More Thoughts on Education

As we approach the end of the spring semester, graduations loom on the horizon for some.  Thus, I'm reminded of our obligation as educators to prepare our students for their lives and careers.  Many business leaders are dissatisfied with the education system, as many new graduates don't have have a functional grasp of critical skills that they should be obtaining from their educational experience.  And it's evident that the US public, on the average, is embarrassingly ignorant about many things:  history, math, science, etc. 

It also appears that K-12 teachers and university faculty are feeling various sorts of negativity from certain circles (notably, the teabaggers).  K-12 teachers are terribly underpaid for what they do, and the poisonous two-headed monster of politics/bureaucracy has definitely muddied the waters for K-12 educators and for university faculty.  I have always been puzzled by the poor salaries paid to our public school K-12 teachers who, after all, are charged with educating our children, who in turn represent our future.  Does it make sense to pinch pennies when it comes to our future?  School is not always what it should be - see here and here for a somewhat more extended discussion - but the failings in our education are not solely the fault of teachers and professors.

Nearly everyone knows one or more "educated idiots"- people with post-baccalaureate diplomas who manage to be incompetent in their profession and/or seem to have little or no common sense.  A diploma is mostly about being persistent, and doesn't depend much on intellectual horsepower.  There is no basis for the widespread academic elitism - not in science and not in any other aspect of life.  Just because you have a diploma (or even more than one) doesn't guarantee a thing about how smart you are compared with someone lacking such a diploma.

As I was nearing the end of my undergraduate studies, I discovered something wonderful about education:  if you accept responsibility for the success of your education, rather than depending on anyone else, then you can take control of your educational outcome!  I call it "taking ownership of your education" - and you can "cheat" the system by getting precisely what you want from the process, no matter what obstacles they might throw up in front of you, like bad teachers.  Of course, this presumes you have some reason to be in school that makes sense to you, rather than being there because someone expects you to be there, or whatever.  If you have what you believe to be good reasons for obtaining a diploma - in some career paths, a diploma is mandatory, for example - then you have an unending motivation to get something from the experience.  And when you take possession of your education, you almost certainly will be successful along the way.

A while back, I wrote two 'books' about how to be a successful college student in science or engineering - one for undergraduate students and one for graduate students.  Although I necessarily had to write about science/engineering education, I believe many of the things mentioned in those 'books' can be applied by anyone participating in college education, regardless of their career path.

I've also written about the broken promises of the American educational lie - sadly, an education is no guarantee of anything, despite its heavy cost in both time and money.  Done successfully, it may prepare you for success in life and career, but that success is not automatic.  In bad economic times, the promise of a rewarding job in your chosen profession can be elusive.  Having said that, if you don't get your educational outcome, then the chances of your being allowed to pursue what you've dreamed of doing are even smaller, and may be nearly impossible.

Education is not so much about memorizing facts, although some poor teachers seem to behave as if they think so.  It's mostly about learning :

  (1) how to answer your own questions,  
  (2) how to think logically and solve real-world problems (big and small), and
  (3) how to recognize bullshit when someone is attempting to feed it to you. 

You should also take the opportunity to make a serious effort to learn communication skills (via both the written and the spoken word) because everyone needs those! 

For all the graduates-to-be, congratulations!  Whether you are done with school or have the prospect of more in front of you, ask yourselves if you've accomplished these educational goals.  If not, you probably need to take responsibility for learning these things on your own.  You will need them!

The NWS Reward for Employee Idealism - Revisited

Some time back, I posted a Web essay regarding how the National Weather Service (NWS) rewards the idealism and dedication of its employees.  Recent events have pushed me toward an update of that essay.  Nothing has changed fundamentally, however.  NWS management has, by and large, continued to be ignorant of and uncaring about how their counterproductive choices and management decisions can affect their employees negatively.  And the employees have, by and large, doggedly persisted in the face of rampant mismanagement to put out the best forecast products they can, given all the constraints imposed on the process by their managers.

In other words, the employees must struggle to find ways and means to work around the challenges and obstructions forced on them by their managers.  And their reward for managing to accomplish this end year after year, decade after decade?  More of the same nonsense, often redoubled in its inept stupidity!  Many NWS managers continue to live in a bizarro world, where they think their employees are working for them!  The fact is, the vast majority of NWS employees are busting their asses to serve - not their managers, but rather their customers, the American public!  These incompetent managers should be working to help their employees become successful, but most of them clearly demonstrate, day in and day out, that they believe it's the duty of the employees to make the managers look good!

The economy is in deep trouble right now and the government bureaucrats (from the politicians down to the middle-level managers - like NOAA management) have no clue how to make the hard decisions about where to cut their budgets.  So they decide that across-the-board cuts are the way to avoid having to make any difficult decisions.  And that's true - it does indeed prevent them from making any tough choices.  Rather than reward their productive employees and penalize, or even eliminate the unproductive drones (yes, Virginia, there are unproductive drones in the Civil Service!), they simply spread the burden equally among them all.  They thereby penalize the  productive employees and organizations, while effectively rewarding the drones!  I saw this happening when I was still a NOAA employee, and my sources make it clear that this has never changed.  It remains true today.  Why is that?  One obvious explanation is that the people making the selections for NOAA and NWS management positions are either political hacks who have no understanding of what these organizations do and how they really produce anything useful to the taxpayers, or they're clueless careerists who don't really care a whit about the organizations they're pretending to manage.  The net result is the same:  remember the old saying "shit rolls downhill"?

As it stands, my friends at the Storm Prediction Center (SPC) have been unable to fill vacancies in key forecaster positions for quite some time, now.  This works a hardship on everyone in the SPC.  It might be possible, through some questionable practices indulged in by some other NWS organizations, to overcome some of the resource limitations plaguing the SPC.  But they (the SPC)  steadfastly have refused to engage in shady administrative practices, preferring instead to do things "by the book".  Here's the most likely outcome to the process:  as their budget limitations force them to deal as best they can (via legal means) with the cutbacks, someone is watching them, ready to pounce.  If they continue to maintain the high standards of productivity and product effectiveness they've achieved in the past, then someone is bound to say "Well, things seem to be going along just fine with your limited resources!  Why should we restore them? You obviously didn't need them!"  In other words, by making the system work with less support, they may never get back the resources they had before the cuts!  Even worse, deeper cuts might well follow - "If you're getting by so well with less, then we should be able to reduce your resources still farther!"  That is their "reward" for their hard work and sacrifices!!

As I noted in my essay, the dedicated, productive public servants of the NWS - the forecasters and their support teams - are trapped by their own ethics.  They can't bring themselves to fail to serve the public just to make a point!  Until they fail in their duties, everyone in the management chain above them is happy and secure in their positions.  They have nothing for which to apologize or to explain because the workers refuse to allow failure to occur!  And their employees' reward for that inevitably will be more cutbacks, more inept, stupid management decisions, more worthless hardware and software procured by a system destined only to fail until the forecasters figure out how to make the clunky systems actually work, despite their patheticaly bad designs.  Forecasters don't want to look themselves in the mirror in the morning and see the face of failure to serve the public.  So they keep the system from failing, despite the efforts of their managers to screw it up.

But the incompetent, worthless managers likely contemplate their faces in their mirrors and congratulate themselves for having figured out a way to be totally incompetent and still get performance bonuses and promotions for their mismanagement.  Perhaps they feel the stupid ones are their employees, who work so hard making the system work and getting little or nothing positive in return!

This is how we repay our dedicated public servants.  Is it any wonder they often give up and become cynics (i.e., they become what they despise!).

I'm not ready yet to throw in the towel!

