Our grandson, Alec Schadelbauer, graduated from High School this year as did many of our friend's children. I wrote this poem for him and them. It is may be applicable to college graduates, as well.
CONGRATULATIONS
HIGH SCHOOL GRADUATES 2013
What you have accomplished is immense
And now you are ready to commence.
You’ve taken and handled every test
And have given every one your best.
You’ve mostly followed parent’s advice
To stay away from all sin and vice.
And next year you will be able to vote
Which means you must paddle your own boat.
You now have what you’ve always wanted
To chart your own path, quite undaunted.
There are some things you’ll want for your boat
In order to simply stay afloat.
So that your life does not fall apart
You will need a path that you will chart.
And lest you pilot a “Ship of Fools”
Be certain to stow all of life’s tools
Oh, don’t forget your Moral Compass
Lest you become complacent, pompous!
And keep someone close, you might guess,
To whom you can send an SOS.
You will sail a digital and global sea
The likes of which none ever did see.
You will not want to just drift
With the world in a paradigm shift.
You will have to be your own captain
In whatever job that you are in.
Your net is not to catch a fish.
It’s a “network” for which you must wish.
And work at and continue to explore
Today, tomorrow and evermore.
Luckily, you have a tool in hand
The Smart-Phone helps know-how to expand.
But when you need more than your remote
That’s when you’ll want God in your boat.
And you can have more joy than strife,
If you face all problems in your life.
And if you love your neighbor as yourself,
And don’t place your talent on the shelf,
Then we know that you will succeed
And will have smooth sailing at God-speed.
Wayne Pearson
June, 2013
Sunday, June 30, 2013
Monday, June 17, 2013
Perspective: What Middle-east Foreign Policy?
The Benghazi event, which stems from the “leading from behind” strategy to topple Libya’s dictator, Gaddafi, raises the question just what is our foreign policy for the middle-east? Actually if you look at it even casually, it is an abysmal disaster.
The fist act of the newly elected President Obama was to go to Cairo, Egypt and apologize for all the harm the United States has done to the Muslim world. Then he demanded that Mubarak, the dictator of Egypt, step down. The Egyptian Brotherhood accommodated that wish and toppled the dictator which marked the beginning of the Arab Spring. Promptly the Brotherhood made terrible comments about the US, burned our flag and threatened our embassy. Shortly after this, Gaddafi’s troupes threatened to liquidate the rebels in Benghazi, so Obama convinced some NATO allies to liberate the rebels in Benghazi with airpower. We then added our drones and Gaddafi was assassinated. As might have been expected, Jihadists,associated with Al Queda, attacked our facility in Benghazi killing Ambassador Stevens and three other Americans. Then when rebels launched attacks to unseat Assad, the dictator of Syria, Obama encouraged them, but since Russia and Iran side with Assad and Al Queda has infiltrated the rebels, what can the US realistically do to stop the death toll which is reaching 100,000?
Meanwhile, Obama pulled all of our troupes from Iraq before their own forces were ready and capable of protecting their citizens only to find that the radicals, probably infiltrated by Al Queda affiliates, were already killing hundreds of Iraqis. Then after authorizing an immense expansion of the troupe level in Afghanistan, Obama promptly announced we are going to leave and provided a timetable allowing the Taliban to plan when to jump back in.
If this were not enough, Obama significantly expanded the use of drones in Muslim related foreign lands to conduct the war against alleged Islamic Jihadists without notifying the sovereign governments of those lands or worrying about collateral damage to innocent civilians or being concerned whether the terrorist is an American citizen or not. This drone program has heightened the anger the Jihadists have for the US and will doubtless grow more terrorists.
During this four plus year period, praise has been heaped on Secretary Clinton, to quote the song, “for traveling a million miles for one of those Arab smiles” while being oblivious to and having no knowledge of the danger her ambassadors are in. And after one was assassinated along with three other Americans in Benghazi, she shouted at the Congressional investigative panel: “What difference does it make?” Does Obama and Hillary expect to get pats on their backs for a middle-east foreign policy that can best be expressed by:
“What difference at this point does it make that the Middle-east in shambles?”
Finally, after contributing to the havoc that exists throughout the middle-east and disregarding the indisputable fact that the Arab Spring is infiltrated with Al Queda wantabes, Obama has the unmitigated gall to announce a week or so ago that the war against terror is over.
For perspective, if any corporate organization’s Chief Executive did this much damage to the corporation’s well being and to its image, that person would be unceremoniously fired on the spot.
Now, since observing the enormous damage Obama’s foreign policy has wrought to the middle-east and how it jeopardizes the world’s oil supply, we have just recently discovered y that the United States has a larger supply of oil and natural gas than all of the middle-east and then some. Can you imagine this? The US is no longer dependent upon the middle-east for its energy supply! How lucky can we get? This windfall of fossil fuels presents a once in lifetime opportunity to change our foreign policy in the middle-east.
We could just walk away and let those left behind try to crawl out of the rubble, but a more prudent and civilized approach would be, as good citizens of the world, to offer to help form a partnership of those who need middle-east oil. That partnership would consist of China, India, Japan and needy European countries, where the United States should only act as a facilitator. We should have only one stipulation, namely that the partnership becomes responsible for protecting the good middle-east governments and especially including Israel. Who believes the current Administration could pull this off?
Wednesday, June 5, 2013
Perspective: What is the Benghazi Story?
