Constant Geography

Virtual Tour of Earth's Evolution

noreply@blogger.com (Anonymous) — Sun, 10 Nov 2013 17:45:00 +0000

The Story of Earth: The First 4.5 Billion Years, From Stardust to Living Planet; by Robert Hazen. 2012. Viking Books. $28.

The first post/book review I failed to provide any maps. And, there are lots of maps I could have posted. Many places around on our planet illustrate the changes our planet has undergone in the brief 4.5 billion years our planet has been in existence.

With this post, I'm going to provide a few maps which will help us see the geographic distribution and variety of sampling locations on our planet which showcase the information we have access to.

The United States

I'm going to begin our journey where the author began his journey of study of the Earth's geology. Our first stop is Cleveland, Ohio. The author's boyhood home is near Cleveland. Within the environs of Ohio's 2nd largest city, many sites contain Devonian age (420-360 MYA) aquatic fossils.

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One can visit places in Montana where the rock layer sequences are physically accessible. A visitor could literally lay their hands on rocks half-a-billion years old.

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Later in our author's academic life, Dr. Hazen would take a field trip to the community of Nahant, Massachusetts. Rare shell-building fauna are exposed in Cambrian age layers (540-500 MYA) on this tiny spit of land hanging off the coast of Massachusetts.

I don't want to limit our experience to the United States, though. Yes, the U.S. does have an amazing abundance of fossil of all types, representing over 500 million years of life on Planet Earth. However, the U.S. is not alone in its abundance of fossil-bearing rocks.

China

In the southern province of Guizhou, China, we can travel back to the end of the Endiacaran Period, 580 MYA, and examine sponges with hardened spines. Creatures were beginning to utilize minerals in solution for building themselves little protective shells.

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Morocco

In the Anti-Atlas mountains of western Morocco we can find more evidence of Ediacaran Period sediments. Near the settlement of Anoun'Tout, Morocco, and near the Souss River, fossil-bearing rock strata provide millions of years of carbonate evidence.

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But, at 500 MYA, we have only scratched the surface of Earth's lifespan. Can we go farther back than 500 MYA? Are there places we can visit which can yield more clues to the geologic and perhaps biologic history of the Earth? After all, 500 MYA is only about 1/9th, 11%, of the Earth's 4.5 billion year lifespan.

Canada

As it turns out, yes. And, as it turns out for Canadians and U.S. citizens, we don't have to leave North America to find our evidence.

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In the Gunflint Range, a thin offshoot of the Duluth Complex, located on the western shore of Lake Superior, we can find what paleontologists say are cherts which hold the oldest "absolutely unambiguous fossils of photosynthetic cells on Earth." (173) Ancient microbial fossils have been dated back 1.9 billion years.

However, if we really want to go as far back in time as possible, to locate the oldest known evidence of ancient microbes, of photosynthetic microbes, and essentially life, we could visit Shark Bay, Australia. I know what you are thinking: Australia gets all the cool stuff.

Shark Bay, Australia, is home to stromatolites. The living stromatolites of Shark Bay are so unique and peculiar this place is has been recognized as a World Heritage Site. These stromatolites tipped-off paleontologists that other structures found around the world were the result of microbes building reef systems. Analysis of these reef systems have provided dates going back as far as 3.5 billions years.

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Finally, to wrap up our small journey here I mention the Deep Carbon Observatory. Unlike a stellar observatory, or a space-based observation platform, the Deep Carbon Observatory (DCO) represents an international coalition of organizations and scientists pooling research interests to better understand the role of Carbon on a planetary scale. We can visit their web site, but their physical aspect is distributed among the Univesity of Rhode Island, Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute, and the Carnegie Institution of Washington. The DCO also enjoys global support from a network of partners (map) and community member who contribute towards research goals.

Ancient Roots: Flowers May Have Existed When First Dinosaur Was Born (livescience.com)
Tiny, Strange Primate Fossil Unearthed in Coal Mine (livescience.com)

You were here: Maps for seeing geography through time (paleoaerie.org)

Book Review: The Story of Earth, by Robert Hazen

noreply@blogger.com (Anonymous) — Sun, 10 Nov 2013 16:57:00 +0000

The Story of Earth, by Robert M. Hazen. Viking Press. Hardback. $28

I'm writing this review early. I think it is important I do so. I learned something almost immediately, within the Introduction, in fact. Not even did I reach the first chapter before I realized how ignorant I have allowed myself to become. And, I pride myself on being "observant," almost to the point of being condescending to others. Then, I open this book, begin reading, and realize, Wow, I've been so blind. And, then my ego takes over and I think, If I've been this obtuse about science, then the vast majority of people - I don't mean Americans, I mean all people, everywhere - are ignorant, too. Probably many scientists, too, are just as ignorant. The only people immune to this pigeonholing are those in chemistry, or certain areas of biology, or certain areas of physics or geology.

People often have this general notion all scientists have perfect knowledge of "science." I know I generalize but we see evidence of this in the news. Climate change science is one area where we see this. How often have we heard, "I know this guy. He is very smart, an engineer. He says climate change is bunk." Guess what? He isn't a climate scientist, and depending on the type of engineer, his "opinion" is only marginally better than a person selected at random off the street. Simply because someone has a degree in a field does not necessarily make them an expert in that discipline automatically, even if they hold a Ph.D in that discipline. People specialize the deeper they delve into research. An archaeologist may need to seek out the help of chemists, physicists, geologists, microbiologists, etc. to help them develop a context for a particular dig or site.

I have witnessed the same nonsense when state school boards debate the hot topic of Evolution versus Creationism or Intelligent Design. From Louisiana and Texas to Kansas and Kentucky, numerous people and groups strenuously strive to embed religious doctrine into science curricula. If you (or know someone) fall into this category, you won't like The Story of Earth. Hazen provides indisputable evidence and details which lay bare the falsehood of the 10,000 year-old, or the 6,000 year-old Earth. Still, if you do fall into this category you should read this book so you will understand why those fantastical notions simply hold no water. The universe does not subscribe to the "Surprise Party Theory of Everything," whereby a Prime Mover decorated our apartment in advance of our arrival only to flip on the lights to have everything look just like it does. There is zero evidence of such "design" and this certainly cannot be construed as science. Philosophy, yes. Science, no.

Look, science is not trying to debunk the concept of a Prime Mover, an Omniscient Intellect. In reality, science does not care whether or not a Prime Mover exists. Science is simply the pursuit of discovering "why things are the way they are." Creationists and Intelligent Design enthusiasts, on the other hand, feel threatened science is trying to diminish the power of their Almighty Deity. I'm not saying some scientists would like to disprove the need for a Prime Mover; that is the personal goal of an individual, and not a reflection of Science, in total.

What does this diatribe have to do with how Hazen's book illuminated more of my own ignorance? Good question!

I've been interesting in geology only so much as I think rocks are pretty, earthquakes are cool, volcanoes are neat, and my uncle has a degree in geology, a degree in geochemistry, and a degree in geophysics. As a child, I revered him. He was the smartest person I knew for all of my childhood. But, that is about it with regards to my interests in rocks.

I've taught Earth Science labs, and have been invited to teach an introductory Earth Science course. I turned down the invitation. 50% of the course would have covered geology, and at the time of the invite, I didn't feel I could teach the course in good conscious since I while I may have the knowledge, I lacked the enthusiasm, drive, and now what I see as the fundamental understanding of why the material should be important, beyond the obvious incorporation of rocks and minerals in the materials of our daily lives. I felt geology was sort of boring, compared to cosmology and astronomy. Or economics. Or physics. Since my perspective on the course was rather bland, that I didn't see how I could bring any particular insight or revelations or any enthusiasm into the course, I declined. In fact, I put off reading this book for months as my own bias shelved the book in favor of others detailing black holes, wormholes, and quantum mechanics.

Perhaps I simply wasn't mature enough to accept my own bias was preventing me from learning. I was sniffing my own vapors; I was believing my own hubris. My ego told me, I already know this. Why should I read what I already know and understand?

Yep; I'm a dummy. I admit I made a mistake.

At the root of my mistake is the story of a few elements, notably hydrogen, oxygen, carbon, iron, and silicon. Hazen's book could have a subtitle, "How Hydrogen, Oxygen, and other Elements Crush Young Earth Creationism." We take these elements for granted. Their presence around us is unavoidable, thankfully. Hazen has divided the Earth's history into a timeline represented by the color the Earth may have looked to someone observing from a spaceship, with the exception of the Earth's infancy, the coalescence of our planet from chondrites. Then, our moon is formed as a result of a collision, called the Big Thwack. Next, our planet evolves over time, from Black, to a water Blue, becoming more dark, basaltic Grey, which results in a rusty Red Earth. Our Earth then transitions to snowy White before becoming lush Green. Each of these colors is related to a portion of the Earth's geologic history. Our author is simply using taking some liberty with changes in the Earth's chemical composition, associating a peculiar color with each stage in the Earth's evolution.

When geologists, geochemists, and geophysicists map distributions of isotopes of common elements found in the rock layers of Earth, like carbon and oxygen, patterns emerge. These patterns indicate not only age, but chemical processes, along with location. The presence of certain isotopes, like those of carbon, can indicate the presence of fossil cells. Methylhopaniod molecules lead scientists to ponder the presence of oxygen, since these molecules are tied to cyanobacteria, which produce oxygen by photosynthesis. Traveling to western Australia and sampling the black shales of the Mt McRae provides evidence that 2.5 billion years ago, photosynthesis was occurring. Manitoba, Canada, and the countries of Namibia and South Africa are a few other locations where samples of ancient rocks reveal details of Earth in its early years. Cratons, the building blocks of continents, are among a few of the remaining places which have not been caught up in the constantly churning and recycling of the Earth's crust, and provide clues about our Earth's history.

Oxygen is a scavenger which is why it has gained popularity among cleaning agents, and why we constantly have to fight rust on our cars, trucks, and other mechanical equipment. Oxygen, in spite of our need for it in our body, is quite a nasty substance, and too much oxygen is not a good thing. If I were to ask you, "Where is most of the oxygen on Earth found?" What would your answer be?

Would you reply, "In our atmosphere?" or would you reply, "I'm walking on it. It is under my feet, bound in the rocks in minerals in the Earth's crust and mantle." Most people would probably say, "In our air," I would guess. But, no, 99.999% of all oxygen is under us. Hydrogen, too. In fact, most of the water on Earth is found in our mantle. According to the author, the mantle contains the equivalent of 80x's the amount of water found in our oceans. Not liquid water, mind you, but hydrogen atoms and oxygen atoms bound in the molecules of rocks and minerals, minerals like olivine, pyroxene, and garnet. Quartz is another example, silica dioxide, one atom of silicon and two atoms of oxygen. When you hike a mountain, or walk a beach, you are walking on oxygen, silicon, and other elements and compounds.

The Story of Earth is also the Story of Life. At a fundamental level, we are all composed of cosmic elements, oxygen, hydrogen, nitrogen, calcium, magnesium, and a host of others. These elements coalesced from the remnants of supernovae, and over billions of years gave rise to the amino acids and sugars upon with life is based. Our DNA is composed of the same elements as our sun, our moon, and our Earth. We don't yet understand how the chemical chains of our DNA became organized. Yet. Eventually, we will understand what ignited, what catalyzed those first amino acids and provided them the ability to self-replicate.

The study of geology is almost the study of ourselves. The author proposes the study of the Earth and the study of life on Earth cannot follow two different paths; they are the same path. Organic compounds need minerals to evolve, and minerals need organic compounds in order to form. Not that minerals are sentient and need to know this, but organic compounds given enough heat and pressure, form other important substances. Remember, only carbon atoms are needed for organic chemistry.

The Story of Earth challenges us, OK, me, not to think about a rock as a rock, or even a collection of minerals. No, The Story of Earth challenges us to contemplate the structure of our universe first, to think about how our universe cooled, allowing hydrogen, helium, and lithium to form, first. Later, upon more cooling, the other elements would form, carbon, nitrogen, oxygen, silicon (I left out Beryllium and Boron, or did I?). Then, we are asked to think about how these elements combine, how their atomic masses and number of electrons are important. Then, we are asked to think about, what happens when some elements combine under heat and pressure? What happens when some molecules enjoy a particular bias versus other molecules? Can molecules be susceptible to adaptation, that is, are some molecules more likely to be able to survive while others become less likely to survive?

When we get right down to it, we are a collection of minerals, sugars, and amino acids which have the special capability of reproducing. Sugars and amino acids are collections of molecules, and these molecules are collections of atoms, the atoms representing the variety of elements forming after the first 500,000 years of our universe's existence. How these atoms combined to form sugars and amino acids of of great interest, and why they formed as they did, with right-handed sugars and left-handed amino acids?

Page upon page, Hazen discusses and reveals some answers to the above questions. He also states scientists do not have all the answers right now. Some questions may go unanswered for a long time, maybe until we can travel to another solar system to obtain first hand evidence of what planet-forming really looks like. That some questions must remain unanswered, though, does not mean the questions lack answers, or provide evidence that some problems are insoluble, opening the door for a Prime Mover.

We have to bear in mind we have really yet to scratch the surface of what we know. We have only recently reached a level of technology to really begin exploring our environment. Our computers are better - the fact that we have them at all is a good start! Our sensors are more sensitive, our math is better, our access to good equipment is better. We have only yet to begin our true scientific quests, in my humble opinion. We are eons from knowing all there is to know.

The Story of Earth requires little background in science to read and understand. If you can accept SiO2 has one silicon atom and two oxygen atoms, then you have the prerequisite knowledge to understand the material. However, if you cannot accept the concept of radioactive decay, that uranium will eventually become lead, then you'll have trouble understanding science, in general, and specifically the concepts outlined in this book. But, lets say you fall into the first group. A high school student with a couple semesters of science could read this book. And should, really.

I needed to read this book, and I'm glad I've gotten into it. I needed someone to figuratively slap my face and say, "Hey, you realize some stuff, and that is good, but you are missing some obvious details."

There are few nitpicky details that bothered me initially. I like my numbers to add up. The author tends to play fast and loose with numbers. For example, the author invites us to take a Mental Walk in hopes doing so will help illustrate the age of the Earth. Walk one mile (5,280ft) and you've traveled back in time 175,000 years. Twenty miles are then 3 million years (actually 3.5 million). Walk 20 days at 20 miles per day and you've gone back 70 million years. My math says you've covered 60 million years (20 days x 3 million years equals 60 million years. If you use 3.5 the math works out). But, like I say, this is nitpicking. The author also states "there is no outside to our Universe." From what I've read by Alan Muth and Lawrence Krauss, this may not be true, and could be testable in the future, based on observations of the Cosmic Background Radiation and improved sensor systems, and whether one believes our universe is the only universe and not one of countless "bubble" universes.

If you like science and perhaps need a wake-up call as to the importance of geology, outside of the current focus on petrology with emphasis on fossil fuels, then you should, by all means, read this book. Hazen does a great job of explaining in very simple and down to Earth terms why studying geology parallels the study of life on Earth.

Microbes in Earth's Oceanic Crust May Gobble Oxygen (livescience.com)
Largest reservoir of life beneath Earth's crust may gobble up oxygen (nbcnews.com)
Earth Had Oxygen Much Earlier Than Thought (livescience.com)

Education Is Like A Dysfunctional Family

noreply@blogger.com (Anonymous) — Sun, 10 Nov 2013 16:42:00 +0000

I'm probably wrong, but bear with me as out outline all of my errors for you.

Over the last two decades I've seen student performance noticeably decline. Students fear math. Not calculus, but merely simple multiplication and division. Ask any student to calculate a percentage, i.e. "The population of the United States is 310,000,000 people. Kentucky has a population of 4 million people. What percent of the U.S. population lives in Kentucky?"

We can estimate an answer very quickly. Thirty-one million is 10%, and 3.1 million is 1%, and each 0.1% is about 310,000 people. We can then say 310,000 x 3 = almost 1 million people. If 1% is 3 million people and 0.3 is one million people, then 1.3% is about 4 million people. Finally, we can say the population of Kentucky represents about 1.3% of the total United States population.

But, I teach geography and use numbers like this all the time. My students examine demographics of countries, statistics like death rates and birth rates, literacy rates, and labor force participation rates, and HIV/AIDS prevalence. People need to understand simple ratios in everyday life, though, for doing simple things like calculating gratuities, or figuring out how much our discount at JCPenny's is going to save us.

More importantly, as our politicians increasingly take advantage of the growing apathy, or ignorance, of U.S. citizens while leveraging differences in religion income between neighbors, we need every advantage to overcome egregious misinformation by our politicians and their media minions.

The majority of students in my courses fall into one of two categories. As one might guess, most of my students are early academic career Freshman or Sophomores, not long from high school. I also have several adults "back in college." I have also been an instructor at three community colleges. Community colleges may lack cultural diversity, but what they lack in cultural diversity, they more than compensate by having vast socioeconomic diversity. I have had grandmothers with zero college experience to career professionals in my world geography courses, true freshman right from high school to people straight from military service to people retraining due to job loss or wanting a promotion.

This fall, I have roughly 70 students. This is a light semester; a typical semester is twice this number. All of my courses include numerous writing assignments, usually 4-5 essays. The vast majority of essays have fundamental structural problems. Paragraph indents either do not exist or are too large, e.g. 1" indents. Few students spell-check. The use of sentence fragments in place of a proper sentence is common. Most student cannot effectively communicate using examples even after being told to use "people, places, things, and ideas" mentioned in the podcast or video. Many writing assignments simply end, stop without completely discussing the material, or providing a summary. The writing is crude, lacking a range of vocabulary, attention to details, and organization. Essentially what students are submitting as final drafts of writing assignments I consider to be drafts which never should be submitted.

In the last year, I've argued with an assistant principal at a local high school and have caught two Education student blatantly plagarising. A close friend of mine, working on her education degree has encountered numerous peers who lie, cheat, plagiarise, and have a work ethic not suitable for a person choosing a career in education. In the case of the assistant principal, she did not understand plagiarism. Each semester, I have 6-20 high school students taking my college courses. The assistance principal supervised one of these students, and helped her with her writing assignments. Each writing assignment the student submitted was completely plagiarised, coming from newspaper articles, from Time or Newsweek articles, or from web sites. She offered no links, no "Works Cited," no "Reference," and no footnotes. I found the plagiarism by googling selected sentences. With each submission, the student received a zero and a warning.

On my 3rd warning (this is a high school student, so I was using these assignments as a teaching mechanism to showcase how not to plagiarise) her principal called me.

I don't understand how you can say she is plagiarizing, she declared. She is doing her own research! She shouldn't have to cite anything.

No, you are mistaken, I replied. Your student (and mine) is not doing research, she is doing reporting. She is researching a topic and reporting on the work of others. Because she is reporting on the work of others, she has to cite her articles properly using in-text citations with a Works Cited page. Even if she were conducting her own research, she would not being doing such research in a vacuum, she would be basing her research on the research of others. Therefore, she would still have to cite previous efforts. There is no way around this.

The assistant principal admitted she still didn't understand how the student could be plagiarising, as she had helped the student find her resources and read her essay. My response was rather blunt, that the reality was, the student needs to abide by the rules as stipulated within my syllabus and abide by the university's academic honesty policy - if she wants to continue in the course.

One of the education students I caught plagiarising told me I was the first professor to have caught her cheating in her two-plus years of college coursework. My close friend worked in a group with a fellow education student who professed to have never written an honest paper in his entire 4-year university career. He then went the following semester to begin his student teaching.

Several current student-teachers have indicated no willingness to take home assignments to grade, or to perform many of the extracurricular duties expected of K-12 teachers, such as being a club advisor for chess, speech and debate, or an assistant for a sport. A philosophy of not needing to know "more than a 4th grader because that's the highest grade I'm going teach" is pervasive.

Why do you need to know more than the kids you are teaching? The answer has little to do with the information being communicated to the child. The answer lies with opening and revealing a little more of the world to a young mind. I not saying someone has to be an expert in all fields; that simply impossible. A teacher, an educator, needs to appreciate the learning experience, and the revelations associated with exposing old knowledge to new minds.

A former student of mine is married to a 3rd-Grade teacher. She came home one day, exasperated. Her student-teacher refused to take home work to grade. To add insult to injury, she had asked her student-teacher to calculate the mean scores on some homework and compare those scores to a report.

"I'm not good at math," was the reply. "It's OK; it's 3rd grade math. You'll be fine."

Evidently, the results were calculated wrong and the classroom teacher had to re-work what amounted to figuring the mean grade. So, I see problems developing for higher education. I see problems which will be getting worse, not better. I see problems coming from high schools from the current students, teachers-to-be, and unfortunately, from the administrators. My friend working on her practicum teaching was placed in a classroom containing typical students, plus 6 students who spoke no English. Four of the students were Hispanic Spanish-speakers. Two of the students were from Somalia, by way of Iraq, by way of Louisiana.

"We don't even know where Somalia is. Is Somalia in Africa?" This from both the teachers and principals. "What language do Somalis speak?" OK, that one might qualify as a good question.

Yes, I see problems.

Today, on Twitter, I entered into a debate with an "education professional" who works at a large university in the Midwest. The topic was "Should remedial courses be taught at university?" I may have misunderstood her stance; at first, I thought she was advocating against teaching remedial courses at university.

Later, though, she evidently supported more professional development (PD) and modified tenure conditions for faculty in what I can only assume implies she is an advocate for an expansion of teaching remedial students in higher education. I have to assume because after I drew the analogy the conversation ended.

Teaching remedial courses at university is like trying to fire-fight a burning building while the arsonist is still running from floor-to-floor setting fires in the building. This was my analogy. We have to train people to live in a building which will catch fire on regular basis.

"Here is your fire extinguisher. You are responsible for putting out all fires on your floor. Maybe you can work with the other residents and develop a plan to put out fires. Even-numbered apartments might be the firefighters on M-W-F, odd-numbered apartments fight fires on T-Th-Sa. Ask for volunteers for Sunday."

Perhaps teaching remedial courses at university might be like fighting a forest fire while the ignorant campers are still moving from campsite to campsite creating fires. Either analogy pits a group attempting to stop damage against a group which is causing the circumstances to continue, either knowingly or through ignorance or apathy. But the firefighters job is folly when no effort is made to stop the arsonist or to track down the irresponsible campers, or the attempts to track down the the wrong-doers is haphazard. To take this analogy to the next level, the educator advocating expansion of remedial education at university is essentially advocating for people to get used to forest fires, arsonists, and irresponsible campers, and learn how to stomp out fires in addition to our other job duties. We must educate Forest Service employees and train them to get along with and accept irresponsible campers whose actions cause physical damage, monetary loss, and potentially loss of life.

Recently, a local school district bragged,

"We have 100% graduation from our high school. We received a bonus of $____."

This is not impossible. I do not doubt a few public school systems in the United States can make this claim. But, 100% has to be a rare situation. In Kentucky, for example, the drop-out age was recently raised from 16 to 17. Progress is being made. Socioeconomic situations vary greatly, as does parental supervision and support. Some high school students simply don't have familial support to make it through school. However, as in this case, students were forced from the high school rolls by assigning them to Alternative School. Also, there is some indication the rigors of high school, what rigors exist, have been eased.

Another local school district has a "Zero Senior-Year Homework" policy. Wouldn't that have been nice, not to have any homework our senior year of high school.

As states vie for more education funding, and states explore ways of creating incentives for schools to improve their "learning outcomes," I worry incentives merely inspire people to find creative measures to show improvement where no improvement really exists.

A second comment by the Twitter educator bothered me. I wonder, she stated, if your peers know about teaching to students at different levels [I paraphrase.]

The comment may seem rather innocuous, but I assure you, she has uttered a mouthful. In K-12, educators are instructed to evaluate students in their classroom, assess aptitude, more or less. Lower performing students may get a unique Individual Educational Program (IEP.) Today's classroom contain kids of all abilities. Today's classrooms may also have mentally handicapped students, a process known as "mainstreaming." Today's classrooms may also contain students who speak little to no English. Today's classroom may contain the next Richard Feynman, Elon Musk, or Caterina Fake.

Teaching to students at different levels? Seriously? I wanted to ask. University historically has not been about teaching students at different levels. University exists to further education and knowledge, to promote science, technology, engineering, mathematics, plus develop critical thinking skills, and fundamentally question our universe. Students are supposed to arrive from high school, or community college, with the fundamental skills necessary to move their intellect to the next level.

