Part 1: Government

As warned, this is the first part in a series (I have 3 parts outlined thus far) on where we're at as a country in my opinion. This was originally just one post, but I kept expanding the concept and seeking clarity (as a good engineer does) and ended up with an outline to work from.

Of late, I have become increasingly frustrated by the continuous answer that government can solve our problems. Is that really what government is for?

The point of government is to provide structure for a civil society through the protection of basic (or natural) rights. Having grown up in the states, the Bill of Rights seems a reasonably fair start at a list of rights a government should protect. Other things that it seems reasonable for the government to provide is a fair and balanced system for the redress of grievances criminal and civil (Justice system), support of basic infrastructure (roads, sewer--see your local DPW), and a face to the world as a whole in foreign affairs including a military.

After those things, it's all gravy. Most of the institutions we now take for granted as part of government are relatively new even in our country; public education (1840's), income taxes (1913, 16th Amendment), social welfare (1930's) just to name a few. Most were outgrowths of movements started in local communities then states at the behest of the electorate to solve a pressing problem at the time.

Those things are alright I suppose, but detract from the ability to focus on the core mission of the government just like a focus on test scores seems to be hurting schools in the mission of educating students.

The government is not a tool for a minority or majority to force a given belief set on those who don't agree. There is a certain minimum standard that everyone can agree on defined as natural rights but that does not mean a complete belief set. What business does the government have in marriage? Or birth control? Or employment practices? So long as the practice of a person's beliefs is not harmful to others, physically or undeniably emotionally does the government need to be involved? In most cases, I don't think so. Besides that, in these areas, law becomes unenforceable without a police state to watch every move of the citizenry.

The other thing it is not is a replacement for responsibility on any level. Many of the problems we face today would be much less challenging if people took responsibility for what they do and were held to it. Violent video games made me kill that person. The gun dealer that sold me the gun made me able to shoot my lover. I'm on welfare because my education was poor. Balogna. All of those and many other lines we see in the news daily are failures of personal responsibility.

With those things in mind, the next post will relate to democracy in all its forms.

Good Idea, Bad Idea

Who remembers the little cartoons on the Animaniacs and occasionally on other cartoon shows with the "Good Idea, Bad Idea" characters? For this post I'll try it out as a format.

Good Idea: Spend time at the local college teaching.

Bad Idea: Doing it for three full mornings of a single week.

I had the opportunity to teach a formal class (3 hours) at Lakeland last week. My previous engagements were more Q&A sessions, but this was an actual item in the syllabus with a chapter of the text to go over. Appropriately enough, I taught the chapter "Leader as Politician". I enjoyed it and I think the class found it at least interesting. As a good prof will do, I used the structure from the text, but applied a lot of information from my library as well as personal experiences and real-world examples to illustrate the points. Just teaching this session would not have been a bad idea, it was the subsequent return a few days later to review student presentations and then the next day to help grade their finals (an outline and oral presentation). The thing that makes it "bad" was that I certainly had other projects I could have worked on in that time. Oh well.

Good Idea: Hiking the Parnell Tower trail.

Bad Idea: Hiking it on the first 90 degree day of the year at high speed.

Yes, I was stupid enough to consider it a good idea to go power hiking on the hottest day of the year thus far. The trail is all of 3.5 miles long, but is rather hilly and I covered it in just over an hour. Funny, I felt icky at the end of the trail, especially after ascending the 60 foot tower at the end. I decided to go see X-Men 3 to cool down (it's okay, but not as good as the first two). I noticed that the ticket seller looked at me with a little concern and realized when I went to the restroom that I was beet red. Hmmm. Heat exhaustion, fun. Whatever, I felt much better after a 40 some ounce slushy. I actually hiked all three days of the weekend and did nothing work related. Sweet.

Good Idea: Re-arrange my living room.

Bad Idea: Decide that I need an ottoman now.

