This just in

• For some reason, a Nobel Prize-winning economist is at Chapman U, teaching high school kids about the dismal science. Apparently, Vernon Smith “won the Nobel Prize in 2002 for his revolutionary approach to proving economic theories using lab experiments to simulate real-world markets.” Which reminds me: how come every time I turn on my TV, Chapman's James Doti’s got his face up there? Doesn't he have better things to do?

• The OC Register has a lovely photo essay of the Whiting Ranch area—not far from my home—which was affected by the October fires. (See photo above.) UPDATE: the LA Times has some purdy pictures too.

• I suppose you’ve followed that story about the Irvine Eagle Scout who broke into cars and stole iPods. Well, the punk’s gonna spend 60 days in jail. In my day, Eagle Scouts didn’t usually do such things, and when they did, they only did 'em because of brain tumors.

• This just in: Raghu P. Mathur continues to make one of the biggest salaries anyone’s ever seen while destroying South County’s two community colleges. In November, voters are expected to reelect two of the fools (Dave Lang & Tom Fuentes) who are responsible for this man's reign of terror, which started in 1997, when, despite having no full-time administrative experience, he was appointed interim President of Irvine Valley College, thanks to the corruption and lawlessness that then prevailed among trustees and union leaders who got these bozos elected using false and homophobic fliers.

• Dave, tell me. How do you sleep at night?

Not all Raghu Mathurs are bad

.....Dennis Overbye, a science reporter for the New York Times, has a great little article (in yesterday's Times) in which he answers readers’ science questions: 
Dennis Overbye, Science Reporter.
.....Overbye, prompted by readers, touches on randomness, dark energy, and God, among other things. He's good.
.....Great stuff, even if the fellow doesn’t know how to spell “Antarctica.”

* * * *
NOT ALL RAGHU MATHURs ARE BAD

.....It isn't always easy maintaining rationality. I recall talking with a colleague once who admitted that he could no longer stand the thought of eating curried food, owing to associations with the unsavory Raghu Mathur (the latter fellow hails from India, land o' turmeric).
.....I've gotta say, that's pretty nutty. I just stared at 'im.
.....My grandfather, who died in his 90s maybe ten years ago, for a long time refused to eat Italian food owing to its association with, well, Italians. During the war, he fought alongside soldati (he was in the Wehrmacht, an infantryman, assigned to tanks). He claimed that, when faced with the enemy, the Italian soldiers would run away, leaving the German soldiers holding Der Bag.
.....There was no use arguing with him about Italians. There's no prejudice like Old World European prejudice, I find.
.....But I did defend pizza. "Look, Opa, this pizza right here wasn't made by any Italians. I made it. And it's good!" I held up a slice. I took a bite.
.....Eventually, he caved, but I think that was mostly because of the stroke.
.....Occasionally, I Google "Raghu Mathur," and the Facebook page of some kid—named "Raghu Mathur"—always comes up. He's a good-looking kid. For all I know, he's the nicest, most honest kid in the world—no duplicitous, narcissistic, avaricious, back-stabbing rat bastard from hell, like some Raghu Mathurs I've known.

At Santa Ana College, an "Opportunity Scholarship" goes big

.....No doubt this brought out the local Know-nothings, of which there are many. In this morning’s Inside Higher Ed: Professors Pay Students’ Tuition:

