Civil Randomness

Yesterday, I participated in a panel of professors discussing various aspects of Terrorism. Each of us had been given a question to prepare in advance and 15 minutes to present our answers. The question for me was “What is the threat to civil liberties in the War against Terrorism?”

As much as it grieved me to be quoting Justice Rehnquist, he had made a good point: Democracy is a fine balance between freedom and order, and in times of war, Americans have traditionally chosen to have more order than freedom. The trouble now lies in the question of whether or not the “war” on terrorism counts as one of those times.

The thrust of my talk was that civil liberties are each individual’s responsibility to defend. If one fears the government taking away one’s liberties, then one should exercise one’s political power and vote. Yes, vote. With only 19% of the college-age citizens voting, it is hardly fitting that those other 81% complain that the government is trying to restrict their rights.

The Fourth Amendment of the U.S. Constitution states quite clearly that the people have the right to be secure in their persons, houses, papers and effects. However, the Supreme Court, when ruling on whether that right extends to the public interaction, has consistently said that if a person has no expectation of privacy, then the 4th Amendment does not come into play.

Furthermore, the 4th Amendment is not applied to business when it comes to the collecting of personal information. That’s not to say that stealing is perfectly acceptable when done by businesses; stealing is stealing, and is punishable by law. It is not, however, a violation of the Constitution.

What is being discussed here is the collection of data on people’s purchasing habits and other bits of personal information. If you have in your wallet a credit card, a store “loyalty” card, or any other card for which you filled out an application form with your personal data, then a business has your personal information. That business can then sell your information to others.

If you have a MySpace, FaceBook, or any of the numerous other Internet blog-like pages, then you have been giving out free information. Employers are known to surf those sites for information about prospective, and current, employees. Think carefully about what your pages say about you.

I have often been amazed at the conversations I have overheard walking down the street in the vicinity of someone chatting on a cell phone. It is as if T.M.I. Chatter believes there’s some sort of cone of silence and no one can tell that Mr/s Chatter is discussing the most intimate of details. Sorry, there’s no such cone and we really can hear everything. I do mean everything, even the parts most of us would be happier not knowing.

It seems incredible, then, that citizens are complaining of the government wanting to collect the data that they are so wantonly giving away.

The Fifth Amendment only says that the government cannot compel you to give up information that may incriminate you. It does not say that the government can’t collect any information about you at all. If businesses can trade in personal information, if all of your cyber-friends can know every last detail about your life, if you blather loudly on your cell phone on a public street, you do not have an expectation of privacy, and thus should not be concerned about the government collecting your data.

What this has to do with terrorism is simple. To protect the country from those who wish to harm it from within, citizens expect their government, at all levels, to provide security. In order to make the country secure, the government has to know what is going on within the country. Data mining seems the best and easiest way to go about it.

Despite what Hollywood has fed us over the decades, terrorists are not evil geniuses. They have not figured out how to exist outside modern society and the reach of all its technology. If Barnes and Nobles can know what reading materials terrorists have purchased by tracking that information on their B&N membership card, if Visa can know what reading materials terrorists purchased at Barnes and Noble using that credit card, it should surprise no one that the U.S. government would also like to know.

In the continuing effort to keep terrorists from flying, the government has a “no fly” list of suspects, or, if you’d like, persons of interest. If your name is on the list because you are unlucky enough to share that name with someone else out there in the world who is of interest to the U.S. government, life is about to become simpler: soon, when you purchase a airline ticket, you will be asked for your birthdate. If you don’t want to share that information, do not be surprised that you will have difficulty getting through security at the airport. Furthermore, this data – your name, birthdate, and flight information – will be shared with the U.S. government. If you don’t want it to know, don’t fly; I hear the train is a lovely way to see the country, even if it is usually late.

As for me, I am La Professora; I know how to keep my technological profile low and my personal information private.

Footprint in Randomness

Nonny Mouse has recently ventured into the world of blogging and discovered the joy of having her very own internet troll. Having written a well thought out entry on the NASCAR immunization furore, she was soundly attacked by a member of what I like to call the Holier Than Thou EnviroNazis. I commented then, and now I think I will address the issue of carbon footprints here.

Everyone -- yes, everyone -- leaves a carbon footprint.

Some try to clear their consciences by purchasing offsets. This is hardly the solution that some seem to think it is. Buying offsets only means that the amount of CO2 remains the same, it rarely means that the commonly called greenhouse gases are decreased by any sizable amount.

