Mail 323 August 16 - 22, 2004 (original) (raw)

Sunday, August 22, 2004

Feeling safer:

Subject: Defending Our Skies Against the Elderly.

http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/5781907/site/newsweek/

As I watched the airport screener search my father, I had to wonder: have we lost our common sense?

- Roland Dobbins

We can accumulate these stories until Doomsday, but the simple remedy: abolish the TSA -- will never happen. No bureaucracy is ever disbanded just because it is counterproductive to the real purpose of the agency. If the notion is to make us all feel safer and therefore fly and keep the airlines open, the TSA is a disaster: yet on it goes, on it goes, on it goes, and "reforms" will do nothing.

We are NOT safe; but we are safer on airplanes than in the cars taking us to airports. That would be true with no airport screeners at all provided that cockpit doors are locked, and passengers understand that the pilots are not going to divert the flight: you may all be killed, or you may Mao Mao the hijackers.

We would be safer yet if we required all military combat officers to carry a sidearm off duty whenever they travel.

Instead we have the TSA. On it goes. On it goes.

Jerry,

Perhaps the TSA have a point. I found this quote, and being familiar with British Rail have no difficulty in believing it:-

In 1980, the London Observer reported that a demonstrator carrying a dummy rocket- launcher had walked onto a railway platform where a train hauling nuclear waste was due to pass - according to a subsequent statement from British Rail, regulations did not forbid passengers carrying rocket-launchers from going onto station platforms."

Truly our masters are mad , John Edwards

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Subject: Apollo 11 anniversary cartoon

You may have seen this already, it's a few weeks old.

http://www.reason.com/hod/cartoon.ss072204.shtml

. png

Minsky and I said that to Carter's NASA Administrator Frosch. And I've said it to every NASA Administrator since. Doesn't do much good. But there is a way.

The Congress has determined that it is in the national interest to have an American Lunar Colony. The Treasurer is hereby directed to pay to the first American owned company to place 31 Americans on the surface of the Moon and maintain them alive and well for not less than three years and one day the sum of Ten Billion Dollars, which shall not be subject to income or other taxes.

That one Act would do it, and it would cost exactly $10 billion, and we wouldn't have to pay a cent until it was done. Oh. Well.

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Dr Pournelle,

First, be feared

�Iraqis seem keener on fighting the US, its democratic enabler, than on actually organising a democracy.� � Jack

�I genuinely thought Arabs would be grateful to be rid of an aggressive dictator.� � Jason

Na�ve beliefs, I�m afraid. No matter what the hypothetical benefits, no-one is going to welcome foreign conquest, occupation�and national humiliation. And when the apparent result to date is not democracy but violent chaos with no sign of an end, expect the situation to get worse, not better.

The key to avoiding the current predicament was to have tackled the issue of law and order in the right way from the start. This was not done.

I was reminded today that when the Japanese surrendered in 1945, Mountbatten, in command of the Allied Indian Ocean Sector, �requested� the Japanese military and/or police in Indonesia, Thailand, Vietnam, etc. to continue to police these territories until they were relieved. I�m not sure, but I think it more than likely that a similar expedient was employed in Japan proper until sufficient US personnel could be got there.

As Mountbatten said later, there was no alternative as he could not have Allied troops installed overnight across half south east Asia, and without the Japanese continuing in their police role, there would have been instant chaos, civil war, and so forth. Sound familiar?

As soon as possible, teams of Allied officers arrived to take over the management, through the existing command structure, of Japanese troops, who were then more gradually replaced with Allied troops and local police.

This expedient was necessary because the Japanese surrender following the atomic bombs had happened very suddenly. By contrast, when Germany finally surrendered almost all the country was already occupied by Anglo-American or Russian armies so the need did not arise. In Iraq, the resistance collapsed so quickly as to be somewhat more like the Japanese situation than the German. But no-one seems to have planned for this eventuality, or thought clearly about what to do when confronted with it.

The strategic error in Iraq was disbanding the pre-existing Iraqi army and police without having anything immediately available to take their place. This created what might be called not a power vacuum, but a law-and-order vacuum, with the consequences we still live with.

What matters first in a conquered nation is not to be loved or to be thanked, but to be feared and to be obeyed. The democracy and the thanks and so on will come later.

Jim Mangles

All of which I said before we went in, but they do not seem to have listened. In fact the egregious Frum read me out of the Conservative movement for such heresy.

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I have been following your mail discussion of the perils of centralized control of education with considerable interest. In my humble opinion, the downfall of education in North America stems from the rise of "expertism". Few parents trust themselves anymore, in the face of a barrage of expert opinion on every subject. I note that in Europe, it requires an advanced degree in a subject before being allowed to teach it in high school. Here, the Colleges of Education stress "method" to the exclusion of content, and often have the lowest entrance requirements, a disgrace I cannot understand. The answer is competition in every possible form, and let the good drive out the bad. Continue the good work, and take time off to write fiction - there isn't enough good stuff available.

