The Freckle Song

Joel and Ken have been talking about Homer and Jethro, a couple of fairly brilliant "hillbilly" songsters.

And Joel posted one of their songs, and asked: is this a parody of another song? And I thought for sure it was, because it sounded SO FAMILIAR. But I think perhaps I was remembering another song that sounds similar (but which the Homer and Jethro is not a parody of). In fact, I thought they had done it, but I see now that it was a different group. It's "The Freckle Song," well-known to fans of Dr. Demento:



I thought that was terribly terribly racy when I was like 13. "She has freckles on her BUT(T)... she is nice" ahahahahaha. (I also guess I didn't get the line about her getting plastered, and being drunker than the singer's brother. "Bastard" was not a word I really knew as a kid. But I did get the "born in Hackensack and made a fortune on her.....career" joke.).


(An even more borderline-bawdy version is here but the person who originated it doesn't want it embedded. It's sort of a nice vid, though, with images from the 20s and 30s. And the lyrics are different)

A similar song, with the idea of "you expect they're going to say one thing and they say another" from Dr. Demento is the Shaving Cream Song

(warning: may have borderline subliminal icky images.)

Observation of the week

...from a comment on the Newsbusters site, on a story about the Snuggie (those weird backwards-bathrobe things) and other "as seen on tv" products:

"those ads are just like Al Gore; exaggerating the severity of a problem until Something Must Be Done" (my paraphrase but that's close to it.)

That's exactly it. EXACTLY it. That's why I hate so many of those ads - like the Snuggie - life is so hard because blankets fall off your arms! Or those glass things you fill with water and stick in your house plants - watering them is SUCH a giant chore!

So many of those commercials I just LAUGH at because I think, "If having a blanket slide off my arms when I am lying on the couch reading a book is the biggest problem I have in my life, I am blessed beyond my wildest dreams"

Seriously - does anyone watch those ads and suddenly feel like their life is terribly, terribly hard because they have to remember to water their spider plant once a week?

Or are we really becoming a nation of wusses, where every little thing is SO HARD that we are easily enticed into sending off money - or, in the political version, giving up a freedom - for some promise that looks dubious, at best?

As for me? I use sweaters. In fact, I'm so hardcore I MAKE my own sweaters.

There's just something that seems kind of sadly symbolic about people buying into being convinced that a problem they never recognized before is now a crisis, and they must go and throw some money to a huckster for a solution.

(And I bet the Snuggies are made out of really crappy material.)

Busy news day

Yeah, yeah, I know. But this is less stupid:

Blago ousted as Ill. Gov.

So here goes (and OK, it doesn't scan perfectly. But it's been a long day)

Na na na na, na na na na, hey hey-ey, goodbye

We never loved you, the way that YOU love YOU
'Cause if we did, no no, we wouldn't think you're nuts (an' we do)
You might look like Elvis, Roddy, but a-our trust (our trust, our trust)
You abused it
So we're kicking - gonna go and kick him
Go on and kick him curbside, na-na na-na-na na na

Na na na na, hey hey-ey, goodbye
Na na na na, na na na na, hey hey-ey, goodbye

Listen to me now

He's never workin', the way he said he was workin'
Spent all those days at home, readin' bout Churchill
That may be worthwhile, Roddy but a-our trust (our trust, our trust)
It was a-bus-ed
So we're kicking - gonna go and kick him
Go on and kick him curbside, na-na na-na-na na na

Na na na na, hey hey-ey, goodbye

[fade in]
Hey hey-ey, goodbye
Na na na na, na na na na, hey hey-ey, goodbye
Na na na na, na na na na, hey hey-ey, goodbye
Na na na na, na na na na, hey hey-ey, goodbye
[repeat many times and fade out]

DeadPresident Financial Fail

Yeah, it's shaping up to be an irritating week for me.

A while back I posted about how new IRS regs were changing how we college types could save for retirement? How 403(b) accounts were becoming much more restricted? And how there are still 457(b) accounts? But that information about them is scarce and hard to understand?

Well, my campus still offers 403(b) accounts, but now only through one financial group. I don't want to name names lest I get nastygram comments as a result of blind searches, but let's just say that since it's named after a long-dead president (or someone with the same last name as him), I'll call it DeadPresident Financial. Or DPF for short.

Okay, so DPF made arrangements to have representatives on campus to talk to us and to set up accounts. You would THINK they would have a representative to answer questions and one to actually set up accounts. Furthermore, since we were closed for a day and a half this week because of bad weather, they'd maybe send an extra person to play catch-up with the missed appointments.

Sadly, you would be wrong.

I had an appointment this afternoon. I stopped in the middle of writing an exam - which always bugs me, it seems that when I stop when an exam's partly finished, that's when errors creep in and I do stupid things like repeating the same question in two slightly different ways. But whatever, I don't like to be late for appointments. So I rushed over there. Walked in 2 minutes early, even.