.....Tuition usually … helps to pay faculty salaries. But at California’s Santa Ana College, some professors are paying their students’ tuition.
.....The community college’s Opportunity Scholarship will be offered for the first time this fall. The scholarship, for those with unmet financial need and a grade-point average of at least a B, was created by professors. Faculty members, either by themselves or with a colleague, are agreeing to pay for a full year of tuition for a student. Tuition for a California resident is $20 per unit, with full-time students taking at least 12 units a semester.
…
.....Santa Ana College, in Orange County, serves many low income and immigrant students, said Jeff McMillan, a chemistry instructor and former president of the Academic Senate. Many students are the children of undocumented immigrants, and they are not eligible for assistance from the government, he said. This led McMillan to try to find ways to help students stay in college.
…
…[P]eople wrestling with the problem on their own, like [VP of SS Sara] Lundquist and [counselor Issac] Guzman and McMillan, started working together. Once the project was approved, professors, administrators and departments joined in. An article in the Los Angeles Times led to contributions from people who don’t work at the college.
.....Originally, the scholarship was planned to be an “intimate” program, and was only going to be serving somewhere between 10 to 25 students, Lundquist said. However, with the additional support, there will be close 100 students receiving the scholarship.
…
.....Although, many of the scholarship recipients are the children of undocumented immigrants, McMillan said it’s important not to see this as an immigration issue. He sometimes hears the argument that these students in need of financial aid “shouldn’t even be here anyway.” However, he noted that these students typically didn’t make the decision to come to the United States and that not helping these very “gifted” students would be a missed opportunity.
…
.....Alex Flores, a second year student at Santa Ana and newly elected Associated Student Government President, applied for the scholarship. “I think it’s a great, like the name says opportunity, for students to pursue their education,” he said.
.....Flores is originally from Mexico, but moved to the United States when he was in second grade. He said he’s applying for the scholarship so he can focus on academics. … After he is done with Santa Ana, he plans to go to California State University at Fullerton to study political science. He wants to work in government some day, he said.

Knowing, not knowing, and "confident boobery"

.....A week ago (What Do Americans Know?), Newsweek reported the results of a poll that it conducted that was designed to gauge what “U.S. citizens know on a broad range of topics.”
.....Since we've been focused on American boobery lately, I figured we might take a look at this poll. First, here are some of the poll’s questions and results (correct answers are in bold):

• Do you happen to know the name of the Chief Justice of the U.S. Supreme Court?


15 Yes, John Roberts
7 Yes, other name given

77 No/Don't know/Can't name anyone

1 Refused

• As far as you know, what is Democratic presidential candidate Barack Obama's religion? Is he a Christian, a Muslim, or something else?


61 Christian

13 Muslim

7 Something else

19 Not sure/Refused

• Do you think Saddam Hussein's regime in Iraq was DIRECTLY involved in planning, financing, or carrying out the terrorist attacks of September 11th, 2001, or not?


Yes 34

No 56

Don't Know 10

• Which of the following is the TOTAL national debt at this time?


15 About 3 trillion dollars

15 About 5 trillion dollars

22 About 7 trillion dollars

32 More than 9 trillion dollars

16 Don't know

• Which of the following is the holiest place in Islam?


30 Jerusalem

56 Mecca

1 Medina

3 Islamabad

10 Don't know

• Which of the following is NOT a play written by William Shakespeare?


4 Hamlet

4 Macbeth

20 The Merchant of Venice

58 The Crucible

14 Don't know

TRIVIA, SENSE OF PROPORTION:

.....It seems to me that some of Newsweek’s “knowledge” questions were really “trivia” questions: "Which of the following is the most-watched episode ever of a primetime TV series?"

.....Further, this Newsweek bunch seems perfectly happy to mix the unimportant with the important. Surely it is important for Americans to know who the Chief Justice of the Supreme Court is. But is it important for Americans to know when TV broadcasts will switch over to digital or just how many children this year will see their parents divorce? Don't think so.

.....At least one of Newsweek's questions was incoherent:

• In which of the following areas do you think stem cell research would be MOST useful?


17 Spinal injuries

4 Brain injuries

2 Blindness

69 In all of these areas

8 Don't know

.....According to Newsweek's pollsters, SC research will be “most" useful in all three of the three areas named.
.....That makes no fucking sense.

.....Some of the poll's results are appalling, I suppose:

• 34% of respondents thought that Saddam Hussein was directly involved in the 9-11 attacks, and 10% didn't know. (It is, of course, a crucial fact of our present political reality that many Americans were misled about this by the Bush Administration. How can 44% still be out to lunch?)
• 44% of respondents didn’t know the importance of Mecca to Muslims.

"KNOWING" FALSELY: THE CONFIDENT BOOB FACTOR

.....It’s one thing to not know something and to know that one does not know. It is quite another—it is far worse—to “know” something falsely.
.....With regard to the question of the Chief Justice of the Supreme Court, 84% didn’t know the answer (John Roberts), but the vast majority of these people knew that they didn’t know. (I'm impressed.) The rate of “false knowing” was only 7%.
.....BUT—now look at many of the other questions. Very often, one finds a very high rate of “false knowing” (i.e., a high rate of confident boobery). For instance, consider this question:

• China and India have the largest armies in the world. Which one of the following countries do you think has the THIRD largest army?