From time to time, I'm reminded of the times of pure goodness brought into my life when in the company of friends and family.  Pink Floyd said it well in their song Free Four from the album "Obscured by the Clouds"-

The memories of a man in his old age
Are the deeds of a man in his prime.

I was struck by the importance of that when I first heard this song - as a relatively young man.  Time has only heightened my perception of the significance of the message therein.  In today's electronic world, where so much of what passes for communication is by electronic means, the simple act of meeting and spending time together requires more commitment than sitting at a keyboard.  Personal, physical contact is an act, a deed, if you will, that requires effort and often involves costs.

In the electronic sphere, where most of the conversation is through a keyboard, we have the sorry spectacle of flame wars, miscommunication, divisiveness, outright nastiness, anger, and just outright ugliness.  Such "communication" doesn't involve the intimacy of physical proximity, where your nonverbal communication is at least as important to the process as your spoken words.  It now often involves Internet "memes" - mostly graphic images with a few words - that inevitably oversimplify and serve only to divide us with slogans and generalizations or to reinforce existing beliefs.

If you go only by the torrent of what passes for communication via the keyboard, it's not difficult to become cynical - disillusioned - with humanity.  Yes, there are some efforts to communicate at a deeper level than political/religious/social memes, and there some items that carry messages of hope and happiness.  But I sense a growing alienation from one another and anger in the USA and the world.   Perhaps we are building toward a James Kunstler-esque apocalypse that will shatter today's world and leave us with a "Mad Max" nightmare of predatory gangs, dying technology, and violence.  That is certainly one possible future for us.   But it's not the only one.

The electronic media are full of dire predictions - doom and gloom that will proceed if we continue to depart from a (largely mythical) ideal past state, if we continue toward a theocratic oligarchy, if we continue toward socialism, if we continue toward thought control, if we continue toward a "one world" view that abandons our national chauvinism, if we continue toward atheism, if we continue toward ecological disaster, if we continue down any of a vast array perceived paths to dissolution and degradation.  And the Internet allows free rein to pessimistic slogan-mongering and superficial thinking.  We as a species are vulnerable to demagogues of all sorts, who claim to see evils around every corner and are trying to rally us to them for guidance about what to do.  And all too many of us are willing to follow them, unable or unwilling to pierce the fog of words and slogans.  There are few voices calling for thoughtful, careful, honest appraisals these days.  It's mostly about rallying against something, not something positive.

But when I pause and ponder those moments in my past to which I look back with the most happiness, they're dominated by occasions when I was in the company of certain people.  Friends and family who've somehow managed to pierce the barriers that separate our seemingly isolated minds.   We've achieved real communication by the simple act of being in each other's company, sharing something we enjoy - food, drink, the natural world in all its beauty and harmony, art in its many forms - and, above all, that companionship of others in our journey toward personal death.

What we say in our words is nothing when compared with what we do with our lives.  And what we do usually falls short of what we say.  Few of us can say we've availed ourselves of every possible opportunity to be with friends and family.  Social media can bridge that gap only so much.  Treasure those moments.  The act of sharing space and time together with friends and family will produce the memories that comfort you on your deathbed.  I doubt that "keyboard moments" are capable of that.

The Arrogance and Injustices of the Nobel Prize in Physics

Shortly after the turn of the century, Vilhelm Bjerknes published his hydrodynamic theorems regarding circulation.  It turns out that there are strong analogies with regard to this mathematics with some aspects of electromagnetic theory, such that Bjerknes' theorems are relevant even outside the domain of hydrodynamics - the physics of fluids (and meteorology, which can be thought of as a subset of hydrodynamics). 

Bjerknes was acquainted with the Nobel laureate Hendrik Lorentz, who was very much impressed with the work of Bjerknes.  Even with such a famous supporter, however, Bjerknes was not to receive the Nobel Prize in physics.  The history of the prize is that astrophysicists and geophysicists have been systematically eliminated from consideration for the prize in Physics.  While many important findings in astrophysics and geophysics can be argued to be of too narrow a scope to be eligible for the award, this seems notably inappropriate when it comes to Bjerknes' work, which had important impacts outside of geophysics and even outside of hydrodynamics.

Subsequently, it turns out that Carl Gustaf Rossby was also mentioned as a potential recipient of the Nobel Prize in some circles.  Unfortunately, I can find no documentation of that, nor can I track down what I heard about that episode.  At some point long ago, someone (I don't recall who) told me that not only was Rossby eliminated from consideration, but it was rumored that there was an unwritten rule within the prize selection committee that no meteorologist would ever even be considered for such a distinction.  This story may or may not be apocryphal.  I'd appreciate any information about that that anyone can offer!

But the main injustice of the exclusion of meteorologists from the prize is the case for Edward N. Lorenz, the person who was the first to recognize the sensitive dependence on initial conditions of nonlinear dynamical systems.  That this discovery would be made by a meteorologist isn't particularly surprising, given the challenges associated with weather forecasting.  What's important is that the theory he first documented, now often referred to as "chaos theory" is widely recognized to be important in any field where the governing processes are nonlinear, which includes most of science, including not only physical science, but biological science, and even social science!!

Now that Lorenz has died, it's no longer possible for him to receive the award - it isn't awarded posthumously.  This is a great stain on the record of the selection committee for the Nobel Prize in Physics.  They have shamed themselves by missing the opportunity to recognize one of the most important scientific discoveries of the 20th Century - Chaos Theory - which surely is on a par with both Relativity Theory and Quantum Physics in terms of far-reaching impact.  The enormous injustice of not awarding a Nobel Prize to Lorenz can no longer be rectified but it does serve to put the Nobel Prize in Physics in a shameful light!  They are extremely arrogant, evidently, despite being presented on a daily basis with the humbling experience of trying to understand the natural world.

I had the opportunity to meet Ed Lorenz on two separate occasions - Ed Lorenz was a wonderful man, easy to talk to, and who wasn'ot particularly impressed with himself, despite his having made many exceedingly important contributions in addition to Chaos Theory.  As discussed here, he likely wasn't particularly bothered by not receiving a Nobel Prize.  He certainly received a lot of awards, and deservedly so.  For Ed Lorenz, though, the work itself clearly was all the reward he really cared about.  This makes him such an awesome role model for aspiring young scientists.  The lack of a Nobel prize in no meaningful way detracts from the valuable legacy his career left us.  It only brings shame on the prize selection committee!

So, the story goes ...

So there's this deity that's infinite in all respects - been around infinitely long, has infinite powers, infinite knowledge, infinite benevolence, etc.  Let's put aside the logical conundrums tied to those infinities and contemplate the biblical story.

Apparently, sitting in some unknown location other than the Universe, this deity decides to create the Universe for some unknown reason.  Maybe he was lonely or bored?  Anyway, the job is done in 6 days (Why did it take 6 days?  Why not create all of it in an instant?), so this whirlwind of activity inexplicably has exhausted the supposedly infinite deity, and he needs to rest for a day.  Then, presumably, he resumes his chores - including monitoring everything everywhere within the Universe.

During the creation of the Universe, this deity chose to create a man and a woman (Rumors of the woman being created from the man's rib are not confirmed by all biblical accounts.).  This first couple gets free run of a wonderful place called Eden on Earth.  It's not entirely clear what purpose our first couple was created to serve, but it turns out they apparently were imbued with insufficient intellect to grasp the deity's fantastic plan for them, anyway.  Hence, they simply have to obey!  It must be a pretty complex plan, because the infinite deity knows all and can do anything - but it should be straightforward to make a plan perfect for all time when you control everything and know everything! [The deity evidently wants you to beg him to change his plan (interceding on your behalf) through the process of "prayer" - but it would seem that unless your requests match the plan precisely, it's not likely he'll change it just for you. Or, in other words, he won't change it at all.  Perhaps he just enjoys hearing you beg for stuff?]

