Jaime Escalante -- America's Master Math Teacher

News came today that Jaime Escalante, the math teacher whose story was the basis for the 1988 movie Stand and Deliver, passed away at the age of  79. 

In a July 2002 story for Reason Magazine, Jerry Jesness takes the reader through the "the famous rise -- and shameful fall -- of Jaime Escalante, America's master math teacher." 

In the article, Mr. Jesness takes us through Mr. Escalante's background.  We learn that unlike in the movie, Jaime's successes were slow coming.  It was three years into the program before more than 10 students passed the A.P. calculus test, rather than the single year that the movie portrayed.  And I have no problem with the Hollywood version of the story's time line being accelerated, as they only had an hour and a half to get the story told.  But, as Mr. Jesness points out:

The Stand and Deliver message, that the touch of a master could bring unmotivated students from arithmetic to calculus in a single year, was preached in schools throughout the nation. While the film did a great service to education by showing what students from disadvantaged backgrounds can achieve in demanding classes, the Hollywood fiction had at least one negative side effect. By showing students moving from fractions to calculus in a single year, it gave the false impression that students can neglect their studies for several years and then be redeemed by a few months of hard work.

This Hollywood message had a pernicious effect on teacher training. The lessons of Escalante's patience and hard work in building his program, especially his attention to the classes that fed into calculus, were largely ignored in the faculty workshops and college education classes that routinely showed Stand and Deliver to their students. To the pedagogues, how Escalante succeeded mattered less than the mere fact that he succeeded. They were happy to cheer Escalante the icon; they were less interested in learning from Escalante the teacher. They were like physicians getting excited about a colleague who can cure cancer without wanting to know how to replicate the cure.

I can remember this movie being referenced a couple of times during my years in the teacher education program at my college.  While we never viewed it in class, I do remember it being recommended to me by someone in the program.  I remember being inspired by the movie.  The movie fed into my desire to change lives.  Yet, with all of the emotion and inspirational feelings this movie brought to me, it did nothing to inspire me to find out why and how Mr. Escalante was able to bring such success to students who society had basically written off as never being able to accomplish such a feat.  A movie of this magnitude should have caused me to seek out Mr. Escalante's blueprint for success.  But it didn't, and I didn't. 

A movie as moving as Stand and Deliver did nothing to make me a better future teacher (which I'm sure was not the motivation of the filmmakers in making the movie).  Yet, after watching The Legend of Bagger Vance I remember I was inspired to go out and pound golf balls on the driving range.  After countless viewings of Friday Night Lights in high school, I was inspired to work harder in football practice so that I might be able to make the big catch in the big game.  After Space Jam I was out on the basketball court working on my jump shot in the event that I was ever pulled into a cartoon universe to help Bugs and Daffy defeat some evil villains.  And sure, I never did make the big catch in the big game nor did I ever join up with Bugs Bunny & Co. to shoot hoops.  (I'm still holding out hope that Will Smith will help me fight off the demons that are keeping me from winning a match against Bobby Jones and Walter Hagen).  But, at least these movies challenged me to improve myself.  Unfortunately, Stand and Deliver did not have that effect on my life, which is a shame.

Another failure of the movie (again, not completely the filmmaker's fault) was that it left the viewer with the impression that everyone in the story lived happily ever after.  Unfortunately for Mr. Escalante and the students he never got to help, his tenure as the maverick math teacher for that East L.A. school was cut short 10 years after the group of students featured in the movie passed their A.P. tests.

Escalante's open admission policy, a major reason for his success, also paved the way for his departure. Calculus grew so popular at Garfield that classes grew beyond the 35-student limit set by the union contract. Some had more than 50 students. Escalante would have preferred to keep the classes below the limit had he been able to do so without either denying calculus to willing students or using teachers who were not up to his high standards. Neither was possible, and the teachers union complained about Garfield's class sizes. Rather than compromise, Escalante moved on.

Other problems had been brewing as well. After Stand and Deliver was released, Escalante became an overnight celebrity. Teachers and other interested observers asked to sit in on his classes, and he received visits from political leaders and celebrities, including President George H.W. Bush and actor Arnold Schwarzenegger. This attention aroused feelings of jealousy. In his last few years at Garfield, Escalante even received threats and hate mail. In 1990 he lost the math department chairmanship, the position that had enabled him to direct the pipeline.

  [Emphasis mine]

The culture that is the modern public education system is one that discourages innovation and extra effort.  Rather than embrace Mr. Escalante's successes, his peers (and the union) grew jealous and saw his work as an assault against the status quo.  There were no incentives in place for others to follow in his footsteps.  And incentives matter. 

One of the driving forces behind my decision to leave the teaching profession was the lack of incentives for me to try hard.  While I never encountered explicit challenges to the way I ran my classroom, there were plenty of implicit demands that I maintain within the confines of the teaching bureaucracy bubble.  Mr. Lesness touched on some of these forces in his closing paragraphs about Jaime Escalante's legacy. 