The earlier comment recommending expanding remedial services through professional development and modification of tenure to accommodate students who arrive lacking fundamental college skills in math and writing is ill-conceived, in my view. Vocational schools exist in nearly every school district in the United States. Vocational schools should be available and made attractive to people who would prefer to avoid college yet develop a career-oriented trade or skill.

Community colleges exist in every state in the United States. Community colleges exist to build or enhance skills in order to prepare for university. Community colleges also provide vocational schools and are retraining centers for people who have lost employment. A framework already exists to support people who neglected to take high school seriously, or who lacked appropriate high school education. Why do we need to re-build a wheel which was built-in the first place to serve primarily the same purpose as university-based remedial education?

In Kentucky, for instance, every public university is facing another round of budget cuts. A lower tax base and reduced revenues means lower state income, which translates into less available for higher education. Most Kentucky universities will lose another $2 million dollars, minimum. Every year since 2007, Kentucky universities have had their state apportionment reduced. No raises most years, not even COLA (cost of living allowance.) Computer labs are refreshed every 4-5 years. My computer labs operated for 9 years on the same computers, in spite of my pleas to chairs, directors, and deans for financial support.

I have been advocating for technology-lab fees for my area, and each time had them declined. Except this year, when I told my dean he should simply eliminate my department if he wasn't going to support my labs. How does one do GIS and remote sensing on 9-year old computers? Answer: rather shittily.

In the face of fewer and fewer education dollars available each year in Higher Education, how are universities going to be able to teach an increasing number of students in need of remedial education simply to get them to the point of being able to be accepted into university? Are we supposed to stop teaching our actual 100 and 200 level courses, our fundamentals courses, so we can teach students remedial courses just to prep them for our 100 and 200 level courses.

In a past post [here], I provided some anecdotal stories of statistics reported by regional news sources.

Next consider the statistics of incoming freshman students needing remedial courses prior to even enrolling in college. In 2010, the Fairbanks, AK Sun-Star reported “50% of incoming freshmen entering the UA system require at least one remedial course.” In 2011, the Columbus, OH Business Journal wrote, “the share of students under 20 needing remedial help has grown to 39 percent from 36 percent in the past five years, while that same measure for older students has grown to 46 percent from 40 percent.”

These remedial courses never count towards a degree, by the way, but they cost the same as a university course. This has the effect of increasing a student's student loan amounts. Depending on the student loan conditions, students may be limited by time and/or the number of hours the student can enroll. I have run across a few cases where students have run out of financial support early. Students are required to take remedial courses, then run out of loan support in their senior year because the loan agency imposes a limit on the total number of credit hours for which a student can request financial support. Sometimes, support ends after eight semesters (4 years). However, due to remedial courses, a 4-year program might become 4.5-5 years. The downstream effects have the effect of increasing the cost of Higher Education.

These remedial courses are simply an answer (not a good one, in my opinion) to correct a flawed education being promulgated in high schools.

Should we not be working on improving high school education?
Should we not be working on improving vocation schools across the country?
Should we not be working on improving community college education and university transition programs?
Should we not be focusing on those nodes within the currently existing national education framework and making sure those institutions are performing?
Should we really build a new node-within-a-node to correct problems originating at lower educational levels?

To me, these questions sound reasonable, rational, and logical. What are the answers?

Audit every high school?
Audit students, the teachers, administrators, and curriculum?
Audit the environment, teacher morale, student attitudes and activities?
Audit parental attitudes, the neighborhood around the schools, and school district support?

A local high school, for instance, has too few teachers and more students than desks. Students sit on lab stools, 30-35 in a room, while other classrooms sit dormant, unused, due to a lack of teachers. Needless to say, that environment is good for no one. How adequate is that learning environment for building a 21st century knowledge base? I'm probably missing aspects to measure, assess, etc.

I sit chagrined when I read comments by people with Ph.D's in Education, Education Leadership, or Higher Education who purport to solve problems within the university. Having worked at university for 16 years and community college for 13 years, in rural Kentucky, many of their comments seem baseless and out-of-touch with reality. Many of these experts advocate "mainstreaming" all kids, putting kids of all abilities in the same classroom, yet developing lesson plans based on individual talent. One class may have 7 or more individual lesson plans based on the abilities of the kids in the room.

Why not simply create three or four general groups, place kids into a group which most closely represents the kid's ability. Do this for all the classes in a grade. Then, all kids in the Blue Group meet in a classroom, all kids in the Green Group meet in another classroom, and all kids in the Orange Group meet in a classroom. Then, a teacher can work with all kids of a certain ability. Teachers can rotate groups so no teacher has to work with the same group all the time.

I've proffered this idea to Ph.Ds and have been met with what I can only call derision.

"We can't separate kids based on skill. That's absurd. That is segregation. And segregation is bad."

Yes, segregation based on religion, or skin color, or sexuality, or gender is bad. Though, I do like having gender-segregated bathrooms. And, I am glad the Baptist, Lutherans, Methodists, and Catholics have their own places of worship. And, I do enjoy eating at restaurants which specialize in Japanese, Thai, Chinese, or Indian cuisine. I'm sure the people with handicapped tags enjoy having parking places closer to the front doors. I'm sure the little kids at the Burger King playground appreciate not having giant obese adults wrecking TubeTown. I'm sort of glad claustrophobic people and overweight people are discouraged from going on some of the Mammoth Cave tours. I remember driving a very small car and enjoying being able to park in the "compact car" spaces. But, I make too much money to be on Medicaid. I'm too young to take advantage of any AARP discount. I'm too pale for a McNair scholarship to work on a Ph.D, and I'm too clumsy to play professional basketball. Yeah, society is not segregated, not one bit ...

My bias comes from my experience in elementary school, junior high, and high school. My classmates and I were placed in groups according to ability. Three groups, numbered 1 to 3, into which kids were placed based on math and reading skills. Each group was given work according to their ability. Kids in each group were also given plenty of chances to improve and develop skills. We had 2 recesses per day, plus designated gym class, music and art. After school, we had "afterschool activities," a chance to stay after school and do homework, play on the playground, or do any number of activities. I don't remember any issues among my peers. I don't remember any bullying directed at kids in other groups.

To be sure, there was plenty of bullying. I was bullied for 3 straight years, from 4th grade to 7th. I played cello, was smart, and was a bit of a fighter, if someone pushed me, or my sister. My cello made me an easy mark, plus my mile-walk home. But, I don't remember kids picking on other kids for being in a different math or reading group. We all played together outside, ate in the cafeteria, and rode the same buses.

Perhaps my classmates felt stigma from being in other groups. If they did they never mentioned anything about it. We were all in school, faced with tasks, exercises, and homework. For most of the day, we were all together, except for math and reading, when we met with our assigned groups.

I know I personally felt some stigma in junior high and later in high school. Junior high stigma was felt after I missed being placed in a gifted group by literally 1 point. I scored a 94; the threshold was 95. Sorry, Michael, no soup for you!

Every time the bus for the "gifted" kids left, which literally contained 98% of my friends, they would also ask me why I wasn't on the bus. In high school, despite having the GPA, I was never approved for National Honor Society until my senior year, despite nominations. Years later, I would learn from one of my teachers I had angered two other teachers and therefore my NHS status was not approved until senior year. In the meantime, from freshman year through junior year, I had to deal with questions from my peers as to why I wasn't in Honor Society. Funny, as during my Senior year I was appointed "Most Scholarly" by my classmates for our yearbook.

Why did I call this post "Education is like a dysfunctional family?" I'm hoping what I have written has made my point for me without explicitly making my argument. But, education in the United States is like a dysfunctional family. Think about any episode of "Intervention" you've ever seen. One person clearly has a problem and is in complete denial about their problem. The family has members who help the person purchase drugs, or eat, or cover up thefts, or give them money, who keep the problem alive. Some family members try to get the addict help. Some family members refuse to interact with the addict. Everyone frets and all adjust their lives accordingly around the life of the addict. Eventually, some crisis occurs bringing action from all members and an outside therapist is brought in to evaluate the family.

I find considerable parallels can be drawn among the various education institution cohorts. Secondary education I would place in the role of the addict. State and Federal education agencies are other members of the family. The agencies might recognize a host of problems with secondary education. The agencies might fret and wring their hands, and try different tactics to coax better performance from high schools. Local school boards and site-based decision-making boards (SBDM) increase the size of our "dysfunctional family." These boards may also recognize problems, or may also be part of the co-dependency problem. They may think no problem exists where one actually does. For instance, school boards or SBDM boards who advocate non-science as science, such as the teaching of Intelligent Design, Creationism as Science, or climate change denial, or a Young Earth or any other biblical stories as science. To further the analogy, local high school administrators and teachers may scrub tests to improve test scores in order to gain more favor, i.e. money, from state and federal officials. Finally, we have serious issues in Higher Education Teacher Education which potentially promises an endless continuation of our dysfunctional family. More filtering of students is needed, more oversight is required, but faculty are overwhelmed and rely on local teachers to provide feedback rather than conduct on-site visits.

Higher Education Teacher Education suffers from constant disruption as policies are updated, modified, or instituted mid-semester or mid-program. Some of these changes are top-down, as Federal laws are enacted. Other changes appear to be whimsical or capricious, arising not from state statutes or federal law, but from local Higher Education administrators and faculty.

To refer back to my friend, she indicated to her middle-school placement adviser an interest in applying for teacher training workshops in inner city Chicago, New Orleans, and Albuquerque. She really wants the experience of working with inner-city youth. Several good schools, Stanford, Princeton, and Harvard, (I think we recognize these names) have teacher-training programs in these cities which allow students in teacher education programs across the United States to apply. Her adviser told her if she were to be accepted by any of these programs any teaching hours would not be valid and she would still be liable for the 200 practicum hours required by the program.

When she related this conversation to me, I was stunned. My friend applied, anyway, and was denied. Hypothetically, had she been accepted, she would have worked for 6-8 weeks with inner city youth as part of a program developed by Stanford, Harvard, or Princeton, yet a woman sitting in an office in rural Kentucky has the authority (and audacity) to deny those teaching hours, on the basis the experience is not applicable to rural Kentucky. Holy Sh*t! (As an aside, this person has since been removed from her position and replaced by a rational person.)

If you haven't watched Sir Kenneth Robinson, then, here, watch this:

I see problems in Education.

But, like I said at the onset, I could be wrong; probably am.

PAX

College Writing Tips: Check Your Logic

noreply@blogger.com (Anonymous) — Sun, 30 Jun 2013 18:13:00 +0000

My teaching career began in the fall of 1997 when a faculty member experienced a heartache about a week before the semester began. During the intervening years between then and today, my peers, colleagues, and even those in business & industry, have noticed a tremendous decline in people's ability to write.

College Writing Tip Six: Check for consistency and congruence errors.

Some exams, quiz, short answer and essay questions can be validated within an exam, if one is paying attention. Some questions are deliberately written to see if students are paying attention. An early question, for instance, may contain the answer to a later question. Or, a question deep in the exam may be the answer to an early question. Objective exams, those exams with multiple choice, true/false, or fill-in-the-blank questions are very good for placing "easter eggs."

"With the exception of Malta and Monaco, which European country has the highest urban density?"
(a) Portugal
(b) Belgium
(c) Spain
(d) Tripoli

"Of the following traits, Belgium represents the country with"
(a) the highest IMR in Europe
(b) 99% population
(c) the highest rate of natural population increase
(d) the highest overall population

These questions dovetail; they are nearly the same question, approached in slightly different ways. The first question represents a small-scale question, asking the taker to consider all of Europe. Then, make a choice concerning which country applies to the prescribed condition.

The second question is a larger-scale question, focused on the quality of a single country with respect to all others. To remain consistent, the taker should select (b) in the first question and select (b) to satisfy the second question. Educators encourage students to go back over exams to verify answers because we know exams contain questions in these forms. Now, a 100-question exam is not going to be 50% redundant, with reflections of questions throughout. Perhaps only 10% of the questions will be reflections of other questions. However, 10% is a letter grade.

In writing assignments, be congruent in your responses. In teaching Weather and Climate, one of the concepts nearly all students struggle with is the notion of Air Pressure. Air molecules are susceptible to gravity like every other aspect of our physical world (though at the quantum level, I'm not so sure). Our Earth's gravity pulls air molecules to the surface, creating air pressure of about 14.7 pounds per square inch (14.7 psi) acting upon our bodies at mean sea level (MSL). As we elevate ourselves, whether by climbing a mountain, hang-gliding, or diving from a high-altitude aircraft, fewer air molecules are around us, pushing and bumping into us, thus the pressure of air on our bodies is less. At 8,000 ft, for example, air pressure is about 10 psi, about 33% less pressure than at mean sea level. Denver, Colorado is the "Mile-High City," being about 5,280 ft above MSL.

Most people understand as we climb a hill or mountain, the air becomes thinner, oxygen becomes less prevalent, and breathing becomes labored. However, in my Weather and Climate course I ask two questions. The first question asks students to explain why air pressure decreases as altitude increases. The first question tells the student air pressure decreases with altitude, and requires them to explain why. More than 50% of the responses consist of explanations similar to the following:

"Air pressure is less at high altitude because the molecules are more spread out."

The response is not entirely wrong. The air molecules are more dispersed. Dispersion does not answer the question; dispersion only describes a characteristic of the upper atmosphere. Dispersion does not explain the fundamental physics behind the dispersion. Dispersion of air molecules does not explain the better answer of gravity pulling molecules down. Air molecules move very fast, faster than you might imagine. Air molecules do not reach escape velocity; otherwise they would all eventually shoot off into space, leaving behind a cold, lifeless world. Gravity compels the molecules back to Earth, thankfully. The primary concern with the above responses is the lack of attention paid to lecture notes, lecture videos, and the textbook content, as the answer is clearly stated in all three resources.

The second question involves climbing.

"You have won a trip to Tanzania to climb Mt. Kilimanjaro, elevation 19,341 ft. Would you expect to experience more ear popping from the surface to 10,000 ft, or from 10,000 ft to the summit at 19,341 ft?"

The second question is the application of the knowledge evidenced in the first question. Over 50% of students respond with some form of the following reply.

"A person will experience more ear-popping from 10,000 ft to the summit because the air gets more dense as one climbs the mountain."

"Because air pressure increases with altitude the person will have painful ear-popping the closer he gets to the summit."

Congruence between the first question and the latter question collapses for most students. Even though they realize the air is thinner at altitude, they mistakenly conflate ear-popping as being an issue with higher pressure, rather than pressure change, and then wrongly invert the atmospheric pressure column. A person climbing will experience greater ear-popping from the ground to 10,000 ft because the greatest change in atmospheric pressure occurs at lower altitudes. Air pressure does not change in direct proportion to changes in altitude; air pressure change is more logarithmic, changing rapidly with small changes in altitude. From 10,000 ft to the summit, less air is pushing on the ear drums so ear-popping should be less painful and less frequent.

Student writing assignments often contain errors in logic and congruence. These errors can be significant and can indicate a lack of true learning, flaws in conceptualizing theories, techniques, and methods used in science.

We call this phenomenon, "missing the point."

Next: "Point Values"

College Writing Tips: Count Your Arguments

noreply@blogger.com (Anonymous) — Sun, 30 Jun 2013 18:05:00 +0000

College Writing Tip Five: If you say "four reasons," then you better have four reasons.

Some writing errors should never happen. These particular writing errors should never happen because most people writing can count past four. Some students remember some of the high school English and writing courses to establish a thesis statement to open a paragraph. Such a thesis statement might go something like:

"In the creation of a good map, four elements must be considered."

The author of the above sentence has set the stage for a discussion of a good map by informing us there was a minimum of four essential elements which bind together a good map. Thus, the author needs to follow through and communicate four elements of map creation. The number of elements should also be apparent to the reader.

Proofreaders of textbooks miss these details, as well. Good textbook authors will open paragraphs with leading details, communicating in advance we are about to receive some important information.

"Jerusalem is perhaps the most hotly contested city globally. Jews, Muslims, Greek Orthodox and Armenian Christians all vie for access and responsibilities. Due to the number of different factions with interests in controlling the city, especially the Old City of Jerusalem, three plans are currently being evaluated to ensure all parties have fair and equal access to the world's holiest city."

"The first plan involves turning the management of the Old City of Jerusalem over to a United Nations management group. While the composition of the management group has yet to be decided, the management of the Old City by a disinterested 3rd party could provide a potential solution.

A plan suggested by a non-partisan group of Christian and Muslims suggests the creation of governing council comprised of members of each of the four quarters of the Old City. In essence, the Old City of Jerusalem would be managed as a "city-within-a-city." Such a plan is not completely without precedent; Vatican City is an example of such a city.

"Each of the proposed plans has proponents and critics. Many people would prefer outside governance, such as the UN proposal. Other vocal groups rankle at the notion of having outsiders control a city held to be the spiritual center of the world of three religions. Time will tell whether any of the three proposals will be implemented, or, perhaps, a fourth proposal will win out.

If you did not count three plans, good; there are only two plans discussed. Poor proofing and editing by authors and publishers alike generate frustration among students and educators. Such errors are typically easy to find.

How hard is counting three or four arguments?

Next: "Make Sure Your Arguments Are Consistent and Congruent."

College Writing Tips: Respect Yourself and Spell-Check Yourself

noreply@blogger.com (Anonymous) — Sun, 30 Jun 2013 18:00:00 +0000

Writing Tip Four: Use proper grammar, punctuation, and spelling

Nothing can kill a good bit of writing like poor grammar, lack or misuse of punctuation, and, of course, spelling. While I am very evangelical about writing, and writing well, I often find errors in my own writing. I get in a hurry, I can't type as fast as I think, and words and phrases I often omit. I spend time to review my drafts, spell-check, look for grammatical mistakes. Despite my own efforts I cannot catch every error. I rely on spelling and grammar-checking apps to help me, one of which I mention below.

The journal writing activities popular in Primary and Secondary education appear to be worth little. I say they are worth little because of the lack of structure, organization, and the limited attention given to spelling and grammar. When students who have learned to write using the "journal paradigm" reach college, they often believe the journal writing which they were allowed to use in high school will work well at university. Wrong.

From what I gather, journal writing in middle and high school are a component of academic portfolios and are required. The problem with journals lies in their evaluation. Journals are not evaluated for grammar, punctuation, nor spelling. Journals are essentially a "stream of consciousness" exercise where the students are allowed to "free write" and not worry about the last 8-10 years of English, grammar, spelling, or punctuation they have been taught, or are being taught.

Nowhere in the world is writing allowed which permits students to write junk to my knowledge. Nowhere in the world will you find books, articles, web sites, or any other professional media written without adherence to formal writing rules. Except in the United States. Chinese, Japanese, Korean, Saudi, German, French, you name the culture, students of English in all of those cultures are learning formal English writing rules and expected to use them at all times.

Too many U.S. high school students believe their college writing is fine because they were allowed to get away with writing abysmal works in high school. Poor writing leads to poor thinking, and poor thinking leads to poor communication. Nothing good comes from allowing students to write whatever they want without critical input. In fact, doing so encourages laziness and can carry over to other courses and work environments.

Poor writing leads to poor thinking, and poor thinking leads to poor communication.

Worried about their fragile little egos? Wait until they reach college or university and fail their first semester, and second semester, because they have been led down a candy-colored lane of lies and false accolades. Then, after they have washed-out in their first year of college because of sugary-sweet coos and watered-down criticisms, will the realization their efforts in high school, and the people they trusted to prepare them for life after high school was nothing but a charming deceit.

I personally blame my peers. My peers are the ones changing policies today, attempting to build a "kinder, gentler," and altogether reckless education system based on their own personal anathema to their own educational experiences. My memories of high school involved listening to the whines of homework, complaints about the relevance of some subjects, and the foreshadowing of today's educational conditions, e.g. "When I have kids, they'll never have to go through this. This is stupid."

The only people who do not believe writing is fundamental to society are those feckless individuals who seek to control people through fear and manipulation of facts and information. Writing lies at the heart of Reason, Logic, Thought, critical to the pursuit of knowledge, and vital to the continuance of free and open societies. Damage writing, and society become inflicted with a potentially fatal disease.

Rather than become complicit in damaging society, work against the damaging effects of bad writing in our global society and pay attention to the details of your thoughts made manifest in words.

Learn to use the spell-check technology in Word, or any other editing environment. Not using spell-check technology, or proofreading, is inexcusable in our Age.

Try the app, Ginger [link]. Ginger will read writing aloud to help the author find inconsistencies in grammar. Reading a work aloud is the best way to repair problem writing.

Writing well is almost subversive in today's culture.

Next: "Count Your Reasons"

College Writing Tips: Respond to Both "X and Y"

noreply@blogger.com (Anonymous) — Sun, 30 Jun 2013 17:46:00 +0000

Recently, I spent many hours grading writing assignments. These writing assignments ran the gamut from "short answers" to "essay" to 3 page response-type papers. My response papers are based on listening to two podcasts. One podcast is an economics podcast discussing the geographic traits of snack food. The other podcast is a mesmerizing account of a couple of Americans traveling throughout a South Asian country.

The more I read, the more patterns in writing emerged. Not just patterns in though; writing involves considerable thinking. I tend to reason writing reveals thinking, how a person thinks, how a person organizes thoughts and information. Writing reveals a considerable amount of information about a person, and I can understand how writing makes people nervous. I'm nervous merely writing this post, but I'm dealing with it.

Writing for higher education doesn't have to involve the level of stress people attach to writing assignments. Understanding some simple concepts, requirements, goals, and using the education which was provided from ages 6-18 (maybe 16 in Kentucky) can alleviate anxiety surrounding writing.

Below, I am going to walk through some of the common errors I find in writing. Not only will I identify errors but I'll explain how to adjust thinking processes to help direct attention to formulating better academic responses to writing assignments.

Writing Tip Three: Answer both "x" and "y"

Most students, probably close to 85% of students, actually, do not answer questions in the form of "how is X different than Y?" appropriately. These "compare and contrast" expect the student to answer both sides of the argument. Both "X" and "Y" must be addressed. Failure to discuss "X" and "Y" results in incomplete answers. To remove ambiguity, I'll use an example.

"Why is population density not as good of an indicator of Quality of Life as physiologic density might be?"

(A)Population density describes the number of people per square mile. The higher the number of people per mile, the more crowded a place is. Crowded places are sometimes not nice places to live.

(B) Population density is a measure of the number of people per square mile; how disperse people are. The population density is calculated by dividing the number of people by the number of square miles in a state or country. Physiologic density is calculated by dividing the population not by the total area of a state or country but by only the amount of farmland in the country. Rural areas usually have less people living on the land. More people live in cities. So, a high physiologic density can mean more urban life, less rural life. The population density figure will be lower, indicating people are more spread-out, more elbow room, and perhaps give a false indication of a better quality of life, whereas the physiologic density may provide a better measure of how crowded a place is, how close people may live to one another, and how little elbow room is truly available.

Yes, (B) is more verbose than (A). However, (A) is not enough. (A) is not a good answer as only one side of the comparison is considered, and no supporting examples are provided.

Response (B), on the other hand, is far more complete and discusses both population density and both physiologic density. Furthermore, (B) makes an attempt to compare and contrast (A) and (B). (B) also provides a limited example in contrasting rural vs. urban populations.

"Why is the Kelvin temperature scale for scientific measurements than either Fahrenheit or Celsius?"

(A) Zero (0) on the Kelvin scale is true zero, the lowest temperature anything can be.

(B) Zero (0) on the Kelvin scale is absolute zero, the absence of molecular movement. Nothing can be colder than 0 Kelvin. Both the Celsius and the Fahrenheit scale have somewhat arbitrary measures which are identified as zero (0). For instance, on the Celsius scale, 0°C is the temperature at which water freezes, while on the Fahrenheit scale, water freezes at 32°F. Neither Fahrenheit nor Celsius temperatures indicate a complete lack of heat.

A student who wants to separate his (her) self from the pack of students in a classroom, a student who wants to stand-out among their peers, will figure out how to do stand-out. Typically, standing-out does not mean making a spectacle of one's self in the classroom. Standing apart from peers is best done through performance and classroom effort, homework, papers, and effort on projects, leadership in groups, and, of course, class participation. Spectacle students create a facade of interest. Honest, motivated students will apply knowledge from other courses or life experience to augment their work in the classroom.

