Will Tell Stories For Food

You guys get the best presents

Sun, 08 Nov 2009 22:02:05 GMT

Happy birthday, notthatedburke and probably_lost!

Remember that Democratic Congress I got you for your birthday back in 2006?

Well this year, a health care bill showed up for your birthday! Only, I didn't order it -- honestly, I mean, I looked at it in the catalog and I thought, "oooh! they would totally like that!" Only instead of "ships in 24 hours" it said "coming soon!" but with no date and I was pretty skeptical that it would arrive in time.

So someone else must have gotten it for you! Which is pretty awesome -- I mean, it's clearly a beta version and it doesn't have all the features the order page mentioned BUT it's actually much more fully featured than I was expecting. Happy birthday!

(It still doesn't beat the present that arrived one day too late for your actual birthday, twenty years ago. I mean, srsly. That's got to be the best one ever.)

NaNo Fail

Thu, 05 Nov 2009 06:11:45 GMT

I wrote/salvaged a whopping 198 words today.

The problem is that this is a work scene and I don't know what CNAs doooooooooo. Well, actually, after spending most of my productive time today googling and reading stuff about CNAs, I actually have at least some sense of it: they bring meals, they feed patients who can't feed themselves, they check blood glucose for diabetic patients, they bathe patients, they move patients to prevent bedsores, they help patients go to the bathroom if they need help and change diapers if they're incontinent, they change sheets, they act as general gofers for the nurses, and they respond to people's call bells, among other things. When I started actually trying to incorporate that info into the work scene, I hit a whole new layer of stuff I don't know. She's just arrived at work in the morning; does she have some back room where she can hang up her coat? Does she get to work right off delivering people's breakfasts or is there more to it than that? If a patient required bathing, how often would she be doing it? I want for her to have some times when she can chat with (or listen to) patients; what tasks could she plausibly be doing in those scenes? Presumably personal care stuff for people too sick/weak/shaky to do these things for themselves... If she's sitting and feeding a patient and some other patient rings their call bell, is she supposed to hop up and respond, or does someone else do it? Do CNAs get assigned to particular rooms or are they supposed to just jump for whichever nurse needs them to jump at any given moment? Etc., etc., etc.

NaNo Revision Update

Wed, 04 Nov 2009 05:32:21 GMT

One of the things that was clearly wrong with the book as it stood was that it got started much too slowly. So, I pretty much scrapped the opening and wrote a fresh version that kicked things into gear a lot more quickly. For example, Heike no longer has to drive down to Chicago to get the Ark; it shows up at her door via UPS. (Actually, I need to check and make sure UPS is plausible and it wouldn't necessarily be the USPS or FedEx.)

Yesterday was fabulously productive; I wrote 3,000 words.

Today was less so. I sat down to at least poke at it a little and was going to knock off for the day with a token effort; then I checked to see how many words I'd written and it was 97. That was only three words short of 100, so I went back to add at least a few more, and wound up writing 443 total for the day. Since that's only 57 words short of my standard daily minimum goal when I'm being self-disciplined, I suppose I should go back and keep working, but I've reached the end of a scene and the new scene is going to require a bunch of rewriting instead of writing fresh, although when I look at it tomorrow I may decide it needs to be written fresh, too. We'll see.

I'm 5,871 words / 21 pages into the new version of the novel, and it currently stands at 92,410 words total.

Election Day Post

Tue, 03 Nov 2009 17:49:26 GMT

I'd rather see my city elect the Lauraist as Mayor than see Question 1 pass in Maine.

I'm probably preaching to the choir here, but if you're a voter in Maine, GO VOTE NO.

National Novel Writing Month

Tue, 03 Nov 2009 02:25:42 GMT

I have never done NaNoWriMo and I'm not doing it this year, but I have decided I'm going to try to revise the Ark of the Covenant novel (because I re-read it yet again, decided it was better than I'd thought when I decided it was hopelessly flawed, but that the first section needs to be completely thrown out and re-done) by November 30th.

I have no idea how to log progress on something like this, nor do I know where people go to get those fancy ticker bars, but whatever. I may not post updates anyway, although being cheered on is always ~~a pleasant distraction from real work~~ nice and encouraging.

Also -- and this is entirely related to the novel, FYI -- back when I first moved to Minneapolis, there was this church in a sort of a quonset hut right at Lake Street and the river; it had a ginormous billboard that said PREPARE TO MEET THY GOD Wednesday 7 p.m. Saturday 7 p.m. Sunday 9 a.m. 11 a.m., or something like that. (I remember the PREPARE TO MEET THY GOD part but not the precise schedule.) It was torn down to make way for the (much, much nicer) building that now includes both apartments and the Longfellow Grill. Although during the construction of the building, just after they'd finished most of it and literally days before the sprinkler system was to be turned on, it was struck by lightening and burned to the ground.

When the church was being leveled, I remember reading about a local controversy regarding whether to mark the site, because there had been a church (I think it may have even been in the quonset hut) that was noteworthy for being an early adopter of radio broadcasts....however they used their radio show to spew anti-Semitic vitriol for years and years, and contributed to what was at the time the extremely anti-Semitic atmosphere of Minneapolis.

I would really, really love to know the name of the church and its minister. My attempts to Google the info led me repeatedly to this guy, and that's not right. First of all, he was based in Michigan, and second, I could have sworn the church in question was Protestant.

Does anyone know this info, or do any of you have better skills with google?

Also, a nursing question: is there a difference between a "ward" and a "unit" or is it just that once upon a time, everything was a ward, and now it's always a unit, at least to staff? Heike no longer works at a hospice; part of the storyline is going to be her discovering that she wants to do hospice work. She's also she's much younger, a CNA instead of an RN, and working in the oncology {ward/unit/whatever} at a hospital in downtown St. Paul.

Local Politics: City Council Ward 12

Thu, 29 Oct 2009 01:43:46 GMT

I live in Ward 12, so although I have some opinions about other wards, they tend to be vague and uninformed. Here's who's running:

Brent Perry (Socialist Action)
Rick L. Nyhlen (Independent)
Charley Underwood (DFL)
Sandy Colvin Roy (DFL) (incumbent)

Brent Perry is a Socialist, obviously. He has a Facebook group. (Can I just say, I am not liking this trend towards substituting a Facebook group for an informational website. A Facebook group is a wonderful campaign tool for getting the word out about your events; it's less useful for putting up substantive information about your stances. However, if you're running as a Socialist against an entrenched incumbent Democrat in a Minneapolis election, it probably doesn't matter all that much what you use as long as Google can find it.) His Facebook page has a statement which starts out with, "Capitalism has failed." I guess the bottom line is that you're a socialist, or you aren't, and you probably know whether you are or you aren't. I'm not. If you are, he's probably your guy.

Rick Nyhlen has a web page rather than a Facebook group but on second thought, maybe web pages aren't such a good idea. GeoCities may be gone, but late-1990s-era web design lives on! Anyway, I can forgive poor web design, and I can forgive one or two typos, but complete and utter incoherence is a problem. He spelled Michele Bachmann's first name as "mechell" and sponsor as "sponser" and his front page includes this statement: "Rick Nyhlen, Has been Coaching the Children in Ward 12 For 17 years, now he say's it time to help their Parents."

His summary of the issues appears to be (1) constituents should get a response to their concerns if they contact their City Council rep (and I agree with him emphatically); (2) roads and bridges should be repaired (yes, though I'd say this doesn't distinguish him significantly from Sandy; she's always talking about her emphasis on infrastructure); (3) Minneapolis should have an audit; (4) property taxes are too high.

You know, I would really have to HATE Sandy to vote for someone with a statement on his website as poorly written as the one I quoted above. Rick, if you drop by, for future reference, it should say: "Rick Nyhlen has been coaching the children in Ward 12 for seventeen years; now he says it's time to help their parents."

On to Charley Underwood. Charley is actually a friend of a very good friend of mine so I can't make fun of him. To my knowledge he's not actually campaigning at this point (I looked for a website and did not find one); he tried for the endorsement and lost. He has a blog that hasn't been updated in a long time, but is articulate and coherent and has a hilarious (if dubiously sourced) story about Sarah Palin during the RNC. He called us to chat while preparing to try for the endorsement; he seems thoughtful and very, very, very sincere. To be honest, he seemed too kind and sincere to serve effectively on the City Council; it would be kind of like sending a Hufflepuff into a room full of Slytherins. However, if you're unhappy with Sandy Colvin-Roy, cast your vote for Charley.

