I think that there's no reason that the government can't raise a whole bunch of money by raising taxes. The trick is to know what to raise taxes on. Here's my list of proposals for things that I would raise taxes on and feel no qualms of regret whatsoever for doing so.
1. Cigarettes/Tobacco products. Slap another $1/pack onto these things. They're a luxury item, i.e. nobody NEEDS cigarettes, so this tax only affects those who choose to include themselves. They're bad for you, so not being able to afford them anymore would actually improve someone's health. Why not? It's more controversial, but I'd entertain arguments about a similar tax on alcohol...
2. Gasoline. My dad made a good point when I brought this up, which was that a raise in gas prices affects everyone, because all of the products that you buy are moved around in planes, trains, and automobiles (and boats!) which use petroleum based fuel, so the increase will eventually get tacked onto the consumer products at the end of the line.
That said, I still say raise taxes on gas. The proof that gas is still "affordable" is that people keep buying gas guzzling SUV's. It's simple economics, really. It needs to get to the point where people are rioting in the streets and actually taking public transportation or buying fuel efficient vehicles for change to happen... and change needs to happen. Maybe pressure would come from big businesses, too, if it's hurting their bottom line. What if we used the money raised by these taxes to fund alternative energy research? Or we could wait until we're out of oil... which leads me to...
3. Vehicles. The Licensing Fees for vehicles could be restructured to reward fuel efficient vehicles. We could limit this to passenger vehicles to alleviate the added cost to consumer products (we'd have to work carefully on the definition of a "passenger vehicle" to avoid "company car" loopholes...). This money could go toward alternative fuel research, too... or to public transportation. I don't mind if Amtrak doesn't pay for itself, if taxes on fuel and gas-guzzling vehicles pays for it instead.
4. Jewelry. Again, a luxury item. The only place where I start to feel a little bit bad for people is when I think of a poor guy saving up to buy an engagement ring for his fiancee... (although the whole notion of a diamond engagement ring was artificially invented by the diamond market headed by deBeers, and the price of diamonds is artificially controlled by deBeers, which has a monopoly in the trade that is illegal under US law, which is why no executives of the company ever travel to the US... they could be arrested). Other than that questionable "necessary" use for diamonds, jewelry is a non-necessity. So how about imposing an additional 2% tax on individual jewelry items which cost more than $1,000? We could even use this money for foreign aid, in particular for countries devastated by civil war and oppressive tyranny fueled and financed by the diamond trade. We could even give a tax break on non-conflict gems... how's that for incentive?
5. Restructure payroll taxes. Right now, you pay payroll taxes into the Social Security fund on the first $88,000 you make in a year. Anything above that is payroll tax free (well, kind of. There's no upper limit on Medicare tax). So, what if we get rid of the upper limit and instead institute a lower limit? What if the FIRST $12,000 you make was payroll tax free, and there was no upper limit? The only people who would end up paying more under this system would be those who make more than $100,000/year. Doesn't it make more sense to give a tax break to people who make less than $100,000/year than to those who make more? And doesn't it stand to reason that if it's a "burden" for people to pay taxes on income over $100,000, it's an unbearable burden for people who make less than $15,000? I mean, really, they can hardly afford to pay any taxes at all. It just makes sense.
6. No new taxes! The government loses billions of dollars each year in uncollected taxes. What if we invested 10% of that lost money in giving the IRS more resources to collect from tax cheats (many of which are large corporations or wealthy individuals who misuse loop-holes and/or create complicated paper-trails to hide taxable income and assetts) and we get 50%, or 25%, or even 15% of it back... isn't that worth the investment? If we just work harder on collecting the "old" taxes, we won't need new taxes! I mean, we could totally forget my first five suggestions and get almost the same amount of income by focusing on the taxes already owed.
So, what do you think? Who could disagree with these modest proposals? To start with, the tobacco industry, oil industry, auto-makers, ummm... I guess people into jewelry and the fugitive executives who run deBeers, people who make over $100,000/year, and any individuals or corporations who are currently saving money by not paying the taxes they actually owe. That would probably turn out to be a small number of people with a whole lot of money and political clout. No wonder nobody's willing to take them on.
-"It's not the money... it's all the stuff..."
Monday, March 21, 2005
WWJB?
Craig Wong is the Executive Director of GUM, Inc. It's a non-profit started by our church, and it runs the tutoring program I volunteer for as well as the summer youth internship program which sets neighborhood youth up with paid internships in local businesses. I was a job coach for that program last summer.
Anyway, Craig went to a conference somewhere sometime last year (I know, I know, I can't remember the specifics) and came back with a pin that read "WWJB?" Being who he is, he waited until somebody asked him what it meant. "Who Would Jesus Bomb?" was his reply, and I can tell you that many an interesting conversation was sparked by this twist on what's become a tired cliche (I don't know how to do accents in this program. If you do, please let me know! Then I can write in Spanish!).
