Fools and Their Princes

     An E-mail circulating through cyberspace refers to
Barrack Obama as the Prince of Fools.  The message concluded
that the problem never is the prince of fools.  The problem is the
fools who make him their prince.  The prince is more likely a
clever manipulator than a fool.

     An article covering a poll about government spending
reminded me of the E-mail.  Many polls have found a substantial
majority want government to cut spending.  I haven't taken these
poll results seriously.  I believed that those polled only wanted
to cut spending for other people.

     I had no proof that this was true.  A recent pool reported
by Newsmax confirmed my beliefs.  "Six in 10 adults oppose
scaling back the entitlements for seniors." Also, "Three-quarters
of Americans believe the nation can get its finances in order
without touching the public safety nets. . . ."

     Newsmax also reports "The only other federal spending
that survey respondents ranked higher on their don't-touch list
was education funding."  These are the fools who select our
princes.

     What is the foolishness?  Endless studies have found no
connection between high spending and better education.   Detroit
schools have one of the highest per pupil spending rates in
Michigan.  About 8 percent of Detroit 8th graders are proficient
in reading.  Washington, D.C. spends more per student than most
schools in the US.  The results are a disaster.  The list could go
on.

     One study found statistical support for a claim that
schools that spend the least do the best jobs.  There is a vast
amount of information available supporting the idea that more
spending doesn't get better results.  Only the willfully ignorant
can miss seeing this elephant in the room.  Fools are willingly
deceived by demagogues who prey on the ignorant to achieve
the demagogues' own goals.

     School spending is far from our biggest problem. 
Medicare is the 600-pound gorilla.  Estimates of unfunded cost
for Medicare range from $70 trillion or so to $150 trillion and
beyond.

     If we stay on the present path, in a few years Medicare,
Medicaid, Social Security and interest on debt will cost more
than all federal tax revenue.  There would be nothing left for the
military, education, highways, parks, research, farm subsidies, or
anything else.   The best part would be that the entire regulatory
arm of the federal government would have to close up shop.  
      Newsmax also reported that "Survey participants named
three areas they are willing see trimmed: foreign aid, funding for
the war in Afghanistan, and salaries and benefits for government
workers."  This is a pittance.  It doesn't come close to covering
the present deficit.  In a few years the present deficit will seem
small.

     Only the ignorant believe we can save the nation from
economic collapse and bankruptcy without drastically cutting
entitlement spending, including Medicare.  Even if Medicare is
the most wonderful and beneficial thing ever devised by humans,
it doesn't matter.

     "Senior entitlements" will be cut.  The only questions are,
How? and When?  In the long run it doesn't matter who is
elected.  The cuts will come.

     We might drastically cut spending soon while we still
have a chance to avoid economic collapse and national
bankruptcy.  Or, we can wait for the spending to end when there
is nothing left to spend.  That end will come long before the
close of the 21st century.

     For so long as the fools who choose our princes remain
in their dream world of ignorance and foolishness, their princes
will talk about balancing the budget, while continuing deficit
spending.  The cuts they talk about will always be next year. 
You may have noticed.  Next year never comes.

     With 70 percent of the voters committed to big spending,
What chance do we have?  Unless, and until, millions of voters
wake up to reality, elections don't matter.  Those elections will
change nothing, except the names of the princes.

aldmccallum@gmail.com
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Copyright 2013
Albert D. McCallum

The Joy of Free Stuff

     Most people like free stuff.  "Free" is one of the most
alluring words in the English language.  Advertisers endlessly
troll with "free" to lure customers.  "Free" is usually a lie.

     In the strictest sense "free" is always a lie.  Nothing is
free.  Someone must pay with the effort it takes to produce "free
stuff."  Even the air you breathe isn't free.  Someone must
produce food to provide the energy to inhale the air.  Free at
most means that someone else pays.

     Most of the free stuff isn't even free for the person who
gets it.  Stores abound with bottles and boxes proclaiming "25
percent more FREE."  How free is that 25 percent?

     Take an empty bottle to the store.  Ask a clerk to pour
your free 25 percent into the bottle.  If the 25 percent is really
free, the clerk will at least let you pour out your free share.  Or,
tell the clerk that you don't want to buy five bottles with 25
percent free in each.   Instead say you prefer one free bottle. 
See how far you get.  The most that "25 percent free" means is
that the price was reduced.

