Why education is the foundation of fairness

Two things have led me to write this entry. A few weeks ago I was viewing world demographic data for my economics and the environment class. I was appalled that the best rate of 8th grade "mathematical proficiency" in any of the United States was about 50%. Fifty percent. Half of the students in 8th grade in this "great nation," which provides and requires education of all children, are not proficient in math.

The second thing was my indoor triathlon today. Most of you know I am a cyclist. On a bike, you pedal at the highest cadence (RPM) you can comfortably manage in the highest gear you can comfortably manage it. This translates to power(watts), which translates to moving you a distance per unit time. So if I pedal 100rpm in 6th gear, I work harder (generate more power) and I go farther in 1 hr than if I pedal 100rpm in 5th gear. Apparently this is not the case on a stationary bike. For purposes of calculating distance on a stationary bike 100rpm in 5th gear= 100rpm in 6th gear=100rpm in nth gear. Unfortunately I didn't know this until 10 mins into the 20 minute bike segment. I had spent the first half of the segment maximizing my wattage, when I should have been maximizing my rpms. I burned myself out doing 200 watts at 100 rpm, when everyone else was doing 100 watts at 140 rpms -- hence "going farther" than me.

So this has led me to reflect on the importance of understanding the rules and context in which you operate, and how not knowing them places you at a disadvantage relative to those who are in the know. This disadvantage translates to power inequities that allow the educated powerful to run roughshod over the uneducated. It allows multinational corporations to get Costa Ricans to rape their tropical rainforests to create banana plantations, because they'll get a few more dollars for working in a pesticide riddled landscape than they would nurturing their forest. It makes suicide bombers think that sacrificing their lives is the only way they can make an impact on the world. It lets leaders bully the masses and the masses in other countries cheer for wars to put down the bullies, when war only degrades us all.

Are we afraid that if we make education available to all, those who recieve it will realize how long they have been put down and seek revenge. It seems that those in power are reticent to relinquish the tiniest iota of it, but aren't those the very people we want to avoid having in power. Only by educating everyone will we be able to develop world leadership that is fair and uncorrupted.

The American Way, a poem

Crap+crap+marketing=
"Something you didn't know you needed"
Ka-ching!
Fuck the suckers.

A review of the movie Appaloosa

I love Ed Harris and appreciate a classic western, but this one didn't quite do it for me. It has great style, and in general a decent plot, but the dialogue was unconvincing and distracting. I didn't buy the idea that there would be a choosing-of-curtain-fabric discussion, or any other of the many relationship-type discussions that went on among the characters... it seemed very anachronistic. I also disliked Cole's quirk of asking "What word am I thinking of?" as at other times he was able to pull off quite elegant word choices. So overall, I enjoyed the acting by Harris and Mortensen, though Zellweger was even a little too tedious for the tedious character she played and found the dialog to be not-quirky-enough to be regarded as clever.

Cheers,
Audrey

Imitation is the sincerest form of crap

It seems like the past 10 or 20 or maybe even all of my life has been the period of taking perfectly good stuff and making it "better" (lower calorie, cheaper, easier to deal with) by making an imitation form of it.

I like to be annoyed

This is the conclusion I've reached after 40 years of being annoyed. It can't be that I randomly encounter an even level of crappiness throughout my day-to-day existence. Yet I always find that something is annoying. Today it is annoying that I have recently written things on Facebook, only to inadvertently delete them by navigating away from the page before saving or publishing. Or else that I spend colossal amounts of time on Facebook. Or the way that schools don't teach you how to learn, just how to squeak by, or the fact that we're going to run out of oil and kill off 90% of life on earth and no one gives a shit enough to stop going through the drive through at McDonalds and buying crap food in disposable dishes and cups because it's too "hard" to ride their bike to the store and buy some beans and mushrooms and asparagus or whatever happens to be in season and go home and fucking cook themselves a healthy meal.

So, I think I must get some endorphin fix out of being cranky, or else I'm justifiably cranky because know what's wrong most everything, and no one will listen to me.

Time to practice guitar and have a Frambozen.

Cheers,
Audrey

I ride my bicycle at night

I ride my bicycle at night, so I can - so I can -
make my way back home from work.
And I ride my bicycle at night, so I can - so I can -
grok the sublime empyreal heights.

