Things I’ve noticed while watching TV shows from the late 60s

I’ve had to spend a couple of weeks in bed recovering form two surgeries. (Henry’s meeting in the emergency room with the 101 year old woman took place moments before I was whisked away to the operating room to correct a complication from the surgery I had 5 days earlier. I‘m fine now, but it was a little exciting there for a few minutes.)

In the last two weeks, I‘ve watched the entire first season for Adam 12 on hulu.com. I grew up watching Adam 12. As a family, once a week we would gather around the TV after dinner and watch the latest episode. At the time, my father was going through police training and later served many years as a police officer. My father would comment of how well the two fictional characters followed police procedures or related his own experiences.

For me, watching Adam 12 is almost like watching home movies. It gives a glimpse into the world of my childhood. The clothing, attitudes, and lifestyle are familiar in a surreal sort of way. In that world, it was normal for children unaccompanied by an adult to wander all over the neighborhood, even in the big city, without a cell phone. Can you even image it?

That was my world. I walked or biked to the library or the store by myself. As a boy, my husband used to ride the bus to the library in down town San Jose from his home in South San Jose. I can’t imagine my children doing that. I have just begun letting my 15 year old daughter bike to our local library and grocery store alone.

So when did we become such helicopter parent society. Even worse, as homeschoolers, it could be argued that we are the ultimate helicopter parents. Heck, we won’t even let our kids go to school.

So where’s the balance? I remember the freedom and independence of my childhood and wish my children could experience something similar. On the other hand, I remember a lot of inappropriate and dangerous things that happened that my parents never knew about either.

I find it difficult to evaluate the risk in today’s society. I read news reports of crimes I never dreamed of as a child. Are things really that different or are we just better informed?

While I’m not willing to abandon my role as protector and guide, I think I will stick my children on a bus to visit their grandparents 20 miles away……with a cell phone…….before dark………after we‘ve tried the route once or twice with them first.

Technorati Tags : Adam 12 , hippies , the sixties , homeschool , public school , helicopter parents

4,000 federal crimes!

You might be breaking a Federal law, right this minute, and not even know it.

In Making criminals out of all Americans, Gene Healy reports:

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There are now more than 4,000 federal crimes, spread out through some 27,000 pages of the U.S. Code. Some years ago, analysts at the Congressional Research Service tried to count the number of separate offenses on the books, and gave up, lacking the resources to get the job done. If teams of legal researchers can't make sense of the federal criminal code, obviously, ordinary citizens don't stand a chance.
You can serve federal time for interstate transport of water hyacinths, trafficking in unlicensed dentures, or misappropriating the likeness of Woodsy Owl and his associated slogan, "Give a hoot, don't pollute." ("What are you in for, kid?" your new cellmate growls.) Bills currently before Congress would send Americans to federal prison for eating horsemeat or selling goods falsely labeled as "Native American."
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27,000 pages of the U.S. code!

Mind boggling.

27,000 pages of the U.S. code!

Now and then I've wondered if a political compagined based on "We'll get rid of the old stupid, outdated laws." would have any traction.

27,000 pages of the U.S. code!

Maybe we ought to have a law that Congress has to live under new laws for five years before the rest of us need to pay any attention.


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Technorati tags: federal, crimes

Plunder! looks like another book worth reading

Steven M. Greenhut writes about his book in Public employees living larger than ever as economy struggles:

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The economy is struggling, the unemployment rate is high, and many Americans are struggling to pay the bills. But one class of Americans is doing quite well: government workers. Their pay levels are soaring, they enjoy unmatched benefits, and they remain largely immune from layoffs, except for some overly publicized cutbacks around the margins.
As I document in my new book, Plunder!, government employees of all stripes have manipulated the system to spike their pensions. The old deal seemed fair: public employees would earn lower salaries than Americans working in the private sector, but would receive a somewhat better retirement and more days off. Now, public employees get higher average pay, far higher benefits, and many more days off and other fringe benefits. They have also obtained greatly reduced work schedules, thus limiting public services even as pay and benefits shoot ever higher. The new deal is starting to raise eyebrows, thanks to efforts by groups such as the California Foundation for Fiscal Responsibility, which publishes the $100,000 Club, a list of thousands of California government retirees with six-figure, taxpayer-guaranteed incomes.
The story doesn’t end with the imbalance in pay and benefits. Government workers also enjoy absurd protections. The Los Angeles Times published a recent series about the city’s public school district, which doesn’t even try to fire incompetent teachers and is seldom able to get rid of those credibly accused of misconduct or abuse.
The real scandal is a two-tier society where government workers enjoy benefits far in excess of those for whom they supposedly work. It’s past time to start cleaning up the mess by reforming retirement systems and limiting the public unions’ power.
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The news on the recent stimulus package was that employment was up in Washington DC and among government workers.

I am sure that most government workers, like most school teachers, are good people. Steven's point is that the system is flawed. When it become almost impossible to fire a bad teacher, the system is broken.

I wonder was Steven's solution is?


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Technorati tags: government, workers

Cheap, almost infinite computing

I find this interesting - Amazon Taking Bids for Computing Resources:

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Amazon has launched a new product that offers up cloud computing possibilities in a model reminiscent of Google AdWords.
Called Spot Instances, it allows users to specify the price they want to pay for access to to resources in the Amazon Elastic Compute Cloud. Users can set other parameters, too, such as the region where they'd like a job to run.
For its part, Amazon gives its unused resources a "spot price" which fluctuates based on how heavily its cloud is being used at a given time. When a user's bid exceeds the spot price, the job runs.
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Just like the personal computer, the web browser, and Google opened up new opportunites, I think Cloud Computing will create new industries. I just wish I could figure out what one of them was going to be.


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Technorati tags: Amazon, Cloud, Computing

The Carnival of Homeschooling is up - The Winter in Idaho Edition

Renae is hosting this week's Carnival of Homeschooling at her blog Life Nuturing Education.




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Technorati tags: homeschooling, homeschool, home school, home education, parenting, children, education, Carnival of Homeschooling

Dave Barry's year in review: 2009

My brother liked a link on Facebook to Dave Barry's year in review: 2009. Entertaining.


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Technorati tags: 2009, Dave Barry

How does your congressman spend your money?

The House of Representatives has a Statement of Disbursements. You can see how your congressman spends money for his office in this large document (a nine meg PDF file).

Another cool thing is the document has all the names of the office staff, and how much they are paid.


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Technorati tags: Congress

The last edition of the Carnival of Family Life is up

It has been a long time since I participated in the Carnival of Family Life. I sent in a submission. I am sad to learn that this month's edition of the Carnival of Family Life is the last one.

I wonder if anyone will step forward and offer to take it over.


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Technorati tags: Family

Reminder - send in a post for the next Carnival of Homeschooling

The next Carnival of Homeschooling at be hosted at Life Nurturing Education. This will be the last Carninval of Homeschooling for 2009!

Go here for the instructions on sending in a submission.

As always, entries to the Carnival of Homeschooling are due Monday evening at 6:00 PM Pacific Standard Time.





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Technorati tags: homeschooling, homeschool, home school, home education, parenting, children, education, Carnival of Homeschooling

Merry Christmas

Janine and I wish you all a Merry Christmas, and the best in the coming New Year.


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Technorati tags: Christmas

Wow, I'm impressed

Yesterday I meet a lady in the Emergency Room. She was 101 years old. Her 73 year old son told me a little about her. At 61 she went back to college to earn another degree. She had traveled to over seventy countries. She seems to be the type which kept trying new things, kind of like Faust.

I was impressed.


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Technorati tags: life

Calculus done to music

My aunt posted on Facebook a link to this:



It is surprisingly good. Enjoy.