Sandy Colvin Roy is the incumbent. I have fewer issues with her now than I did back when Sharon was mayor; with fewer bad ideas being put on the table, Sandy supports fewer bad ideas. When I contact her about a concern, I generally get a prompt response, though on at least one occasion she promised a followup call and then never did get back to me.

You can get a quick rundown on the four candidates here as well. Sandy mentions upgrading the traffic signals around light rail crossings to improve traffic flow as one of her issues -- and honestly, that's the sort of thing I kind of have to like her for. Left turns on Hiawatha from 42nd St. are one of the banes of 12th Ward life, and that's the sort of thing she tends to focus on -- very un-glamorous un-flashy details of city operation that nonetheless have a big impact on our quality of life.

I am pretty sure that is IT for my ballot. Hurray! All Minneapolis voters can use the Precinct Finder on the city website to (a) figure out where they'll go to vote and (b) see a sample ballot so they can find out now which offices they'll be voting for. My primary tools here were the list of Candidate Filings plus Google. If you're not registered, don't forget Minnesota has same-day voter registration.

The Revenge of Local Politics

Thu, 29 Oct 2009 00:44:55 GMT

I've done roundups of local candidates in previous years, but I think I did it right before Election Day. This year, I started these posts way further in advance. As a result, I've gotten all sorts of responses from the candidates themselves, which has been interesting but then makes me feel obligated to do follow-up posts.

On with the follow up:

1. Jason Stone responded here, basically just to add a little more information.

2. Dave Wahlstedt complained that I dismissed him too quickly, and said that he was misquoted in the SouthWest article I linked to. On looking at his website and some other information, I'm convinced that he's right I was too offhand with him based on that article. However, I am not going to vote for him because I feel a profound nervousness about putting the parks into the hands of someone who describes himself as a "Liberty Candidate" in any forum -- quite often, that's code for "Libertarian in all but name." Moreover, he talks about how the parks should be offering a "return on investment." And -- to some extent he's right; one of the things that impresses me so much about Erwin is his desire to look for outside funding sources. And in his TV interview (local access cable), Wahlstedt gives the example of Sea Salt as an example of how the parks could raise money; it's a private business that pays rent, but it's also a totally AWESOME asset to the park. I guess what it boils down to is that I have a lot of trouble trusting Republicans. This hasn't always been the case; I have, in the past, voted for Republican candidates on a couple of occasions. (Not many! But some.) But the more damage they do to the state I live in, the less inclined I am to trust anything any of them say.

3. Speaking of Republicans, that Republican party site with links to interviews has some links to Michael Martens, the BAT candidate. I was disturbed to see that one of them is from a Ron Paul/Michele Bachmann forum. I have some inherent prejudices against Republicans running for office, but I do not usually assume they're all as batshit crazy as Michele, or support her batshit craziness. Unless they go to rallies for her, in which case... he didn't SAY anything crazy in that interview but it definitely raised my wariness of him. (Michele, if your google alert turns this post up, please feel free to drop by and tell me how totally crazy you aren't, oh you woman who hid in the bushes to spy on a gay rally, which I think may have been the very first time I read your name and thought, "wow, she is NUTS.")

4. John Charles Wilson, who wants a sovereign communist nation for the Lauraist movement, stopped by to complain that I characterized him (and others) as joke candidates and loonies. For the record: I consider pretty much all current secessionist movements in the U.S. to be made up of nuts and/or complete lunatics. When in addition to being a separatist movement a group bases itself on a religious ideology AND demands as its territory a circular piece of land defined by a 240-mile radius surrounding Minneapolis (which for the record appears to include most but not all of the state of Minnesota, a huge chunk of Wisconsin, a good sized piece of Iowa, and small bits of North Dakota, South Dakota, and Illinois) I really don't feel an obligation to take it seriously.

That said, I think Wilson is less of a lunatic (and certainly less of an embarrassment to the state, not to mention doing far less damage) than Michele Bachmann.

If I get around to it (and my Internet connection speeds up) I will do Ward 12 City Council. I don't think that one should take long.

Still MORE local politics: followup information on the District 5 Park Board race

Mon, 26 Oct 2009 01:20:41 GMT

Carol Kummer wrote back to me two days after I e-mailed her, which is a respectably prompt response, I think. I asked her about her endorsements, first off, and here's who she listed:

AFSCME Council 5
Mpls Fire Fighters #82
Police Officers Federation of Mpls
Stonewall DFL "A" rating
WomenWinning

FWIW, I tend to view a Police Officers Federation endorsement as a substantial minus. Our PD has a lot of problems -- really ugly, awful problems. (A news story about that arrest, if you'd prefer not to watch the video footage.) I don't have a lot of faith in the Minneapolis Police Department, though to be fair, my personal interactions with them have all been neutral or positive. (But I am a middle-aged white woman. Very few of the people who get the crap beaten out of them by the police in Minneapolis are in my particular demographic.)

(And if you're wondering why I said I wanted a well-trained police department in my previous post -- I would like our police officers to be trained not to use the minimum force, rather than kicking the shit out of a guy who's down and subdued.)

Back to Carol Kummer.

She's also supported or endorsed by Sen. Linda Berglin, Rep. Jeff Hayden, County Commissioner Peter McLaughlin, City Council Member Sandy Colvin Roy, andformer State Senator Wes Skoglund. She says she only seeks endorsement of elected officials who live in the district. So, fair enough.

I asked her what she considered to be the biggest difference between her and Jason Stone. She didn't really answer that question, but instead listed her experience and some of the projects the board has accomplished during her tenure. (Which includes some really great stuff.) (Come to think of it, this may be why it's usually so hard to dislodge Park Board incumbents: practically anyone on the park board can type of a list of accomplishments and it's guaranteed to be full of things that will fill people with warm, positive feelings. The restoration of the WPA walls along the creek! The gorgeous new Wabun picnic area near the falls, with its fabulous wading pool! The restored walking/biking trails on the river! There's nothing there not to like.)

I asked her if there was any local politician that she particularly admired or aspired to be like. She responded with a list of attributes she thought were shared by effective public servants:

- Most decide to run because of a desire to serve people and/or to correct an injustice;
- Once elected, their focus is to learn and do the best possible job for their constituents;
- Deep roots in their communities and a sense of commonality, ability to relate and to communicate and 'play nice' with their colleagues;
- Stick-to-ativeness and ability to work with others to accomplish goals.

I tend to agree with her on these.

Here's the big issue with Carol, honestly. In the various infighting over money and the Park Board in the city this year, there was a group that wanted to give the Park Board independent authority to levy taxes; I thought this sounded like a really bad idea, but it didn't wind up on the ballot anyway so I didn't do a ton of research on it. Anyway, Carol Kummer favored the idea; the whole incumbent board favored it, according to a friend, though he may have been speaking a little hyperbolically. At any rate, after spending the entire damn afternoon reading arguments about how finances are done in Minneapolis, I actually think the way we do them NOW is pretty reasonable: we have a couple of finance wonks, plus three council members and a park board rep who set property taxes and allocate the money. It seems like this is a situation that provides for some balance.

So, I'm probably going to vote for Stone.

Board of Estimate and Taxation #2: Candidates

Sun, 25 Oct 2009 22:12:49 GMT

So, in addition to two City Councillors, the Mayor, and a Park Board commissioner, there are two at-large members of the BET.

Here's who's running:

Carol Becker
DeWayne Townsend
Phil Wilkie
David Wheeler
James Elliot Swartwood
R. Michael Martens

So, who's battling for the money and glory of a seat on the BET? Analysis below the cut.

Carol Becker is an incumbent and long-time participant in city politics. I think she's pretty good at the job. Her signs say "Geek is Good" and if you're unconvinced by her claims to geekery, check out her blog about city finance and budgeting. In addition to experience on the board, she has degrees in public policy. She's kind of the easy first choice, IMO, unless you've butted heads with her repeatedly on the Minneapolis Issues list. (And possibly even if you have; she's just that good at what she does.)

DeWayne Townsend was recruited to run by Carol Becker. He has served on the Longfellow Community Council, and worked on the Midtown Greenway and some of the LRT planning committees. All of this is good.

