Philip Greenspun’s Weblog

America’s black leaders have overwhelmingly endorsed Barack Obama for president. Ask Jesse Jackson, Louis Farrakhan, or Reverend Jeremiah Wright, Jr. whom they are going to vote for and it is Obama, Obama, Obama. The question is “Why?”

Ask one of these guys why black Americans aren’t doing better in school, in steering clear of the judicial system, or in finding jobs and they will say that it is white prejudice that is impeding black progress. Rev. Wright said “Fact number one: We’ve got more black men in prison than there are in college. … Fact number two: Racism is how this country was founded and how this country is still run.” (source) The prevailing theory among black leaders seems to be that when a white person sees black skin, he or she will deny the person inside the skin a job, an educational opportunity, a house in a nice neighborhood, etc.

Along comes Barack Obama, inside a skin that he claims is black and that these same leaders claim is black. White people have given this guy good grades in school. White people have hired this guy for high-paying jobs. White people have given this guy millions of their hard-earned dollars to buy his books. Tens of millions of white people have voted for this guy to represent and/or govern them. In his autobiography, he does not mention having to make any special efforts to overcome white prejudice nor does he cite any incidents in which white prejudice had an effect on his educational opportunities, job opportunities, social opportunities, or housing opportunities.

If Barack Obama’s black skin has not held him back, it would seem to discredit these guys’ explanation of what is holding back others in America with black skin. Why then would they recommend voting for the very person whose success is discrediting their logic?

[Note that in December 12, 2007, I predicted in this Weblog that Obama would win the general election.]

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In this study by the Urban Institute, punks freshly graduated from college and paid about $30,000 per year were found to be more effective as schoolteachers than experienced union members who draw $80,000 of taxpayer blood for their 9 months of work each year.

Can it be that experience is worthless? I have taught classes from a pre-existing syllabus using a proven textbook. The very first time that I did the class, I worked a bit harder than I would have in subsequent classes, but probably managed to be 85 percent as effective as I could possibly have been. I have taught classes where I was one of the textbook authors and a designer of the syllabus. In this case, experience teaching was hugely valuable and resulted in massive changes to the syllabus, course structure, and textbook (fortunately online in HTML format and thus easily changed).

If public school teachers don’t write or choose their textbooks, it might not make any sense to pay experienced teachers more than beginners. http://www.cpsd.us/Web/HR/2008CTA_UnitA_Salary.pdf shows the salaries for the Cambridge Public Schools, some of the least effective in Massachusetts as measured by student achievement tests. A 22-year-old with a bachelor’s earns $41,000 for 9 months. A teacher with 11 years in the system would earn $69,000. That 11-year veteran who picked up online master’s and Ph.D. degrees in education would earn $81,500 (presumably there is no evidence to support the theory that a degree from University of Phoenix makes someone a better teacher).

If we wanted to spend the same amount of money every year, maybe it would be smarter simply to pay all teachers the same salary, e.g., $60,000 for 9 months of work. We would thereby attract a more able class of young college graduates and if after 7 years they got sick of the job they wouldn’t be tempted to stay because their salary was due to go up so dramatically.

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If you’ve been wondering why Windows Vista is such a disappointment and thinking that maybe if Nathan Myhrvold still worked for M$FT it might not have sucked so much, this New Yorker article on Myhrvold’s innovation company is for you.

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Interesting New Yorker article on modern agribusiness and its effects on what we eat every day: http://www.newyorker.com/arts/critics/atlarge/2008/05/19/080519crat_atlarge_wilson

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http://www.nytimes.com/2008/05/17/business/worldbusiness/17engineers.html

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George W. Bush went to Saudi Arabia yesterday and asked for the owners of the country to do him a favor by increasing oil production. King Abdullah refused him.

According to the May 5, 2008 New Yorker magazine, F.D.R. wrote to King Ibn Saud in 1943 asking for help in bringing peace to Palestine. The King responded that he “was prepared to receive anyone of any religion except (repeat except) a Jew.”

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As someone who spends a lot of time in hotels, I’ve noticed that the quality of their wireless networks seems to be degrading. Originally each hotel got some sort of broadband connection and then a few wireless hubs and every guest surfed the Web and life was great. Now guests consume streaming video, streaming audio, and BitTorrent and the networks become unusable.

I’m thinking that it is time to move to a wireless data network such as AT&T, Sprint, or Verizon. My only experience with these services was from a couple of years ago, using Verizon. I didn’t like it because (a) it was very slow to connect after a laptop was opened, (b) the coverage was spotty, and (c) it was bursty. I’m wondering if things have improved now. This magazine test claims that the AT&T network is the fastest, but they bitch-slap you if you transfer more than 5 GB per month. It would seem that this limit precludes use by photographers and audio/video lovers. One batch of RAW files from a digital SLR could eat up most of that 5 GB. Listening to streaming audio in the background 24×7 works out to something like 40 GB per month (at 128 Kbits/second).

What are you all using and how do you like it?

[Side note: It continues to amaze me that we Americans think that we can develop economically without a comprehensive and very capable wireless Internet (free for short message; charged for video streaming and the like).]

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The Wall Street Journal ran an editorial yesterday Who Wants to be a Millionaire? about the latest farm bill passed with overwhelming support by our Congress.  The article includes some fun stuff.  Wealthy and successful farmers are prevented from collecting subsidies by a $2.5 million annual income threshold.  Sugar is bought by taxpayers at 23 cents per pound and sold to ethanol producers for 3 cents per pound.  Landowners who haven’t planted anything for years will get paid subsidies based on their “historical planting average.”

Aside from simply sending checks to farmers, the bill will drive up food prices, so $10 billion is added to the food stamp program.

One wonders if our politicians have failed to notice that we are no longer a rich country…

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Yesterday I walked into Boston’s new Liberty Hotel, a former jail at the foot of the Longfellow Bridge. Thanks to the tireless efforts of our Federal Reserve to control inflation, parking was listed at only $39 per day. (I had ridden the T down there, up only to $2 from $1.25 six months ago.) I helped myself to a free Wall Street Journal and opened it to the Opinion page. An Op-Ed by Holman W. Jenks, Jr. attacked John McCain for succumbing to the lunatic theory that human activity could affect global climate.

It occurred to me that it would be nice to get into a time machine and go back to a meeting of the Royal Society in London circa 1800. This would be my presentation:

Gentlemen: What I propose is that we humans breed ourselves up to a population of 6.7 billion from our current 1 billion. Next we will cut down all of the forests either to grow crops or to provide cooking fuel. We are going to dig and drill down into the Earth to bring up the remains of all previous vegetation and animal life, now in the form of coal and oil. We’re going to burn all of it and release the combustion products into the atmosphere. I do not expect this to have any effect on global climate.

I wonder how it would have been received by the scientific worthies of the day.

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One of the benefits of having a Third World currency is that high-tech firms looking for cheap labor come from far away to build factories.

The latest chapter in the migration of jobs to wherever labor is cheapest?  Embraer is coming up from the rural outskirts of Sao Paolo to build a factory in Florida.  Details at aero-news.net.

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