Lyndon Johnson said it takes a master carpenter to build a barn, but any jackass can kick one down. In retrospect, it's fortunate that Escalante's program survived as long as it did. Had Garfield's counselors refused to let a handful of basic math students take algebra back in 1974, or had the janitor who objected to Escalante's early-bird ways been more influential, America's greatest math teacher might just now be retiring from Unisys.
Gradillas has an explanation for the decline of A.P. calculus at Garfield: Escalante and Villavicencio were not allowed to run the program they had created on their own terms. In his phrase, the teachers no longer "owned" their program. He's speaking metaphorically, but there's something to be said for taking him literally.

In the real world, those who provide a service can usually find a way to get it to those who want it, even if their current employer disapproves. If someone feels that he can build a better mousetrap than his employer wants to make, he can find a way to make it, market it, and perhaps put his former boss out of business. Public school teachers lack that option.

There are very few ways to compete for education dollars without being part of the government school system. If that system is inflexible, sooner or later even excellent programs will run into obstacles. (...)

One-size-fits-all standardized tests are driving curricula, and top-down reforms are mandating lockstep procedures for classroom instructors. These steps might help make dismal teachers into mediocre ones, but what will they do to brilliant mavericks like Escalante?

Now, I would never suggest that I was 1/10 of the innovator in the classroom that Jaime Escalante was, but because the current system lacks (lacked) the incentives for me to try, I will may never know what could have been.
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SONG:  "Hands of God" by the Dave Matthews Band

LOOKING FORWARD TO:  the eventful summer that is to come.  I'll be playing volleyball on the "Chuck Bo-Buck and the Banana Fanna Five" team with my coworkers (and, yes, I suggested the name, and, yes, I am proud about that fact).  I'll also be playing as much golf and will be attending as many Omaha and Kansas City Royals baseball games as my wife will allow. 

AMERICAN IDOL 2010 BET:  Since I don't know if my cousin JB dvr'd tonight's show, I cannot yet harass him on Facebook or by text message about the fact that his pick, Didi, was kicked off the show tonight.  So, I shall gloat here.  One down, four to go!!!

Oh Deer

The Wife and I have been talking about getting Brodie a friend to play with, but concerns over our eventual move back to Colorado and our lack of space has led us to sidebar this plan for now.  Little did we know we had multiple options in friends for our pooch.

(Also, I find this video much more enjoyable on mute.)



In related news, chalk a victory up for K-9s everywhere.



(h/t Sullivan)

American Idol -- Top Ten Performances

Usher is the mentor.  What, Justin Bieber was busy?

So they’re singing R&B/Soul songs tonight, which is one of the few genres of music with which I’m unfamiliar.  Odds are, no one will impress me, just because I don’t particularly enjoy this type of music.

Siobhan is “wicked nervous” to sing in front of Usher.  She’s singing “Through the Fire” by Chaka Khan.  And she is SUPER PITCHY DAWG!  She sounded off key the entire song.  And, of course she does her patented “scream” to end the song.  Yikes, she may have hurt her chances of winning the show after that performance.  I think a lot of voters are going to lose faith in her singing ability.

(ASIDE:  Crap, they are really stringing this episode out.  We’re twenty minutes in and have only heard one person sing.  They spent what seemed like 10 minutes talking to Siobhan.)

Casey is singing “Hold On, I’m Coming” and he’s playing an electric guitar without an amp during his one-on-one with Usher.  He doesn’t even recognize how ridiculous he looks.  And his performance on the Idol stage was odd.  It was filled with his usual goat-vibrato and electric guitar.  He continues to take no chances just to stay in the game. 

Michael is singing “Ready for Love” and is using a guitar (which looks like a ukulele in his big ol’ mitts).  It was slow, sensitive, and weird.  But it is performances like that one that make me miss Paula the most, because she would have been going batshit crazy after that performance.  His stock is rising.     

Didi is singing “What Becomes of the Broken Hearted”, and is singing it exactly as I would imagine Michelle Branch or Colbie Caillat to sing it.  She doesn’t have the pipes or the “soul” to pull of this kind of song.  It was entirely forgetable.

“Teen Beat” Tim (which is a better nickname then “Teflon” Tim, if I do say so myself) is singing “Sweet Love” and Usher doesn’t “believe” Tim while he sings.  So Usher asks Tim if he’s ever been in love.  Tim shrugs and says yes.  (I imagine Tim’s thought bubble in that moment would be, “I love my grandma, apple pie, and Jesus.  Those count, right?”)  The song is weird, the performance dull, the vocals adequate.  I’m sure the Vote for the Worst crowd will continue to support him and will probably carry him into next week.

Andrew is singing “The Wrigley’s Double Mint Gum Jingle” by Chris Brown.  He’s still trying to recapture the “magic” from Hollywood week, and this was as close as he’s gotten so far.  I wonder if the judges can stop referring to his Hollywood performance now.  Well, even if the judges can, Not-Brian-Dunkleman will continue to bring it up.

