If the Dems Can't Win With That...

This morning on Morning Joe there was discussion about how the Republicans are giving the Democrats a great narrative by not really exercising any meaningful over-site of the administration in the wake of the President's inexpiable deference to Putin.  Their conclusion was that if Democrats couldn't win with that arrow in their quiver that they were really in trouble.  This neglects one very important detail.

The Dems did win.

Two of the last three times Republicans won the White House Democrats got more votes.  Talking about how inept the Democratic candidates are assumes that it is a fair fight.  It isn't.

The Electoral College makes votes for President in normally Republican states much more effective than in reliably Democratic states.  On top of that, voter suppression laws in many states tilt the floor under voters' feet undeniably in favor of Republicans.  There doesn't seem to be much likelihood of resolving the former issue, and the latter becomes more and more entrenched as Republicans add voices to the courts.  There are even calls to make the electoral issue more problematic by apportioning the votes by district - a proposal which seems to come up primarily where it will help Republicans.

Speaking of districts, somehow Republicans have the majority of Representatives even though the majority of votes in many states go to Democrats.  A decades long program of gerrymandering has helped to put a (seemingly) permanent slant to the House.  There seemed to be some momentum building to help allay this in the courts, but the current administration appears to have little motivation to pursue that kind of case.  Fixing the districts without the courts means winning the state houses and that is in the grip of the gerrymander too - and the voter suppression.

The only place it might be kind of a fair fight (if you don't think too much about voter suppression) is the US Senate.  Those races are straight up popular votes, no electoral college and no districts.  As it turns out this one is even more depressing.  Since the number of Senators is independent of population, and due to anticipated population trends these votes almost don't matter.  An overwhelming number of Senators will soon be elected by a marked minority of Americans.  Within the near future the majority of the people will live in 8 states, represented by 16 Senators. The remaining minority of the people will be represented by the remaining 84 Senators.  Care to guess which parties dominate which states?  I know the founders were smart, but that can't be what they had in mind.

I really, really hope Joe is right and that the narrative Democrats will have going into the 2018 election is a compelling one, but if they lose we need to remember that it wasn't exactly an even playing field to begin with.

Paper Catalogs

I got an email today asking what ought to be the criteria for determining what catalogs we should keep and which we should pitch.  We're doing like a once a decade clean up in the TD classroom and catalogs are a fairly obvious decluttering target.

So I start to type back: "you can certainly pitch any duplicates, probably anything that looks like it is more than five years old - but put the ones that are going to go into a pile so Kevin and I can see them first so we don't lose something special."  But I stopped myself.  I'm wondering if the answer ought not be different. 

I'm thinking maybe: pitch everything.

The way we do our job has changed, and I think maybe it has left hardcopy catalogs behind.  Going to an industry convention used to include lugging around a bag full of company catalogs, now you shoot a photo of the booth with your phone and do a web search when you go back to work. 

I have a class where I talk about purchasing where I talk about a lot of what could only be considered vestigial technical design resources.  Usually I tell them about the Thomas Register - a hardcopy, 20 odd volume industrial directory where the contact information was as often as not a snailmail address - not even a phone number let alone an email.

Sometimes I tell them about a thing called "The Yellow Pages" and how you had to be savvy about where to look for ads because they wouldn't always turn up where you thought they ought to be.  These days when I encounter a phone book I am usually wondering why the person that left it for me isn't being charged with littering.  There is a high probability that nearly all of my current students have never once cracked a phonebook.

There used to be these thick, spiral bound industry guides like "800 Chicago Production Resource" or some such thing, and annual issues of "Theater Crafts" that was a dedicated industry resource.  I haven't seen an updated version of either of those in a while.  Some of the Penton magazines that come into the school do still do an annual buyers guide, but I think that's more about publishing momentum or ad sales than it is about utility.

I can remember getting my first Grainger catalog and somehow finagling my first McMaster-Carr catalog.  I used to spend some time every month or so filling out a document request card from "Hydraulics & Pneumatics" magazine so I could get more catalogs.  I couldn't have done my job without catalogs from Outwater and McNichols.

The web pretty much ended all that, yes?  Maybe pitch everything.

Ellipses...

