THE WINTER SUN (Poem)

The winter sun

Hangs low in the sky

Glaring

Hurts my eyes

Makes driving difficult.

Its rays carry no warmth

The days, too short,

Rising and setting

In less than half a day

Requires getting up

Driving home in dark.

Relief far away.

DOLLAR DEPRECIATION AND HEALTH: SWITZERLAND, SWEDEN, & AUSTRALIA VS. THE U.S.

Our dollar is depreciating against several currencies: Swiss Franc, Swedish Krona, and the Australian dollar:


http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2010-12-28/swiss-franc-appreciates-to-record-against-dollar-strengthens-versus-euro.html, http://www.businessweek.com/news/2011-02-08/swedish-krona-rises-for-second-day-against-dollar-on-growth.html, http://www.forexblog.org/category/australian-dollar


It is interesting that all these countries have universal health care:


http:// http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Healthcare_in_Switzerland, http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Healthcare_in_Sweden, http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Universal_health_care.


Maybe Socialized medicine is something we should seriously consider. After all, their life expectancy is better too:


http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Comparison_of_the_health_care_systems_in_Canada_and_the_United_States, http://www.diabetes2bfree.com/blog/united-states-ranks-49th-in-life-expectancy/, http://www.commonwealthfund.org/Content/News/News-Releases/2010/Oct/Americans-Life-Expectancy.aspx


But then is it all in the high rates of automobile accidents and homicides in America? Yikes, we are supposed to feel happy about this! http://www.biggovhealth.org/resource/myths-facts/life-expectancy/
No, other reports conclude this isn’t so and give the reasons: http://www.medicalnewstoday.com/articles/203879.php http://www.diabetes2bfree.com/blog/united-states-ranks-49th-in-life-expectancy/ http://www.commonwealthfund.org/Content/News/News-Releases/2010/Oct/Americans-Life-Expectancy.aspx

THE CASE FOR TEACHERS' UNIONS

The following e-mail is published here with permission:

Dear Friends,

It is time, past time in fact, that I speak my mind about the situation in Wisconsin. I do so from personal experience, an experience which dramatically altered my entire life. Most of you know that my professional background was that as a school teacher and school administrator. I have rarely spoken of the details. They relate directly to the Governor of Wisconsin’s attempt to void the right of collective bargaining for public employees.

I served in the army for 4 years beginning in 1948. It was a great experience for a very young man and quite pleasurable. Because I was a musician I spent my entire 4 year career performing in military bands the last 3 of which was with the 4^th Army Headquarter’s Band which was primarily a concert organization. As a percussionist I was able to study all aspects of percussion instruments including the marimba, a mallet instrument much larger than a xylophone, with San Antonio’s Symphony musicians and, as a sidelight, I also studied viola. I had played violin as a child.

Because of the G.I. Bill I was later able to graduate from Northwestern University with a degree in music education. While there I studied many other musical instruments including clarinet, trumpet, oboe, French horn, flute, trombone and cello all from Chicago Symphony musicians. My background in instrumental music was extensive. And, that is what I wanted to teach. I also had a minor in history and just shy of one in English.

I graduated in mid-year after 3 ½ years and desperately needed a job. I was broke. When a position teaching vocal music in Dearborn, Michigan was offered to me I readily accepted with the proviso that when a position in instrumental music became available I would be given high priority.

I worked hard at my job teaching general music, directing operettas and several choruses, but I did not like my job. In fact, I was very unhappy. Four years later, after 2 instrumental positions had been filled with newly graduated teachers, a friend of mine did some research and found that I wasn’t transferred into either of those positions because my school principal liked my work and was unwilling to allow me to transfer. Keep in mind that I had not had a single course in college that qualified me as a vocal music teacher. The state of Michigan said that I was qualified therefore I was certified.

I began researching the job possibilities for me outside education when an acquaintance of mine inquired as to my certification and qualifications. He was about to become the principal in a new junior high school. Ultimately, he offered me a position to teach English and social studies. I accepted. At that time I was working on my master’s degree from the University of Michigan concentrating on economic geography. It was a simple thing to add English courses at his request. I never returned to teaching music.