(ASIDE:  It is official.  I will not watch next year if Not-Brian-Dunkleman is the host.  He thinks this show is about him.  He is fixated with ensuring his dumb face is always on the camera.  And I’m tired of it.)

Katie is singing an Aretha Franklin song which could be a death wish.  If her vocals are not perfect, she’ll be trashed by the judges.  She’s wearing some weird overall-shorts and leggings.  Her vocals were fine/average because she took no chances with her vocals.  

Lee is going to sing “Treat Her Like a Lady” because it has a lot of soul.  This is a great song choice for him because it is easily converted into a rock song, which is his wheel house.  He should be able to sneak his way out of the R&B week in better position than he entered it, which I might not have guessed going into his performance.  His vocals were spot on.

(ASIDE:  And now it feels like the judges are rushing though their critiques because they wasted so much time on the front end of the show.  Pick a pace and stick with it people.)

Crystal is singing “Midnight Train to Georgia” and is turning in the guitar for a piano this week.  She doesn’t seem as confident behind the keyboard.  And for the first half of the song, the backup singers did as much singing as she did.  And she’s even more awkward when she steps out from behind the piano.  She doesn’t know if she should dance.  She doesn’t know what to do with her hands.  She’s smiling more than a song like this one would call for.  The vocals seemed really weak to me because she picked the parts of the song that didn’t allow her to sing with full power or emotion.  I was not a fan of her performance tonight.

Aaron is singing “Ain’t No Sunshine” which I believe is contractually mandated to be sung by at least one Idol contestant every year.  It was adequate at best.  This was a lame way to end the night.  The dude has no soul (musically, not spiritually.  Although his eyes are fairly vacant, so who knows.)

After tonight:

TRENDING UPWARD
Lee

Michael

Andrew (barely)

SLIPPED A FEW NOTCHES BACKWARD

Siobhan

Crystal

MADE NO FORWARD PROGRESS

Casey

Katie

Didi

FREE FALLING

Tim

Aaron

Bottom Three:  Aaron, Tim, Didi

Going Home:  I would support any of those three leaving this week, but I could see Didi leaving this week, which would be fairly surprising.

(UPDATE:  And ALOTTFMA just reminded me that there is an Immunity Idol in the Judge's possession which may need to be used to save Siobhan this week after her off key performance.  And I imagine she is the exact person they are saving it for.)

Bob & Tom Comedy Tour

This past Saturday, the wife and I went to the Bob and Tom Comedy Tour stop in Sioux Falls.  It was a bit of a drive, but was well worth it.  It was a night of a bazillion laughs.

The show started with my favorite member of the Bob & Tom crew, Chick McGee, opening the show.  He did a little comedy to whet our comedy appetites.  I'm pretty sure the constraints that the FCC puts on him during the radio show is very frustrating for him, because he let loose with all the "blue" comedy that he's not allowed to use during his day job.  Chick introduced all of the comedians for the night and did a few jokes in between acts.  He was great.

Then Greg Warren did a half hour show and he was awesome.  He did about a half hour of material from his latest comedy album, "One Star Wonder", which I had bought before the show, along with one of his "One Star" t-shirts.  It was hilarious.  Greg is of the Cosby/Foxworthy/Gaffigan school of comedy, in which he tells stories and is a fairly "clean" comedian (I'd say it's PG-13 at worst).  Our favorite line of his (and probably of the night) was "Shut your whore mouth, Shannon." 

After Greg Warren was Bob Zany.  Bob is a veteran comedian, and when a drunk/retarded heckler started acting up, Bob put him in his place in the funniest way.  Bob did more crowd work than Greg Warren, which was a nice change of pace.  Bob does a weekly piece on the Bob & Tom show, called the "Zany Report" where he uses a news story as the setup and then gives a punchline about the story.  His comedy routine is similarly structured:  setup/punchline, setup/punchline, etc.  He was very funny.

The low point of the night was the half hour of "Donnie Baker".  Donnie is a character that calls into the B&T show a couple times a day.  Donnie is big on innuendo, which once or twice a morning is fairly funny, but is pretty intense when you're bombarded by it for a half-hour.  He had a few funny lines, but all-in-all it was a waste.  I'd have rather had an extra ten minutes tacked onto the other comedian's time than to sit laughterless for that time.

The closer of the night was the absolutely crazy Greg Hahn.  Words cannot explain Greg Hahn's act.  Go here to see his promotional video.  The guy slays me when he's on the B&T show, but to see him in person was an experience.  His material is fairly constant every time he performs, but his rapid-fire delivery and high-energy physical comedy are top notch.  There were moments during his act that I was not breathing because I was laughing so hard.  There could not have been a better way to end the night than his act.  OUTSTANDING!!!