Doug Thomas

Subject: local control of schools

Jerry

Mike Royko in one of his classic columns said:

"Lets list all the things the US Government does well.

1/ Wage War

As you can see, it is a very short list."

Chicago is an example of "local control" that has been a failure for a long time. I remember my music teacher father talking in the middle 60's about how the Board's bureaucracy was screwing things up. It took close to 40 years before anyone had the guts to make major changes.

Even local control doesn't work if all you have is a hive of bureaucrats issuing directives instead of doing useful work.

Cheers

Frank Borger

Actually I would add things like X-Projects, and even Apollo; and the Interstate Highway System seems to be a success. But as Royko says, it is a short list. I never said local boards would all get things better. Just that some will.

Subject: RE: The Schools essay you are writing

Regarding the essay you're writing on schools: Could you include your perspective on the libertarian position?

I believe the most common libertarian position on schools would be "Keep government completely out of education - leave it entirely in private hands". This allows parents to choose a school with policies that match their children's educational needs, and their own religious and/or moral beliefs. People who do not want to pay much for education can choose to have few or no children. Those who want to give money to a worthwhile charity will see schools and scholarships as an excellent choice, rather than feeling "I already paid my fair share in taxes".

I presume from your preliminary comments that you see value in having local government control schools, probably enforcing school financing through local taxation. What important goals to you see being achieved by that, that would not be achieved by the libertarian approach, and which outweigh the benefits of the latter?

Tom Craver Chandler, AZ

I have no objection to compulsory public schools as a means of socialization and ensuring all citizens of some minimum knowledge. John Stuart Mill once said that if the state would require that all citizens get an education (say jailing parents whose kids don't pass standard tests) it could save itself the trouble of providing that education: the market would take care of it.

I think that might be a bit extreme. Incidentally, I find no mention in the US Constitution of anything about education and conclude that the legitimate power of the US to do anything for education including paying money and certainly mandating standards is zero. Except, of course, in the District of Columbia where the power of Congress is near absolute.

Interestingly the District, where it is legal and constitutional and one might even say ethically required for Congress to provide a good education doesn't seem to have good schools at all. Perhaps if Congress would, in the District where they have the authority, set us an example we might wish to follow...

Dr. Pournelle:

Re: "I got this comment: "You must trust your neighbors more than I do.""

I'm not certain it's the right idea to be considering. A better question would be who can I hold accountable? Is it easier for me to contact or engage an expert, professor, or the neighbor who sits on my school board? Regardless of trust, I can tell you the names of the 5 people who sit on the school board of my city. I can't tell you a single name of anyone from the US Department of Education.

-----

Another question. Does it matter who I purchase the book from? Is it strictly amazon pre-orders that will affect print run, or may I shop around?

Thank you for your courtesy, Richard Micko

Good point. As to the book, feel free! A lot of pre-orders now will influence the print order...

Subject: Local School Boards

>Over in the Science Fiction Writers of America forum, I put the >proposition that return to local school boards with real power would be >the most important reform we could make.

I absolutely agree with the above.

I think that the single most detrimental thing to come out of the "race reforms" of the Sixties was the destruction of city "neighborhood schools", replacing them with "busing" to achieve "racial balance/integration": It would have been FAR BETTER to have kept the neighborhood schools in 'minority neighborhoods" intact and made sure they were funded as well or better than their white counterparts, and that the TEACHING STAFFS were integrated.

I have at least a passing familiarity with the "ed biz", as three generations of female ancestors (great-grandmother, grandmother, and mother) were all teachers.

Duane

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Jerry

Rick Hellewell's Back to School Computer Warnings are right on target, except his advice doesn't quite go far enough. He says to consider a hardware firewall. I say just get one and use it.

These days you can buy a router with a built-in firewall very cheaply. Some of these firewalls are more sophisticated than the basic network address translation (NAT) firewall that used to be standard on these things. So, buy a router and use it as a firewall, even if you don't use a network for your computer.

Well, I have already given this advice both here and in the column...

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Subject: Language determine the ability to think?

Dr. Pournelle,

Some interesting results from a "primitive tribe." It seems they **can't** count above three.

See "Language May Shape Human Thought" at http://www.newscientist.com/news/news.jsp?id=ns99996303

Ranten N. Raven

Where is Whorf now that we need him?

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Anti-depressants:

I need one after reading this article. Apparently the financial welfare of GlaxoSmithKline is more important to the FDA than whether people (children) live or die. Maybe they figure the anti-depressants will help children deal with the effects of over-prescribed Ritalin. Maybe they figure that if they treat scientists badly enough for telling the truth, they'll stop doing it. Well, if the FDA doesn't like the data, it can always suppress it. Maybe the FDA needs an anti-suppressant!

http://www.nytimes.com/2004/08/20/science/20depress.html

Chris C.