This entire façade made me angry. How futile and wasteful could it be that one administrator could control the professional lives of qualified teachers not to mention the possible well-being of students? The result. . . I became active in the Dearborn Federation of Teachers. A few years later I left teaching for four years to serve as President of that organization. During that time I had a life-time of experiences with contract enforcement, negotiating, grievance procedures and public relations. Yes, salary and fringe benefits were important, but we had numerous other issues that badly needed change. We needed to give teachers the right to transfer into positions for which they were qualified and certified. We needed to make sure that teachers were teaching in fields for which they were properly certified. We needed to make it possible for women to teach mathematics and science in the high school rather than just holding those positions for men only. We needed to create a salary system that would place women on an equal footing with men. We needed to make it possible for qualified junior high teachers of mathematics to be allowed to teach summer school and night school. Scheduling was difficult and very complex, but we needed to guarantee that all possible steps be taken that would place teachers only in classrooms for which they were qualified. No teacher should teach a class in French, for example, simply because he/she was available at a given time.

Can you imagine the administration demanding these things? Who are you kidding? All of these things would require a lot of extra effort and big scheduling headaches for the administration. It was the teachers’ union that brought those ideas to the table. And, ultimately, we were successful. Now, the governor of Wisconsin wants to go back to a time when the school administration can run the schools in a manner that is most convenient for them. The real concern for the kids comes from the teachers.

Yes, I did spend my last several years in school administration, but it was the Union that taught me what was really important to successful school administration. Destroying their right to collective bargaining would be a terrible mistake. Keep in mind that economic benefits move in several directions. All benefits negotiated by the UAW, for example, went also to all other employees higher up the scale. Only later they would percolate downward to public employees and then, because of profitability for corporations, only a portion would be realized at the public employee level. Even owners of small businesses benefited because a well-paid middle class would serve to enrich those owners.

If the governor of Wisconsin gets his way public education in this country will fall further back. Even with collective bargaining it is difficult to attract highly competent people into educational fields. Without it even more highly competent people will be lost and personal preferences will govern administrative decision-making.

Bill Johnston (e-mail johnston30@nc.rr.com)

"AFTER YOU ALPHONSE*

No, after you Gaston."* The president has recommended small but substantial cuts to the Federal Budget on an amount totaling only about $500 billion of the Federal Budget (Freeze the budgets of these agencies at 2011 levels. Freeze Federal Employee's salaries for two years.). Note that the $500 billion of agencies being considered for cuts (Commerce, Interior, DOD, DOE, EPA, HUD, Agriculture, etc.) is only about 40% of the Federal deficit so you could eliminate them completely and not come close to balancing the budget. The congressional opposition says he punted.

What they want is the president to propose substantial cuts in entitlements (Social Security-23% and Medicare-12%) which, along with payments on the Federal debt(11%), are a substantial part of the budget - 46% in 2003, for example.** This is the "After you Alphonse." But the president was the Republicans to propose the cuts first which is the "No, after you Gaston." Certainly, you cannot approach a balanced budget without substantial cutting of Social Security and Medicare and perhaps other entitlements (Medicaid-7%, means tested entitlements-6%, and mandatory payments such as pensions-6%).

So far Republicans have refused to approve any increased taxes, particularly on the wealthy, which must be another part of the equation toward a balanced budget.

So this is what I think may happen. The president will continue to offer small but substantial cuts to the Federal budget. Eventually there will be a horse trade with the president approving some cuts to Social Security and Medicare as well as core agencies and departments with Republicans agreeing to some increases in income tax on the wealthy and oil companies. It must be done together.

What kind of cuts? For details of the presidents proposals for 2012, see: http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2011/02/13/obama-budget-proposal-cut_n_822689.html (Scroll down to see cuts to Departments and Agencies. Note that some agencies are recommended for massive budget increases: Dept. Education - 38.5%!)

But to really get to a balanced budget, we need a rapidly growing economy with significantly increasing employment. After all, the Federal revenues as a share of the nation's economy are near a 60 year low: http://www.suntimes.com/business/3706985-420/taxes-too-high-theyre-actually-at-60-year-low.html.

Something that should be seriously considered is to let corporations repatriate foreign profits at a 5% tax rate. This might generate something like $50 billion that could be applied to the deficit, another small step but a significant one. And the repatriated funds might also add to the economy, even if they were distributed as special dividends by the corporations (but not purchase of existing stock). Although this has been mentioned, I don't know if anyone in congress or the president has actually proposed it.