While I wish we could have seen the show at a closer venue, we could not have asked for a better set of guys to spend the evening making us laugh (less Donnie Baker).  If you see that they are in your area, I highly recommend you go see Greg Hahn, Bob Zany, and/or Greg Warren.  You will not regret it.

One more point

Since the House is going to have to re-vote on the Health Care Bill, I figure I can get in one more health care post before I lose my entire audience.

There are many people trying to predict America's future in the wake of health care reform.  I am leary of these claims because they are so often wrong.  With regard to health care, will this bill decrease medically-induced bankruptcies, mortality rates, and the deficit?  Depends on who you ask.  Will this plan stifle entrepreneurship, raise taxes, and crush any incentive for investments in medical technology?  I hope not.       

But, one prediction that I would put money on comes from Mark Steyn in Investor's Business Daily:

[...] the governmentalization of health care is the fastest way to a permanent left-of-center political culture. It redefines the relationship between the citizen and the state in fundamental ways that make limited government all but impossible.

In most of the rest of the Western world, there are still nominally “conservative” parties, and they even win elections occasionally, but not to any great effect. (Let’s not forget that Jacques Chirac was, in French terms, a “conservative.”) The result is a kind of two-party one-party state:  Right-of-center parties will once in a while be in office, but never in power, merely presiding over vast left-wing bureaucracies that cruise on regardless.
Republicans seem to have difficulty grasping this basic dynamic.

  [Emphasis mine]

I'd disagree with Mark that "Republicans seem to have difffiiculty grasping this basic dynamic."  I'm pretty sure that they do understand this fact, I just don't think many elected officials in the Republican party care if the political culture shifts to left-of-center.  Because if they truly cared about conservative principles, then they would have attempted to take steps toward limited/small government during the four years that Republican's had control of the House, Senate, and Presidency under the Bush Administration (not to mention the extra two years that there was a Republican controlled House under Bush). 

That is what disappoints me the most about Republicans.  There was plenty of time to enact government limiting measures, but they couldn't control themselves.  And now they want to play catch up?  Now they decided to return to their foundational principals of smaller government, legal conservatism, individual freedom, free enterprise, and a pride in American exceptionalism?  Too little, too late.

While the government is busy handing out mandates

I recently read the maxim "while many people oppose Big Government in principle, they often love it in the particulars."  Basically, no matter where a person sits on the ideological fence, they often don't mind when the government steps in to protect their particular interest.

The same usually goes for mandates.  A person who supports government intervention in the form of smoking bans in privately owned restaurants (on the grounds of "public health") will at the same time oppose government intervention in the form of abortion bans (on the grounds of "individual choice and privacy") and not see the contradiction.  A person might oppose a government mandate that demands funding for low income Head Start programs (because it's "welfare") but will support federal farm subsidies (to preserve "small business").

When it comes to the elimination or the creation of a person's particular pet issue, they will often fight tooth and nail over it.  And this week, (in general) conservatives opposed and liberals supported the newly created federal mandate that all American's must purchase health insurance.  Some people even want to take the issue to court.

I'm generally against the use of government's coercive power over individual liberties and freedoms.  Philosophically, I don't see a legitimate reason for the government to coerce me into wearing a seat belt in my car or wearing a helmet when riding a motorcycle.  I don't understand the need to ban the use of trans-fat or foie gras.  And I especially don't see how government can ban the use of a legal substance (cigarettes) in a private business.

When smoking bans began being passed by local and state governments, I had a discussion with my (generally conservative) cousins about the topic.  They were in favor of the bans because they preferred to be able to eat at a restaurant or go to a bar without leaving the establishment smelling of smoke.  They felt that their being inconvenienced by people around them smoking was reason enough to seek relief through government intervention.

So, I asked them if they were willing to support an all-inclusive ban of smoking in these private businesses, thereby trumping a business owner's right to run their business how they saw fit.  And they were in favor of such a measure because of their aversion to smoking.  I then asked them how they would feel about legislation that would make all businesses smoker friendly, which meant that the business had to allow smoking, whether the owner wanted it or not.  They were against such a measure.  I asked them what the difference was, and they could not give me a satisfactory answer.

I doubt that I changed their minds with my suggestion, but it proves a larger point that people don't mind using the power of government to satisfy their desires.

Now, after the passing of the health care bill and it's mandate that everyone buy health insurance, whether they want health insurance or not, most liberals are pleased that their pet issue has been passed regardless of the ramifications for individual choice.

This lead M Allen Fritsch to propose similar legislation at the American Thinker website, but I doubt many of these same liberals who support the health insurance mandate will support this measure.

There is a fundamental right being denied 55% of all Americans. This denial costs over 16,000 lives per year, meaning more than 44 of our fellow Americans will die every day that we delay. What should be done in light of these shocking figures?

Using the example set by President Obama and the Congressional Democrats, there is only one answer: Universal Gun Care for every American. Surely a right outlined in the Bill of Rights (2d Amendment) is just as important as a right NOT found the Constitution (Health Care).

