Harrison County (WV) Receives Prestigious FUGAWE Award

            In recent years, my county has undertaken a task that it should have left alone.  Harrison County, like all others in the state, is implementing a brand new location numbering system that will make emergency 911 response more efficient.  And like the typical government solution for a non-existent problem, it’s as screwed up as government employees can make it.

            Apparently, the old street numbers and rural route box numbers just weren’t adequate for the 911 response system.  Never mind that the mailman found the address.  Never mind that the TV cable guy found the address.  Never mind that the county tax assessor found the address.  Never mind that UPS and FedEx found the address.  Never mind that the utility companies used the old address as the service address.  It doesn’t matter.  The 911 people want their own unique system of house and building numbering.

            The public be damned.  We have to comply.  It’s homeland security, by God, and the SWAT teams and bomb squads don’t have time to read mailboxes.

            The county’s 911 mapping and numbering specialists are hunters—modern-day Nimrods if you will.  The pejorative term, Nimrod, attributed by some sources to Bugs Bunny’s describing Elmer Fudd’s prowess, also describes the 911-ers well. 

            I live on Davisson Run Road which, until now, began at its junction with US 19.  The Nimrods have held a mirror to the road map and reversed my road.  The Nimrods say that Davisson Run Road begins at its junction with US 50.

            The “US 50” they refer to is actually the third incarnation of US 50 which was built in the late 1970s and early 1980s.  The intersection they refer to is actually the junction of Sun Valley Road with US 50, not Davisson Run Road.  Sun Valley Road (also called “old Route 50”) is the second incarnation of US 50 which was built in the 1940s.  Davisson Run Road turns off of Sun Valley Road about ¼ mile from the US 50 intersection.

            Under the old system, the postman began at US 19 and all the buildings on the right (north) side of Davisson Run Road were even-numbered.  The Nimrods have reversed that.  The north side is now the odd-numbered side of the road.

            I did live at 640 Davisson Run Road.  My new address is 2361 Davisson Run Road.  Why?  As it was explained to me, I live 2.36 miles from US 50 and the “1” designates the odd side of the road.

            The Nimrods could care less that I have to notify some 300 people and businesses that I have moved but really haven’t moved.  The Nimrods have the law of the land on their side.

            For the Nimrods, I want to give them a prize—the FUGAWE Award.

            The FUGAWE Award was invented by Col. Glover Johns, the U. S. commander who broke the Berlin blockade in 1961.  Col. Johns would, from time to time, hand out a FUGAWE Award to a junior officer who screwed up royally in a training exercise.  The story behind the name of the award goes like this:

            Prior to the attack on Gen. Custer at Little Big Horn, Sitting Bull gave all of his chiefs explicit instructions on how to attack the US cavalry.  The chiefs then went to their designated places to wait for the signal to attack.  When the signal came, one of the chiefs rode off in the wrong direction.  When he realized he was lost, he stopped and yelled as loud as he could, “Where in the fuck are we?’

            Back at the base camp, Sitting Bull heard only the faint echo of the chief’s cry: “Fugawe.”

            On behalf of myself and all the other peons in Harrison County, I offer the FUGAWE Award to the Harrison County Commissioners, the 911-ers, and any other deserving county employees.

            It’s our way of saying: “We know where we are.  Where in the fuck are you coming from?”

If Not War, What Is It?

John and Theresa Heinz Kerrey at recent US Senate committee hearing-----

Sec. of State John Kerrey testified before his wife and the US Senate that launching missiles at Syria is not an act of war; therefore, a declaration of war by Congress is not necessary.  What Kerrey proposed is an "action."

As in: 

"A Syrian naval ship bombarded downtown Boston yesterday damaging buildings and killing civilians.  Secretary of State Kerrey called the attack an "action", not an act of war.  Therefore, Pres. Obama and Sec. Kerrey do not plan to ask Congress to declare war."

Sec. Kerrey plans to dress as Paul Revere and ride horseback through Boston screaming, "This is not war!" later today.

Mass. Gov Devaul Patrick will present the 'revered' former Senator and now Sec. of State with a ceremonial 'action light' [lantern].  The Boston Pops will play Beethoven's 1812 Overture for the ceremony.

President Obama's aunt and uncle will attend as representatives of Boston's illegal immigrant community as a show of solidarity behind the President's decision to avoid war.  Obama's aunt told reporters, "Little Barry didn't win that Peace Prize for nothing."

"Ed Snowden", the movie

Movie treatment for Ed Snowden: Government Mole

Ed Snowden is introduced as a high school dropout--a loner who avoids social relationships.

Snowden joins Army to try and please his father, a career soldier, but is discharged after breaking his legs in a training accident.  This rejection further strengthens Snowden's loner behavior.

Snowden, like many of his kind and age, seeks a life in the artificial world of his computer where he further avoids personal contatcts and believes he can control his life and its outcomes.

He lands a job at CIA as a computer analyst, and then moves to NSA.  He soon finds he is allowed access to secretly-captured data.  As he progresses, he is promoted, and his security clearance is elevated to Top-Secret.

