At Last
link

Summer seems to have finally broken here in the Ratlands. It wasn't an especially brutal summer as these things go in Kansas and it was a lot wetter than usual. Still, I just don't handle the heat as well as I used to, so I really start feeling better about this time of year. We now have days in the high 70's and nights in the 50's. Still a bit warm for my taste, but I'll take it. I'll like it even better when Daylight Saving time ends and I have long dark evenings to enjoy. Give me a crisp fall evening with a waxing moon and the sound of geese flying overhead as an accompaniment to the sound of the keyboard and the glow of the computer screen and I'm happy. Add in a wee bit of Laphroaig Scotch, lose the computer and throw in an outdoor fire...

On the family front, Rat Jr. got a job in a manufacturing plant. She is now getting up at 4:00 a.m. Our sleep schedule is seriously out of whack. Mostly I see her for a few minutes when she gets home from school at night. I've been hoping she would find a job, but full-time with mandatory overtime may be a bit more than she was bargaining for. Still, even adjusted for inflation, it is a lot better money than I was making when I was her age.

And finally, one of the truths about blogging is that for most of us, no matter what you have to say, someone else has said it first and better. This came in my e-mail this week from a friend.

The Bill of Non-Rights

The following has been attributed to State Representative Mitchell Kaye from GA. This guy should run for President one day...

"We the sensible people of the United States, in an attempt to help everyone get along, restore some semblance of justice, avoid more riots, keep our nation safe, promote positive behavior, and secure the blessings of debt free liberty to ourselves and our great-great-great-grandchildren, hereby try one more time to ordain and establish some common sense guidelines for the terminally whiny, guilt ridden, delusional, and other liberal bed-wetters. We hold these truths to be self evident: that a whole lot of people are confused by the Bill of Rights and are so dim they require a Bill of NON-Rights."

ARTICLE I: You do not have the right to a new car, big screen TV, or any other form of wealth. More power to you if you can legally acquire them, but no one is guaranteeing anything.

ARTICLE II: You do not have the right to never be offended. This country is based on freedom, and that means freedom for everyone -- not just you! You may leave the room, turn the channel, express a different opinion, etc.; but the world is full of idiots, and probably always will be.

ARTICLE III: You do not have the right to be free from harm. If you stick a screwdriver in your eye, learn to be more careful, do not expect the tool manufacturer to make you and all your relatives independently wealthy.

ARTICLE IV: You do not have the right to free food and housing. Americans are the most charitable people to be found, and will gladly help anyone in need, but we are quickly growing weary of subsidizing generation after generation of professional couch potatoes who achieve nothing more than the creation of another generation of professional couch potatoes.

ARTICLE V: You do not have the right to free health care. That would be nice, but from the looks of public housing, we're just not interested in public health care.

ARTICLE VI: You do not have the right to physically harm other people. If you kidnap, rape, intentionally maim, or kill someone, don't be surprised if the rest of us want to see you fry in the electric chair.

ARTICLE VII: You do not have the right to the possessions of others. If you rob, cheat, or coerce away the goods or services of other citizens, don't be surprised if the rest of us get together and lock you away in a place where you still won't have the right to a big screen color TV or a life of leisure.

ARTICLE VIII: You do not have the right to a job. All of us sure want you to have a job, and will gladly help you along in hard times, but we expect you to take advantage of the opportunities of education and vocational training laid before you to make yourself useful.

ARTICLE IX: You do not have the right to happiness. Being an American means that you have the right to PURSUE happiness, which by the way, is a lot easier if you are unencumbered by an over abundance of idiotic laws created by those of you who were confused by the Bill of Rights.

ARTICLE X: This is an English speaking country. We don't care where you are from, English is our language. Learn it or go back to wherever you came from! (finally....)

ARTICLE XI: You do not have the right to change our country's history or heritage. This country was founded on the belief in one true God. And yet, you are given the freedom to believe in any religion, any faith, or no faith at all; with no fear of persecution. The phrase IN GOD WE TRUST is part of our heritage and history, and if you are uncomfortable with it, TOUGH!!!!