     Some free stuff is really free to you.  Merchants and
others give free samples to introduce new products.  Of course,
if you start buying the product, you may be paying for your free
sample.

     Some of the most costly free stuff is that for which you
pay nothing at the time you get the free stuff.  How can that be?

     Christmas gifts you receive are free, if you don't consider
the social obligation to reciprocate.   How often does someone
get a present that they don't really want?  The golden rule strikes
again.  He who has the gold makes the rules.  He who provides
the gold to pay for the gift can select the gift.

     When we rely on free stuff, we give up control of our
lives.  We get what someone else wants us to have.  Ask
teenagers about that.  Many teens aren't pleased with getting
what their parents want them to have.  They can grow out of
that problem.

     When family and friends provide free stuff they
commonly try to provide things the recipient wants.  Even then
they may fail.

     Donors who use their own resources to provide free stuff
are likely to want that free stuff to be of value to the recipient. 
Second level donors who take from producers and give to
someone else are less concerned.  They operate on the principle
of easy come easy go.  Second level donors include common
thieves and government.

     The major source of "free stuff" is government. 
Individuals endlessly demand more, more and more.  Free
education, free medical services, free roads, free rides, free food,
free housing, free cell phones, etc., etc.

     Customers are kings.  When you buy you can exercise
the full power of your kingship.  The merchant provides what
you want at a price you are willing to pay, or you don't buy.

     Those who rely on free stuff lose their kingship.  They
must settle for what their donor is willing to provide.  Ask
families trapped in failing inner city schools how they like the
free schools?

     The more people rely on free stuff from government, the
more they surrender control over their own lives.  The idea that
laws can protect the recipients of government gifts from control
by government is bogus.

     How much control do individuals have over free
government schools and roads?  Control over free government
medical services is rapidly slipping from those who receive the
free services.  The road to serfdom is paved with free stuff.

     Not only that, those who get the "free stuff" are paying
for it.  They are paying for their own enslavement.  Those who
rely on government free stuff are trapped forever to live the life
of a teenager with parents who don't know much about them, or
care.

aldmccallum@gmail.com
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Copyright 2013
Albert D. McCallum

The Brits Are Back

     A recent article brought me to the realization that I have
been neglecting the Brits.  It has been ages (however long that
is) since I undertook to make fun of a British folly.  This doesn't
mean the Brits have given up the pursuit of the silly and
ridiculous.

     Their past antics simply set the bar so high that their
recent follies just don't stand out.  Requiring farmers to give toys
to their pigs and treating sandwich wrap as industrial waste are
hard to top.  Requiring small chested police women to wear
florescent vests was a cut above the ordinary too.

     I don't know if their latest act rises above, or falls below,
their prior achievements.  It is at least competitive.

     An Israeli company, SodaStream, produces a machine for
making carbonated drinks at home.  SodaStream's adds have
been banned from British Television.  How bad must something
be to earn a ban from British television?

     What horrors do these adds include?  Television
advertisements in Britain are regulated by something called
Clearcast.  Clearcast found the atrocity in the adds.  Supposedly
the adds denigrate the bottled drink industry.

     Can anyone even dream of anything more horrible and
dastardly than denigrating the competition?  Aren't we fortunate
that no advertiser in the USA would ever dream of suggesting
that the competition's products are inferior, or even dangerous?

     What did SodaStream try to inflict on innocent television
viewers?  According to Newsmax "SodaStream  . . .  promotes
itself as environmentally friendly because it reduces the use of
plastic bottles and aluminum cans.  The ad shows plastic bottles
disappearing as people at home use their SodaStream machines."

     Can you even imagine an advertiser in the USA daring to
suggest its product was more environmentally friendly than a
competing product?  Of course, New York mayor Blomberg
denigrated large sodas to the point of making them illegal in
New York City.  Perhaps he should be banned from television. 
Maybe he is banned from British television.

     I can imagine two possible explanations for the British ad
ban.  One is, the British bottled soda industry has a strong lobby. 
That is something we in the USA should understand.  The
makers of screw in florescent bulbs lobbied successfully for the
ban of incandescent light bulbs.  It is even reasonable to suggest
that they denigrated the incandescent light bulb industry.