He soon realizes that access to secret data affords him the "cred" to impress others.  Though he has few friends, and most are computer nerds like him who have no social life, it still raises his self-importance in his own narrowly-defined world.

Each year, he finds himself needing to copy or download more secret data than he did the year before.  He becomes addicted to amassing data in the same way a bipolar person goes on shopping sprees--the need to buy, not the need for the goods.

As would be expected, the more data he hoards, the more paranoid be becomes.  He is sure his co-workers are watching him.  He believes the NSA is spyng on him the way it spies on others.  His paranoia starts to race, causing him to wonder when he will be caught infiltrating the NSA databank.

When he truly believes the NSA is onto him, he changes jobs to Booz Allen, the NSA consultant.  There he finds a relaxed security atmosphere.  He feels he can now download huge amounts of data without being discovered.

As his paranoia of being caught lessens, his paranoia takes a different form--he soon thinks of himself as a victim of government spying.  Hence, Snowden believes he must tell the world about the NSA spying on everybody. 

Snowden makes plans for escape and his 'whistleblowing' to a newspaper called "The Guardian."

Snowden escapes to Hong Kong and plans his exile.

He is approached by the Chinese.  He sells the data he has stolen.  He further works a deal with the Russians.  Snowden is unrepentant--he only sold the data (for far less than it was worth) to have money to live on for a few years.

All such movies have an unexpected development:

In this case, Snowden had downloaded a big secret that he did not realize.  The NSA spyware also allowed the NSA to track and follow money movements through ATM machines using a backdoor to the banking systems ATM network.  The big banks, which the US government holds great sway over since the 2008 collapse, had no choice but to allow the NSA into their network.

A Chinese computer nerd discovers the ATM backdoor, hacks the password, and finds he can further worm his way into the USA banking system.

One day, the Chinese take control of the ATM network and jam the US banks from transferring funds or making electronic deposits or payments.  The US economy completely shuts down causing total panic and upheaval in the USA.

For the sequel:  The Mole Rises

In a post-apocalyptic world, ..............

Blue Ribbon Commission Needs a Plan B

                In August 2012, Gov. Earl Ray Tomblin appointed members of the West Virginia Blue Ribbon Commission on Highways.  He charged that commission with determining the needs of the state’s highway program and evaluating the means to pay for the plan. 

                Recently, the commission reported that the Division of Highways needs about $1 billion additional revenue per year to properly maintain and improve roads and highways.  As for paying for it, the commission suggested raising various taxes by $400 million annually, leaving a huge gap between needs and funds.

                Good grief!  Pippi Longstocking could have mailed that plan in.  I expected more from a blue ribbon commission.  

                Fellow West Virginians, we cannot afford an additional $1 billion in highways expenditures each year.  We can’t even afford an annual $400 million increase in taxes.

                Now if the Marcellus shale starts producing a trillion barrels of crude oil each year, that’s different.  But barring a fracking miracle, we’re still a poor state.

                The blue ribbon commission owed it to the governor to posit that there must be a fundamental change in our highway philosophy.  From top to bottom, we need to question every aspect of our highway program.  We need to examine costs.  We need to examine priorities.  And we must question even the hint of perpetuating the status quo.

                This commission could have given Gov. Tomblin support to go to the people and ask them: “Do you want salted roads in winter, or do you want potholes patched in the spring?  You can’t have both.”

                It’s that simple.  We cannot have everything we want.  

                When I say we need to question highway costs, I mean every cost.  If the Division of Highways spends $500 on paper clips each year, then we need to ask why the division can’t get by on half that amount.

                The Division of Highways might very answer that question with: “Paper clips save money.  Removing staples is labor intensive.”

                Fine.  The question still needs asked and answered.

                The Division of Highways needs to question every aspect of its contracting methods as well as contract plans and specifications. 

The Division of Highways needs to ride herd on design engineers to save money, not build monuments.  

The Division of Highways needs to examine each and every position on the organization chart with an eye on efficient operation, not employing the politically faithful.

There will be public hearings about this subject in the coming months.  If you go to one, ask the state what it’s willing to give up or change before you get mesmerized by doubletalk and open your wallets.  Ask for an accounting of the books.  Ask what you, the taxpayer, get for your present taxes.

It has long been said that when it comes to highways, West Virginia has champagne tastes and a beer bottle budget.  This attitude has brought us to the present dilemma.

When I was fourteen, I walked into Ed’s Package Store on Milford Street in Clarksburg and bought my first six pack of beer.  I picked Pabst Blue Ribbon because I thought it had to be the best.  Ever since, whenever I see the words “blue ribbon”, I go into a mild stupor reminiscent of my teenage years.

Pippi, do you have a Plan B?

Words Matter In Making Kids Smarter

    The average SAT verbal test score peaked in 1967 and has never recovered.  Yes, it is true.  Your college-bound son is dumber than his predecessor who drag-raced his Pontiac GTO on Saturday nights.  All of the excuses that have been made to rationalize lower SAT verbal scores have been debunked.