Others get on the "Man Powered Transportation" kick and then on everyone else's nerves as they spout off on how much better their lifestyle is for the environment. Don't get me wrong, I'm not one of those folks who deny that there is the possibility of global warming; I'm just not interested in having someone else's lifestyle forced on me.

In one of my courses, I pose the following question: Is it better to have a good decision imposed on you or to have the freedom to choose the wrong one? Almost universally the students choose the freedom to make the wrong decision. I may be only guessing, but my feeling is that most folks -- whether in college or no -- would pick the same option. I choose to drive a car, which I bought second-hand. I also choose to recycle. I've chosen my lifestyle and I'm comfortable with the amount of carbon dioxide that that lifestyle produces.

Which is very little.

I know this because I've used the Friends of the Forest Foundation website for calculating the amount. According to the site, I produce 3.62 metric tonnes per year. That's a little over 1/3 of the amount produced by the average American.

The truth of the matter is that even the best of calculators do not factor in all of the impact caused by human activity. Let's take a look at that average "My bike is better than your car" cyclist.

First, the bike frame. The traditional kind is made out of metal that had to be mined, transported, smelted and forged, then transported again. Last time I checked, those activities caused CO2. Then there are the paint, the rubber for the tires, the petroleum byproducts of helmets and biker shorts -- which, if you ask me, can be far more offensive than any carbon belching sedan -- and the various other components; the production of which causes the release of gases.

I've been accused, when presenting the above ideas, of making a "specious" argument because I own a car that is made of more of those same components. I am not arguing that my choice of transportation is better than that of the cyclist, rather that all human activity impacts the environment.

Let us then take up the issue of the ground on which the cyclist rides. The push lately has been to create special bike trails so that cyclists and cars need not share the road. To build these trails, miles upon miles of concrete must be laid. Each mile takes up a goodly amount of cement to make up that concrete. Just one tonne of cement generates about 900 kilograms of CO2. That makes the cement industry worse polluters than the airline industry, as airlines as whole produce half as much in a given year. In other words, my flight to Japan last year put out less in the way of greenhouse gases than the cement used to build -- and let's not forget repair -- the bike trail Mr EnviroNazi uses to get to his office.

I don't have a problem with cyclists and their bikes and trails; I do have a problem with the "I'm Better Than You" attitude that a few of them project. The EnviroNazis of the world like to say that I would change if only I knew what harm I was doing to the world my grandkids will inherit. I know. The choices I make are informed choices; I am aware of the impact of living my life has on the environment. If I have one more person attempt to tell me what a horrible person I am because I drive a car that uses regular petrol, they will feel the impact of my footprint.

Exhaling causes the release of carbon dioxide into the air. If one is so concerned with the release of such gases, one need only to stop breathing out.

Mercenarily Random

Machiavelli is God, The Prince and The Discourses are the Old and New Testaments.

Heed the Word of Machiavelli:

"Mercenary and auxiliary forces are useless and dangerous; and any ruler who keeps his state dependent upon mercenaries will never have real peace or security. ... Experience shows that only princes and republics with troops of their own have accomplished great things, while mercenary forces have brought nothing but harm." (The Prince, Chapter XII)

The use of mercenaries can only harm a country, never really serving its interests. This is the real reason why Blackwater U.S.A. should never have been used in Iraq by the United States government. While I do have concerns about the company's owner, Erik Prince, because of his tight connections with ultra-religious conservative groups, I have no real complaints about the existence of such a company. My problem is with the U.S. government using, often without a competitive bidding process, these mercenaries, for I have read the Word of Machiavelli.

At the beginning of this month, the Washington Post wrote on the "steep price" that the U.S. is paying for having Blackwater U.S.A. provide "security" in Iraq. Let us follow just one money trail. The primary contractor to the Department of Defense is Halliburton. The subsidiary of Halliburton in charge of the contracts in Iraq is KBR. KBR, in turn, subcontracted ESS Support Services Worldwide to provide catering and support to troops in Iraq. ESS parted out some of that contract to Regency Hotel and Hospital of Kuwait, who contracted Blackwater for a 34-man team to provide security for ESS personnel as they travel through Kuwait, Iraq, Jordan, and Turkey. Blackwater charged Regency an average of $876 per day per person on that security team. Regency, because it too needs to make a buck, charged ESS an average of $1,100 per day per person. Because ESS charged KBR on the basis of per meal, it is not easy to know how much KBR was charged per day per person, but it would not be unreasonable to say that it was more than $1,100. Telling is how much the average mercenary on the ground got: $800 per day.