On the other hand, when I searched his name I found a bunch of hits on the Minneapolis Issues e-mail list -- some of his posts struck me as a little combative. I suppose depending how how you see the issue, you could see him as either combative or as a principled whistle-blower. He got seriously exercised over a loan to Allina but got the number wrong in the subject line (he put down 420 billion rather than 420 million) which is kind of an unfortunately funny mistake for someone who's running for BET to make. Carol Becker posted later on the same thread to say that the city was not on the hook for the money in any way -- it was a conduit bond, which meant that the city was not co-signing for it, nor providing the money, but basically just vouching for Allina. The city gets some money out of it and is put at no risk, though I suppose if a city vouched for a group that proceeded to go under, they might lose credibility in the future. Anyway....the number error is mostly just funny, but I expect a BET member to have a handle on the different kinds of loans (and if I were going to put a bet on who was right about what was involved in these loans, my money would be on Becker).

Phil Wilkie's website seems to be more about saving the BET than electing him to it. He's endorsed by individuals from several different parties (I recognized two Greens, a Democrat, and a Jessecrat). On a Star Trib questionnaire (actually, this is a useful article if you want more information than I'm likely to include in a blog post) he says he's running to bring attention to the dangers of the charter proposal. He wants to give the old Library Board seat to the Park Board, which strikes me as a reasonable proposal. He thinks there should be more auditors than just the one. His experience consists of being a community activist with a number of worthy groups. Overall, I'm underwhelmed; I would like to see either more finance-specific experience, or more specific goals once he gets on the board.

David Wheeler has some solid relevent experience (he served on a finance committee on the Duluth City Council -- presumably before moving to Minneapolis -- and has been on municipal task force stuff in Minneapolis. He says some things I like: he acknowledges that property taxes are regressive, first of all, and he goes on to note that while another auditer would be a really good idea, the city doesn't have money to hire one at the moment and is in fact laying off staff.

Here's my concern about him. He says he neither supports nor opposes the charter proposal; he says that he wants to build a positive relationship with the City Council and Park Board, and campaigning one way or the other would interfere with that. However, someone on the issues list says that Wheeler said at a ward convention early on that he supported the proposal, then backed off and has been claiming since that he's neutral, but is endorsed by a slew of council people, most of whom would be happy to ditch the BET. It makes me nervous. There is actually precedent for a candidate running who's in favor of abolishing the office he's running for; back in 1998, the state of Minnesota abolished the office of the State Treasurer, and IIRC there was a Libertarian who ran for the office that year saying, "I think this office should be abolished, and if elected I will resign immediately, saving the state the cost of my salary." Ed voted for both the amendment to abolish the job and for that guy, but it looks from Wikipedia like he was beaten by the DFLer. Unless I'm completely mis-remembering which election and office this was.

Anyway, if I supported abolishing the BET I'd absolutely vote for him. But since I want to keep the BET, I'm very hesitant, even though he appears to be one of the better candidates. He does look solidly qualified.

James Elliot Swartwood is from the party that is deeply concerned about the self-image of white people. Next!

R. Michael Martens is a finance wonk, which is good; he's been an accountant both professionally and on volunteer boards. He's endorsed by the Republicans, which I view as a minus, but then again, so was Papa John Kolstad, so who knows what the Republicans were drinking at their meeting. He is very focused on the auditor function, and also likes metaphores involving foxes and henhouses, but let's face it, it's not like I came up with it myself. He has some good ideas about increasing openness and educating people about what the board does.

The fact that he's endorsed by Republicans makes me nervous; property taxes are regressive, but I would rather pay too much in property taxes than underfund city services. I want a well-equipped fire department. I want a well-trained police department. I want the parks maintained, the pot holes filled, the street lights fixed, the garbage collected. On the other hand, I don't view homeowners as cash cows. I want a balanced approach. (Well, what I really want is Local Government Aid to come back, since that comes out of the much-more-progressive state income tax; however, that's not within the power of the city government.)

Anyway, Carol would be my first choice. Probably either Martens or Wheeler would be my second choice, with the other as my third; I'm going to have to mull this over. Townsend is probably my fourth choice. Wilkie's fifth -- honestly, I don't think he's running to win, I think he's just trying to draw attention to the charter issue. Not that it actually matters beyond my first three; I only have to rank my three top choices.

Incidentally, if you're curious what my ballot will look like, a sample is available here as a PDF.

Minnesota's ballots usually switch up the order, to minimize the advantage of having your name at the top, so my guess is that not everyone will get RT at the top. However, if state law doesn't require it, it's possible they will not be changing the order this time, because everything has to be counted by hand, and uniform ballots are easier to count. (In our paper today, they noted that the results, especially of the three-seat races, are not guaranteed to be in until December 21st.) Apparently no one has yet written software that works with both our machines and our procedure, so hand-counting it is.

Local Politics post #3: Board of Estimate and Taxation

Sun, 25 Oct 2009 20:20:36 GMT

There are two elections this year related to the BET: one is the election for candidates to serve on it, and the other is the referendum on whether to abolish it entirely and have the City Council take over its job.

There are two at-large seats on the BET. (Also on it: the Mayor, the City Council President, the City Councillor who is Chair of the Ways and Means Committee, and a representative from the Park Board.) The BET is in charge of three things:

* They set property tax rates.
* They decide when and whether to borrow money.
* They oversee an internal auditor to ensure clean government.

I initially thought the pay for BET members was $35/year, which made me bug out my eyes and say, "why even bother?" On looking at web pages, I think I may have been wrong and it's $35/meeting. They appear to meet once or twice a month, depending on the month, so maybe a whole $630 to $840 a year, which at least is enough to pay for parking during the meetings, and coffee to keep them awake. Still, as government bodies go, this is a pretty cheap one, and no one running is doing it for money. Or fame and glory, for that matter, since many regular voters never even cast a vote in that election since they don't pay enough attention to it to know what the BET does, let alone who to vote for.

Analysis of the charter proposal follows below the cut. I'll be back later with candidates.

After looking at the two website (vote YES to ditch the BET, vote NO to keep the BET), I am planning to vote NO to keep it. But, there are some legitimate arguments on both sides. I'll link to the two official websites and try to give a fair summary of their arguments.

Vote YES to ditch the BET. The big reason to vote yes is that the BET is an obscure body and most voters don't really know what it does. If you randomly asked a bunch of Minneapolis residents who sets the property tax rate, most would think the City Council did it, and there's an argument that things like this ought to work the way most people think they do, because it really impairs your ability to participate in democracy when you can't even figure out who to call to complain about something.

The other reasons they give -- OK, I'm sorry, I can't just report here, I'm going to have to give my analysis because some of these reasons are just dumb.

1. Transparency and Open Government -- which is to say, no one knows what the BET is, or who's on it. They also note that the meetings aren't televised and are rarely reported on; I don't think that's because the BET's charter says that all business is to be taken care of in a dimly lit locked room, after sweeping for bugs and checking under the table for anyone under the public who might have snuck in to listen. I think this is because the press doesn't always do a good job of covering local politics. Besides, no matter what they say, ALL government is basically about deal-making in back rooms.

2. Equal Representation. They note that right now, only two City Councillors are on the board, and then extend that to say that this means that only the people in the 1st and 4th wards are represented. Except, the Council reps on the BET are the President and the Chair of the Ways & Means committee; it's not like merging the BET with the City Council is going to abolish the power imbalances inherent in some of the committee work. This isn't a completely whacked argument, but they present it deceptively on their website.

3. Prevent a Crisis. They say that the BET used to have seven members, and now have six, which could create a deadlock and a Charter crisis. The logical solution seems to me to add a member. That said, it's such a totally un-sexy board that major grandstanding seems unlikely, even in a city where sometimes it seems like no one in city government gets along with anyone else in city government. (I have this vague memory of the day RT hired a group therapist to try to improve working relations on the City Council. I think it wound up with my Councillor needing lots and lots of kleenex. Sigh.) Anyway, since there has not yet been a crisis, this seems like a thin straw they're grasping.

Oh, and I bet the seventh member was from the Library Board. Funny how they don't feel any need to mention that...it's almost like they don't want to remind us that the library merger with Hennepin County has mostly sucked.

4. Accountability. People should know who to yell at when they're pissed off. Which is true, but you don't have to hire an attorney to read the city charter to figure that out. I have a great amount of confidence that if I called up my City Councillor to complain about property taxes, she'd point me at the BET and I bet she even has their phone numbers at her fingertips.

The League of Women Voters endorsed this amendment.

On to the opposition.