All those who believe in telekinesis, raise my hand. Stephen Wright

I know nothing about this; perhaps Dr. Hume can comment. I fear I do not trust the NYT when it comes to large corporations and public health. They can have it right -- there are the remains of a fine newspaper about the Times -- but they often do not have it right.

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Subject: Romans

Hi Jerry,

I've ordered my copy of "Burning Tower" though I will not be able to enjoy it until I return to the U.S. next year. I am currently spending this year working in Italy.

For anyone who has not spent any time out of the U.S.A., I highly recommend it. Learning a new language alone is worth the time spent. It opens whole new avenues in the thought processing centers of the mind. Experiencing a new culture extends that even further and makes you question many of the things you took for granted. But I digress from why I am writing this note.

I have spent this week vacationing in Rome. It has been wonderful to be near and even to touch some of the art objects I had only seen in pictures before. To experience the Colosseum, to touch a 2300 year old statue of a Dying Gaul, to walk the streets of the ancient Roman Forum, to name just a few things, is something impossible to describe in a few short words.

However, it was while I was in the Capitoline Museum and taking the picture that is attached to this note, that my wife asked me a question that really made me think.

"I wonder if anything we have done will be remembered in 2000 years?" she asked.

A startling question and one I am not certain I can answer. Surely landing on the moon will be remembered, but have we really accomplished nothing else worth remembering?

I can name off the top of my head at least 30 things that the Romans contributed to our current culture. Things that are 'remembered' (though maybe not commonly known as being Roman in origin) almost daily.

But are there more things we have done that are worth remembering? Your thoughts and those of your readers would be most appreciated.

Braxton S. Cook

I love walking around Rome. (And you can follow me, here...) And I often think just that: what will we do that anyone will note in 2000 years?

Subject: css Zen Garden: The Beauty in CSS Design

Fascinating exercise in website design

http://csszengarden.coret.org/

Mike Z

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You may recall me asking you the provenance of a maxim that was baffling me. The problem is that I thought it was Winston Churchill or GB Shaw. As you'll see, it comes from much humbler stock.

Best regards, Paul Schindler

Here's the item from this week's column: On Jan. 1, 2002, in this column, I asked about the provenance of the maxim, "If you maintain a consistent political position long enough, you'll eventually be accused of treason." I assumed it was Churchill or Shaw, but could find no proof of that. Last week, I sat down with Google to try again. Imagine my surprise to find that the oldest reference to it was... written by me! In the summer issue of The Tech, the MIT student newspaper, Aug. 3, 1973, I cited it without attribution in reference to MIT's Draper Laboratories. Then I found that Angus King, Maine's former governor, always cites Mort Sahl as the originator. This makes sense; my mother owned the album "Mort Sahl at the Hungry I" which I must have listened to several hundred times as a boy. You can find several more references on Google.

I am not astonished. Mort Sahl was a brilliant man in many ways.

: Recent link to "Underground History of Education" book

Jerry,

In your mail section on Aug 12, you had a link to the online book "The Underground History of American Education". You noted correctly in your comments that the book shows how the current school system is mainly a jobs program for teachers.

http://www.johntaylorgatto.com/underground/toc1.htm

I have been reading the book, and am shocked and amazed by some of the things it reveals. The opening point is that reading can be taught to anyone in a short time with phonics (which you and most of your readers know). Before compulsory school began, at least 99% of Americans were literate. The point of compulsory schooling was to _prevent_ members of the lower classes from becoming truly educated! The masses needed to be prepared for positions in modern industrial society, and too much education would interfere with this goal. This goal was accomplished by teaching reading with the "Whole Word" method, using teacher certification and layers of school administrators to make sure every teacher went along. Upper class children would escape this dumbing down by attending elite private schools.

The supporting evidence for this idea comes from a wide range of topics, and is too broad for me to summarize with any brevity. Here is a link to a review that describes the book in more detail,

http://www.johntaylorgatto.com/underground/review_harrison.htm

and here is a link to a section of the book that encapulates a lot of the author's conclusions about the way we got the schools we have today.

http://www.johntaylorgatto.com/chapters/12o.htm

I have found this book highly relevant to many of the letters that have appeared in your mail section in the past week. One writer had recently completed a Ph.d and still did not feel "educated". Another discusses possible reasons for the lack of small local school boards. I see these issues in a whole new light after reading this book, and I highly recommend it to you and your readers that share an interest in education and its effect on society. I will note that some of the author's points must be taken with a grain of salt, but I think the general thrust of his arguments is accurate.

Thanks for providing a forum where issues like these are discussed,

Rick Stilson

My wife has long not merely contended but demonstrated that anyone can learn to read. And I strongly recommend that everyone teach their children to read before they get to school.You can do that by looking here.

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