Mr T's rants and ravings

OK that is no surprise to anyone paying attention. The financial world is all messed up and in a screwy twist of fate the rich are doing fine and it is the poor and middle class who are in trouble. Schools are getting cut back just at a time when we need more and better educated population. And there is this whole health care situation which could be a lot better.  Oh and the government budgets are out of whack as well.

The financial mess is almost completely the fault of the big banks and investment companies. Oh sure they want to blame people who took out loans that they couldn’t really afford but honestly the banks should have known better. The people who took out those loans didn’t really understand what they were doing and in many cases were deliberately deceived. The derivative mess was a shell game to make bad loans look good and profit by moving money around without creating anything of real value. It pretty much had to fail based as it was on risky loans. And the people who made billions in the process either did know this or should have known this. It is outrageous that many of these same people were paid big money to stay and “fix” things afterwards.

Many parts of the country are trying to balance their budgets by cutting back on essential services. This is especially true in education. This is akin to eating the seed corn. In other words we are setting ourselves up for a major step backwards. If anything we should be spending more on education to make sure that we are preparing students for jobs of the future. Instead we are doing all we can to make sure they are prepared for manual labor and other jobs that do not move the country forward economically. What idiots think this is a good thing? Well apparently many governors and state legislatures. What’s wrong with them?

Healthcare? We pay more and get less than many other countries. Oh sure it is all fine and dandy if you are rich or have a really good insurance plan. But many are not rich, do not have any health insurance or have such high deductibles that they can’t see a doctor until things get really bad. Oh and did I mention that healthcare costs are making life difficult for many companies? It seems to me that some sort of government healthcare like they have in many other companies would be a good thing. And not just for individuals but for companies. If there was a national health insurance and companies didn’t have to pay for it themselves they’d be better off. Even if they had to pay more in taxes it would likely be less than their current healthcare costs. Even if it didn’t work out that way in outlay of money it would probably make for a healthier work force. If anything companies should be pushing for universal healthcare.

Back to government budgets. Sometimes you have to stop cutting spending. What if you and I had to cut out food spending, That would be too much after a while. What would be do? Try to increase income. At one point my wife and I had 5 jobs between us to make ends meet. Yes it took more time and energy but putting food on the table and educating our son was a priority. And yes we worked extra jobs to pay for a good education because that was the right thing to do. Cutting education when it was possible, though not always easy, to raise income was a good investment. We don’t regret it for a moment.

Government could raise taxes on the very rich. The rich can afford it. It is not what they would lose that you have to think about but what they would have left and they would still have plenty. Oh we hear “but the rich need that money to invest and create new jobs!” Heck of a theory. The problem is that they are not creating new jobs. They are waiting for someone else to fix the problems that they themselves have the resources to fix but refuse to do. The rich caused this economic mess we are in and they should be asked to pay some of the cost to fix it.

These are all old fashioned and dare I say it “Christian” values. Take care of the hungry, the sick and the poor. Educate everyone as an equal. Ask those who have been blessed with much to help those who have less. We could do it but for some reason those in power don’t want to. It makes me sad and I feel frustrated. This is my scream in the dark.

It’s been 40 years since I finished my four years at Brooklyn Tech but it remains one of the pivotal experiences of my life. Oh there were both good and bad things that happened but I really only remember the good things. I still remember the pride of getting and wearing my heavy winter coat with the huge letters TECH on the back. Man I was proud of that. I was a Technite! I was part of something amazing. Tech was a second home to me. From eating in the cafeteria and tossing paper airplanes out the window – only now do I really understand why that drove teachers crazy to being a part of the track team. People are amazed when I tell them we practiced the pole vault on the roof. I still have dreams that take place at Tech. Even after all this time. I run into other Tech alumni from time to time. rare since I live in New England these days but it happens. Each one is family no matter when they graduated. Male, female (boy did that take a while to adjust to), black, white, yellow, what ever. They are Technites and there is a bond there.