Save the BET has a slightly more complex set of arguments. It's a very simple website (one page).

1. We lose voices for fair taxation and reasonable tax rates. In other words, the financial wonks won't be in charge.

2. We lose two elected officials, making our elected representation less diverse. On the other hand, we diversify the board by having every councillor in the city instead of just the President and W&M Chair.

3. It will reduce the independence of the city auditor. I think this is a legitimate concern. Our corruption issues have been small potatoes compared to an average day in some big cities, but it's nonetheless I would prefer a well-trained guard dog keeping an eye on the metaphorical henhouse, and I'd prefer that it not be reporting to the fox. If that makes sense.

4. We would lose a check and balance regarding the City Council, Mayor, and Park Board. Every city government -- actually, this is true of every governmental body, period, but it's most visible with cities since there's so much variation in how they work -- has to find a balance between efficiency and "checks and balances." If you put in too many, you can slow things down so thoroughly that nothing ever gets done. However, if you make things too efficient, the bad ideas often race through as fast as the good ideas; worse, it's a lot easier for one really godawful person to consolidate power.

In the past, the Minneapolis city government has done some incredibly stupid stuff. I voted for RT in 2001 not so much for what I hoped he'd do, but because I hoped he would do fewer insanely stupid things, and I have generally been satisfied. The previous Mayor spent some truly insane chunk of city money to subsidize the downtown Target, and in my opinion seriously abused eminent domain (both to build the Target, and in other cases). And that was WITH the checks and balances provided by the BET....so yeah.

5. This would put the City Council in control of all the Park Board's funding. I think this is a real issue for a couple of reasons. I am not actually that worried at this point that the City Council will abolish the Park Board, since that idea went over like an entire fleet of lead balloons, but (a) I don't entirely trust the City Council to fund the parks adequately, and (b) if the taxing authority all goes to the City Council, this might increase the agitation to give the Park Board independent taxing authority, which I think is actually a really stupid idea.

6. This would eliminate the only place the City Council, Mayor, and Park Board HAVE to work together. Yeah, given how well they all get along, that might be just as well. But I do agree that I don't want the Park Board to be utterly dependent on the City Council for money.

So, my thoughts: the fact is, it's not like all twelve City Councillors would pay significant attention to the tax/estimation issues ANYway. What inevitably happens on boards happens here, which is to say, everyone gets to be a designated wonk on SOMEthing and your friends ask you how they ought to vote, and you do the same on the issues your friends are wonks on. Or you watch to see how your least favorite person is voting and vote the other way. However, the board would lose the Park Board representation. And I want the Park Board to have a voice in how the money gets portioned out.

The fact is, at any given time, there are needs in our city that seem a lot more urgent than parks; I fear that it may be tempting to the City Council to sneak money out of the parks budget to fill the potholes. But our parks are what make this a great city -- or at least, they're a huge piece of it. Our park system kicks ass. People who live here love our parks, but still, I don't think most Minneapolitans realize just how incredibly lucky we are.

Anyway. I love our parks, and want to continue to have a Park Board. But I don't want to give the Park Board independent taxing authority; I want a balanced approach. I think the BET is a pretty good way to provide that approach, so I'm going to vote to keep it.

Oh, and I got a reply from Carol Kummer, Park Board district 5, but I haven't had time to post about it.

Followup to Park Board post

Wed, 21 Oct 2009 01:26:37 GMT

I sent e-mail to John Erwin (who's running for an at-large seat) and to Jason Stone and Carol Kummer (district 5) to ask them some questions. I heard back from John Erwin at the crack of dawn (his e-mail was waiting when I got up -- apparently he dashed it off while getting ready for work) and from Jason Stone at 9 a.m. No response yet from Carol Kummer.

John Erwin's response was particularly useful; more .

I asked Erwin to clarify what he meant by his statement about how he planned to pay for additional projects. He wrote, "By saving money through collaborating with the City, U of M, School Board, and businesses to hold the line on property tax increases."

Here's his response:

We need to diversify what funds our system. This means increased grant writing, increased private giving through the Parks foundation, increased collaboration, and increased efficiency - i.e. decreasing our own internal costs.

I can give you specific examples:

When I was on the Board before, I developed an agreement with the School Board to do the Policing in Schools through the Park Police. Made sense since the PP were not as busy when kids were in school. This resulted in an $800,000 increase in income per year to the Board. Other examples that I worked on that resulted in increased savings/income to the Board are: a) sharing police horses with the U of M (saved $150,000/year), partnering with the city to double tree planting ($200,000 per year savings), partnering with the city on skate board parks ($200,000/year), partnering with the city for winter rec in wirth park ($200,000 per year). I came up with 4/5 of these to give a total of $1.4 million/year. Given the total budget then, this translated into a 2.8% increase in revenue that displaced costs that would have been placed on the public. All of these except the horse sharing have evaporated since I left the Board - i.e. a $1.25 million dollar loss.

Aside from this. the PB has 1/2 of 1 grant writer for a $55 million budget. I want to increase grant writers from that 1/2 to 3. I am positive that these individuals would more than pay for themselves. We have not been applying for many, many grants including stimulus money. Stimulus money could have paid for existing repair needs. . . .lost opportunities. Other agencies that could/would pay for park related activities include LCCMR (lottery money), EPA, Watersheds, and NIH. When on the Board I also supported the sales tax effort to generate additional monies for parks through sales rather than property taxes. Each of these would/do offset property tax needs/increases. In addition, the Grand Rounds (parkway completion) would/will require collaboration and joint grants to receive direct state/federal funding to offset costs that would be placed on Minneapolis property taxes.

I was really impressed by his response; I'm still not sure that eliminating parking fees and activity fees is the best use of resources, but I was reassured from his response that he has really specific ideas about where to get money to do stuff. With local races, I like to hear specific, realistic ideas. (OK, it also helps when they're specific, realistic ideas that appeal to me.) I do think he ought to put this information up on his Facebook page, but whatever; it's a good enough response that I will probably vote for him.

I asked Jason Stone whether he did actually oppose Sea Salt (and if so, why, and does he still oppose its presence), and whether he could sum up what he sees as the major differences between him and Carol Kummer.

He said that when the issue of Sea Salt came up, the Park Board was privatizing services without having a policy or plan. He didn't oppose Sea Salt specifically, but wanted to slow down and "have a thoughtful approach to privatization of public services before going forward willy nilly." He likes Sea Salt and in fact just ate there.

On differences:

* Carol wants to make the Park Board a state entity, and levy a new property tax to fund it; Jason opposes both of these ideas. This is actually the current big controversy, but I haven't paid enough attention to the arguments to translate the code words. ("Park Board independence," for instance.)

* Carol was going to retire, but got back in the race when her prefered candidate backed out.

* Jason is interested in pursuing a bunch of projects; he lists starting recycling in parks, adding a small dog park, increasing volunteerism, traffic calming and crosswalk safety, developing a 3-year budget process to improve financial planning, and partnering with city leaders on campaign finance reform.

I e-mailed Carol Kummer with three questions -- (1) Does she have a website somewhere with a list of endorsements, as I'd like to see who her supporters are; (2) What does she see as the major differences between herself and Jason Stone; and (3) Can she give an example of a local political figure that she particularly admires or aspires to be like. No response yet. I'll update if I get one. FWIW, one of my biggest frustrations with previous Park Board commissioners is a lack of responsiveness -- I'm not some crank who calls them daily, mind you, so I expect a response to my once-every-few-years e-mail messages.

Minneapolis Park Board Race

Tue, 20 Oct 2009 04:28:44 GMT

I'm in District 5, plus there are three at-large seats.

The District 5 candidates:

Steve Barland
Dan W. Peterson
McClain Looney
Jason Stone
Carol Kummer (incumbent) (and I just typed that as "indumbent," which is one of the funniest typos I think I've ever made by accident)

At-Large:

Nancy Bernard
Tom Nordyke
John Erwin
Annie Young
Mary Merrill Anderson
John Butler
David Wahlstedt
Bob Fine

We'll find out if any of these fine people is a Laurist

1. Steve Barland is the only Park Board candidate so far to send us mail. We got a very bland flier from him yesterday. His website is similarly bland. He has a lot of experience coaching, is pro-rec-center, and is concerned about the emerald ash borer. (Everyone is concerned about the emerald ash borer. This is a very uncontroversial stance, since there isn't anything they can DO about the emerald ash borer.) The main thing I'd say about Steve is that he's pro-recreation but doesn't seem to be well-versed in the other issues the Park Board deals with. He has a list of supporters on his website but they aren't people I know.