If you agree, share this with a friend. No, you don't have to, and nothing tragic will befall you if you don't. I just think it's about time common sense is allowed to flourish. Sensible people of the United States speak out because if you do not, who will?

Vote - it's American as American can be...!

OK. Maybe it is a bit over the top, but I'm especially fond of articles I, II, III, and V. And while it might be refreshing to watch, I don't think anyone this blunt would survive a presidential campaign.

One other bit of food for thought. Some time back I ran across Dissecting Leftism. Guess what his political orientation is? One of the interesting things about this guy is that he is an Aussie, but spends quite a bit of time writing about American issues, having apparently spent some time working here. I don't remember where on the web site I read it (maybe in more than one place?) but one of his central points is that the mark of any good leftist is the desire to tell other people what to do. I thought that was a bit simplistic, but after having thought about it for a while, I'm having second thoughts.

A while back, I wrote about my family gathering fiasco with my sister and brother-in-law. One moment keeps coming back to me. I don't remember how it came up, but I mentioned the California legislature passing a bill that would have made it illegal for anyone under the age of 18 to go into a tanning salon without a doctor or dermatologist's prescription. I had mentioned it in the context of needless intrusion and government regulation with strong overtones of parental responsibility as opposed to the idea that the government should protect us from ourselves. My sister, on the other hand, thought it was a marvelous idea. I don't remember my sister suggesting anything that the government shouldn't regulate.

My sister isn't what I would call a "flaming liberal". The willingness to accept both regulation and the underlying idea that people need to be told what to do disturbs me. I'm going to have to think about it before I buy the whole concept, but "telling other people what to do" does seem to capture something intrinsic to the left.

 

by Cziltang 
Posted: Friday, September 24 2004 09:56:34 PM

Waxing Nostalgic
link

When I was a kid (say 35 years ago, or so) we used to spend our summer weekends with our grandparents. The family would travel to the farm on Friday night after Dad got off work. We would get up early on Saturday morning and work in the garden or pick berries or fruit or whatever the season called for. We always had a big lunch. The best were in July and August with lots of fresh vegetables, maybe fried chicken and mashed potatoes and corn on the cob and lots of fresh, ripe sliced tomatoes.

After lunch we would mostly relax until it cooled off in the evening. My memories of those days are all sort of a warm, orange blur. Mostly I remember laying on the linoleum in the living room in front of a box fan, as Grandma didn't have an air conditioner. It was often in the upper 90's or low 100's, but I don't remember physical discomfort. It is all a care-free, sleepy haze. I remember it fondly.

Today I've been thinking about those memories. I don't spend much time thinking about them, usually. My currently life is pretty far removed from those days. My grandparents are dead. I haven't been on a farm in years. But today, they all came flooding back to me.

Our air conditioner broke down last night. It's been in the low 90's today and I've spent the day lazing about under the fan. Funny, it isn't quite as much fun as it was 35 years ago. The food isn't as good either.

by Cziltang 
Posted: Sunday, September 19 2004 08:17:55 PM

Historical Trivia
link

My father has been a history buff since long before I was around. When I was a kid, we used to stop at every roadside historical marker we passed while on the road. I've been to historical museums in most of the states I've been to. Dad made a point of taking us to the Eisenhower Presidential Library in Abilene, Kansas and the Truman Library in Missouri. I find out now that he missed one in Kansas.

On March 4, 1849, James K. Polk's term as president expired, as did that of his vice-president, George Dallas. March 4 was a Sunday that year. Because he was a devout Christian, the newly elected president, Zachary Taylor refused to take the oath of office until Monday. So, for 23 and a half hours, beginning at noon on March 4, 1849, David Rice Atchison (president pro-tem of the Senate) was the acting President of the United States.

Atchison later described his term in office as "the honestest administration this country ever had," perhaps because he slept most of the day. Later, Atchison was involved in the passage of the Kansas-Nebraska Act of 1854. He also led pro-slavery forces into the Kansas Territory.