Faculty take note of excellent work. Excellent work, thoroughness, can result in student being singled-out for scholarships, work-study, grants, or other benefits. Faculty will provide references to motivated, thorough students which can go a long way towards finding better, more interesting, more lucrative employment opportunities.

Faculty work very hard to improve thinking, analytical, and interpretive skills of people, to challenge and coach students. The rigor of university is specifically to coach for these traits. Resistance to coaching is resistance to learning and self-improvement, thus those students who complain are complaining about improving themselves.

Obviously, a complaining student is essentially arguing for the maintaining the Status Quo of the their own ignorance.

Don't stand in the way of your own success.

Next: "Respect yourself and use spell-check."

College Writing Tips: Use the Lingo

noreply@blogger.com (Anonymous) — Sun, 30 Jun 2013 17:39:00 +0000

I am going to walk through some of the common errors I find in writing. Not only will I identify errors but I'll explain how to adjust thinking processes to help direct attention to formulating better academic responses to writing assignments.

Writing Tip Two: "Use the Lingo"

Students frequently lament, "why do I have to take this course? This course is pointless." No, you make it pointless with your lack of imagination and lack of attention. Engage your brain and pay attention. Look, sometimes education is not about the direct knowledge gained from major or minor courses. Education is also about how one approaches learning new topics, regardless of whether or not those topics are interesting. Employers, supervisors, managers, vice-presidents will notice whether or not the information is being applied, if terminology is being used, if someone is a "team-player," or whether their mind is someplace else.

Employers will expect reports, proposals, any document for that matter, to contain clear language and appropriate use of terminology. Not using terminology translates into lack of attention to detail. Lack of attention to detail translates into lack of caring and responsibility. Eventually, one will be passed over for promotions, merit pay, or other special perks. Paying attention to details and using terminology while in school creates good habits for one can use later in employment. Accept the fact some courses and details are not enjoyable and move on.

"Meteorologists have several means of obtaining information about the upper atmosphere. The upper atmosphere is the portion of the Earth's atmosphere which includes in the troposphere, from the surface to about 18,000ft. Many commercial aircraft have on-board equipment which transmits data to ground stations. Radiosondes and rawinsondes (weather balloons) collect weather data near major airports. NOAA and other countries place weather satellites in orbit which collect images of the Earth which track storms, measure water vapor, and measure atmospheric temperatures.

Notice in the above "good answer," terminology is used. Troposphere is defined, for example. NOAA, the National Oceanographic and Atmospheric Administration is mentioned, both types of weather balloons are also noted. If the answer had mentioned GOES weather satellites, the response would have been nearly brilliant for a short answer. A short answer, not an essay.

The use of terminology found within a unit of study or a chapter indicates attentiveness to detail and effort. In fact, students need to be reminded they are paying to be trained, evaluated, coach, and challenged. Students need to be reminded to use the education they have been exposed to over the course of their entire lives.

The last thing a student is paying for is a grade.

Next: "Answer Both X & Y"

College Writing Tips: Read the Question

noreply@blogger.com (Anonymous) — Sun, 30 Jun 2013 17:35:00 +0000

The more I read, the more patterns in writing emerged. Not just patterns in thought; writing involves considerable thinking. I tend to reason writing reveals thinking, how a person thinks, how a person organizes thoughts and information. Writing reveals a considerable amount of information about a person, and I can understand how writing makes people nervous. I'm nervous merely writing this post, but I'm dealing with it.

Writing in higher education doesn't have to involve the level of stress people attach to writing assignments. Understanding some simple concepts, requirements, goals, and using the education which was provided from ages 6-18 (maybe 16 in Kentucky) can alleviate anxiety surrounding writing.

Writing Tip One: "Read the Question"

One of the easiest ways to achieve better writing scores is simply to read the question. Qualitatively, I estimate about 1 in 4 students do not actually consider question details. The ratio may be higher, I'll admit. Take an inventory of the requirements of the question. Look for key words, like "explain" or "discuss" or "describe." Such words indicate a simple sentence or two will not pass the muster. Students tend to provide a list of objects, thoughts, or details and consider the list they have provided a "discussion." Whether the items are provided in bullet form, or merely separated by commas, lists are not "discussions."

"Describe the sources of information meteorologists use for collecting information about the upper atmosphere."

A poor answer: Weatherpeople have lots of ways of getting info about the air. Planes, balloons, and satellites give them the info they need to make weather maps.

A better answer: Meteorologists have a few ways of obtaining information about the upper atmosphere. Aircraft can collect weather information, weather balloons are sent into the atmosphere to collect data, and satellites send images of weather systems back to Earth.

A good answer: Meteorologists have several means of obtaining information about the upper atmosphere. The upper atmosphere is the portion of the Earth's atmosphere which includes in the troposphere, from the surface to about 60,000ft. Many commercial aircraft have on-board equipment which transmits data to ground stations. Radiosondes and rawinsondes (weather balloons) collect weather data near major airports. NOAA and other countries place weather satellites in orbit which collect images of the Earth which track storms, measure water vapor, and measure atmospheric temperatures.

Students frequently make the mistake believing their audience is their professor. Yes, the professor may grade the short answer, essay, or paper but thinking the professor was the intended audience can mentally trap a student. If a student believes the instructor is the intended audience important, relevant information may be omitted. I have had students tell me or email me, "Why do I need to be so detailed? Don't you know the answer? I thought you knew this?!"

Whether I know, or do not know, the "answer" is not the real issue. The real issue relates to the informational content of the response. Students should not write as if the instructor is the intended audience. The audience should NOT be thought of as the professor but rather some ignorant individual who needs to learn about the topic. When the student can think of themselves as the educator, then the real learning begins. I tell my students "write as if you are educating someone, not writing to me as if I know something."

Simply put, the student's job is to communicate the breadth and depth of their knowledge to the professor.

Provide enough details, facts, evidence, and examples for us to evaluate.

Next: "Use The Lingo"

Drones To The Rescue! Drones Use in Disaster and Emergency Services

noreply@blogger.com (Anonymous) — Mon, 17 Jun 2013 05:19:00 +0000

Drones have many applications, are considered by many fields and disciplines to be incredibly useful tools. My concern lies with our governments use and potential misuse of drones in the targeted killing of military targets. Many innocent people have been killed, women and children, alongside the intended target. As a result, drones have suffered serious damage to their reputation before any non-lethal, non-military drones implemented for any number of benign tasks for which they are eminently capable and perhaps better suited than a human-occupied aircraft.

In my first post, I provided an overview of many issues associated with drones. In closing my first post I hinted I would author future posts, offering some current or potential uses. Some of the applications I identify are currently in use, with potential for growth; other applications are more future-looking, not in place today, but perhaps in the not-so-distant future.

In my second post, I discussed another field where drone use is opening doors to new exploration techniques. Archaeology is finding many uses for a remotely-piloted aircraft, or unmanned aerial systems (UAS). Kites are being equipped with digital cameras. Balloon kits allow researches to hoist digital cameras aloft. More detailed archaeological surveys mandate stability unattainable from kites and balloons. The survey of archaeological sites must be systematic. Flight lines need to be planned in advance of a survey to ensure capture of the area of interest (AOI). Scale of acquired imagery needs to be established. Scale and resolution of acquired imagery must be considered before flying a drone. When the details of the mission have been thoroughly accounted, then imagery is acquired. With regards to UAS, several missions might be flown. The first mission might result in imagery, visually inspected, to help plan the geographic scope of future flights. Sometimes, interesting landforms which imply a cultural imprint can only be seen from above, impacting the scale and scope of later drone missions. In Europe, especially in the U.K., France, and Eastern Europe, drone use has improved the knowledge of culture imprints on the landscape, aided in the inventory of archaeological sites, aided in the detection, analysis, and interpretation of archaeological sites.

The third installment on civilian drone use introduces some concepts related to the electromagnetic spectrum. We have to remember our eyes are sensitive to only a small part of the total electromagnetic (EM) spectrum. We must also bear in mind the objects around us reflect EM energy in a variety of ways. Some objects emit EM energy in different wavelengths. My third installment introduces some elementary notions to help further the discussion and direct us to drone uses in agriculture.

In my fourth article on drone use I diverge from civilian uses, introducing public use drones. I also am aggregating many different fields into Disaster and Emergency Management / Services (DEM/DES). The scope of DES involves many different actors, NOAA, FEMA, state-level DES offices, and local search-and-rescue teams.

From helping with local tragedies to providing services for large-scale, region-wide disasters drones have a myriad of potential uses. Drones can come in a variety of sizes. Some drone prototypes are as small as hummingbirds. Many drones which I have in mind for crossover civilian/private and public use are typically less then 25lbs (12kg) and can easily fit inside a hardsided suitcase. Still other drones are larger, requiring some form of take-off and landing "strip" such as a sidewalk, street or roadway, or small airfield like those located outside most small towns. Many drones require zero landing strips. With 4 to as many as 8 electric or gas-powered engines, these drones are vertical take-off and landing (VTOL) capable.

Most drones available to the general public today cannot stay airborne for longer than perhaps 20 minutes. Powered by nickle-metal hydride (NiMH), Lithium ion (Li-Ion), or nickle-cadmium (NiCd) batteries flights will last the length of a single charge. Depending on the size of the vehicle, number and type of batteries, and payload drone flight time is usually less than 15 minutes. However, we know from press releases and news articles, some drones are huge and have flight times measured in days, not minutes, like the Northrop Grumman RQ-4A Global Hawk. Of course, these are not commercial drones; these are military grade drones.

The miniaturization prevalent throughout the cellular telecommunications industry paralleled by same or similar technology in tablets and e-readers are also becoming part of the drone industry. Computer and IC chips, GPS circuits, camera and video optics, WIFI and Bluetooth, open source operating systems, gyroscopes, barometers, audio chips, and USB connectivity integrate into current drone systems.

The era in which we live is experiencing an unprecedented volume of mingling technologies. Miniaturization coupled with mass-production parallel with new light-weight materials and ubiquitous access to technology and few barriers to entry for hobbyists or entrepreneurs has presented an environment rich with potential.

Within our lifetimes, we may not even drive in the traditional sense. Our very own cars will become drones, piloted using a symphony of technologies, open source programming, GPS, radar, and Bluetooth. We will see this first with very new, very expensive cars. The new 2014 Mercedes-Benz E-class will come equipped with a complex array of sensors, optics, and sophisticated image processing software. The sensor array and on-board computers will process input data and provide real-time feedback to the driver regarding lane traffic and obstacles ahead. The computers will apply brakes should the driver not react fast enough.

Eventually, all cars will be equipped as a standard package such sensor array. Additionally, cars will "talk" with each other via a Bluetooth-like local network. Vehicles will transmit data among themselves, direction of travel, velocity, mass, number of passengers, etc., in order to maintain constant and even traffic flow. Your vehicle will emit energy of some form to measure distances to nearby objects, to judge distance, speed, momentum, time to stop, and so forth. We already see this technology being introduced in small increments, like the backup sensors available in the Buick Enclave. Aftermarket backup sensors and cameras are available for retrofitting older cars and trucks.

What does any of this have to do with drones?

I wanted to discuss size and flight times to introduce the notion of the variety of platforms available to the general public and, potentially, public agencies. I also wanted to mention new technologies we are familiar with, technologies we find in our Kindle Fire, Samsung Galaxy iPhones, or Android tablets.

These two technologies are merging. Arduino software is open-source software, based on Java, and controls the input/output boards on many drones. Other boards have the capability of being controlled with the flavors of Linux or Android. These boards interface with a multitude of other technologies, like Bluetooth, WIFI, cameras and optics, audio and microphones, plus provide navigation via GPS technology. Moderately priced drones will transmit live HD video back to the remote pilot and capture JPEG images. Some of these drones can be piloted with a Kindle Fire or iPad simply by changing the orientation of the tablet.

The wide array of current off-the-shelf technology, low-cost, and few barriers to entry presents a fantastic opportunity for the development of drones designed to serve and protect the general public.

Drones equipped with thermal sensors have a number of important and life-saving uses. Imagine a person or people become lost in the wilderness, say Canyonlands National Park. Launching a "flock" of a suitably-equipped drones might find lost hikers far sooner than sending out people on foot or 4WD vehicles, and reduces the risk of putting human pilots in the air. Furthermore, due to miniaturization associated with telecommunications, drones could also be equipped with WIFI or even cellular technologies which could ping a person's cell phone, thereby giving away their location. As the drone would also be equipped with GPS, rescuers would know precisely the location of the lost hiker.

Wildfires are a problem within many state and national forests. The same drones used for hunting lost hikers could also be flown for monitoring potential fuel sources, "hotspots," campers with illegal campfires, or assessing fire damage.

Earthquakes present a serious problem to utilities and communication lines. In fact, as I write this, a 6.6Mg earthquake has just struck Buli, Taiwan. We don't have to go too far back in time to recall the Sendei, Japan, earthquake. The Sendei earthquake presented a number of concerns. Transportation links to the region were broken. Communication and power were lost. Radioactive contamination resulted from damage to a nearby nuclear power facility. How could drones have facilitated aid to the public?

Granted, I am using Sendei as an example, but keep this in mind - the location does not matter. What fundamentally matters is the recognition of how differing technologies can be married together to address a problem. The country or nationality is not the issue.

Drones can be equipped with cellular technology and act as mobile cellular links. While the number of connections may be limited, rescuers would be able to penetrate the affected region and make phone calls.

Drones can be equipped as WIFI "hotspots." A flock of drones flying in a formation above an affected region could provide emergency Internet connectivity for both rescuers and those needing assistance. Both the WIFI and cellular technology could also be leveraged to locate trapped or injured people.

Human being emits thermal energy. Drones equipped with thermal sensors could also locate hurt or trapped individuals, or locate fires or heat sources not visible at ground level. Similarly equipped drones might also be equipped to "sniff" the air for noxious or flammable gases.

In the case of the Sendei earthquake and the damage to the nuclear power facility, a drone could have been flown into the affected area in lieu of putting people at risk. Drones equipped with radiation detectors could map out the extent of radiation.

With embedded GPS, all drone data has the potential of being mashed into mapping applications. A clever programmer/cartographer could generate on-the-fly maps of radiation contamination. But, we need not limit ourselves to radiation. Drones would be ideal for determining the plume from airborne pollutants released into the atmosphere.

Hurricanes represent another threat to public safety. While information is increasing in density each hurricane season, meteorologists and climatologists still lack data (and funding) for research. Huge gaps in our knowledge exist even with several weather satellites in geosynchronous orbit around Earth. Weather satellites provide us with important small-scale (large area) data, such as temperature, general details of atmospheric composition, cloud cover, cloud type, and sea surface temperatures.

Meteorologists need real-time, continual, data collection covering a variety of atmospheric variables. Changes in air pressure not only at the surface but aloft are critical to understanding the movement of upper level winds. Temperature and humidity aloft are also critical factors in determining cloud cover, cloud type, deposition, ice formation, and other elements important in storm formation.

Currently, a number of technologies have been implemented to augment the collection of weather data. Some commercial aircraft contain weather instruments which transmit data back to ground collection stations. Many Weather Watchers maintain private Stephenson Shelters which collect and send weather data to the National Weather Service (NWS). The station data then appear on websites like the Weather Underground.

At about 92 stations around the United States weather balloons are sent aloft. These weather balloons carry a sensor package to about 100,000ft (20miles), collecting data during the ascent. Weather balloons are launched twice a day, at 6am and then again at 6pm. And, the payload is generally lost, but some people who find the payload do send the payload back to the NWS.

During hurricane season NOAA flies human-occupied aircraft into the heart of these powerful storm systems. While this sounds death-defying, read this account of a "boring" flight through a hurricane. The U.S. Air Force flies Lockheed WC-130 "Hurricane Hunters" on 10-hour long missions to collect data on a particular hurricane.

Not to put any pilot out of work; they could be re-trained to fly a "hurricane hunting" drone. Drones similar to the Global Hawk could be modified to collect atmospheric data without placing human lives at risk. And, they could be flown more frequently with potentially a greater range. I'm imagining a greater range in order to study hurricane formation over western Africa, the "nursery" of our western hemisphere tropical storms and hurricanes.

I hope I've provided some food for thought. I follow the philosophy "tools are tools, its how people use them which provide context." A hammer can build a home for Habitat for Humanity, and, as fans of "Law and Order" or "Bones" can testify, a hammer can be used to bash in someone's skull. No doubt, drones have uses that could trample a person's right to Life, Liberty, and the Pursuit of Happiness, and privacy. Our government does not seem at all interested in protecting the private domain, which is both dangerous and disheartening. A drone with WIFI potential could easily snoop on internet traffic, or provide a platform for remote hacking of networks with absolute government complicity. And we have seen with the use of National Security Letters to circumvent warrants for collecting intelligence on U.S. citizens. No doubt, then, the potential for further comprise of a person's rights.

My next article may address some of those concerns. The current conversation going on across the United States varies from allowing only law enforcement access to drones, to allowing only private drone use, to the complete denial of drones to all. To me, all of this is simply unsophisticated, ignorance- and fear-based, which should come as no surprise since our government has continually leveraged perceived "fear" to assume more and more nuanced control over our daily lives since 9/11.

However, there are legitimate uses of drones within Public Safety and Law Enforcement. While many people would not agree, I will offer some perspectives and examples whereby drones would be preferable to putting a person at risk.

Finally, I'd like to thank some readers, for no other reason 56 of you selected to follow my blog, and I like to mention a few of you in each post. So, to Joe Seeber, Rachel Bok, Kurt Rees, and last but not least, Jo, thanks for your attention.

PAX

Reality catches up with sci-fi in storm drones (nzherald.co.nz)
Weather drones that fly directly into storms becoming reality (ctvnews.ca)
Drones in Archaeology (constantgeography.com)
Drones in Agriculture (constantgeography.com)
Road to nowhere: Could drones be the new highways? (cnn.com)

A Bird's Eye View of Farm Management: Drones in Agriculture

noreply@blogger.com (Anonymous) — Mon, 17 Jun 2013 05:11:00 +0000

Drones have many applications, are considered by many fields and disciplines to be incredibly useful tools. In my first post, I provided an overview of many issues associated with drones. In closing my first post I hinted I would author future posts, offering some current or potential uses. Some of the applications I identify are currently uses, with potential for growth; other applications are more future-looking, not in place today, but perhaps in the not-so-distant future.

In my second post, I discussed another field where drone use is opening doors to new exploration techniques. Archaeology is finding many uses for a remotely-piloted aircraft, or unmanned aerial systems (UAS). Kites are being equipped with digital cameras. Balloon kits allow researches to hoist digital cameras aloft. More detailed archaeological surveys mandate stability unattainable from kites and balloons. The survey of archaeological sites must be systematic. Flight lines need to be planned in advance of a survey to ensure the capture of the area of interest (AOI). Scale of acquired imagery needs to be established. Scale and resolution of acquired imagery must be considered before flying a drone. When the details of the mission have been thoroughly accounted, then imagery is acquired. With regards to UAS, several missions might be flown. The first mission might result in imagery, visually inspected, to help plan the geographic scope of future flights. Sometimes, interesting landforms which imply a cultural imprint can only be seen from above, which might impact the scale and scope of later drone missions. In Europe, especially in the U.K., France, and Eastern Europe, drone use has improved the knowledge of culture imprints on the landscape, aided in the inventory of archaeological sites, aided in the detection, analysis, and interpretation of archaeological sites.

I ask students in my all of my courses what color they see the most when they are outside in the late spring or early summer. Sometimes, they need some prompting; "What is the color of the vegetation you see when you go outside?" Usually, the answer is "green," which is sort of wrong. I'll explain why.

From high school physics, we learned about the Electromagnetic spectrum (EM). The EM spectrum is the range of energies emanating from the Sun and other objects. Our eyes, great as they are, are sensitive to a mere fragment of the entire spectrum of possible energies. The rods and cones in our eyes are stimulated by energies associated with colors ranging from violet to red. A simply mnemonic to remember the colors is ROY G BIV (red, orange, yellow, green, blue, indigo, violet). The arrangement is from longest wavelength to shortest wavelength.

Our eyes are not sensitive to other energies, like radio waves, cosmic waves, x-rays, microwaves, or even energies just beyond the normal range, infra-red, or ultra-violet. Our natural environment, however, is very adept at reflecting energies beyond the range of our eyes to see.

At left, is a graph illustrating the reflectance of energy from the leaves of healthy vegetation, stressed vegetation, and severely stressed vegetation. "Stressed" means the vegetation has been affected by something, lack of water, lack of nutrients, presence of insects, or some form of blight.

Note the range of reflectance energies along the y-axis, and the range of reflectance wavelengths along the x-axis. Along the x-axis, we see the "visible" range, the range our eyes react to, the "near infra-red" range which we cannot see, and the short wave infra-red, which corresponds to thermal (heat) related energy.

Along the y-axis the reflectance values are indicated. The greater the reflected energy, the higher the reflectance value. Now, note the "visible" range (lower-left). What I mean by saying "green" is sort of a wrong answer is vegetation is obviously reflected far more energy in the near IR and the short wave IR spectrum. I didn't say "green" was "completely wrong," and clearly the reflectance of energy from vegetation is more complex than most people imagine.

To the left is a graphic illustrating what happens when incoming solar radiation strikes the surface of a leaf. The red, green, and blue wavelengths of energy pass through the leaf epidermis. Red and blue are absorbed, while the green wavelength is reflected back by the mesophyll and reaches our eye, and we see the leaf as being "green" as the cones in our eyes are stimulated by color.

When the structure of the leaf changes, the reflectance of the leaf changes. If the leaf lacks water, the epidermis will change color. When the leaf changes "color," we have to ask ourselves, "what is really happening?" What is really happening is the structural change in the leaf is modifying the absorption and reflectance of energy. These changes then manifest as color changes.

Often, when our human eyes detect stress, the plant has already experienced considerable stress. The stress has only just reached the threshold of our eyes to detect. The lack of water, or the presence of too much water, or the blight, acted on the plant well before the ability of our eyes to detect the problem.

One comment before I continue. The "dips" in reflectance values correspond to moisture absorption. Water does not reflect energy well. In fact, one way to find water on remotely-sensed imagery is to look for dark areas in imagery, places where infra-red energy is absorbed. These "dips" are called "water absorption bands."

Knowing something about the EM spectrum AND knowing how different vegetation types reflect energy can lead us toward discovering characteristics about vegetation. We can build sensors to measure reflectance energies in wavelengths we cannot see. These sensors capture and store data, data which can be input into software packages for analysis and interpretation.

Funny, as I write this post, Chris Anderson gave a talk at the San Francisco Bay area MakerFaire a short while ago. The title of his talk, "Farm Drones, Feed the World, Save the Environment, Try Hard To Not Become Self-Aware," gives away the premise of my post.

The narrative I created earlier was to explain some of the basic theories and technologies. For decades, since the early 1970s, NASA and the USDA have spent hundreds of thousands of man-hours developing technologies for the study of agricultural areas. Satellites LandSAT 1-7 were placed in orbit specifically to capture large amounts of land cover / land cover imagery to support USDA efforts to measure amounts of certain crops. Alongside the efforts to study and measure crops were efforts to analyze and study forest cover. To many, the forest is a crop, silvaculture. In the southern portion of the United States, and the U.S. Northwest, timber is an important industry.

Not only has Landsat been used to help generate data on U.S agricultural products but on global agricultural production. Landsat data measures acreages of crops in other countries. The USDA can estimate crops in the field, acreages, and yields for every country on Earth. Knowing global crop data can help in planning global food production, and also assist in crop pricing.

Satellite imagery is a brilliant data source for large tracts of land. However, if the area of interest is small, such a single farm, the resolution of some satellite imagery is too crude, too course, for proper analysis. For medium- to large-scale farms, drones represent a new technology for farmers and ranchers for farm management.

Drones outfitted with appropriate technology could assist farm managers in the collection of a multitude of different data. For instance, a drone equipped with airborne sensors capable of sensing the near and short infra-red could detect vegetation in various states and types of distress. Further research could determine the type of stress, whether the stress is the result of water, insects, or some form of disease. Data collected by the drone could then be used to direct spraying, or watering.

Drones could assist in the determination of soil chemistry. Just as plants reflect energy which can be used to determine plant health, soils reflect solar radiation which can be used to determine the soil chemistry and moisture. Data could then be used for the direct application of fertilizer.