In the old days, before our government was inundated with lawyers, we would not require unequivocal proof that something might not be true. If those earlier folk noticed an odor that smelled like horse manure, they would not jump to the conclusion that the aroma probably came from breakfast cereal. The aroma from Benghazi is not breakfast cereal and every one of us knows it.
This is what do we know about Benghazi. The day of the attack those on the ground in Benghazi reported to their superiors, and that includes the President and Secretary of State, that our embassy in Benghazi was under attack and the that attackers were affiliated with Al Qaeda with whom we have been at war for 17 years. With this news our President went to bed to rest up for the strenuous fund raising trip to Las Vegas the next day, and he was never heard from again. Meantime, the military, not having a clue as to the number or strength of the attackers, jumped to the conclusion that they could not get there in time to save anyone. Meantime, our Ambassador and three other Americans were murdered.
A few days later we Americans were informed about this disaster by Susan Rice, Ambassador to the UN, who stated that the attack was instigated by a person who created a video that was upsetting to Muslims. Thank God we captured that idiot and have him licked up, but of course we can not find or capture the culprits who killed our Ambassador.
Of all of the scandals the Whitehouse is involved in, namely, the egregious treatment of AP and Fox correspondents and the out-of control IRS, Benghazi is the worst. No correspondent or tax payer was killed in the AP and IRS scandals, and we will probably never find out who told the perpetrators of these heinous acts to do what they did. But in the case of Benghazi, the Commander in Chief and the Secretary of State were in charge and were the key deciders. Their abandoning of their posts is tantamount to dereliction of duty. In the private world they would be fired unceremoniously on the spot. But of course they will not be fired. Worse, they will be defended on the basis that since nothing could be done, why try? And according to Secretary Clinton “What difference does it make anyway?”
If you think that that the aroma surrounding this fiasco is coming from breakfast cereal, you should contact your Ear, Nose and Throat specialist!!!
Tuesday, May 21, 2013
Perspective: Who Should Control Obesity...You or the Government?
Perspective: Who Should Control Obesity… You or the Government?
Today, we are told poor diets lead to the increasing amount of obesity in this country. Moreover, being overweight, which affects about 50% of us and leads to obesity, is alleged to be a major cause for the rapidly increasing medical expense. Since more and more of medical expenses are being paid by the Government through Medicare and Obamacare, and that these programs will go bankrupt in a decade or so, something must be done about obesity. Consequently, it will only be a matter of time until the Government will decide that they must control what we can and cannot eat in order to prevent Medicare and Obamacare from going bankrupt.
The assumption that obesity is a major cause for the forecast financial catastrophe is somewhat dubious in my view for the simple reason that the life expectancy of obese persons is predicted to be shorter than the average healthy American. Financially this means they won’t collect as much Social Security and won’t live long enough to require knee and hip replacements and other expensive treatments for other maladies associated with old age.
But let’s set that aside to consider the question of who is to blame for this obesity problem? There are two new books that have just hit the market that virtually state that it is not our fault that we are obese. One book has the title of Salt, Sugar, Fat by Michael Moss It claims that it is the fault of those evil purveyors of processed food. The other entitled Obsessed, by Mika Brzezinski, says these awful processed foods are addicting, and we succumb to them. Since both authors are Progressives, it is not surprising that their answer to this problem is for the government to control what we eat, and Mike Bloomburg, the pseudo Republican Mayor of New York City, surely agrees.
Let’s examine the thesis of Moss’s book Salt, Sugar, Fat. He claims that the food processors aim at what is called the “bliss’ point in the taste and satisfaction of their food product. The actually conduct massive studies involving thousands of persons enrolled in controlled tests to determine just exactly where that bliss point is as measured in precise terms of the amount of salt, sugar and fat in the food. I don’t know about you, but I am astounded to learn this. I thought, naively, that Kraft and General Mills formulated foods to taste just awful!!
I will bet that no one has ever seen an American sitting at a dinner table, at home or a restaurant, reaching for the salt shaker, the butter dish or the sugar bowl to heighten the taste and satisfaction of the food served to them. Or how about this, you are at your grandmother’s house and she serves food that she prepared from scratch that is beyond belief in taste and satisfaction. How did she do this? My grandmother served this to me in the 1930’s. But guess what, she did not even have a cook book. She did it by feel with what magic ingredients? If you had checked her pantry you would have found that she stocked flour, sugar, salt and yes fat. Not butter mind you, but LARD. That’s right, LARD which came straight from the pig they slaughtered on the farm a few weeks ago. Oh, and did I mention that she lived to the ripe old age of 94?
Now, what about the addiction factor, claimed by Mika Brinszki? Well, what do you know, I was addicted to my grandmother’s cooking, and could not wait to visit her in her kitchen. If fact, I would visit her there now were she still able to cook such heavenly meals. And, oh by the way, I notice that we mostly select our favorite breakfast cereal to take home from the grocery store. I wonder why?
Typical of our polically correct society and our propensity to search for the culprit rather than look in the mirror, we have these two authors along with Mayor Bloomberg leading us astray. As Pogo the cartoon Possum would say, “We have met the enemy and he is us!”
So let’s examine us! Research conducted by psychologists at numerous universities reveals that most personal and social problems derive from the failure of self-control. Examples include: compulsive spending and borrowing, under achievement in school, procrastination, alcohol and drug abuse, unhealthy diet, chronic anxiety and explosive anger. Poor self-control correlates with just about every kind of personal trauma including: losing friends, being fired, getting divorced and winding up in prison.” There is no question that the development of self-control is critical in order to have reliable and responsible citizens. Self-control keeps one from being swayed from the right course by evil forces which can come from either outside or inside the person. These forces can include the evil food purveyors who want us to become addicted to their food.
