together enough to drive to Amarillo, decide to stop by your office on the way for an "important plant-wide 9:00 a.m. meeting." Listen to the announcement that your new company, who has bought out your old company, is closing the plant in OKC and moving all operations to St. Louis, MO. Leave the meeting, try to find your office, sit in amazement as company officials come in and offer you a substantial raise, moving expenses, etc., etc. to move to St. Louis. Eventually, decide, along with all the other engineers, to stay in OKC and hope for the best. Sit in further amazement as, unprompted, the company issues an even bigger raise and promises a hefty retention bonus (a.k.a.: golden handcuffs) if you'll stay on board until six months after the plant closes. Accept the offer and stay until you're there to take the company signs down and turn the keys to the plant over to the Airport Authority.
o Look for jobs, business opportunities, teaching opportunities.
o Apply for full-time engineering professor job at OCCC and get turned down flat. Look at a business in small metro area suburb/exurb that's closing. Consider buying the business and moving it to Norman. Interview for several jobs around town, be even further amazed that there are some jobs and a few employers are interested in hiring 55 year old software engineers.
o Sit in big lounge chair in your den. Evaluate opportunities. Look up to see your daughter, who's helping clean out the garage, approach with two-inch stack of letters. Listen as daughter asks, "Is this the 'Susan' that you dated in college, who looks like me?" Observe familiar scrawl of long-ago girlfriend--she of the long blonde hair, curvy figure, and Einsteinian intellect--on a couple of dozen letters postmarked 1966 and 1967. "Yep, sure is. Wonder how these survived multiple moves and thirty-some years?" Remember trips to Palo Duro Canyon. On a whim, open a letter and read. Open a second, third, and fourth. Observe the critical role of physics, chemistry, calculus, and English teachers in your then-17 year old girlfriend's life. Notice how the good done by the excellent teachers is very nearly undone by one teacher with bull-in-the-china-shop syndrome.
o Startle back from long-ago-in-galaxy-far-awa..y into present when $%*# telephone rings. Listen for a few moments. Tell caller, "er, uh, yeah ... I'd guess I'd be interested in teaching engineering courses as an adjunct faculty member." Schedule interview. Hang up. Continue to read letters. Teachers, teachers, and more teachers. Get the uneasy feeling you're being set up. Look at the den wall. Verify that no handwriting is spontaneously appearing on it. Go outside briefly. Inspect front and back yard for burning bushes, strange bright lights in the sky, and/or winged apparitions with herald trumpets. (None observed. No one out there whispering, "If you build it, they will come," either.)
o Go to interview and talk. Find that you really like engineering faculty and division dean. They offer job. Tell 'em you'll get back to them. Consider alternatives. Hate the oil field: pay is good, jobs--even software jobs--often terrible, marathon working hours, boom then bust. Small businesses: very risky, make a bundle or lose your shirt, much more often the latter. Teaching adjunct:: pays nuthin', but you always wanted to do that; intro. engineering course tough to teach, very important to start students' engineering study well. Can you do it?
o Can't put down those #$%^ letters!
o Throw caution, secure retirement, and sanity to the wind and accept teaching job. Teach two Intro. to Engineering classes. You're hooked. Most students are very interested. Some are both interested and hard-working. A few are surprisingly advanced. Two can actually program rings around you(!). Next semester, teach the two Intro. courses again, but also accept assignment teaching Math for Health Careers, also known as Medication Math or Med-Math. "You'll like it, engineers think it's fun to teach, and we're having trouble finding someone." Okay, okay.
o The Med-Math folks are a different set of students. They're mostly nursing wannabes. They're often bright, hardworking, driven to do whatever it takes to get into nursing, but math--even arithmetic--often isn't their thing. Some are outright mathophobes. A few turn pale and shake visibly as they sit down to take tests, but even these are often so driven that they make solid "B"s and occasionally "A"s in the course, despite the difficulties. Now you ARE hooked. If people are willing to put forth this sort of effort, do whatever it takes to give them a hand.
o The engineering course goes away. It's no longer required in senior college curriculum, and all other engineering courses are being taught by full-time faculty. What the heck, take on a couple more Med-Math sections. Go sign up for next semester. You'll never enjoy a job more or be compensated less--monetarily, anyway--for doing it.