Drones could even be used in ranching. While I have not heard of such technology in use, yet, the technology exists today to make the following possible. Today, cattle have ear tags. Some ear tags are radio-frequency identification tags (RFID). I can envision a day not too far away where a farm drone is sent aloft to "count" cattle, or to locate lost cattle, or simply map the distribution of cattle on a ranch. If RFID tags are sophisticated enough, cattle from different herds could be distinguished on a map. Even more sophisticated, what if the RFID telemetry was connected to a database table. Perhaps a software app is developed where a farm manager could watch the flight of drone. The head of cattle in view would appear in the viewer with "tags" over their heads tied to the animal's record in the database table. A mouse-over of the tag would fire a database query resulting in a pop-up window illustrating the animal's data, owner, herd number, age, species, etc.

Flight software for mission planning already exists. ArduPilot (left) is perhaps the best known flight mission planning software for the do-it-yourself drone makers. The drone, equipped with WIFI and GPS, would be capable of being programmed to fly in a specific pattern using a set of waypoints. The drone, equipped with an altitude sensor would also be able to fly at specific altitudes. Therefore, a suitably proficient farm manager, or employee, could use a drone to monitor and manage farm assets.

Visit "DIY Drones" for enthusiastic information on drones.

Drone technology for commercial use in only in its nascent form. The technology has yet to be tested, explored, and analyzed. Drone companies in Europe are paving the way to dominate the global commercial drone market. Drone use in the United States is facing an uphill battle. However, there are many fields and disciplines where drone use is fair, appropriate, educational, informative, and perhaps even necessary. I will explore some of these other fields in future posts.

Shout/Out to readers "Jo," "WalkStx," and BKraxberger for their attention.

PAX

Finding Old Stuff with New Technology: Drones in Archaeology

noreply@blogger.com (Anonymous) — Mon, 17 Jun 2013 05:01:00 +0000

Drones have many applications, are considered by many fields and disciplines to be incredibly useful tools. In my first drone post, I provided an overview of many issues associated with drones. In closing my first post I hinted I would author future posts, offering some current or potential uses. Some of the applications I identify are currently using, with potential for growth; other applications are more future-looking, not in place today, but perhaps in the not-so-distant future.

Drones have been widely used throughout Europe beginning in 2009, perhaps earlier. Prior to the use of drones, manned aircraft were used for evaluating and cataloging archaeological sites. Some of these early imagery collection efforts date back to the 1930s, with the use of fixed-wing aircraft and photography. Some early efforts also used manned balloons and photography.

Early efforts to gather imagery of archaeological sites were costly and time-consuming. A plane had to be hired, a pilot acquired perhaps paid, along with associated fuel costs. Photographs taken might not be adjusted for problems with scale arising from the camera's look-angle, or influences of terrain. Storage of film materials becomes problematic over time, as the film can degrade over time and rendered useless.

Unmanned aerial systems (UASs) provide several well-documented enhancements over conventional airborne collection, efforts, e.g. piloted planes. UASs can be carried within a suitcase, for example. Models have HD front- and bottom-facing cameras. Some models fly for perhaps 12-15 minutes. Many of the smaller, light-weight models are based on hobby airframes, made of carbon composite materials. The power cells are rechargeable NiCd batteries, powering tiny electric motors. Some models are capable of flying for long durations, 30-60 minutes. These cost more than small universities and college can afford, though.

: The Parrot Drone 2.0

Smaller UASs are able to carry user-installed USB drives. The USB drive stores HD video aboard the UAS, extracted after the drone returns to ground. Many of the UASs available today can be flown from a tablet or smartphone.

One such UAS, the Parrot Drone (Parrot, Inc.) weighs about 4lbs, carries two HD 720p cameras, and can be flown from an Android tablet (Kindle Fire), an Apple iPad, or an Android/iOS-powered smartphone. Live streaming video is sent to the remote control via a secure WIFI connection. The Parrot captures HD video on a user installed USB drive, while pics can be captured during flight straight to the remote control device. The Parrot documentation suggests maximum flight distance from the pilot is about 50m (150ft). Flight time is about 12 minutes with a full charge.

: Aurora Flight Systems SKATE UAS

Some U.S. schools have engaged in inter-disciplinary cooperation. Vanderbilt University, in Nashville, TN., has developed a UAS project based upon the Aurora Flight Systems SKATE platform. In 2012, Vanderbilt garnered some publicity for the use of the SKATE over ruins in Peru.

Archaeologists in the United States are well-behind their European counterparts in the use of aerial systems for mapping, analysis, cataloging, and overall research of North American archaeological sites. Since at least 2009, Italy, France, and the UK have all initiated both academic and national archaeological research projects specifically with UASs in mind.

: The Mirkovo Basin research utilized the Quest Systems 200 UAV

In 2012, research sponsored by the Field Museum, Canada, and conducted by Durham University (UK) and the New Bulgarian University (Bulgaria), gathered aerial surveys of important archaeological sites in the Mirkovo Basin (Bulgaria). The unique landscape of the Mirkovo Basin provides over 8,000 years of human settlement history, covering the Neolithic to the modern age of human habitation. Aerial surveys of archaeological sites promises to provide improvements to landscape analysis, cataloging of current sites, with potential use of finding additional unknown sites.

UAS offers fantastic potential for archaeology. Currently, most of the less-expensive UASs are equipped with only HD cameras. More expensive UASs offer thermal imaging capabilities. Thermal imaging technology has the potential to reveal archaeological sites not visible to the human eye. Soil conditions can betray hidden paths, buried foundations, or hint subsurface structures. UASs can be equipped with infrared or multispectral cameras. The human eye, while a wonderful apparatus, is limited in the ability to see wavelengths only between 0.4µm (blue) to 0.7µm (red). Humans cannot see the ultraviolet or the infrared.

When we go outside, we see green trees, grasses, etc., due to the absorption of green electromagnetic (EM) radiation by the 'cone" structures in our eyes. However, vegetation reflects more energy in the infrared portion of the EM. When I tell people vegetation is a poor reflector of green, they look at me like I'm crazy. Chlorophyll response is significantly greater in the infrared than in green, but the human eye cannot see into the infrared. We engineer sensors to reveal the infrared to us, and, in doing so, staying with the domain of archaeology, the sensors can indicate traces of human disturbance. Plants, because they reflect infrared so well, betray changes in soil moisture and chemistry our human eyes are unable to detect. Landscape changes can indicate heretofore undiscovered sites, forts, homes, villages, or cemeteries.

Very expensive drones can be equipped with LiDAR. Light Detection and Ranging (LiDAR) uses lasers to map terrain very accurately. Subtle changes in terrain, when the elevation data are processed and mapped, can be used to analyze historical human landscapes. In some cases, both in Central America and in Southeast Asia, archaeologists have literally walked over archaeological sites without realizing. Only after mapping and surveying, either using ground-based or aerial techniques, did the researchers realize how they had underestimated the size of their study areas.

UASs have the potential to revolutionize archaeology. When coupled with ground survey information, using levels and transits - traditional survey tools, UAVs can provide unparalleled detail for archaeological studies. Geographic information systems, as well as other remote sensing methods, promise to transform the field of archaeology from the stereotypical Indiana Jones stomping around in the jungle, dodging poisonous snakes and toxic darts, to a technology-driven, cutting-edge 21st century digital discipline.

[Archeometry, Department of Geography; Ghent University. The link implies no endorsement. I simply provide as a sample of the peculiar field of archeometry and to illustrate by example the nature of technology use in archaeology.]

The New America: Baseball, BBQs, Apple Pie ... and Drones

noreply@blogger.com (Anonymous) — Mon, 17 Jun 2013 04:47:00 +0000

Whether you approve of drones or not is mostly irrelevant, drones are here to stay. Perhaps drone makes you nervous. However, drones are an invaluable technology which used in appropriate ways can be both fun, educational, and contribute towards understanding our Earth.

I have four drones. Specifically, I have four hobby helicopters. I have plans on buying more, and more sophisticated drones. The university I work has built a drone. Our builder is like Q, the old chap in the James Bond films who introduces 007 to his new array of nifty gadgets. Jim is not as old as Q but his underground workshop brings to mind the workshop Tony Stark worked from in his early days. I'm pretty sure Jim is hiding an ARC reactor in the basement of my building.

Technically, a drone does not have to aerial. A drone is simply a device which follows the commands of a master, right? Many of us worked jobs (or work currently at jobs) where we felt as if we were drones, given tasks by our overlords to stock shelves, polish floors, bundle cardboard. Unmanned Aerial Vehicles (UAVs) are simply an airborne version of a drone. A drone could be an underwater, terrestrial, or aerial device. What makes aerial drones so fascinating is the ease of movement within the airborne environment. Burrowing drones are probably a long way off, technologically-speaking. However, one should not be surprised the U.S. Navy is working on aquatic drones (Economist). Imagine a school of drones, or maybe the correct term for a group of aquatic drones is "pod," sitting off the coast of Country X, sniffing WIFI traffic, radio traffic, sniffing for chemical signatures, or feeling about for radioactive anomalies.

: The Knifefish, a mine-hunting drone. Yes, the Knifefish bears a remarkable resemble to a torpedo.

Airborne drones, a/k/a Unmanned Aerial Systems (UASs), make people understandably nervous. No one wants to be caught outside, naked sunbathing, or fighting their dogs in a backwoods arena, or tending their pot crop in a national forest.

We do not want Big Brother breathing down our neck when we jaywalk, returning home to find a violation emailed to us from the automated airborne Jaywalking Identification, trackinG, and ticketinG system (JIGGY).

We do not want to get an SMS notification of the grass in our front yard, which we haven't mowed in 8 days, having violated the homeowners association Code of Lawn and Landscaping Standards according the SubdivisioN Optimal cOde Protocols (SNOOP).

We simply want to hold onto some semblance of privacy.

We want privacy, if Facebook status updates are any indication. When we post all of our personal details and drama on Facebook, we vociferously expound upon how we do not have any privacy at all and how we wish people would just leave us along, and how we couldn't believe Bethany would wear those skanky shorts to the parking lot so she could drink with her underage high school friends, and Jillians belly-shirt makes her look pregnant.

Drones will soon become part of everyday life. Accepting drones as commonplace will help society develop acceptable use practices. A vast array of obstacles is arrayed in front of societal acceptance, I completely understand. As our small contingent of DIY Droners discussed our drone, we frequently cast sidelong glances at "Drones in the News." Several states, counties, and cities are evaluating drone use, or non-use, perhaps banning drones in all forms.

The banning of drones has an analog in Science Fiction, something like the "KILL everything Different, aliEn, or Disagreeable" philosophy (KILLDED). Nothing positive is gained from immediate, visceral, gut-level animosity and ignorant reactions (that goes for you, too, Alien civilizations on the moon, sniffing hominid EM transmissions emanating from the Blue Planet.

Play nice :)

Again, I can completely understand the concern. When the U.S. government, the Department of Defense (DoD), the Department of Homeland Security (DHS), and the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) won't come clean about the use of drones to kill U.S. citizens on U.S. soil even I feel great consternation. Regardless of potential benign uses by our federal government ("The Wonderful World of Drones," NextGov), the precedent for drone use in killing people has already been established (Reuters). In fact, U.S. policymakers are currently working to "regularize" policies for both domestic and foreign drone use. In what I consider to be the penultimate hubris of policymakers and advisers, policy drafts are being created by the United States for all countries who want drones or who currently have drones to follow ("Obama Seeks Global Rules;" Reuters).

How nice.

By the way, "regularize" is not my term. I often write sarcasm (and am somewhat adroit in speaking Sarcasm) but in the case of "regularize" I cannot take credit for coinage. The CIA or Department of Defense are the originators of the term, I suspect. To me, "regularize" is a synonym for "commonplace" and could be defined as "to make normal or everyday; common, like a bowel movement or regular mail delivery."

To illustrate "regularize," consider the conversation below.

"I haven't seen your neighbor in a while. Did he move?"

"The government auvved (pronounced "awe-v-d") him the other day while he was mowing his yard. He mentioned to me just before it happened he was getting "Cease-and-Desist" letters from the FBI. I'm spending too much time educating myself about Middle East politics, submitting Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) requests, and reading subversive material on Khan Academy and iTunes University, according to these letters."

"Wait. Khan Academy and iTunes University have subversive material?! I've been on those sites! I didn't see anything subversive! It's just educational material! ...Oh, wait...; I see..."

"Knowledge is power, my friend. Knowledge is power..."

"So, what kind of beer you got?"

In the 1980s, we had "Strategic Arms Limitation Talks" (SALT I and SALT II), negotiations with the Soviet Union to manage mutual nuclear weapon arsenals. For UAVs/Drones, I suspect in the next decade we will have something akin to "INternational Strategic Unmanned vehicLe Talks" (INSULT). Invited countries will include China, Russia, the United States, South Korea, UK, Cuba, India, Pakistan, Brazil, Saudi Arabia, ..., oh, probably all 200+ countries will have to attend. Anyone with $1,000 to spend will be able to fly a drone capable of hurting someone or something.

Should You Need A License To Operate a Smartphone?

What a dumb question, right? Probably. Entertain me for a moment. The FAA is currently formalizing license requirements for the operation of UAVs/drones for use in the United States (FAA; March 27, 2013). Licensing is available for UASs weighing less than 4 pounds, and for drones weighing between 4 pounds and 25 pounds. UASs, for the record, can be as small as a hummingbird, or have wingspans as wide as a commercial aircraft.

DHS and the FAA do not want the common person to enjoy a hobby, apparently. These government agencies, along with the American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU), the Electronic Privacy Information Center (EPIC), would pretty much like to strip legitimate UAS and hobby UAS from not only the United States but global use of what only a few years ago was a groovy hobby. Check out the video below and then tell me these guys didn't create something cool.

On the surface, I can see why. UASs put consider power in the hands of a 12-year old girl. That's right, a 12-year old. Actually, maybe 11; I can't remember. Last summer, before my former step-children moved away, my step-daughter and step-son stood out in the street in front of my house and flew my helicopters around the neighborhood. My step-daughter, in particular, likes taking objects apart. One of the best times I can remember her having is when my old VHS player broke. She was about 8 or 9, and I gave her the VHS player, some tools and my cordless drill and said, "have at it." She completely disassembled the VHS over the course of a rainy afternoon. By the way, a child who can sit on the floor for 7 hours or so and does something interesting and ask questions about components being removed does not have ADD.

At the time, I did not realize I was training my step-children to be terrorists, or anti-government anarchists, or anti-establishment drone-flying radical sympathizers. I was really hoping to instill in them some interest in physics, aerodynamics, patience (flying a helicopter is a challenge), and spark their imagination a little. Both children are imaginative.

However, over the course of the last two years or so, the Federal Government, DHS, FBI, CIA, DoD, plus many states, some counties, and some cities are seeking to restrict and/or criminalize even the use of small UASs.

Honestly, I cannot see needing a license to pilot an AR Parrot Drone. Nor can I see the need to have a license to use a Smartphone. Accessories are easy to obtain which could attach a Smartphone to a UAS for capturing video. In fact, people often use their Smartphones for surreptitiously capturing video, sometimes incriminating video. Just ask the Rutgers coach if he might have behaved himself had he known he was being caught on video. "Would you have behaved differently if you knew this was being videoed?"

In public places, people have no right to privacy. Last winter, I was marveling at a scene in my local grocery. The store was undergoing renovations. The freezer aisles had been removed and replaced with a long, shallow trench which stretched the length of the aisle. The trench was deep enough to have exposed soil below the store's foundation. I was like, wow, cool, a trench down to the construction gravel. Sitting smack-dab in the middle of the aisle, over the trench, was a small backhoe. Backhoes and trenches are not normal components of my store's frozen pizza section so I grabbed my iPhone and snapped some photos.

: I hope Kroger does not "regularize" placing miniature backhoes in their frozen food aisle, or any aisle for that matter.

The fellows (not shown) working in the trench were not amused by my photography efforts and wanted to know "what the hell is so interesting about a backhoe?" Backhoes in grocery stores must be "regularized" in their part of the United States, but not in mine. I replied with, "How often do you guys walk up on a backhoe in the middle of a grocery store?" I suspect their concern over my pictures had nothing to do with the backhoe but these fellows have had their pictures taken multiple times over the course of their life by local law enforcement.

Granted, Kroger isn't exactly a public place. Kroger's management might have asked me to deleted photos since the store is technically private property. However, these places are commonly thought of as "public places" because we refer to "being out in public" when running errands, or having to be careful when "out in public" because we don't people to know we are fooling around. Thus, Kroger, Wal-mart, Walgreens, and other places are public in the sense we may modify our behavior due to the presence of an audience.

Our front yard, the street in front of our house, while perhaps not exactly public places do offer opportunities for people to catch glimpses of our lives since we set those actions in an environment for many to see.

It's what we do in our backyards, behind privacy fences, which we want to avoid having posted to YouTube, Vimeo, or Vine. Or, inside our homes which may need some discussion about legal protection.

We already have laws to protect privacy, though. Do we need more laws to protect privacy when laws already exist to guard privacy? It's not legal for a person to spy into your home, to use any means of distance viewing, using binoculars, telescopes, or remote cameras. People have a reasonable expectation of privacy. Many states and cities have laws which protect individual privacy making spying or "peeping" illegal regardless of the method.

Since society has legal measures to protect individual privacy, I do not see a valid argument for the licensing or legislation concerning drones. Most of us carry with us Smartphones. Our Smartphones provide us with ways of covertly capturing pictures, video, and recording conversations. I personally have used my iPhone for all the above. iPhones are awesome tools for recording lectures, recording presentations, and if one sits near the front, for capturing audio from lectures, or conference calls. During military action in Iraq and Afghanistan, cell phones were used as triggers for Improvised Explosive Devices (IEDs).

Since I have a device capable of being used in nefarious ways, do I need a license to operate the device? Do I need to register my Smartphone with some quasi-government agency, like the Department of Unmanned Mobile Bandwidth (DUMB) devices? Some type of formal or regularized National smartphonE Registry DatabaSe (NERDS)?

I hope not. Actually, I'm sure one already exists. Any regular viewer of NCIS or Law and Order, Law and Order: SVU, or Law and Order: Criminal Intent has heard of LUDs. LUD is an acronym for "local usage details." Any law enforcement agency can "pull LUDs" to determine when and where a call was placed. Any local law enforcement agency can "ping" a cellphone to determine the approximate location of the cell phone and presumably the cell phone user. No warrant is needed for obtaining these records. What does not exist is a true "de jure" Smartphone ownership registry akin to a gun registry.

: Available from Hobbytron for about $109

I've digressed considerably but I feel these points need made. We are surrounded daily by technology capable of a multitude of applications, both benign and inherently evil. Technology is both omnipresent and "regularized" in our lives. When the toys of a child require a license, something is wrong. Next, people will need a license for driving scale model electric cars, trucks, motorcycles, boats, and anything else remotely operated. I'm not being ridiculous. Cameras and GPS technology are already being placed upon every remote-controlled device, and if the device does not arrive right-out-of-the-box with HD video technology, accessories are available to convert the device into a roving spy-buggy buzzing the streets of your local neighborhood.

Returning to my theme from which I have deviated greatly, UASs do have a place in society, for fun and learning, and for more cerebral pursuits, as well.

In future essays, I will discuss the potential educational and scientific uses of UASs, and why the technology is necessary and vital for society.

Winter Soldier: A Geographical Perspective

noreply@blogger.com (Anonymous) — Sun, 16 Jun 2013 03:42:00 +0000

On April 11th, Jason Latour announced on his blog the end of Winter Soldier (WS). Thus, I hate Latour and Klein for ending one of my favorite comic books of the last 20 years. Just kidding, Latour and Klein. Stuff happens. DC keeps killing-off Aquaman; Marvel kills Moon Knight and Namor faster than WS kills minions. No harm done. WS will be back; he is too strong a character not to have his own book, own movie, perhaps own cable series.

The theme behind Constant Geography, and in my courses, involves the notion geography is ubiquitous; everything is intrinsically geographic. In my course, I try to illustrate how fundamental geography is in our lives, from our books, music, politics, even popular culture, including comic books.

I am a life-long comic book collector. From my earliest memories, I have appreciated the art, imagination, science, and creativity associated with the comic/graphic novel milieu. As a young boy, I drew my own comics, created my own heroes, my own stories. The writers, illustrators, pencilers, inkers, letterers, developed such intriguing worlds, with fantastic villains attempting to fulfill devastating crimes against society. While I never became 'lost' in the comics, I always found the imagination of the writers astounding, the technology and powers invested in heroes and villains sparking my own imagination. I wanted to be an engineer, an aerospace engineer. I wanted to be the person who built the first starship, or the first transforming aircraft, or the first powered-suit. Yes, I wanted to be Tony Stark. Alas, I am a geographer; the bifurcated paths of life led me away from engineering, nudged off by Calculus III and Thermodynamics.

Comics are more sophisticated than most people give them credit for being. I refer not simply to the use of technology, the publishing technology, the art technology, or even the fictional technologies utilized by comic book heroes. No, I refer to the writing, the character backgrounds, plots, staging, and the underlying geography which provide compelling story environments. Characters have birth places, places of origin, places where their powers are gained, enhanced, exploited, or rendered useless. Comic book action takes place in specific places, both 'real,' meaning a real place on Earth, or imaginary, such as Alternate Realities, the Future, the Past, or other imaginary places, like Krypton, Oa, or Valhalla.

James Buchanan Barnes, for instance, was born in Shelbyville, IN, in 1925. For those unaware of who James "Bucky" Barnes is, he was the early sidekick to Steve Rogers, a/k/a Captain America. "Bucky" was featured in the 2012 movie, "Captain America: The First Avenger," starring Chris Evans, Samuel L. Jackson, and Hugo Weaving. "Bucky" was portrayed by actor Sebastian Stan.

Shelbyville, IN, is a real place, located southeast of Indianapolis, IN, having an estimated 2011 population of about 20,000 people. Why would "Bucky" come from such a small town? I can really only guess why Shelbyville, IN, was selected without having an interview with Ed Brubaker or Jason Letour, however, I do know from my limited knowledge of World War Two history enlistments disproportionately affected rural areas. I suspect Shelbyville was quite rural in the 1940s, I suspect.

View Larger Map

Comic book writers, especially early authors like Stan Lee, Joe Simon, and Jack Kirby, drew heavily upon traditional cultural traits found predominantly in rural areas. Such traits as 'strong moral fiber,' 'strong work ethic,' 'patriotism,' and a strong inclination towards 'justice' and 'fair play' were common cultural traits which were applied to rural areas. People self-identified with the presumed simple, rustic life represented in rural life.

The history of the Winter Soldier begins simultaneously with Captain America. We cannot explore the geography of Barnes without beginning with the transformation of Steve Rogers into Captain America. Joe Simon, Jack Kirby, aided a few years later by Stanley Lieber a/k/a "Stan Lee," deliberately created Captain America as a political icon. In Comic Book Nation (Wright; 2003), the venerable team of artists and writers admitted Captain America was designed as a counter to the growing threat of Nazism. According to Joe Simon, many groups were organizing against Nazi Germany and the German Wehrmacht, and Simon and Kirby wanted to make their voice heard.

Thus, was the character of Steve Rogers born, his transformation into the Captain America via the super-soldier serum was begun. James Barnes would not be the benefactor of any super-soldier serum, not here in the United States, nor abroad. His fate would diverge greatly from Captain America's at the end of World War II, not only in context of the character but also in print.

James "Bucky" Barnes began life with no "X-factor," no genetic mutation, no alien weaponry, or another augmentation. He was like every other person, i.e. a "normal." In 1940, after accidentally discovering the true identity of Captain America, James was trained by the United States Army. At 15, he was one of the youngest (if not the youngest) enlisted soldier. He followed Captain America on a number of adventures throughout Europe, helping to defeat the Nazis and the hated Red Skull. Both Captain America and Bucky fell victim to the same catastrophe, though. While attempting to disarm a German drone, both Captain America and Bucky were lost in the frigid waters of the North Atlantic. Later, Captain America would be found, thawed, and live on as the superhero as we know him today.

Bucky was thought "killed in action." The killing of a teenage protagonist, even within the confines of the comic book genre, was not well-received in the popular culture of the 1950s. Bucky's death was used throughout the industry as a reason why adult superheroes should never have teenage sidekicks, especially ones whose only "powers" were wits.