Let’s spend a moment on what is the cause of obesity. This is a simple problem in physics. A person’s body requires a certain amount of nutrients to sustain itself. If the body’s intake of nutrients exceeds this amount, the body stores the nutrients for another day. This stored material is called FAT!!
IN A WORD, IT’S THE CALORIES, STUPID!!
Now, I have no doubt that programs designed to help persons to diet do cause weight loss. The problem is those same persons cannot seem to keep the weight from returning. That is because none of the programs deal with the root cause, namely we lack the WILL POWER to control how much we eat. Each of these programs provides crutches which lead us to believe that there is something magic about their program. But these crutches do nothing to help us develop our will power. So when we toss the crutches aside, we fall right back to where we were.
Reminds me of the preacher who admonished his parishioners to call on the Almighty to cure their aliments. A person at the back of the Church called out that he had just witnessed a miracle. It seemed that there was a cripple on two crutches, who upon hearing the inspiring message, tossed one crutch away and then tossed the other away, as well. The preacher exclaimed that he had to see this man, where is he? Another parishioner called out, he is back here flat on his ass!
We used to believe that self-control was a vital component needed to set a child on the right course, and society spent a large amount of time and money developing moral compasses and self-control in children. This began at virtually the time the child arrived and continued until the child was an adult about eighteen years of age. Beginning in the 1960’s, however, the ideas of a moral conscience and self-control were weakened as society began to celebrate self indulgence. “If it feels good, just do it”. Concurrently, social scientists began to seek the causes for lack of consciences and self-control. They concluded that the causes were poverty, depreciation, failures of the economy, the environment or political influences. In short, the idea was that the individual was not responsible. In fact the individual was a victim. Moreover, we started to believe that we must be careful not to harm a child’s self-esteem, so we rewarded them for nearly anything and everything they did regardless of the quality of the child’s performance.
There is a better book than Moss’s or Brzezinski to help with obesity. It is actually called “Willpower”. This book is chock-a-block full of research data gathered from controlled experiments conducted over the past two or three decades. It breaks willpower into its physiological and psychological components and how to use it. The book combines clearly described scientific experiments, practical advice and a path forward from the morass we find our selves in. Based on their findings, there is hope for our society. It is a must read for parents who have the job of raising the next generation as well as anyone who would like to have more self-control. And it would doubtless help the person trying to control weight.
The government wants to be in every room in our lives, let’s not let them into our dinning room!
.
.
Today, we are told poor diets lead to the increasing amount of obesity in this country. Moreover, being overweight, which affects about 50% of us and leads to obesity, is alleged to be a major cause for the rapidly increasing medical expense. Since more and more of medical expenses are being paid by the Government through Medicare and Obamacare, and that these programs will go bankrupt in a decade or so, something must be done about obesity. Consequently, it will only be a matter of time until the Government will decide that they must control what we can and cannot eat in order to prevent Medicare and Obamacare from going bankrupt.
The assumption that obesity is a major cause for the forecast financial catastrophe is somewhat dubious in my view for the simple reason that the life expectancy of obese persons is predicted to be shorter than the average healthy American. Financially this means they won’t collect as much Social Security and won’t live long enough to require knee and hip replacements and other expensive treatments for other maladies associated with old age.
But let’s set that aside to consider the question of who is to blame for this obesity problem? There are two new books that have just hit the market that virtually state that it is not our fault that we are obese. One book has the title of Salt, Sugar, Fat by Michael Moss It claims that it is the fault of those evil purveyors of processed food. The other entitled Obsessed, by Mika Brzezinski, says these awful processed foods are addicting, and we succumb to them. Since both authors are Progressives, it is not surprising that their answer to this problem is for the government to control what we eat, and Mike Bloomburg, the pseudo Republican Mayor of New York City, surely agrees.
Let’s examine the thesis of Moss’s book Salt, Sugar, Fat. He claims that the food processors aim at what is called the “bliss’ point in the taste and satisfaction of their food product. The actually conduct massive studies involving thousands of persons enrolled in controlled tests to determine just exactly where that bliss point is as measured in precise terms of the amount of salt, sugar and fat in the food. I don’t know about you, but I am astounded to learn this. I thought, naively, that Kraft and General Mills formulated foods to taste just awful!!
I will bet that no one has ever seen an American sitting at a dinner table, at home or a restaurant, reaching for the salt shaker, the butter dish or the sugar bowl to heighten the taste and satisfaction of the food served to them. Or how about this, you are at your grandmother’s house and she serves food that she prepared from scratch that is beyond belief in taste and satisfaction. How did she do this? My grandmother served this to me in the 1930’s. But guess what, she did not even have a cook book. She did it by feel with what magic ingredients? If you had checked her pantry you would have found that she stocked flour, sugar, salt and yes fat. Not butter mind you, but LARD. That’s right, LARD which came straight from the pig they slaughtered on the farm a few weeks ago. Oh, and did I mention that she lived to the ripe old age of 94?
Now, what about the addiction factor, claimed by Mika Brinszki? Well, what do you know, I was addicted to my grandmother’s cooking, and could not wait to visit her in her kitchen. If fact, I would visit her there now were she still able to cook such heavenly meals. And, oh by the way, I notice that we mostly select our favorite breakfast cereal to take home from the grocery store. I wonder why?