    Writing in the Winter 2013 issue of “City Journal”, E. D. Hirsch, Jr., a professor emeritus in education at the University of Virginia and the founder of the Core Knowledge Foundation, offers an explanation of lower SAT verbal scores in his essay, “A Wealth of Words.”  I recently read in the “Wall Street Journal” that UVA boasts an 87% four-year graduation rate.  Therefore, I take Dr. Hirsch’s remarks seriously.

     Dr. Hirsch’s philosophy is that a strong vocabulary is all important when it comes to learning and intelligence.  He also stresses that the way we teach students to build a vocabulary has changed for the worse over the past fifty years.  Hence, the dumbing-down that we can no longer rationalize, or worse, ignore.

    In my experience, I have noticed that the first vocabulary a child learns is dependent on the local vernacular.  If you were raised in West Virginia, you probably learned that the grassy strip between divided highway lanes is the medium.  The correct word is median.  West Virginians have generally referred to the road shoulder as the berm.  No matter where one lives, the local vernacular has a strong influence on children.

    Once in school, a child begins to learn the English vocabulary.  This is a necessary step.  We need to learn the English vocabulary and its proper usage if we hope to communicate with people who live outside of our
neighborhoods.

    And then, we learn the vocabulary of our trade or profession.  From jargon to technical terms, every vocation has a specialized vocabulary.  “Stuff” and “things” might get you by for a while, but your job demands that you know specific words for specific objects or tasks.

    A doctor once told me that he counseled an illiterate, male patient who was suffering from spinal meningitis.  The patient later told his wife and family that the doctor told him he had “shinin’ mighty Jesus.”  The patient almost certainly recovered because he believed Jesus had intervened!

    Dare I digress to remind you of the importance of a second opinion?  

    We are well into the digital age.  We have Google.  Most likely, a math-brained nerd invented “google” thinking he wrote “goggle”.  Goggle, a wide-eyed stare, is what the nerd thought.  But to the nerd, a word
requires no etymology or derivation.  In the math brain, a word is nothing more than binary code, a unique set of 1s and 0s.  Google was born a bastard and will live and die a bastard.

    As a nation, we have two full generations who are deficient in vocabulary.  What will our nation’s future be if we have three such generations?  The world won’t end, obviously.  But society will regress.  How far we regress and the severity of regression cannot be predicted.

    In the not too distant future, I see our dumbing-down affecting even the BBC—the stalwart purveyor of classical English drama.  As the demand for shows like “Downton Abbey” and “Upstairs, Downstairs” dissipates because viewers can no longer comprehend the dialogue, the BBC will most likely be privatized.  New programming will be attuned to the digital age, not to the past. 

    “Upstairs, Downstairs” will be re-made.  The upstairs people will text the downstairs people for all their needs instead of ringing bells, or orally communicating their whims to the butler.  The downstairs people, of
course, will serve the upstairs people.  The sequel will be called “The Dumbwaiter of the Baskervilles.”

    I have always believed that the English language is civilization’s greatest achievement.  There is nothing to compare to it because it builds on the best words from all languages.  The British Empire was not shy about
Anglicizing foreign words.  For example, anglicize comes from the Latin “anglici.”

    As well, I have always been fascinated with words.  My aunt Mary, an English teacher, gave me a collegiate dictionary in 1962.  It served me well—I took the SAT in 1967.  My dictionary, now 50 and held together with duct tape, still sits on my desk.

    With a great English vocabulary, you can fully enjoy intercourse.  With the digital texting vocabulary taking over society?  Well, that’s just masturbation.  Or words to that effect.
   

***************************
"A Wealth of Words", by E. D. Hirsch, Jr.:
www.city-journal.org/2013/23_1_vocabulary.html

West Virginia: Where All The Kids Really Are Above Average

Over the years, I have read the semi-annual postings of high school honor rolls with interest. Like you, perhaps, I look to see if anyone I know has made the grade. Occasionally, I notice clips about a local student making his or her college dean's list. It's nice to see youngsters doing so well.

But over the years, I have also noticed that the number of students making the honor roll or dean's list has increased far beyond a reasonable level. I define "reasonable" as being between one-in-eight (12.5 percent) and one-in-six (16.7 percent).

Before you criticize my stringency, consider that the education process is a game of skill. There is competition among students as well as competition against the machine — the memorization of empirical knowledge. The element of inter-student competition is critical to the learning process.

To determine a grade, we test the student. It's just like the game show Jeopardy — competition against the encyclopedia as well as between contestants.

As education is a game of skill, you have to look at the grading criteria with an oddsmaker's eye. What are the odds of a student making one A per semester? Then, what are the odds of a student making As in five disparate courses in one semester? The rules apply to Bs, Cs, and so on.

I have reviewed several high school honor roll lists and found that 45 percent to 50 percent of the students are making a 3.0 GPA or better. What are the odds that half the students in a given high school will make a 3.0 GPA?

This is easy to answer. Impossible. Unless you live in a fantasy world.

Years ago, I read about a West Virginia high school that had a dilemma. The school couldn't decide who to make class valedictorian because about a dozen graduating seniors had a perfect 4.0 GPA. I laughed, and I laughed. The school had a dilemma all right — a bunch of teachers and administrators who didn't realize the folly of their handing out easy As.