     The other explanation lurks in the world of political
correctness.  Many monsters lurk in that world.  In this case two
cannons of political correctness clashed head on.  Which is the
most important?  Should one advocate for the environment or be
anti Israeli?

     SodaStream's plant is located in West Bank country
which some consider to be the domain of those people
commonly called Palestinians.  Never mind that the plant's
employees are Arabs.  To some the plant is still evil and must
not be allowed to promote its products in Britain.

     I wonder how much anguish the politically correct suffer
when forced to choose between two of their favorite children?  
Perhaps we should take a collection to provide grief counseling
for them.  On second though, not a good idea.  That would
probably be deemed politically incorrect and cause them more
grief.  On third thought, should we waste our time worrying
about the self torture experienced by those who propagate the
squirrelly ideas that flow from the world of political correctness?

     If the people supporting the ad ban were half clever they
would have banned the adds for promoting soda rather than for
encouraging the elimination of cans and bottles.  At least they
could have been at peace with themselves, assuming the
politically correct can ever be at peace with anyone.

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Copyright 2013
Albert D. McCallum
18440 29-1/2 Mile Road
Springport, Michigan 49284

Flipping the Classroom

     A recent educational innovation is sometimes called
"flipping the classroom."  It has nothing to do with obscene
gestures.  The "it was good enough for grandpa, it is good
enough for me" crowd may consider it to be obscene.

     Schools have been decrepit and counter productive dating
back to at least the time I was confined in them.  I hated school. 
Though I have been out of the school loop for decades, I still
cringe whenever school begins a new session.

     I was well aware of many of the flaws in schools long
before I served out my sentence.  Most of what I have learned I
found outside of school.  Most of what I learned while in school
didn't come from the classroom.  It is a good thing.

     My final two years in engineering school I mostly kicked
the habit of attending classes.  Usually when I did attend, the
most I got was a good nap.  Most of what transpired in the
classroom didn't make a meaningful contribution to my
education.

     Once I made a ridiculous mistake on an exam.  It was the
product of half reading the question.  The instructor wrote a
comment on the exam paper:  "Are you sleeping during the
exams now too?"

     Flipping the classroom caught my attention partly because
it addresses one of my greatest annoyances with the school
system.  I despise lectures.  Before Gutenberg lectures may have
made sense.

     Knowledge was stored in the minds and notes of the
instructors.  The students were stenographers who adsorbed the
knowledge into their own minds and notes.  Invention of the
printing press made lecturing an obsolete waste of time.

     Instructors could, and did, print out their knowledge and
distribute it to those interested  in it.  Still, most of those
instructors kept on lecturing.  Old habits die hard.  One of my
college instructors spent substantial parts of class reading the
text book to the students.

     I got an A in that class.  I also got an A in the next term
of the same subject.  My  former instructor wrote most of the
text book for that class.  I took the final exam without taking the
class.  I guess I could read the text as well as the instructor
could read it to me.  I also read much faster than he talked.

     Half of the flip in "flipping the classroom" is taking
lectures out of the classroom.  The instructor puts the lecture
material on disks, computers, the Internet, or some other place
where the students can access it anytime they want to.  They can
also pause to dwell on points they don't understand the first time
through.

     In a live lecture, if you miss it, it's gone.  If the rest of
the lecture builds on the point the student missed, he might as
well join me in a nap for the rest of the lecture.  The student can
also fast forward through material he has already learned.

     In the traditional classroom the students are treated to a
lecture, often a monologue.  Then the students are assigned
questions and problems to struggle with on their own.  In the
flipped classroom students work on the questions in class where
the teacher works with those who need help.

     As the saying goes "The proof of the pudding is in the
tasting."  How does the flipped classroom taste?

     According to an article from the Mackinac Center,
Clintondale High School had a problem.  An average of over 41
percent of freshmen were failing four basic subjects.  Clintondale
flipped.  The failure rate dropped to 15 percent the first year. 
For Clintondale students the pudding was delicious.

     There is still much more to explore in educational
innovations.  At least the wave of innovation is finally lapping at
the beach of traditional schools.  That wave will grow into a
tsunami.  The masters of the traditional schools must choose. 
They can either ride the wave to the future, or drown.

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Copyright 2013
Albert D. McCallum
18440 29-1/2 Mile Road
Springport, Michigan 49284