So, the next time you're sitting around and discussing politics with a group of Christians, try throwing that question out. You're sure to get some kind of response!
-"Yes, but the... whole point of the doomsday machine... is lost... if you keep it a secret!"
Anyway, Craig went to a conference somewhere sometime last year (I know, I know, I can't remember the specifics) and came back with a pin that read "WWJB?" Being who he is, he waited until somebody asked him what it meant. "Who Would Jesus Bomb?" was his reply, and I can tell you that many an interesting conversation was sparked by this twist on what's become a tired cliche (I don't know how to do accents in this program. If you do, please let me know! Then I can write in Spanish!).
So, the next time you're sitting around and discussing politics with a group of Christians, try throwing that question out. You're sure to get some kind of response!
-"Yes, but the... whole point of the doomsday machine... is lost... if you keep it a secret!"
Accountability for All!
Hey, everyone,
This is a short essay I did for KQED, which is the local NPR affiliate up here in SF. It is a succinct version of my rant on merit based pay, even though it was recorded over a year ago. Some things just don't change...
- "50 million dollars! Who you think you got, Chelsea Clinton?"
This is a short essay I did for KQED, which is the local NPR affiliate up here in SF. It is a succinct version of my rant on merit based pay, even though it was recorded over a year ago. Some things just don't change...
- "50 million dollars! Who you think you got, Chelsea Clinton?"
Friday, March 11, 2005
Poor down, middle class to go
Remember when John Edwards talked about "Two Americas," and the Republicans (notably the Bush-ies) accused him of engaging in "class warfare"?
Well, we all knew that class warfare pitted rich against poor, but it was unclear where the middle class fit in.
Now we know.
The new bankruptcy legislation passed by the Senate and applauded by the President is a direct shot at the middle class. Under this new legislation, it is harder for people to file for Chapter 7 bankruptcy, which would erase many of their debts. Many of these people will be forced into Chapter 13 bankruptcy, which requires them to continue repaying their debts under a strutctured payment plan.
So what? If they owe, shouldn't they pay? The Republican patrons of this bill focused on the small number of filers (less than 5% by one account) who use bankruptcy as a shield to avoid obligations that they are able to meet or brought upon themselves by reckless disregard for the consequences of their actions (e.g. gambling debt). They failed to mention that more than 60% of people who file for Chapter 7 bankruptcy are people (most WITH health insurance) who have a debt primarily made up of medical bills for unexpected illnesses or injury which their insurance only covered partly. Many of them have lost their jobs through no fault of their own and, thanks to our marvelous economy, have been unable to get new jobs... and new health care.
But, what difference does it make? If they really can't pay, then they won't pay, even if their debt isn't wiped out. What's in it for the businesses trying to collect? What's in it for them is houses and cars. Under the old system, people could shield their homes from being "liquidated" into assets to pay off their unpayable debt. Now, it's easier for banks or other lenders to seize property if debts aren't repaid. So, if you fall unexpectedly ill after you lose your job through no fault of your own (by the way, don't worry about this if you are the CEO of a large company... when they lose their jobs because of their own poor performance, they get multi-million dollar severance packages) and have to pay your medical bills out of pocket, you'd better hope that you don't get a new job. Because if you do get a new job, your health insurance won't cover your previously incurred bills, and if a judge decides that you can afford to pay $1,000 per month, you can't file for Chapter 7 and it's more likely that you'll lose your house.
Who owns a house and is going to be filing for bankruptcy? The poor? No, it's the middle classes! "Wait," you say, "Don't the rich go bankrupt, too? We hear about it all the time! They have houses." Yes, they do. They also, however, tend to have what's referred to as "business debt" as opposed to personal debt (like to a credit card company), and "suprise!", business debt isn't covered under the new law. So they can go ahead and get all of their bazillions of dollars of debt wiped out and keep their mansions and Mercedes, while the middle classes are signing over their 2 bedroom single-family-dwellings and Hyundais to the lending institutions... owned by the mansion dwellers.
As Yoda might say, "begun, the class wars have." What nobody expected was that the middle class would be so flagrantly targeted. Two Americas? How about Three?
- "Greed, for lack of a better word, is good."
Well, we all knew that class warfare pitted rich against poor, but it was unclear where the middle class fit in.
Now we know.
The new bankruptcy legislation passed by the Senate and applauded by the President is a direct shot at the middle class. Under this new legislation, it is harder for people to file for Chapter 7 bankruptcy, which would erase many of their debts. Many of these people will be forced into Chapter 13 bankruptcy, which requires them to continue repaying their debts under a strutctured payment plan.