Hardly cheap, given that the average unmarried non-com gets one-tenth of that each day. General Patraeus, the commander of the forces in Iraq, gets just over half of that rate.

Some would argue that these mercenaries are not really mercenaries because they are Americans who are fighting America's cause as civilians. I'd buy that if it weren't for the fact that, in true mercenary form, Blackwater has sent a great deal of personnel hired from Chile, the Phillippines, Bosnia, to name but a few states outside of the 50 belonging to the United States. The worst part of this is that many of those from Chile were commandos trained by Pinochet's corporatist regime.

It should also be pointed out that Blackwater is not the only security firm on the ground in Iraq. There are two other contractors, DynCorp International and Triple Canopy, but Blackwater is the one with the most private security "soldiers" there. As a group, it has been involved in more than 200 shootings in the past one and a half years. Most of those shootings were from moving vehicles, and Blackwater has the reputation of shooting first and not bothering to stop and ask questions second. That is hardly serving American interests.

Especially given the lack of communication and coordination between the private contractors and the military. Case in point, in March of 2004, four Blackwater contractors were ambushed, burnt and hung from a bridge in Fallujah; the commanding military officer in the region had no idea that the contractors and the convoy they were protecting would be in the area, but had to put aside his own plans and strategies in order to invade the city in pursuit of the insurgents who had executed the attack. This lack of coordination is made worse by the fact that for every 10 military serviceperson on the ground, there is one contractor. In Dessert Storm, that ratio was 50 to 1. This means that for every 10 of our guys trying to put an end to violence and insurgency, there is one guy -- with the probability of not being American -- shooting at the same people our guys are working with in order to get the job done.

It is a sad state of affairs when America begins to outsource its military. It's an even sadder state of affairs when Americans think it's a good idea. It's truly scary when some are saying that the government should be giving Blackwater bonuses, that the unprovoked shootings by those contractors are perfectly okay; after all, "Who says we have to fight fair?". Machiavelli points out that "men of little prudence will do a thing for immediate gain without recognizing the poison it bears for the future" (The Prince, Chapter XIII). Not fighting fair will hardly allow for the peaceable establishment of a secure Iraq, which presumably is in American interests. As the Blackwater employees enjoy immunity from prosecution for their actions in Iraq, the well of future peace in the Middle East is indeed being poisoned by imprudent men.

When America starts to depend on mercenaries abroad, it is only a short while before it depends on them domestically. With so many of the National Guards serving in Iraq, the usual duties of those soldiers -- disaster relief, prevention of civil unrest -- are being contracted out. In the wake of the Katrina disaster, a $73 million contract from FEMA was given to Blackwater for their 600 employees' help in the recovery operation. Blackwater's logic is simple enough: the war in Iraq will not last forever, even if it seems like it will, and so they must branch out into domestic service. The problem here continues to be a lack of accountability; under whose authority would the group fall, should their "shoot first, don't ask questions later" attitude make a reappearance in a domestic situation, is a question neither FEMA nor Blackwater seems willing to discuss.

It should be remembered, "anyone searching for the first cause of the ruin of the Roman Empire will find it began with the hiring of mercenaries" (The Prince, Chapter XIII).

Thus ends the lesson for the day. Go with Machiavelli my children.

Quotations: Niccolo Machiavelli, translated by Daniel Donno. The Prince. New York: Bantam Books, 1981.
Image credits: http://www.mrdowling.com/704-machiavelli.html
Corporate Warriors: books.google.com

Serving Randomness

La Professora is the daughter of a sailor who served his country well in the late '40s and early '50s. Equally, I have proudly taught a number of students in uniform. It was with no little aggrievement that I felt when reading the news today that 1,162 of the 2,600 Minnesota National Guard -- the longest serving ground combat unit in Iraq -- will be denied full education benefits because their posting was one day short of the necessary 730 days. Twenty-two months these soldiers have been serving their country, and someone screwed with their orders to save money.

Representative John Kline, of Minnesota, has introduced a bill to get those soldiers' their benefits. There's a good reason for the effort: the difference between partial and full education benefits is significant. Full benefits pay $800 per month, while partial benefits provide only $282. Because these soldiers served one day less than the full 730 days needed, they lose out on $518 per month. Being that a semester is about 3 months long, that works out to $1554 lost per semester.