West Virginia students score poorly when compared to other American students in national tests. United States students are middle-of-the-pack average when compared to international students. Thus, we can imply that an honor roll student in West Virginia would most likely be an average student in Finland or one of the other five top-scoring nations.

Based on statistical analysis, the fact that half the student body makes the honor roll indicates that the curricula have been watered down. Based on anecdotal evidence, we have the examples of foreign exchange students who come here and find that they took all the advanced math and science courses that we offer to juniors and seniors by their sophomore years overseas.

I happen to believe that American kids are as smart as any kids on the planet. The fact that they have lousy test scores is the fault of the grown-ups. From top to bottom in the education hierarchy to home life and parenting, there is plenty of blame to go around. Unfortunately, the kids pay the price.

If you believe what you read in the newspapers, there is a movement afoot in West Virginia to reform the education system. Translation: The landscape will stay the same; turf battles will redistribute the goodies; our Hansels and Gretels will remain lost, just in a different part of the forest.

Before the powers that be reform the system, I would urge that they maintain the status quo. I look at the situation this way: In twenty more years, it is virtually guaranteed that nearly all of our public school teachers will be former high school honor roll graduates.

We're bound to have better schools if we stay the course. Why, I wouldn't be surprised if 80 percent of the student body in 2033 makes the honor roll.

Bridge Designer Earns Fitting Tribute

In recent years, our state has named bridges for people. Personally, I would never want a bridge named for me. When bad things happen to a bridge, the name sticks. Forever.

Do you remember the Silver Bridge? Or how about "Galloping Gertie"? You wouldn't remember them if they did not have names.

I can see the news report about my named bridge. "The David G. Allen Bridge collapsed today as a result of corrosion of the suspension cables caused by years and years of bird dropping accumulation. Engineers for the West Virginia Division of Highways reported that they believe Mr. Allen's middle name is ‘Guano.' A spokesman for the division said, ‘We thought it was a gesture of honor to name a guano-covered bridge after Mr. David Guano Allen for his past service as assistant highway commissioner.'"

After all these years of naming bridges for people, the state has finally gotten it right.

Recently, the Goff Plaza Bridge in Clarksburg was re-named for the late John C. Giese. Mr. Giese was a civil engineer who designed some 600 highway bridges in West Virginia during his six-decade career.

There is only one drawback in naming a bridge for Mr. Giese. The bar has now been set about a mile higher than anyone else can jump. So who do you honor from this point forward? For that matter, how do you reconcile the selection criteria for past honorees once John Giese's reputation enters the mix?

John Giese designed the Goff Plaza Bridge in the early 1980s. The bridge is a tribute to John's engineering skill as well as his common sense. The Goff Plaza Bridge represents the best mix of form and function that I have ever seen. John Giese did not design bridges to flatter his ego. He designed bridges that were uncomplicated and cost-efficient to build.

The original Goff Plaza Bridge was a long span over Elk Creek and its flood plain. When John was asked to submit a design to replace the bridge, he did what no other modern engineer would do. He proposed shortening the new bridge by half and building an earthen fill and roadway to span the void.

It's much cheaper to build an earth fill than it is to build a concrete and steel bridge. By doing this, John saved the taxpayers some $500,000. Perhaps the savings were even more. But you get the picture.

Of course, it follows that John got a smaller paycheck for his work. Engineering design fees are based on a project's cost. But that was John. Over the years, he saved us millions of dollars.

For a design engineer, John Giese had a remarkable keenness for understanding the construction process. When he designed a foundation slab, he understood that the major cost in pouring concrete is the labor needed to build forms and tie the reinforcing steel bars.

I used to enjoy watching John critique another engineer's fancy footer plans. He usually drew a rectangle around the whole footer area and would say, "Build it this way." Yes, his plan required more concrete. But the cost of extra concrete was always less than building complicated forms. Besides, more concrete makes a stronger foundation. Which is, after all, the purpose of the foundation.

John Giese never designed the biggest bridge in West Virginia. Nor the longest. Nor did he design bridges that appear on postage stamps and quarters. He designed the most important bridges — the ones that get you to and from your home every day.

He designed a lot of the bridges that we take for granted. And we'll always be able to take them for granted as long as the highway department inspects and maintains them.

For the record, I was assistant highway commissioner when the John Charles Giese Memorial Bridge was built. And my middle name is not Guano.

Justices shouldn't split hairs when it comes to the Constitution

I had a dream about the nine U. S. Supreme Court justices.

In my dream, all nine were young. Instead of going to law school, all nine enrolled at Georgetown Barber College. After graduation, all nine set up a barber shop in downtown Washington, D.C., where they worked harmoniously.

One day, I walked by their shop — the Supreme Barber Shop — and decided to go in. My hair had gotten too long; I needed a clip job.

I took a seat and waited for an open barber chair. Finally, John Roberts, the barber, said, "Next."

I told Roberts, the barber, "My hair is too long. I want you to cut off half of it."

"No problem." said Roberts, the barber.

He then split every hair on my head into two and clipped one of them. Half of my hair was cut but not quite the way I expected.