Writers pull themes from popular culture, from all eras and geographies. The Cold War between the United States and the Soviet Union provided immense opportunities for writers to develop adversaries based in Europe, the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics (USSR), East Germany, and the countries behind the Iron Curtain.

In the early 1950's, Democracy was under threat by Communism, so the sentiment went. After World War II, many realms, regions, and countries were caught in their own internal leadership struggles. China, while warring with Japan in the 1940s, was also in the throes of a civil war. The Korean War (1950 - 1953) would leave a divided peninsula, the northern portion in the hands of Communists, while the southern portion adopted a form of Socialism. The Soviet Union would drape a figurative "iron curtain" of near-impenetrable influence upon adjacent European states, Poland, Czechoslovakia, Hungary, Bulgaria, and Yugoslavia. In 1954, Eisenhower described the adoption of Communism as being like the toppling of dominoes, once one country went Communist, the adjacent country might, too. Even in the United States, the Joseph McCarthy Communism hearings and the subsequent black-listing of politicians, academics, and entertainment personalities, provide evidence no one living in the United States was safe from scrutiny.

I've neglected to keep up with changes in the comic book publishing realm in my story, as neither Marvel nor DC existed in the early days of Captain America. Atlas Publishing, along with Timely Comics, which both published some early Captain America titles, would eventually evolve into Marvel Comics. In 1953, Atlas would team Captain America, the Human Torch, and Namor, the Sub-Mariner, in a new effort to stomp out Communism. Captain America would become "Captain America, Commie Smasher." Namor was not too impressed with the Red's, either.

Comic books embody the same trait as most daytime soap operas; no character ever really dies (unless the actor dies in real-life, of course, and sometimes not even then, due to the miracles of plastic surgery). Same holds true with James Barnes. The very same incident which led to Captain America being trapped in ice led to the eventual capture, imprisonment, and 're-programming' of James "Bucky" Barnes from a World War Two hero into a Soviet spy and assassin.

In Winter Soldier #1, the connection to the former Soviet Union is clear. The familiar 'hammer and sickle" emblem, an illustration of the egalitarian roles of both industry and agriculture of the Soviet Union, depicted in the title is an unmistakable icon of a by-gone era. Or, as the pages of Winter Soldier reveal, perhaps not as by-gone as we might want to believe. Even the smaller star above "Winter Soldier" appears to suggest Communism, or the threat of Communism is not so far removed from our current political theatre.

In the Winter Soldier, we find Barnes and his partner, Natalia Romanova a/k/a Black Widow, discovering a trio of Soviet-era assassins have been activated throughout the United States. James Barnes, throughout issue #1, refers to his physical training, mental conditioning, and re-education within the Soviet spy apparatus, along with the three other assassins. These assassins appear to have been activated by a resurgent Spetnatz (Russian Special Operations/Special Forces) for some undetermined purpose. But, I'll get the plot in a moment. First, let me track down some comic book-based geography.

The opening scene in Winter Soldier shows James Barnes buckling from the psychological weight of his past. We see a montage of events, from his first days at Fort Lehigh U.S. Army base, fighting alongside Captain America, the Red Skull, to his eventual demise as "Bucky" and his rebirth as the Winter Soldier.

To the left is our imperfect hero, as drawn by Butch Guice. In these images, which I have used to highlight and illustrate the educational use of a great comic, I call-out some of the evident geography. I've discussed the iconography of the star/hammer and sickle above (noted by the yellow circle, left). Fort Lehigh does not exist in the Real World. Fort Lehigh, sometimes referred to as Camp Lehigh, is a fictional U.S. Army installation which had been abandoned prior to Steve Rogers and the Super Soldier experiment. Fort Lehigh, though fiction, was located in Virginia, obviously a real U.S. state.

Many books move from geographic location to geographic location quickly. Paying attention to clues can help one keep abreast of the storyline. Devout readers of any genre will build "cognitive maps" (mental maps) as the authors or writers drive the action forward. In Winter Soldier #1, we learn the USSR planted some "sleepers" in the United States, to be awakened for some nefarious purpose, no doubt. Nico Stanovich, a Russian Spetsnaz member, is being watched by a U.S. intelligence agency. Stanovich, operating under the guise of Nick Stanton, is frequenting some casinos in Las Vegas, NV. Las Vegas is a well-known hive of villainy not only in comic books but in Real Life. Organized crime, legalized prostitution, gambling, and the "what happens in Vegas, stays in Vegas" advertising scheme provides substantive evidence Las Vegas is a node for any criminal network.

Spetsnatz is an interesting organization. The Russian Spetsnatz consists of a number of Special Operation Units. Some Spetsnatz units have naval specialties, marine units for performing sea operations. Some Spetsnatz specialize for urban environments. In many ways, the Russian Spetsnatz are the mirror image of the U.S. Special Forces units. Both U.S and Soviet/Russian special force units were born out of World War Two.

During World War Two, the development of intelligence services created very elaborate global spy networks. Every major country ran operations. The United States created the Office of Strategic Services (OSS) during World War Two. The OSS ran spys throughout Europe and Russia to gather news of troop movements, adequacy of food supplies, labor force, raw materials, public sentiment, etc. While spies gathered intelligence, the tactical removal of people or missions against "hard targets" was somewhat problematic. The U.S. military often had to create ad-hoc special teams to conduct rescue missions, sabotage, or simply perform surveillance. Eventually, the U.S. Army, Navy, Air Force, and Marines would formally develop teams. The Green Berets and Rangers, Delta Force, and SEAL would arise in the late 1940s and in the 1950s to address critical tactical and strategic needs. Spetsnatz is the Soviet/Russian equivalent being created during the same timeline for performing similar operations for Mother Russia.

Later in the first issue, James and Natalia catch a break. They find themselves racing through the rain to the fairly mundane environment of Minnesota. Not sure where their destination ends up being, though to fly from Las Vegas to Minneapolis is about 1,300 nautical miles. James and Natalia might have better airline departure times than mere "normals" and could probably cut the regular 3 hr flight time down to perhaps 2 hrs, given some form of S.H.I.E.L.D assistance. Would James and Natalia fly Southwest? I'd think not. Then, there are the issues of baggage claim, rental car, getting directions out of the city. James would not make it past security with his arm, let alone all of his weapons. Thus, having a secret organization to work through for planning travel is probably a huge benefit to heroes lacking mutant flying genes, superhuman powers, the endowment of alien technology, or being able to command the cosmic powers of the Universe.

Latveria is a popular location in many Marvel titles. Latveria is the home country of Victor Von Doom, the nemesis of the Fantastic Four, and Iron Man, to some extent. Nestled in the Banat region of northern Serbia, surrounded by the Carpathian Mountains, Victor Von Doom is somehow able to leverage what, under normal conditions, would be a minuscule global influence and project power and influence on numerous occasions, often bringing the FF, et. al., to their knees. While Latveria does not exist, the other geography does exist. The small fictional region wedged between Romania, Hungary, and Serbia was once home to the Thracians, but also fell under the dominion of the Goths and later the Huns. Victor Von Doom hails from the city of Doomstadt, appropriately enough (the fictional capital of Latveria); "Von" means "from" or "of" in German, and can indicate noble lineage, in case you didn't know.

Later in the same book, we are introduced to a Russian scientist, the apparent mastermind of the sleeper program Barnes and Romanova are trying to shutdown. Professor Ivan Kragoff a/k/a Red Ghost was the original mastermind behind a number of Soviet science programs, one of which led to the training of the Winter Soldier. In one scene, we see the professor awakening a sleeper, providing the barest of briefs.

"Dmitri, it is time for you to awaken." Dmitri's response has to be translated from Russian, as he believes himself to be in Russia. Professor Kragoff reminds Dmitri to "speak English; you're in America, now." Obviously, action has moved forward in time, and across geography, as Dmitri was most likely placed in his sleeper mode while in Russia and transported to the United States.

However, as I read the book I noticed a fairly severe historical error. In the last panel, Professor Kragoff is entreating Dmitri to prepare for his assignment. "And your Soviet masters need you to help destroy the Great Satan." No Russian scientist real, or fictional, would never call the United States the "Great Satan." Calling the United States the "Great Satan" connotes the conflict between the United States and the Soviet Union as one of religion, or with religious undertones. The Soviet Union not only discouraged religion, all citizens were officially atheists. Members of the Communist Party certainly would profess no religious leanings.

Furthermore, the term "Great Satan" was a term not used by the Soviet Union, but by Iran. In the late 1970s, prior to the overthrown of the Iranian government by religious radicals, referred to the United States as "the Great Satan." For Iranian leaders to refer to the United States as the "Great Satan" makes perfect sense; after all Iran is officially known as "The Islamic Republic of Iran."

The error is not egregious enough in my opinion to detract from the story. I would only encourage the writers to check their sources more thoroughly before their characters make such comments. Other readers may not be as forgiving. On the other hand, close scrutiny of the book, the story, coupled with my own knowledge of world history and geopolitical events allowed me to pick up on this subtle flaw and use the error as a teaching moment.

However, I can understand why Brubaker and Sankovitch, et. al. wanted to take the story in this direction. The Soviet era of science research was fascinating, especially under Stalin. Stalin had some interesting ideas, one of which was the creation of a "super-soldier." Both Staling and Hitler had predilections toward the building "master races" and people who could work fervently, soldiers who could fight endlessly, with strength, skill, agility, with ferocity not available in a "normal" human.

While no straight line relationship can be drawn between Stalin and some of the Soviet military research, anecdotal evidence seems to suggest Stalin gave a tacit acceptance for many different types of secret research. The cover of Winter Soldier #5 shows Barnes barely holding his own against nothing other than a gorilla wielding a Gatling gun, or what might be referred to today as a "mini gun." While far-fetched even for the 21st century, if one were to dive into the Soviet archives one might be surprised to learn Soviet scientists were trying to figure out how to hybridize differing animal species, including the creation of a chimp-human hybrid [link]. History will show these efforts began long before Nazism or Stalin, yet history does provide marvelous fodder for material, technologies, and intrigue even into the 21st century.

I selected Winter Soldier for an analysis as the character of James Barnes can be traced back in real-time to World War Two. Both James Barnes, as Bucky, as Captain America, and then as the Winter Solder captures a timeline of geopolitical intrigue which exists not only in comic books but manifests in the real world. The Winter Soldier has little other than physical training and wits to address dangers and crises; a bionic arm provides some advantage over adversaries, but he is otherwise mortal. His partner, Black Widow, is similarly adept physically but possesses no supernatural powers, no particular genetic augmentation, or physical augmentation. These characters are vulnerable and could easily make the transition of the small screen.

The Winter Soldier and Black Widow also engage in real-world geopolitical machinations. They are spies, sent around the world to carry-out covert operations where the United States government needs "plausible deniability." These characters then provide ample material for a geographer like me to discuss their exploits in a context of geography, of explaining geography, incorporating history, and perhaps some science along the way. Few other Marvel books provide the ability to examine, analyze, and interpret the geography found within the books. The new "Hawkeye" run is a good example, perhaps Daredevil and Iron Man. Many of the Marvel titles splinter off into other dimensions making geographical analysis irrelevant. DC, on the other hand, has several titles, like Arrow, most of the Batman titles, Nightwing (who is moving to Chicago), Swamp Thing, Animal Man, Constantine, the Before Watchmen series, which have settings in familiar locations and familiar geography.

GPS is Old News. Get Ready for IPS.

noreply@blogger.com (Anonymous) — Sun, 16 Jun 2013 03:23:00 +0000

For as prescient as Gene Roddenberry was in Star Trek: The Original Series, the presence of robots was remarkably absent. Later, in Star Trek: The Next Generation, robots rarely appeared as regular every devices. Sure, there was Data, and his brother, Lore, and then later the Borg were introduced, but there were never robots swerving among crew members doing frak-knows-what. In fact, the Star Trek Universe is remarkably devoid of robots for all cultures and planets, pretty much. We have to teleport to the Star Wars Universe to find robots aiding and abetting humans and aliens alike.

I was ruminating the other day. I share my building with the Department of Physics. Except our Department of Physics is not longer called the "Department of Physics." As of this month, the department is now referred to as the "Department of Engineering and Physics." The Physics folks have fallen victim to the lack of interest Americans have in the hard sciences, and why the White House is trying to encourage Congress not to send home the foreign nationals who come to the United States for their science education. But, that is a rant for a different day.

Bypassing the elevators for the stairs I noticed a poster. The poster contained many pics taken from a recent robot-making faire from the Spring 2013 semester. Local middle- and high school students were encouraged to visit campus for a Robot Weekend Open House. The pics showed several college students hunkered over boxes containing little wheeled robots. The robots appeared poised to navigate a maze constructed within the boxes. Nearby, the local middle and high school students perched to observe the success or failure of the little robots.

The pics were accompanied by annotation. To the project's credit, Arduino boards were used in robot development. I think I saw Raspberry Pi mentioned, as well. The poster communicated how the robots would "sense" the environment. Infrared sensors were placed at strategic places on the robot's perimeter. The sensors would return a signal to a processor, a signal based on voltages. A voltage drop or rise indicated a change in direction, for example.

My sentiment is all universities should be pushing the boundaries of technology. Regional universities are typically restricted from becoming full-fledged research institutions. Flagship schools do not want their academic territory trod upon. For instance, University of North Carolina (Chapel Hill) is a flagship research university for North Carolina. North Carolina also has Duke University (Durham). For a state to have a couple research universities is not uncommon. Missouri has several, actually. Kentucky has two, University of Louisville and University of Kentucky. Some states control research at state schools by controlling the funding the school receives and by controlling access to doctoral programs. In Kentucky, for example, regional state schools cannot develop a doctoral program without the express consent of the KY Council on Post-secondary Education (CPE).

I find this embargo on research at regional universities a self-defeating tactic of politician and policy-makers who claim to want to expose more people to research, science, and technology. Universities are a very active source of research which spills over into patents. Sometimes, the licensing of these patents can help fund more research. Research generally involves putting students to work. Research can help reduce costs to students by providing the necessary funds for maintaining expensive research laboratories, by providing grants and scholarships, and by simply providing a means of employment.

Many companies, like Google (Stanford), get started within a university environment. The nature of entrepreneurial endeavors then create a ripe, robust, and exciting atmosphere for pushing the educational envelop. Steve Jobs may not have graduated from college but he certainly hired hundreds of college grads. Bill Gates, too. Universities are one of the best atmospheres to tap into youthful exuberance, the desire to learn real and necessary skills, and to build intellectual networks.

Too bad Congress is so ridiculously dim-witted and unable to fathom any of this.

The poster on the first floor of my building irritated me, though. In 1985 I was in high school. My electronics teacher was a good guy, a bit of a pushover, but he really enjoyed teaching electronics. He presented each us with an opportunity to buy a robot kit. The kit would come with a bunch of parts we would solder to a motherboard. If the robot was assembled correctly and none of the necessary circuits melted in the soldering process, the robot would following a black line drawn on a piece of white butcher paper. As we would discover later, the robot would also follow the seams between tiles on our classroom floor.

But, this was in 1985. In 2013, we are still building these clumsy robots which try to navigate a 6' x 6' box inlaid with a series of barriers to create a maze for the robot to navigate. Twenty-eight years later, I'm not really impressed, honestly. I expect more from my university and college, actually.

Arduino boards are a good start. Raspberry Pi is awesome. What is already coming down the pike towards us has to do with robots and mapping and using robots to do mapping. I'm not referring to drone mapping. I've covered some of those applications in other posts.

We are all by now pretty aware of what GPS (global positioning systems) allows us to do, even if we don't understand how GPS works. We have some idea because of our iPhones and Android-based phones embedded with mapping apps, or social apps with a mapping component. Have you heard of IPS, though?

IPS stands for "interior/indoor positioning systems." IPS works just like GPS works for mapping roads. Road mapping is performed by a car, truck, or van, equipped with an accurate GPS transceiver. Roads are driven and the GPS collects points along about every 1-3 seconds and then software is used to connect the dots to form a line to represent the road. Analysts then post-process the data, creating a database table tied to the digital road data. The database table contains all the pertinent info about the road, the address range, road type, width, age, date of last resurface, road class (local, county, city, state highway, US highway, federal highway).

IPS doesn't use GPS, though it can, and may use GPS as a way to refine inside position. IPS uses indoor wireless and sensors built into the robot. The robot become the car from the discussion above, driving through hallways and building a hallway map for a given building. Road maps are derived from an imaginary line called the "road centerline," the hypothetical geometric center of the road. IPS generates a "hallway centerline" to which attributes can be attached, such as room numbers, hallway width, or hallway height.

IPS does not require a robot to build the map. A building's blueprints can be scanned and adapted for use. I like the idea of a robot, a 'droid, though. I like the idea because I like the notion of having a 'droid follow me around, helping me move computers and accessories from room to room.

We have the capability of doing this. Take one of those electric Barbie cars for kids younger than 8 sold at Toys R Us, for instance. Remove all the Barbie stuff so only the electronics remain. Add an Arduino or Raspberry Pi board for the brains and some actuators for controlling the steering and speed of the 'droid.

I'd like to see something like this, a full-fledged working 'droid, capable of navigating a hallway and following a particular user, perhaps even able to follow voice commands, a la Siri. All of the components exist.

Now, go get busy and make me an R2-D2 unit :)

Pax

11 Arduino projects that require major hacking skillsâor a bit of insanity (arstechnica.com)
Now Available in the Maker Shed: The New Arduino Robot! (makezine.com)
Here's What People Are Actually Using That $35 'Raspberry Pi' Computer For (businessinsider.com)
New technique helps robotic vehicles find their way (rdmag.com)
Researchers control flying robot with only the mind (rdmag.com)
Firefighting robot paints 3-D thermal imaging picture for rescuers (rdmag.com)
Militaries' growing use of ground robots raises ethics concerns (stripes.com)

Book Review: 9 Dragons, by Michael Connelly

noreply@blogger.com (Anonymous) — Sun, 16 Jun 2013 03:12:00 +0000

9 Dragons. Michael Connelly. Vision Press. Hatchette Book Group, Inc. Paperback. 2009. $10

$10 for a paperback? I know many people older than I can remember the days of nickel and dime paperbacks. My memory goes back to $1.75 and $1.99 paperbacks. But, $10 for a paperback? I hope Connelly gets about 90% of the revenue. Otherwise, something is awry in the trade paperback industry. Thomas Friedman might argue the "world is flat," but in the publishing world, New York is still king, which is too bad. In the digital age, why should publishers be anchored to a sole geographic location?

The primary purpose of my book reviews, is of course, to recommend the book or not. However, I also want to impress upon people to pay attention to the geography the author weaves into his or her tale. While reading for pleasure has its rewards with a good story, strong, well-developed characters, and crafty prose, we should not ignore the other elements of a good book. Like Geography.

9 Dragons is the second novel I've read by Michael Connelly. Those familiar with Connelly know him mostly for his Lincoln Lawyer, a Mickey Haller character portrayed by Matthew McConaughey in the film of the same name. If you pick up 9 Dragons thinking you'll read a procedure law thriller, you won't find anything like that in this novel.

Connelly has written far more books with his Los Angeles Police Detective Harry Bosch as the lead character. Bosch is not as flamboyant and brash as Mickey Haller. Bosch is observant, contemplative, yet action-driven. Once he sets his mind in motion to do something, if you're in his way, you'll get bulldozed. He has no patience for laziness, cowardice, and won't trifle the fool who has information which could put a scumbag behind bars. But, he is human, and as we discover in 9 Dragons, acts impulsively. His impulsiveness, or perhaps "single-mindedness" get people hurt. And killed.

Bosch works in Los Angeles, for the LAPD. A call comes in regarding a shooting death at a liquor store near downtown LA. Fortune Liquors was operated by an Asian couple for the local population of predominantly black working-class residents. Those of us aware of the 1992 LA Riots, also called the "Rodney King Riots," know where the liquor store is located. The 70th block of South Normandie Avenue is a few blocks from the infamous intersection of Normandie and Florence, the site of the most widely-seen portion of the riots captured by local cameras and seen by viewers around the world.

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Certain elements of the liquor store owner's murder lead Bosch to suspect the shooting death was not a simple robbery. None of the expensive liquor was stolen. Too much cash was left behind. And most of all, the place of the shots, three holes in the center of the man's chest, like the points of a triangle, suggested organized crime. Not just any organized crime but one of the hardest crime elements to fight. Chinese mafia. Triads.

"The creation of the triads goes back to the 17th century in China. There were one hundred and thirteen monks in the Shaolin monastery. Buddhist monks. Manchu invaders attacked and killed all but five of the monks. Those remaining monks form the secret societies with the goal of overthrowing the invaders. The triads were born." (46)

Early in 9 Dragons we learn a little historical geography. We have time and place, site and situation. China was invaded and controlled by what would become the Manchu Dynasty. Religion, in the form of Buddhism, is referenced. Later, the triads are compared to the Russian and Italian mafia. When we pay attention to the plot elements we might learn something. Triads are real (WorldCrunch) and the history as spelled out to Bosch, is accurate (Stanford Press).

Bosch's partner, Ferras, worn-out by a wife, kids, and job stress, simply walked away from the case. The Chinese angle force Bosch to enlist the aid of the Asian Crime Unit. David Chu, detective with the LA Asian Crime Unit (ACU), native Chinese-speaker and life long Los Angeles resident, made Bosch uncomfortable. Bosch likes being in control and having to rely on an interpreter did not suit him. Also patronizing and distrustful of Chu, and irritated by the Asian cultural tendency to close ranks in the face of crime, Bosch and Chu were constantly at odds.

Crime scene analysis and interviews led Bosch and Chu to discover a Triad shakedown had led to Mr. Li's demise. Protection money was being paid once per week to keep the Triad happy. When Mr. Li was unable to pay an installment, a Triad enforcer took his life, instead.

Some circumstantial evidence led Bosch and Chu to a Triad enforcer, Bo-Jing Chang. Taken into custody, Bo-Jing claim his innocence. But, Bosch was not interested in Chang's alleged innocence after receiving the most chilling phone call of his life.

The caller indicated he had taken Bosch's daughter, Madeline, captive. Bosch knew Triads had their tentacles in all aspects of Asian society, perhaps even in the LAPDs own Asian Crime Unit. Maddie lived in Hong Kong with her mother, an executive with a local casino group. Hong Kong literally is the base of nearly all Chinese mafia. For Bosch, taking Chang into custody had just made the stakes of his murder investigation murder case personal. Very personal.

Leaving Chang in the hands of Chu and the LAPD, Bosch boarded the first available flight to Hong Kong. He was going to hit the Chinese mafia and get his daughter safe if it killed him.

Connelly has done his geography homework. In the acknowledgements, I suspect Mr. Connelly did some of his own legwork in Hong Kong to bring the geography of the former British colony to life.

"Central Hong Kong is actually an island. But there are other islands surrounding it and across the harbor is Kowloon and an area called the New Territories." Harry has some experience with Hong Kong, as he has traveled a half-dozen times to visit his daughter.

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Once in Hong Kong, Bosch's hunt for his daughter takes him to Wan Chai. Wan Chai is like New York City's Time Square neighborhood of the 1980's. Wan Chai never sleeps, and the strip clubs and dance clubs lining Lockhart Road are active around the clock, and anything a person wants can be obtained for a price. While having been to Hong Kong a few times, Harry had not witnessed the seedier side of Hong Kong.

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We learn more about the geography of Hong Kong as Bosch probes deeper into the area. Despite his daughter living thousands of miles away, Bosch and Maddie talk on the phone. They talk about her homework, and Bosch admits to little more than a textbook knowledge of the local surroundings. When Hong Kong returned to the Republic of China control in 1997, the New Territories along with Hong Kong remained part of the Special Economic Zones (SEZ). In the late 1970s, China opened certain regions and cities along the eastern coast to foreign investment. These special economic zones and open cities were granted special permission to engage foreign capital, investors, and global business. Not initially successful, the Chinese proved pragmatic and modified certain business rules which ultimately made these areas very attractive to companies. Today, Nike, HP, and of course, Apple, contract with factories in these areas of the manufacturing of many of today's most popular products.

Not all areas fair as well, though. Tuen Mun, historical home of Asian pirates, is still home to Asian poor and uneducated populations. And also the Asian criminal organizations of the triads.