Anyway, perhaps the man and woman are there to form a two-person cheerleading squad for the deity - I suppose everyone needs to be recognized for their accomplishments.  But why does an infinite deity need that from humans?  Sounds like a narcissist to me. I guess that would be infinite narcissism!  Well, anyway, we have two cheerleaders on the whole Earth, which is nothing more than an infinitesimal speck in an enormously vast universe, created just for them!  A very generous allotment for lebensraum, that!

Unfortunately for our cheering couple, the deity also saw fit to create an "evil opponent" (called satan) to his plan.  I guess without opposition, it would be too easy and might possibly become boring.  Satan takes the form of a talking snake (Why not a talking lobster or a talking aardvark?) and convinces the woman to eat fruit from the Tree of Knowledge, which had been forbidden to the cheerleaders (Why is it forbidden?  If it's forbidden, why even put it there in the first place?), and she compounds the problem by convincing the man to eat that fruit, too.  This enrages the deity (Didn't he know that was going to happen?), so he expels them from Eden, makes them ashamed of their bodies, and curses them with the blame for their original sin (the fruit, remember?).  The blame for this horrific original sin (eating fruit) is to be visited on all generations of all humanity from that moment to the end of the Universe.  Note that satan was created with inferior power, so he must ultimately lose - the game is "fixed" in the deity's favor!  The deity allows satan complete freedom to promote evil for the time being, but for reasons of his own (mysterious plan, inferior intellect - remember?), this evil will go on only until some unspecified future date, at which time the Universe will end and the deity will proceed to kick satan's ass and put a permanent end to evil, apparently by ending the entire Universe! 

After being cast out of Eden, the man and the woman have two sons, but one kills the other in the first "documented" incident of sibling rivalry.  Somehow, these three people manage to populate the Earth with other human beings (in a classic case of an extremely limited gene pool).  Unfortunately, all those humans are stained by original sin, and many of them descend into various other forms of forbidden activity (eating pork and lobsters, same-sex intercourse, etc.) as well (Again, didn't the deity know that was going to happen?  Did he not create those humans to do precisely what his fantastic plan called for them to do?), so he decides to kill everyone off, except for one notably righteous family, who must build a boat big enough to hold male/female pairs of all the creatures of the Earth (except for the dinosaurs and all other species now known only through fossils).

Then a great flood kills everyone and all living things on land apart from those lucky enough to be riding it out in this magical boat.  (Evidently, sea creatures were spared, but then what killed off the dinosaurs in the oceans, and other currently extinct marine species?)  When the floodwaters recede, the family and all the creatures on the boat re-populate the Earth (Again, a pretty limited gene pool!).  Good for the pairs on the boat (lots of acceptable procreative sex!), but not so good for all the other land-dwelling creatures killed off by the flood.  Thus, an apparent mistake in the deity's creation (How does such an infinite being make such an egregious mistake?) is corrected - just wipe the slate clean by killing almost everyone (genocide) and start over.  Oh by the way, why not just re-create everything from scratch?  Why did the deity need to use procreating pairs of critters?  Would it be too exhausting for this infinite deity to do it all over?  Maybe he enjoys watching humans and animals have sex?  He is watching everyone and everything, all the time, of course - think about that next time you're considering oral sex!!

Well, moving on, the deity decides that staining everyone with original sin might have been another blunder (!) in his fantastic plan, so rather than simply forgiving us that sin, he decides on a more complex procedure:  it begins by creating a duplicate of himself but in human form.  This he does by sending the holy ghost/spirit (the deity in yet another form) to impregnate a woman (Mary) without engaging in sexual intercourse, thereby conceiving the deity in human form.  An angel explains to Mary what's going to happen.  Angels represent another one of the deity's creations but are, apparently (with one notable exception) unstained by sin. Not much is known about angels, actually.  The one sinful exception amongst the angels seeks to become the deity for some reason (Was that part of the fantastic, mysterious plan, or just a flaw in his design?), and so is cast down, thereby becoming satan, in a huge philosophical role reversal - from pure servant to evil opponent.  Hmmmm ...

Anyway, the deity-fetus is born as a jew to Mary and Joseph, into the humble world of the Middle East and becomes a great preacher (rather than following the family business of carpentry), attracting hordes of followers.  But the plan is that this pisses off the evil jewish clergy so much that they enlist the Romans to kill off this preacher muscling in on their territory - as the plan calls for them to do.  It's natural (for late Bronze age people, anyway) to use a blood sacrifice to wash away the original sin (previously imposed by the deity in his fantastic plan, recall).  So the deity-human is executed in the particularly grisly fashion of being nailed to a cross.  However, because this particular human is not what he seems to be but is, in fact, the deity himself (overheard praying to himself, thereby asking favors of himself in an apparent schizophrenic episode), the story has a happy ending.  Two days later, lo and behold! - the deity resurrects himself from the dead!  (Why 2 days?  Why not right away?  Hmmm - no answer.)

So now the original perfect (?) plan seems to have changed - under the new deal, everyone who accepts the deity (called "jesus" in his human form) as their savior is forgiven the original sin and spared the necessity of spending an eternity in hell.  It's rather like showing your loyalty within a biker gang - be a loyal, obedient gang member and you're in for all the fun and games.  But if your loyalty and obedience waver, then it's curtains for you!  A carrot and a stick, if you will.  Why is it so damned important to accept jesus?  Well, clearly, your own self-interest is at stake!  That's not too hard to fathom, is it?  Just like the Hell's Angels (or the Mafia).

By the way, the infinite deity knows what choices you will make throughout your life, and he created you expressly to make those choices according to his fantastic, but utterly mysterious plan.  He only gave us enough brainpower to worship him and obey the rules - not enough to understand his plan.  That was his choice during the creation process.  Nice deal - that way, he doesn't have to try to explain things to his dumb-ass kids.  He knows they're too stupid to even try an explanation.

Of course, you might have the misfortune of not being born into the right time and place to learn about jesus.  Too bad for you!  Sorry, but the escape clause in the revised plan only works for those who accept jesus.  That's why christians work soooo hard to convert you!  Christians always have your best interests at heart!  And they need money for their churches (which are tax-exempt!) for some reason.  Their deity forces them to go on endless fundraisers (and missions to convert heathens)!

Moving on with the story, after jesus died and was resurrected, the deity completely ceased any activities here on Earth that might actually reveal his existence on the basis of tangible evidence.  After all, now that the revised plan is in place, it would be far too easy for humans to believe in a deity who actually showed himself on a regular basis.  Why just about everybody would be "saved" in that case!  We can't have that!  (Why not?  Paradise might get overpopulated, I guess.  Must be some limits on how big the place can be.)  So now, everyone who wants to be saved from eternal torment (who wouldn't?) must accept jesus entirely on faith (i.e., without tangible evidence) - and/or on the words within late Bronze Age scriptures written thousands of years ago by people who had only myths and legends to call upon for explanations of what was going on.

In addition to offering the carrot and the stick to humans (Calling it free will, even though he already knows what they're going to choose and must have created them to do just that in accordance with - wait for it - the perfect and utterly mysterious plan!), the deity is everywhere watching, and he knows not just what we're doing but what we're thinking about doing!  Like Santa Claus, he knows if you've been good or not - and he disapproves of most of those urges and impulses he created within you (like sex) unless they're narrowly confined to certain forms.  Any "deviation" from these forms and you're in deep trouble! By the way, he also disapproves of using the brain he gave you to think for yourself - you simply must obey his rules (which he sees fit to change from time to time), and you certainly shouldn't be asking impertinent questions!  How dare you question the perfect, mysterious plan?