He beamed with pride over his clip job, and he held a mirror for me to see.

It was worse than a Donald Trump-style comb over.

The other eight barbers split hairs the same way, so you can't just blame Roberts, the barber.

Watch out for Georgetown Barber College alumni. And NEVER ask one of them for a shave!



The U.S. Constitution is not a complicated document to read. It is written in English, not Latin, nor any other dead language. But when you ask a judge to interpret what the Constitution says, you have to wonder if judges read off the same pages as do the rest of us.

In the recently decided Affordable Care Act case, the main issue had to do with the constitutionality of the individual mandate. The answer to the question as to whether the government can force individuals to buy health insurance could only be a simple yes or no.

Eight justices read the legislation. Eight justices read the Constitution. Eight justices could not agree on the answer. In fact, the best that they could do was end up diametrically opposed. Four justices emphatically voted "Yes." Four justices emphatically voted "No."

Enter Chief Justice John Roberts, the parser. Only Roberts, the parser, knew what Congress meant. Roberts, the parser, changed some words and declared the individual mandate to be constitutional.

Although Justices Ruth Bader Ginsburg and Antonin Scalia were on opposite sides of the debate, they joined together to confront Roberts, the parser, about his convoluted decision. Ginsburg and Scalia were furious, according to the law clerks I interviewed.

Roberts, the parser, told his detractors, "Mongo only pawn in game of life."

If our nation is to be governed by a written constitution, then the document should be easily understood by at least two-thirds of the governed. What good is a constitution if the people don't know what it means?

Historians will remember June 28, 2012, as the day when only one man in America understood the meaning of the Constitution, and further, that he had to re-define key words to make his explanation work.

Can two people really do the same job equally?

The Paycheck Fairness Act failed to advance in the U. S. Senate on June 5.  Proponents of the act said that it would allow equal pay for men and women doing the same work.  Opponents said the act just created more federal bureaucracy and more rules for businesses.

Most news reports declared Republicans defeated the legislation. That is incorrect. The vote taken was for or against:  On Cloture on the Motion to Proceed (Motion to Invoke Cloture on the Motion to Proceed to Consider S. 3220).  Fifty Democrats and two Independents voted "aye."  Forty six Republicans and Sen. Harry Reid, D-Nev., voted "Nay."  Invoking cloture requires a three-fifths majority, or 60 votes.

Before the votes were cast, everyone on Capitol Hill knew the following:

• All Democrats would vote "Aye"
• Both Independents would vote "Aye"
• All Republicans would vote "Nay"
• Majority Leader Reid would first vote "Aye" and then change his vote to "Nay" as a procedural method to bring the vote up again if he so desires.

Yes, this was another episode of election year politics. Tune in next time to see if Mr. Smith goes to Washington to filibuster the Paycheck Fairness Act!

It has always been my observation that no two people actually do the same work. Thus, "equal pay for equal work" is a sophism — an intentional fallacy.

I took Typing I in high school. I was one of two boys in the class. As I struggled to type 50 words per minute using a manual typewriter, there were a dozen girls who were typing at 90 words per minute.

If my classmates and I had been paid by the job classification "Typist," I would have loved paycheck fairness. The girls would have screamed, no doubt. If we had been paid based on productivity, then I would have been the one screaming.

Forty years ago, there were numerous sewing plants scattered throughout Appalachia. The plants had two things in common. All of the seamstresses were women. All were paid by piecework. 

When I was in college, I interviewed seamstresses at a rural Virginia sewing plant for an economics study. What surprised me the most was that the women preferred piecework compensation to an hourly wage. Regardless of their individual outputs, they believed they earned much more by the piecework method. And it did not bother them at all that some women sewed faster and, thus, made more money. 

It's one thing to pay people a wage based on job classification. It's quite another to pay them based on individual production or quality of work. Wages based on job classification merely hides the fact that no two workers produce equally. 

Your local fast food restaurant hires many burger flippers. It goes without saying that the best burger flippers (male or female) are scheduled to work the lunch trade. Lesser flippers, like "Lefty" (so named because of his nose-picking habit), are relegated to the slow shifts. 

If all of the burger flippers are paid the same hourly rate based on job classification, then the best of the lot are penalized to pay for the Lefties of this world. 

When I was in high school, Miss Pearl Custer ran the office almost by herself. She had an electric typewriter, a nice calculator and the help of female students who would volunteer to work in her office during their free periods.

Miss Custer ran a tight ship; she was not known to make mistakes.

Miss Custer retired after I graduated. Later on, I asked Mr. Jim Bennett, the school's principal, what it was like trying to replace Miss Custer. His answer: "It took three people and a computer." (He did not elaborate as to their gender or pay.)

I should mention that my high school enrolled about 1,000 students.

I have never met two people who perform equally in a given task.  On the other hand, everyone that I have met does have a knack for doing something very well. 

Consider these lyrics from the 1946 song "Choo, Choo, Ch' Boogie":

    You take your morning paper from the top of the stack / And read the situation from the front to the back.
    The only job that's open needs a man with a knack. / So put it right back in the rack, Jack!