Bonus, it should be easier to implement. After all, gun dealers and manufacturers are ready and willing to help solve the problem. Unlike the evil insurance companies, gun dealers don't want to take your weapon away from you when you most need it. Nor will they deny selling you a weapon simply because you haven't purchased one in the past (i.e. a pre-existing condition).

• Conventional estimates state that 45% of all US households own a firearm. This leaves at least 55% of all Americans "uncovered."
• In 2008 there were 16,272 murders in the USA. How many of those could have been prevented if the victims had been able to protect themselves?

My proposal is a modest one:

• Mandate for every American to purchase a gun or be provided one by their employer (children under the age of 26 can share a weapon with their parents)
• Tax credits to offset the cost of purchase (for those making less than $250,000 per year and everyone in Nebraska)
• For those that can't afford it, a grant or subsidy to purchase a weapon (union members can get two weapons subsidized before 2018)
• Funding for a series of community based gun dealers/clinics and firing ranges (especially in under-served urban and rural areas)
• Monthly ammunition benefit so that no one has to choose between feeding their kids, paying the rent, or buying a box of .38 special cartridges

Contact your representative today. The time to act is now.

Sure, this proposal is being made with the writer's tongue deeply planted in his cheek, but I feel the point is solid none the less.  

UPDATE:  And if mandating the purchase of firearms makes too many people too squimish, then maybe this proposal would be more appealing.

For most of our nation's history, Congress has been very concerned with propping up the prices of agricultural commodities. This is a legitimate public purpose, by the Post's broad definition: If America's farmers cannot get a good price for their products, the argument goes, they might all go out of business, and Americans would be without a domestic source of food and fiber, which would threaten our "access" to these things. (I know this wouldn't really happen — just bear with me.)

Of all the schemes the government has dreamt up in the service of this goal (usually involving artificial scarcity, such as the slaughtering of millions of hogs in the 1930s) none have required every American citizen to purchase a certain amount of corn, wheat, cotton, etc. — though that would surely be one way to support high prices. But if the individual mandate is allowed, Congress would theoretically have the power to implement the following plan: Each citizen each year must buy a basket of U.S. farm commodities — perhaps he could choose among the gold, silver, or bronze baskets — and he would receive subsidies if his income fell below a certain level.

In addition to propping up commodity prices and "stabilizing" the agricultural market, the plan would give the government the power to set some "basic standards" for American diets, to make sure that every American family was eating balanced meals, staying healthy and — voila! — costing the health-care system less. Seriously, why couldn't Congress pass this law right now, under the precedent set by Obamacare?

And using this logic, the power of government coercision will have absolutely no constraints.

Somebody get me a doctor

Back in December I explained what I was looking for in health care reform.  To review:

allow health insurance to be sold across state lines, remove expensive mandates, give the same tax breaks to individuals that businesses get and decouple insurance from your place of employment.

I am only speculating here, but I imagine that none of my preferred provisions are going to be found within the thousands of pages of this bill, but, as Nancy Pelosi promised, now that the health care bill is passed, we can find out what is in the dang thing.

Regardless of what specifics are in this bill, I doubt I'll be pleased with it.  (Again, mere speculation).  But from a big-picture perspective, this bill frightens the hell out of me because it allows another tentacle of government wrap around our lives.  The saying goes that there are two things certain in life:  death and taxes.  Well, I'd like to propose one more certainty:  the expansion of government.

Writing out of the Richmond Times-Dispatch, Barton Hinkle explains "more better" what I can't.

The passage of health care reform -- with its unprecedented individual mandate, a form of economic conscription that greatly extends the reach of the federal leviathan's tentacles -- is being hailed as historic. Which it is. But then so was Pearl Harbor. So while many Americans are greeting passage with glee, others find themselves in sympathy with Pierre-Joseph Proudhon.

"To be governed," Proudhon wrote, "is to be watched, inspected, spied upon, directed, law-driven, numbered, regulated, enrolled . . . by creatures who have neither the right nor the wisdom nor the virtue to do so. To be governed is to be at every operation, at every transaction noted, registered, counted, taxed . . . .It is, under pretext of public utility, and in the name of the general interest, to be placed under contribution, drilled, fleeced, exploited . . . then, at the slightest resistance, the first word of complaint, to be repressed, fined, vilified, harassed, hunted down, abused . . . and to crown all, mocked, ridiculed, derided, outraged, dishonored. That is government; that is its justice; that is its morality."

Those who do not yet feel as Proudhon did should wait. Even before the gargantuan bill was passed, progressives were insisting it fell short -- it is "not the end of health reform," as Sen. Tom Harkin said some weeks ago, but merely "the beginning." When this government intervention fails to achieve the stated aims, liberals will blithely and obtusely insist the cure is yet more government intervention. They are like the carpenter who complains he has cut a board three times and it's still too short.