* http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alphonse_and_Gaston

**http://wiki.answers.com/Q/What_percentage_of_the_U.S._federal_budget_is_spent_on_entitlements

EGYPT: THE STRUGGLES TO COME

So the dictator of Egypt has been overthrown. Dictators have to be sure that the military is on his side, which didn't happen. As difficult as that was, the most difficult part is yet to come. Did the military want to take over and used the demonstrations as an excuse? For the time being, the military is in charge, but will the military turn the country to democracy after a suitable period ? After all, Mubarak originally said he would only stay for two terms, but he got to like it and overstayed his welcome. But the difficult road to democracy is just one of the questions.

A really big question is the matter of food. It appears that Egypt overall imports more than half of the food consumed. The only crop in which Egypt is self sufficient is rice, but wheat is the main staple for Egyptians and they import most of it. At one time they were self sufficient in agriculture, but rapid overpopulation has destroyed that. (http://countrystudies.us/egypt/84.htm). It will not be easy to become self sufficient again because rain-watered land is non-existent in Egypt with the "wettest" areas averaging only 2-in./yr of precipitation. Thus agriculture must be concentrated near the Nile or, in some case, near artisan aquifers. It is considered possible to increase the amount of reclaimed agricultural land and perhaps decrease the need for so much imported foods. About a third of the Egyptian workforce is devoted to agriculture.

Egypt recently has become an oil importing country; however, they have plenty of natural gas, some of which they are exporting and are trying to build up their natural gas industry. If there was peace in the Middle East, Egypt could do much more exporting by pipeline, but that is not the case and is unlikely to be the case in the foreseeable future.

A major part of the Egyptian economy revolves around cotton, including making cloth and finished goods, like clothing. This field has been hurt by the global recession.

Tourism is another major industry in Egypt and has been a major employer too. I suspect, however, that tourism will be hurt, perhaps severely, until a stable and friendly government is in place which may take a lot of time.

All in all, the future looks grim to me; however, if you read the writeup in Wikipedia, you could get the idea that things were pretty well under control with plans for improvements: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Economy_of_Egypt though the official unemployment is said to be around 11%. We were told during the demonstrations, however, that the unemployment of younger workers is about 25% which was one cause of the revolution so we shall see.

RONALD REAGAN IN RETROSPECT

I never was caught up by the Ronald Reagan mystique and feel it strange that so many conservatives were. In fact, I felt in the 1970s, that Ronald Reagan was already in early Alzheimer's disease because he would so often shoot himself in the foot when answering questions (and Reagan's son Ron says Ronald Reagan had Alzheimers when in his presidency).

Reagan may be known as small government advocate, but he left the presidency with a larger budget and with more Federal employees than he found it, largely through a major increase in the military budget. In fact, Reagan was the only president between Johnson and Obama not to either have flat Federal employment or to decrease Federal employment. Bush-43's record was of a flat Federal employment record, Nixon, Ford and Carter decreased Federal employment by a bit each, but Bush-41 and Clinton decreased Federal employment by over a million (http://www.gpoaccess.gov/usbudget/fy10/pdf/hist.pdf) with Clinton accounting for about two-thirds of the decrease.


After a large tax cut for the wealthy in his first year that blew a hole in the Federal budget, he raised taxes 11 times in the rest of his tenure recouping about half the lost revenue from the tax cut. These included closing various "loop-holes." In fact, I ended up paying higher taxes because of these closings. Reagan never came close to balancing the Federal budget (Even the big spender Lyndon Johnson had a positive cash flow in his final year.).


Reagan was certainly an avowed anti-communist and had even been an informant to the FBI concerning "pinko" Hollywood people. After being an avowed proponent of building nuclear armaments, he evolved to become interested in decreasing the threat of nuclear war through agreements such as the Intermediate Range Nuclear Forces (INF) and the Start Treaty. During detente I was in Moscow and Leningrad for a 10 day period, and I came away feeling that the Soviet Union was in deep economic trouble. There were street lights, for example, but I never saw them turned on. Reagan entered an arms race supposedly to hasten the decline of the Soviet Union, but it almost bankrupted us too. I feared we were going to become a "banana republic" because of his wild spending. Perhaps the most frivolous spending program was Star Wars (Developing methods to shoot down nuclear war heads). But we should remember that the Berlin Wall came down during Bush-41's tenure, not Reagan's, and the Start Treaty was signed by Bush-41 although it was started by Reagan.