According to the news reports that I read, the Paycheck Fairness Act does not apply to the federal government.  Maybe it would be a good idea for the feds to do a five-year test drive of the Act.  Then we, the people who can't do anything right on our own, would know whether it works or not

Even George Orwell Couldn't Have Anticipated Facebook's Draw

    George Orwell’s novel, “1984”, introduced the telescreen, a two-way video device that the government used to completely control society. The telescreen was a camera that spied on citizens.  The telescreen was also a television that broadcast government-approved propaganda.  Telescreens were everywhere in fictional Oceania.

    The telescreen seems like quaint science fiction now.  But in 1948, the year the novel was published, the telescreen was a terrifying concept.  At the time, there were about 44,000 television sets in America, and three-fourths of them were in New York City.

    When I first read “1984”, the concept of the telescreen was no surprise.  What did pique my curiosity about the book was how a society would let itself be ruled by the telescreen.  Why didn’t the citizens of Oceania simply smash the telescreens? 

    To be sure, George Orwell wrote a fascinating novel.  But truth is stranger than fiction.  Orwell, on his most creative day, could never have foretold of a powerful public official named Weiner exposing himself to the telescreen.  You just can’t make that up!

    To a lesser degree than that of the New York Weiner, 900 million other people expose themselves daily on Facebook and Twitter.  They say:  “Look at me!”  “Read my thoughts!”  “I fear not the telescreen!”

    Facebook and Twitter are not the telescreen that Orwell envisioned.  But they are the state of the art in evolving telescreen technology.  Telescreen technology has come a long way from the first RCA television and Ma Bell’s party line telephone system.  The telescreen has also come a long way from MySpace and AOL’s instant messaging.

    Orwell also coined “Newspeak”, the heartless, soulless vocabulary approved by Oceania’s totalitarian regime.  While the telescreen caused people to live in fear, it was Newspeak that bankrupted Oceania’s citizenry of thoughts and emotions.

    Are we not also embracing Newspeak?  Facebook and Twitter are defined as “social media.”  I don’t know what “social media” means.  But it sure sounds like zombie phrase turning. 

    Social media is a glorified term for “Reply All.”  It sounds absolutely Utopian.  It is narcissism.  It is the pond into which we look for our own reflection.  And it is a perfect mirror until an interloper enters the chat screen.

    When that interloper appears, he or she must be removed.  Or rather in social media speak, the interloper is unfriended.

    Unfriend.  What a heartless, soulless word.  Orwell, on his most creative day, could never have coined “unfriend.”

    May 18, 2012 was an important date in history.  Investors spent $100 billion buying Facebook stock—the largest IPO ever. 
   
    The Wall Street experts said in unison—groupthink to Orwell—that Facebook will have to sell more advertising to justify its stock price.  Left unsaid was the valuation of Facebook’s most important asset—your personal information which you freely gave the company.

    The investors who spent $100 billion are not banking on more ad sales.  The investors are betting on the power of the telescreen to collect even more personal information.

    George Orwell believed that only a Fascist regime armed with guns and spies could dominate a country like Oceania.  Orwell’s premise was grounded in Fascist rule of Germany and Italy in the 1930s.  Hitler and Mussolini, both murdering thugs, were role models for Oceania’s Fascists.

    Now we see that Orwell’s premise was wrong.  You don’t need guns or thugs to interrogate the minds of a people.   Give the proles their moments of vanity in front of the telescreen, and they will tell you everything. 

    Many of you will say that I am overreacting.  And that would appear to be true for the present.  You don’t fear the telescreen; you don’t fear the people who own your information.  For now at least.

    We are simply in a lull.  So much information has been collected so quickly, that no one has had the time to sort it out and figure out how to use it.  But the day is coming that the geeks will profile you accurately.

    In the future—we don’t know when—the question facing you is this:  What will you do, and how far will you go to avoid the thing you fear the most—unfriending?

    In this regard, Orwell had the ending right.

Carmen Sandiego’s Secret Hideout Was In Clarksburg

I just love our computer age and how people trust the Internet to provide infallible information.  I especially love how drivers trust the directions that float down from the map gods of cyberspace. 

Having been a reconnaissance platoon leader in the U. S. Army, I trust old-fashioned, paper maps.  If I want to travel from point A to point B, I look for a paper map to guide me.  I do not trust Internet maps.

Take my residence for example.  You cannot locate it by using MapQuest, Google or Yahoo.  Ever since MapQuest went online, the service has located my domicile about two miles south and west from its actual site to a spot on Old Davisson Run Road, a secondary road. 

I live on Davisson Run Road, the fast lane, state Route 98, also known as Clarksburg's South Bypass. So MapQuest performed bypass surgery and grafted me onto another neighborhood where, presumably, people live in the slow lane. Yahoo must rely on MapQuest, or the same source data, because it displays the same (wrong) map location.

Google, on the other hand, is the mother lode of all information. Google is infallible. Google has mapped the Earth and scanned every book published since Gutenberg's Bible. Google does not use the map god's directions.  Google is The God.