.....I don’t know about you, but I would be very clear that I just don’t know the answer to this question. I could guess (I would have been wrong), but why would I do that? My answer is: I don’t know.
.....Here’s how people answered:

29 North Korea

22 Russia

39 United States

1 Australia

9 Don't know

.....I’m impressed that 29% got this one right. 9% acknowledged their ignorance. Those people are like me.
.....Now, assuming that respondents were aware that they could just say “I don’t know” (is that a bad assumption?), the data here suggest that 62% (i.e., 22+39+1) of respondents had “false knowledge.” 9% knew that they didn't know, but Sixty-freakin'-two percent thought they knew when in fact they did not know.
.....Who are these people? Where do they come from? HOW CAN I AVOID LIVING AMONG THEM?

If Truth is so valuable, why is there so much B.S.?

.....On Saturday, the LA Times wrote about a crazy little Sunday morning radio show—featuring two well-regarded Stanford U professors—called “Philosophy Talk.” (Yeah, these philosophy professors will give it some thought):

.....…It was just another Sunday morning for Ken Taylor and John Perry, who dissect life's big mysteries on "Philosophy Talk," believed to be America's only live weekly call-in radio show dedicated to the philosophical.
.....In this celebrity-soaked era, when Americans seem to spend more time pondering whether Britney Spears' underwear exists than whether God does, these two Stanford philosophy professors take on everything from the weighty to the winsome.
.....On this June morning in the little broadcast booth at KALW-FM (91.7), "Philosophy Talk" tackled the problem of evil—or, as Perry put it, quoting Epicurus: "If God can abolish evil, and God really wants to do it, why is there evil in the world?"
.....They've prodded political correctness, postmodernism and prostitution. They've wondered aloud: "Can science explain consciousness?" "If Truth is so valuable, why is there so much B.S.?" "What are numbers?" "What is a child?"
…
....."Philosophy Talk" is Perry's brainchild, and a very old child indeed. Until he met Taylor 15 years ago, he said, "I couldn't get any other suitable partner who didn't think it was a completely loony idea. . . . Unlike me, Ken not only has ideas, but he acts on them."
.....Which is probably why the two men began working together. They got seed money from Stanford, made two pilots and sent them to KQED, San Francisco's top-shelf public radio station. They were unceremoniously turned down. [The second-shelf public radio station, however, accepted.]
…
.....The show began airing weekly in January 2004 and has since been picked up by Oregon Public Radio, which airs Taylor and Perry statewide. They can be heard on stations in New York, Louisiana, Colorado and British Columbia, and on KUCR in Riverside. Listeners everywhere can tune in online at www.philosophytalk.org.
…
.....Taylor: "I think that our culture, our public discourse especially, is utterly debased. . . . It's meant to manipulate rather than enlighten and inform. . . . It's a disease that we've caught. Philosophy is one elixir, one magical elixir for helping to cure that disease."
.....Perry: "Ken, I knew Socrates. And you're no Socrates. But we do our best."
.....Taylor: "Think of our first episode: Bush's doctrine of preemptive self-defense. A doctrine is supposed to be kind of a systematic body of evidence and belief that kind of hangs together. . . . But that so-called doctrine is a bunch of, well . . ."
.....Perry: "Hooey."
.....Taylor: "Yeah."
…
.....It was [one listener’s] query about animals and the evil they endure that led to the most spirited exchange among Taylor, Perry and their guest this day, University of Colorado philosophy professor Michael Tooley.
.....Tooley: "If [God] created a being that's capable of suffering and then put it in a sort of hellish world where it would suffer almost all the time, it would seem to me to be morally wrong . . . "
.....Perry: "Maybe God created us to be the kings and queens of creation, but do we really want to worship a God who created so much suffering among animals? . . . "
.....Taylor: "There's two different possible conclusions: One is, there isn't a God. At least there isn't a benevolent, all-knowing, all-perfect God. And one is, even if there is a God, it is not worth our worshiping him . . . So Michael, which is it?"
.....The short answer? There is no short answer….