Meanwhile, the increased federal involvement in health care will become a pretext for increased federal involvement in -- well, everything. The reasoning will be that individual health affects health care, which is now a federal enterprise. And everything can be said, with more or less sophistry, to affect individual health. So "managing" the "system" will become the all-purpose excuse for dictating the manner in which you live your life. Witness the campaign against obesity: Because obesity causes health problems, and because the government spends money to treat those problems, you should put down that doughtnut, ma'am or sir. And hit the Stairmaster while you're at it.

Throughout the Bush years, progressives howled as the administration exploited a national-security crisis to expand executive power, while conservatives egged the administration on. Yet neither paused long to note that Bush did not even try to roll back expansions of federal power undertaken in the name of social policy. To the contrary, the administration accelerated the process with the Medicare prescription-drug benefit and the No Child Left Behind Act.

During the past year President Obama has dashed progressives' naIve hopes that he would roll back authority claimed in the War on Terror. He has done quite the opposite -- supporting extension of controversial Patriot Act provisions; fighting in court for warrantless wiretapping; and adopting wholesale Bush's policies on indefinite detention without trial, rendition to torture abroad, military commissions, and the state-secrets privilege.

Yet Obama also has pushed relentlessly for expansions of social welfare and the regulatory state. Every administration expands power where it wishes, but no authority is ever repealed. And so the ratchet tightens. Click, click, click . . .

[Emphasis mine]

Mr. Hinkle is exactly right about the upcoming "health care" mission creep.  As he points out, people are already calling for more extensive measures be taken with regard to health care,even though the President's signature is barely even dry on the one we already have.  And, it should be noted that even before this bill passed, the nanny-staters within the government were actively seeking to control the littlest aspects of our lives.

To borrow from Martin Niemoller:

First they came for the cigarettes and I didn't speak up because I wasn't a smoker.
Then they came for the trans-fat and I didn't speak up because the alternative tasted nearly the same.
Then they came for the salt and I didn't speak up because I prefer pepper.
Then they came for the fat kids and I didn't speak up because I'm not a kid.
Then they came for me and my delicious high-fructose corn syrup and no one was left to speak up.

Are the elimination of cigaretts, trans-fat, salt, and high-fructose corn syrup going to result in the collapse of our union?  Doubtful.  But this constant chipping away of individual rights and freedoms are the baby steps toward tyranny.  When the philosopher kings in our central planning kingdom of Washington, D.C., get to decide something as small as what the citizenry are allowed to ingest, there really is nothing they can't decide for us.  The fact of the matter is that the Nanny State is quickly turning into the Daddy State.  

And now these bureaucrats have even more leverage against the citizenry because they are now allowed to demand, mandate, and coerce the citizenry about an item they MUST purchase.  From what I've read, there is no opting out of this program.

F.A. Hayek said it best when he talked of central planners.

The power which a multiple millionaire, who may be my neighbour and perhaps my employer, has over me is very much less that which the smallest functionaire possess who wield the coercive power of the state, and on whose discretion it depends whether and how I am able to be allowed to live or work.

And now that power gap has grown with the passage of this health care bill, and will continue to grow exponentially over the coming years.  There is no hope to stop this growth, only hope that one day it might be contained.  And that, to me, is the scariest part of this bill.
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SONG:  "Somebody Get Me a Doctor" by Van Halen

PROUD OF:  the fact that I finished my first book of 2010.  I will work on getting a review up this week.

LOOKING FORWARD TO:  seeing O.A.R. in concert this July in Council Bluffs.  They announced their summer tour on Facebook, and I couldn't be happier that they are returning to the Westfair Ampetheater this July.  It is the same venue that my sister and I saw them last year, and I'm excited to see them once again.

American Idol -- Top 11

Miley Cyrus is mentoring tonight.  What, Raven Symone was busy?  I sense that I will be using the mute button often tonight.

Lee DeWyze - The Letter – singing it in the style of The Stray Cats (big band/rockabilly).  It’s fine.  I don’t see any reason why he won’t be here next week unless people forget about him because he went first. 

Tim Urban - Crazy Little Thing Called Love – this should please the Vote for the Worst crowd.  I’m not sure it’ll be the worst of the night, but, as the Wife said, “he’s become a caricature of himself.” 

Paige Miles - Against All Odds – ugghh, one of my least favorite songs that someone sings every year, and no one ever does it well.  And Paige is no exception.  I hope this is enough to finally send her home.

Aaron Kelly - I Don’t Wanna Miss a Thing – while talking with Not-Wayne-Brady, Aaron admits he has laryngitis.  And he says he’s singing “Aerosmith’s” version of the song, but he’s obviously singing the country cover version of the song.  If Paige wasn’t still in the game, I’d be rooting for him to go home this week.

Crystal Bowersox - Me and Bobby McGee – could she be any more predictable with her song choice?  We get it.   You’re a Lilith Fair, girl-power rocker.  I can see people getting bored with her if she doesn’t challenge herself as an artist.  But she picked a great song, sang it well, so she’s a shoe-in to next week.