The town of Atchison, Kansas is named for him. The David R. Atchison Presidential Library (billed as the nation's smallest) is located in the Atchison County Historical Society Museum. According to the Wichita Eagle of Sept. 13, 2004 (where I got the information for this post) the library consists of a "portrait of Atchison and a Colt pistol he carried."

Looks like a road trip may be in order this fall.

by Cziltang 
Posted: Thursday, September 16 2004 12:03:50 AM

Improbable solutions
link

The mystery of the missing fish has been solved. Although it was quite a bit of fun to speculate on the cats conspiring to lift the aquarium lid, it turns out the missing fish apparently has a problem with spatial relations. More to the point, it swam under some marble-type things at the bottom of the tank and got stuck. The marbles are dark blue, the fish is black, so we didn't see him for 8 days. Rat Jr. was cleaning the tank and discovered him yesterday. Other than being a bit hungry, he seems OK.

Still, the cat theory was more fun...

by Cziltang 
Posted: Tuesday, September 14 2004 11:03:21 PM

A bit about my work
link

For the past few days, I've been working on essays for my other web site. I've mentioned before that I use a weblog for communication with all my staff on all three shifts. We have a lot of new staff at the moment (due to promotions and a couple of transfers to other departments -- usually we don't have too much turnover). One of the problems with new staff is that no matter how much time you spend with them in training, there are some concepts that are just a lot easier to get across after they've been on the job a while. I was writing about targeted sanctions for unacceptable behavior last night. As a preface, I explained a little bit about why our program is structured the way it is. Since I've received comments expressing a mild interest in such things (and since it was kind of a crappy day today and I'm too tired to fight through the fuzziness in my thinking) I thought I would post an excerpt from that piece for anyone who might be interested in such things.

A couple of notes: Corrections Workers (my staff) are the folks who supervise clients in the residential center (like guards in prison, although with our clients going out to work and appointments it is a little more involved, if not as dangerous). ISO's (Intensive Supervision Officers: a term foisted on us by the State, not our choice) are the in-house probation officers. Anyway, here it is:

 

It has been said that we can't make our clients change. All we can do is offer them the opportunity to change. While, in the strictest sense, this is true, there is a lot we can do to influence the likelihood of change.

On the large scale, programs like ours are structured to provide rewards for positive behavior and consequences (or, punishment, if you like) for negative behavior. Often, it seems as if the responsibility for rewards and punishments is divided between the ISO's and the Corrections Workers, with the ISO's handing out all the goodies and the Corrections Workers being the bad guys. While on the surface there is a certain inevitability in this arrangement (given that the ISO's hand out the levels and out dates and the like) this appearance is somewhat deceiving. Given that Corrections Workers have considerably more contact with clients than their ISO's do, it follows necessarily that Corrections Workers have more opportunities to provide positive reinforcement than ISO's.

In general, we get clients who are not functioning positively in society. They make bad choices, they are irresponsible, they avoid accountability, their thinking is significantly different than the "normal" citizen. The point of a program like ours is not to change them into law-abiding, upstanding citizens overnight. Programs like ours are built on the notion of gradual change as an ongoing process. Radical change, even when made with the best of intentions, is easy to make but hard to maintain (as any smoker who has ever tried to quit smoking cold-turkey will tell you). Mild change, on the other hand, is a bit easier to maintain. And that is why programs are built on level systems.

In our program, in the early stages (see the policy manual or the resident handbook) clients have minimal privileges and minimal responsibilities. The idea is for the client to get used to taking care of the basics: household responsibilities, finding a job, etc. A lot of our clients can't even handle that much responsibility without significant coaching and maybe even some individual attention. Sometimes (although definitely not always) that attention must necessarily be in the form of negative consequences for failure to operate at a basic level of responsibility. But, given the skills most of our clients have (or, more properly, don't have) at this level, there is a certain margin of error built into the level system. A few mistakes here and there don't necessarily preclude level advancement because it is not reasonable to expect perfect behavior at this point. In other words, we are giving the client a few responsibilities and are trying to nudge them into a little bit better, more responsible behavior.