The saving grace of this post a day thing is that Wednesdays are Ellipses...  Three different people in my feeds today crapped on reputable news sources.  The other guys are winning...  I had to light up the old laptop to restore my new phone, so I am getting all TANBI retro and writing this post with it.  Next I'll use the iPad2...  It is possible I was a little bit rough grading my first batch of precollege assignments...  Another kid from Woodland Hills got shot.  I think that's 14 this year.  It should be a bigger story...  Today the boy's camp went to the carpet slide park.  Earlier this year he'd been there for a birthday and another kid broke her arm.  Apparently several parents told that story at drop off and freaked out all the counselors...  The news is so depressing I can't find things to talk about in the news...  The neighbors finally cut their lawn, for the first time this year, in mid-July.  They've actually been living in California and are just getting caught up...  If you believe for even a second that POTUS misspoke you are in some kind of willful disbelief...  I'm looking for someone to take a bunch of LPs off my hands.  If you know anyone that collects please send them my way...  Making the statement that maybe the US shouldn't come to the aid of other NATO countries is pretty scary...  The large chili at Wendy's is 300 calories.  That's important information if you are doing a 5:2 fast...  Mandalay Bay is suing the shooting victims.  We live in a strange country...  I got in a Facebook spat today about the President donating his salary.  I kind of feel like it is ultimately an empty gesture...  Jupiter has 12 more moons.  My son learns about a very different world than I did... 

Couple of Things

I'm writing emails to Pat Toomey's office on a pretty regular basis these days.  I mean probably not enough to get me on some kind of a watch list, but way, way more than I ever have before.  I don't often write to Casey or to Mike Doyle, but Senator Toomey gets more email from me than most people I know.  Every time I send in an email his office sends me, what I hope is an automated, response with a "Thank you for writing" header, absolutely no body text, and an attached image of his signature.  I'm not sure if it is his intent but what I get from that is "I didn't read it, and if I had I wouldn't care."

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Mrs. TANBI and I upgraded our phones the other day.  For a while I thought I had found a really slick way to get this done.  I discovered I could get new phones for miles.  Unfortunately that turned out to be a rabbit hole of striking dimension.  The issue was that the miles shopping site didn't list compatible carriers.  At one point a CSR for the miles shopping program told me I had to talk to a rep at the vendor's online store and that she could give me their number - which she did - giving me an 800 number with 8 digits.  Sometimes talking to people on the phone you just want to shout, something like "THAT ISN'T A PHONE NUMBER!!!"  Anyway, the new phones are nice, and I am still looking for something to buy with miles.

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The missus is away on a girls sleepover and I am alone with the boy.  Tonight I asked him what he would like to do for dinner and after some initial indecision he offered "You know where we haven't been in a while?"  Which seems like a fairly sophisticated construction for a four year old, followed by "Hokkaido."  He went on to say that he would enjoy a dinner of crab legs.  It is possible that we've created a little bit of a monster.  Turns out to have been a good decision, they comped him,  That won't last forever, but while it does it is a pretty good dinner deal.

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It isn't their fault, but now whenever I go into any health care provider I am comparing them to the Mayo Clinic in Rochester.  Most of them don't compare all that favorably.  That might be their fault.  It is really disconcerting to know that there is an organization that understands how to do something well and yet that knowledge doesn't filter out to others providing the same services.  I guess maybe the assessment isn't fair.  When I went it took me out of the context of my life, which made scheduling SNAFUs unlikely, and I didn't really come in the front door.  But maybe that's the way it should be.

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The Sense8 finale movie has been available on Netflix for like a month now and I haven't watched it.  I brought it up on the screen the other night only to discover it is two and a half hours long.  That's more time than fits into my TV life right now in a single, uninterrupted sitting and it seems like that's how I want to watch this particular show.  I think that my delay is indicative of what contributed to the show being cancelled.  But it doesn't seem fair that if they remove the urgency to watch by putting all the episodes on a streaming service indefinitely that a show can be cancelled because not enough people are watching.  There's a lot to watch.  I've got things to do.  I'll get to it eventually

Worth a Look

Here are a few posts from last week's Greenpage that might be worth your time...

Dancer Preserves The Work Of Black Choreographers, In One Video At A Time

NPR: When she was in her 20s, dancer Gesel Mason started emailing black choreographers she admired, asking them to create a solo for her. To her surprise, many of them said yes.

"I did not know I was making my life's work when I started it," she says. "I was just really interested in dancing with some choreographers."

