COMensarations
Friday, November 11, 2005
Tempests, Teapots and Denver Mensa — 051111
The Denver Mensa kerfuffle continues.
And, as always, the story grows in the telling.
Well. It WAS a three way race for the position of LocSec; Doug Smith, Mario De Benedittis and Sarah Welborn.
But, yesterday, Sarah dropped out of the race.
Not so much of a problem, but it seems that some people who voted for Sarah had already mailed in their ballots; well ahead of the deadline. Now they want to vote for someone other than Sarah.
Mario thinks that anyone who has already voted should not be allowed to change their ballot.
Doug reports that there is nothing in the by-laws that addresses this situation. He thinks that being so, the Election Committee should decide the issue.
His statement, if correct—I haven’t reviewed the by-laws since that long reading of them at an ExComm meeting in 2002—makes good sense to me. I don’t recall there being anything in there that deals with the situation either; if they had not been changed. There is a mechanism that the Election Committee could establish to deal with this sort of situation. And the mechanism could be incorporated into the by-laws.
Who knew that being on the Election Committee could be so ‘interesting’?
What I’m intrigued with is the difference in approach that the two candidates for LocSec are espousing. One is arbitrary. The other is (1) working within the system, i.e., observing the Rule of Law, and (2) flexible, allowing the system to do what it is supposed to do.
That IS significant and, I think, indicative of how they would manage the chapter’s business. Considering that participation is strictly voluntary and most of us are something in the way of being totally free thinkers and considerably independent, the decision of who is going to be LocSec could have serious ramifications on the next years activities.
Wednesday, November 09, 2005
Speech Meet: Another Perspective
A walk on the dark side and on the bright side at a local speech meet.
I critiqued at a speech meet recently. While I feel most of the students did a really good job and all have potential, I guess I have an overall feeling of a loss of innocence.
I did a round of dramatic interpretation and it was all mental disorders and abuse. One of the questions on the evaluation was something to the effect: do you feel the speaker had insight into the mood and meaning of the author? I felt like saying, “Not really, and I hope to gosh she never does.”
Whatever happened to first love, the death of a pet, or being in a new school for dramatic interpretation?
Poetry interpretation was a little better. There was one young man whose theme for his recitation was poems on poetry. Granted, we’re supposed to evaluate their selections for literary merit, but wasn’t this a little obvious? It was sad in a way, because his delivery was on the corny side, but he had a good voice. (The kind of voice, if used right, can make “Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer” sound like Shakespeare.)This kid could have done “Charge of the Light Brigade,” something from “Beowulf,” or “Morte d’Arthur” or “To an Athlete Dying Young” and really made hay from it.
However, another young lady did a selection that had more abuse and misery in it. She did a really good job, but again, what happened to innocence?
Finally, in original oratory, we had gay marriage and the threats of natural disasters and terrorism. Two out of the five were inspirational/motivational in nature, and the third criticized parents (justly, actually). So it wasn’t all despair.
Extemporaneous speaking is painful just because it’s a tough thing to do.
Humor was good.
On the bright side, it was really good to see youngsters who were interested in current events and reading something besides the lyrics on the latest rap album. They were respectful of the judges, the other adults and each other. More power to them. So I suppose I’ll do it again.
Nuggets In the [Pueblo Chieftain] News — 051109
A couple of interesting items in Pueblo Chieftain’s regular feature, What Others Are Saying.
First item, we have a comment from the Rocky Mountain Snooze on the attempts by the United Nations (UN) to takeover management of the famous internet.
Think of that. The UN thinks we’re doing a ‘bad job’ of managing the internet in our—if you’ll pardon my ‘French’—laissez-faire fashion. So they think THEY should do it for the world.
What a fascinating concept. We’ll turn over the free flow of information to a group of unresponsive, irresponsible, bribe-taking incompetents. THAT will certain improve things. But the question is for whom? Probably the remainder of dictatorial leaders who would rather NOT see their nefarious activities broadcast to the world. That would be a ‘good thing’ for them. And probably a ‘good thing’ for the UN. After all, since Hussein was deposed, they’ve probably had a serious cash-flow problem.
They need to find new sources.....why not the internet. Information for sale, whatever flavor you want, if you’ve got the money to line the UN officials’ pockets.
The third item is interesting too. Here, the Blade, in Toledo, Ohio, cuts itself while shaving.
The fact is that the [National] Guard was never intended to be thrust into the front lines of a foreign war. It was supposed to be a group of well trained citizen soldiers who could be activated in case of weather disasters and other emergencies on the home front.
The REAL fact is that whoever wrote that is totally wrong. The mission statement of the National Guard DOES contain a clause about going to fight in wars overseas. If they doubt that, they should take another block of instruction on American History through their local extension division of the University of Ohio. They obviously slept through their high school classes. Or perhaps it’s that the public education system in Ohio has REALLY ‘slipped’.