As clients progress through the level system, the responsibilities grow and the rewards (privileges) grow. And at each level, the standards for compliance become a bit more strict. In other words, at each level we are nudging them toward self-generated responsible behavior. If they master each level, then the incremental change made at the last level is easier to maintain as they move forward to the next level.

 

by Cziltang 
Posted: Friday, September 10 2004 01:51:01 AM

Getting Old?
link

You may be getting old if no one you talk to gets your movie references.

We are having some work done on our roof at my place of business. Unfortunately, this involves the use of hot tar. I was over in the residential area today, where the smell was approaching unbearable. I took a deep breath and uttered Robert Duvall's line from Apocalypse Now, "I love the smell of Napalm in the morning..." One of the clients said, "Oh, is that what that smell is?" I looked at the two staff members at the front desk. They were standing there with that bunny-in-the-headlights look.

I said, "Come on, you know; Robert Duvall? Apocalypse Now?"

Still nothing but the bunny-in-the-headlights look. I said, "Apocalypse Now? 1979?"

(To me, Apocalypse Now is a movie I saw a few years ago...)

One of the staff members looked me straight in the eye and said, "I was 3 years old."

ouch.

by Cziltang 
Posted: Wednesday, September 08 2004 10:13:50 PM

Interim Iraqi National Conference Meeting
link

OK, I've spent way too much time at the computer tonight, but here's one last thing. At Iraq the Model, there is a commentary on the first meeting of the new Interim Iraqi National Conference. If you think our involvement in Iraq is just about oil, go read this.

 

by Cziltang 
Posted: Tuesday, September 07 2004 10:53:53 PM

Time for an Intervention
link

Well, I never got to the "nature of compensation" piece this weekend. I spent a lot more time over at my parents' house than I had imagined I would. I must say that on the whole, it was mostly pleasant.

I haven't spent much time with my sister and brother-in-law in the past couple of years. They don't come down from Nebraska that often and I haven't been in a position to go up there, so we haven't spent too much time talking politics in the last couple of years. Consequently, they have missed most of my shift to the conservative and libertarian positions I'm at now. I guess I should have kept them up to speed...

A lot of it was pretty amusing. Like me complaining to my brother-in-law (an avid bicyclist) about the land and money that has been wasted in Portland to put bicycle lanes on both sides of the highways. And he explaining to me (the owner of a Ford F-150) that no one who lives in an "urban" environment should be driving a full sized pick-up. I caught some flak over my enthusiastic description of the local public gun range (but let's face it, I baited them into that by wearing my "Peace through superior firepower" T-shirt).

Where it got weird (and I'm still shaking my head about this) was the neo-rabid response I got when I didn't agree that Kerry was the only rational choice for president. I was pretty sure they weren't Bush supporters, but I thought that I was going to get an opportunity to talk about IDEAS and about how those ideas shaped our positions. Having just written the articles on political vegetarianism, I was expecting an interesting discussion.

What I got was: "Iraq is about oil," "Bush lied," "Bush is an Idiot." To hear them tell it, there is logical consistency in everything Kerry has said publicly on the campaign trail (as long as you are smart enough to understand nuanced truth), Kerry's plans and intentions are crystal clear, etc, etc, ad nauseum. In short, I got every knee-jerk, jingoistic piece of campaign propaganda I could have imagined. At one point I made the mistake of saying that I thought what we are doing in Iraq is the most important issue we are currently facing. Wow. From the reaction, you'd think they had just caught me with a swastika tattooed on my forehead, clubbing baby seals from the seat of an over-sized SUV with a "keep 'em barefoot and pregnant" bumpersticker on the back. I didn't get an opportunity to talk about the possibility of a moderate, successful Iraq as an example of a reasonable alternative to those who now support Radical Islamists for lack of a viable alternative to their current situations. It was at that point that my brother-in-law suggested that, "Maybe we need to do an Intervention?"*

Needless to say, I think I'll confine my conversation to family gossip and yapping about the kids next time we get together. Besides, that will be at Thanksgiving, and the election will be over, and it won't matter what barking moonbats like me think, will it?