(ASIDE:  Kara’s advice for Crystal to put down the guitar next week is idiotic.  She’s a guitar-playing musician who sings well.  Why she’d get away from that is beyond me.  I don’t want her to stop playing the guitar – I sometimes wish everyone had to play an instrument while they sang – I just want her to sing a song that is out of her comfort zone.)

Michael Lynche - When a Man Loves a Woman – great song choice for him (although I prefer the Michael Bolton version).  He sang it well, but was did some weird runs at the end.  He should be on to next week.

Andrew Garcia - I Heard it Through the Grapevine – he’s singing the Marvin Gaye version (which is probably my least favorite version) and Miley suggested he sing without the guitar.  It’s karaoke at best.  I won’t be sad when he’s booted out of the competition.  He was once on top and he’s in a free fall.

Katie Stevens - Big Girls Don’t Cry – (the Fergie version, not the Four Seasons’ version that is the into to Dirty Dancing.)  The first half of the song was an exact mimic of Fergie, but the back half was very pitchy, dawg.  But it was a great song selection on her part.  She should make the Top 10.

Didi Benami - You’re No Good – and Not-Tom-Brokaw mispronounces her name before she sings.  The guy is a jackass.  She picked a lousy song and does nothing relevant with it.  She sings fine, but the performance is lacking anything noteworthy.  But, it’s too early for her to exit the competition (although, that’s what I thought about Lilly and look how that turned out, so who knows).

Casey James - Power of Love – he tells Miley that he likes the “power” and “passion” of the song.  I wonder if that is why Huey Lewis and the News liked it initially.  And I don’t believe I’ll ever be able to enjoy anything the guy sings because I can’t get past his goat-vibrato.  It just grates on me.  And he did fine, but it was a fairly weak performance overall.  Yet he shall survive this week.

Siobhan Magnus – Superstition – my lady gets the pimp spot, but I’m nervous for her with this song choice because, while I have no statistical data to back up this assertion, NO ONE EVER PERFORMS STEVIE WONDER WELL!  Hell, I’m not totally convinced Stevie does Stevie Wonder well.  She sang it straight (no wacky antics) and sounded good.  And just as I typed that last sentence, she went all Adam Lambert with the last 15 seconds of the song.  Odd, but not going home. 

Rather than rank their performances tonight, I’ll rank them in terms of my favorites: 

1.  Siobhan   
2. Crystal  
3.  Lee 
4. Didi 
5. Katie 
6. TIE – Michael, Andrew, Tim, Paige, Aaron, and Casey – I don’t care when these people go home, just so long as they go before any of the above five are booted.

What I learned yesterday.

So, yesterday, my friend Andy and I went out to Shoreline Golf Course to play the first round of 18 for the season.  It was the perfect day for golf -- sunny, breezy, and 60 degrees.

Last week I had put together a set of clubs from Golfsmith components.  His old irons were circa 1980 Wilsons which are not the most forgiving clubs ever made.  I threw together a set of XPC V9 irons, an XPC V9 hybrid, and an XPC V9 driver.  It turned out to be a great set of clubs, and only cost $200 for the entire set.

The front nine was quite uneventful.  I banged out a 46 and Andy shot a 53, but a 10 on the par-5 final hole made the score much higher than it should have been.  He was loving the irons and hybrid, but wasn't making good contact with the driver.  He couldn't get any lift on his tee shots and when he did catch a hold of one, it was snap hooking.  Odd, but not surprising since he'd never carried a driver in his bag.

On the 10th hole, a 470 yard par-5, I crushed a 300-yard drive with my new driver.  I had about 170 yards to the green, so I smoked a 7-iron to 15 feet.  I sank the putt (my one and only one-putt of the day) for my first eagle of the year.

We carried on and then got to the signature hole of Shoreline, a dogleg-left par 4 with water hugging the left hand side of the fairway (similar to the 18th at Pebble Beach, but without the $200 price tag).  As we were waiting for the threesome in front of us to clear the fairway, Andy pulled out a junk ball and aimed toward the lake.  Using his driver, he topped his ball into the lake.  I asked if I could give the club a swing, as I hadn't swung it yet.

I teed up the ball on the tee box, about 15 feet from the edge of the lake, reared back and gave a mighty swing.  The contact felt great, but the follow through was odd.  As I followed the flight of the ball, I noticed a large object following the path of the ball.

Sure enough, the glue used to keep the head attached to the shaft had loosened, and my friend's brand new club head was laying 30-yards deep in Carter Lake.  (If it weren't for bad luck, I'd have no luck at all).  I stood there in disbelief.

So lesson number one:  Don't aim a golf shot into a lake without a large buffer of ground between me and the lake (to allow for easy collection of a club head should the glue fail its job).

So there the club bobbed in the water, the murky, polluted waters of Carter Lake, laughing at me and my failure as a club builder.  As there wasn't much chance that either of us would be swimming out to retrieve it, we decided to play on and hope that the current/waves would push it ashore.  We played on, but through out the rest of the round, all I thought about was how I was going to get that club out of it's watery grave.