Typical of our polically correct society and our propensity to search for the culprit rather than look in the mirror, we have these two authors along with Mayor Bloomberg leading us astray. As Pogo the cartoon Possum would say, “We have met the enemy and he is us!”
So let’s examine us! Research conducted by psychologists at numerous universities reveals that most personal and social problems derive from the failure of self-control. Examples include: compulsive spending and borrowing, under achievement in school, procrastination, alcohol and drug abuse, unhealthy diet, chronic anxiety and explosive anger. Poor self-control correlates with just about every kind of personal trauma including: losing friends, being fired, getting divorced and winding up in prison.” There is no question that the development of self-control is critical in order to have reliable and responsible citizens. Self-control keeps one from being swayed from the right course by evil forces which can come from either outside or inside the person. These forces can include the evil food purveyors who want us to become addicted to their food.
Let’s spend a moment on what is the cause of obesity. This is a simple problem in physics. A person’s body requires a certain amount of nutrients to sustain itself. If the body’s intake of nutrients exceeds this amount, the body stores the nutrients for another day. This stored material is called FAT!!
IN A WORD, IT’S THE CALORIES, STUPID!!
Now, I have no doubt that programs designed to help persons to diet do cause weight loss. The problem is those same persons cannot seem to keep the weight from returning. That is because none of the programs deal with the root cause, namely we lack the WILL POWER to control how much we eat. Each of these programs provides crutches which lead us to believe that there is something magic about their program. But these crutches do nothing to help us develop our will power. So when we toss the crutches aside, we fall right back to where we were.
Reminds me of the preacher who admonished his parishioners to call on the Almighty to cure their aliments. A person at the back of the Church called out that he had just witnessed a miracle. It seemed that there was a cripple on two crutches, who upon hearing the inspiring message, tossed one crutch away and then tossed the other away, as well. The preacher exclaimed that he had to see this man, where is he? Another parishioner called out, he is back here flat on his ass!
We used to believe that self-control was a vital component needed to set a child on the right course, and society spent a large amount of time and money developing moral compasses and self-control in children. This began at virtually the time the child arrived and continued until the child was an adult about eighteen years of age. Beginning in the 1960’s, however, the ideas of a moral conscience and self-control were weakened as society began to celebrate self indulgence. “If it feels good, just do it”. Concurrently, social scientists began to seek the causes for lack of consciences and self-control. They concluded that the causes were poverty, depreciation, failures of the economy, the environment or political influences. In short, the idea was that the individual was not responsible. In fact the individual was a victim. Moreover, we started to believe that we must be careful not to harm a child’s self-esteem, so we rewarded them for nearly anything and everything they did regardless of the quality of the child’s performance.
There is a better book than Moss’s or Brzezinski to help with obesity. It is actually called “Willpower”. This book is chock-a-block full of research data gathered from controlled experiments conducted over the past two or three decades. It breaks willpower into its physiological and psychological components and how to use it. The book combines clearly described scientific experiments, practical advice and a path forward from the morass we find our selves in. Based on their findings, there is hope for our society. It is a must read for parents who have the job of raising the next generation as well as anyone who would like to have more self-control. And it would doubtless help the person trying to control weight.
The government wants to be in every room in our lives, let’s not let them into our dinning room!
.
.
Tuesday, April 30, 2013
Perspective: Why Can’t We Get It Straight?
If it walks like a duck, if it quacks like a duck and if it looks like a duck what is it?
Obama would call it a catastrophe of nature! How about this? If it looks like an act of terror, it terrorizes you and you catch the terrorists in the act, what is it? Obviously to Obama, it is a bunch of Republican gun owning zealots who don’t want background checks.
Is our President too young to remember that in 1996 Bin Laden issued a fatwā entitled: "Declaration of War against the Americans”. This document was signed by five people, four of whom represented specific Islamic groups, and it was faxed to supporters across the world.
The first attack in this war occurred on August 7,1998 when two of our embassies were truck bombed by Islamic Jihadists killing hundreds of US employees. This was followed by the terrorist’s suicide bombing of the USS Cole which cost the lives of 17 fine American sailors and then on September 11, 2001 planes piloted by Muslim Jihadists destroyed the two Trade Center buildings, severely damaged the Pentagon and crash landed in a field in Pennsylvania, all in all killing over 3,000 persons. In addition, we lost about 5,000 of our finest military fighting wars against the Islamic Jihadists in Iraq and Afghanistan. Fortunately, we have managed to thwart the Shoe Bomber’s plan in 2001, the Time Square Bomber’s in 2010 and Underwear Bomber’s in 2012. But then in 2009, a Muslim shoots and kills his fellow soldiers at Fort Hood.
Now, it turns out that the Boston Marathon bombers look like Muslims, they came from a Muslim Country went to Muslim Madrassas and attend Muslim services in Mosques, and their tools for terrorizing mimic those of known Muslim terrorists. Do you notice a pattern? Wouldn’t your first thought be that they might be part of Bin Laden’s Muslim Jihad? Not so to our President who initially stated, it’s a catastrophe! Oh, and the Fort Hood massacre is just a workplace accident.