And so it is that Google, The God, points to my domicile as being located at 300 Davisson Run Road. Google even provides a street-level view of the entrance driveway.

Google goes the extra mile in its map search.  Google tells us that 500 Davisson Run Road is also located at the same spot as 300 Davisson Run Road. When I say that Google goes the extra mile, I mean this: 400, 500, 600, 700, 800, 900, and even 1000 Davisson Run Road all show up at 300 Davisson Run Road.

But wait!  Reboot your computer, go back to Google, and search these addresses again.  On this go around, Google might point you to the same spot on Old Davisson Run that MapQuest and Yahoo point to.

You cannot get here from anywhere if you rely on the cyberspace map gods.

The best computer map story I have heard came from a nurse.  Her agency supplied her with a laptop and map software. One day, she had to drive from Shinnston to Smithburg.  Her laptop selected the shortest route which took her across Five Points hill, a place so-named because five county roads meet at the top of the hill.

Five Points is a place accessible usually by Jeep or Land Rover.  Fortunately for our nurse, her trusty sedan made it through, but at the cost of an extra hour driving time to save a few miles.

As smart as computers purport to be, they are illogical linear thinkers when it comes to routing a trip.  Why?  Because computer programmers are illogical linear thinkers. 

A friend of mine who trusts his OnStar recently took a scenic, backroads trip from Ithaca, N.Y., to Rochester.  I would have looked at a road map and opted to drive to Elmira and then follow Interstate 86 and Interstate 390 to Rochester. 

Just for kicks, I asked Google for directions from Elmira to Rochester.  Google, The God, ignored the Interstate 86 routing because it was several miles longer than backcountry New York Route 14 to Watkins Glen and along Seneca Lake.

When I travel, I know that Interstates are the fastest way regardless of mileage.  If I have time to sightsee, then I will do a map recon. In this regard, I am like John Travolta as "Michael" when he detoured to see the world's biggest ball of twine. 

Now that's a real map quest!

If you are looking for Carmen Sandiego, she has gone.  I will miss her as she has been a good tenant.  But she had insisted on a lease clause that allowed her to terminate should I ever divulge the secret nature of 640 Davisson Run Road, and by extension, Carmen's sublet.

"Where in the World Is Carmen Sandiego?" went off the air a year or so before 640 Davisson Run Road was built, and the U.S. Postal Service provided it with a street address instead of a rural route and box number.  That's when Carmen showed up and why you haven't found her since.

Carmen, best wishes in finding your new safe house.  Let me know when you are settled in, and I will forward your security deposit.

West Virginia got two wake up calls this week

It is unfortunate that West Virginia could not interest Shell Oil in building its proposed ethane cracker plant here.  But Shell's decision to locate in Monaca, Pa., did not surprise me in the least.  Bigger states can offer more.

Monaca is 25 miles from Pittsburgh.  The Pittsburgh metro area's population is one-third larger than West Virginia's entire population. 

West Virginia proposed a site in Hancock County (population estimated at 30,500 and on a downward trend from 2000).  One quick look at the map tells you that 90 percent (or more) of the plant's work force would have to commute from Ohio and Pennsylvania. Unless, of course, I have overlooked an indigenous tribe of intelligent forest creatures who could be trained to crack ethane.

West Virginia should feel very fortunate that Toyota Motors chose Putnam County to locate an engine plant.  This has been wonderful for our state.  The plant just keeps growing.

But a change is brewing.  Japanese business executives are the most polite people in the world.  A Toyota executive would never say anything derogatory about West Virginia's work force.   But the executive would drop a hint when appropriate.

Recently, Japanese corporate executives convened at the Toyota plant and started dropping hints.  They worried that West Virginia students tested poorly in math and science.  And they worried that West Virginia needed more skilled workers to operate modern equipment.  And they worried about illegal drug use.

If the Japanese were more forthright, like New Jersey plant managers, they would simply say: "Your kids can't add; your young men are wrench-turners in a robot age; and all of them are pot heads."

Here is what happened recently.  The state made a pitch to bring hundreds of new skilled jobs to Hancock County while simultaneously being told in Putnam County that we barely have enough skilled workers to fill the available jobs.

As for students who rank at or near the bottom in math and science, there can only be three reasons.  A). The kids are born with the "stupid gene" and will never learn anything.  B). The public education system has failed to educate our children.  C). The tests used to measure math and science comprehension are faulty.

West Virginia educators have opted for "C" to explain this phenomenon.

As for workers who lack those "tech savvy" skills that everyone likes to talk about, we just don't have an environment to learn these skills.  West Virginia has always been a natural resources state.  "Tech savvy," then, means chainsaws.  We know how to saw logs.  But we export our logs to the furniture manufacturing plants in North Carolina. 

When your job options are coal mine, saw mill or drilling rig, then it's very difficult to learn the skills to operate a complex milling machine at Toyota's engine plant.  Conversely, if you can operate a milling machine, you'll take a machinist's job in another state before going to the mines.

If West Virginia does ramp up tech savvy vocational schools, then the grads of those schools will leave the state if the skilled jobs aren't here. This is no different from losing our college grads to other states for the last 60 years. 