There was one guy - in this big giant room - and one woman that I presume was a sort of receptionist. But she didn't see me at first because she was either madly text-messaging or playing a game on her cell phone. After I kind of coughed and shuffled around, she called out, "Someone will be with you in a few minutes!"

So, fortunately, I had brought a student thesis I wanted to re-read, as it is up for defense this week. So I started reading.

About 10 minutes elapsed. Remember - I had been 2 minutes early for my appointment, so my appointment was now technically 8 minutes over - out of 15 they had allotted.

The woman stood up and shambled over to me. "We have some stuff you can read" she said, shoving one of the prospectus-packets at me.

I politely declined, and explained I just had some questions, that I was thinking of continuing on with a 457(b) with TIAA-CREF but I wanted to hear what they offered.

Oh, she said. Just oh. No attempt to apologize for my being kept waiting. No explanation as to why she spent the last 10 minutes or so playing with her cell phone while I stood there.

I kind of coughed and remarked that I had places I had to be (it is now past the time my appointment should have concluded).

"Well," she said, "We have appointments tomorrow." No, I explained, I am busy all afternoon tomorrow. "Monday?" she asked, "I don't know when he will be ready to talk to you" she said, indicating the lone representative.

At that point, I was getting irritated - why the hell should I re-make an appointment I probably don't need? Why should I go all the way across campus on yet another day,probably only to find them busy again.

I told her I was going for my allergy shot (so the trip over there was not a TOTAL loss to me) but I'd check back when I got done.

So I did. And there were two more people stacked up waiting - standing, as I said, in this big bare room, with nothing to do but wait for an undefined period of time. And the receptionist was PLAYING HER FREAKING CELL PHONE AGAIN.

I'm sorry but that simply does not favorably dispose me to using the DeadPresident Financial Group - if they care so little about trying to get new business, how will they treat me as an established customer? Worse?

At least TIAA- when I called them - had a cheerful person on the other end who answered all my questions.

I'm sorry but I can't stand bad customer service, especially when it's a company supposedly trying to get my business. There was no explanation offered, no "We're sorry we're backed up but we're trying to get Tuesday's appointments cleared up" (and for that matter, why not just call the people from Tuesday and tell them, "We will be back next Tuesday, come in on your time then." And I think it's especially unconscionable that the person apparently tasked with greeting people and getting them started was sitting there, apparently playing on her cell phone. I know, it's boring doing reception, but criminy - when someone walks in needing help, it's your job.

There really is a giant surplus of STUPID around. I don't know if creatures on the other side of the universe just happened to open up a wormhole and dump all their planet's STUPID into it, and it fell out on our planet or what, but I'm really starting to feel dangerously angry about all the STUPID floating around.

Critical Thinking FAIL

This is going to be ranty and screedy. But as I said before, there seems to be such an excess of stupid in the world right now that I can't quite deal with it.

Have you heard the latest news about "evil" High Fructose Corn Syrup?

That it contains - ZOMG - MERCURY! Booga booga booga!

Okay - mercury is bad. Some forms (like methyl mercury - Minimata Bay, Japan is a case study I will always remember from Environmental Geology) are worse than others, but yes, I agree, mercury is not something we want exposure to.

However - the amounts of mercury detected?

0.113 parts per million (source of this information).

My reaction upon reading that?

"Wow. I didn't know they made equipment sensitive enough to detect that small an amount."

I think Ken - if he is reading this - will agree with me.

Maybe an illustration of a part per million (or ppm) will help, for those who don't use chemistry daily. A part per million is about equivalent to one drop of water in the gas tank of a small car. The amount of mercury we're looking at here would be equivalent to one tenth of that.

I dare say we are exposed to a greater amount of mercury from the ambient air pollution we all breathe. (Coal-fired electrical plants produce small quantities of mercury). If you live anywhere near the Canadian Shield, you are probably exposed to natural sources of mercury from it.

(Sources of mercury in the environment from the USGS).

Okay. So mercury in tiny quantities, while not something to be happy about, is probably not something that will make your children developmentally delayed, make you sick or crazy, or cause you to develop cancer. And even if it is, it is probably not something that can be eliminated from our environment. That's just how it is.

So, now on to the Critical Thinking FAIL part of the program.

I am on a networking website - one devoted to fiber crafters. There are message boards on there...some devoted to technical aspects of the craft, some more general. On one of the general boards there was this topic:"ALERT: Mercury found in High Fructose Corn Syrup."

I read the entire thread last night. It grew increasingly strident and crazed. SOMETHING MUST BE DONE, people said. THIS IS HURTING THE CHILDREN. Other people smugly reported how they NEVER consumed anything with HFCS, and that thinking people would do well to do likewise.

I kept hoping for a voice of reason to step up - for someone to say, "Hey guys, I'm a chemist. Avoid HFCS if you wish for dietary reasons, but this really isn't the end of the world."