I woke up Saturday with the conviction that the living room needed to be rearranged. There are certain limitations to this, notably the very heavy TV and associated sockets. I left that part be, but moved everything else so that now the couch is in the prime TV viewing position. This makes more sense since it is all but brand new and much more expensive than the decade-old recliners that previously were there and are now in good fire-viewing position. The difficulty is that I need a footrest for the couch and the coffee table just isn't very comfortable for that. Must now visit WG&R to see what they have that matches.

That concludes "Good Idea, Bad Idea".

Coming soon: My first multi-part rambling and position statement on democracy, government and short-sighted citizens. It will be worth reading and probably be a little suprising to some. Until then.

Pull out the Waders

After the plant tour described below, we met up with our classmates to do community service at the city park and nature center where the District Day Camp was held last year. The first project I worked on was moving trees. This was actually fixing what others had recently done as the trees had been placed too close together. We moved the trees apart across the area to give them a better chance at growth. The area was really swampy and made awful sucking noises when digging.

The second project was much more fun. One of the other guys and I pulled on waders and waded into the pond to pull apart an old dock. Our methodolgies were a study in contrasts: he used brute force with a sledge, where as I used a crowbar and applied leverage to do the same work. It was interesting wading around ripping the platform apart while avoiding the drop-off and handing the pieces up to the folks on shore. The park director was impressed at the speed and efficiency with which we demolished the dock. We both managed to get rather wet with the splashing and wrestling the logs about. Thus I went home to shower and change before going to the graduation ceremony.

Working out there reminded me how much I enjoy working outside on conservation projects (as long as it's not weeding or mowing) especially destruction/construction. Spring Conclave is coming up so I will have another opportunity to work at camp.

Where toilets come from...

Where do they come from? I don't mean Home Depot, but Kohler Corp or at least some of them come from there. Today, I got to see how they are made. For the last session of the Chamber Leadership Institute, we had choices of tours or shadowing to go on. Since I had not yet entered the belly of the empire in Kohler I chose the Kohler factory tour. We started at the Design Center (see previous posts) and headed over to manufacturing. The facilities we toured included the Pottery where Vitreous China products are made, the brass casting facility and the iron foundry. There were detailed stops in each with special attention to the Artist-in-residence facilities for visiting artists who work with materials and processes in the plant to create art. The foundry was the coolest with lots of molten iron being poured, red-hot bathtubs, and super-hot enameling stations. I did not realize that Kohler does industrial contract castings for things like torque converters, train parts, etc. Surprisingly, the factory buildings were very clean inside especially considering the products being made. The tour was about a 3-mile walk.

I found out where old Kohler employees go, they don't die, they become tour guides. Our guide was a 44-year veteran of the company all in shop floor jobs (grinding in particular). One observation of the group was the contrast between the upper-class aura of the village of Kohler (include the only 5 diamond resort in the Midwest) and the gritty, blue-collar work inside the factories that are hidden behind the well-landscaped trees and shrubs. Yet it is this very gritty work that provides the wealth that is there.

As far as the staff goes, I cannot fathom working a job for 20 and more years doing the same basic labor over and over (grinding the sharp edges from cast bathtubs for example) yet many people around here are happy with these jobs and compete for them. The jobs certainly don't take much thinking, but they pay well as you can see in the vehicles parked in the employee parking area. One change over the years is that all the employees used to live in Kohler, but now most cannot afford to live in the village.

It was a cool tour and well worth going on.

Smells Like Camp

Actually that would be what my dining and living room smell like right now. That heart-warming aroma of wood smoke and damp grass that reminds me of many camping trips I've been on.

I was camping last weekend in the lovely soggy sunshine and brisk (okay, cold) temperatures. It wasn't all that bad, it actually felt normal to be at camp in the rain. I know the eskimos have lots of names for snow, we need lots for types of rain like the guy in the Hitchhikers' Guide series. This was an on and off light drenching rain that went to moderate for a couple of hours and even stopped for a while. The temperature was in the 40's, but felt cooler as it always does when raining.