Posted by David at 7/09/2018 12:20:00 PM

Perspective

It seems pretty clear that these days people see what they want to see.  I mean, things happen, and there is objective truth.  If you watched the whole thing you would form a given opinion.  The balance of the thing would leave a lot less latitude for impression than most of us are really used to these days.  It is a real shame the way people consume reality these days.

In practice now people don't see the thing.  They see coverage of the thing, or more likely they see commentary about the thing - or sometimes even commentary about the coverage of the thing.  We need more unfiltered thing, less commentary about the thing, and way, way less commentary about the coverage of the thing.

There was a hearing the other day with an FBI agent that has found his nuts in a vice over something he spelled out in text messages.  Folks on one side of the thing would have you believe that he was just boasting to someone he hoped to impress.  Folks on the other side would have you believe that he was the mastermind of a conspiracy to defame the President.

The American system has a belief that average people presented with facts can reach reasonable conclusions.  That's what "jury of your peers" is about.  Probably this is true.  Unfortunately life doesn't work that way anymore.

Mostly I listen to NPR and watch MSNBC.  I've always thought NPR was pretty close to the center in the editorial decisions about their coverage.  MSNBC is pretty clearly on the left, although at least from my POV they don't willfully misinterpret things or make things up.  Watching their coverage of the hearings you would think the committee members on the right were barely able to speak in complete sentences as they were rightfully put in their place by a career professional.

I have a minority of friends in my Facebook feed who watch FOX News and read Breitbart.  Fox is pretty clearly on the right and Brietbart... I don't know what Breitbart is, but it isn't news.  Looking at the articles these friends are reposting on their feeds you would think that the committee members drew and quartered the agent and exposed him to be a liar.

My own evaluation from the testimony I saw was that he was professional, unbiased, and foolish.

But the thing is, mostly, it doesn't matter what he was at all, or how the testimony went at all because the editors on either side of the argument edit what you see to tell the story they want told.  If the answers don't match the narrative they just show the questions, making the person posing the question into a hero regardless of the content of the discussion.  If the question does make the subject look awkward they pick the point in the questioning that looks the most unpolished and portray the questioner as a buffoon.  I even saw one commentator take time out to criticize a committee member's hair.

Facebook is a force multiplier for this kind of partisan editorialization.  Most folks never even see the skewed article.  What they do see is a splashy picture and sensational headline.  These things are great for energizing your team or putting a thumb in the eye of the other team.  What they don't do is get anyone any closer to understanding objective truth.  In a court of law anything like that would face an objection as prejudicial.  It isn't information to be evaluated by a jury of your peers, it is a cheer to be shouted from the sideline of the game.

Except it isn't a game.  We need better information.

The Last Six Boxes

As you may or may not know, I had to clean out my parents house a little while back.  Of the many things that made their way to Pittsburgh as part of that effort were what I think was like about a dozen bankers boxes full of documents.  In Chicago all that stuff had been in file cabinets in the basement.  Somewhere along the way I decided that I could manage getting rid of the cabinets - I took them to Goodwill - but I didn't have it in me to go through the documents.  So all the papers went into bankers boxes and made the trip to Pennsylvania.

I do think I made one effort in Chicago to deal with documents.  In what is probably an over reaction to identity theft I decided that much of what was there needed to be shredded.  I remember taking a couple of boxes of old checks to a Staples because they said they had bulk shredding.  I also remember being there for more than an hour because it seemed like I should be there until the shredding actually happened and that the person doing the shredding only worked on it when there were no customers, and the shredder wasn't really anything special so it kept getting gummed up just like your unit at home might do.  More than an hour for what must have been a large shoebox probably was what tipped the scales in favor of putting the rest of the documentation under the heading of "deal with it later."

I did make an effort to get through the stuff once it arrived at home.  I got through a couple of boxes.  There was a lot to dispose of, much of which seemed like it should be shredded.  If you've never gotten a cancelled check back from your bank - something they haven't done in over a decade - you are fortunate.  I started to accumulate a box of used office supplies: mostly file folders and binders, but also sheet protectors and paper clips.  The clips aren't particularly special, but they can go through the shredder, so they got set aside whether it made sense or not.  There was also a little bit of kryptonite - things with no real value but that also seem like a real shame to throw away.  That went into another box.