But no. It grew increasingly unbalanced. One poster claimed that chicory and inulin were "other names" for it. (Chicory is a plant, rather like a dandelion, of which the root is used to flavor things. It is the famous ingredient in New Orleans style coffee. Inulin is made from starch; it is a naturally occurring fiber and it can help with absorption of certain nutrients in the human gut).

I so dearly wanted to go in there and open up a can of Scientific Tushie-Whip on those fools. But I didn't. You know what stayed my hand?

People who hold those kind of emotional opinions don't want to listen to science.

I almost posted. ALMOST. Then I thought of how I'd be hounded. How people would flame me, would speculate on how I was maybe a "shill for the industry"

(Trust me, I'm no fan of HFCS. I don't like how it tastes in stuff; I don't drink pop mainly because I don't like the sticky-sweet aftertaste it gives pop. I'm also not entirely convinced that it's metabolized "just the same as" sugar; there are a few small studies suggesting it affects insulin differently than sucrose-based sugars do. But I think the issue could be taken care of on a "marketplace" basis - let those who dislike HFCS request products without it, and be willing to pay the premium they command. Those who don't care, fine - they are probably really not going to be hurt at all by consuming the stuff.)

I could imagine days upon days of "private messages" sent to me screaming at me and telling me how I was WRONG and EVIL and STUPID and DIDN'T CARE ABOUT THE CHILDREN WHO ARE NOW PROBABLY GOING TO GET AUTISM FROM THIS IF THE VACCINES DON'T CAUSE IT FIRST.

That kind of thing.

The one thing I will observe, though: I really, really hope they don't start a grassroots movement to ban HFCS. Because I can only imagine the unintended consequences that would come from that - probably other sweeteners would be banned as well, in the worst-case we could see our cereal choices dwindle down to Bran Flakes, Corn Flakes, or unsweetened shredded wheat. And cookies, cake, and ice cream become black market items. In the less-than-worst-case scenario, food prices go up sharply because manufacturers have to use more expensive alternatives than HFCS.

I can kind of see a connection between this and the CPSIA issue I talked about a week or so ago: contamination shows up. "Something must be done!" Something is done, but it turns out it casts a net far wider than needed. Consumers and small businesspeople suffer.

In this case, it's slightly different: the lead and melamine contamination of toys really WAS a problem. Perhaps it was a problem that, had the proper existing laws have been adhered to, would not have happened. Mercury in trace amounts - in some cases too small to be detected - in one component of some foods - is not a problem on the order of a Dora the Explorer doll covered in paint with lead.

I used to say that if someone said, "We must do this for the children" that meant my taxes would soon go up. I think I'm going to add that if someone says "Something must be done!" it means my freedom and choice in the marketplace will soon decrease.

Heh.

Funny....this one reminds me of someone...or maybe several someones. (But I think they disdain beer-in-cans in favor of fifths of something stronger, or stuff in bottles)

the quiet hum of busy-ness

Two reasons for the title.

First, that's me this week - it is a busy week. One of our grad students (I am on her committee) is defending on Thursday. And there's a bunch of other work-stuff to be done. (This morning, campus is closed because of bad weather - so I am at home, trying to finish one of the books a student chose for Directed Readings).

But the real reason for the title is that is the sound you hear in a good lab. A lab that works, that the students find challenging but not frustrating.

I enjoy teaching labs. The situation is more relaxed than a lecture class (and yes, I am one of those evil-according-to-the-educrats profs who still lectures. What can I say? I teach the sciences. By and large it is the most efficient way to convey information. Believe me, I have tried the "read the chapter and we'll discuss" thing - test scores were a lot lower and the students did not seem to grasp the material as well).

In lab, you can talk more-or-less "privately" to individual people - in class, if someone has a question or of a discussion gets going, anything you say is for the class at large, for public consumption. In lab, you can talk quietly to one person, you can deal with their particular confusion or problem, and you don't have to worry about phrasing it in a way that will make sense for anyone else.

The other thing is you get to see more of the personalities of individual students. Some are quiet and workmanlike - after the introduction, they get their supplies, sit down, and you don't hear from them again until they're done. Some people are kind of slapdash, trying to finish as fast as possible so they can leave. (Generally the labs I do are self-paced for individuals or small groups; if I do a debriefing I wait until the next lecture section. It doesn't work well to have one group finish in 45 minutes and then sit around rolling their eyes and making comments about the super-diligent people who want to take the full time to do everything just so). Some people have a lot of questions, others you maybe have to press a bit to be sure they DON'T have questions. Some people want to talk about something from lecture or clear up some kind of logistics point.

So I tend to circulate around the class helping people, seeing how things are going, asking questions, discussion. This semester I have a TA who has HAD the classes (and mirabile dictu, I have a TA for both my labs who has HAD the labs - so he can answer a lot of the questions, which frees me up for more leisurely discussion with other groups).