They do make a decent point about the utility of the National Guard during a natural disaster. Katrina is a prime example of that. That WAS a gaff. The mechanized infantry brigade of the Louisiana National Guard was out of position to support their own state, their being in Iraq.
The system for employment of the National Guard brigades, such as Louisiana’s is that they mobilize first in their home state and begin training up for their mission. The training continues at various locations around the country, to include such hi-tech sites as the National Training Center and other similar facilities to hone their unit into one of the sharpest combat tools the world has ever seen. Then, after almost six months of training, they perform six months of combat operations overseas.
It’s a VERY good system. However, as with all so many things in the military, timing is VERY important.
I don’t know WHO it was who agreed that Louisiana’s infantry brigade should be overseas during the regularly scheduled hurricane season. I mean, it’s not like they show up at random throughout the course of the year. They occur only during a few months. But, it would have been VERY easy for them to be doing their six months prep-up stateside, during the season. And their six months overseas during the ‘off’ season.
From my perspective, this is a staff foul-up. The Bush administration is not to blame. Rather, I think the Louisiana Adjutant General, his Chief of Staff, the State Area Command (STARC) staff officers for Intelligence, which is supposed to pay attention to the weather, and Operations, who should have asked the Intelligence staff puke about what threats could affect the state while the unit is gone, should all have their [figurative] heads on pikes outside the STARC headquarters, as an example for all others that STAFF WORK IS IMPORTANT and we will not tolerate sloppiness. It’s just too expensive.
Tuesday, November 08, 2005
Stephen Green’s Arm of Decision
A look at the state of the War on Terror, vis-a-vis, how Stephen Green thinks it should be fought.
Stephen “VodkaPundit” Green has an interesting essay up on his blog. Actually, it’s more like a tome, from the regular blogosphere’s perspective.
He makes some interesting points about the importance of good communications. The general thrust of it being something we’ve been hearing for some time, the Media IS the Enemy....
Sunday, November 06, 2005
The First Debate—051105
Welcome to the 21st Century, where the Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy becomes the reality of ‘debate’.
I had the distinct privilege, along with the pleasure, of judging my first debate tournament in Colorado, yesterday.
A fine time was had by all, except, perhaps, those that were doing their first oral presentations before total strangers in a competitive environment....
Friday, November 04, 2005
The War That Wasn’t — Part 1
What if the Japanese had gone for the gusto?
Long ago in a war, far, far away, A group of Japanese navy types surprised and beat the heck out of the US Navy at a place called Pearl Harbor. They then went on to overrun much of their corner of this ball of dirt, in a fashion similar to the way fascists in Europe had been doing for the previous year and a half.
It surprised and shocked the people of this country in a manner like nothing else before.
As a result this nation did some drastic things to our economy, our ways of thinking of the world and even to some of our own citizens.
In the end, we, this nation and all of our allies, defeated the Empire of Japan as well as the fascists in Europe.
But, it might not have turned out like that....
Thursday, November 03, 2005
Which One Can You Talk about in Grammar School? Sex, Religion, Politics
Parents only think they’re in control, according to the courts.
Parents in California have been told by the courts they have no right to due process or privacy concerning what their children are told in school. A volunteer mental health worker gave elementary students a survey which included questions about sex. The parents had been asked to give their consent beforehand, but had not been told what the content of the survey would be. When they found out, they were naturally upset. They went to court, charging that their right to privacy had been violated and that their ability to control the information that was given to their children about sex was infringed. (I’m paraphrasing slightly. For more accurate legal jargon, see the link.) The court sided with the school, saying that parents do not have an exclusive right to determine the information that was given to their children.
Technically, I think maybe the court was right. If you send a child to school you’re basically saying you can’t tell your child everything. However, if the parents had complained because information on a specific religion had been passed out, the court would have sided with the parents, probably. The same goes for a political position. So I don’t think the courts would be consistent with this line of thought.
So what can the parents do now? While they have no recourse in the courts, they do have recourse in the polling place. Since they haven’t gotten an abject apology, a reasonable explanation for how this happened, and a list of steps taken to prevent this sort of thing in the future, they should recall the entire school board, demand that the “volunteer” be banned from all schools in the district, and have a large black mark put on the prinicipal’s performance review, provided they can’t justify firing the individual.
And if there’s a way to recall the judges, they should start working on that, too.
I do think the parents made a mistake in going the “right to privacy” route in their arguments. They should have gone the “sexual harassment” route. I don’t know what the laws are like in California, but in Colorado asking those kinds of questions would constitute sexual harassment. I know I would feel harassed if I was asked those questions. And I’d go for the stiffest type of sexual harassment charge I could get, one that would turn up on this “volunteer’s” record every time a background check is run so that he or she could never work with children again. The administration and the school board should be charged, too.
And if you can’t charge sexual harassment, get a web site, put the volunteer’s name and bio up with a copy of the survey, links to newspaper articles, the court’s decisions and the simple question, “Do you think this person exercised good judgment and acted appropriately?”