Crime@NYC

Friends of a native New Yorker woman came to town to shop the designer stores for an upcoming wedding. 

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The lights were off and the door locked when they arrived at their first one. A sales person cautiously answered their knock, and told them that a team of 15 men had targeted the store. They came in more than once to grab expensive merchandise and walk out with it. 

While seated at a trendy restaurant, their waiter warned against wearing diamond stud earrings or a valuable watch. Across the street they later saw another robbery in process.

Stolen designer merch is easy to get rid of on the streets. In luxury stores, clothing may be tethered to walls while jewelry and other goods are hidden in back rooms for genuine customers.

For those of you outside of the U.S. who may think that outrageous lawlessness like this is normal for us in America, I can tell you that it was definitely not normal . . until a couple of years ago. Crime was furtive. This shameless boldness is new. 

Tomorrow, crime spirals in today's Chicago.

from Human Events

Not the sword

Is it okay to find wisdom in a fictional character? Sure, because the source is the wise person who wrote it. J.R.R. Tolkien is such an author, and the fiction is Lord of the Rings, part 2, The TwoTowers.

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Faramir, son of the steward of Gondor, led the military defense of his country against armies of orcs. In the book above, he speaks of the motive that drives him - and that drives the vast majority of American military who defend our own country:

“I do not love the bright sword for its sharpness, nor the arrow for its swiftness, nor the warrior for his glory. I love only that which they defend.”

On this Memorial Day, we honor those who lost their lives in active military service for America.

Good outcome 3

You want the best possible outcomes for your children and grandchildren. You want them to hold the best values and ideas, and you want them to think for themselves. This article from FAIR will help you communicate wisdom to them in ways that will help both of you.

You want to shield them from bad ideas. For example, "some ideologies in school today teach them to treat their classmates as representatives of racial or ethnic groups, instead of as unique human beings."

Your conversations with them can actually show them how to evaluate ideas on their own, and that's going to be best for them.

Triton just yelled at his daughter, "The Little Mermaid," in the animated movie. The relationship was nearly ruined by harshness. Don't be like Triton! Be an effective parent or grandparent who has good conversations with your kids.

from "Ten Ways to Inoculate Your Kids Against Bad Ideas"

Exobiologist 3

 (cont'd from yesterday's post)

Gonzalez and Jay Richards published their book, Privileged Planet, in 2004. They agree with the authors of Rare Earth that life is possible on our planet only because of its highly unusual features.

As an astronomer and professor, Dr. Gonzalez specializes in research on the various properties of planets and has published 68 articles in peer-reviewed science journals. He discovered two new planets and served on a NASA astrobiology panel in 2003.

Privileged Planet goes beyond saying that Earth is unusual. Our particular place in our galaxy (the galactic habitable zone) supports life, as does our place in our solar system, in addition to our planet's features. 

In fact, Earth seems to be designed in all these ways not only for life, but also for discovery - for accessible discovery of scientific knowledge by intelligent beings like ourselves.

Exobiologist 2

(cont'd from yesterday's post)

There's a high chance that life exists on other planets according to the University of Virginia scientist in yesterday's video. Since life evolved here on earth, she thinks it's probably common. But then . . where is it? Why can't we find evidence of it with all our technology? That's "Fermi's Paradox." 

She suggests that extraterrestrial life might be so advanced that they don't want to talk to us, or maybe life destroys itself in every place where it evolves to a high level.

But some scientists are skeptical of the assumption (hers and NASA's) that extraterrestrial intelligence (ETI) exists. Rare Earth: Why Complex Life is Uncommon in the Universe broke away from conventional thought to say that planet earth is rare in its suitability for life.

Some reviews on Amazon: "a powerful argument" (The Economist), "likely to cause a revolution in thinking" (NYT), "[the book] has hit the world of astrobiologists like a killer asteroid" (Newsday)

Astrobiologist Guillermo Gonzalez agrees with them that complex life is probably uncommon in the universe.

(cont'd tomorrow)

Exobiologist

Follow-up to this post

Of course, the most interesting thing about the exoplanets is this question - is there life on them? That's the goal of NASA's exobiology program: "to understand the origin, evolution, distribution, and future of life in the Universe."

They focus on these areas of research:

1. Planetary conditions for life 
2. Prebiotic evolution 
3. Early evolution of life and the biosphere 
4. Evolution of advanced life 
5. Exobiology for solar system exploration 

The planets are too far away to determine with certainty whether they have life or not, but the exobiologists are looking. Telescopes may be able to tell from the planet's reflected light whether it has oxygen or water vapor or other indicators that life could be there. Fiction writers are fascinated by the idea, and they don't wait for evidence.

(cont'd tomorrow)

Billionaires

Here is the list of the ten biggest billionaires in the world by the people at Forbes, who keep track of these things. This animated chart shows the top ten by year, 2001 til 2022.