There's a point I've noticed, about midway during a "good" lab, where there's relatively little talking going on - everyone's settled down to the task at hand, people are working, things are making sense, data are being generated and interpreted. It's a good feeling. It's about the "rightest" feeling of teaching there is - knowing the students are understanding, knowing that (at least some of) the students are happy at their task. You don't have to do much but be on hand to answer questions or to be a sounding board for potential interpretations of results. It's sort of a peaceful feeling - sort of a surrendering-of-control that is kind of nice. It's now the students' responsibility to figure stuff out, to do the work. If someone complains that the lab failed, or that they didn't get it, it's not that I taught it badly - because here are six other groups clicking away and doing what needs to be done.

There are also nice little "eureka" moments - one lab we do is a very simple natural selection simulation, and one guy doing it remarked, "Oh, so there can be random stuff too - like a predator with a really high score doesn't get near any prey, he may be the "best possible" genetically at getting prey but he will still die out" - things that are maybe hard to convey in lecture, but in practice the students get them.

I think some of the labs are enjoyable, too because they are practical. My soils TA remarked the other day that "Soils lab is a fun lab." He went on to explain: "You're doing stuff that matters. Stuff that you might need to know how to do in your job." Yes, I have them do all of the simple basic testing that you can do on a soil. (Another thing I do, which I think helps the lab a lot - the first lab is taking the students out to a local natural area, having them find locations on a soils map, and then collect the soil they and their lab partner will be analyzing. So they're always working on the same soil - they get to build up a picture of the details of it - and it's something they kind of have "ownership" of because they chose the site. It's little things like that which help a lab along, I think.)

Labs are one of the best parts of teaching.

Interesting

I really honestly don't care that much about politics (provided someone from The Government isn't knocking on my door to tell me what I can read, how I can worship, or what I can eat), but I still thought this little quiz was interesting:

My Political Views
I am a center-right moderate social libertarian
Right: 1.93, Libertarian: 1.56

Political Spectrum Quiz


Yeah, pretty much.

I'm more hawkish than a lot of people who take the test:

My Foreign Policy Views
Score: 3.11

Political Spectrum Quiz


What can I say but that there are bad people in this world, and it's our military's job to protect us from them, and in some cases, to protect the vulnerable around the world from those bad people.

This surprised me a little bit:

My Culture War Stance
Score: -0.42

Political Spectrum Quiz


I guess I'm not as conservative on some issues as many people would think I am. A big part of it is that I tend to take the attitude that what two consenting adults do is between them (or between them and their God). I may think what they're doing is wrong, but I don't think it's the government's place to prevent it. (Just don't TELL me about what you and your lover did last weekend, thanks.)

Oddly, my generalized opposition to the ending-of-life-of-innocents didn't seem to influence my score much.

And I'm pretty much inflexible on the First Amendment. I tend to think if we permit the banning of certain speech for being "hateful," soon all but the most bland speech will fall under that banner. And though I may be disgusted by certain things passing as "art," if we ban art that some people find offensive, soon we wind up with "art" like what was present during the Soviet Propaganda era in the old USSR.

Incredibly sweet song

As part of my digital cable package, I get something like 30 different digital music channels. Most of them I don't have much use for (eight different variants of country-pop?), but there is one kind of fun one I listen to sometime.

They call it by the (I think horrid) name "Malt Shop Oldies," which to me smacks of 20 or 30 something condescension - "Gramma and Grampa, here are your tunes"

It's mostly 50s and some early 60s stuff - lots of doo-wop, girl groups, that kind of thing. I love that kind of music.

One of the neat things about the channel is that along with the familiar stuff I've heard hundreds of times, once in a while they play some gem I either haven't heard or don't remember hearing.

Today one of those showed up. It's called "To the Aisle" and it's by a group called the Five Satins. (I think they're better known for "In the Still of the Night").

But the song struck me, partly because of the sheer sweetness of it, but also because it's SO VERY DIFFERENT from so much of what is promoted in pop music these days.

Here is the lyric that made me stop and listen more closely:

"Then you put a ring on her finger
And the tears start flowing awhile
Then you'll know she's yours forever
While each step draws you closer to the aisle"

Wow. I realize they're idealizing and all that, but still: very sweet.

And the idea of hoping and planning to get married - not always so promoted in today's cultural milieu.

(And not a mention of a bitch or a ho' anywhere in the entire song. Quite the opposite, in fact, it kind of puts the woman on a pedestal.)

While it's highly unlikely I'll get married at this point, and even less likely I'd have a big fancy reception with a band or a DJ, still, I have to say this would be a serious candidate for that "First Dance" song.

If you want to hear the song, here's a YouTube clip. The graphics along with the song aren't *great* - they sort of look like someone did Google Image searches on specific words and just plopped in what came up - but you can at least hear the song:

I watch too much tv

But did you know that Vince, the Creepy Sham-Wow Guy, has another ad, for this thing that chops stuff up?

And one of the lines in it is,

"You'll love my nuts!"