(* for those not familiar with substance abuse treatment terminology, an "Intervention" is when an alcoholic or addict's friends and family get together to confront the individual about their addiction and try to get them into treatment.) .

by Cziltang 
Posted: Tuesday, September 07 2004 10:29:07 PM

Kitty TV
link

"It is an old maxim of mine that when you have excluded the impossible, whatever remains, however improbable, must be the truth."

Sherlock Holmes

The Head Rat installed a new Kitty TV this past week. OK, its an aquarium, but the cats watch it like frat boys watching Jerry Springer interviewing teenage, blonde, nymphomaniac twins who want breast implants so they can make more money as lap dancers. I've never seen a cat drool before.

Last night when I got home, we noticed that we couldn't find one of the fish. No fish. No fish parts. No fish bones. We have absolutely no idea what happened to the fish. There is a hole in the aquarium lid, but it is too small for a cat (even my football buddy) to stick a paw in and snag a fish. The only possibility I can come up with is that one (or more) of the cats moved the lid, got the fish and then replaced the lid. Now, I enjoy the occasional conspiracy theory, but I'm not buying this one. However, as I have yet to come up with any other improbable explanations, I'm sort of stuck at the moment.

by Cziltang 
Posted: Tuesday, September 07 2004 08:55:11 PM

Weekend Ramblings
link

First off, I'm not even sure "ramblings" is a word, and I'm too tired to mess with it and it kind of sounds legitimate, so I'm going to leave it.

I spent the evening with my sister and brother-in-law at my folks' house tonight. My brother-in-law is a programmer up in Nebraska. I sat and listened to him talking about the politics and internal communication problems at his job and it struck me how lucky I am to be working where I'm at. I hear all kinds of horror stories about secretive management and refusal to share information in various companies. While there are some things we can't share with all the staff (mainly personnel issues), generally we try to let folks know what is going on at the first available opportunity. When we were approached about putting together a plan for expansion, we had to keep quiet while it was in the development stage, but as soon as it became an official proposal, we started working on getting the word out and preparing the staff for the possibility. This is pretty typical of the way we do business. Secretive just doesn't work for us.

Since I got re-assigned to a different position about six months ago, I've been in charge of the security staff. I've got about 20 staff spread over 3 shifts. My main communication problem is that when we have information we want to get out, getting it to all three shifts is often an issue. There are several ways to deal with the problem, but they all have drawbacks.

The most obvious answer is to call a meeting for all my staff and give them the information all at once. Except that I hate meetings. I won't call one unless I absolutely have to. I don't like large groups. When I'm discussing important information I want to be able gauge the comprehension level of the people I'm talking to, and I just can't divide my attention between 20 people in a meeting. Then there's the matter of not being able to get all the staff together on short notice. There are always some who can't make it due to child care arrangements, school schedules, etc. And then there is the issue of paying everyone overtime to attend the meeting.

Another possibility is for me to go around to each shift and talk to each shift personally. I like this a lot better, but on any given day, I will miss the one or two staff on each shift who are on their regular days off, so if I want to hit everybody, I have to do it twice. I don't mind odd schedules, but I'm not as young as I used to be and that really takes a toll on me these days. I can cut it down to one visit to each shift if I go to their weekly shift meetings, but for a variety of reasons, they are all scheduled on different days, so it might be 3 or 4 days before I could get the word out. I could solve that problem by having the Shift Managers call special meetings for each shift, but then I'm back to the child care and overtime issues.

If I think I can get away with it, I often meet with the Shift Managers and then let them pass the word along. This works pretty well for some types of information. But sometimes it is really important for me to be able to answer questions, and if it is bad news, I feel better about doing it myself, rather than dumping it on my Shift Managers.

We've tried sending out memos by e-mail, but for some reason, I just really don't like it. It seems kind of impersonal. It's just one more piece of information in the in-box and it seems that the e-mails get buried or deleted without being given much thought.