Big names make up some of the list of billionaires in the world. But many are not big names. Many are Americans, but many are not. 

The Albrecht brothers (Germany) made their fortune in selling cheaper groceries (Aldi and Trader Joe). Jeff Bezos made the top ten list in 2018, 24 years after founding Amazon. The name Walton is the family who founded another retailer with a reputation for cheaper goods, Walmart. Elon Musk made the top ten list just last year, and now leads it.

How did Aldi and Walmart make their founders rich by selling cheaper goods? Millions of people in the world took that offer of cheaper goods (and became their customers) because it helped them get more of the food and products they wanted for a lower price, to improve their lives.

from "World's Top Ten Billionaires" (where there's a better looking chart)

Heroic

America lost a good man in California this week. 

An intruder burst into Geneva Presbyterian Church in Orange County last Sunday with guns, explosives and ammunition, well-prepared to kill a large number of people. He had glued and chained multiple doors to trap them in the social hall where they were having lunch together.

Suspect David Chou, longtime U.S. citizen and Las Vegas security guard, had legally purchased the guns. Five were wounded, but the only one who lost his life was the hero.

Dr. John Cheng took gunfire as he charged the perpetrator and tackled him. The other church people, mostly elderly, immediately took action to throw a chair at him, subdue him, and tie him up with an extension cord. 

The district attorney said, "Evil was in that church today . . . He sacrificed himself so that others could live. That irony in a church is not lost on me."

A 52-year-old doctor of sports medicine, Dr. Cheng leaves behind a wife and two children.

from CBS  and here

They're not okay

Schools are open, the kids are back . . kinda. Some are still fine, but in many cases the kids are not okay. According to the NEA teachers' union, 55% of teachers are considering whether to quit teaching and do something else. There's more than one reason why. A Minnesota news anchor looked into it and interviewed some teachers.

One teacher (video) feels she is not helping students at the level she used to, and wonders if she has what it takes to finish the next 20 years of her career. She says students are disrespectful to teachers and equipment.

Four of the seven have experienced a student using the "f-bomb" toward them this year. One thinks of his students as almost family and the verbal abuse breaks his heart.

All say negative behavior is now worse than it was, including being late to class, late with assignments - negative behavior of all kinds.

One says our whole education model needs to be re-designed. He's probably right. That's what we've come to. When our schools took root in the early years of America, that model worked because we had a culture of personal virtue and responsibility.  Today . . not so much.

Teacher quits 2

(cont'd from yesterday's post)

Kali Fontanilla was supposed to tell students that race would define their lives. But she taught that hard work and taking personal responsibility for their lives would bring them success.

Other teachers told students that the police were out to get them, but she told them to respect the police. Other teachers told them that capitalism is cruel and that communism is not bad.

She was told by the School Board president that she is "anti-people-of-color," which surprised her. She replied, "I am people of color!"

She says that our educational system is obsessed with race and gender. She asks parents to look into what their kids are being taught, and to be vocal if it does not line up with their values.

Teacher quits

This teacher wanted to help kids get on a good path. She taught traditional values that have worked for hundreds of years. But she didn't fit in anymore at her public school because they wanted her to teach students the same things that are alarming parents all over the country.

Exoplanets

Our planet Earth revolves around our sun (a star) with seven other planets and we refer to it as our solar system. There are other stars in our galaxy with other planets. 

So far, NASA has found five thousand such planets. Scientists have been looking for them, the "exoplanets," for years (here are some of them explaining why they do that).

Our home planet is so suited for life and seems so normal to us that the others can seem surprisingly, even shockingly, weird. One is frozen, like Hoth from the Star Wars movies. Astronomers think of another one as Tatooine (again, from Star Wars) because it circles around two suns (stars).

Here's one that rains shards of glass in a furious horizontal wind:

from Mindmatters

Women's degrees 3

(cont'd from yesterday's post)

If you looked closely at the chart (Thursday post), you saw more than women's success in education. Men just lag behind women in some metrics, and men are in trouble by others.

Men are not getting as many college degrees. Maybe that's related to the more disturbingly negative metrics like these:

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For every 100 young women in October 2021:

• who graduated from high school in 2021 and were neither in college nor working, there were 122 young men
• who had a BA, master's, or doctor's degree and were working, there were only 30 men
• who had a BA degree but were not working, there were 230 men

What a comparison. By these measurements, women are statistically doing much better than men. Having empowered female educational achievement, do we now need to take affirmative action to help young men?

Women's degrees 2

(cont'd from yesterday's post)

Women's share of college BA's today is higher than men's. 

Notice on the chart below how the percentage of BA's held by women soars during the 1970's and 80's in these majors: psychology, biology, business, engineering, communication, architecture. Likely related to Title IX.