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Technorati tags: Calculus

Some people seem to be missing the Christmas spirit

I took the car in for an oil change today. I've been going to a friend for twenty years. He runs his own shop. He said it would be fine for me to bring Baby Bop.

Baby Bop was fascinated. He watched as the oil was drained, and then later was excited to see as the new oil was poured in. When the mechanic checked the tires and added a bit of air to each one, I explained that like balloons, tires need air. It was a great hour for Baby Bop. He loves cars.

On the way home I was getting off a freeway when someone tried to cut in behind me. The car which was behind me wasn't having any of it. There was lots of honking and for a second or two I was worried that they would play chicken until there was accident. Finally the car that was trying to cut it backed off, with a couple hand gestures.

It is sad that in the hustle and bustle of getting ready for Christmas some people seemed to have misplace the Christmas spirit.


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Technorati tags: Christmas

Andrew J. Coulson on The Real Cost Of Public Schools

One of my brothers brought Andrew J. Coulson's column on The Real Cost Of Public Schools to my attention. The column starts with:

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We're often told that public schools are underfunded. In the District, the spending figure cited most commonly is $8,322 per child, but total spending is close to $25,000 per child -- on par with tuition at Sidwell Friends, the private school Chelsea Clinton attended in the 1990s.
What accounts for the nearly threefold difference in these numbers? The commonly cited figure counts only part of the local operating budget. To calculate total spending, we have to add up all sources of funding for education from kindergarten through 12th grade, excluding spending on charter schools and higher education. For the current school year, the local operating budget is $831 million, including relevant expenses such as the teacher retirement fund. The capital budget is $218 million. The District receives about $85.5 million in federal funding. And the D.C. Council contributes an extra $81 million. Divide all that by the 49,422 students enrolled (for the 2007-08 year) and you end up with about $24,600 per child.
For comparison, total per pupil spending at D.C. area private schools -- among the most upscale in the nation -- averages about $10,000 less. For most private schools, the difference is even greater.
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This is a strong argument against more funding. The public schools are getting two and a half times as much money as private schools, yet the government run schools do a poorer job.


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Technorati tags: children, education, government schools, children, public school, public education

The Carnival of Homeschooling is up

Dana is hosting this week's Carnival of Homeschooling at A Very Nearly Tea.

She got it up even with several distractions, like showing her house.

Drop by and enjoy.





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Technorati tags: homeschooling, homeschool, home school, home education, parenting, children, education, Carnival of Homeschooling

A good message for the men

From Dan Galvin's Thought For The Day mailing list:

If I ask my husband what he wants for the holidays,
he will say "nothing" and mean it.
If he asks me, I will say "nothing" as well.
And God help him if he believes me.

-Elizabeth Bernstein
The Wall Street Journal 12/15/2009


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Technorati tags: gifts, Elizabeth Bernstein, Dan Galvin

Another beautiful picture from APOD - The spiral galaxy NGC 918

Joseph Brimacombe gave me permission to post his beautiful picture of the spiral galaxy NGC 918:


















If you like this astronomy pictures, you can check out the Astronomy Picture of the Day, every day!


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Technorati tags: Astronomy, Astronomy Picture of the day, Joseph Brimacombe, NGC 918

Outrageous: Democratic districts get twice as much "stimulus"

Democratic Districts Won Twice as Much Stimulus as GOP Districts, Study Shows starts with:

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Democratic districts have received nearly twice as much stimulus money as Republican districts and the cash has been awarded without regard to how badly an area was suffering from job losses, according to a new study.
The Mercatus Center at George Mason University reviewed the distribution of $157 billion in stimulus dollars based on publicly available reports and found that there was "no statistical correlation" between the amount of money a district got and its income or unemployment rate.
"You would think, right, that if the administration believes in its theory that government money can create jobs, they would spend a lot of money in districts that have high unemployment," study co-author Veronique de Rugy said. "We found absolutely no relationship. It just kind of shows that the money is spent kind of randomly."
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Maybe the Republicans will have a better chance in fighting more massive government spending, or at the very least demanding that it is spread more evenly.