A couple of years ago I had business in Brooklyn. I rolled into town early and decided to chance a visit to Tech. As I walked up to the building I went to enter the same door I had walked through for four years as a student. It was habit – it felt natural. Where else would I go in? To no ones surprise I was stopped and sent to a door on the far corner of the building so I could sign in. OK sad but that is the reality. I visit many schools all over the country and visitors always have to sign in. Though it was hard to think of being a visitor. Once there I had to show my ID and sign in. Also not atypical. As I said I visit a lot of schools. Having to show an ID is common though not always the case. I have visited schools where no one even checks the name I sign on the visitor register. And others where a visitor badge with my picture on it is printed out. Oh and I was told I needed an escort.

That was the worst. I had hoped to spend some time just wandering and perhaps talking to faculty. I have done that at other schools where I was not an alumni. Many schools do not require visitors be escorted. At other schools a volunteer student will show me around or to the even where I am speaking. But pretty often I am pointed in a direction and wander off. Not at Tech. Eventually a person from the alumni office showed up and showed me around a little. I was told I couldn’t go visit one classroom we passed that looked interesting. I was shown a few things – the auditorium for example. But we stayed in the halls and visited the alumni office. I felt rushed. I felt unwelcome – an intrusion. I felt like I shouldn’t feel like I belonged. There was no place for me here. I was not at home. I was a stranger. 

It’s been a couple of years and I still think fondly of “my school” but I’m not sure that Tech of today is my school. Now some would say I don’t understand schools. But I do. I have taught in K-6 an K-8 schools. I taught for 8 years in a high school. I have been on a school board. I am on advisory boards for four different high schools. I visit schools all the time. I do understand. I just don’t think it is right and necessary or even good to treat all visitors as the enemy – as a threat – as guilty without proof. Alumni especially should be made to feel at home – like they are welcome.

I will not soon be back to visit Tech. I am not wanted there. My heart is broken.

I didn’t want to think about 9/11/01 today. I really didn’t. But that seems to be impossible. If for no other reason that my Dad lives with me these days.

I was sitting in my office at Bishop Guertin High School when I heard about the first plane crash. That didn’t sound good but I knew that planes had hit New York City skyscrapers in the past. Still I turned to the Internet for news. Soon after a second plane hit. A student came through my office and remarked about it being some coincidence. I replied that it was not a coincidence. One could be an accident but two meant deliberate action. I didn’t want to be right but I was.

Soon after I saw two girls, the Oganowski sisters, accompanied by a guidance councilor and a campus minister walk quickly by with tears in their eyes. I found out shortly after that their father had been the pilot of the first plane to crash.

Soon I started thinking about people I knew in the City. One of them I knew worked in one of the buildings at the trade center though I didn’t know which one. Also I wondered about my father. Dad lived on the eastern end of Long Island but he was still the senior chaplain of the New York City fire department. Had he gone to the City that day?

I was able to find out about my friend. He was late going to work and wasn’t at work when the crashes happened. He was safe. I couldn’t get in touch with my Dad right away.

It turns out that my Dad had been home when the first crash happened. He’d gotten into his truck (a  Chevy Blazer) and using red light and siren made amazing time getting to the WTC site. He knew a lot of firefighters involved including some senior officers and of course Fr. Mychal Judge one of the department’s other chaplains who died in the building collapse.

Dad was on the scene for pretty much 6 weeks straight. The first night or two he slept in his Blazer a block away from what came to be called “Ground Zero” by all. FEMA put him up in a hotel nearby at some point. After a couple of days masks became available and required. Still, my Dad’s lungs have not been the same since. In fact I wonder how many of his current medical issues  derived or were worsened by those weeks.

After about 6 weeks Dad was hospitalized with pneumonia. Oh did I mention that he was already 76 and had been spending 12 to 18 hours a day at Ground Zero for weeks with no breaks?

Dad spent his time in several ways. One was helping prepare the many clergy who volunteered to help. He warned clergy not to “shove the dove” as he put it. In other words not to use this as a chance to do a hard press on evangelism. First responders needed support and comfort.  Not judgment or hard press preaching. Living the faith was the important thing.