Perhaps the most important thing Reagan did was break the Air Traffic Controllers Union. It was scary to have our commercial planes flying with unexperienced controllers, but someone must have told the administration that the job was not all that difficult because I don't recall any airline mishaps during that period. The importance was, however, to give backbone to industry to oppose their unions, which they did.

One of the worst things Ronald Reagan did was sign the deregulation of the Savings and Loan industry. They went wild with their new found freedom and created a major economic crisis that spread to many banks as well (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Savings_and_loan_crisis) which was finally eliminated by Bush-41. Among the outcomes of this was the Lincoln Savings and Loan scandel which cut short the political careers of three Senators and rebukes for poor judgement to two others.


The thing that troubled me most about Ronald Reagan was his views of the poor, and that they shouldn't be empowered. He felt the homeless were homeless by choice. He didn't seem to believe that there were hungry people in America besides those who were dieting, and he wanted to get rid of Social Security. For someone who revered the Bible, I don't see how it is possible to not want to help the poor as that was what Jesus was all about. And the Reagans benefited from Federal Aid during the Great Depression. When his father lost his job as a shoe salesman, he joined the WPA (Works Progress Administration). For one criticism of Ronald Reagan, try: http://hnn.us/articles/5544.html. But Reagan's attitudes about the poor didn't hurt him with many members of his own political party as many "self made" men (and women too?) feel that "I did it and so can they."


Though Reagan was typed as a "warmonger" by the opposition, the only war he got us involved in was to overthrow a Communist government in the island of Granada under the guise of rescuing American medical students. At least he picked a country we could beat. But perhaps his controversial "cutting and running" after the car bombing of the U.S. Embassy (63 killed) in April and the Marine base disaster (241 killed) in Lebanon in October of 1983, rather than going to war against the terrorists emboldened them and led to worse problems with them in the future. But Reagan did support wars indirectly such as the famous Iran Contra affair and in Afghanistan.


So there was much to forgive by those who were caught up in the Reagan mystique. He increased the size of the Federal Government, he never balanced the Federal budget, he started the Start treaty to control nuclear proliferation which seems to be opposed by many Republicans, and he "cut and ran" from terrorists. So why is Ronald Reagan so revered by Republicans? I believe Richard Darman was correct that it is a spiritual thing, not factual (Whose In Control? Polar Politics and The Sensible Center, 1996).

GEO-ENGINEERING OF CLIMATE

The recent Newsweek (February 7, 2011) contains an interesting one page article, "A climate Cure's Dark Side" by Sharon Begley. In this article, she writes about recently considered ideas on how to control the Earth's surface temperature and their possible unintended consequences. All suggestions involve putting something into the atmosphere that would reflect some sunlight back into space. A couple different methods from 2006 are discussed. One is for a fleet of jets to crisscross the planet releasing five megatons of sulfur dioxide gas every year. The sulfur dioxide would mix with water in the stratosphere to form minuscule particles of sulfate aerosols (e.g sulfuric acid) that would reflect sunlight and cool the surface atmosphere of the Earth. Another is for ships to spray sea water above the oceans where it would evaporate leaving sea salt aerosols what would brighten the clouds over the ocean reflecting more sunlight (and heat) back into space.

An interesting aspect of the sulfur dioxide suggestion is that the world's coal-fired power plants were doing just that, releasing sulfur dioxide into the atmosphere. This also created acid rain by the conversion of some of the sulfur dioxide into sulfuric acid aerosols through photochemistry. In the 1980s the U.S. created a program called NAPAP or the National Acid Precipitation Assessment Program which eventually led to creating a "cap and trade" system to decrease total sulfur dioxide emanations (Though cap and trade is a controversial system for lowering carbon dioxide limits in the atmosphere, it has been in effect for sulfur dioxide emissions for about 25 years. The costs have been found to be less than predicted and "cap and trade" for sulfur dioxide emissions is no longer controversial.). Since these aerosols also had a cooling effect on the lower atmosphere, taking them out of the atmosphere led to some warming and exacerbated global warming to some extent.

Some aspects of geo-engineering of the atmosphere have been going on for many years, for example, cloud seeding with silver iodide to cause rainfall in a desired place. There were two problems with this. One was that it was difficult to do properly so as to result in rainfall, and the other was that it robbed water from clouds to get rain in one place where naturally it would have rained somewhere else, i.e robbing Peter to pay Paul.