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Game of Thrones is running rampant on my Twitter feed, and the books have proven to be immensely popular. In a local bookstore, I discovered a collection of maps illustrating the realm of Essos and Westeros, and detailing the Seven Kingdoms of Westeros. I do enjoy the depth of imagination and imagery authors and artists invest in bringing such fantasy to life. I've made many a fantasy map myself in my day, and have constructed maps to depict Tolkien's works and early text-based Infocomm games (Suspended).

However, there is a certain satisfaction one gets from being able to touch the same place as a literary figure, to walk the same streets, see the same restaurants, eat a similar bowl of noodles, or drink chicory coffee as a character in a book. The book becomes real, is real, for that moment in time when your memories of events comingle with a real-life experience. A person can fly to Hong Kong, travel to Wan Chai, or, though I don't recommend doing so, visit Tuen Mun ("Tin Moon").

I entertain doing precisely this as I read authors' works. Did the author do exactly this as they were building their story? If so, how did their story evolve to incorporate the local culture, language, sights and smells? Anyone involved in literature, whether you are simply a consumer of the book, an editor, publisher, agent, want-to-be, new, or seasoned author would want to know these answers, I would think. $10 is a lot to spend on a paperback. Pushing "living content" into a story and making us better, or a little less ignorant, even after reading a work of fiction is not a bad investment for our time and money.

Connelly does weave some twists into his tale of Bosch rescuing his daughter. At times, I feel like I've not really read this book, but I've seen this book. You have, too, if you have seen the movie, Taken. The geography is different, the characters are different, but the over-arching plot is familiar. However, Connelly does a good job of hiding his machinations. He leads us down a path but we don't necessarily arrive at the destination we thought we were being guided to. Exactly what a discerning reader should expect.

My rule of thumb is I give an author two books to make the case for their writing ability. Connelly is a good author, with interesting characters, integrates of geography well into his stories.

I do recommend 9 Dragons as a good summer reading novel for the beach or wherever your vacation takes you, or for what spare time you have available.

The Concrete Blonde by Michael Connelly (socyberty.com)

The Geography of Blackness

noreply@blogger.com (Anonymous) — Sun, 20 Jan 2013 23:43:00 +0000

"How To Be Black" by Baratunde Thurston. Harper Paperback. 2012. Kindle Edition. $3

I first ran across Baratunde on Twitter (@baratunde). I use Twitter for personal & professional development. When I declared Facebook bankruptcy years ago, I decided I could not abandon social media altogether. I decided to use Twitter to learn, and to follow only people who I felt I could learn from. Baratunde is one personality among many I follow to learn something. I'm pretty ignorant of black people even though I have black friends. Living in rural Kentucky makes things even more isolating simply due to the lack of diversity. Living and working near a university does improve exposure a little bit but not like the days of living in Kansas City, Missouri. Two decades ago I had black friends I partied and hung-out with, went clubbing with. Today, life and times are different.

I look for people of all types of backgrounds to follow on Twitter, scientists, authors, civil rights activists, journalists, comic book artists and writers, programmers, whoever I think I can learn from.

When I heard Baratunde on NPR (transcript) his comments pushed me off the fence and I bought his book. Amazon ran a good deal, $3 for the Kindle edition.

With my blog, I try to stick with a singular theme - what is the geographic theme of the topic or subject? With "How To Be Black" a number of questions crossed my mind.

How do I write a review of a book which deals with a subject with which I have zero experience?
Can I white dude write about being black? That question is easy: no.
Can I bring something to the conversation on race, at least within the context of Baratunde's thoughts expressed in his book? Answer: Maybe. Probably. Anybody can have an opinion, right?
Do I feel awkward writing about "How To Be Black?" Absolutely. But, feeling awkward hasn't stopped me from doing stuff.

Baratunde evokes many thoughts about race wrapped in his humorous story-telling. His "scientific" panel of experts on 'blackness' which includes one white Canadian, self-described as more of a "hard-boiled egg" than Caucasian, provide substantive, poignant vignettes of their experiences within black culture. His Panel of Experts are sound like groovy people who I could see myself being friends with, going to Blues clubs, book readings, comedy clubs, talking politics or current events with over beer and pizza, or sushi, or Pad Thai, and generall just hanging-out. Each Panel of Experts member is a stand-out in their own right, bring published authors, comedians, musicians, having achieved some personal goals and recognition for their efforts to move society and US culture forward. "Hard-boiled egg" by the way, refers to being Caucasian on the outside and Asian on the inside.

Baratunde's wryness and sarcasm might be lost on those who are unable work against the current of their own personal struggle or animosity or grievances. Barantunde never comes across as "angry" or "belligerent" or "just another black man trying to bring the white man down." He is a man of observation, of diligence, and of eloquence who has a depth of experience which surpasses the majority of white people. Not many white people have been shouted down for not being "white enought" by other white people. Not many white people I know who've traveled to Europe get accosted by Europeans for being named "Paul" or "Michael" or "Seamus." When Baratunde traveled to Nigeria as a teenager he was shouted at by an elderly Nigerian man for having a Nigerian name. "YOU ARE NOT NIGERIAN! What gives you the right to such a name?!" Thus, his comments are worth exploring. I never realized being black was so complicated. Blacks have to constantly struggle not only to maintain their "roots" but also interact in several different realms, and act in many different capacities.

Blacks have to be experts in all black culture.
Blacks have to be experts in all black politics.
Blacks must know every other black person.
Blacks must know what President Obama is thinking at all times.
Blacks must represent their race within Business and Industry.
All blacks are experts in Welfare and Poverty.
All blacks must understand and identify with Blues, R&B, and Rap.
All blacks are related to Robert Johnson, Rosa Parks, MLK, and Malcolm X.
All blacks must regularly attend Black Culture Training, which includes dance classes.
All blacks must be ready to assume the role of The Black Friend and be ready to respond to well-meaning but ignorant and possibly insensitive questions.
All blacks must be fluent in drug culture, terminology, and use.
All blacks must have either killed someone, been shot, know a shooter, or know a victim.
All blacks must belong to a gang, or if older than 40, must have belonged to one.
All educated blacks must work to prevent exposing their education to other blacks. Otherwise, they may be "outed" as a white person.

Being black is far more complicated than I ever would have dreamed. While some of the above list is tongue-in-cheek, my guess is some of these stereotypes have been held/are currently held by whites, Asians, and Hispanics. It's not easy being black. The milieu of Blackness does raise many interesting geographic questions. Being a professional geographer, Baratunde's prose has embedded within many geographic questions.

Does "blackness" vary by geography? I mean, do blacks treat other blacks differently based on geographic bias? If blacks in Madison, Wisconsin, run across a black person from Birmingham, Alabama or Detroit, Michigan, is automatic black 'cache' awarded?
Does cache vary by skin tone? That is, you can't be very black because you are too light-skinned?
Do white people own the roots of racism? Are white people solely responsible for curing racism?
Do educated blacks suffer bias from less educated blacks?
Do we live in a "post-racial society?"
Why the "N" word? Why do white people use the "N" word referencing other whites?

The N-Word I want to address the last point first. I hate the "N" word. When I hear or read one black person use the word against another black person - and it is against the other person - this is how I translate:

"No matter how good, smart, rich, kind, thoughtful, successful you are, you will never be anything more than a slave."

I see the N-word as nothing more than black peers trying to prevent black progress. People need to surround themselves with positiveness, positive comments, helpful supportive energy, not negativity. No, I say, to black people, you are not a slave and you do not have to accept the mentality of your peers who want to hold you back from who you want to be. I wish black people would work to abolish the use of the word in every day conversation. I don't hear Hispanics, or Jews, or Asians using racial epithets. Asians, in particular, are very good about using positive reinforcement on each other.

For white people to use the word in any sense is simply moronic. Seriously, using the word does not make you cool, hip, urban, trendy, dope, in touch with your roots. No rational reason exists for a white person to use the N-word in any capacity. White people who use the word have a mental disease or defect, I suspect.

The N-word among whites seems to be popular among young urban white kids, impressionable and thinking they achieve some form of credibility by using the N-word. In rural areas, whites continue to use the N-word due to cultural inertia. Grandparents and parents both used the word and transfer the acceptability of the word to their children. Kids in rural countries perpetuate N-word use as a means of seeming more "urban" or "hip." Just stop being ridiculous, please.

Being an Educated Black Person Being an educated black person in the United States is probably one of the most challenging racial roles I can imagine. Whites don't expect an educated black person, nor an educated Hispanic, for that matter. If we run across an educated black or Hispanic, whites either don't believe it, or we go through this internal argument that the black person's education must amount to about 3/5ths of a white person's education, regardless if we were in the same school and class together.

As Baratunde discusses in detail, black people have to work 2xs as hard just to be black and educated, and play a role. If another black person works in the same office, the complexity does not double but is squared.

Blacks are no longer the largest racial minority. Hispanics are the largest racial minority. Hispanics are not the fastest growing minority. Asians are the fastest growing minority group in the U.S. (National Review, 2012).

Black females tend to do better in higher education than their male counterparts. While black males attend college in rates which mirror their proportion in the population, they do not finish college at the same rate as males in general, and are suspended and expelled at higher rates than white males (CBC Foundation).

That research is being conducted to examine educational disparities is a step in the right direction; research, analyze, and interpret. Then, figure out approaches to change behavior or policy. However, blacks need to be supportive of each other in their educational and business pursuits, not derogatory, nor be a hindrance towards progress. Thug or "gangsta" life is a false life, a facade, a false cultural meme which will ultimately fail and prevents social progress, working to restrain black culture, not promote.

I love basketball, college basketball. I can't play, can't shoot. Have never been able to. But, college basketball is the ultimate team and individual sport, in my opinion. Watching an ESPN broadcast of a high school game, I was struck by the way the commentators were talking about the players. All of the high school players were being watched because several had verbally committed to Kentucky, Syracuse, and Pittsburgh.

I thought, wow, this is 21st century slavery; listen to these commentators.

"He is strong and powerfully built."

"He is very fast and quick on his feet."

"He will be very productive for the right team and the right coach."

I thought, man, if slavery of the 18th and 19th century existed today, this is exactly what it would sound like.

"He is strong and has a great back. He could pull a plow and work all day."

"He is smart and he could carry bushels of cotton and make strong children.

"He would be a very good asset to any plantation owner."

And, I was like, damn. That's messed-up. These ESPN guys are the 21st century equivalent of a 17th century hawker for a slave auction.

This realization led me to this notion. To the black man who is given a scholarship to play basketball, I say, "make sure you take advantage of this opportunity. If you do, you win, you win for the rest of your life. If you do not use this opportunity towards investing in yourself, to make yourself better, and to graduate, then you have been complicit in your own 21st century slavery, of working for people who only want to exploit your skills for their own ends, not yours. Once they have used up your eligibility, watch how fast they dump you. Take charge of your future.

The White Roots of Racism

In terms of black and white culture, whites certainly have run the table on racial discrimination, of that there is no doubt. Also, racism was also promulgated by white people for about 400 years. You might be compelled to argue, but only my timeline is mootable, not my comment. The British, French, Germans, Spanish, and Dutch all at some time period or another believed Caucasians were racially superior to races of other skin tones. All one needs is read the journals of their diplomats, explorers, and politicians. Or, simply read their early textbooks. No less than shocking in these days. Also, one must also recognize Christianity is also responsible for racism to some degree. After all, the non-European world was full of differently-colored heathens, pagans, and atheists who must be treated as children and shown the error of their lives.

Racism is discrimination (different treatment) based upon race. Bigotry is discrimination based upon some other trait, intelligence, religious adherence, politics, etc. I know some blacks have been discriminated against by other blacks based on skin tone. I call this "bigotry" as I'm not sure if a black person can be racist against someone of their own race. Anyone can be bigoted, though. Jews throughout time have suffered racism by people of all races.

Jews were subjected to atrocities in Russia, in Europe, in the United State. Of all places, Jews in the Middle East were tolerated and appreciated, at times. Jews can handle money and charge interest, something upon which Islam places many restrictions and some Christian sects. Hence, Jews became known for being monetarily successful not through any great skill on their part, but due to religious restrictions found in other religions.

Asians, especially Japanese continue to exhibit subtle bigotry towards other Asians, especially Chinese, and to some extent Koreans. But, I call this "bigotry" and not "racism" because Japanese, Chinese, and Koreans are essentially the same race, and by my definition a person cannot racially discriminate against another person of the same race. But, they can be bigoted. Japanese can be racist against blacks and whites, though, as they have a sense of cultural superiority. If one looks at Japanese immigration law and societal mores on marriage, one can see direct evidence of bias.

Discrimination based on race and skin color is not unique to white people, that is my point. White people may be responsible for discrimination in the Western World. However, we cannot re-write history to pin the global distribution of discrimination, bias, and bigotry upon one group. We cannot even say, "we'll white people started it." No; if you are Christian, read your Bible. Those were not white people, Europeans. Those were Central Asians, Africans, and Arabs.

Whites are also resistant to their own hypocrasy. Whites will point figures are urban blacks and say, "they use welfare. Black people do nothing except use welfare and return nothing. I hate 'em. They have all these kids and my money goes to support these kids."

First, black people sort of their own worst enemy in this regard. Black people tend to congregate in urban areas and thus are easily noticed. In other words, they cluster, or group themselves, and in doing some make themselves into easy targets.

However, white people are wrong. All one has to do is look at some Census and Center for Disease Control data. Three times as many white people are on welfare. In fact, if you were to add all minorities on welfare they would not add to the number of white people on welfare. White people also abuse prescription drugs more than minorities. White people also abuse illicit drugs more than minorities. Examine the geography of Appalachia sometime. The greatest poverty in the United States, outside of Native American territories (talk about whites and racism), is found in predominantly white Appalachia ... and prescription drug abuse, and illicit drug abuse. But, whites don't acknowledge this. We hear about helping urban poor, rarely Appalachian poverty.

The Spatial Distribution of Blackness

I found Baratunde's comments about 'blackness' and its geographic overtones interesting. I have many black acquaintances. My favorite is April, who lives in Atlanta. She is a beautiful, light-skinned black woman and when she was in school, she told me once if she couldn't find a suitable black man she would marry me and we would have beautiful children. I found this highly complimentary.

When I was in junior high school (7-8th grade), I was passed a note through friends a black girl wanted to be my girlfriend. She was very pretty and dark-skinned. My 'friends' were freaking-out, though, especially the white girls. I was a little unnerved, honesty, more because I was terribly shy and the thumbs of my parents pressed hard. Neither thought dating was suitable for me, only my education. "Plenty of time for dating when your in college. Or, even better, wait until after college." And, my dad did, and does, favor the N-word, and I could only imagine bring my black girlfriend home and dealing with all the above. So, yeah, not only did I not have a black girlfriend in junior high, I had no girlfriend until I got to college. But, blame me, not her.

Baratunde's comments, though, helped me expose my ignorance of how blacks see each other. Do Southern blacks get more respect from other black in more "progressive" or "liberal" regions of the U.S.? Is a black person from Birmingham, Alabama seen in a different respect by a black person living in Chicago? Do black people harbor biases for or against other black people based on perceived regional differences?

I suspect the answer is "yes," not because that is a trait of black people but because that is a trait of people, in general. We are all familiar with the notion of "living on the other side of the tracks" or "being from the "wrong side" of the tracks." We all carry mental, or cognitive, maps in our heads of where wealth people live, nice or gated neighborhoods, good schools, good shopping, as well as places where life is more visceral. When we have this knowledge thrust upon us in the form of a person, we then make internal value judgments, which we then might have to work to overcome if these judgments result in negative biases against the person. We want to work against the perpetuation of stereotypes but challenging our own personal biases.

Our Post-Racial Society

Do we live in a post-racial society? In short, are you freaking kidding? No. No...no.

We are getting better but we are several generations from a post-racial societal. Simply because President Barack Obama, our first mixed-race President, does not make U.S. society "post-racial." Our President is half-black, and as Baratunde points out, even among blacks President Obama's election could simply be a historical fluke, an aberration. The next black president will be the U.S.'s first black president. It's easy to dismiss the first as an accident. A second black president would have to be a deliberate act.

Now, put a Native American in the Oval Office, and we might be able to talk post-race society. Or, a black woman in office. Or, a Hispanic woman. Then, we can talk about post-racial society.

As long as we continue to elect old, white, Christian people into Congress, or as Presidents, or governors, we cannot discuss the "post-racial" nature of U.S. society.

As long as we have hiring, scholarship, grants or other benefits based on race we cannot have a conversation about a "post-racial" society.

Keeping track of statistics is necessary. Statistics are information, data, and knowledge is always necessary. Every organization should keep statistics on race, religion, creed, ethnicity, etc., but public policies which provide race-based benefits stand in the way of "post-racial"society conversations.

Essentially, all people need to be treated the same way under the law, regardless of who they are. However, that is an ideal. As long as we have a legal system which discriminates against women, gays, blacks and minorities we cannot call ourselves "post-racial." Simply nonsense.

Tomorrow is Martin Luther King Day. I honestly did not plan my essay around MLK observation. I merely finished reading How To Be Black and as I normally do, try to bring some geographic context to Baratunde's themes and ideas. Living in the south, many whites see MLK day as "stupid." Someone on Twitter posted a Facebook conversation among his 'friends:'

"Black people just need to get over being slaves. They aren't slaves now." "Black people would probably sue if we made them do anything on MLK day." "We [white people] have to constantly walk on pins and needles just to make other feel like they are worth something."

Thank you, Southern white kids, or kids, in general, and our decrepit U.S. educational system. You might as well tell Jews, "you need to get over the Holocaust. It was 70 years ago. Old news, move on. You have your own country now. You should be happy."

I am not a White Apologist. Being a student of history, and human nature, the above comments expose ignorance, immaturity, and hypocrisy among children and young adults. I am sure if we plumbed the depths of the lives of these people we would find them clinging to cultural traits passed along by parents and grandparent which are barriers to self-improvement, racism, denigrating smart people, drug or alcohol abuse, or a cycle of poverty. Hypocrisy is a shadow which follows everyone everywhere.

Cultural history is important to remember. Cultural history cannot be worn like a cloak, though, or used an excuse not to be better or to improve one's self and one's position or status in life. MLK day helps everyone remember where we were in time, to help us not forget how all people are damaged by racism. MLK day is not a day strictly for black people but for everyone to experience as a societal landmark of where we were, for us to realize where we are, and to think about where we need to be. And, those ignorant comments above illuminate how poorly understood are the overarching messages of MLK and those people active against racism.

Individually, we have to work to overcome our own personal concerns. We cannot allow our individual or cultural histories to psychologically wear us down. Whether we are children of divorce, or abandonment, or tragedy, or abusive parents, we do not have follow in the same path. We have choice, we can make choices about who we are and how we act. We can challenge the traits passed to us by our local culture and we can make a choice to act and behave in ways which are in our own best interest. Racism and bigotry are never good choices and represent the worst of false memes. When we cross the threshold from being children to adults, which I submit is more into one's 20s, based on intellectual and emotional maturity than the de jure age of 18, it is incumbent we leave behind our juvenile thoughts, feeling, and false memes about people and aspire to higher level thinking.

Thank you for reading this far, if you managed to do so. If you leave a comment, or RT/MT on Twitter I'll give you a shout-out (s/o) in return. PAX

Book Review: Coyote Waits

noreply@blogger.com (Anonymous) — Sun, 09 Dec 2012 20:16:00 +0000

"Coyote Waits." Tony Hillerman. Publisher: Harper Torch Fiction. 1990. Paperback. $8

In Navajo mythology the Milky Way was created by the trickster god, Coyote. Coyote also created the world and the Holy People. The Holy People were assigned the task of helping populate the universe with stars. The Holy People were too slow for Coyote's liking and he took their bag of stars and threw them into space, creating our nighttime sky.

Coyote is a trickster god. He would often masquerade as a well-known man after having transmuted the man into a coyote. Coyote would use the man's reputation to his advantage, often trying to sleep with the man's wife. Coyote would also use deception, lies, and trickery to obtain objects of his desire, for despite his supernatural existence, he enjoys the carnal and superficial pleasures of humans. Sometimes, Coyote is benevolent. In "Coyote Kills A Giant," the god finds a way to kill a giant and save his people from death.

In "Coyote Waits," a car fire puts two committed law officers on the prowl for a killer. The car belonged to Navajo Tribal Policeman Delbert Nez, but the fire didn't kill Officer Nez. A bullet ended his life, as Officer Jim Chee would realize after dragging Nez's body from the burning car. When a drunk healer is found wandering down the middle of a state highway not far from the crime scene with a bottle of too-good scotch in one hand and a pistol tucked into his waistband, the simple evidence is immediately suspicious.

The death of the officer elevates the crime beyond Officer Chee and his supervisor, Lieutenant Joe Leaphorn, and into the hands of the FBI. Neither Chee nor Leaphorn are comfortable with Federal law enforcement acting on tribal lands and both initiate their own investigations.

The nuance of the faith healer's involvement bothers both Navajo officers. The officers aren't too fond of the FBI immediate guilt placed on Pinto. Ashie Pinto was not currently known to be a drunk. The crime scene was also hundreds of miles away from Pinto's home, and Ashie doesn't drive. So, what was a medicine man doing hundreds of miles away from home, drunk, with the murder weapon?

Chee's and Leaphorn's investigations lead them along intersecting paths through Navajo culture and lands. Chee is a traditionalist, himself practicing to be a healer, a Navajo medicine man. Leaphorn, while older, is less attuned to his Navajo heritage, familiar with but distant from the spiritual beliefs, family lineage and tribal membership characteristics of his fellow Navajos.

The dichotomy between Chee and Leaphorn provides wonderful insight into Navajo culture and spiritualism. Chee's interest in Ashie Pinto's jish, a small bag containing a shaman medicinal items, provides insight into the importance of traditional medicine and spiritualism within Navajo culture. Chee's developing friendship with Assistant District Attorney Janet Pete illustrates the complex relationships between Navajo tribal society and the non-Navajo society. In Navajo tribal culture knowing a person's tribal affiliation, such as the Bitter Way tribe or the Slow Talking Dinee can determine who a person can marry and whom a person can't.

The search for evidence leads Chee and Leaphorn across the landscapes of Arizona and New Mexico. From the University of Northern Arizona, the Chuskas Mountains, to the Four Corners, the officers cover the geography of northeast Arizona and northwest New Mexico.

Through Chee and Leaphorn we learn about studies of Navajo history and language at UNA and programs to preserve Navajo language and stories at the University of New Mexico. Chee and Leaphorn both run across a Vietnamese immigrant, a school teacher, whose presence illuminates a diversity in culture beyond Navajo and White, illustrating again the dynamics of today's society.

Chee and Leaphorn also discover the lengths people will design in order to track down the ellusive tales associated with notorious American train robber, Butch Cassidy.

Hillerman's stories are immediately engaging and likeable. Chee and Leaphorn provide an interesting contrast in characters. The younger Chee is more traditional and schooled in Navajo culture. The older Leaphorn, well-respected among folks of all backgrounds, is pragmatic and less bound in Navajo tradition despite being Navajo. Hillerman blends Navajo tradition, Navajo culture and history, Navajo language, and academic efforts into an enjoyable tale of how the Coyote Waits patiently in order to gain his prize.

How Memes Explain GOP Dysfunction

noreply@blogger.com (Anonymous) — Wed, 07 Nov 2012 16:16:00 +0000

I'm amending my post based on results from the 2012 Presidential Election. Comments by GOP pundits speak directly to my comments below. Both Karl Rove and Charles Krauthammer exemplify the anti-rational memes I identify and discuss below. Krauthammer, in fact, argues the GOP platform needs no changes; the GOP simply couldn't motivate the proper personalities to communicate the Republican message. If the message is so complicated 9 candidates cannot communicate the "message," the problem might be the message.
My previous post, a book review of D. Deutsch's The Beginning of Infinity, left a cliffhanger, of sort. D. Deutsch spoke of static versus dynamic societies, specifically, static societies fail; dynamic societies endure, unless compromised or infected with non-rational memes. Then, demise of a society is a guaranteed surety. I dropped a parenthetical comment within my review indicating I would speak more on this topic later. This is later.
David Deutsch introduces a stunning array of ideas in a few short pages. He essentially breaks down culture and the transmission of cultural ideas and describes the bifurcation of a society’s choices into two paths. One path takes society down a static path, and essentially the end of that society. The other path takes society down a dynamic path, and persistence. Sounds a lot like Robert Frost, “the path not taken.”
My chosen theme for my writing is geography, the entire milieu of geography. When a quantum physicist wanders into the realm of culture and nation-building, my “geography-sense” begins to tingle. I have nigh-incomplete knowledge of quantum physics but I have a lesser amount of incomplete knowledge about geography. However, tying a few ideas from The Beginning of Infinity (TBOI) to geography should not be too difficult. What comes thereafter, might be.
The notion static societies and dynamic societies are part of the milieu of geography should not be too indulgent; this notion should be self-evident, actually. TBOI introduces a term which is not generally used in geography. The term is expressed more in sociology, or psychology, perhaps. However, TBOI introduces the term as a fundamental components of culture. The analysis of the term is used to examine the general success or failure of societies within a historical context. For instance, the failure of the Roman Empire, the failure of Nazism, the failure of the Soviet Union are all potentially explained by the function of a single term, and the terms components.