Despite this it seems everyone had a good time. Not many hiked (myself included), but there was Atl-Atl chucking (a spear-throwing method used by many native cultures--"Run like gazelle" as I told the OA member that I wanted to use as a target) and some French and Indian War re-enactors playing the part of the British. There was also a fun OA ceremony involving much fire and flash-bangs that made me smile. I stayed dry and warm through it all and was well-fed by a local troop and the OA who I camped with. The key to staying dry is several hundred dollars of really good rain gear and non-cotton under layers. I realized this as I was pointing out that jeans are not the best idea in cold-damp weather to a 14-yr old Arrowman.

I was disappointed that two troops cancelled because of the weather. Weak. As I have said before, Eagle Scouts and Scouts in general are no smarter than everyone else, just better at dealing with it. Cancelling a campout because of weather (short of an ice storm) doesn't build this trait.

Besides being exhausted when I got home, I had a wet tent and dirty rain gear to handle. The rain gear was easy in that I washed it all in the washer and it is like new again--this is the first time I have done that. The idea with the tent was to hang it in Ed's garage, but that was locked, I don't have a key to it and he is in VA until June. Plan B is why my apartment smells like camp--the tent and rain fly are spread over dining room chairs and bar stools in the living room and the ground tarp is in the bathtub. At least it is already mostly dry. Now I will need to clean it all on a nice day in June when I have access to Ed's garage to hang dry it all in.

It was a cold, wet, dark night....

When we held our Program Kick-off. For those who read this regularly, you might recall an earlier post where I was frustrated over the location and format of the annual program kick-off. In the end I relented and we continued the tradition of holding it at camp. Enter Mother Nature. If you haven't seen a radar map lately there is a big swirling stationary front over Lake Michigan that keeps sucking up moisture and dumping it on WI. It has been rainy (over 1.5"), windy (gusts to 50 mph) and cold (41 degrees F) most of the day. In these conditions we headed to camp for our event. Note that the dining hall is not in any way heated so it was cold in there. This was livable, it was the next item that made it interesting. About a half-hour before the presentations were to start the power went out. Great. We had time so every one just sat chatting in the dim twilight soggily coming through the windows and a few flashlights. There was still no juice at the time the presentations started so we did them without the PowerPoint presentations to go with them. More fun was the round-robin to all of the stations in the dark and handing out packets. It was great. Brian and I are going out tomorrow to finish cleaning up since that was not practical given the situation. It will definitely be a memorable event.

As far as the weather goes, it is supposed to continue through the weekend with the rain slackening by Saturday night. Guess what we're having this weekend...Spring Camporee. Soggy sunshine here I come. I don't particularly like camping in the rain, but I can deal with it. What suprised me were the calls asking if the event would be cancelled. I was flabbergasted. Of course its not being cancelled, what is a Scouting event without rain? I understand the concern about unprepared Scouts, but that is what the leaders are here to teach these boys. As I have said before, Eagle Scouts and veteran Scouts in general aren't any smarter than the average person, they're just better able to deal with challenges and make the best of them. Some of the strongest memories I have of camping are of the soggy weekends. Some were certainly miserable, but they were great learning experiments. With that in mind, I have trouble being sympathetic to those asking about cancellation. If it were a Cub event, I would consider it, but Boy Scouts come on. I'll probably hear about it especially since I was not so tactful about it. Oh well.

I'll write again after being a swamp rat.

Speaking on behalf of Theocracy...

How is it that one of the oldest civilizations on Earth is led (well, sort of--see below) by folks who can't see past their own nose? I am, of course, talking about Iran. If you have not read their president's letter to Bush, here it is.

The guy has some really different ideas about the world. Some of his points are reasonable, but this is not the letter that you send to another world leader with whom you do not see eye to eye. Shoot, even at the worst of the Cold War, there was room to compromise and both sides recognized the need for realpolitik not here. Apparently he feels that people want theocracy as their government, even though their are all of 2 theocratic states (Iran and Vatican City--talk about polar opposites) versus over 100 democracies of varying types, many of which are relatively recent governments brought about by the will of the people.