I s*** you not. The first time I saw it I was like, "Wait, did he just say..." and the second time I saw it I was like, "Oh yes he did!"

One tiny thing I wish...

That in this place where I live, this particular culture, people didn't automatically assume any female over 25 was married...and feel a need to inquire as to "why not?" if you aren't.

Oh, I never get snarky about it. I simply tell them what is, as I believe it to be, the truth: "I never met the right guy."

But, dear Lord, I get SO TIRED of explaining that. Or responding that my surname IS my maiden name (that's a variant of it. I suppose it's because people around here are so big into family connections; most women, upon meeting someone new who JUST MIGHT know some of their kin will tell the person "I used to be a Miller" or "My name used to be Castleberry.")

I don't know. Most of the time being single is what I think I would have chosen - I have free time to do things I couldn't have done with my life if I had married young and had kids - but sometimes having to EXPLAIN why I'm not married....it just makes me feel weird.

I should be used to feeling weird by now; I've felt weird for the majority of my life (starting in grade school). But I really am about ready to start fitting in, to stop feeling like I'm the oddball in the room.

this is why...

I don't read Scientific American, I read American Scientist (which is written BY scientists and by and large, FOR scientists) instead:

Oh noes, bugs in our FOODZ, says American Scientist.

It's cochineal. One of the safest red dyes out there. It's been used for YEARS. And by the time they're done extracting it, there are no bug parts left - it's really little different from squeezing beet juice out of beets and using it to color things. There's really no beet in there.

I'd a million times rather eat dye that comes from a bug, that's been used safely for a very long time, than consume some dye that was concocted recently in a lab, which has been tested but not long-term tested. (I have similar concerns about artificial sweeteners)

(And yes, I realize that is somewhat unreasonable given my stance about other things. But I'm not saying aspartame should be BANNED, I'm just saying, label food with it and give me the CHOICE to buy something sugar-sweetened vs. something aspartame-sweetened)

The other thing that really, really gets to me? Scientific American referred to these things as "cochineal beetles." THEY ARE NOT BEETLES. They are scale insects. Different species, different order, different animal. (While this isn't as egregious as trying to reclassify fish as "sea kittens," it's still a taxonomic error and it BUGS me that a publication with "Scientific" in its name did that)

I am also irritated that Scientific American apparently used CSPI - also known as the Chicken Littles of the food world (except, they might say chicken is DANGEROUS!) as their source. Please. They are an advocacy group. They are not researchers. They are big into knee-jerk things, they are big into scare tactics. (Oddly enough, not that different from PETA). If we let them run the show, we'd be subsisting on organic kale and reverse-osmosis purified water. And you better not enjoy that kale too much!

I'm not even going to GET into the issue about "allowable bug parts" under the USDA, but suffice it to say, that box of Corn Flakes is likely NOT 100% pure corn flakes.

Scientific American, you lose.

I really hope this isn't a hallmark of a larger trend - some advocacy group comes out, screaming about something that really we don't need to be upset about (There have been three adverse reactions to cochineal dye in the past ten years - fewer than there have been to gluten, eggs, and many other "safe" food items.). Yet the CSPI apparently wants this stuff banned.

Look, if you're entomophobic - read the label. Don't buy anything colored with cochineal. But trust me - I've been eating stuff with cochineal dye in it since I was a little kid and it is totally safe (unless you are one of those 3 out of probably 100 million people who is allergic). I suspect cochineal is safer than Red 40 or Red 2.

I really hope this isn't the tone for the coming years. I hope the Administration and the Cabinet are smart enough and not easily influenced enough that they don't start doing idiotic, law-of-unexpected-consequences-generating things by banning stuff just because a bunch of hotheads get to screaming that it should be banned.

I can forsee a future where lots of things are banned because of their "potential danger" - not just cochineal but also guns, booze, cigarettes, animal fats, sugar, artificial sweeteners, vaccines, toys....the list goes on. Almost anything that is useful and or enjoyable to someone, there is probably an "advocate" out there with more emotion than brains who is spinning themselves up to start talking about how it should be banned.

(And as Bug Girl cites on her blog post - it's a source of a living wage to poor Central American farmers. So won't you think of the peasants?)

I realize I've ranted about a lot of things this week but there seems to be an unusually great amount of stupidity in the news these days.

COMMON SENSE, people, it's called COMMON SENSE. There seems to be a severe deficit of it these days.

When worlds collide:

In this case: stupidity, politics, and cake:

some really bad Obama inauguration-celebrating cakes.

(Oh, I KNOW, all of you read Cake Wrecks already. But I wanted to call attention to this post because some of the cakes are so horribly bad. There's one celebrating "Obmoa's" inauguration. And there are recycled Yule Logs - slap a sugar medallion with Obama's face on it, and it's a Presidential InLOGural cake.

You might not want to read the comments though; like so many popular blogs, the comments go kind of bad kind of fast.)

quick financial question

So, my campus is no longer offering 403(b) plans through TIAA-CREF, as they have for years. There is a new provider, one I won't name here, but I'm not sure I trust them to still be around when I hit 70 1/2 (well, I'm not sure I trust TIAA to be around, but that's for different reasons).