• LA OBSERVED has taken notice of Orange Coast magazine's "best of" issue, highlighting its choice of "best columnist" (Frank Mickadeit). But it also mentions OC's "best literary blog," namely, the REB's The Mark on the Wall.

Check it out: The Morning Reading: Independence Day

• For a horror story about a Massachusetts community college, go to ‘Reign of Terror’ at MassBay? (in this morning's Inside Higher Ed).

• For some fun, see "Bill-O's rant remix" video on Keith Olbermann's site: Remix of O'Reilly

• This week's Guardian Science Weekly podcast concerns women in physics, dark matter, and the underappreciated Alfred Henry Wallace.

Give cats & dogs the vote; Walter Knott video

.....Yesterday, I posted about the cluelessness of voters. The evidence clearly suggests that many or even most American voters are sans clue. This seems to be especially true among the so-called "Republican base," a remarkably stupid group.
.....But among our sacred cows as Americans is the notion that voting is good; not voting is bad. Somehow, how one votes—whether, for instance, one is informed or rational—doesn’t matter.
.....This way of thinking is like some kind of New Age philosophy, seems to me. It's about feeling good and ignoring reality.

.....Generally, if there is a way to increase voting rates, people are immediately for it.
.....—Unless, of course, they foresee that their political party will be hurt. Then, all of a sudden, the issue of voter competence, among others, arises. They get all logical.
.....And, of course, if your party sees a benefit, it’ll be especially enthusiastic about the measure. The "competence" argument and every other argument will be rebutted.

16- AND 17-YEAR-OLD VOTERS?

.....In today’s San Francisco Chronicle (State Republicans cool to youth-voting bills), we learn of some (California) Assembly bills “designed to bring more young people into the voting booths”:

.....One of the measures would allow 16- and 17-year-olds to "preregister" to vote, while the other would allow 17-year-olds to vote in a primary election if they will be 18 by the date of the next general election. Both bills have prompted straight party-line votes, with no hint of GOP support.
.....While Democrats sponsoring the bills say they are merely good-government measures, studies show that their party would get a major election-day boost if more young voters cast ballots.

.....Republican Anthony Adams opposes the bills essentially because, he argues, when you’re young, you’re clueless:

....."I'm a pretty conservative guy now, but when I was 17 I was a raging liberal," Adams said. "You start to see problems as you get older. As you get older, you get wiser."
…
....."Our concern is that we want an informed and worldly electorate, and here we have these kids in high school and they're trying to get a grasp of the world," Adams said. "The assumption is that they're not able to make informed decisions, so we have to have a legitimate cutoff" date.

.....Naturally, California Democrats, including Assemblyman Gene Mullin, see the matter differently. Young people are often more informed, he says:

....."These young people are in school and hearing discussions of issues in their classes," he said. "Republicans are afraid we're going to register a lot of Democrats, but most teenagers tend to register in the party of their parents."
…
.....The Democratic bills would not give a boost to Republicans, Democrats or any other group, said Assemblyman Curren Price Jr., D-Inglewood…"This is a step we can take to encourage voting involvement at an early age," he said. "People who get involved at a young age are more likely to become regular voters."
…
.....Price described his bill as "a way of tapping into the interest young people have expressed this year," while not mentioning that much of that excitement was bolstering Democratic campaign efforts….

REVIEWING THE LOGIC:

.....Let’s review some of the above reasoning, shall we?

.....Republican Adams opposes the new measures because (1) when one is young, one is unwise; wisdom is acquired only much later in life, and voters should be wise; (2) when one is young, one is liable to be attracted to liberalism.
.....But if Adams’ first point were correct, then shouldn’t Adams be advocating, not just preventing 17-year-old voting, but raising the voting age substantially? Obviously. How come he isn’t doing that? Make sense, man.
.....During the Democratic primary, we kept hearing that, the older the voter, the more likely he/she supported Clinton over Obama. Surely (I say half-jokingly), this refutes Adams’ point about wisdom and age!
.....That the young are attracted to liberalism, if true, is irrelevant, of course, unless it can be established that liberalism is “wrong” and non-liberalism is “right.” Tsk, tsk.