These soldiers put their life on hold and then put it in jeopardy, yet the Pentagon cannot see clear to give them the education benefits they so rightly deserve. There is a pattern here, if only you were to look. On the health side, there were the scandal involving Walter Reed hospital, and the reports of veterans being poorly treated by the VA. Representative John Murtha, once a strong supporter of the war in Iraq and a 37-year veteran of the Marine Corps, changed his position after meeting with injured veterans of the current conflict. There is plenty of money for the ongoing combat operations, but seems that there's little in the way of funding for care for the current 185,000 injured soldiers -- a number that is estimated to rise to 700,000. The battlefield has gone techno and so more are surviving, but only by leaving a physical part of themselves behind.

Not many remember that when combat operations started in 2003, President Bush threatened to veto any spending bill that would have made permanent a raise in combat pay. Seems that the government couldn't afford an extra $75 a month for people who were putting themselves at risk. Sorry, your mortal danger is only worth $150 per month in hazardous combat pay, not the $225 we thought we could afford. Oh, and if you die, your family should only get $6,000. Thankfully, the veto threat was very short lived and soldiers in Afghanistan and Iraq get $225 per month in extra pay for putting their lives on the line, and should they die, the families will get $12,000 each to help cover some of their immediate needs.

There are some who say that the war in Iraq has kept the all volunteer military from recruiting enough soldiers. That is only partially the truth. The reality is that the pay is awful: tens of thousands of soldiers and their families are on food stamps. The average soldier in the U.S. gets roughly half of what a British soldier in the same pay grade would get. Sometimes the education benefit is the only real reason why some sign up -- they see it as a opportunity to serve their country and get funding for college.

When soldiers came back from Viet Nam, they were spit upon by U.S. citizens who saw them as the embodiment of the hated war itself. In the 30 years since then, the nation has learned to treat the war-battered soldier better than that. There are a number of cars with stickers saying "Support the Troops, Bring Them Home." As a nation, we now know that soldiers should be treated with respect and honored for their sacrifices. We know that it is only fair that, having served honorably for so long, those soldiers should have their rightful education benefits.

Too bad the current administration is too busy spitting on them.

Photo credit: ITN Archive as seen on http://washingtonblog.org/wordpress/?p=104

Obviously Random

There must be some really geeky researchers out there with no social life at all. Nothing else could explain why research was done showing that women put more value in kissing than men and that women are pickier when it comes to selecting a partner.

Seems that the State University of New York needed to find out that women use kissing as a measure of how the relationship is going, while men use it to measure the likelihood that they're going to get laid. The researchers also found that men preferred "wet, tongue kisses". Surely none of this is news the rest of us out here in the real world.

Ask a woman what she thinks makes for a 'great kisser' and, dollars to donuts, she's not going to say "big, sloppy kisses". Most will agree that if they wanted a tongue shoved into their faces, they'd get a puppy.

Perhaps it's engaging in stereotyping to point this out, but women tend unconsciously to see kissing as a intimate ritual that mimics the sharing of food as done by other animals, whereas men consciously see it as mimicking the sexual act itself. Not that either is particularly a good or bad perception, but rather those are the perceptions. It is just hard to understand why anyone thought it was necessary to study what the genders get out of kissing.

Not to be outdone in their lack-of-a-social-life-geekiness, researchers at Indiana University tell us that women seek men who are able to support a family, while men seek women who are sexually attractive. Yet another study for the "Duh!" files. Lead researcher, Peter Todd, is quoted as saying, "While humans may pride themselves on being highly evolved, most still behave like the stereotypical Neanderthals when it comes to choosing a mate." In other words, no matter how 'feminist' a woman is, no matter how 'sensitive' a guy is, we're all just a bunch of cavepeople following the same old routine: He finds an attractive female, clubs her and drags
her back to his cave; she takes a look around at his collection of animal skins -- maybe even check out his kissing ability -- and decides if she's going to stay or hightail it back to her own cave.

The lesson to be learnt here is simple, even for the folks to whom this information is cutting edge: Dating is a ceremony with its dances and poses, you try potential partners out and keep the one that suits your needs; women look for long-term relationships, men for the short-term.

Don't despair, the difference isn't as great as it may seem. As Dr Glenn Wilson points out, "Men will often find themselves falling into relationships by default after starting off looking for sexual adventure."