What is a meme?

Richard Dawkins, in his book The Selfish Gene (1976), posited the idea of a “meme.” A meme is a self-replicating idea (369). But not this simple, as a meme is a self-replicating idea within a culture much like a gene is a self-replicating set of biological instructions which communicates to cell how to develop. Memes carry cultural instructions which communicate and define individual’s behavior within a culture.

A meme is a self-replicating idea which carries the cultural instructions which communicate and define an individual’s behavior within a culture. Memes can mutate due to societal pressures, therefore memes evolve over time.

Thousands of memes can exist. Memes can arise and disappear within a person’s lifetime, or they can persist over generations. Memes can self-replicate with varying degrees of success. Some memes persist over time with considerable fidelity; they do not lose their message. Some memes adapt over time and evolve. The information content will change; did a new meme arise and replace the old meme? Or, is the meme simply a mutation?
Memes can be categorized as one of two types. “Rational” memes are based upon rational and critical thought (388). Being based upon rational and critical thought, rational memes are able to be accurately replicated. Rational memes evolve in the direction of real understanding and knowledge (389).
“Anti-rational” memes are founded upon non-rational thought or non-critical thought (388). Non-rational thought or non-critical thought is a means of saying the idea is not likely to be replicated with any degree of accuracy. An example of non-critical thought is the response to a question, “because I said so.” Another example includes memes which are based on religious ideologies, faith-based ideologies, or political-based ideologies. An example of such anti-rational memes would include the belief women are inferior or too delicate to vote or to become involved in politics, or the notion Blacks or people of color are inferior, or the notion the only true faith is Judaism. Anti-rational memes mutate away from developing better understanding and increased knowledge, and in doing so hinder or eliminate adaptations which encourage greater critical thinking.

Rational memes arise from critical thinking and encourage greater understanding through promoting more rational thought.
Anti-rational memes arise to hinder or prevent critical thinking and impair understanding and restrain knowledge.

Rational memes persist and are enjoyed throughout society and across time. Rational memes succeed in spite of debates and criticism because the memes themselves inspire debate and criticism, becoming better and accepted throughout society. The example set forth in TBOI are the Laws of Motion described by Isaac Newton. Newtonian physics not only is useful for construction, such as cathedrals and bridges, and useful for artillery (388). In other words, rational memes are useful across a broad spectrum of people and disciplines, are well-suited for being re-purposed, and foster more criticism and debate.

Anti-rational memes can persist and spread among people in the very same as rational memes. However, their effect is different. Anti-rational memes harm society (378). Anti-rational memes discourage criticism, debate, the pursuit of knowledge and deeper meaning. These effects may see mundane, yet the effects of those effects tend not to be mundane. Discouraging criticism and debate leads to the rise of police states, censorship of the media, detainment, loss of freedoms, imprisonment, or death. Russia has created a set of Internet censorship laws which greatly restricts access to the media, makes libel a criminal offense, and forces foreign news reporters to register as foreign agents (Atlantic, 3 Nov 2012). Fascism is another example of an anti-rational meme. Fascism is the unquestioning devotion to an ideology, typically a political ideology. Fascism is not limited to politics; the adherence to religious indoctrination in the face of contrary evidence is also a form of fascism. The United States is not immune to anti-rational memes. The Salem Witch trials springs to mind, the Red Scare & McCarthyism of the 1950s, and the "You Are Either With Us Or Against Us" domestic and foreign policy during the 2001-2008 Bush Administration are all forms of fascism, and anti-rational memes. The persecution of Julian Assange and WikiLeaks is an interesting circumstance. Yet, despite the controversy, I would argue this persecution is also an anti-rational meme because deeper truths are being hidden or concealed. This is precisely the nature of anti-rational memes.

The precise nature of anti-rational memes is to work against the revelation of knowledge, to blur or conceal the truth.

At this point I'm departing from my synopsis of memes, and discuss of rational and anti-rational memes. Rational memes are consistent with dynamic societies. Dynamic societies are not immune to the dangers of anti-rational memes. Within dynamic societies, both types of memes exist and are both exposed to the same sets of criticism. Anti-rational memes do not stand up to criticism, however, falter, fade away, and are replaced by rational memes. Even rational memes are under constant scrutiny and may be replaced by new memes or evolve into a new meme. Because of the continual improvement of rational memes in dynamic societies, the memes themselves become increasingly easier to replicate without loss of fidelity (388).

All meme forms and variants can exist within a dynamic society. Dynamic societies allow scrutiny and criticism of memes. Anti-rational memes will be identified as false, shallow, or useless. Rational memes will persist under critical observation and will be replicated accurately.

Static societies may have rational memes. However, due to the persistence of anti-rational memes, rational memes are disposed. Anti-rational memes can be as faithfully replicated as rational memes. For example, slavery in the United States was a persistent anti-rational meme based on several specious arguments. Generation after generation of people in the U.S. South were indoctrinated into the Slavery System. Most any attempt to argue against slavery, i.e. to criticize the meme, was immediately squelched. Static societies encourage the Status Quo, suppress criticism, and enforce invariant compliance of anti-rational memes (381). Laws are passed which encode the meme into the social fabric, such as the "Sundown Laws" which persisted in the United States well after Black Emancipation. Society may even foster and encourage the use of taboos to control behavior. Even within the allegedly "free and open" United States, some mixed race couples continue to find bias and discrimination.

Static societies are doomed to fail. Static societies impose rules, regulations, and restrictions which have the effect of ultimately shutting down human creativity. Human creativity is essential for meme evolution and transmission.

The society of the United States is generally associated with being a "dynamic" society. Many societies today are dynamic societies. All of Europe, India, the United States, Chile, Argentina, Canada, are all examples of "dynamic" societies. If you don't see your country mentioned, its probably still dynamic, I merely did not want to develop a comprehensive list. As long as a society is able to evolve to more rational ideas, i.e. rational memes, the society has a good chance of being a "dynamic" society.

Some societies I tend to think of as being dangerously close to becoming static societies. Russia comes to mind. The more restrictive the government becomes, the more speech and political expression is curtailed, the more likely Russia will become static. China falls into the same category for essentially the same reason. North Korea is a static society. Venezuela under the rule of Hugo Chavez, becomes more of a static society under his strict leadership. Any of the Middle Eastern countries, Iran, Iraq, Saudi Arabia, Egypt, the Maghreb countries, and many countries of sub-Saharan Africa have the potential of becoming static societies. Rules, laws, or taboos which restrictive the free movement of ideas, or limit certain populations are anti-rational memes. Limiting the role of women in business, industry, sports, or government are anti-rational memes. Discriminating against a population based on skin color or other physical traits is an anti-rational meme. The killing of albinos in Tanzania because they are seen as "ghost" people is an anti-rational meme. The notion in Malawi of having sex with a virgin girl as a cure for AIDS/HIV is an anti-rational meme.
In the United States, our political parties are susceptible to becoming victimized by the spread of anti-rational memes. The Democratic Party support of unions is an anti-rational meme which hinders business, disallows the movement of ineffective workers and their inherent inefficiencies, and prevents the replacement of outmoded business models with modern adaptations.
The Tea Party movement itself is based almost exclusively on a host of anti-rational memes, racism, Creationism, pro-Christian, pro-faith, and a return to the Gold Standard are simply a few anti-rational memes prevalent among the Tea Party.

Republicans, especially Conservative Republicans, have become significantly enamored by anti-rational memes. The "Patriot Act" provided unparalleled access to law enforcement for domestic surveillance. During the Bush Administration, citizens throughout the country found their "patriotism" challenged by simply criticizing White House policies. Members of the Senate Science and Technology Committee side with Creationists and other anti-science advocates against current research extending from the study of Cosmology, evolution, stem cell research, to climate change. Conservative Republicans, such as Donald Trump persist in perpetuating the Birther meme concerning President Obama's place of birth and his academic record. Other Conservative Republicans persist in associating environmental catastrophes like Hurricane Katrina and Hurricane Sally with God's wrath against the moral turpitude of homosexuality and abortion. The current political clarion among Republicans, "Take Back America" exemplifies yet another anti-rational meme. The United States has not been lost, has not been over-run or taken over. The government is not besieged. A coup d'etat has not supplanted any of our three government divisions.
Dynamic societies succeed by critical investigation of memes, by moot, and by using human creativity to expose, evaluate, and adapt memes. As memes are replicated, and evolve, individual memes may become static (383). Static memes are not necessarily bad. The idea of one-person, one-vote is a static meme which is important for governance which cannot really get more any more simple. Remember, the previous memes prevented women from voting, black males could cast a vote which counted as 1/2 the vote of a white male, and only white landowners could vote. Individual memes may become static. Danger arises when static memes become encoded with the law, or imposed by taboo, and society in its entirety is restricted from exercising creativity in advancing knowledge and gaining deeper understanding.

The two major parties, the Democrats and the Republicans, are catalysts for memes. Democrats, often referred to as "Liberals," are criticized for simply being that, liberal. Liberal carries many connotation; open, explorative, educated, flexible, wavering, and progressive are a few terms which come to mind. Republicans are often characterized as "Conservative," meaning resistant to change, parochial, narrow-minded, and traditional are a few terms which come to mind.

Both political parties are far from perfect. However, Republicans are dangerously close to becoming the bastion of anti-rational memes. Advocating increased levels of religious expression in schools disaffect members of a society which purports to be accepting is an anti-rational meme. Anti-science faith-based messages which articulate evolution and cosmological sciences as being straight from Hell is an anti-rational meme. Deprecating education at levels beyond high school is an anti-rational meme. Denouncing climate and atmospheric sciences is an anti-rational meme. Advocating the status quo upon reliance on fossil fuels and against alternative energies is an anti-rational meme. Denouncing the rights of gay and lesbian citizens based on religious intolerance is an anti-rational meme. Stripping rights away from individuals to exercise control over her own reproductive rights in an anti-rational meme. Restricting the use of embryonic stem cells on religious grounds is an anti-rational meme.

For Democracy to succeed, at least two parties of equal rational and critical thinking acumen are necessary. My criticism of the Republican party is levied mostly to vent frustration over the entire political process. In reading TBOI, particularly the portion regarding memes and culture, I was struck by the relevance of Deutsch's comments and their applicability to current societal and governmental concerns. Much of the vitriol of our current political climate arises from anti-rational memes, examples of which I have already mentioned. These anti-rational memes are associated with members of one political party, are encoded within that party's platform, in fact. That the GOP cannot mount a substantive and unified front to the Democrat Party can be tied directly to the anti-rational memes harbored by many Republicans. To provide a better leadership at local, state, and national level, GOP leaders need to scrutinized their platform, their ideals, eliminate those notions which are parochial, limiting, predicated on ignorance and non-critical thinking, and purge their party of members who support anti-rational, non-critical memes. Otherwise, the Republicans are dooming themselves to irrelevance, being diluted by more non-critical thinkers, and radicalists, eventually being replaced by a number of factions.

Source: Deutsch, David; The Beginning of Infinity; Penguin; 2011.

The Dilution of Higher Education

noreply@blogger.com (Anonymous) — Sun, 21 Oct 2012 04:00:00 +0000

This has been a week from Stupidville.

Let’s see if I can describe the situation. I’ll need to describe events and motivations leading up to the recent controversy, and the immediate results and subsequent modifications I have had to make in order to make one of the institutions I am employed by happy. As always, I will try to place my interaction into a larger educational context. To hint at my summary, administrators at institutions of so-called higher learning are themselves responsible for the dilution and failure of the U.S. educational system.

I am very active in online education. Since 2004, I’ve taught approximately 32 sections of a world geography course for community colleges and a university. Examinations are always a sensitive component of any online course, i.e. how does one maintain integrity in an online exam when the student is miles away and unsupervised?

Faculty have adopted several positions to address maintaining assessment integrity. Exams are offered for a limited time, usually 24-48 hours. Exams are limited in duration, typically 90 minutes to two hours. A rule-of-thumb is used to determine test length. A student is provided 1-1/2 to 3 minutes per question; multiply by the number of questions and you arrive at the time duration for any exam. Additionally, a student gets one attempt. A single attempt is offered to avoid a student progressing through an exam, reading and answering questions, then closing their browser to shutdown the exam. The student then emails the instructor saying such as, “My browser just went away while I was taking the exam. Will you please reset my exam.”

Students have devised many ways around online assessments. Students will work in groups. Students will gather to watch one student take an exam, then the remaining students will take their exam. The group will take turns taking exams so none will suffer but one poor attempt.

“My browser just went away while I was taking the exam. Will you please reset my exam.”

Students will take screenshots or cut and paste exam text into a text document; then, the exam will be closed, the answers investigated, the instructor emailed, and the exam reset.

Students will never read or perhaps even buy the textbook. Students will immediately engage an exam or writing assignment in one browser window while using another browser window to Google answers. Often, they will use Firefox and Chrome, or some combination of two browsers in order to avoid a potential interruption by using Tabbed Browsing.

Students will rally themselves into groups to take exams. In the event an instructor has implemented a limited reset policy students will work as a team to circumvent the reset policy. For instance, a professor may have a “one reset policy,” i.e. the student receives one free reset for any exam for the semester. The professor may have, say, four exams for the course. The first student takes the exam until the end while making notes for the remaining team members. At the end, the student will kill the attempt and request his/her reset. Student Two will use the notes from Student One and take the assessment. Student Two will then take the second assessment. At the end Student Two will kill the attempt and request his/her free reset. Student Two will then distribute notes to the remaining team members.

Students will take an exam all the through to the second-to-last question and note the feedback answers. The browser is then closed, which ends the exam. The instructor is then contacted and a request for a reset is made.

“Students will rally themselves into groups to take exams.”

If these scenarios I outline seem far-fetched, all have already been documented “in the wild,” meaning students are working as teams at colleges and universities across the country to circumvent online testing.

The students who suffer are the honest ones who actually perform the required assignments. Some students in remote area, such as rural counties, also lack the physical social network to be a part of one of these testing teams.

Historically, I always allowed my students multiple attempts at quizzes and exams as I figured there was no way to really police the exam environment. Also, and based on previous experience, the network technology did not really exist to provide a stable connection over 90 minutes for a student to take an exam without some glitch shutting down the exam.

During the spring and summer of 2012, after considerable internal debate, I opted to implement a “no reset policy” for my exams. Many factors were considered in my decision. I personally took several Blackboard assessments, both my own testing and online assessments provided by the community colleges. I experienced flawless performance throughout. People I am familiar with taking classes also have experience success in taking online exams which last longer than 1 hour; some lasting longer than 2 hours. I have also heard students inform their peers how they were able to re-take an exam by closing their browser and claiming a “glitch kicked me off.” Based on the factors I described I decided to implement my own “no reset policy.”

The “No reset policy” is not unique to me. “One attempt” or sometimes called “One-shot attempts” are extremely common among university faculty. Students around me have complained about faculty who offer only two online exams from which the lion’s share of the grade is determined and have had some “glitch” interrupt the exam. Responses by faculty to queries about re-taking or re-opening the exam vary from silence to a simple “no.” But, a simple google of “online education exam reset policy” should provide enough examples.

Technically, no way exists to filter a student with a legitimate technical issue from a student who is gaming an online course. The technical issues manifest in precisely the same way whether the student is cheating or honestly has a real technical issue. Only an environmental interruption can be corroborated, a regional power outage, a regional disconnection of Internet access such as a fiber cut, a closure of a computer laboratory, or some other disruption at the institution. Those interruptions can be verified. Similarly, an ISP can offer a report in the event of an interruption of service.

A student sitting at home, with limited exception, has no ability to offer corroboration. A letter from a parent who has a vested interest in having their child succeed is not an unbiased instrument.

Many institutions of higher learning leave the policy of exam resets to the discretion of the faculty. Faculty are given ultimate sway in deciding the fate of a student who has become shutout of an exam. Faculty would like to believe students are honest actors in the taking of exams, but the evidence is against the student. All one must do is contemplate your own education to find validity in my statement.

Can you say you never witnessed nor experienced cheating in a college classroom? I know for a fact fraternities and sororities maintain files for all faculty and all courses. I know, because my fraternity did; we maintain several file cabinets worth of returned exams. Fraternity members would hire a brother to write a research paper, or hire a sorority sister to write a paper. Cheating was endemic within the entire Greek system. And, I also know the pattern of behavior persists.

My comments are not meant to simply indict the Greek system; social fraternities are simply a good example. In the Era of Online Social Networks, students across the board are organizing themselves via Facebook, and using Google Docs, SkyDrive, and Dropbox to organize and share coursework.

Thus, faculty are faced with few good options for policing the integrity of their online exams. The “no reset” policy may sound draconian yet few options exist.

The implications for online learning are staggering when considered against protecting the integrity of the tools which are designed to measure a student’s competency. When those tools are compromised, no entity benefits.

Last week was spent in a week-long debate regarding my “no reset” policy for my online exams. Controversy was ignited by a lone student who protested not being able to re-take his exam after being kicked off Blackboard. I said,

No, I’m sorry; I have no way to know if you had a legitimate technology issue, if you were googling-for-answers, of simply decided if the exam was too difficult and closed your browser. Furthermore, you read my syllabus and recognized my policy. You took my syllabus quiz, therefore implicitly accepting my conditions. I also provided specific directions, suggestions, and cautions in my course video (posted on YouTube) and also in my Blackboard tutorial (also posted on YouTube).

The student appealed to both the dean and the Vice-President of Online Learning. While the dean did not feel like my policy was “fair” she admitted my syllabus made a clear statement.

The Vice-President of Online Learning offered a different viewpoint. I paraphrase:

Since there is no way to tell whether or not the student suffered a legitimate technological glitch, the student should be granted another attempt. Any student which appeals your “no reset” policy is going to win the appeal.

There are at least three fundamental concerns with the position of the VP-OL. The most obvious concern is any student who complains about the closure of an exam, for nearly any reason, will potentially be allowed to re-take the exam. A subset concern to the negation of the “no reset” policy means the student can have as many resets as the student requires to complete the exam.

A second concern suggests the syllabus is not worth the paper upon which it is printed, not if an administrator can negate conditions, at will. Also, their ability to do negate syllabi conditions undermines every argument “a syllabus is a contract.” No, a syllabus cannot be a contract if an actor not party to the conditions of the syllabus can negate any or all aspects of the syllabus.

A third concern is the fundamental undermining of academic integrity which occurs when faculty are no longer able to control the integrity of the assessments they are charged to create and score, in many cases for “quality assurance” for accrediting agencies. Faculty are charged with assessing students, measuring student competency, for reports which are generated to satisfy agencies which accredit colleges and universities. Student are able to achieve higher scores; higher scores become integrated into measurements of student competency; measurements are passed along to state, federal, and accrediting agencies. Funding, recognition, and awards are then based on the accumulated data.

Flawed data.

Now, administrators become complicit in the dilution of education.

Faculty are then faced with controversy on two fronts. On one front, administrators negate policies written into syllabi which are deemed unfair and side with student upon appeal. On the other front, students can spend an hour or so circumventing an exam, working alone or with a team, to cheat.

Policies and attitudes described above then run the distinct possibility of achieving normalcy within our U.S. society. Students, the beneficiaries of benign administrators today, then see no harm in falsifying data later when hired into positions of responsibility. Students who were beneficiaries of appeals, or of team-cheating, realize the power of group-think to find loopholes around real business, finance, or political rules and regulations.

Ethics are undermined, and society suffers real problems. We are seeing evidence of unethical behavior which began well before employment. I would wager Wall Street financial cheats did not arrive at Wall Street with rigid ethical backbones. No, they cheated or found loopholes, or leverage social network connections get achieve their positions. Examples do not need to extend to Wall Street. School districts have been found cheating on No Child Left Behind test scores. Colleges and universities have cheated on scores to fraudulently obtain state and federal funding.

I offer my comments simply as an contemporary anecdote of one atomic bit in the fracturing of the U.S. education infrastructure. As our culture adopts and embraces online learning we must be very careful our attempts to share educational opportunities do not become so dilute as to make online learning of questionable value, at best, and worthless, at worst.

PAX

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Education is a Matter of National Security

noreply@blogger.com (Anonymous) — Mon, 08 Oct 2012 07:21:00 +0000

Governments are often criticized for working towards the goal of keeping their citizens ignorant. “We will tell you all you need to know.” Or, “It’s a matter of national security. We cannot tell you why. Its on a need-to-know basis.”

In Russia, the Putin regime essentially controls the media. Russia is one of the least safe places in the world for journalists to operate. North Korea has one TV station controlled by the government, and one newspaper controlled by the government.

Governments which do not support education only damage their populations, promoting and actively supporting ignorance.

Furthermore, people who support politicians who support the promulgation of ignorance deserve the government they get. However, as I am also a part of society occupied by people who support ignorance and those who support ignorance, I have something to say about that.

Take for example the words of Paul Broun (R-Georgia).

“All that stuff I was taught about evolution and embryology and Big Bang theory, all that is lies straight from the pit of hell. And it's lies to try and keep me and all the folks who are taught that from understanding that they need a savior.”

Paul Broun is a member of the Senate’s Science and Technology Committee. He goes on to say,

“You see, there’s a lot of scientific data that I’ve found as a scientist that this really is a young earth,' Broun told the crow. 'I don’t believe that the earth is but about 9,000 years old. I believe it was made in six days as we know them. That’s what the Bible tells us.”

Here is a perfect example of someone who does not need to be on a science committee and someone who advocates ignorance. By the same token, he should also support slavery, as God also tells slaves to obey their master.

Todd Akin (R-Missouri) has gained notoriety based on his belief woman who get pregnant from a rape must have actually wanted to be raped.

Mo Brooks (R-Alabama) says he will "..will do anything short of shooting them” with regards to illegal or undocumented people living in the United States. He also condemns military cuts. Obviously, protecting our ignorance is of prime importance to him.

Jim Sensenbrenner (R-WI) has this to say about climate change:

“I personally believe that the solar flares are more responsible for climatic cycles than anything that human beings do and our lunar, our rovers on Mars have indicated that there has been a slight warming in the atmosphere of Mars and that certainly was not caused by the internal combustion engine.”

Dana Rohrabacher (R-California) even has an entire page on his House web site devoted to denial of climate science.

“Too often, when congress is asked to pass environmental legislation, the legislation is based on emotional junk science rather than data based on reproducible, rigorous, tested, peer-reviewed results.”

To which I say, stop cutting Education. See, one of the downstream effects of cutting Education, is that you make a limited resource even more scarce. When scarcity is increased you run the risk of actually encouraging people to cheat, cut corners, or be disingenuous in order for them to get things they need, like funding.

I ran across legislation on Rep. Ralph Hall’s (R-Texas) web site which he appeared very prideful of, yet it was completely stupid. On the one hand, he doubts climate change because of the lack of good science and argues his doubt of climate change was supported by what has become known as “Climategate.” So, how does one go about getting “good science?” Well, one way is to make sure you have different parties working on the same or similar problems. Doing so builds a knowledge base, a resume of work and expertise. However, on his own site, he argues for offering “amendments to minimize duplicative research.” [link]

How he thinks science works is beyond me. Besides, all his proposed amendments to current or proposed legislation regarding science and the funding of science initiatives is completely bonkers. Republicans are notorious for harping on how Democrats are so fond of bureaucracy they seem to be ignorant of their own desire for their own flavor of bureaucracy.