At some point work must have started again and I walked away from the project, and then life became a little bit of a roller coaster and I never got back to it.  There were six boxes left and they sat in the basement for years awaiting their disposition.

Recently I decided it was time to finish off the gig.  I brought the last six boxes up to the dining room figuring if they were legitimately in the way I wouldn't be able to ignore them.  Most of what was left was very much like what I'd processed already.  There was one box that was almost entirely kryptonite.  Some of the things I found:

• Parents first Passports
• Parents fist lease
• Bill of sale from the HP house in 1967
• My first CMU invoices
• Pictures of Dad with a bunch of people from the Nixon administration
• Mom's teaching certification
• Hardcopy of note from the Principal observing one of Dad's classes

But of all of it, the bit that was the densest kryptonite of it all was a stack of valentines from my mom to my dad from before they were married.

I couldn't find the wherewithal to dispose of everything.  So the last six boxes become 8 lawn bags of shredded documents and a single box of "family history."  Maybe I'll manage to pitch it later.  Maybe Leo will have to do it when he cleans out this house.  Anyway "last six" is a bit of a misnomer.  There are still three large boxes of LPs I don't know what to do with.  A couple of boxes of things that may or may not be antiques, and two or three more banker's boxes of loose photos.  I guess I still have at least one more push to make before I am done.

Or maybe it'll never be done.

I Owe an Apology

Not that long ago Mitt Romney was running for president.  During the campaign he got a foreign policy question as part of debate.  He was asked who represented the greatest threat to the United States.  His answer was the Russians.

At the time the answer sounded remarkably tone deaf.  The Russians had been in a decline for many years.   I am fairly certain this was before Crimea and the trouble in Ukraine.  I know for certain it was amid US conflicts in the Middle East.  We still had troops in Afghanistan.  This was, I think in the middle of developments in Libya.  Things were probably just getting wound up in Syria.  The news was all about the advancing of Al Qaeda and we were all wondering about Caliphate.

Even with all of that Romney said Russia.  Commentators on the news talked about how out of date that conclusion was.  I personally had the same thought and used it as a reason to think less of him as a candidate - not that it was likely he would have gotten my vote anyway.

I guess I couldn't have been more wrong.

What was it do you think that he knew that we didn't?  Would things be materially different if the news media, rather than dismissing him as being out of touch had followed up with him to find out just what it was that had him concerned?  I don't know if what had him concerned were the kinds of things that have come to light since, but even if they weren't I guess there was the possibility that increased scrutiny of the Russians during that period might have made them less bold down the line.

Syria, Brexit, the US 2016 election, the Russians apparently had their hands into all of these things and many more.  Did Mitt Romney know this sort of thing was going to happen?  At this point I certainly wish we had paid more attention.

Mr.. Romney, I owe you an apology.  I'm sorry.

Dinner Out

Tonight I had dinner with nine alums and a current student.

Saw two more during the day too.

They are all doing amazing work - bigger than I ever did.  It is really rewarding seeing their success.  I'll get a closer look at things at the shop tomorrow.

Ellipses...

Last night I watched the first AUDL game on TV (that I've seen) that was remotely close.  It was pretty cool...  The boy and I are supposed to be walking to camp in the morning.  Somehow the boy appears to have ended that practice...  The family separations being engineered by our government really need to stop.  It is possible that those responsible for the practice should resign...  Last month's electric bill was surprisingly moderate.  But then, the air is on again...  Things in the US are so cocked up right now I never got to be pleased the head of EPA resigned...  Between the "you should read this" posts in my RSS and using a Kindle reader I have now reached a point where I could not tell you the title or the author of the book I am currently reading...  Headed East to see alums tomorrow.  If you have any influence on the weather we could use a nice day...  I am beginning to think it is no longer enough to live according to your ideals, and that putting your money where your mouth is might not be enough either...  You can in fact squish the two and a half hour Marshmallow Workshop I have previously done into an 80 minute block.  It doesn't leave much time for discussion...  Contemplating a third compression brace.  That's too many right?  I thought so...  Guy emailed me today looking for a student to help with a job.  I almost just took it myself...  Is there a reason the designer we worked with on our house never returns my emails?  I am starting to wonder if we forgot to pay a bill or something...  Do you watch "Humans" on AMC?  You should.  It is pretty good.  Lately though a lot of really, really sad things have been happening...  Still haven't gotten very far on the book...