And focusing on the dumbness of the situation actually allowed me to get out of the way of my game.  I pushed through the remainder of the round and ended up shooting a two-over-par 38 to give me a final tally of 84.  Not too bad for my first round of the year, but my celebration lasted long enough to walk to the clubhouse to see if they'd lend us a cart to ride out to the lake to see how our club head was doing.

We got out to the 2nd green and 13th tee box, which both bordered the lake and started looking around.  Nothing.  So, I decided to see if the wind and waves had pushed the head up the 2nd fairway.  Sure enough, about 500 yards away from it's inital entry point, the head was floating 30 yards away from shore.

I decided to come back to the course in a couple of hours, with the hopes that it continued it's current path and I'd find it sitting beside one of the hundred or so fish corpses that were on the water's edge (because Carter Lake is basically a chemical waste dump).  When I got back to the course a couple of hours later, it was nowhere to be seen.  I got back just before dusk and the reflection of the lake made it almost impossible to see out onto the lake, but after walking the shore a couple of times I could see that it had not made it.

I went out to the course today after work to see if it'd made it to shore, but the wind direction had changed today (and was much stronger) so I'm assuming if it hasn't sunk, it's made its way to the other side of the lake.  Bummer.  So, I guess I have a new story and it's only going to cost me $50.

Lesson number two:  Modern club heads float, but wave/current direction is tricky to determine on a chemical waste lake.

As Mastercard might say:
Round of golf:  $10
New golf club:  $50
Losing your friend's club in a lake:  Priceless

___________________________________________________

SONG:  "Dust in the Wind" by Kansas  ("You're my boy, Blue!!!")

LOOKING FORWARD TO:  the delivery of my new golf shoes later this week.  I had to send the others back because they were too small.  Hopefully the next size up works because they don't carry any sizes bigger in that style.  I hate buying shoes online because it takes forever to ship them back and get another pair shipped out.

ENJOYED:  George Clooney in "Up in the Air".  The Wife and I also enjoyed seeing many places in Omaha in movie.  (Go here for the Omaha Montage).

I'm thinking about lighting my head on fire...

...or jumping off the roof of my house or taking up smoking or trying to outrun a puma at the Omaha Zoo since I can now get my heathcare for FREE!!!

So to review:

• Social Security was established in 1935 -- "Through their vigil of silence, and wanting to protect their entitlements, seniors blessed political pilfering of excess Social Security tax contributions that were to be saved and invested. This blessing allowed politicians to turn $2.5 trillion of Social Security trust fund assets created by hard working Americans, into $2.5 trillion of Social Security IOU debt that those same hard working Americans and their families will have to pay again, plus interest."

• The Postal Service was founded in 1775 and is on schedule to lose $7 billion this year (and $230 billion in the next decade unless drastic measures are taken).

• The Department of Education:  Established in 1979 -- Currently administers "a budget of $63.7 billion in FY 2010 discretionary appropriations (including discretionary Pell Grant funding) and $96.8 billion in discretionary funding provided under the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act of 2009—and operates programs that touch on every area and level of education" yet somehow "schools across US grapple with closures" and, in California alone, "nearly 22,000 teachers have received pink slips".

• War on Drugs (technically) started in 1914 -- In Fiscal Year 2010, the President requests $15.1 billion to further the battle on the Drug War, but "U.S. federal, state and local governments have spent hundreds of billions of dollars trying to make America 'drug-free.' Yet heroin, cocaine, methamphetamine and other illicit drugs are cheaper, purer and easier to get than ever before. Nearly half a million people are behind bars on drug charges." 

• We've been in conflict in Afghanistan (2001) and Iraq (2003) which has cost $970 billion dollars and about 5400 US casualties, with no end in sight.

• "These days it’s hard to open a newspaper without reading a tug-at-the-heart-strings story about state and local officials having to make the 'painful' decision to cut supposedly crucial government spending" and the federal government can't shell out money to these states fast enough.  "Rep. George Miller (D-CA) has introduced a bill that would give state and local governments another $100 billion to prevent public sector job cuts."

• The Department of Housing and Urban Development was started in 1965 and "HUD's negative impact on the economy is far larger than its multibillion-dollar budget.  HUD's policies played a key role in causing the housing boom and bust and then the recession in its wake. Weak lending standards on HUD-insured mortgage loans helped fuel risky non-prime lending. HUD also put pressure on banks and the failed housing giants Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac to make risky loans to underqualified borrowers. Thanks to those policies, Fannie and Freddie went bankrupt and already have received $112 billion in taxpayer bailouts."

• Defined-benefit pensions for public state employees are pushing cities and states into economic turmoil.

• And the National Debt is 12.6 TRILLION dollars.

 Yeah, I have a really good feeling about what the future holds for this new Health Care stuff.  Really good feeling.