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Technorati tags: Democrat, Republicans, stimulus

Pretty cool: World Air Traffic 24 Hour Period

My mom sent me this video:



Here's the explanation:

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It is a 24 hour observation of all of the large aircraft flights in the world, condensed down to about 2 minutes. You can tell it was summer time in the north by the sun's footprint over the planet. You could see that it didn't quite set in the extreme north and it didn't quite rise in the extreme south. Notice that as evening approaches, the traffic is predominantly from the US to Europe and when daylight comes, the traffic switches and it is predominantly from Europe to the US.
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Technorati tags: World, Air, Traffic

What does it take to be an expert now?

Steven Rossi has an interesting thought about The New Expert. He notes that in the past an expert was someone who:

1) Knew information
2) Used the information

But nowadays an expert also needs to know: How to find information.

Maybe we should have classes on how to use Bing and Google?


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Technorati tags: children, education, government schools, children, public school, public education

Pretty cute: The 14 Days of Homeschool

I think my favorite may be "Look at what they are missing."



Enjoy!

(Hat tip: Home School College Counselor)


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Technorati tags: children, education, government schools, children, public school, public education

Homeschoolers on TV

There is a new reality television show called The World's Strictest Parents. Here's a little background info:

The World's Strictest Parents is a television series developed by TwentyTwenty Television, originally broadcast by BBC. America's CMT (part of MTV Networks) and Australia's Channel Seven have both created localised versions of the program, with the CMT episodes frequently rebroadcasting on MTV.

The concept is that two so-called "unruly" teenagers are sent to live abroad with a strict host family for a week in an attempt to change their behavior. During the week they receive an impact letter from their birth parents with a list of issues they should try to fix.

I normally don't watch much television, and never reality shows. However, when I read that a BBC episode sent two troubled teens from the UK to live with an American homeschool family, I couldn't resist. I was pleasantly surprised.

Check it out here:

Part 1


Part 2


Part 3


Part 4


Part 5


Part 6


Epilogue


Apparently, this episode with the homeschool family was one of the post popular of the series. I can see why.

UPDATE:

I forgot to post the link the the Peck's website Teaching Self Government.

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Technorati tags: children, education, government schools, children, public school, public education

Why the double standard on charter schools v. public schools?

Dave asks a great question in Why do we hold charter schools to a higher standard? He starts with:

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Charter schools must petition their chartering agency every few years (depending on the length of the charter granted) to have their charter renewed. This gives the chartering agency an opportunity to review the school's progress at raising achievement. A significant number of charter schools have lost their charters because of poor academic achievement.
I think this is a good thing. Schools should be held accountable for improving academic achievement. If a school has very low academic achievement, year after year, we owe it to the students to either fix or close the school. I think this is a positive aspect of charter schools, closing the ones that don't work.
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Then later Dave turns to the question of why regular public schools get a pass:

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As I said, I don't have a problem with these new "bars" for charter performance. What I find puzzling however is why we're only holding Charter schools accountable. Why are only charter schools required to improve achievement?
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Clearly part of the reason for the double standard is government schools have entrenched bureaucracies and union support. Often when there is an attempt to improve a failling government school the reformers are attacked as being anti-education. The truth is many reformers are more pro-educatio that almost any union leaders.


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Technorati tags: children, education, government schools, children, public school, public education

Great thoughts and great acts

From A.Word.A.Day:

Great thoughts reduced to practice become great acts.
-William Hazlitt, essayist (1778-1830)


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Technorati tags: thoughts, acts

The Best Global Brands List 2009

We had a talk at work recently about how our company had improved on the Interbrand Best Global Brand List. I hadn't been aware there was such a list. Here is the 2009 Best Global Brand List.

The top three companies, in order, are: CocaCola, IBM and Microsoft.

As an engineer I find marketing a little bit like black magic.


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Technorati tags: Brands, marketing