They will still permit 457(b) plans through TIAA.

So here are a couple of quick questions, if anyone knows the answer:

Supposedly one difference is that the employer "owns" the 457(b) account, while the employee "owns" the 403(b). Is that going to come back to bite me in the backside someday? Does that mean that my university could decide it needs cash and pilfer our retirement savings? Or is the "ownership" just a piece of legalese?

This "withdrawal direction from employer only" bothers me - apparently that means my university can set how much I get per month out of my account. True?

Gah. I hate this. Apparently this is because of some stupid IRS tinkering. At first, I thought I'd just stay with TIAA and do a 457(b) but I do NOT like the concept that my employer will "own" my account rather than me, because that suggests that if we got someone with sticky fingers in the accounts office, all of us with 457(b) plans might find ourselves looking for jobs as greeters at Wal-Mart after retirement.

But there are apparently some changes to the 403(b) account...I can't find any clear discussion of them online, other than one fund provider saying, "We are now a 403(b) provider; go with us or you'll be SORRY!"

Frick. Maybe I should just rip a hole in my guest room mattress and stuff money in there. It bugs the hell out of me that I have a Ph.D. and yet I can't make my way through the jargon on prospecti well enough to determine if I'm going to get screwed or not.

hah.

One of the conservation guys in my lab this afternoon had a funny shirt.

It had a picture of a buck deer, and the words: "Deer: the other red meat." On the buck were little arrows pointing to the various cuts, naming them, and telling what they were good for.

I'm not a hunter, but as a plant ecologist I've come to consider deer (at least in the population sizes present in much of the US today) a pest species of sorts. So I have absolutely no problem if someone wants to convert a few deer into backstrap or pot roast.

A lot of the conservation students have funny t-shirts they wear. One of my favorites was the big guy (and he was a BIG guy) who had a camouflage shirt that said on the front, in small white letters, "you can't see me."

Some of our conservation students can be kind of problem people - but then again any group can. But I appreciate the sense of humor that most of them seem to have.

The law of unintended consequences in action...

This is something I really hadn't commented about, though it touches on several matters dear to my heart, because I felt I couldn't find reasonable information.

Well, I think Forbes Magazine is pretty reasonable:

Scrap the CPSIA Act.

This is the act that was apparently fairly quickly passed last year, after the outcry about lead and melamine contamination in certain children's toys, and tiny magnets that posed a choking hazard.

Sounds good, right? Make all the toy manufacturers test their stuff and prove it's safe, so that Chinese Scandal can never happen again.

But. Many of the small American toymakers - in fact, the very companies that profited from the scandal because people realized that, for example, a wooden toy train that was only finished with a wax finish was probably a lot safer than a plastic doo-dad that was painted with who-knows-what - are now going to have to do extensive testing unless they can prove they only use a few "exempted" materials (and even then, in some cases, they might have to test).

I have read on a lot of the craft blogs, how people who used to make children's toys - things like stuffed animals that had NONE of the lead paint, NONE of the tiny magnets, not even buttons sewn on (because buttons can pose a choking risk) are probably going to close down shop. Because testing is too expensive.

Testing can run $1000 per item. And while that might be OK for a multinational corporation, for a small businessperson making toy trains or baby burp pads or knitting baby hats, that's not going to be feasible. (And note that it is per item. Apparently even if you knit two different styles of hats of the same basic yarn, they will both need testing under the law).

That's bad. Especially because a lot of people doing this are people who were downsized from other jobs, or parents who wanted to stay at home with their kids, or retired folks looking for a little more income.

And for the consumer, it's bad: it will, if the law is carried out to the most stringent extreme, sharply limit consumer choice. Consumers will largely be forced to buy from the larger sellers and larger manufacturers.

Even worse? Many, many thrift stores - which are technically not required to test items, but are liable if a "bad" item turns up - are just going to landfill tons of "gently used" children's clothing and toys, rather than face the risk.

So many charitable organizations - like St. Vincent de Paul - are going to lose part of their income. And parents looking for an affordable source of clothes lose too - especially parents who are cash-strapped and maybe CAN'T afford the full price of new clothes or toys.

Another unintended consequence? A lot of libraries are worried. Apparently books fall into this ruling as well. Some librarians whose blogs I read have speculated aloud whether they will have to trash the existing Children's section and buy all new - which is a tragedy, not just in terms of the cost to the library, but in the loss of out-of-print or historical books.

And yet another (and this is the dear to my heart part) - I know a lot of people who make quilts for Project Linus, a charity that provides handmade blankets for children facing serious hospital time or other problems (like being taken to a foster care situation). I have even made one, recently, for Project Linus. They now have a thing up on their webpage noting the act and saying they are trying to "work around it." But I'd HATE to think of all those people's time and care (and money) winding up in a landfill somewhere, because a stupid law said that you can't give a washable cotton blanket to a child, because some toy manufacturer in China cut the paint they used on a toy with lead.