2. Dan W. Peterson does not appear to have a website.

3. McClain Looney does not appear to have a website, though he may have a Facebook group with no posts in it.

4. Jason Stone has the most signs around the neighborhood. He also has a real platform and endorsements from people I know. He seems to know more about how the parks work than Barland does, but it's still a pretty bland site; he loves the parks, he loves the rec centers, we should have a balanced approach to serving the diverse populations of our city, he's concerned about the emerald ash borer, etc.

5. Carol Kummer is the incumbent. She doesn't seem to have a candidate page, though she filled out a detailed questionnaire from Minneapolis Park Watch Watch (that's not a typo; first there was Minneapolis Park Watch, and then some people who didn't like them started the Minneapolis Park Watch Watch). Since she doesn't have a campaign site, I can't compare her endorsements to Stone's, which is frustrating. I have this feeling that I don't like Carol Kummer, but I can't remember what she did to piss me off.

I am feeling somewhat stymied in my desire to know where the differences lie between Kummer and Stone. In her interview with Park Watch Watch, Kummer says that Stone opposed Sea Salt (a really awesome restaurant that opened up at Minnehaha Falls a few years ago); that would be a strike against Stone if it's true, as Sea Salt rocks my world. On the other hand, she then goes on to whine about Park Watch and talk about how much she appreciates the fact that Park Watch Watch asked her about civility and the ability to get along with people, which among politicians is frequently code for, "I really don't like it when people ask me questions I don't want to answer, and then call me on dodging those questions."

Anyway, I may send them both mail and see if they can clear things up for me. Failing other input, I will probably vote for Stone on the grounds that he has endorsements from people whose opinion I respect, but I would feel better about this if I could remember why I didn't like Kummer. If anyone knows why I don't like Kummer, please feel free to share.

Moving on to the At-Large people... I'll cover the easy-to-eliminate first.

Nancy Bernard has a brief article in Southwest Journal which says, "she’s wondering why the neighborhood parks near her Northeast home don’t seem to be as busy as they once were. It seemed like when she was growing up, going to the park was the thing to do. Today’s children in her neighborhood, she says, appear to have less interest in playing outside." If you're too disconnected to know why kids are playing outside less, you shouldn't be running for ANYthing.

David Wahlstedt apparently wants to charge people to use the parks.

John Butler is an old dude who doesn't know why he's running. Also, he's a member of the party that's so concerned about the self-image of white people.

Now for the real candidates:

Bob Fine has a Facebook page instead of a website. He's been a commissioner from a specific district for about ten years, but is now running for an at-large seat either because someone's running against him who he thinks will beat him, or because he wanted to let a friend run, depending on which article you believe. (I don't care enough to try to dig up the facts on this.) He's endorsed by the Police Officers Federation, which I usually view as a minus. In his responses to Park Watch Watch, he says that "reform" is a word used by people who want to unfairly criticize the system. Which is the sort of statement that pisses me off in a knee-jerk way.

Annie Young is also an incumbent and I like her OK. She's a Green, and -- not surprisingly, I suppose, given her affiliation -- emphasizes more of the environmentalism and less of the recreation. I tend to prefer candidates who swing more toward the recreational opportunities. In part this is because of my experiences growing up in Madison, where an attempt to build a municipal swimming pool got shot down because they were going to have to cut down six pine trees. I don't miss living in Madison and I have an innate suspicion of politicians who seem like they'd fit in really well there, unless they remind me of Ken Golden, in which case they'll get my vote. Anyway, I have reasonably warm feelings toward her generally but I'm not sure she'd be in my top three.

Tom Nordyke is also an incumbent. Also, he's endorsed by the DFL. His website is annoying: it doesn't display any of the content if you've got NoScript turning off Javascript by default. If you're willing to trust a politician not to run malicious scripting, you will find out that his website is full of fonts that are too small and fancy to be easily read, and which can't be adjusted because of the way the site was put together. He says that as a resident of the Cedar Isles Dean neighborhood he has a clear sense of the needs of that area of the city; since he's running for an at-large seat, and Cedar Isles Dean is one of the wealthiest neighborhoods in the city, I'm not sure I see that as a selling point. He's pro-arts, which is good. He puts WATER QUALITY in all capitals, so I guess he thinks it's important.

Mary Merrill Anderson is an incumbent. Her website makes it clear she's recreation-oriented, and she associates herself with a bunch of projects I approve of (like the dog park, the trail along Minnehaha Creek, the Powderhorn Art Fair, Mill Ruins Park, playground improvements, etc.) She also comes from a traditionally underrepresented community (which is to say, she's from the north side of town).

John Erwin isn't an incumbent, but he was on the Park Board a few years ago. He's endorsed by the DFL. In one of the WTF-ier moments of my googling tonight, googling for "john erwin for parks" got me a hit for a Hebrew Facebook page. Except when I clicked through, it was all in English, despite being at he-il.facebook.com. He actually takes some substantive and occasionally controversial stances in his sidebar. I'm going to have to go through them one at a time, because some of these are good ideas, and some are seriously questionable.

1. He wants to improve walking and biking trails, soccer fields, volleyball courts, tennis courts, and skiing/off-road biking trails. I'm for this. Well, I'm not sure we need to improve the tennis courts which hardly anyone uses. Although I suppose more people might use them if they were in better shape, I don't know.

2. To pay for needed improvements, he says, we'll do it "By saving money through collaborating with the City, U of M, School Board, and businesses to hold the line on property tax increases! Also, by dramatically increasing grant writing and promoting the Parks Foundation to increase private giving!" What does he mean by "hold the line on property tax increases"? Usually when people use that turn of phrase, they mean they're going to resist whatever they're holding the line on, but property tax increases are where the revenue comes from to fund most of the city services, the schools, and the parks. (But not the U of M! That's funded through the state income tax, so I don't know WTF it's doing in that list.) Also, I don't know how collaborating with the school board is going to save or raise money for the parks since the schools are bleeding money and cutting anything and everything they can.

3. He wants to encourage all kids to play sports by eliminating fees kids pay to play sports in their neighborhood parks. As much as I like the idea of increasing participation, I think this is a lousy idea. First, people tend to undervalue what they get for free, so you're more likely to see people signing up and then never coming. Second, the fees are already quite low for park sports. Third, they have the ability to waive fees for families that still can't afford the fees -- now, I do think that could be publicized better, and I think it would be a great idea to increase the fee-free programming in the parks in the poor neighborhoods, but the Linden Hills parents can damn well afford to pay $50 per season.

4. He wants to eliminate parking fees in regional parks. There are definitely lots where parking fees ought to be eliminated, but I look at Minnehaha Falls and the crowds it attracts and I have no problem with charging for the lot. There's no shortage of free parking if you don't mind walking a bit; they should have fee-free handicapped parking (and might, I'm not sure) but beyond that, this is a situation where setting aside the parking lot for the people who are willing to pay for it means that you can always find a spot in the lot. I mean, by contrast, the parking at Como Zoo is free, so on a sunny Saturday afternoon, there's no way in hell you'll be able to find a space. They have a satellite lot, and it would be reasonable to keep that lot free, but damn, put in a machine and make people pay for the lot right by the zoo; I would have happily shelled out as much as $10 for a good parking space when we were arriving for Kiera's party and I had two extra kids in tow, but I didn't have that option.

5. He wants a culture of transparency, openness, and public engagement, which I'm for. And he wants more dog parks; I suppose I don't object to more dog parks. I'm not actually sure how many dog parks we have now, since (a) we don't have a dog, and (b) there's a really large, really excellent one that's near us. (It has a doggie beach so you and your dog can play water-fetch.)

He's also endorsed by a huge number of people, including some whose opinions I really respect. I am really baffled by his statement about property taxes, though. Maybe I'll send him an e-mail.

I'll be back some other day with Ward 12 City Council.

Local elections are coming up

Tue, 20 Oct 2009 01:08:08 GMT

We have city elections this year in November. We're voting for:

1. Mayor
2. City Council
3. Park Board (both my district, and three "at-large" seats)
4. Board of Estimate and Taxation (two at-large members)

Plus the following charter amendment: Should the City of Minneapolis adopt a change in its charter to the composition of the Board of Estimate and Taxation so that the Board's membership consists of the members of the City Council, with the actions of the Board subject to the powers and duties of the Mayor?