Yeah, it's a great, eternal story, all right.  As I write this, it's "Good Friday" when we "celebrate" an agonizing blood sacrifice intended to fix a mistake made by an infinite deity.  I could go on, but this is already long enough - it all sounds like utter nonsense to me.  If it somehow manages to bring you comfort, I'm okay with that, but don't expect me to buy in.

A Paroxysm of Political Paranoia Paralyzes NOAA/NWS Participation in Science

A long-time friend brought to my attention the following statement of "ethics" for NOAA/NWS employees (copied here verbatim, in its entirety):

The following is a summary of Ethics guidelines which pertain to NWS employees attending professional conferences.  This includes conferences sponsored by organizations such as The National Weather Association (NWA), American Meteorological Society (AMS) and American Society of Engineers (ASE).  Everyone should be aware of these to avoid inadvertently violating government ethics rules and inappropriately using government resources for personal use.

Professional organizations hold conferences which NWS employees frequently attend as part of their official government responsibilities.  The NWS pays for travel to the event and the employees are on official time.  Employees frequently present research or papers which they have developed as part of their NWS responsibilities, or interact as a participant with others.  Here are the general guidelines applicable to all employees.

1.      Employees attending a professional conference at Government expense in their official capacity as an NWS employee must be on approved travel orders.   Authorized costs for the conference are to be paid by the government or approved gifted travel.  Employees may not pay all or part  of these costs from their private funds.

2.     NWS may pay conference registration fees for employees attending a professional conference in their official capacity as an NWS employee.  Employees may not pay these costs if they are attending on official time in their official capacity.

3.     Supervisors must certify that costs paid by the government to send the employee to the conference are in connection with the NWS mission and the employee’s responsibilities.

4.     Approval for groups of twenty (20) or more employees on domestic travel and ten (10) or more employees on foreign travel, including invitational travelers, regardless of whether or not NOAA is funding the travel must be submitted to the Deputy Under Secretary for Operations prior to travel to the conference.  NWS Deputy Administrator approval for meetings, conferences, symposiums involving less than these thresholds may still be required.  Please check with the Chief, ASD prior to coordination of travel and/or conference planning.

5.     Employees attending a professional conference who are not on approved travel orders must be on a day off or on approved annual leave.  No expenses will be paid by the government, including registration and/or abstract fees.  The employee will be in a private capacity and cannot present research or papers developed as part of their NWS responsibilities, nor represent NOAA/NWS.

In addition to the above, we’ve received additional guidance from NOAA Office of General Counsel regarding Ethics Issues for NWS personnel that serve on the boards of other organizations.  These restrictions are as follow:

1.     Persons serving on the boards of an organization are required to disqualify themselves from any NWS matter that could have an effect on the financial interests of that organization.

2.     You may not use any Government resources in connection with your personal activities with the organization.   This means that you may not use any duty hours or your NWS email account for any NWA, AMS or similar organization activities.  You may not use your NWS title for such activities either.  (For example, you may not list your NWS title or email address on an AMS or NWA website.)  You may not disclose any nonpublic Government information and you may not take any action to imply NWS endorsement of NWA, AMS or similar organization activities.  See 5 C.F.R. § 2635.701-705.

3.     Criminal statutes bar you from contacting NWS, or any other Federal agency or Federal court, on behalf of a professional organization, to influence Government action.  See 18 U.S.C. § 205(a).  For example, if NWA plans to recommend a policy position to NWS, you may not sign a letter to NWS and your name may not appear on the NWA letterhead, even if a different NWA officer sends the letter.

4.     You may only travel to an organizations conference on official time and at government expense  if your supervisor assigns you to attend, without your input, as part of your official responsibilities.  If you are assigned to attend a conference, you may only be a passive participant, meaning that you may attend all conference activities but may not be listed on the agenda as a speaker, nor may you present materials at the conference. 

5.     If you wish to conduct activities relating to your position within an organization while at that organizations conference in your Government capacity, you may only do so while off duty.  This means, for example, that you may meet with other officers of the organization in the evening, as long as you are technically off duty at that time.

6.     In the alternative, you may take leave and attend a conference in your personal capacity.  In that scenario, the Government cannot pay for your travel to the conference and you cannot use any Government resources (such as your NWS title) while at the conference.  While you would be permitted to present remarks or materials at the conference in your personal capacity, you would not be able to present scientific papers that you developed as part of your NWS duties.  Generally, you may accept travel payments from the organization (i.e., NWA)  if you travel in your personal capacity, but you may not receive any other form of payment (such as an honorarium from NWA) if any remarks that you deliver at a conference contain references to your Government duties or NWS programs or operations.  See 5 C.F.R. § 2635.807(a).  If you are offered payment of any sort, you should contact NOAA General Counsel to confirm that such payments are acceptable in advance.

This represents a dramatic break with previous ethical boundaries and will eviscerate any opportunities for NWS employees to participate in conferences, thereby representing a policy that threatens the very existence of the NWA and, ultimately, the AMS.  Once again, it seems that NOAA, acting through the advice of its General Counsel, is responding to political pressure in a way that is destructive to the NWS.

I have long considered NOAA to be a bloated bureaucracy of incompetent parasites.  But this attack on the scientific activities of NWS employees is both inexplicable and unconscionable.  What possible reason could there be for these ridiculous new policies?  What political pressure is creating this response from NOAA General Counsel?  What ethical abuses will this prevent?  Has it ever been shown that any abuses resulting from NWS employee participation in conferences have been detrimental to NWS forecasts or to the science?   Can anyone show there is any real need for this massive change in NWS policies regarding the participation of their employees in conferences?

Of late, attendance at scientific conferences by NWS employees has been on the wane.  Presumably, this reflects a short-sighted policy in response to budget pressures associated with federal budget deficits.  The recent tendency has been to reduce the presence of NWS forecasters at scientific conferences, where a good deal of the business of science takes place.  Some NWS forecasters have been participating at their own expense and on their own time - the new policies apparently will prevent even that!  This not only inhibits the dissemination of NWS research findings, but it limits the opportunity for scientific peers to provide direct feedback to the authors of that research.

The dramatic reductions in participation in science by NWS employees we have seen will pale to insignificance when these new policies are implemented.  The impact on the NWA, which is dominated by operational weather forecasters, could be devastating.  Even the AMS will suffer as a result of the non-participation of so many operational weather forecasters.

There can be no good reason for this unnecessary change in policy.  If NWS managers buckle under the pressure of NOAA management, this will constitute a huge blow to the entire science of meteorology, which has long struggled with the operations-research interface.  An "iron curtain" will have descended on that interface, to the detriment of all.  For shame, NOAA!

The Myths of Objectivity

In my profession, there is this apparent obsession many scientists have with all analysis being utterly "objective".  What does the dictionary say about the meaning of objective?  The word is being used not as a noun but as an adjective, and dictionary.com offers the following:

objective - adjective:
1. not influenced by personal feelings, interpretations, or prejudice; based on facts; unbiased: an objective opinion.

2. intent upon or dealing with things external to the mind rather than with thoughts or feelings, as a person or a book.

3. being the object of perception or thought; belonging to the object of thought rather than to the thinking subject (opposed to subjective ).

4. of or pertaining to something that can be known, or to something that is an object or a part of an object; existing independent of thought or an observer as part of reality.