A student taking a course in Logic or earlier generations who still held sense in common would have nailed this in a minute. Unfortunately for problem solving we are inundated with Political Correctness where nearly every term had been changed, e.g. an act of terror is a “disaster or a castrophy”, or murdering a viable fetus is “choice”. By this reasoning the surviving bomber is not an Islamic Jihadist! He is just a US citizen who is a nice guy who had a bad night with a bad brother. They were in the business of making and transporting bombs, but two accidentally fell out of their knapsacks while they stopped to view the Boston Marathon, and the others were to be delivered to New York City. However, they were too poor to own a car, so they simply “borrowed” one to make that delivery.
Are we living in Alice’s PC Wonderland, or what?
It is a fundamental fact that if you cannot define a problem, you cannot solve it. And equally important to understand is that you must use clear and unequivocal terms. If you don’t employ these principles you don’t have a ghost of a chance of being able to understand the problem let alone to solve it. Another principle of problem solving is that among the entire list of possible theories that can be generated to explain the phenomena, the simplest has the highest probability of being correct.
With all the evidence of attacks on Americans following the Bin Laden Fatwa, why do we have so much trouble calling this what it is? It is war!! This is not just a bunch of unrelated April Fool Pranks! How often do we have to see this movie before we get it? The entire planet, including the United States, is the battlefield, and these Radical Islamists who carry out these acts of terror, are enemy combatants. In an ordinary war, if a country declares war on us, we try to capture or kill the enemy combatants on the battlefield. Now, what does it matter whether the enemy combatants are US citizens who have been “self-radicalized” or where the battlefield is? Those who are radicalized or are inclined to become so do not have to live in a tribe in the Middle East to become an Islamic Jihadist! We live in the digital world, and this can link every Islamic Jihadist in the world. Further, if we believe that these US citizens have joined the Radical Islamist group who are out to kill us, they have committed treason regardless, of age, or that they look like nice guys or where they reside, and they should be treated accordingly.
If you want to know how sick and stupid we have become just notice how we handled the interview of the surviving Boston Marathon Terrorist. We had just learned that he and his brother had plans to do similar damage in New York City and God only knows where else when our Government intervened and read him his Miranda Rights, thus preventing us from obtaining pertinent information he might possess. Had this terrorist been treated as an enemy combatant, we might have learned what other heinous plans they had, and most importantly what was his brother’s connection with Chechnya and the larger worldwide Islamist Jihad.
In summary, what we need to do to combat the Muslim terrorist is to just have the guts to call a duck a duck. Since Bin Laden declared war on us 17 years ago, one Muslim Jihadist after another from all over the world, which includes the US, decided to fight in Bin Laden’s war. Is it a stretch then, to conclude that any Muslim Jihadist caught in the act of terrorizing, regardless of Nationality or Geographic location is a Bin Laden soldier, and therefore is an “enemy combatant”? The entire world knows how to deal with enemy combatants, why don’t we?
One more thing! If the radical Jihadists represent only a fraction of the worldwide Muslim population, and more importantly, if their motives and terrorist activities are repugnant to the majority of the Muslims on the planet, then why does that group, who should be our allies, remain silent? Has anyone seen or heard a Muslim Imam come out to decry and disavow the attack on the Boston Marathon?
Friday, April 12, 2013
Perspective: How Do We Keep the Middle Class From Dropping Out?
As mentioned in an earlier blog, the Middle Class in the United States achieved an historic wage earning level after WWII because the US had the only manufacturing capability on the planet unscathed from the War. Today, about 20 million Americans, mostly in the Middle Class, are out of work or working part time. It is worse than these numbers show because most of these people have skills that no longer meet the current global and digital market needs.
This shows up in the numbers. The most recent jobs report states that last month about a half a million potential workers stopped looking for work, and as a consequence, the jobless rate dropped. Based on this math, one would assume that the answer is to have all who can’t find work to stop looking. This would drive the unemployed percent to zero. Then we could forget all about the problem!
Or could we? Those in the Middle Class that stop looking for work altogether will just end up in another group, namely those classified as disabled and are thus obtaining Social Security or those who are considered poor and are obtaining food stamps and all the rest of government handouts. Obama claims that these unemployed are being exploited. Nevertheless, he does nothing tangible about their plight except to preach that they can “pull themselves up by their boot straps, if only the rich will provide the boots”. Can we stand to have the Middle Class be dependent upon the government? Worse, can we afford to have them drop out? Of course not!
Those who have been reading my blogs know that I believe we have our priorities all wrong. Contrary to what the environmental enthusiasts tell us, our lifestyle will not cause the world to collapse within our lifetime, but I can assure you that if the problem of how to help our Middle Class is not seriously addressed and soon, the cost of supporting them and their children and their children’s children will permanently harm the lifestyle we have all come to love.
As an historic fact, jobs for the under skilled have been shrinking during the past 100 years. Farm labor, for example has dropped from 33% of the total labor force to less than 2 % today. By contrast professional and skilled labor has increased to 70 % of the total work force. Because of the digital revolution and the robotization it brings with it, we can expect the skilled class to increase to about 75 to 80% while non-skilled labor shrinks to about 20-25% of the total work force.
Interestingly, jobs that require high skills are increasing faster than we are graduating those with the skills in science, technology, engineering and mathematics (STEM) which are required for the jobs. The number of these jobs is expanding rapidly because the digital revolution is now upon us in full force. A new factor in this equation is that manufacturing jobs that moved overseas are beginning to return to the US. It turns out that manufacturing is most efficient when located in the same proximity as design, engineering and marketing. Also, the cost of overseas labor is rising, and the cost of shipping is also rising due to rising oil prices.