Photo credit: http://www.allposters.com/-sp/Kids-Kissing-Posters_i1369978_.htm

Pardon My Randomness

Students, beware of technology. Just because it is available, it doesn't excuse being boorish.

At the beginning of the summer, I was discussing the semester that had just ended with a fellow professor. He had a particular grievance about the behavior of students these days. One of them had missed the final exam. Completely failed to show up to take the final. So, the student called his office phone and left a voice message: "Hey professor, this is Blithe. I missed the final and need to take a make up exam tomorrow. Please call me with the time. My number is ............"

The professor was complaining that not only was the student so blasé in the assumption that he was automatically going to give a make up exam, but that the student had left the phone number at a speed supersonic jets would envy.

If you're the student in question and wondering why you never got a call back, let me inform you of what everyone else is thinking right now: You're an idiot.

"In my day," said the professor, "a student would never do such a thing." Even when La Professora went to college, which was some time after said professor went, students knew that such impolitic behavior would never be accepted. If you missed an exam, you went to the professor's office and begged for mercy.

Technology has been a blessing and a curse. Students now can use the internet to contact each other from across the globe to get caught up on the lectures they missed. Cellphones have saved lives as professors have had to call 911 for students who fall violently ill in class. Laptop computers have been used to make lectures a little more interesting with slides. Yet that same technology has been used in thoughtless ways.

A recent conversation with another professor in the department was on just that topic. He told of going to a class to observe the instructor and being amazed at what students were doing in class. As he sat in the back of the class, he could see what was on the screens of students' laptops. The wireless access, for which the university had paid hundreds of thousands of dollars supplied by student fees, was being used by three students to play World of Warcraft. During lecture. Why, the professor wanted to know, did the students bother to come to class.

My own recent experience has been with the use of cellphones and blackberries to catch up with one's 'homies' while in class. Tucking the device under the desk does not make it less noticeable; if anything, it makes it more conspicuous as you are forced to arch your neck to odd angles to be able to see what you are doing. At the same time, don't assume that I haven't figured out what is going on with the laptop -- if you're typing while your fellow students are engaging in some group activity, then there's a high probability email is being sent.

Do I care? Not really. You're in class and you're at least not disturbing the flow of lecture. However, when it comes time to pull your own weight in class activities, and your laptop or blackberry or whatever electronic device you have out is in use, you're not only irritating your fellow students, you're infuriating La Professora -- the one who grades your work -- and that's not wise.

I'll let you in on a little secret, if only to help you understand how the use of technology may harm you: If you want something from a professor, do not use email or the cellphone. Case in point: a student was calling around to see what classes she could get into by asking, over the phone, for add codes. I had a student in my office asking the same thing for the same classes. Even though it was the end of the second week of classes, I allowed the student in my office to add -- the student on the phone was told the courses were full. The reason is simple. I will not enroll someone who doesn't have the dedication to get into the office and ask in person. I want to see the person before giving them permission to add. I am not going to add someone who hasn't been to the class, hasn't seen the syllabus, and hasn't the commitment to his or her education to do more than phone a professor.

Then again, perhaps I should let those folks into the class. I'm sure the other students would appreciate having someone occupy the lower end of the grade curve.

Image credit: http://www.howard-winn.k12.ia.us/projects/ind_stdy05/adcom/techvoice/tech_bad.html

A Loan of Randomness

By now, everyone has read or heard about the subprime mortgage crisis and its effect on the markets. Even those with the meanest of logic skills can figure out that it will affect our -- if not the global -- economy. Reports of doom and gloom abound. Yet one industry is seeing a bright side to the crisis. This industry is hopping right up to serve those debtors who are awash in debt and need to make payments on their mortgages or lose their homes. This magnanimous industry is none other than Credit Card Companies.

Visa, MasterCard, and American Express want you to know that the best way to get out your current debt crisis is to, well, go further into debt.

If you haven't been all that good at making payments on your debts, be they student loans or your phone bill, your credit report shows you to be a subprime customer, meaning that there's a higher risk that you won't be all that good at paying off any new debt you may accrue. Logic then dictates that those companies offering credit cards would avoid offering debtors like you an opportunity to owe them money. Logic doesn't seem to be Visa and MasterCard's strong point, especially given the factoids that nation-wide 1 in 5 mortgages are over 60 days in arrears -- that's 20% -- and 1 in 20 homes are now in foreclosure. Hardly a market for extending more debt; yet, compared to last year, the number of credit card offers mail directly to subprime loan holders rose 41%. At the same time, folks with good credit ratings saw 13% fewer offers.