A group of people, such as scientists, can agree upon the meaning of a word that might have a completely different meaning in a different context (i.e., outside that group).  For instance, scientists and laypersons (non-scientists) have different meanings attached to words like theory or chaos.   But I believe the main intent of the emphasis on objectivity in science is meaning #1 above.

If I draw lines by hand on a weather chart, this is considered to be non-objective (often referred to as subjective) analysis.  The way I draw those lines is influenced by my thoughts and personal feelings, no doubt.  What many scientists seem to call "objective" would be what a computer program would do to draw similar lines on the same chart - if we feed the same data to that program, it will always produce the same lines (to within the numerical precision of the computer).  A large number of scientists think that non-"objective" analysis by humans is always flawed and worthy only of contempt.

But let's think this one through.  Who wrote the program?  What algorithm was chosen to do the analysis?  The analysis scheme often depends on "free" variables decided upon by distinctly non-objective criteria.  And there are numerous analysis schemes from which to choose, all of which might accomplish a similar end product.  What is typically called "objective analysis" involves a number of non-objective choices!  The only objective thing about objective analysis is its reproducibility - the same data run through the same program always gives the same results.

Put the identical data in front of human science professionals and let them each do their own non-objective analysis and you will get as many different results as there are people in the experiment.  Each such analysis is simply one interpretation of the data - presumably each is in some sense constrained by the data, but it's not rigidly defined by the data.  There are many different interpretations of the data, and who is to say that any one is right and all the others wrong?

Reading carefully into the definitions above, it seems that a synonym for "objective" is "mindless"!  Is the ultimate criterion of the value of an analysis determined by the degree to which it's utterly mindless?  I would like to think that most rational people would give an answer to that question resoundingly in the negative!!

Given that science is done by humans, we scientists should all be willing to acknowledge that not one of us is ever entirely "objective" about anything!  We also should acknowledge that other points of view can co-exist with our personal favorites.  In many cases, the data can be interpreted in more than one way, and many of those alternative interpretations can be as legitimate as those that we choose to embrace.  The degree to which different interpretations disagree gives us an opportunity to test those interpretations against one another.  This is an opportunity to learn!  Disagreement is good, not bad!!  Which interpretation gives the best fit to the data?  What about new data from larger samples?  What about those data values that seem to contravene a hypothesis (interpretation) - can they be explained away?  Are they noise in the sample or are they indicators of a problem for a particular interpretation?  This is the crux of scientific arguments.  It's all good ...

But "objectivity" is a false god.  It's an illusion that many hide behind in their eagerness to reject the work of others.  We are, after all, human beings engaged in a very human activity.  We can be so wed to our own ideas, we seek any and every means to discredit the ideas of others.  If we detect anything other than perfect objectivity, is that cause to reject the analysis?  I think not.  Just because an analysis is 'non-objective' by some standard doesn't mean it's necessarily incorrect or unworthy of consideration! 

The Hidden Agony

As shown in a recent 60 Minutes segment, the casualties of our pointless foreign wars go on, mostly unreported, long after all the troops come home.  Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder (PTSD) is a lingering killer that prolongs the awful experiences of wartime on our warfighters long after they come home.  The agony is also inflicted on the families and friends of those who have served in our military, sometimes killing them, as well.

There's only minimal coverage of this hidden agony.  The death tolls from PTSD aren't included in the lists of those killed in our wars, but our wars surely caused those fatalities every bit as much as AK-47 bullets, IEDs, and RPGs caused combat deaths.  According to one source, a US military veteran dies by suicide every 65 minutes on average!  And the deaths are only part of the story.  The anguish and economic losses wrought by PTSD's effects on all of us are part of the hidden price tag of our foreign excursions.  It's time we faced up to the reality of what these pointless wars are doing to us, not only in the terrible waste of lives and sorely needed resources, but the impact of our wars on the very people we claim to hold in such high esteem: those who are serving their nation in our military forces, laying down their lives at our request.  "Our request?" you might ask, "I didn't ask them to do that!"  Yes, you did!  The politicians we voted for have put us in this situation - the politician-cowards we keep voting for who mostly have used their political power to avoid military service for themselves and their families - the politicians we voted for who put corporate profits above the lives of our warfighters - the politicians we voted for who believe we can impose American-style democracy at the point of a gun.  It is we who are asking our warfighters to risk their lives for us.  If we support these pointless wars and the politicians who command our troops, we're responsible for what those wars do to us.

 In my opinion, the most important thing we can do for our veterans is to not put more young people in combat situations unless the need is beyond question and the goals served by our warfighters are worth the price we're paying.  The typical war we seem to find ourselves in of late puts our troops on foreign soil as invaders.  We wave off the civilians killed as "inevitable collateral damage" and there's no clear path to an end of the fighting, short of killing most everyone there.  The locals hate us because we're invaders.  Guerrilla warfare can be maintained indefinitely when the population supports the insurgents, blaming our troops for all the problems that our wars rain down on innocent civilians.  Can we really solve the challenge of terrorism by killing all the terrorists?  Is returning violence for violence ever going to solve the world's conflicts?  That tit-for-tat policy has been operating in the Middle East for thousands of years - how's that been working, so far?

In a rather different vein, the son of my cousin recently shared some photos he took of damage in New Orleans from Hurricane Katrina.  It soon will be eight years since that awful event, but the damage still shows clearly.  What doesn't show in photographs is the anguish and loss that the victims of that terrible storm have to deal with every day, right down to this very day and perhaps for years to come.  PTSD isn't limited to stress from combat.  A tornado can cause lasting psychological trauma, as I've learned in studying the most important tornado (to date) in US history:  that known as the "Tri-State" tornado of 18 March 1925.  We talked with living survivors who still have vivid, terrible memories of that day, etched indelibly on their memories.

The devastation from storms goes on and on, literally for years and perhaps in some cases, for decades.  I began to realize this in the aftermath of the 03 May 1999 tornadoes here in Oklahoma - I wrote about that experience here.  I saw that the media circus would only go on for a few days, interviewing victims and putting their agony on public display for the sake of the media's advertisers.  Another event would put new blood in the water to attract the media sharks, who would move on to the next news story.  The event would fall down the news ladder and mostly disappear from public sight.  The agony caused by that devastating tornado would remain, hidden from view, but no less real for that.  The survivors would have to bury their dead and do what they could to rebuild their shattered lives.  I know of no one who tracks the real economic and human toll from storm disasters.  We limit our attention to the direct fatalities and the cost of the building damage, but ignore all the other costs, including those from PTSD.

In the past, those who experienced PTSD were treated mostly as weaklings, who failed to have the courage and fortitude to withstand the awful things they experienced.  The famous George S. Patton incident in an Army hospital comes to mind as an example of that attitude.  PTSD isn't about cowardice or weakness of character.  And it can happen to any of us, should we be unlucky enough to live through an awful event like a powerful tornado.  It's time to offer our help to the survivors of traumatic experiences.  We need to stop ignoring them, writing them off, and blaming the victims for what happens to them.  Rather than spending hundreds of billions to equip our warfighters for combat, perhaps we should set aside some of that for more compassionate treatment of and help for our military veterans?  Rather than spending hundreds of billions propping up mismanaged corporations (corporations are not people!), perhaps we should offer counseling and treatment for storm victims (real people!) who can't otherwise afford such care?