For the past several months, I've been maintaining a web site for my staff. We've posted up drafts of policies that we were planning to change and I've used a web log to pass along information. For the most part it seems to work pretty well. The staff have responded to it almost enthusiastically, and when they do have questions, I can post the questions and answers for all to see. My boss and her boss are aware of the site and have been supportive of it.

Unfortunately, the IT department won't let me install the Blog software I use to publish these things on my work computer, and I don't want to use something like Blogger at work when I'm comfortable with Blog at home. So, anytime I want to post something to the work site, I have to do it at home.

I spent Friday night putting together a post for work. We've had some personnel issues, we've got some procedures that need to be tweaked, and we are rolling out a couple of new processes in our new database. I finally got it posted a little before 3:00 am.

I'm not really sure why I'm explaining all this, except maybe by way of apology. The article "co-opted Christian" over at The Smedley Log last week got me thinking about the concept of and the nature of compensation for labor. I've got some thoughts on the subject of reasonable compensation, especially in relation to union shops, but I'm having a bit of trouble expressing them coherently.

When I was a kid, my father used to tell me that his mother used to tell him, "First we work and then we play. We always have more fun that way!" I have never figured out a way to test this aphorism empirically, but as is often the case with things our parents tell us that we think are really stupid, they stick with us when we become adults. So, I often find that that phrase is running through my head when I am attempting to ignore work and do something fun. I had intended to try to finish the compensation post Friday night, but the work post took the entire evening. Plan B was to do it Saturday, but since I didn't manage to offend my sister and brother-in-law (even though I was wearing my "Peace through superior firepower" T-shirt) and didn't (as they say) "wear out my welcome," I ended up staying over at my parents' house a lot longer than I had planned on.

I guess plan C was to have done it instead of this post, but for reasons I can't explain, this is what came out when I sat down to write. Plans D and E will take me through the Labor Day holiday. I guess we'll see what happens.

by Cziltang 
Posted: Sunday, September 05 2004 01:32:07 AM

Qualifications and recommendations
link

I've gotten some really nice feedback on the Political Vegetarianism piece. I appreciate the comments. After re-reading it, I want to make one qualification. I always fight with myself when I'm writing about how many qualifications and explanations and background bits to put into any piece. I try to balance the blunt statements with a desire to not offend needlessly or be obnoxious for the sheer sport of it. Anyway, I just want to make it clear that I know that there are a number of people out there who are vegetarians for religious or ethical reasons who are serious, sober, thinking individuals, but the thing that differentiates them from the "ethical" vegetarians I was referring to is that they generally don't come off as martyrs and they don't wear their vegetarianism like a hair shirt.

With that out of the way, I found an absolutely fascinating web site last night, called Iraq the Model. It is a blog apparently run by 3 brothers in Baghdad. Their pieces on the current political activities in Iraq are, I think, unique. A note of caution, however: if you are looking for Bush-bashing, save yourself some time. These guys are supportive of Coalition efforts on behalf of the Iraqi people and spend quite a bit of time explaining why. And it isn't all grand rhetoric and ideology. Some of it is just the little things in life that are different, like this entry about a trip to a restaurant late one evening:

One of things I noticed was that most of the visitors there were apparently middle class families and this is different from what it used to be years ago as only rich families could afford to have dinner in restaurants like this one...

...You sit in a restaurant like this one and see families relaxing with their children playing and having fun late at night and you feel that there’s ‘something’ wrong in the way MSM is dealing with the Iraqi issue. I watch TV and I see hell breaking around me then I go outside and see enough normalcy AND progress to make me believe that the people in the media are not here to report how’s life going but rather they are here reporting pre-prepared stories and to be faced with something that contradicts the picture they have in their minds would be really annoying and will mean more hard work to try to find the truth or something close to it.

Like I said, fascinating. (By the way, check out the pictures of the appetizers and the maskoof being cooked.)

by Cziltang 
Posted: Wednesday, September 01 2004 08:02:05 PM