Though he did not use the term geo-engineering, Mikhail Budyco, a famous Soviet climatologist, proposed that a series of large volcanic eruptions might put enough dust and aerosols into the atmosphere to cool the Earth's atmosphere sufficiently to create a runaway glaciation, i.e. a terminal glaciation that would cover the globe, and we needed to begin to experiment with ways of heating or cooling the atmosphere.* Though this prediction seems far fetched, Budyko was a serious scientist and is credited with converting climatology from a qualitative into a quantitative science with his book Heat Balance Of The Earth's Surface in 1956. He was also one of the first to propose "nuclear winter" resulting from an atomic war.

* Budyko, Mikhail I.,(1982) "The Earth's Climate: Past and future," Internat. Geophysics Series, Academic Press, NY, 307 pp.

Budyko, Mikhail I. (1969) "The effect of solar radiation variations on the climate of the Earth," Tellus vol. 21, pp. 611–619.

BEST QUESTION FOR FIRST DATE

The latest Newsweek (February 7, 2011) has an interesting one page item by Ian Yarett called, "What's the Best Question to Ask on a first Date?" Now it has been many, many years since I have had to be concerned about this matter, but I thought it looked like fun so here goes. You want a question that is less personnel and more informative. The goal is to find out if you both agree on the answer whether you both feel no or yes.

Of the five best questions listed, there was one that really caught my eye. It was not rated the very best question but one of the five. So here goes, "Do you prefer simplicity or complexity?" I just had to laugh. I can imagine the sweet young thing saying, "Huh!" and probably the same response if the sweet young thing asked it of me. I'll bet you have to repeat the question. Although my wife and I are hardly on a first date, we both decided we like simplicity, you know, the KISS principal of Keep It Simple Stupid. I wonder if there are individuals that prefer complexity. It would make for an interesting conversation.

The article also says that of those that agreed on simplicity or complexity, 70% also agreed on "Which is more offensive: book burning or flag burning" and "Should evolution and creationism be taught side-by-side in public schools?" We agreed on "book burning" but there was more uncertainty on creationism though we both agreed that evolution should be taught in the schools.

What appears to be the best question in that it is the second in being less personal and second in being more informative is, "Would it be fun to chuck it all and go to live on a sailboat?" This isn't for either my wife or me, but I do know at least one couple who would like this. At least they took a sailboat from Vancouver, Canada, to Sydney, Australia, something that wouldn't appeal to both of us. There were 67% of the couples that agreed on this that also agreed on, "Would you be comfortable being poor for the rest of your life?" I believe that probably the best condition is one of genteel poverty because the least is asked of you, so my wife and I sort of agreed on this one.

The most informative question and ranked only moderately personal is, "Do you believe in miracles?" Seventy-three percent of the dates that agreed on this also agreed on "Is there a God?", "Do you put more weight on science or faith?" and "Has Christianity made the world better or worse?" There are those who believe these questions are definitive so I can believe they might be asked on a first date, but the last question is certainly a hot one.

There are two other best questions. "Do you like scary movies (least personal and moderately informative) where 74% also agreed on "Is biting sexy" and "Would you like to receive pain during sex?" I found the followup questions got kind of kinky. Lastly "Have you ever traveled alone around a foreign country?" (moderately personal but the third most informative) where 68% of the dates also agreed on "Should the death penalty be abolished," "Can you run a mile without stopping," and "Are you a confident person?" I recall asking a varient of the travel question. As I recall my usual opening question often was, "Do you plan to take any big trips this year?" I'm not sure how the next three followup question relate to the first question, but that's what they say.

I'm sure you are eager to know what the very worst question is. It is, "Are you a virgin?" (very personal and not very informative). Next in line is, "Do you take antidepressants?" (They say this is less personal than the worst question, but I don't know about that.) followed by, now get this, "Do you have an STD." (Interestingly, they say this is more informative that the other two questions.). I can't imaging anyone asking these questions on a first date, but what do I know?

The very least personal question, but ranked only moderately personal, is "Do you brush your teeth?" That is least personal? What is the most personal and most informative question? "Can a racist joke be funny?" followed by "Are you looking for someone to have children with?" Also in this group is "Do you believe in God?" I can believe there are people who would ask this question on a first date to square things away, though I know couples where one believes in God and the other does not, and they seem to get along fine.

Well, this is more than enough of this. Newsweek is getting thinner and thinner, and I have to wonder if it is long for this world, but many articles in this issue were very interesting.