As for West Virginians being dopers, we need to face the fact that drug abuse in our state is a health epidemic. But we have treated the problem as a crime. We have built new prisons and overfilled them. A lot of good this has done.

Drug use is an attitude.  And until our elected leaders, our preachers, our teachers, our doctors and our civic leaders get on soapboxes and shame everyone who gets blitzed on bath salts, Percocet or pot, then our youth will continue to think it's cool when Mom and Dad do drugs.

Believe it or not, drug abuse was not a problem until the 1960s. That's when doctors hooked housewives on Valium, and rock stars glorified marijuana.  Attitudes, how shall I say, changed.

Going forward, West Virginia has some daunting challenges if it hopes to maintain a work force. Consider the biggest hint that the Japanese executives dropped at the Toyota get-together.  They worry about baby boomers retiring and not having skilled workers to replace them.

In New Jersey speak, this means:  No workers?  We're outta here. Bada bing!

In Japanese speak, this means:  We worry about West Virginia's future.

Payroll Tax Cut Is a Recipe for Disaster

"We put those pay roll contributions there so as to give the contributors a legal, moral, and political right to collect their pensions and their unemployment benefits. With those taxes in there, no damn politician can ever scrap my social security program."

President Franklin D. Roosevelt  (Memo to Luther Gulick, 1941)

               Beginning in October of last year, unleaded gasoline traded on the NYMEX for under $2.75 per gallon, and it remained below $2.75 until the end of the year.  For the first nine months of 2011, and except for a few brief dips, gasoline traded at prices over $2.75 per gallon.  Gasoline traded at its highest price for 2011 in April and early May; the wholesale price then was over $3.00 per gallon.

                For the nation’s economy, an economy that measures success by the Christmas shopping season, the downturn in gasoline prices was a boon.  Money saved on gasoline poured into the retail stores, which in turn made the fourth quarter of 2011 look like a turning point in the recovery.

                To examine only gasoline prices does not tell the whole story of the fourth quarter rebound.  The payroll tax cut in effect for 2011 is where consumers’ extra disposable income came from.

                The payroll tax is FICA—the Federal Insurance Contributions Act payment that funds Social Security.  The New Dealers wanted to avoid any mention of a new tax to fund the program.  The plan, after all, was hatched during the Great Depression.  Hence, FICA and not FITA.

                In 2010, tax cutting was on the minds of both the Republicrats and Demolicans.  They got together in a rare bipartisan effort and reduced the employee’s FICA rate from 6.2% to 4.2%.  They unashamedly pronounced this reduction a “tax cut”.  Apparently, maintaining the illusion that Social Security is funded through contributions was no longer necessary.

                As the tax reduction is two per cent of wages, the tax cut varies widely.  A minimum wage worker pockets $5.80 per week.  A clerk who makes $3,000.00 per month pockets $60.00.  A professional making $10,000.00 per month keeps $200.00.

                All in all, the payroll tax cut does not benefit any worker in noticeable fashion.   But the aggregate amount of every worker’s tax cut in a community does add up. 

Some economists maintain that the payroll tax cut is not spent immediately.  Rather, they say that the cut is saved or used to reduce debt such as credit cards.  I believe differently.  I see the tax cut as pure disposable income.

For nine months last year, I would argue that most consumers used their payroll tax cut to offset higher gasoline prices.  Then as gasoline prices fell, the tax cut was spent on groceries and the holiday season splurge. 

The holiday season has become a season of self-gratification first and foremost.  It is human nature to drive more, eat more, and buy the blu-ray version of “Transformers”.  The holiday season is a powerful urge to spend those disposable dollars.

In our current fiscal condition, cutting the payroll tax is neither very smart nor very productive.  We have been told in no uncertain terms that Social Security is running out of money.  We have crossed the threshold—current payroll taxes no longer pay the current benefits to retirees.  We are borrowing money to make up the difference.  There is no trust fund to dip into—just a filing cabinet in Parkersburg filled with IOU’s.

The stimulus effect of the payroll tax cut is negligible if it even exists.  Spending stimulus money on gasoline and groceries just seems to make them go up more in price while wage rates stagnate.  While it would be difficult to calculate the inflationary impact on gasoline and groceries just from the payroll tax cut, one can make the general argument that any artificial subsidy dampens the market’s ability to regulate prices. 

As for stagnant wages, employers have an incentive to pass up giving the workers a 2% raise.  Why bother if Congress is increasing the paycheck by cutting deductions in a like amount?

Here we are in 2012, and the payroll tax cut has been renewed for the year.  When will it become politically feasible to restore the FICA tax back to 6.2%?  Probably not for a long time.

President Ronald Reagan, a conservative Republican, and House Speaker Tip O’Neill, a liberal Democrat, worked together in 1986 to reform the Social Security program.  The FICA rate was raised to 6.2% to preserve the program.

In time, we will regret this payroll tax cut.  A rational worker would never drain his 401(k) or IRA plan to pay for this week’s gasoline.  But our national leaders are so desperate to win elections that they will drain the Social Security program.  This is a formula for disaster.