Another factor affecting high tech jobs is the extremely low cost of ethane. This is a component of natural gas and a major building block for chemicals and polymers. Consequently, major chemical manufacturers are lured to build plants in the US. The group includes Dow and Shell, major US companies, but it also includes BASF, a German company, which is the world’s largest chemical manufacturer. As an aside, let me mention that these plants will hire many chemical engineers at starting salaries above $100,000 per annum.
In a sentence, we have a dilemma: We have a shortage of jobs for the unskilled workers, and a shortage of workers for the skilled jobs. This has happened so swiftly that the economy and the Middle Class have been unable to adjust to it.
The fact is we are experiencing a paradigm shift in the type of skills required to meet the market needs as the chart graphically illustrates.
PERCENT OF US LABOR MARKET.
1910 2010
Unskilled, or Low Skilled
Farm Labor 33 2
Other Labor 15 8
Operators, Foremen, Craftsmen 25 20
Sub-Total 73 30
Professional, Managerial, Clerical, Marketing 27 70
Source: Occupational changes during the twentieth century
Ian D. Wyatt and Daniel E. Hecker
Looking at these data tells us that we have been moving from a society that functioned very well with low skilled labor to one where modern technology and even robots require highly skilled workers. In the early part of the 20th century, a one-room school six or eight grade education was all that was needed to get a decent job. But in the 21st century, a High School education may not be enough. A Trade School, Junior College and in many cases, even a College degree is required to obtain a job of “American Dream” quality..
You do not have to be an Einstein to know what is in the immediate future. Just look in your child’s hand and you will find a device that seems to be affixed to as though from birth. This amazing device reminds us old folks of the radio wrist watch of Dick Tracy days. In a way the Smart Phone is in fact a kind of two-way radio. But it is infinitely more than that! It permits the owner, even a child, to access the entire world’s knowledge on any subject in a matter of seconds. Contrast this to what the the kid had access to in the one-room school with one teacher teaching 8 grades. But the wonderment of it is that it is predicted that these so-called “phones, a mere five years old, will be in the hands of five billion earth dwellers within the next ten years. What else do we need to know to realize where this is heading at mach speed?
So, what in the face of this dramatic change in the workplace can be done to help the Middle Class to get back to work right now? Fortuitously, we have the opportunity and the need for a large amount of such under-skilled labor because of the discovery of the huge quantities of natural gas and oil right here in our back yard. To get this low cost product to market requires massive amounts of infrastructure that does not exist.. This includes piping the products to users such as the chemical and electricity producers and to export markets. Piping is also needed to get the gas to locations where it can be used for automotive fuel. This fuel, called compressed natural gas CNG, is already being used in trucks and busses, but the shortage of infrastructure to create the CNG and get the refueling facilities in place is slowing the adoption of this low-cost, environmentally friendly automotive fuel. And as the March 23rd article in the Olean Times explains, the shortage of infrastructure is showing up right here.
“The biggest drawback to the use of compressed natural gas (CNG) is that while there is an estimated 10,000 vehicles in the State of New York capable of using CNG -10% of the vehicles in the Nation- there are only about 100 CNG refueling stations in the State, and one-third of those are public”
The work to build this infrastructure does not require a college degree. Mostly it requires know-how that the jobless already have. Therefore this group of workers could begin work at once.
To increase the number of persons who are skilled in STEM is another matter. Two actions are required.
• Find a way to convince females who represent half of college graduates to take and graduate with majors in STEM. Currently, the percentage is only about 5%
• Change the immigration policy so that foreign students who major in STEM can stay and work in the United States.
As stated at the beginning of this blog, our priorities are out of whack. The idea that our infrastructure of roads and schools must be fixed as a priority is silly. We have had one major bridge collapse in the last ten years with minimal damage to human life. And we do not see traffic backed up because the roads are crumbling and therefore impassable. Another silly idea is that we have to spend billions on new pre-school programs. We know from Head Start that the kids who are not in that program reach equality with those who are in about 1-3 years. We have always known what to do to improve our schools and the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation’s study has confirmed it! The schools need two things, namely, a good teacher and a good parent. The way the Foundation determined who was a good teacher was to ask the students. As a former student, I am shocked, shocked to just now learn that students know which teachers are good and which were not!
Now, you would think that the US Government would leap at this once in a lifetime opportunity to do something special to help the Middle Class. Unfortunately however, based on the way our governmental leaders talk and act and the low priority they have given this problem, one has to assume that they have no clue what is going on and what has to be done about it. Maybe we should give them Dick Tracy watches.
This shows up in the numbers. The most recent jobs report states that last month about a half a million potential workers stopped looking for work, and as a consequence, the jobless rate dropped. Based on this math, one would assume that the answer is to have all who can’t find work to stop looking. This would drive the unemployed percent to zero. Then we could forget all about the problem!
Or could we? Those in the Middle Class that stop looking for work altogether will just end up in another group, namely those classified as disabled and are thus obtaining Social Security or those who are considered poor and are obtaining food stamps and all the rest of government handouts. Obama claims that these unemployed are being exploited. Nevertheless, he does nothing tangible about their plight except to preach that they can “pull themselves up by their boot straps, if only the rich will provide the boots”. Can we stand to have the Middle Class be dependent upon the government? Worse, can we afford to have them drop out? Of course not!