Business analysts of all stripes agree on at least one thing: We Americans are far too dependent on debt, to the point our personal deficit rivals the government's. A Federal Reserve survey on consumer finances showed that 43% of families are spending more than they are earning each month. For those who like to see hard numbers, that means for every $100 dollars in the paycheck, the average American spends $122.

Wait, that's average and anyone worth their weight in methodology homework grades ought to know that there are three different ways of measuring "average". Here, the average given is the mean, rather than the median or the mode. What this should say is that there is some good news in the world of debt, and there is: A quarter of American households do not have credit cards; 40% of credit card bills are paid off each month and only 3% are past due by 30+ days. Only 8.3% of credit card holders owe more than $9,000. The median debt on credit cards is actually only about $2,200, which in itself is mean figure. Gender seems to play a role as to how much debt one carries: Males have an average of $2,369; females average $2,289. Or perhaps it is one's marital status: Married people have an average of $2,625 of credit card debt while non-married individuals have an average of $1,744. Then again, it could be region: People in the West are further into debt than any other region, at $2,547; people in the Midwest are the most frugal with an average of only $1,972 in credit card debt.

On the other hand, the news isn't all good. The total American consumer debt in 2004 was $1.9773 trillion, which was up 41% from 1998. It's very easy to see how we consumers went so far into debt when one looks at the figures:

The number of cards in the average wallet: 7.6 -- 2.7 bank credit cards, 3.8 retailer cards and 1.1 debit cards.

Those 7.6 cards are used to make 24% of our everyday purchases.

Most of the purchases using credit cards are considered survivor debt, charges to pay the bills. The old joke "Using Visa to pay MasterCard" isn't funny anymore.

Roughly $125 billion of American household expenses are put on credit cards. That number goes up each year.

The minimum monthly payment is now 4% of the balance, and that only went up because the government Office of the Comptroller of the Currency pressured credit card companies to raise it. Even with the new minimum, a debt of $8,000, at 18% interest will take roughly 25 years to pay off and the total bill will be $24,000 -- 300% of the original debt.

Consumer spending amounts to about two-thirds of the U.S. economy, thus the reason why the Bush administration said, after 9/11, it was our patriotic duty to go shopping.

Car loans make up 63% of the consumer debt, and if we don't by cars, Detroit will have to fire folks on the assembly line.

The job growth rate -- the rate at which jobs are added to the economy -- has been the slowest since 2003 and that means fewer people are able to get better jobs with higher wages to pay down their debt.

Wages are going down for folks with a B.A. degree, yet student loan debt is going up: in 2004 -- and we can safely say these figures have gone up since then -- 60% of students graduating from a public university had an average loan debt of $17,600. Last year, the interest rate on a Stafford loan went up 1.5%. PLUS loans are expected to increase 2.4 points to 8.5% by the time most of my students graduate and start paying off their loans. Private loans could rise to at least 12 percent. With tuition/education fees rising faster than inflation, student loans will be an even greater burden on an already cash strapped society.

The average American socks away in a savings account about 1.3% of their disposable income. To save adequately for emergencies and future expenses such as retirement, it is recommended that people save at least 10% of their income.

In 1999, the first year the IRS allowed taxpayers to use credit cards to pay their income tax, 53,300 people put their taxes on plastic. By 2003, that number rose to 313,000 people. Oftentimes, people complain about how much the government "steals" from them; yet, they seem to not care that their credit card companies are financially raping them for the privilege of using plastic to pay the tax bill.

By the way, that near two trillion dollar consumer debt doesn't include mortgages. While consumer debt averages out to be $18,654, the national average mortgage debt is $69,227 -- $102,264 if you live in the West -- thus the average household, factoring in a mortgage, two student loans, and at least one credit card, owes roughly $112,000.

The whole subprime loan crisis has become a political issue in the campaign season. Questions of what to do about it are being raised. Some want the government to step in and save debtors from the evil loan companies who sold them loans that they clearly couldn't afford.

Let's think about this for a moment. You're offered an interest-only loan that clearly will result in larger payments down the line when payments on the principle kick in and you can only afford the interest payments now; that's a sure signal that you should not sign up for the loan, no matter how hot the housing market is. A house is not an investment that can be bought and sold like an NYSE offering; it is a place to live and grow.