In fact, I was planning on doing more quilt tops for them, but I've put a moratorium on that until I see how it works out, and if they will actually still be allowed to distribute them.

There may even - and I can't find any information on this, but it wouldn't surprise me - be a ban on the selling of "vintage" toys and dolls - even to adult collectors. Because, I suppose, it could be argued they pose an "attractive nuisance" and how are you to know that old teddy bear you're selling to that nice lady is actually going to sit on a shelf in her house and not be given to her 10 year old?

So, in the name of "protecting the children," we may destroy the livelihood of certain small businesses, cause a problem for libraries, make it harder for struggling families to provide clothing for children. All because some factories in China violated laws that were PROBABLY already in place governing what could be used in children's products.

A lot of the crafty blogs are up in arms about this. As are a lot of the frugal-living blogs. I suspect some of the mom-blogs are too, but I don't read any of them.

It just seems to me like so many things: Bad Thing Happens. Someone decides, "Something must be done!" Something is done, but then it turns out to hurt people - in some cases, people who had nothing to do with the original Bad Thing that happened. The people who WERE acting responsibly and not doing the bad thing - the small toy-makers especially, but also arguably libraries and thrift stores (in that they were providing an option for people not able to spend huge amounts of money, and they were effectively recycling goods that still had use in them) get spanked by the law.

Oh, and the kicker? It seems that a lot of the testing facilities that will be profiting from this new law? Are in China. Lovely. Just lovely...

Pres. Bush is a better person than I am...

They said on the noon radio news that President Bush was spending his last day in office calling world leaders and thanking them for their support and for working with him.

He is a better person than I am, because if I had the White House calling codes for one more day, and had been in the position he had been in? I would have TOTALLY been prank calling places like MoveOn.

And I wouldn't just do the classic "Hello, may I speak to Hugh Jass? I KNOW there is a Hugh Jass there." Or the one about the running refrigerator, which is admittedly old and stupid, but still. No. I'd try to find or hire someone who could do a good Obama impression, have them talk to the MoveOn or whomever people, lead them on, make them think something really great was going to happen...then have the impressionist revert to his real voice, and go "Psych! I TOTALLY had you going there!" and then start laughing.

But yeah, it's a good thing soon-to-be-former President Bush is more mature than I am...

A couple of political thoughts but more than just that...

1. Now that Bush is almost out of office, could people maybe stop with the hate, the "dumb Bush" jokes, the "evil Bush" jokes? (I know, I know - they still sell gag corkscrews of Clinton and that bugs me, too).

2. I can't wait for Obama to actually do something so people have something to comment about other than the sort of crazed celebrity-adulation I've seen. Really, they are treating him and his family much the way Princess Diana was treated - or the way Bono is treated - or the way, I don't know, that guy in the new vampire movie gets treated.

I can't help but think that kind of adulation isn't good for a person. I may bitch and whine about how no one ever seems to notice that anything I do is any good, but I think I'd be very uncomfortable with lots of unearned praise.

Actually, I take that back: I KNOW I'd be very uncomfortable with it. And to veer away (thank goodness) from the political, back to this article that I sadly think I'm going to have to suggest rejection on:

I went through grad school with a very picky adviser. I can't even count how many times I re-wrote my thesis, let alone my dissertation. He was always quick to point out what was not good about something. (But he was also that way about his own work; he was very open about it when something he did was not up to his standards). Praise was very rare. And at times, that got frustrating. I'd start to wonder if what I was doing was any good at all, if I'd ever write something good enough to be considered "finished."

But then, once in a while, I'd do something well, and he'd kind of nod and me and go, "good job" or "that was a well-planned presentation."

And because those words were so rare, you knew they meant a lot - that a "good job" from him was equal to the most flowing and effusive praise of other people. Maybe even worth MORE.

I knew another faculty member who was effusive in his praise. And while it was fun to take a seminar from him - because EVERYTHING you did was great and impressive and innovative, after a while you started to wonder: what I'm doing really can't be that glorious. And wait, last week Dingleberry gave a really cruddy seminar and the prof talked about how great it was. Something's not right here.

And then, I'd naturally begin to wonder: was my seminar actually as bad as Dingleberry's, but I didn't realize it at the time because of the gushing praise?

And then I'd go back to my adviser, and write something, and rewrite it five times, and finally he'd say, "OK, this is good enough." And you actually felt like it WAS. Like the guy wasn't blowing smoke; what you had done was actually worthy.

And I saw other people going through grad school who got praised all the time - and they didn't really develop (or they let atrophy) the sense of critical reading, of being able to look at something and go, "This needs work" (ironically, one of my adviser's favorite phrases).