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Computer science as a major for women also soared at that time, but then returned to a level more similar to what it had been in about 1970.

(cont'd tomorrow)

Women's degrees

In the last century (1960's-1980's) a political movement worked to assure for female Americans the same educational and economic opportunities available to men. A law called "Title XI," which still stands, helped achieve equality in education.

Here is the 1972 text signed by the president into law:

"No person in the United States shall, based on sex, be excluded from participation in, be denied the benefits of, or be subjected to discrimination under any education program or activity receiving Federal financial assistance."

Today, fifty years later, women are succeeding in higher education today even better than men in some ways. Click on this chart to see related data:

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For every 100 women who earn a BA, there are 74 men. For every 100 women who earn a master's degree, there are 74 men. For every 100 women who earn a doctor's degree, there are 90 men. 

(cont'd tomorrow)

Inflation fun

Inflation is painful, a particular blow to people who are already barely making ends meet. April's rate of inflation was 8.3%, continuing a 40-year high. At some point people get upset. 

They were upset at inflation back in 1979 too, but the government gave huge bail-out money to the Chrysler corporation because its chairman, Lee Iocacca, went to Congress and asked for it. (Congress should have let the company pay the price for its own mistakes. It's not fair that taxpayers have to pay the price.)

Arlo Guthrie sang a witty, sarcastic song about it.

I am changing my name to Chrysler. I am going down to Washington D.C.

I will tell some power broker what they did for Iacocca will be perfectly acceptable to me.

I am changing my name to Chrysler. I’m heading for that great receiving line.

So when they hand a million grand out I’ll be standing with my hand out.

Yessir, I’ll get mine.

Don't watch

Don't watch The Chosen. That's the devil's advice. Doesn't matter that it got 100% rating from Rotten Tomatoes, or that it's easy and free to access. 

Millionaire+

"Millionaire" doesn't mean as much as it used to. Inflation over the decades has lowered the purchasing power of a dollar, so a million dollars today doesn't buy what it used to. But, per Chris Hogan in yesterday's video, it still sounds magical.

He exploded four myths with the results from his own research (which are supported by statistics at this website):

• Most millionaires didn't inherit their money 
• Most were not extreme lucky
• Most didn't get a fancy education
• Most don't have high-paying jobs

What made them extraordinary? Nothing. They just chose to do what it takes to make that kind of money. It did not necessarily include becoming a selfish jerk, but just mostly a plan along with self discipline and delayed gratification.

Chris Hogan's friend, Dave Ramsey, has made a business out of teaching the financial habits that end debt and build wealth. Check out his plans at his website.

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Millionaire

Did America's eleven million millionaires inherit their money from their parents? Or did they make their money in shameful ways? The system is rigged to prevent the rest of us from getting rich, right?

Chris Hogan did a study to find out whether these myths are actually true.

Today's work

"When we work hard every day at whatever God has put in front of us, it pleases Him - and it's way more fulfilling for us."

"

Why free speech

Since supposed "experts" sometimes lose their ability to think for us (the professor in yesterday's post), we need to think through the issue for ourselves.

The most powerful case for free speech? No person or group is always right, or should force all of us to believe what they believe. Nobody is perfect. Here's a re-post from 2020:

FREE SPEECH 4

To value free speech over restricted or coerced speech was the choice of America's founders, and that choice was affirmed by generations of Americans . . until today. Now, some choose to ban what you or I want to say if they don't approve of it.

Colleges and universities used to pride themselves on valuing open discussion regardless of who might disagree. Now administration or student groups routinely cancel speakers, or use intimidation to silence the person whose opinion they don't like.

Their choice to restrict speech means they don't have to defend their opinion against the analysis of a critic. 

But there's a problem: maybe they've missed something. Maybe they don't possess all truth. Maybe they're wrong sometimes.

Dictator dream

A professor in California opposes Elon Musk's vision of freer speech on Twitter. Why? Because, according to this article he wrote, free speech leads to loss of freedom, to dictator control. Wha . . ?

His reasoning ability is buried by his political emotion. Referring to free speech, he says "That’s Musk’s dream . . . And the dream of every dictator, strongman, demagogue and modern-day robber baron on Earth."

Wait . . is free speech the dream-come-true of a dictator?  Do dictators make sure that all dissenters are free to criticize them? Certainly not. Power to censor dissenting speech almost defines dictatorship, and everybody knows this. Actually, dictators do what the Twitter board does: silence speech they don't like!

How does a college professor get away with publishing unreasonable nonsense like this? He's probably intelligent, an expert in something. But he abandoned common sense on this issue, and just a tiny bit of thought makes that so obvious. 

Don't be intimidated by any "expert." Never surrender your own common sense.

from Guardian