Dad also spent a lot of time with families of the victims. This is a role that Dad was uniquely prepared for. When one loses a spouse it is often easy to feel, and often correctly, that counselors don’t know what they are going through. Dad had outlived two wives by this time and really deeply did (does) know what it is like to lose a spouse. He’d also seen a lot in his years as a chaplain both for  the Fire Department and the Navy. These were not his first visits with families who had lost a loved one. And he’d seen some pretty horrible things during World War II where he saw more combat than most.

A lot has happened since then. Dad finally retired from the Fire Department – the last of several jobs he retired from. I’ve since left teaching and gone back to industry. Security theatre runs rampant throughout the country. We’ve still got fighting forces in Iraq and Afghanistan to no apparent good for the US.

No one won that day. Everyone lost. What is important now is where we go from here.

I’ve been in a couple of airports which a certain company sponsors free wi-fi. When you sign in there is a nice welcome page letting you know this. So far so good. But then you have two options. One, with a really big clear button, says accept conditions and connect to the Internet. Pressing this button changes your home page to this company’s home page. If you don’t want this you can still get on but you have to click a different, much smaller link that doesn’t look at all like the other button. Who knows how many people get this new home page even though they really don’t want this. I think this is mildly evil.

Of course a lot of software does similar things by having such things as defaults. It aggravates me but this case is particularly bothersome because of how unobvious the change is. Not that I am a fan of the other software either.

Recently a friend of mine, Vicki Davis, received a pre-publication copy of the new book by Kevin Mitnick the famous cracker. Vicki wrote here review of the book at Ghost in the Wires: Kevin Mitnick’s memoir. She found the book disturbing.  BTW I refuse to call him a hacker because that is in many ways a term of respect. I don’t have any respect for the things Mitnick did to gain access to computers. What he did was to lie often and effectively to gain access to computers (find out here for repair services) that did not belong to him. He’s a great liar – not something that engenders respect in my opinion. Most of what you hear and read about Mitnick comes from his own words. Someone who is both a convicted and admitted liar. There is a word for people who believe Mitnick and it is not a compliment. What you seldom hear are the stories of people whose computers he broke into. Well that changes now.

Are crackers harmless? Not really. I was a software developer some years ago working on a system called The Ark that was broken into. Unfortunately it was accessed during a time when the disk that held the source code for the operating system we were working on had read/write access. Now the hacker claimed that they didn’t change anything. So harmless right? Someone lies repeatedly to gain access to a computer. Time after time they tell falsehood after falsehood and now, after they are caught we should believe what they say? Does that sound as foolish to you as it does to me? Fans of Mitnich and others like him find that reasonable. On the other hand for the development team I was on this seemed a bit risky. After all this system would be used by hundreds of thousands of people, perhaps millions of people, all over the world. Major banks would be trusting it to be secure and safe. So we should just trust a serious liar that he left things alone? That was something that seemed unreasonable to us. So what did we do?

For a month approximately 70 people scoured the source code line by line. It was compared to developer notes, personal backups, old listings, read line by line and verified by every means we could think of. Seventy man months shot. The release of the software was delayed meaning lost opportunity costs. The lost productivity was measured, conservatively at hundreds of thousands of dollars. That is real harm. But there is more.

Have you ever had your home or car broken into? Know any one who has? It takes an emotional toll. It makes one feel violated. Having your development computer broken into leaves one much the same way. Thirty years later it still upsets me to remember that feeling of violation. People who break into other people’s computers are violating people’s personal spaces. They are taking an emotional toll beyond and different from ay financial toll. And then there are the people who were tricked, people who just wanted to be helpful and fell for the lies of someone out to prove how smart they are. How must those people feel knowing that they inadvertently let the wolf into the henhouse? Reportedly Mitnick names those people in his book. How can anyone see that as anything but twisting the knife that these people have been living with in their backs for years. “Changed people” don’t do that so if you think Mitnick is somehow changed for the better clearly you don’t base that on his book.