And I wonder if that's not what happened to the people writing this paper. I've seen it in some areas of the conservation community. For those of you not in the know - there are kind of three (maybe more) levels in the conservation community. Or maybe not levels, maybe just schools of thought. One is the academic. These are people with backgrounds like mine - they came through a tough, traditional graduate program. They had to work hard. They tend to expect good experimental design and quantification. And they really expect experiments be done with things like controls, or with baseline studies done before anything is changed - they are people who don't want to draw conclusions without good evidence. And then there's more of an NGO type community. They've been influenced by academic conservation, they try to use good experimental design and such. Maybe their studies aren't quite as rigorous; maybe they didn't think to take baseline data before removing an invasive species or burning a prairie. But they do want to learn from the academics; they recognize that more rigor is a good thing.

And then there's the "enthusiast" community. For them, every conservation-oriented activity is GREAT. They are SAVING THE EARTH. (and yes, they tend to SPEAK IN CAPITALS.) There's a certain amount of "woo" (to use the Junkfood Science term) at work in some people's thinking - there's a certain degree of mysticism.

Now, don't get me wrong - some kinds of mysticism are good. I like that there are mysteries of the faith, that there are things we don't fully understand. But I don't really believe that, for example, trees "weep" when they get other trees grown up around them. Oh, they may suffer the effects of competition for water or light, but they are TREES. They do not, as far as we have been able to determine, FEEL.

So it bugs me when someone speaks - in a serious and non-jovial manner - about trees "weeping" because they're surrounded by other trees, or how the land "cries out" to them, that kind of stuff.

Partly because it's not scientific - but partly because that kind of attitude is not too far off from setting yourself up as a "special" person, as some kind of "empath" - and perhaps even the "chosen one," the one who is to be the savior of that particular forest or whatever.

And so then the rest of the people working on that project, as great as their skills are, become less, because see, they don't have that "special feeling."

And I hate that.

And it leads to sloppy thinking. People who buy into this concept - who either tip over all the way into the crazy-earth-person enthusiasm, or even the people who aren't that far gone, but who are going to clap and cheer ANYTHING that is done - they tend NOT to do good experimentation. Controls? We don't need no stinking controls! We know that what we are doing is GOOD and RIGHT and we are SAVING THE EARTH!

I've actually had enthusiast-types tell me, "You scientists. Nothing would EVER get done if you ran the show. Step back and let the people who CARE do their work."

And then you get things happening like mongoose being introduced to Hawaii to take care of the rats - and then 50 or 60 years later, the scientists wind up chronicling how that killed off some of the native birds, thanks to the Law of Unexpected Consequences. But of course, the enthusiasts are long since moved onto another project, and anyway, it's not their fault that things got screwed up.

And that's the sense I get from this paper - that it was written by someone who had more caring than scientific background, someone who was so pressed to put their thoughts and feelings down on the paper that ordinary rules of organization and syntax no longer applied.

And sadly - what we are editing is a scientific proceedings, not a fan magazine. So I'm going to make what suggestions I can for improvement but I suspect they will be met with howling anger - with the "how dare this person" tamper with their lovely plan. But whatever. That's life. Unfortunately reality isn't as pretty as hope.

Which is why I'll be glad when the inauguration is over and we get back (I expect) to the work of reality. There's only so much gushing praise of someone I can stand to hear.

weeny gripe

I'm reviewing an article for publication in the proceedings of a conference I attend.

oh my bob, the writing is so disorganized. It makes my head hurt. The author refers to these sites that are in Ontario and they talk about them as if everyone knows (of course!) exactly where they are and what they are like. And they use abbreviations without, in some cases, giving an initial reference so we know what they are.

And there's lots of Canuck-centric jargon. I had never heard some of the terms before. I asked a colleague who has worked and lived more places than I if he had ever heard a particular term, and this was the response I got:

O_o

Then I Googled it and it came up on a bunch of Canadian sites. So I don't know if I'll get bashed for being the Ugly American if I point out that not everyone in the world uses the same terminology, eh?

So I don't know. So far the paper seems pretty much a FAIL to me; it feels like it was written in a stream-of-consciousness mode, where the author is all, "Oh, yeah, here's this other thing I thought of. Oh, and here's another problem we had." And while stream-of-consciousness is fine for blogs and such, it's not right for scholarly papers.

The whole thing is just a hot mess, as the cool kids say. (Do they still say that? Or have they moved on to a new phrase?)

Amazing news story

Plane crashes in water, no one dies, passengers wait on wing until rescued.

Capt. Sullenberger has proven that it is possible - at least some of the time - for passengers to survive an emergency water landing.

Even more - apparently he maneuvered to miss hitting buildings while his plane was disabled.

No one died. 155 people basically walked off that plane.

I know that there are the usual people coming out and saying, "He did what he was trained to do so he was not a hero" but I say bosh, the man IS a hero in my book. He kept his cool. He remembered what he had learned. He avoided hurting anyone on the ground. And all his passengers and crew survived.

God bless you, Capt. Sullenberger.