Also: Minneapolis is implementing ranked-choice voting (which is to say, instant runoff). We get to pick our three favorites for mayor. The process for counting votes for things like the three at-large park board seats is ... uh ... I think the polite term is "convoluted." It's explained here. The process for routing the votes from one candidate to the next isn't too absurd when you're picking people for a single seat; when you're choosing three people, it involves re-distributing excess percentages and....well, fortunately, I don't have to count the votes, nor will it be my job to scrutinize ballots if GOD FORBID we ever have to recount any ranked-choice races. I just have to figure out who I want to vote for.

Which is harder this year, because with no primary to weed out the obvious joke candidates, I have a much longer list to winnow through. Anyway, I thought I would go ahead and share my research for any fellow Minneapolitans reading this. Although the non-Minneapolitans might want to read on at least as far as the guy who worships Laura Ingalls Wilder and wants the metro area to become a sovereign nation and communist homeland for the Laurist movement. Because I have a link to his website.

Mayoral candidates below the LJ cut.

MAYORAL RACE
I refered to this race as R.T. Rybak vs. the Seven Dwarfs the other day, but there are actually more than seven other people running. I'll just paste in a list:

Dick Franson (DFL)
John Charles Wilson (Edgertonite National Party)
Tom Fiske (Social Workers Party)
R.T. Rybak (DFL)
Joe Lombard (Is Awesome)
Bob Carney Jr. (Moderate Progressive Censored)
Al Flowers (DFL)
James R. Everett (Social Entrepreneurship)
Bill McGaughey (New Dignity Party)
Christopher Clark (Libertarian)
Papa John Kolstad (Independent Civic Leader)

So, OK.

1. Dick Franson is a nut of the "frequent candidate" variety.

2. John Charles Wilson worships Laura Ingalls Wilder. No, really. He also wants a 240-mile radius of land around Minneapolis to be a sovereign nation as a homeland for fellow Laurists. Also, he's a communist. And opposed to age of consent laws. To be perfectly honest, he makes Dick Franson look like a model of reasoned political thought. On the other hand, he has a well-put-together website, so you know he's a serious candidate.

3. Tom Fiske is a member of the Socialist Workers Party. He has no website, at least not that I found with a quick search.

4. R.T. is the mayor. And likely to remain mayor. Here's his website if you want it.

5. Joe Lombard (is basically a joke candidate). But does have a website.

6. Bob Carney is a "Moderate Progressive Censored" because the city wouldn't let him file as a "Moderate Progressive Republican," he'd have had to be a "Republican." He's savvy enough to notice that being a Republican is a kiss of death in a Minneapolis election. His website promotes his book examining whether if we assume that President Obama WAS born in Kenya whether that actually matters in terms of his eligibility to serve.

7. Al Flowers was ticketed for marijuana posession last month. His website has an endorsements section, but instead of names it just says "coming soon!" which is never a good sign. Especially in mid-October, but you know, if you're running for citywide office and you have any reasonable expectation of winning, you have some influential supporters lined up before you even file.

8. James R. Everett (Social Entrepreneurship) doesn't appear to have a website. Given that the Laurist and the awesome guy have websites, that's pretty damn pathetic.

9. Bill McGaughey (New Dignity Party) is very concerned about the self-image of white people.

10. Christopher Clark is a Libertarian. That's really all I need to know, and he seems to agree, since the Libertarians gave him a website but it looks like he didn't fill out the form so there is no information on his page.

11. Papa John Kolstad. Papa John is the guy (other than RT) who would have won the primary, if there'd been a primary; he's got a viable platform, some political contacts and experience. I actually have known people in the past who were supporting him for something, which RIGHT THERE is more than I can say for anyone else on this list.

R.T. has been running a Rose Garden campaign, running around and acting mayoral while not actually talking to any of his opponents. Papa John is bitter about this. But frankly, as a voter, I sure as hell do not want to waste my time going to a forum that's going to give air time to Wilson or McGaughey or really most of these people. (OK, well, to be honest, listening to Wilson might be entertaining. Not useful, but entertaining.) If I were undecided between Kolstad and Rybak, I'd seek out an opportunity to ask them both questions individually and would lament the fact that no one had organized an event with just the two candidates that might have won the primary, if there'd been a primary.

I'm not actually undecided; I like RT fine.

Park Board candidates in the next post. Unless I get distracted and forget to finish this project.

wildlife close encounters

Wed, 14 Oct 2009 05:10:42 GMT

I took the girls to visit my grandmother today. Grammie lives in Edina; if you're familiar with Edinborough Park, her balcony overlooks the indoor playground. If you're not familiar with the area, let me describe it just a little: you take 494, which is an enormous highway, and then you exit onto France Avenue, which at this point is a six-lane-wide suburban through-street. As you get off the highway, to your left is a big box plaza and to your right is a tall office building and a Fuddrucker's hamburger place.

As I turned onto France Avenue, I saw what looked like a dog, and slowed down, not wanting to hit it.

It was a fox. Trotting across France Ave. I didn't get a picture -- I was too busy yelling "Molly! Kiera! LOOK AT THAT!!!" to bother digging out my cell phone.

It came within a few feet of the car, and then headed off into the parking lot of the office building.

I had never seen a fox in the wild before. Edina? At the intersection of France and 494? Not where I would have expected to spot one.

Research help?

Fri, 09 Oct 2009 20:18:25 GMT

I'm thinking about my next novel. I think it's going to be another one in which someone travels back and forth between another world and ours; however, it'll be YA, the other world will be pretty dystopic, and while she's in our world, the character is going to be a teenager in the foster care system.

To get some basic real-world details for this character's life, I would really like to find a social worker, or someone who has worked with teenagers in foster care, who is willing to talk to me. (Or someone who was a teenager in the system -- but it would have to be relatively recently, I think, since things change over time.) The absolute ideal would be someone who has worked in Hennepin or Ramsey County, since the story is set in the Twin Cities, but I'll take what I can find. Are any of my readers social workers? Or do any of you know anyone? I'm looking for someone willing to answer a few questions at the outset, and possibly a few more as I get further in.

Gaylaxicon

Tue, 06 Oct 2009 00:08:07 GMT

I'm going to be at Gaylaxicon this weekend. Here's my schedule, for anyone interested:

Publishing LGBT Stories
How do bigger publishing houses compare to small press in dealing with LGBT stories and themes?
Friday, 6 p.m.

Minnesota SF Writers
The Land of 10000 Lakes has also produced more than its share of writers of speculative fiction (some here at Gaylaxicon).
Saturday, 3:30 p.m.

Religious Themes in SF
How does an author incorporate religion when worldbuilding? Can it be done without making a statement?
Sunday, 3:30 p.m.

All you former mathematically gifted children

Fri, 02 Oct 2009 15:52:45 GMT

Lots of smart people read my blog; give me some advice here.

Molly is in 3rd grade this year. She just turned nine. (This makes her one of the older third graders; the joys of a September birthday.) She's at a public Montessori. In a Montessori school, the 1st, 2nd, and 3rd grade kids are grouped together in E1. The 4th and 5th grade kids are grouped together in E2. This school is a K-8, but has a fairly mainstream, non-Montessori approach once they hit the middle school years. They offer 8th grade algebra.

We had conferences today. Molly's teacher said that she expects Molly to finish E2 (4th and 5th grade) math and pre-algebra by the end of the year. She recommended that we approach the vice principal now about having her take 8th grade algebra next year (or at least, 7th grade pre-algebra).

There are two major things that concern me.

1. What is it going to be like to be a 4th grader in a class full of 8th (or even 7th) graders?

2. If she takes algebra in 4th grade, what will we do with her in 5th grade (or 6th, 7th, and 8th grade, for that matter)?

So. If you (or your kid) took advanced math early, how did your school handle it? Was their approach helpful or harmful to you (/your kid)?

FTR, "sit through lessons on things you've mastered because that's what everyone else your age is doing" is Not On, so don't worry about telling me what a bad idea it would be to do that. I don't consider that an acceptable option, and thank goodness, I think the school also objects to that approach in principle, though they have limited resources and frankly have never known quite what to do with Molly. Her current teacher has been GREAT and very willing to let her cruise on ahead, but Molly is approaching the end of the line, in terms of what the elementary school teachers are equipped to teach, and she has a fair amount of elementary school left.