I'm one of those people you shake your head at driving home, either feeling for their safety or their sanity. I just started this endeavor this fall and it is a transcendent experience. I feel the firmament vaulting above me. It's like walking into an unexpectedly huge room. Suddenly I'm unconstrained, existing in a larger sphere, no longer tied to the little boxes with heat and glowing light that comprise civilization at night. It's a breath of true freedom, and it's exhilarating.

Sometime last fall before the time change, I expressed an interest in continuing my bicycle commuting beyond the days of 5 pm daylight. My wonderful husband bought me a 4-LED, purportedly-900-lumen flashlight and a mount to attach it to my handlebars. He also picked up a red taillight with 5 flashing lights in 5 possible configurations. I wasn't sure how comfortable I would be with night-time commuting, in part because of the cold, but mainly because of the safety. Both turned out to be non-issues.

Here in southern Illinois, the cold is not strictly dependent on the time of day or night. Last night at 8 pm it was 46, Thursday at noon it will be 16 if we're lucky. I've found that with a pair of long john bottoms, three light layers on top, two silk scarves and a ski-worthy glove set, I'm toasty for my 3 mile ride. Usually these clothes are sufficient on the bike even when they are not quite warm enough for a walk across campus. So far this winter I've ridden down to 18 degrees.

Carbondale is a small town, with a population of about 30,000. The ride home from campus is fairly well lit and I could see to do it without the incredibly bright flashlight at all. But the flashlight itself is awesome... it has heft enough to be used as a self-defense weapon and casts a bright light far enough for use on the blackest of nights. For the most part, its main use is to make me *be seen,* but it has also been the agent of my freedom. Without a light I would never have undertaken this endeavor.

The really scary thing is that now I see why people do brevets.

Cheers,
Audrey

In Transition

I have learned a tidbit about myself from my 10 year old son. He has always had a fear of the unpredictable. He hates to watch movies that he hasn't seen before (a catch-22 right there), especially in a theater. A movie often intentionally intensifies a story, a feature that appeals to many but for Will just makes it worse. In a dark theater (from which you can't escape, at age 10 or younger you don't just get up and leave your parents and go into the hall for a breather) things happen (too) loudly and suddenly. Frequently there are implied bad turns of event which are eventually (and predictably, to adults) resolved (oh, look he's not really dead). It makes sense that this experience would be unpalatable to some.

To me, his feelings about movies elucidate a more general problem he has, and which I share. A difficulty with transitions. This may range from the small-scale (time quit playing on the computer and get ready for bed) to larger transitions like the end of a weekend at his dad's house, or the beginning of Christmas break. At these points he's wound up, emotional and easily upset. And finally it makes sense, on vacation, the predictability of the day-to-day routine has gone. You never know when it is going to be okay to play on the computer, whether the adults are going to be upset if you ask again if *now* is that time, or if you are going to be told to put on your coat because we are going to so-and-so's house for lunch (and what will they expect you to eat?)

For my part, I also have trouble with transition. Mine takes the form of hating an unmade necessary decision. There are plenty of times when a decision is not really necessary (should we get a new computer?) , and those can go unmade. But when a decision will affect my day-to-day or even hour-to-hour activities, I need it to get made. I sympathize with Will on the not-knowing-when-(or -what)-lunch-will-be front. I mean, if we are having a turkey sandwich at home at 1 pm, then I can have a coffee and a cookie at 10:30, but if we are going to a buffet at 11:30, I don't want to do that. And, are we going on a bike ride today? Or should I just go running now, or take a shower. Most of the time I can handle these small-scale decision holes either by imposing my will on others or letting it slide. But I get severely stressed when those major decisions come up and resist getting made for whatever reason (more consideration required, third party input required, etc). I mean, if I'm trying to decide whether to take a master's thesis project in Geography instead of in Chemistry, I don't really want to be jumping through Chemistry hoops and doing work that has no use to me... I want the decision made so the energy that is currently going into the decision can be put to work on the decided course of action. Once the decision is made, there is a different sort of transition, but it seems to me to have a clear path through it.

May your decisions get made and your transitions be suitably structured.
Cheers,
Audrey