Those who have been reading my blogs know that I believe we have our priorities all wrong. Contrary to what the environmental enthusiasts tell us, our lifestyle will not cause the world to collapse within our lifetime, but I can assure you that if the problem of how to help our Middle Class is not seriously addressed and soon, the cost of supporting them and their children and their children’s children will permanently harm the lifestyle we have all come to love.
As an historic fact, jobs for the under skilled have been shrinking during the past 100 years. Farm labor, for example has dropped from 33% of the total labor force to less than 2 % today. By contrast professional and skilled labor has increased to 70 % of the total work force. Because of the digital revolution and the robotization it brings with it, we can expect the skilled class to increase to about 75 to 80% while non-skilled labor shrinks to about 20-25% of the total work force.
Interestingly, jobs that require high skills are increasing faster than we are graduating those with the skills in science, technology, engineering and mathematics (STEM) which are required for the jobs. The number of these jobs is expanding rapidly because the digital revolution is now upon us in full force. A new factor in this equation is that manufacturing jobs that moved overseas are beginning to return to the US. It turns out that manufacturing is most efficient when located in the same proximity as design, engineering and marketing. Also, the cost of overseas labor is rising, and the cost of shipping is also rising due to rising oil prices.
Another factor affecting high tech jobs is the extremely low cost of ethane. This is a component of natural gas and a major building block for chemicals and polymers. Consequently, major chemical manufacturers are lured to build plants in the US. The group includes Dow and Shell, major US companies, but it also includes BASF, a German company, which is the world’s largest chemical manufacturer. As an aside, let me mention that these plants will hire many chemical engineers at starting salaries above $100,000 per annum.
In a sentence, we have a dilemma: We have a shortage of jobs for the unskilled workers, and a shortage of workers for the skilled jobs. This has happened so swiftly that the economy and the Middle Class have been unable to adjust to it.
The fact is we are experiencing a paradigm shift in the type of skills required to meet the market needs as the chart graphically illustrates.
PERCENT OF US LABOR MARKET.
1910 2010
Unskilled, or Low Skilled
Farm Labor 33 2
Other Labor 15 8
Operators, Foremen, Craftsmen 25 20
Sub-Total 73 30
Professional, Managerial, Clerical, Marketing 27 70
Source: Occupational changes during the twentieth century
Ian D. Wyatt and Daniel E. Hecker
Looking at these data tells us that we have been moving from a society that functioned very well with low skilled labor to one where modern technology and even robots require highly skilled workers. In the early part of the 20th century, a one-room school six or eight grade education was all that was needed to get a decent job. But in the 21st century, a High School education may not be enough. A Trade School, Junior College and in many cases, even a College degree is required to obtain a job of “American Dream” quality..
You do not have to be an Einstein to know what is in the immediate future. Just look in your child’s hand and you will find a device that seems to be affixed to as though from birth. This amazing device reminds us old folks of the radio wrist watch of Dick Tracy days. In a way the Smart Phone is in fact a kind of two-way radio. But it is infinitely more than that! It permits the owner, even a child, to access the entire world’s knowledge on any subject in a matter of seconds. Contrast this to what the the kid had access to in the one-room school with one teacher teaching 8 grades. But the wonderment of it is that it is predicted that these so-called “phones, a mere five years old, will be in the hands of five billion earth dwellers within the next ten years. What else do we need to know to realize where this is heading at mach speed?
So, what in the face of this dramatic change in the workplace can be done to help the Middle Class to get back to work right now? Fortuitously, we have the opportunity and the need for a large amount of such under-skilled labor because of the discovery of the huge quantities of natural gas and oil right here in our back yard. To get this low cost product to market requires massive amounts of infrastructure that does not exist.. This includes piping the products to users such as the chemical and electricity producers and to export markets. Piping is also needed to get the gas to locations where it can be used for automotive fuel. This fuel, called compressed natural gas CNG, is already being used in trucks and busses, but the shortage of infrastructure to create the CNG and get the refueling facilities in place is slowing the adoption of this low-cost, environmentally friendly automotive fuel. And as the March 23rd article in the Olean Times explains, the shortage of infrastructure is showing up right here.
“The biggest drawback to the use of compressed natural gas (CNG) is that while there is an estimated 10,000 vehicles in the State of New York capable of using CNG -10% of the vehicles in the Nation- there are only about 100 CNG refueling stations in the State, and one-third of those are public”
The work to build this infrastructure does not require a college degree. Mostly it requires know-how that the jobless already have. Therefore this group of workers could begin work at once.
To increase the number of persons who are skilled in STEM is another matter. Two actions are required.
• Find a way to convince females who represent half of college graduates to take and graduate with majors in STEM. Currently, the percentage is only about 5%
• Change the immigration policy so that foreign students who major in STEM can stay and work in the United States.
As stated at the beginning of this blog, our priorities are out of whack. The idea that our infrastructure of roads and schools must be fixed as a priority is silly. We have had one major bridge collapse in the last ten years with minimal damage to human life. And we do not see traffic backed up because the roads are crumbling and therefore impassable. Another silly idea is that we have to spend billions on new pre-school programs. We know from Head Start that the kids who are not in that program reach equality with those who are in about 1-3 years. We have always known what to do to improve our schools and the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation’s study has confirmed it! The schools need two things, namely, a good teacher and a good parent. The way the Foundation determined who was a good teacher was to ask the students. As a former student, I am shocked, shocked to just now learn that students know which teachers are good and which were not!