Oklahoma weather and the people it has caused me to know

The wind howls tonight in Oklahoma.  It's from the south but the promise of change is there as an undertone to what's happening.  This is far from unusual, of course.  It's a familiar story here in Oklahoma - a big factor in why I have come to live here longer than any other place in my life.  The weather here is a constantly-changing factor in our lives.  We slide from flood to drought, from sweltering heat to bitter cold, from sparkling sunny days to periods of gloom.  That very variability is what defines Oklahoma weather.  Oklahoma weather is about change, and the impact of that change on our lives.  You just don't easily ignore Oklahoma's weather.  On a regular basis, it forces you to pay attention to what the atmosphere is doing.  I wouldn't have it any other way.

Oklahoma weather makes it nature's most volatile location for severe storms.  We are the world's focus for the action that drives people into storm chasing.  Everything that happens during the course of the annual cycle of the weather here is focused on providing the setting for massive supercells and their associated tornadoes during our storm season.  It's the reason I came to live and learn here, and the reason I met my friends and colleagues who share my passion for the drama and excitement of the most ferocious storms the atmosphere provides.   Such storms pack the biggest, most concentrated punch of any atmospheric phenomenon on this planet.  And they happen more frequently here than anywhere else on the planet.

After I arrived here, I eventually came to know many people who shared my fascination with such storms.  The people I now call my friends and colleagues have assumed a greater significance in my life as time has passed.  My passion for the inanimate atmosphere put me on a collision course with people who have encouraged me, inspired me, and shared amazing moments with me over the course of my career.  Who would have guessed that this would have been the outcome of my original obsession with storms?  I certainly had no clue as a young man.  I had no idea what it was going to be like, and was clueless about what awaited me.

One of my best friends has recently been taken from me and from the world of meteorology by the ravages of a terrible disease.   I've spent so many incredible moments with him in the course of my career, it seems beyond comprehension that he could be taken from me by the cruel affliction of Alzheimer's syndrome.

In late May of 1975, we spent a night huddled in my tent in the Palo Duro Canyon of Texas - a mostly sleepless night because of the buffeting of our tent by the relentless, intensifying southerly winds, not dissimilar from those of this evening.  An approaching storm energized those winds, as it does tonight.  The winds that stole our sleep also brought moisture from the Gulf of Mexico, fuel for the day of supercells that was to come the next day.  After a mostly sleepness night, we were up earlier than usual.  We had little sleep that night, but energized by our relative youth and our eager anticipation for what was to come the next day, the day's chase had an unintended early start.

Ultimately, of course, we never can know for sure what the future will bring.  We saw powerful supercells the next day - but no tornadoes.  How was I to know that the passage of time would steal my friend from me before his body failed him?  Time brings change, and that change is not necessarily easy to forecast - so many factors control the future.  I owe so much to my friend, but he no longer even knows who I am.  How can I hope to tell him how much he has meant to me?  That time has passed, and I only hope that what words I've shared with him in the past have had the desired impact.  But those words, and any future words, no longer matter at all.  He no longer remembers them.  Or me.  It's as if all of it never was - but not to me!

The wind still howls outside my window as I write this, just as it did many years ago.  But my friend is no longer with me.  That makes the prospects for the future much less exciting for me.  Treasure your happy times with your friends.  They're evanescent moments that mostly only matter to you - and them.   But they are the moments that you'll hold onto in the face of whatever the future brings for you.

"Impact-Based Warnings" - An Ill-Advised and Ill-Conceived Experiment

In 2013, the Central Region of the National Weather Service (NWS) will be conducting an "experiment" on the users of weather information within their region.  This is called "Impact-Based Warnings" (IBW) and evidently is based on the findings of a "Service Assessment" associated with the 2011 tornado that hit Joplin, MO.  There were some social scientists associated with that assessment, and the document states:

     Finding #8: After the significance of this event was apparent, Tornado Warnings and Severe Weather Statements lacked enhanced wording to accurately portray that immediate action was necessary to save lives with this tornado. 

     Recommendation #8: WFO warning forecasters should use wording that conveys a sense of urgency in warnings and statements when extremely dangerous and life threatening weather situations are in progress.

This recommendation is based on a very limited study of a sample of precisely one case (that of the Joplin, MO tornado).  This is pretty minimal evidence on which to base changes to the warning system.  I don't accept this recommendation as sufficient justification to tinkering with the wording in weather warnings.  A primary rule when considering changes to a system that has saved tens of thousands of lives over its history:  first, do no harm!  There's no solid foundation of peer-reviewed science to support changes to the warning system.  This is not to say that the existing system is perfect.  Far from it, but the IBW experiement is not the way to identify and address the problems within the existing system.

Check out the IBW site to find the following statements regarding the "experiment" (using public warnings):

Project Goals

• Provide additional valuable infromation to media and Emergency Management officials
   
• Facilitate improved public response and decision making
   
• Better meet societal needs in the most life-threatening weather events
     

On what basis can we say that the "information" provided by the changed wording in the warnings is indeed valuable to the media and emergency managers?  Has a broad cross-section of media people and emergency managers been surveyed to ascertain what they consider to be valuable?  Can it be shown that their opinions regarding what is valuable are consistent with how well they generate proper responses in real situations?  How do we decide on what is a proper response?  There is no "one size fits all" response, to the best of my knowledge.  If we can't say precisely what it is we are trying to do with our warnings, how can we possibly know how to alter them?

Do we have any evidence that the proposed changes will improve public responses?  How will 'public responses' be measured in order to ensure that any improvement in responses has, in fact, been a result of these changes?  And if we don't know precisely what are proper responses, will any changed responses necessarily be an improvement?

Just what are these 'societal needs' and how were they chosen?  Again, how will the meeting of these unspecified needs be measured?

Intended Outcomes

• Optimize the convective warning system within the existing structure
   
• Motivate proper response to warnings by distinguishing situational urgency
   
  
• Realign the warning message in terms of societal impacts
   
  
• Communicate recommended actions & precautions more precisely
   
  
• Evaluate ability to distinguish between low impact and high impact events  

Optimize in what sense?  Optimization is a very nebulous term, so with respect to what measurable quantity or quantities will the optimization be done?  Is an absolute optimum being sought or is it satisfactory just to show improvement?  How will improvements to the warning system be measured?

Again, what is a proper response?  And how will it be demonstrated the the proposed changes will accomplish motivating a proper response?

I thought the NWS was a weather forecasting agency, not an impact forecasting agency.  In what way have forecasters been educated and trained to forecast impacts?  Knowing impacts in advance is pretty difficult to achieve.

The topic of 'call to action statements' can be debated - even assuming this is a good thing to do, how will it be shown to be more "precise" communication?  What is meant by "precision" of communication?

So there is no study that has actually shown the ability of weather forecasters to discriminate between high and low impact events?  It seems pretty evident that until such a study has demonstrated that ability in a convincing way, this experiment is pretty ill-advised.  Using the public as experimental subjects is not a good idea!

Enhance warning through

• Improve communication of critical information
   
• Make it easier to quickly identify the most valuable information
   
• Enable prioritization of key warnings in your area of interest
   
• Indicate different levels of risk within the same product
   
• Enable the National Weather Service to express a confidence level of potential impacts

Has it been shown in a broad-based, peer-reviewed study that the proposed changes will in fact "improve" communication of critical information?  Again, how will the improvement in communication be measured.

Has it been shown in a broad-based, perr-reviewed study that the proposed changes will improve the identification of critical information.  Again, how will the improvement be measured.  How is the value of information to be determined?

Has it been shown in careful studies that it is possible to identify diferent levels of risk?

This is an ill-advised experiment at this time.  Much more needs to be done before we start messing with the existing warning system that goes out to the public.  It is also ill-conceived:  this is not even remotely a reasonable design for a proper experiment.  The IBW 'experiment'  is little more than a thinly-disguised effort to do something just for the sake of being able to say, "See, we're doing something!"