.....Democrat Mullin counters the Republican arguments and position by arguing that (1) young people are often more informed that their elders; (2) no, the new voters will not be especially Democratic, since teenagers tend to register in the party of their parents.
.....Mullin is full of shit. The notion that young people are especially informed flies in the face of the facts provided by endless polls. That teenagers tend to register in the party of their parents does not counter the Republican worry (that there will be more Dems than Repubs registering), since, obviously there are more Dems than Repubs among existing parent/voters. C’mon.
.....(Of course, the Republican "worry" isn't an argument. We cannot reject a measure that increases voting rates on the grounds that we dislike how the new voters vote!)

.....Mr. Price argues, apparently, that the measures are good because they will increase voting rates in the long run. But, of course, this assumes that increasing voting rates per se is a good thing. There's that sacred cow again. I may be a vegetarian, but that's one cow that oughta be slaughtered.
.....Further, Price's point ignores the “competence” point that seems to be at the heart of the Republican position. (Maybe Price deals with it elsewhere. Dunno.)

.....My own view is that the Republicans have a point: much evidence indicates that young voters are especially clueless. But since the vast majority of voters—especially Republican voters—are already profoundly clueless and vulnerable to various irrationalities (e.g., pursuing incompatible measures), we're just squabbling about how to arrange the deck chairs on this electoral Titanic.
.....So, in my opinion, we should give dogs and cats the vote. No age limit.

WALTER KNOTT ON VIDEO:

.....I happened across a brief video—looks like it was produced in the early or mid-60s—promoting Knott’s Berry Farm, the amusement park, and the politics of its creator, Walter Knott. It starts with a few seconds of typical right-wingery from Walter that will be of interest to local history buffs. (Go to O.C. History Roundup.)
.....Knott, who died in 1982 (at age 93), was an important figure in the development of Orange County as a “bastion of conservatism.” He was an important early supporter of Barry Goldwater and Ronald Reagan.
.....He was also a John Bircher. Scary dude.

GEORGE CARLIN CONTRA THE PUBLIC; CONTRA VOTING

Chunk's Saturday travelogue

Today was one of those too-hot summer days in So Cal that makes you realize that you're living in a desert. It was a bit hazy, maybe smoggy, but not like when I was a kid. Nothing like that.

I had to go twenty miles up the road to Orange, and so I figured I'd bring my camera along and see what I could see.

I took old Santiago Canyon Road. Stopped by mysterious Black Star Canyon:



When I got to Orange, I figured I'd stop in Old Town. Drove by my old house, built in 1903:


It's the one on the left. I'm told that, fifty years ago, it was a house of prostitution. By the time I lived in it, in the late 80s, the neighborhood was pretty wholesome. Still is. I think a gay couple lives in the house now. They added the white picket fence. I like it.

It was hot, boy. Naturally, on Prairie Home Companion, this week from the Windy City, they were doing a version of Robert Johnson's "They're Red Hot":

Hot tamales and they're red hot, yes she got 'em for sale
Hot tamales and they're red hot, yes she got 'em for sale
I got a girl, say she long and tall
She sleeps in the kitchen with her feets in the hall
Hot tamales and they're red hot, yes she got 'em for sale, I mean
Yes, she got 'em for sale, yeah

As I recall, Johnson, the great bluesman, was a fan of Bing Crosby. Crazy, ain't it?

Here are some shots of downtown, near the Plaza:





Much of the "plaza" area was built well before the turn of the century, by which I mean, not 2000, but 1900. Cool.

Couldn't help myself. I went into some of those shops—the one's with basements. I could hear the floors creaking. I kept thinking, "I almost never come here. It would really suck if there were an earthquake right now." I love these old buildings, but visiting them is a gamble, like hiking into an active volcano.

Bought some cool retro toys for young Adam and an old Pyrex measuring cup (my cleaning lady broke my old "Fluffo" cup). Check it out.


I dunno if you can read it (below), but, at the bottom of the cup, it says: "For household and photographic use only." Huh?


I guess I'd better wash it really well before I use it. Who knows what kinda chemicals somebody put in there. Probably mercury, cyanide. Who knows.