My answer to the folks who cry that we must protect them, that they were taken advantaged of by the loan sharks in Brookes Brothers suits, is that they knew what they were getting into and do not deserve my taxmoney to assist them out of debt. When one million homeowners are carrying more than three mortgages and 1.8 million have loans totaling more than 100% of the value of their homes, it's clear that those people aren't willing to learn to live within their financial limitations. If we allow the government to bail them out, the lesson that will be learnt is this: make stupid decisions, go far into debt, ruin the economy, but don't worry, the piper will be paid by those of us who did not.

On the other hand, MasterCard is making you an offer you can't refuse. After all, Keith Leggett, senior economist at the American Bankers Association, tell us "Consumers should be grateful that we have a very competitive market."

In No Particular Order II

Here it is, this year's crop of student blogs. Click on any and all that catch your attention. Feel free to comment. Students should be posting once a week until the end of the term in December, so there should be plenty to comment on in the coming weeks.

My First Blog
Poli-Sci 100W Blog
This is What I Think
Stephanie's World
Mi Vida
Just Swallow It
Pilgrim Summer
Goose's Spontaneous Blab
My Blog
Jordanz45
All EyeZ On HiM
The Dude Abides
Maverick's Revolver
Aesthetic Value
weLcoMe to cRystal's liFe
Wood's Peon
What You Need to Know About Everything '08
Is the World Crazy? Or is it me?
It's My Duty
Situation Normal: All F*cked Up
Schwarzenegger For Idiot '08
The Minority Report
Random Acts of Idiots
Real Talk & Front St.
samrt girl
A Distant Mind
WhatTheMelissa?

Random Friends

Friendship is a strange thing.

Twenty-five years ago, I became friends with a young girl from Brazil. She was the quiet type. Okay, compared to me, most folks are the quiet type. However, there was something in our outlooks on life that drew us together.

When she had time in her schedule, I’d go over to her house and we’d work on homework together. Then she’d play one of the two baby grand pianos in her living room. Now, I’d seen homes with a piano before, but two seemed a bit much. Turned out she was a bit of a genius when it came to music. I loved hearing her play. She adored my wicked sense of humour. We were good friends.

As with a great number of childhood friendships, this one fell into disrepair as she moved back to her native country and I continued my existence in the lovely but lonely Goleta; like most youngsters, we forgot to exchange contact information.

Time got away from both of us. I would go on to college, to graduate school, and to teach. She would go on to win a number of awards, to a music conservatory in Moscow, to graduate school and to teach. Different paths, similar results.

However, time was on our side as it allowed for the development of the needed technology for us to reconnect. I had just recently used the internet to help find people for my high school’s 20th class reunion – yes, La Professora is that old – and wondered if the internet would be just as useful to locate my long-lost international friend. Luckily for me, she’s rather famous and has her own website, making her rather easy to find. Using my knowledge of Spanish, I was able to guess the meaning of the Portuguese words on her site and contact was made.

Of course, the tricky part was figuring out how to write that message in such a way that it would get read – who knows what kind of weirdos might be trying to contact her on a daily basis. I kept the message short, with just enough information to remind her of who I had been, but not too much as to seem pushy or immodest. The reply I got back was wonderful.

It was like the friendship hadn’t been on hold for 24 years. Even though she was currently in Argentina for a series of concerts, we discussed how we would be able to get together to get caught up in each other’s lives. When our plans to meet at a California airport while she was in transit to a music festival fell through due to a change in flight plans, I decided “what the heck, I’ll go to the festival” if only to get the chance to hear her play the piano once again.

Which is how I ended up spending three days this summer on the island of Hawaii.

In between a grueling schedule of rehearsals and performances, my ‘old’ friend and I got caught up. We discovered that even though life had taken us in different directions, our lives aren’t that far different. She still plays the piano beautifully – ‘though, these days I understand what a treat it is to have her play for me – and I still can make even the most teary-eyed person laugh with my wicked sense of humour.

Photo: Two old friends together;

I’m holding the camera, she’s standing beside me.

From all this I learned 3 things:
Some distances traveled are not just physical, they are spiritual and emotional.
A good friendship, even ignored and left to whither on the vine, can be revived and renewed.
and
If you’re going to travel some distance to see an old friend, Hawaii isn’t that a bad place to meet.

Father of Randomness

For Father's Day, I'm honoring my late father. He was a mentor, an anchor, and a friend. And very much missed.

Curtis Jackson Wood
1932-2004