I Am America's Son

Just watched a program about Arlington National Cemetery ... where America's military heroes are buried.  I make no claim to be a hero and have no wish to have a place in Arlington, although I could.  Too many real heroes are buried there for me to make such a request.

But here's the situation ... unlike many of my contemporaries, I've literally put my life and well-being on the line for my country.  I've been in a war zone, where one's security is defined by the compound perimeter guard.  No, I've never fired a shot at another human being in support of my country's mandate.  No, I've never been shot at as an individual target.  I know many who have experienced this sort of thing, including my son.  I can't begin to fill the shoes of those who have truly fought and died to fulfill their duty to our nation.  They are truly heroes and mere words can't begin to compensate for their heroism.  I definitely don't deserve to be mentioned in the same league.  They're people I honor and respect.  For those who have not risked what they have, I can only say:  Shut the fuck up!

Those who advocate participation in foreign wars without being willing to participate as warfighters have no justification for their bellicose support for intervention.  They're the proverbial "chicken hawks" - those who support military interventions without being willing to enlist as soldiers in that campaign.  They aren't patriots - they're cowards!  I have nothing but contempt for chicken hawks.  They're the scum of our society - more than willing to risk the lives and well-being of our warfighters without volunteering to put their own lives at risk.  It's easy to be in favor of interventions when it's not your ass on the line!  Or the lives of your sons and daughters!  There's a long, sordid history of those who have used political influence to avoid putting the lives of family members at risk in foreign wars.  When compared to those who have voluntarily chosen to serve, this relegates those chicken hawks to a well-deserved pit of shame!  Chicken hawks are the ultimate hypocrites - eager to sacrifice the lives of our warfighters without putting themselves at risk.  They deserve nothing other than our contempt!

On a regular basis, we ask our sons and daughters to risk everything on the orders of our civilian political leadership.  I went to Vietnam to fulfill political goals I didn't support.  How many of my conservative friends in favor of military interventions have done the same?  Not very many.  Despite their excuses, they haven't put their lives on the line.  How can I respect them?  The simple answer ... I can't. My father, my son, and I have all served in foreign wars at the "request" of our nation - how many of you can say the same?  I don't necessarily honor the wars in which we fought, but I honor the sacrifices made by those who stepped up to their nation's call, even when they disagreed with the war.  Our nation is forever in their debt ... a debt that simply can't be repaid!

I am a son of America.  I've proven that by responding to my nation's call even when I didn't think the political cause was justifiable.  Looking back, I did what was asked of me when my country called.  There are many now who claim to be patriots, but who've never served in the military.  Their putative allegiance to their nation isn't measured by their words, or by the icons they might wear on their lapels, or by their empty words of patriotism - it's measured by their non-commitment to serve their nation.  They're not sons of America - they're cowards who mask their venality with pseude-patriotic words.  Empty words.

Toilet Seat Wars

As far back as I can remember, it seems that a war has been going on regarding the toilet seat.  Since I consider this to be mostly a war about nothing, I figured I would take a chance and see what happens.  Probably a firestorm.

A toilet seat has two parts, both of which can be raised to reveal the naked, cold porcelain toilet.  One part of the seat lowers to allow a sitting surface (mostly either wood or plastic) upon which one can place one's naked bum without the unpleasant contact with cold porcelain.  That sitting surface surrounds a hole in that portion of the seat thereby allowing one's effluent to pass into the bowl for eventual disposal.

The other part of the seat lowers to cover the hole in the sitting surface (also either wood or plastic to match the sitting surface), thereby removing from sight the evidently vile image of the toilet bowl itself.  If there happen to be "skidmarks" left by an earlier user of the toilet that s/he impolitely chose not to remove after use, the lid prevents anyone from seeing them - until the next user comes along needing what the toilet has to offer.  The same applies to any unflushed remains of the previous user's activities upon the seat.  Most people find these experiences to be unpleasant, usually engendering some muttered curses about the slovenly actions of the previous occupant of the toilet.

As is well-known, women allow the contents behind either the urinary or anal sphincter to pass while they are sitting on the comfortable sitting surface (with the lid raised, of course).  Men generally urinate into the toilet while standing and so will lift the sitting surface in order to eliminate the possibility of leaving drops of urine on the sitting surface.  This act of raising the sitting surface is not completely necessary for any man who has no concern for the person sitting on that surface next time - to lift the lid is an act of courtesy (highly recommended) for anyone who might not want to sit on droplets of piss (either wet, or dry if enough time has passed).

The war is kindled when a woman is anxious to reach the toilet before she soils herself, and so may not have checked to see if the sitting surface is up or down before commencing to squat in preparation for relieving herself.  For that matter, she won't know if the lid is up or down, either.  In any case, when her bare butt makes contact with cold porcelain, torrents of foul words spew from her mouth in the process of an immediate reverse squat from the toilet.

For a woman living alone, the sitting surface might as well be bolted down.  That way, there's no possibility of her warm cheeks coming in contact with chilly porcelain.  Of course, that would run the risk of having  male visitors who need to use her toilet leaving pee drops on the sitting surface.  Hence, it might be ill-advised to take the drastic step of making the sitting surface stay permanently in the lowered position.

It turns out, of course, that virtually every man has had a similar experience of being in a hurry to sit down (recall, we males also use the down position for defecation).  Thus, every man should have some sense of empathy for the plight of our sisters, wives, female lovers, mothers, aunts, etc.  But since we use the toilet that way only about once per day, whereas we usr it with the sitting surface raised several times per day, it's inevitable that we will occasionally leave the sitting surface up after relieving ourselves.  Some men may forget to lower the sitting surface most of the time - others only part of the time - and a few may concede entirely to the woman's viewpoint and convert himself to peeing in the sitting posistion.  The radical step of squatting to piss obviously is limited to a tiny minority of men - mostly pussy-whipped weaklings hardly deserving of the male gender!

A woman living with a real man simply has to recognize that living together entails some compromises and adjustments.  Women sharing the same facilities with a man will have to overcome any habits they may have developed while living alone.  Being far-from-perfect creatures, the sitting surface on the toilet will be left up by most men from time to time.   Hence, the logical tactic for their female room/housemates to use is a simple one:  Look before you squat!  This actually applies to both men and women - making assumptions about the position of the sitting surface (and the lid) makes an "ass our of u and me"!

Racism - An Equal Opportunity for All

      I have a dream that my four little children will one day live 
      in a nation where they will not be judged by the color of their 
      skin but by the content of their character. 
                              - Martin Luther King

I've written elsewhere about the scientifically bankrupt notion of race and its enduring legacy of tribalistic bigotry.  Here, I want to emphasize that racism is not confined to whites, contrary to the racist propaganda put out by non-white racists.  As I see it, racism is the false presumption that knowing someone's race implies that you know something about their personality, morals, and capabilities.  Such an assumption is, in simple terms, pre-judging someone on the basis of their race, but race is not a definitive characteristic.  Distinguishing people on the basis of skin color is on the same level as seeking to distinguish people on the basis of their height, or their weight, or their preference for right- or left-handedness.  Skin color is just another superficial trait.