Novel and innovative ideas ("Have her learn statistics! No one EVER studies statistics!") are welcome.

Obsolete Technology

Thu, 01 Oct 2009 02:36:35 GMT

On my message board, someone posed the question of whether people's kids would recognize an ashtray.

I thought this over. Ed and I do not smoke. Ed's mother smoked, but not around the girls, and she died in 2005. Minnesota doesn't allow smoking in restaurants and bars. Molly and Kiera do have one friend whose father smokes (the little girl down the block) but he may not smoke around his kid, or in the house.

So I pulled up this image and called Molly in to look. "Do you know what that is?" I asked.

(Ed glanced over at my screen and started laughing.)

Molly squinted at it. "Uhhhh," she said, and glanced at me for clues. "It's a....dish?"

"Do you know what it's used for?"

"...water?"

"It's an ashtray," I said.

"That's what an ashtray looks like?" Molly said, incredulous. "I had pictured them as looking like a cookie tray. I mean a cookie sheet. Only smaller."

I pulled up another picture, this one with a cigarette in it, so she could see how people would prop their cigarette in the notch. And then she saw the Google image search results for "ashtray" and was briefly fascinated by the robot gorilla ashtray and the pirate ashtrays, before being sent off to brush her teeth.

It's weird how much has changed in a generation. (My parents never smoked, but I had enough friends with smoker parents that I'd seen plenty of ashtrays by the time I was nine.)

Birthday Season

Mon, 21 Sep 2009 05:20:12 GMT

Friday was Kiera's birthday. Today was Molly's birthday. Last week, we took Kiera and two friends over to Como Town Amusement Park; today, Molly had a party. A Harry Potter themed party.

It went really well. Ed and I borrowed my parents' ~~wizard~~ academic robes to use as costumes. We had everyone make a wand using a wood dowel, pipe cleaners, and beads, sorted everyone into houses, and then played "name the Bertie Botts flavor" with Jelly Bellies. (It was fascinating how much incorrect consensus there was, like when almost everyone thought the coconut was vanilla, and when almost everyone thought the caramel corn was coffee. We had them close their eyes before eating the blueberry ones, so they didn't see the color, and only two kids got that they were blueberry; Kiera thought strawberry and Molly thought lime. Molly was particularly terrible at this game; she got only one flavor out of eleven correct, probably in part because she so rarely gets to eat this sort of candy.)

The high point was probably "Potions Class." I bought a whole bunch of drink mixes -- three varieties of Kool-Aid (none red, of course), a green tea mix, a spiced cider mix, and Tang. We also had blue Pop Rocks. And both plain and carbonated water. I left some of the Kool-Aid as a powder (mixed with sugar) and mixed up some with just a little water to make sort of a Kool-Aid concentrate. I gave everything a whimsical label (like "snail shell powder" for the Tang).

The kids got an eyedropper (because eyedroppers are fun!), a plastic martini glass to mix things in (because it was a neat shape, and because the clear plastic was a nice showcase for the bizarre colors), and spoons. And were told they were supposed to make a "strengthening solution."

And they absolutely got into the spirit of things, mixing up horrifying looking concoctions and then sampling their friends' horrifying looking concoctions ("EW this is disGUSTing. Here, try some"). This was a great activity and FWIW would work just as well at a Mad Scientist themed party as at a wizard themed one.

Then they whacked a piñata and had cake and ice cream and Molly opened presents. It was a good day. I can't believe my oldest daughter is nine, and my baby is six.

Counting

Wed, 16 Sep 2009 02:33:41 GMT

1. Kiera counts convertibles. She became fascinated by convertibles last summer (unless it was the summer before? I'm not sure) and started pointing them out. At first, she would just comment on them, and frankly I was amazed by just how many convertibles you'll see driving around in Minnesota. She explained in late summer that she was collecting them, and by pointing them out, she was adding the convertible to her collection.

This year she started counting them. If she's been out of the house at all, you can ask her how many convertibles she's spotted today, and she will tell you. Her daily goal is ten, but whether she makes her goal is heavily dependent on how much time she spends in the car.

2. Molly, not to be outdone, watches license plates. Minnesota plates have three letters, a space, and then three numbers (or vice versa). She is specifically searching for license plates where the three digits are between 1 and 5, with no repetitions. So, GEM 324 qualifies; GEM 322 doesn't, nor does GEM 021 or GEM 382. She also tries to spot ten daily.

The Typewriter News, 9/13/09

Mon, 14 Sep 2009 01:56:39 GMT

Molly put out another edition of her newspaper today. Well, she started it yesterday, so for "today" read "on Saturday, September 12th."

The Typewriter News
Breaking News
Ed Bikes 100 Miles!
Today Ed Burke biked 100 whole miles. He cannot bend over now. Hopefully he will be able to bend over soon. Congradulations for accomplishing this, Ed!

Then for "Fun and Games" she had a daily comic that appears to be a little picture of Harry Potter, and a word search where you find Dad, Biker, Ed, Nice, Bedtimer, and Works, but good luck with that as she had a lot of trouble getting the letters to line up the way she wanted. She actually produces this newspaper on a manual typewriter, which does not lend itself to word searches, alas.

Then for additional filler she put in a recipe, but she cribbed that out of a cookbook so I'm not going to bother to transcribe it.

malachitefer drove the girls and me down for Defeat of Jesse James Days; we watched the re-enactment of the failed bank robbery and the girls went on rides. Kiera wanted to go on the Scrambler and needed a responsible companion, so I gritted my teeth and got on with her.

Today was Kiera's birthday party; instead of a party, we took her and two friends to the Como Town amusement park; it's a small, kid-oriented amusement park next to the St. Paul zoo. We bought unlimited ride bracelets for the kids, plus me, so that I could escort them on stuff as needed. All of the kids were 42" or taller and so most of the rides, they could go on without an escort, which is good as my tolerance for spinny rides is low. I took them on the "Tornado" and on the roller coaster; the roller coaster was particularly exciting as I could escort only one girl at a time, so I rode the damn thing three times in a row.

Interestingly, Molly decided today that she DID like thrill rides after all; for years, she's been uninterested on going on anything wilder than the merry-go-round. Today she initially passed on the rollercoaster, then decided she wanted to try it, and rode it three times in a row. She also went on the Drop Zone four times and finished out the day with a trip on the Tornado with me, Kiera, and one of Kiera's friends.

Northfield

Tue, 08 Sep 2009 19:31:54 GMT

Are any of my Minneapolis friends thinking about going to the Defeat of Jesse James Days on Saturday, 9/12?

Ed wants to do a Century Ride; there's a supported 100-mile ride done as part of the Jesse James Days partying; to do the ride, he needs to be down there and on his bike by 8 a.m.; we're trying to come up with an option that doesn't require me to drive him down (because I am a lazy ass) and also doesn't require him to drive himself back (after biking 100 miles).

The best option I've come up with so far: Ed drives the minivan down, and we find someone else who's going down to Northfield later in the day, and has space for an adult and two kids to ride along, and then I drive our family home. This really works best if someone we know is indeed going, however.

Scholastic Rigor: ALSO DOIN IT RONG

Sun, 06 Sep 2009 20:19:34 GMT

Today's paper also had a local article that annoyed me, for a completely different set of reasons.

It's a piece about Minnesota schools, and how they're getting harder. "Pressure from business for more skilled graduates to compete globally, from colleges that want better prepared freshmen, from other schools competing for students and from politicians is ratcheting up what kids are expected to learn and master. Rigor has become the new education buzzword."

So then they give a bunch of examples.

First example: "It means that eighth-grade students in Heather Good's 21st-century literacy class in Edina will have to work with another student to complete a project without ever meeting face-to-face. The Valley View Middle School students will use e-mail, Google, Skype (the Internet visual phone service) and other technologies used in real business situations, Good says."

BZZZT. Using e-mail, Google, and Skype is trend-chasing, not rigor. In fact, when parents say "we want more rigor in the schools," they typically mean, "we want our children to learn to write essays with correct grammar and coherent sentence structure, instead of wasting time on e-mail and GOD HELP US Skype, WTF?"

Second example: "It means Abby Boehm-Turner's seventh-grade English students at Murray Junior High in St. Paul will spend at least half their class time reading or writing, and they will read biographies such as "Bone Black" by bell hooks, not just to know her life story, but how she told it."

OK, I'll give you that one. This is an example of rigor.