And that is how you, too, through careful planning and narrowly focused goal-directed behavior, can achieve your life-long goal of teaching Med-Math.
Sure. This is exactly what I planned to be doing in semi-retirement. :^)
Chuck Oates
21-October-2006
Norman, Oklahoma, USA
How to Become a Medication-Math Instructor without Really Trying (To)
There are those who are goal-driven with highly focused goals who say things like, "I'm going to be a neurosurgeon by age 30." There are also those with more broadly focused goals who, like World War II P-51 pilots, arm themselves with all the fuel and ammunition they can find and then go out to shoot at targets of opportunity. Here's a step-by-step road map for those of you who prefer highly focused goals and whose fervent wish and life goal is to teach Math for Health Careers.
o Obtain a bachelor's degree in an engineering field. Industrial or manufacturing engineering works well.
o Spend "the seven lean years" fresh out of college working for the US Air Force automating the testing of everything from jet engines to get engine fuel injectors (fuel controls) to large materials handling systems.
o While you're at it, piece together a master's degree in computing science or some other math- or engineering-related area while you're working full time.
o Take a year off and work full-time on a Ph. D. while you teach half-time as a GA (graduate teaching "assistant"--but you don't assist anyone, you teach the assembly language programming courses by yourself). See if you can get your spouse to work full-time while you do this, since your whole GA salary won't quite make your house payment. This step is not required, but it will definitely make you appreciate your previous job.
o Oh, be sure to come down with appendicitis just before school starts, stay in the hospital for three weeks, and come close to dying because of incompetent surgery and post-op treatment. That'll make it more interesting.
o Finish the year. Return to sanity--or what passes for it in software engineering--and full-time engineering employment for another 25 years or so.
o Wake up one fine morning (July 9, 2002) to a call that your birth mom, who broke her hip a month ago, has unexpectedly and suddenly died at an Amarillo, TX hospital. Shed some tears, get yourself together enough to drive to Amarillo, decide to stop by your office on the way for an "important plant-wide 9:00 a.m. meeting." Listen to the announcement that your new company, who has bought out your old company, is closing the plant in OKC and moving all operations to St. Louis, MO. Leave the meeting, try to find your office, sit in amazement as company officials come in and offer you a substantial raise, moving expenses, etc., etc. to move to St. Louis. Eventually, decide, along with all the other engineers, to stay in OKC and hope for the best. Sit in further amazement as, unprompted, the company issues an even bigger raise and promises a hefty retention bonus (a.k.a.: golden handcuffs) if you'll stay on board until six months after the plant closes. Accept the offer and stay until you're there to take the company signs down and turn the keys to the plant over to the Airport Authority.
o Look for jobs, business opportunities, teaching opportunities.
o Apply for full-time engineering professor job at OCCC and get turned down flat. Look at a business in small metro area suburb/exurb that's closing. Consider buying the business and moving it to Norman. Interview for several jobs around town, be even further amazed that there are some jobs and a few employers are interested in hiring 55 year old software engineers.
o Sit in big lounge chair in your den. Evaluate opportunities. Look up to see your daughter, who's helping clean out the garage, approach with two-inch stack of letters. Listen as daughter asks, "Is this the 'Susan' that you dated in college, who looks like me?" Observe familiar scrawl of long-ago girlfriend--she of the long blonde hair, curvy figure, and Einsteinian intellect--on a couple of dozen letters postmarked 1966 and 1967. "Yep, sure is. Wonder how these survived multiple moves and thirty-some years?" Remember trips to Palo Duro Canyon. On a whim, open a letter and read. Open a second, third, and fourth. Observe the critical role of physics, chemistry, calculus, and English teachers in your then-17 year old girlfriend's life. Notice how the good done by the excellent teachers is very nearly undone by one teacher with bull-in-the-china-shop syndrome.