Now, you would think that the US Government would leap at this once in a lifetime opportunity to do something special to help the Middle Class. Unfortunately however, based on the way our governmental leaders talk and act and the low priority they have given this problem, one has to assume that they have no clue what is going on and what has to be done about it. Maybe we should give them Dick Tracy watches.
Sunday, March 24, 2013
Perspective: Easter Bunny Banned in District Schools
News Item:
"The Indian River School District’s concern over issues of religious expression in the schools — a matter discussed and debated for the past three years — reached new heights this week when officials mandated on Tuesday that no school in the district can host or celebrate the Easter holiday with egg hunts, candy or the Easter Bunny, etc.The recommendation was made at the suggestion of the district’s administrative superintendent, Susan Bunting, on strong advice from attorney Jason Gosselin. It follows a recent partial legal settlement, announced at last month’s school board meeting, that was an attempt to bring the district’s policy on religion “more in line with the U.S. Constitution” after two Jewish families filed suit claiming the district had pursued pro-Christian policies."
Exactly what does the Constitution say about this?
“Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof”.
Wow! That is a new one!! Celebrating a religion is equal to Establishing a religion! Letting the Bunny into the school is tantamount to the government establishing a religion? How scaring can it get? But hey, if the Jews are so upset, why not give their “Jewish Bunny” equal time? Oh, by the way, did you know that Easter is not even mentioned in the Bible?
This would be hilarious and just the stuff for Saturday Night Live, if it were not so serious. But the Controllers and kill-joys just can’t leave us alone. As Ronald Regan would say, “There they go again”!
Let me ask you to imagine that you knew nothing about Easter and then were told that every child believed that they if they put fancy baskets in the right place on a designated night in Spring then a bunny rabbit could lay decorated eggs in them and put candy in, as well. You are correct! You would surely want to ban such a practice straight away to prevent the child from growing up a complete loony. And what if they wanted to bring that filled basket to school to show their friends? Oh, my God!!!
If Easter is not found in the Bible, then where did it come from? Now, wouldn’t this be a perfect question for school children to ask? Is it too much to ask that a school board president, a superintendent, a principal and a teacher know that we live in an age when we have all the knowledge the entire world has ever known right in the palm of our hand where in a matter of minutes we can learn the truth about any subject? And would not this be the perfect time to have the kids use the I-phone they have glued to their hands and get them to stop texting with it long enough to look up the origin of Easter?
When I heard about the controversy over the celebration of Easter, I immediately grabbed our I-Pad to look up the origin of Easter, and in about three minutes found the following, which I quote verbatim:
“Spring is in the air! Flowers and bunnies decorate the home. Father helps the children paint beautiful designs on eggs dyed in various colors. These eggs, which will later be hidden and searched for, are placed into lovely, seasonal baskets. The wonderful aroma of the hot cross buns mother is baking in the oven waft through the house. Forty days of abstaining from special foods will finally end the next day. The whole family picks out their Sunday best to wear to the next morning’s sunrise worship service to celebrate the savior’s resurrection and the renewal of life. Everyone looks forward to a succulent ham with all the trimmings. It will be a thrilling day. After all, it is one of the most important religious holidays of the year.” Easter, right?
“Wrong This is a description of an ancient Babylonian family—2,000 years before Christ—honoring the resurrection of their god, Tammuz, who was brought back from the underworld by his mother/wife, Ishtar (after whom the festival was named). As Ishtar was actually pronounced “Easter” in most Semitic dialects, it could be said that the event portrayed here is, in a sense, Easter.”
“Of course, the occasion could easily have been a Phrygian family honoring Attis and Cybele, or perhaps a Phoenician family worshipping Adonis and Astarte. Also fitting the description well would be an Israelite family honoring the Canaanite Baal and Ashtoreth. Or this depiction could just as easily represent any number of other fertility celebrations of death and resurrection—including the modern Easter celebration as it has come to us through the Anglo-Saxon fertility rites of the goddess Eostre or Ostara. These are all the same festivals, separated only by time and culture.”
In other words, this yearly event has been celebrated for thousands of years by nearly every group on the globe as a fun time. The timing connects with the ending of Winter and the beginning of new life at Spring. So why not celebrate with all the humans on the planet who have done so for millennia?
The problem is worse in the first six grades. First the schools dropped recess and found that the boys had to be given Ritalin. Then the Christmas tree was tossed out of the school, and now the Easter Bunny must go. How boring do we want our elementary schools to be? If the kill-joys are permitted to go on like this, children will have no fun in school at all! Hasn’t anyone noticed that our kids spend more time texting than having fun with other kids doing silly things such as playing tag, decorating Christmas trees and showing off their Easter baskets? And you wonder why the drop out rate is high? As Sherlock Holmes would say: “It’s elementary (school) dear Watson.
How about this for an answer for the school board president? If these controllers won’t let your school teach religion, maybe they will permit you to teach history? If our schools are truly interested in educating our children (versus indoctrinating them) but cannot teach anything about religion, why not let them teach that mankind has been celebrating the spring equinox for as far back as history has been recorded? Moreover, is it too much to ask that our teachers, administrators and school boards have enough courage and be creative enough to get around these “controllers”? Now, here’s an idea!! Replace the word Easter with it’s ancient (i.e. historic) predecessor, Ishtar and go right on with the Ishtar bunnies, Ishtar eggs, Ishtar baskets and Ishtar egg hunts!
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)