Third example: "And it means that Nancy Berg's ninth-grade biomedical science students at East Ridge High School in Woodbury must learn to read an electrocardiograph (EKG) machine as well as a gel electrophoresis report (which identifies DNA)."

BZZZT. Not rigor. For ninth graders, this would actually be a great example of overspecialization. No one needs to learn to read an EKG in ninth grade; in fact, they really shouldn't be taking "biomedical science," they should be taking things like "biology" and learning what DNA is. If "biomedical science" is just a fancy way of presenting 9th grade Bio, and analyzing a gel electrophoresis report helps to bring the DNA lesson to life for them, or if studying EKGs helps them to learn how the heart works, that's great; it might be an example of inspired teaching, but it's not an example of rigor.

I don't teach at a college, but both my parents do, and a number of my friends, so I have a pretty good idea of what deficiencies college professors see in their incoming freshmen, and it's not their inability to read an EKG machine and it's sure as hell not their inability to use Skype and Google. Here is what colleges want that they are not getting:

1. Students who write well, or at least coherently -- who can write a paper that makes a proposition, supports it with something resembling an argument, wraps up with a conclusion, and cites sources.

2. Students who are at least not stunningly behind in math and science. Who can do basic algebra, at least, and understand fundamental concepts like atoms and gravity. I'd really like to include the Scientific Method on this list, but in fact I think most science professors are resigned to having to teach it.

3. Students who know how to do basic library research -- that is to say, they can go to a library catalog, search for a topic, find the relevant books in the stacks, evaluate them to pick one or more (and "ooh, this one looks short" counts as evaluation), and read or at least skim them to gather information.

4. Students who take responsibility for their work and learning -- who do not approach the college with the attitude of, "I am your customer; your job is to spoon-feed me."

5. An ability to follow simple directions is also a plus.

Molly is only in third grade, so my personal knowledge of exactly what happens in the upper grades is limited. But rigor, IMO, would include a lot of writing; there would be high expectations for coherency; there would be at least some papers that required outside reading. Of books, not EKGs. That may be happening, but that's sure not what they talked about.

Ethical Tourism: DOIN IT RONG

Sun, 06 Sep 2009 19:25:03 GMT

My Sunday paper carried an article reprinted from the Washington Post by a journalist who went to Thailand to see the Padaung. He'd seen pictures of Padaung women in National Geographic back when he was a kid, and very much wanted to go ~~gawk~~ see them in real life while he was in Thailand. The Padaung historically lived in Burma, but since Burma is run by an evil military dictatorship there are quite a few Padaung refugees in Thailand, and you can ~~stare~~ go look at them if you know where to go and whom to pay.

The journalist's name was Amit R. Paley. When Paley called one respected trekking company about traveling to see Padaung, they refused emphatically: "PLEASE DO NOT SUPPORT THIS VIOLATION OF HUMAN RIGHTS," they said in an e-mail. There are a couple of problems with treating the Padaung as a tourist attraction. First off, the rings themselves are a form of mutilation that is practiced solely on women; the elongated neck is an illusion created by crushing the collarbone. Second, as he was told by multiple trekking agencies, these so-called villages are exploitative and in many cases that Padaung are prisoners held there for the amusement of tourists -- human zoos, for real.

Multiple trekking agencies told him that they would not take him to visit the Padaung, which gives me some hope in humanity, frankly. Paley offered up some thin rationalizations for his desire to ~~ogle~~ visit the Padaung: "Were tourists really being taken to see virtual prisoners? Or would I be able to sound the alarm if I saw real human rights violations? I concluded that if the villages really were so deplorable, my ability to write about them might ultimately help the Padaung more than harm them. I decided to go."

So, during his trip:

1. He meets a 28-year-old woman who is the sole member of her 300-person village who refuses to wear a traditional costume (which in her village involves rattan rings around the waist, rather than brass rings around the neck) because she finds it uncomfortable and old-fashioned; he observes his tour guide harrassing her and pressuring her to dress in the costume.

2. He arrives at the village of long-necked women, which is guarded by a booth with a man who charges $9/person for entry.

3. It looks nothing like a village; it's a collection of shacks with women and girls you can gawk at. No men. Paley tells you how awesomely breathtaking they are! and then asks them if they LIKE wearing 9 pounds of brass rings around their neck. An older woman tells him they tell him they do it as a show for the foreign tourists. He can't tell if she's joking.

4. Since he sees no guards (oh wait, other than the guy who took his $9), he concludes that no one would actually stop them from leaving.

5. They tell him that a man named U Dee, "the middleman," brought them there; some are paid to stay, but others are not.

6. They tell him they are not allowed to leave; if they try, immigration will be called; their only options are to stay or to pay U Dee for transport back to Burma; they do prefer being captives in a human zoo to living in Burma. (Let me take a moment to quote probably_lost, back in 1995 when he was writing a paper on Ang San Suu Kyi. "The government there calls itself SLORC, for State Law and Order Restoration Council, which is the most up-front 'hi, we are an evil military junta!' name for a government I've ever heard!")

So, having determined that YES, in fact, these women and girls were brought here by a human trafficker and are held prisoner and forced to deform their bodies for the enjoyment of tourists, he asks himself again if it's unethical to visit them. I'll go ahead and quote him here, because it's ... it's ... it defies my ability to summarize, frankly.

"So is it unethical to visit the long-necked women? It is clearly true that money spent to visit them supports an artificial village from which they essentially cannot leave. On the other hand, many of them appeared to prefer living in virtual confinement as long as they are paid and safe, rather than living in a repressive country plagued by abject poverty and hunger."

Yes: according to Paley, supporting slavery with your tourist dollars is A-OK if the slaves escaped a country with a sufficiently horrid government!

~

This is not journalism. He did not interview any of these women in any sort of depth. He left a message for U Dee (which was not returned) -- he made no other effort to find out more about him. He made no effort to follow the money trail. He didn't ask these women if they had husbands, sons, brothers, or fathers living elsewhere in Thailand or in Burma. He didn't ask them much of anything, in fact. It's not clear if he even brought along an independent interpreter who could help him interview them, or if he had to rely on his guide to translate on both sides.

One of the comments at the Washington Post site notes that in fact, there are some strict limits on refugee movement in Thailand, so it may not in fact be the case that U Dee is keeping them in this village; he may be merely exploiting them, rather than enslaving them. As it happens, that's the sort of information I expect journalists to have in hand even before they arrive on the foreign trip they've talked their employer into financing (or that they're planning to write off).

Ethical tourism in developing nations often has a wide gray area; Paley was nowhere near it. He was told by multiple reputable organizations based in Thailand that the Padaung were being abused, and that by paying to go see them, he would be participating in the abuse; that's the first red flag, the sort of really clear message that at the very least is a good sign that you ought to do a bunch of reading about the situation of these people. You know, beyond that National Geographic that inspired your sexual fetish.

Then when he ignored them, went, and determined that the situation was every bit as awful as he'd heard, he still justified it, and did absolutely no substantive investigation or reporting that would have justified his $9 into the pockets of slavers.

And he still thinks what he did is OK.

Sickening.

Things I Ate Today

Sat, 05 Sep 2009 05:21:27 GMT

a bowl of cereal
a cup of coffee
a plate of reheated leftovers
a "mocha on a stick" (sort of a coffee-flavored fudgesicle)
cheese curds
some of Molly's minidonuts
bacon on a stick
teriyaki ostrich on a stick (meh)
French fries
an ear of roasted corn
a "fudge puppy" (chocolate-dipped belgian waffle slice on a stick with whipped cream on top)
the last of Kiera's cotton candy
the last of Molly's brownie

Molly also had a corn dog, a hot dog, an egg roll on a stick, the minidonuts, and her own mocha on a stick. Kiera had a corn dog, a mocha on a stick, some of Molly's minidonuts, an egg roll on a stick, a bunch of French fries, and a fruit salad. Plus the desserts mentioned above.

Why yes, we DID go to the State Fair today.

And yes, the Minnesota State Fair puts everything on a stick. You find stuff on a stick at all fairs because it's a convenient way to eat something while walking around, but at our state fair, it's long since reached the status of a statewide in-joke. New this year was Summit (beer) on a stick, which was three sample-sized cups of beer inserted into a sort of a paddle with holes in it; those were wildly popular, and made me envision the meeting at Summit in which the marketing people explained to the engineers that they needed to come up with a way to put beer on a stick.