The fallacy behind the comments of these individuals and those like them is that they use one data point to either prove their case, or disprove someone else’s. Dana Rohrabacher, on his own web site, states

“I do not believe that CO2 is a cause of global warming.” [link]

This should come as no surprise as Rep. Rohrabacher was a former speechwriter in the Reagan White House, and has been tied to one of President Reagan’s gafs, “Trees cause more pollution than automobiles do.”

Rohrabacher told POLITICO in an interview [link]:

“needs to be used as a bully pulpit because many of the issues brought up by the Democrats is based on phony science,” Rohrabacher told POLITICO. This especially is true of global warming, “which is a total fraud,” he said. “We need to make sure that the Science Committee has a debate which both sides can equally present their sides.”
Rohrabacher once joked that dinosaur gas might be the cause behind global warming.
“We don’t know what those other cycles were caused by in the past,” he said at a February 2007 hearing. “Could be dinosaur flatulence, you know, or who knows?”

To my point; people elected into positions of authority need to have more of an open-mind and need to be more technically literate than these examples of poor leadership.

You can read my post on Why Conservatism Is Doomed To Fail for my thoughts on why. Furthermore, I would argue If Conservatism Wins, We All Lose, whereas if Liberalism Wins, Only Conservatives Lose, But Actually Win, Too.

Which brings me to this article from Technology Spectator [link]. Now, its not the article per se which has my hackles up. No, it’s the backstage of the article which is the problem. Like the problem of climate change, doing something now because later its too late, this article represents why our educational system and our business and intellectual climate need to change.

See, for the last 30 years or so, the United States has been happily moving its manufacturing capacity overseas. People bitch and moan about this without really understanding how they have benefitted from the lower prices. I would guess U.S. citizens have saved over $1 trillion dollars since 1980 simple as a result of the movement of manufacturing abroad.

The problem, though is manifold. How can we technologically secure ourselves with technology made outside our country? Yes, it was designed here. The router, switch, server, desktop and tablet were designed here (maybe) and the company has its international headquarters in the United States, but the actual physical product is made in Vietnam, or Singapore, or Malaysia, or China. How can a company maintain physical security of a physical device not within its own borders. Actually, its hard enough even then.

The governments of many countries invest in private enterprise. One reason is to compensate for the the inequity in labor costs, particularly if the technology is needed in-country. In the United States, if someone mentions government investment in private enterprise, they are labeled as a “Socialist,” a “European Democrat,” or a “Communist.”

China is already the world leader in solar cell technology and wind turbine technology. Why? Because the government in Beijing invested $1 billion dollars to make themselves the world leader. Now, they sell the technology around the world. When governments invest that kind of money into a nascent capitalist market, considerable headway is made.

China is also now a world’s leader in Green Technology because of their heavy investment in solar energy, wind turbines, and high-speed rail.

That a top Chinese electronics company, Huawei, wants inside the United States is of no surprise. This is the second high-profile technology incidence in which the United States government has had to play an active role. Not long ago, a Chinese maker of wind turbines, Ralls Corp, was banned from fulfilling a contract to build a wind farm in Oregon.

Actually, that was a good choice, to ban the wind farm. The wind farm was beside a sensitive military base which develops and tests unmanned drones. If I were the Chinese, I would have loaded those turbines with all sort of spy devices the blades would barely turn. And, if it were the United States selling turbines to China, you know we would have done the same thing. We do it all the time when we build an embassy for some country, load the place with every sensor known to Humankind.

The rub, though, is this; politicians within our own government refuse to support technology and Education, as if both are forms of Elitism. Politicians are caught in old Cold War mentalities which hold that any government involvement is a form of “Socialism” or “Communism” and is not simply bad but against our way of life.

I am not advocating for Socialism.

I am advocating for sound, rational, and realistic approaches to commerce, industry, manufacturing, and education.

Why is a U.S. company not building a wind farm in Oregon? Or, Texas? Or, Missouri? Why is our best option a Chinese company?

Why are we worried about a Chinese technology company selling technology inside the United States? My own D-Link wireless router was assembled in China. I would wager most of Cisco’s gear, Belkins, and LinkSys gear is also all either manufactured or assembled in China.

Why are we not producing some of these devices inside the United States if we are so worried about a potential Chinese espionage threat?

Our own governance philosophy is at the root of the problem. Politicians do not want to support or invest in domestic business for fear of being labeled as a “Socialist.” Politicians, particularly Republicans, advocate for letting the Free Market decide. So, the Free Market decides the best place to build and assemble is China, and then politicians, again mostly Republicans, cry foul.

I would argue Lawyers, and those with Political Science degrees – wow, that’s an oxymoron – make the worst politicians. We don’t need lawyers and people gerrymandering politics around religious bigotry and non-science, like Intelligent Design or Creationism.

Creating, supporting, and nurturing Education is fundamental to national security. The added benefit is that we also have a robust industrial and manufacturing climate where we don’t necessarily need to rely on outside contractors, because we have had the foresight to invest ourselves in those technologies, and invest in ourselves.

Higher Education is a Monolith

noreply@blogger.com (Anonymous) — Mon, 08 Oct 2012 05:23:00 +0000

Higher Education in the United States is a monolith. I imagine the higher education system in the United States as the Titanic. Before the ship was struck and sank, I imagine there were many interesting conversations, people learning and their knowledge increasing. Even if not overwhelmed by the size and technology represented by the ship, I can see people simply sitting around dinner tables, or at the bar, debating politics, debating science or philosophy.

And then the ship strikes the infamous iceberg. We know the rest of the story.

Designers and engineers, captains and staff, caught in the currents of their own hubris, could not imagine their ship would fail, that their ship could be damaged, so much so the ship would sink. Unimaginable.

In the United States, I see higher education buying into their own hype, their own hubris.

Higher Education grew out of the need to develop thought, specifically engineers and scientists, architects and chemists, biologists and doctors. Higher Education was designed to address the deficiencies in the education background of our citizens, and to meet the needs of businesses and industries within the United States. Higher Education was also promoted as a means to ensure National Security.

In other words, intentions were good.

Structural implementation addressed the demand, though to be fair, implementation was sexist and racist. I say this because entry into the university systems was often not fair to women or minorities. Some universities were exceptions to my generalization, but overall, my comment stands.

Early success of colleges and universities were based on the fact these institutions contained the necessary knowledge. Public libraries while important starting places for learning were simply not the fortress of knowledge represented by colleges and universities. If someone wanted to know something to any great detail, one had no other choice but to attend college. History, language, biology, physics, engineering, most any field required college attendance. Of course, some jobs did not require a college education, such as auto mechanic or roofer, and some still do not require higher education today.

But, my point is, colleges and universities have historically been the reservoirs of knowledge because that is where the knowledge was located.

Today, that is becoming less the case.

The Internet is changing education, delivery, access, and content. Especially in Higher Education, access to the Internet is evolving our access to knowledge in every field. Internet sites such as CodeAcademy, Khan Academy, Open Culture, TeacherCast, and even YouTube are changing the delivery model, content, and technology of learning.

But, many in Higher Education resist change.

Higher Education promotes online education – at their own institutions, yet may not accept online course credit taken at other institutions. Furthermore, many colleges and universities either do not accept degrees from online universities or cast wary glances at those people who earned degrees from online universities, or from online programs offered by brick-and-mortar universities.

Higher Education fails to utilize homegrown talent or talents within their student body. On the one hand, Higher Education says they promote open learning and initiative; on the other hand, Higher Education turns its back upon faculty, staff, and students who have initiative, knowledge, and determination and ignore untapped potential.

The entire system of Higher Education once supported an insidious form of hazing. You would be tested, and tested, and tested in the hopes you would fail. It’s a filtering process, really, hazing. Hazing is still present, to some extent in the higher echelons of learning, at the doctoral level. Advisors who want changes without need simply because of their dislike for another advisor.

Higher Education organized itself into semesters and classes with specific meeting times and faculty became supervisors. In fact, Higher Education mimicked Business and Industry in both word and deed.

Both became monolithic and entrenched, behemoths in their respective sectors. The steel industry and the automobile industry and the textile industry in the United States were large, economically powerful, and firm in the belief of their invulnerability. How has that worked out?

Higher Education has been recalcitrant in evolving and modifying their education models. While the U.S. automobile industry seems to be finally getting a clue, at least Ford, Higher Education in the United States is not moving quickly enough to address challenges developing in this new Age of Knowledge.

Higher Education needs an deep introspective evaluation.

Are semesters really necessary? What is more important, meeting at a specific time each week? Or, is the conversation, content, and exposure to questioning the real need? Isn’t the process of learning and acquiring new tools really the goal?

What if education were more like a series of workshops, each a couple weeks long?

What if a student could really take a course at their own pace?

What if learning included all forms of media, video, games, lecture, reading, discussion boards, with or without a formal meeting time?

Shouldn’t we be thinking about destroying the box?

If you – and by “you” I mean if you are an instructor – how would you want someone to learn what you know? How would you really coach your material outside the confines of the rules and policies of your institution? How would, or how should, your students be exposed to the material they need to be knowledgeable about? How would you encourage your students to engage in thinking about the subject?

I read the Chronicle of Higher Education, Campus Technology, and a few other media sources. I am encouraged to some extent that some universities are taking baby-steps in the correct direction. But, having some experience with people at other universities, I find the same stories being shared.

I find showcase stories of “revolutionary” new ideas are simply that, a showcase example of someone who got permission to try something new. These pedagogical ideas, like using iPhone clicker apps in a classroom, make people think Higher Education is progressive, I tend to think otherwise. These “revolutionary ideas” are not being pursued aggressively enough, in my opinion. I would say, why is this a great idea? This is what is supposed to be going on! Using technology in the classroom should be mandatory, not an accolade.

Finally, something I have found very troubling.

Many colleges and universities do not have a Technology Implementation Plan. Colleges and universities often have long-range plans for capital growth, new buildings and such. They have plans for tracking graduates for fund-raising and asking for donations. They have plans for recruiting students.

They have no plans for addressing technological change or implementation of technology. Colleges and universities for the most part affect a form of Ad Hoc technology policies: “do what it takes to make it work,” or “we will cross that bridge when we get there.”

Education in the United States is not simply a matter of improving the livelihood of U.S. citizens and hoping they earn more money and pay their taxes.

Education is a matter of National Security. We need smart people supporting other smart people who create smart companies training smart people. And, its not simply about economic security, but in overall geopolitical security. People who can speak other languages, Russian, Korean, Chinese, and Arabic and interface with people from cultures representing these languages.

Imagine standing in a room or people and you are the only English-speaker. At some point, you’re going to become paranoid all of these people are talking about you. You’ll have to find someone who can translate if you want to say something. How can you be sure your conversation is being communicated correctly? How can you be sure they really aren’t talking about you?

Higher Education does not need to be the intellectual equivalent of the Titanic. One concern, though, is the people hired to run Higher Education are BA/BS, perhaps fresh out school with little experience and little interest in interacting with faculty other than to make sure the classrooms contain warm bodies.

Higher Education has the intellectual knowledge and creativity bank on-site not only to prevent collision and calamity but to devise solutions with which to avoid near-term concerns and chart for long-term success.

Earthquakes and the Richter Scale

noreply@blogger.com (Anonymous) — Sat, 06 Oct 2012 19:07:00 +0000

Earthquakes. The mere mention of one can send a person into shaking tremors. New York City and Washington DC experience a moderate earthquake and one would think Armageddon is upon us. Meanwhile, Sendei, Japan will require a decade or more to recover from their catastrophic 9.0Mg earthquake.

The Richter Scale is not a straight-line scale. The Richter Scale is logarithmic. In other words, a 4Mg earthquake is not twice as strong as a 2Mg earthquake. A 4Mg earthquake releases more than 60x's as much energy as a 2Mg earthquake.

I was watching and reading about coverage of the East Coast earthquake. People ranting about "earthquake preparedness." Newscasters mistakenly "rounding" the 5.9 earthquake to a 6.0. Preparing for an earthquake in DC makes about as much sense to me as having people in Montana prepare for a hurricane.

But, it did get me to wondering; "what is the difference in energy between a 5.9 and a 6.0 earthquake?"

Every 0.2 increase in earthquake magnitude corresponds to a doubling of energy released. Thus, a 5.9 earthquake releases TWICE the energy of a 5.7 earthquake. Therefore, a magnitude cannot be "rounded up" or "rounded down."

Check out this web site "WolframAlpha" for an earthquake energy calculator.

Returning to the Gold Standard is a Return to Lunacy

noreply@blogger.com (Anonymous) — Sat, 06 Oct 2012 19:06:00 +0000

Rand Paul and his father, Ron Paul, have many quotes and attributions stating they favor returning to the stable economic days when the United States backed all of its currency with either gold or silver.

I think before anyone jumps on this bandwagon to CrazyTown, we need to really examine the Gold Standard.

Gold and silver are like many things, they are commodities. Commodities have value because we, people, specifically brokers, assign those things "value." For example, we could use sand for currency, but that would be a bad idea. Sand is pretty much ubiquitous. For sand to have any value, sand would have to be protected, isolated, and sequestered in order to control the scarcity of sand. If everyone had sand, then sand would have very little value. If we control the amount of sand, then we control the value. We control the scarcity.

In 1805, the United States had considerable debt from fighting with the British. Gold and silver were in high demand since the U.S. didn't have the gold or silver to pay debts. People hoarded gold and silver as they saw the value go up. I'm sure some people even speculated in gold and silver, thinking that as long as the U.S. had a debt, the value of gold and silver would continue to climb.

Thomas Jefferson, in order to inflate the value of silver, told the government presses to stop minting silver coins. Scarcity drove the value of silver higher, and the market was manipulated by controlling the government minting of coins.

In 1857, more "manipulation" occurred as the U.S. struggled to find gold to buy more silver. Silver had become the preferred currency among countries for doing business. The hunt for gold created the Gold Rush and people headed West to discover sources of gold that could be sold to the government. The government would then use the gold to buy silver. The silver would then be used as currency by our country to pay debts to other countries.

Again, people would hoard gold and silver, as the demand for each metal would rise and fall, depending on what the United States needed to pay its debts.

World War I would come along and force countries to examine how to pay for war needs. European countries were boxed in, not having enough gold or silver to use in order to buy weapons. Some countries had already abandoned the Gold Standard. Others countries, to pay for World War I, went off the Gold Standard in order to run up some debt to pay for war supplies.

And therein lies the rub. Countries needed financial flexibility in order to pay for stuff they could not afford without incurring some debt. Having to constantly maintain a physical store of gold/silver to pay for stuff was very limiting.

Around the turn of the 20th century, most countries either had a Central Bank or were thinking about developing a Central Bank. A Central Bank would establish the value of paper currency, and control the amount of paper in circulation, thereby controlling the value of currency.

Essentially, a transference of value has taken place. Gold has no more value than that which we give it. It's really an arbitrary and artificial value. So the same for paper money. But, paper money is much more easier to come up with than gold or silver. More on that in a minute.

Value is Faith.

People around the world trust the value of the U.S. Dollar. And the value of the English Pound. And the value of the Chinese Renminbi. And the European Euro. They trust these currencies because people have faith that these currencies will be traded and accepted.

Now, more things about the Gold Standard to think about.

In order for Rand Paul's Gold Standard to work, he has to be able to control the supply of Gold. Again, supply is tied to value, and value is tied scarcity. If gold is commonly available, then gold cannot be worth very much, i.e. gold is not scarce.

When the U.S. was on the Gold Standard, personal gold was against the law. The average U.S. citizen could not own more than 4 ounces of gold. We can't have everyone owning gold, if gold is the Standard. In order to control the amount of gold in circulation, Rand would (a) have make the ownership of gold illegal, (b) and collect the amount of gold already in circulation. People must not remember that only after 1972, when Nixon finished off the Gold Standard, was the ownership of gold really made legal.

Gold markets can be manipulated just like any other market. Suppose China decides to flood the market with gold to undermine the value of U.S. gold value. Or Russia. Simply moving the U.S. to a Gold Standard does not make the U.S. financials immune to manipulation.

All countries currently use a Central Bank or Banks for moving currencies around. Germany, France, England, Italy, all have Central Banks. These banks keep money markets stable. While they may not seem stable now, markets could be much worse. All countries Central Banks know how to deal with financial markets, how to conduct country-to-country business. That is our global standard. Moving backwards to a Gold Standard would mean that all countries would have to figure out how to work with our finances. Not as easy as it sounds.

Furthermore, the U.S. is the world's most powerful economy. It is our currency against which oil is priced. If someone really wanted to upset global financial markets and create worldwide chaos, let him destabilize the current U.S. financial markets by changing all the rules of finance.

Gold and silver are also valuable commodities in the technology sector. Consider your smartphone, your laptop, your LCD monitor, every bit of technology you can think off. These devices contain precious metals, gold and silver, among them. How will changing the economy of gold and silver affect the cost of production of the most ubiquitous devices in human history?

In summary:

Ask Rand what he thinks about all other countries still using Central Banks. Will they have to return to the Gold Standard, too?
Ask Rand how he plans on controlling the supply of gold, and maybe silver. Will he make personal gold ownership illegal?
Ask Rand how he feels about manipulating the price of gold, and how that might affect the cost of materials in the Technology Sector.
Ask Rand how the Gold Standard is supposed to make financials more stable when historically the price of gold has undergone several manipulations.

Why Conservatives Are Doomed To Fail

noreply@blogger.com (Anonymous) — Sat, 06 Oct 2012 18:56:00 +0000

I am often characterized as being naive. Sometimes, "too straight" or "too conservative" are also added to labels applied to me during conversations. My appearance, the way I dress, walk, conduct myself, comes off as conservative. At least, historically I have appeared as conservative might. A few years ago, I decided my appearance should more accurately reflect the "character" of the person inside.

I shaved my head, grew a goatee, and got some ink. At some point, I'll probably get some piercings. I have more ink planned. The reason for my changes was to bring my inside and outside into congruence.

Congruence is one of my favorite words; I work "congruence" into conversations as often as I can. "Congruence" means "agreement" or "harmony." People often say and do things which are not congruent. Their words and deeds do not agree.

Being an educator, I find incongruities in my life and I work to resolve those. Students and their lives are rife with incongruities. Recently, I received an email from a student who had trouble taking an online exam. The student elected to take the exam late in the evening, near the maintenance window. After 30 minutes, the student was closed out of the exam. The email stated, "Can I get back in to finish my exam? I want to do the best I can."

Not paying attention to the test environment is not making the best effort, not creating a successful environment for learning or anything else.

In large part, being ignorant of creating and building a successful environment is why I cannot be nor will ever support Republican Party dogma nor any Conservative effort or platform.

I am a Pragmatist. Determine the problem, consider a solution, a solution which has a good chance of working, with the least negative downside, and which also is the most sustainable and reasonable or logical. To my way of thinking, new ways, new methods, new technology, receiving input from different perspectives, personal sacrifice, and delayed gratification are all potential influences into decision-making.

Furthermore, the immediate goal is not necessarily the best goal nor should be the focus. From an economic perspective, the question becomes, "what are the downstream costs and benefits?" The implementation of a policy or idea tomorrow may seem like a really good idea, and have an immediate payoff and be immediately gratifying. The problem with such short-sighted thinking involves the future cost of an action which seemed like a good idea at the time and a decade later we have yet to even figure out how to pay for our decision.

"what are the downstream costs and benefits?"

Now, you can read between the lines and say, "oh, he is talking about Afghanistan." No, not necessarily. Individually, we all make choices which seem incidental at the time, we use credit cards, we receive financial aid, we buy a car and a boat. We have great expectations about our degree we graduated with. But, as a person with a Master's Degree in European History, what the hell am I going to do with it? What was I thinking? You weren't.

In the United States, we have encouraged people to stick their heads' in their butts, and said,

"Honey, if you're happy with your head in your butt, then I'm happy for you. Here, have a cookie. Oh, wait. You're head is in your butt. You won't be able to eat your cookie."

The Grand Old Party (GOP) and Conservatives have no interest in changing anything and would be more than happy if all U.S. citizens would put their heads firmly into their butts. By definition, the GOP and Conservatives believe this. A Conservative is one

"disposed to preserve existing conditions, institutions, etc., or to restore traditional ones, and to limit change." (Dictionary.com)

To be Conservative then means to actively be engaged in the promotion of ignorance. Whether heads are in butts or buried in the sand the results are the same: the world changes while we do not change, adapt, modify, or evolve our behavior.

To be Conservative means to fear change, fear newness, fear difference, to be suspicious of different skin colors, of different languages, of different religions - nor no religion, to fear new ideas.

To be Conservative means to actively oppose change, to actively oppose even the notion of challenging old methods, techniques, and ideas.

Today, Conservatives are not simply advocates of the Status Quo, but the advocates of the Status Quo of yesterday, of last week, of last year, of the last 50 years.

Today, Conservatives argue against Same-sex marriage, advocate for Christian prayer in public schools, advocate for teaching the Bible in public schools, advocate Intelligent Design as theory (its not, its philosophy), advocate for the removal of the teaching of Evolution as science (it is science), advocate for the removal of foreign languages from public schools, advocate for the removal of arts and music from public schools, and perhaps worst of all, advocate for the abolishment of Department of Education.

Today, Conservatives will argue Democrats want "everyone to be the same." To be clear, I am not arguing for Democrats. The Conservative Argument is a logical fallacy. Democrats do not want everyone to be the same; they want everyone to have the same opportunity regardless of race, sex, gender, religion or creed. In fact, I contend Democrats want everyone to be different and want to encourage difference and acceptance of difference.

Conservatives are not congruent.

Conservatives refused to acknowledge Islam as a religion. They refuse to acknowledge the issues of inner city Blacks, Hispanics, and other people of color. They refuse to acknowledge China and the government in Beijing is a partner with Chinese, Korean, and Japanese companies and has already focused on Green Technology and is now the world leader in solar panel technology and wind turbine technology. They refuse to acknowledge the importance of a unified approach to a national educational system to address the needs of today and the future of the United States. They refuse to acknowledge undisciplined finances are detrimental to our national educational system. They refuse to acknowledge education and health care are fundamental rights to "life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness."

Conservatives see all change as a threat and something to be stopped. Wikileaks has proven this. All one must do to verify this is to examine SOPA and PIPA and the recent "Citizens United" decision.

Conservatives do not want people thinking for themselves and they certainly do not want to encourage free-thinkers to organize themselves via social media. While Conservatives might castigate Democrats for providing "welfare" to groups of people, and often rightly so, Conservatives want to control individual behavior, your bedroom behavior, your religious behavior, and what you have access to on the Internet.

Conservatives are working towards building a country of well-defended ignoramuses.

Conservatives won't spend money on Education but will be more than happy to spend more money on Defense, despite the fact the United States spends more money on defense than all other countries combined. And, while we will be able to shoot anyone, anywhere, anytime - because we will have smart Asians and a few U.S. citizens building military hardware for us; and, we will have some wealthy people who will have used family money to be able to attend Brown or Columbia and then segue their financial talents into Wall St, whereupon they will yet earn more money by taking advantage of the median U.S. citizen who have become dumbed-down by Conservative fears and ossified notions that decreased military spending translates into a Chinese takeover within a year.

Conservative ideologues and their bankrupt hypotheses not only hold back U.S. entrepreneurial energies but are fundamentally damaging to the social fabric of the United States. From the Birthers to politicians who refused to acknowledge Pres. Obama's presidency to the local Conservative who refuse to acknowledge Islam, Mormonism, Sikhism, or Atheism, the presence of these ideas undeniable contribute to the societal schisms in current U.S. life.

Conservatives are responsible for the lion's portion of the blame. The intolerance towards GLBT. The intolerance towards non-Christian faiths. The intolerance towards people of color. The intolerance towards education. The intolerance toward environmental protection and food safety.

I really think people ought to question why they believe the what they believe. Is it simply dogma, handed down from parents, or religious leaders? Is it simply a problem of thinking, in general? The historical inertia of false ideologies is too great to divert? Fear of being ostracized for being different?

If there is one thing I cannot tolerate, its intolerance.

And, I will never be a Conservative.

I hate the label, Liberal. But, over the last 3 years or so, of watching Conservatives denigrate in all things I find value, "Liberal" has become synonymous with "being educated."

By definition, Conservatives ride their horse into the future based on what they see behind them, and too afraid to turn around to see the path ahead.

I want to ride my horse into the future and plan for what I see ahead.

PAX

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