o Startle back from long-ago-in-galaxy-far-awa..y into present when $%*# telephone rings. Listen for a few moments. Tell caller, "er, uh, yeah ... I'd guess I'd be interested in teaching engineering courses as an adjunct faculty member." Schedule interview. Hang up. Continue to read letters. Teachers, teachers, and more teachers. Get the uneasy feeling you're being set up. Look at the den wall. Verify that no handwriting is spontaneously appearing on it. Go outside briefly. Inspect front and back yard for burning bushes, strange bright lights in the sky, and/or winged apparitions with herald trumpets. (None observed. No one out there whispering, "If you build it, they will come," either.)
o Go to interview and talk. Find that you really like engineering faculty and division dean. They offer job. Tell 'em you'll get back to them. Consider alternatives. Hate the oil field: pay is good, jobs--even software jobs--often terrible, marathon working hours, boom then bust. Small businesses: very risky, make a bundle or lose your shirt, much more often the latter. Teaching adjunct:: pays nuthin', but you always wanted to do that; intro. engineering course tough to teach, very important to start students' engineering study well. Can you do it?
o Can't put down those #$%^ letters!
o Throw caution, secure retirement, and sanity to the wind and accept teaching job. Teach two Intro. to Engineering classes. You're hooked. Most students are very interested. Some are both interested and hard-working. A few are surprisingly advanced. Two can actually program rings around you(!). Next semester, teach the two Intro. courses again, but also accept assignment teaching Math for Health Careers, also known as Medication Math or Med-Math. "You'll like it, engineers think it's fun to teach, and we're having trouble finding someone." Okay, okay.
o The Med-Math folks are a different set of students. They're mostly nursing wannabes. They're often bright, hardworking, driven to do whatever it takes to get into nursing, but math--even arithmetic--often isn't their thing. Some are outright mathophobes. A few turn pale and shake visibly as they sit down to take tests, but even these are often so driven that they make solid "B"s and occasionally "A"s in the course, despite the difficulties. Now you ARE hooked. If people are willing to put forth this sort of effort, do whatever it takes to give them a hand.
o The engineering course goes away. It's no longer required in senior college curriculum, and all other engineering courses are being taught by full-time faculty. What the heck, take on a couple more Med-Math sections. Go sign up for next semester. You'll never enjoy a job more or be compensated less--monetarily, anyway--for doing it.
And that is how you, too, through careful planning and narrowly focused goal-directed behavior, can achieve your life-long goal of teaching Med-Math.
Sure. This is exactly what I planned to be doing in semi-retirement. :^)
Rivet, Redeep! 2009-07-13
Chuck Oates
13 July 2009
Norman, OK, USA
Rivet, Redeep!
See this editorial .
If our political system can't begin to solve obvious problems when a fairly solid majority of progressives is in control, is there any hope?
We could sit here and do nothing or simply act to serve the immediate needs of all the entrenched interests. That appears to be what the original Easter Islanders and the Mayans did. It worked pretty well for them (assuming their goal was to disappear from the planet).
Has anybody ever heard the phrase, "adapt or die." Ask the folks at Chrysler and GM if you're unsure of the meaning.
Why don't we try something different?
Prof. Oates
Can You Spell "H-y-p-o-c-r-i-s-y"? 2009-07-13
Chuck Oates
13 July 2009
Norman, OK, USA
Can You Spell "H-y-p-o-c-r-i-s-y"?
“I want to be clear: I will not vote for and no senator should vote for an individual nominated by any president who is not fully committed to fairness and impartiality toward every person who appears before them.” --quoted on a CNN tweet
Being from Alabama, Senator Sessions certainly knows something about fairness and impartiality. Ask any African-American resident of that state.
Can you spell "h-y-p-o-c-r-i-s-y"?
See Sessions: Judicial Empathy Is Not the Law for the full text.
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