Race is an absurd concept based on meaningless differences among the members of the human species.  These differences evolved because of the environments in which various groups of people found themselves.  Only a fool would truly believe that hair color is some sort of infallible indicator of a person, so why is it that skin color would say anything definitive about a person?  Answer:  skin color says nothing definitive about a person!!  As indicated in the essay cited above, I'm not promoting some utopian vision that says everybody is the same - any simple examination of the variability in humans renders such a statement absurd.  People vary in terms of many of their traits:  height, weight, atheltic ability, intellectual ability, hair color, skin color, strength, rhythm, musical talent, and so on.  Certain groupings of people may differ, on the average, with regard to one or more of these traits.  But skin color, the most commonly-used indicator of a person's "race," says pretty much nothing at all about particular individuals.  If you want to assess an individual's talent playing a trombone, or capacity to do advanced mathematics, then skin color provides nothing in the way of useful information to help in that evaluation.  With time, science has dispelled the mythology of racism.

Our concept of "race" is simply another reflection of our atavistic tendency to tribalistic bigotry.  The challenge to us in America is to renounce the validity of discrimination (and other ill treatment, up to and including violence) against someone solely on the basis of race.  When I was in Vietnam in 1970, it was common for most American soldiers to refer to the Vietnamese as "gooks" or "slopes" or "dinks" - clearly pejorative terms quite comparable to the use of "nigger" when referring to black Americans.  What I noticed was that many of the angry young black soldiers who had grown up in city ghettos and who had experienced a lot of racism aimed directly at them were just as guilty of prejudice against the Vietnamese as the white people who had discriminated against them.  You might have thought they would be empathetic toward the Vietnamese and declined to use such pejorative terms, but that wasn't generally the case - they joined right in with the bigotry against the Vietnamese  The hypocrisy of that was evident to me then and it still is.  If a black person hates white people (or Asians, or whatever), that's racism - pure and simple - just as surely as the reverse is racism.

There can be no doubt that whites in America should be ashamed of the way blacks (and other non-white groups) have suffered simply for being black in the history of this country.  Even if we didn't actually own slaves or participate in segregation, we should be eager to do our part to make up for that by eliminating that now and in the future.  [We can't change the past.]  White Americans should want to repudiate racism as a morally and scientifically bankrupt viewpoint.  Unfortunately, many whites still are blinded by bigotry.  As it stands, unfortunately, racism is not exclusively limited to white Americans.  There are black Americans (and other non-whites) who have in common with their white counterparts the racist notion that you can judge a person simply by the color of their skin. Bigotry and prejudice are equal opportunity afflictions - they know no racial barriers.  So long as racism of any sort is considered acceptable, we as a nation will never get beyond racism to live the dream that a great American, Martin Luther King, imagined and worked so hard and sacrificed so much (including his life) to achieve.  It's shameful that an ignorant white man gunned down this great American, but MLK would be the first to renounce racism as a response to racism.  When you respond with hate for hate, violence for violence, and evil for evil, you reduce yourself to the very sort of person who is the target of your response.  You give up the moral high ground to wallow in the same filth as your opponent.

Racism needs to be eradicated as a valid viewpoint, no matter what the color of one's skin.  All such tribalism-based bigotry should be cast aside as ignorant, obsolete, and unproductive.  If we're ultimately to achieve real freedom and liberty for all people, the as yet unachieved ideal of the founding fathers of this nation, then racism is simply an ugly hangover from our ignorant past that must be overcome on the long road we must travel to make reality match our high principles.  It doesn't accomplish anything to give racial prejudice any validity in any of our lives.  The past is not a valid justification for racism.  Our future will only be free of racism if we all commit to eliminating it from our lives, now and forever.

Thoughts on the Crime of Rape

Rape is a monumentally detestable crime, perpetrated mostly by men on women (but not exclusively, for sure).  The misconception is widespread that rape is primarily a sexual act.  Although it almost always involves a sexual organ - almost always the penis - it has nothing to do with procreation, and little to do with sexual pleasure.  It's an act of violence, not sex.  Thus, the old argument that "Well, she was asking for it!" is a pathetic excuse for an excuse.  That's the excuse of a bully on the playground.  It has no basis in reality.  Only some sort of masochist would ask for physical, sexual abuse!  The reality is that the act is about forcing the rapist's will on someone else, about humiliating their victim - that's how the rapist gets off.  Many rapists are excited by the resistance of the victim, hoping to terrorize her/him - their sick egos feed off that fear.  For such, the terror they induce is their primary goal and the rapist may not even be able to have an erection without first inducing that naked fear.  The ones who rape their victims while they're unconscious (either after a beating or by drugs/alcohol) apparently are excited by the feeling of having "dominated" the victim.  And of course they're stimulated by the process of rendering their victim helplessly vulnerable to their sexual assault - more evidence that rape mostly an act of violence.  Rapists evidently need that feeling to be able to function.

The notion that some men are helplessly propelled into assault by their sexual attraction to their victims and simply can't resist that urge makes no sense to me.  Surely it doesn't apply to almost all of the men I've ever known.  Although I find many women attractive, it's not all that difficult to separate sex from a personal relationship.  I honor my relationship with my wife and wouldn't throw that away for mindless sexual gratification, ever!  Not for some sexual dalliance, and certainly never by an act of violence!  I respect the women with whom I interact and, while I continue to be a human being, it's that very humanity that makes repulsive the very idea of sexually assaulting a fellow human.  It's not only immoral to force one's will on others, but it speaks to a pathetic, deep-seated inferiority that's being compensated for by an act of dominance.  If you have confidence in yourself, respect for others comes naturally.  There's no need for someone secure in their own skin to dominate another person with physical (or mental) abuse.  To be a rapist is to have a pathology that may be difficult, if not impossible, to cure.

A few comments about statutory rape - societies often  decree that sexual intercourse should be limited to consenting adults.  In nature, a pubescent child is physically able to engage in sex and even bear children.  Even when the act is consented to by both parties, the implication is that when below the age of consent, that consent is not well-founded.  [Again, this typically involves an act perpetrated by a man on a woman, but not exclusively.]  I see this as a less heinous crime when both participants are below the age of consent.  That doesn't change the fact that it's still considered a crime, but the crime is far less hideous than when an older person is gaining "consent" from a person legally below the age of consent - it's a violation of trust and taking advantage of a young person's naivete that's inherently immoral.

Pedophilia and incest are also forms of rape/sexual assault.  Most decent humans are especially outraged when a child is raped.  Sometimes, we add the adjective "innocent" to "child" when we refer to this awful crime, but does that imply that an adult rape victim is somehow "guilty" of something and so is less deserving of our concerns?  No, we use the word "innocent" in this context because the child trusts adults to care for and protect them, not to abuse them!  Most grown-up victims have learned not to believe that everyone around them is worthy of trust.  I cringe at the very idea of a trusting young person being subjected to this criminal act.  I know something of this, as I was molested as a youth.  With time, I've come to understand the shame and humiliation I felt were misdirected - it wasn't my actions that were wrong!

That clergymen would be guilty of sexual abuse of the children in their care is so incomprehensible and contradictory, it boggles the imagination.  What possible excuse could these evil clergymen have to justify their abuse of a child's trust?  There can be no excuse for their depravity!  How could the church officials look the other way and allow these miserable bastards to continue their crime sprees?  There can be no good reason to protect pedophiles amongst the clergy!  They should be prosecuted as common criminals.  There can't be a place hot enough in the mythical hell for such to suffer appropriately for eternity!  The destruction they wreak on their victims simply can't be justified by any other acts of charity or benevolence they might have done.

In general, rapists are predators that deserve only to be removed from society permanently.

I'll close with a short comment about those who falsely accuse someone of rape - this is another detestable crime.  The inevitable harm done to the reputation of the accused by a false accusation of a horrible crime is very difficult to erase, even if it eventually comes to light that the accusation is unfounded.  On the scale of things, I grant that it's probably a lesser crime than rape itself, but no decent human being should ever impugn the character of another person without due cause.