I know that a lot of people respect Mitnick – I don’t understand them but perhaps it is because they don’t really understand what Mitnick and others like him did. And what they continue to do today.

I can’t sleep. My mind is racing with questions. Perhaps if I write them down they will leave me alone.

First one. Childhood obesity is a problem right? Have you ever been in a school cafeteria and seen the people who work there? An awful lot of them seem to be over weight and even a lot morbidly obese. And these are the people we trust to help students eat right and keep their weight under control? Does that strike anyone else as disconcerting? Oh and what is the percentage of teachers who are overweight or obese?

Speaking of schools – why is no one talking about parental or student responsibility in the matter of education? Does no one think they have a role?

Legislatures want to pay teachers based on performance right? How about we pay legislatures based on performance? No pay without a balanced budget for example. Or we pay them based on the percentage they vote with the majority. Obviously if they are doing a good job solving problems there will be a lot of bi partisan agreement.

While I’m at it, does is strike anyone else that being an attorney and being a member of a legislature is an inherent conflict of interest and should be banned?

If the people of Afghanistan and Iraq are benefiting from democracy why are US military doing most of the fighting? Shouldn’t the Iraqi and Afghan people doing most of it? If there are not enough Afghans willing to fight and defeat the Taliban why should we be doing it? Let’s let them rebuild the county. It should take them a while before they are done with that enough to bother us again. Likewise let the Iraqi people spend all their energy fighting each other and trying to fix their country? If they want a democracy wonderful! If they want a dictatorship shouldn’t that be their choice? After all we let the Saudis have one. As long as they leave us alone who cares.

Does anyone really believe that either the Israelis or the Palestinians want a peaceful solution? After all this time they should have been able to work one out. But no they each make totally unacceptable demands of the other. I see no sign that they are tired of fighting. Sure some people are but there do not seen to be enough of them to change anything. And why is it the US’s job to bring them together? Do we somehow have more of in interest in Middle East peace than people who actually live there?

Is anyone else starting to think of Walmart as China’s retail outlet in the US? Is this a good thing?

Now I am married to a school librarian so a) I have a bias toward them and b) I have a bit of an idea of how they think and how libraries operate. OK not all libraries or all librarians but at least one really good one. So I had to read this post by Seth Godin (The future of the library)

In that post he describes a future librarian that sounds a lot like my wife and a library that sounds a lot like the library she is always working towards. But what Seth misses is the reason librarians still need to fight for sharing and borrowing on eBook readers. In a word – access.

It’s all nice and fuzzy to say you can get everything you need on the Internet if you have a nice set of Internet connected devices and good access to the Internet everywhere you go. And Seth probably has that. Many of the patrons of most libraries, especially the libraries that serve poor and rural areas do not have those things. For these patrons even inexpensive books are outside their price range and 24/7 Internet access is still the realm of science fiction. For these readers the loan of an eBook reader is a door into future possibilities. If librarians do not fight to get them access to this technology and to the information on them they may never get to see it.

Also librarians have for the most part redefined themselves away from guardians of books to sharers of information. (well the good ones anyway)They have embraced media of all types from eBook readers to videos (online and on hard media), online databases to Internet searches. They are all about helping people find information and entertainment (yes people do read for entertainment). There are lots of computers in most libraries. It’s still hard to take those computers home though and if someone doesn’t have a computer at home (or Internet) than eBook readers are yet one more tool in the librarian’s toolbox.

Seth says:

Librarians that are arguing and lobbying for clever ebook lending solutions are completely missing the point. They are defending library as warehouse as opposed to fighting for the future, which is librarian as producer, concierge, connector, teacher and impresario.

Librarians are not missing the point. Seth is missing the point. Librarians do see themselves as “producer, concierge, connector, teacher and impresario” and have for years. Seth misses the point that librarians are about access and sharing by almost any means or media possible. They are not defending the library as warehouse but the library as a source for information sharing. And that is something  you would think Seth would be onboard with.