The funny part is that the theme of the letter is "What Would Jesus Do--Not What the US Does". This is undoubtedly true, our nation is in no way perfect. The irony is that the author of the letter speaks for a country that has openly sponsored terrorism throughout the world, sought to destabilize neighboring regimes, openly calls for the destruction of other nations, does not allow half of its popluation equal rights (women), quashes dissenting voices brutally, and has frequently referred to the US as the Greater Satan and Russia as the Lesser Satan. Oh yeah, this guy isn't even in charge; Ayatollah Khamenei and the Council of Guardians have the final say in what goes and doesn't in Iran. These folks are in no way accountable to the population and are in power because they say God wants them there yet there is no support in the Koran for the style of government they rule under.

I will grant that democracy is not always the best answer up front, but in the long run, some form of democracy is still the best of a variety of bad choices for forms of government (this is a whole different discussion for another time).

Going to war with Iran is a really bad idea, but so is knuckling under as part of the international community and allowing this guy and his nation to have the potential to develop and possess nuclear weapons. Would you want Pat Buchanan as the sole leader of our nation? I think not.

The Joy of Freeware

I don't normally advertise on here, but I have of late adopted some useful freeware for my machines that run better than their big name counterparts:

Firefox Browser: Easier and more secure than Internet Explorer with some cool features (links bar).

PDFCreator: Creates PDF files much quicker than Adobe.

FoxIt Reader: A PDF reader that opens faster than Adobe and has more tools to go with it.

The GIMP: A somewhat complicated to install photo and imaging tool that is as useful as Photoshop with some tools that are better and it's free.

That concludes my advertising segment.

Headlines from a tired guy

I know it's been a long time since I last posted. Things have been way too busy. I finally declared that this morning is devoted to not working even though I have enough work to keep me busy. It's been a month since my last day at home without something work related and I have meetings or events through a week from Friday with a camporee this weekend. This happens every spring, but it seems like a new experience each time. Enough whining, now for the few headlines:

"The Day the Laptop Died": My stalwart electronic companion died last Sunday. It had served me well since I purchased it not long after realizing that the CVC office machines were not acceptable to me and did the job well for three and a half years. It's death was quick and frustrating. After spending a couple of hours on Saturday working on an event on it, I brought it home and went to retrieve the file on Sunday when lo and behold it would not boot. This brought on a long soliloquy alternately punctuated by cursing the machine and cajoing it to return to life. Alas, it chose not to respond. It could have picked a better time to die, thankfully I had recently backed up the important files (music) on it. As it was, I needed a laptop for several upcoming events. Enter the Best Buy card, no interest financing for one year and wa-la, new laptop. It is not what I would have purchased given more time and planning and finances, but it is a solid machine. It's a Toshiba Satellite A105 with a DVD burner and the new Intel Core Solo processor. The only item lacking is an onboard video card, but that would have doubled the price to get a machine with that on it. On the upside, I can upgrade it to 4 gig of DDR2 RAM and will in time do so. I have named it "Gertrude".

"Training Supremo": I had the lovely opportunity to be training chair for my district Boy Scout Training course on just over a week's notice. This was a contributing factor to the whine at the start. I managed to assemble a scratch team and rebuild the syllabus to work and execute it successfully. The toll was that I am still tired despite 11 hours of sleep the night after the course. I have now recruited a new training chair to run it in the fall, amen.

"Road Work": The season has started here with three towns isolated. I knew about the challenge in getting to Cedar Grove, but I did not know that 20 miles of highway were closed on the most direct route to a meeting I had last week. This led to a convoluted tour of Southwest Sheboygan County as Brian and I tried to find a route to where we were going. We made it only fifteen minutes late. The third town, I received warning yesterday, but it will be really incoveinent for those who don't know the back routes. I hate orange.

That's all I've got for now.