So what? If they owe, shouldn't they pay? The Republican patrons of this bill focused on the small number of filers (less than 5% by one account) who use bankruptcy as a shield to avoid obligations that they are able to meet or brought upon themselves by reckless disregard for the consequences of their actions (e.g. gambling debt). They failed to mention that more than 60% of people who file for Chapter 7 bankruptcy are people (most WITH health insurance) who have a debt primarily made up of medical bills for unexpected illnesses or injury which their insurance only covered partly. Many of them have lost their jobs through no fault of their own and, thanks to our marvelous economy, have been unable to get new jobs... and new health care.
But, what difference does it make? If they really can't pay, then they won't pay, even if their debt isn't wiped out. What's in it for the businesses trying to collect? What's in it for them is houses and cars. Under the old system, people could shield their homes from being "liquidated" into assets to pay off their unpayable debt. Now, it's easier for banks or other lenders to seize property if debts aren't repaid. So, if you fall unexpectedly ill after you lose your job through no fault of your own (by the way, don't worry about this if you are the CEO of a large company... when they lose their jobs because of their own poor performance, they get multi-million dollar severance packages) and have to pay your medical bills out of pocket, you'd better hope that you don't get a new job. Because if you do get a new job, your health insurance won't cover your previously incurred bills, and if a judge decides that you can afford to pay $1,000 per month, you can't file for Chapter 7 and it's more likely that you'll lose your house.
Who owns a house and is going to be filing for bankruptcy? The poor? No, it's the middle classes! "Wait," you say, "Don't the rich go bankrupt, too? We hear about it all the time! They have houses." Yes, they do. They also, however, tend to have what's referred to as "business debt" as opposed to personal debt (like to a credit card company), and "suprise!", business debt isn't covered under the new law. So they can go ahead and get all of their bazillions of dollars of debt wiped out and keep their mansions and Mercedes, while the middle classes are signing over their 2 bedroom single-family-dwellings and Hyundais to the lending institutions... owned by the mansion dwellers.
As Yoda might say, "begun, the class wars have." What nobody expected was that the middle class would be so flagrantly targeted. Two Americas? How about Three?
- "Greed, for lack of a better word, is good."
Monday, March 07, 2005
Nobody cares what you do.
I teach at an inner city high school. Truancy is a huge problem, and is probably the number one reason for students failure to succeed.
Why? Well, that's a loaded question, and I know that there are myriad societal, familial, cultural, and other reasons that interact together in a complex web. One reason, however, is the one that really bothers me. It's that students are convinced that nobody cares what they do all day long. Well, not nobody: their parents (hopefully) and their teachers. And that's it. If they can avoid those two groups, nobody else is going to give them any hassle about not being in school.
"Shouldn't you be in school?" How often do kids hear that? Hardly ever in this city.
I would love to live in a society where a convenience store clerk used his posted right to refuse service to anyone to refuse to sell a soda to a 13 year old at 10:30 on Wednesday morning.
Where a kid gets hassled about not being in school at the movie theater box office, at the mall by the security guards or the clerk at the GAP, by the bus driver who drops them off at Jamba Juice, by the police officers driving by looking for more serious crime to prosecute, by average citizens who see them hanging out on the street corner.
But of course, it's the school's responsibility. Some charitable souls might even go so far as to acknowledge that parent's share some of that responsibility with the teachers. I guess that teachers can use their lunch break and prep periods to drive around town in ever-expanding spirals around the school, looking for truant kids. I mean, isn't that what we're (under) paid for?
Oh, well, someday they'll turn 18, and when some of them end up on welfare or in jail, then it will be your problem, if you pay taxes, that is. Until then, don't worry about it. Teachers are used to being underpaid to do impossible jobs with no support and then being blamed for society's ills. What's one more impossible task?
- "'One B: B-A-B-A-R.' 'That's 2.' 'Yeah, but not right next to each other, I thought that's what you meant.'"
Why? Well, that's a loaded question, and I know that there are myriad societal, familial, cultural, and other reasons that interact together in a complex web. One reason, however, is the one that really bothers me. It's that students are convinced that nobody cares what they do all day long. Well, not nobody: their parents (hopefully) and their teachers. And that's it. If they can avoid those two groups, nobody else is going to give them any hassle about not being in school.
"Shouldn't you be in school?" How often do kids hear that? Hardly ever in this city.
I would love to live in a society where a convenience store clerk used his posted right to refuse service to anyone to refuse to sell a soda to a 13 year old at 10:30 on Wednesday morning.
Where a kid gets hassled about not being in school at the movie theater box office, at the mall by the security guards or the clerk at the GAP, by the bus driver who drops them off at Jamba Juice, by the police officers driving by looking for more serious crime to prosecute, by average citizens who see them hanging out on the street corner.
But of course, it's the school's responsibility. Some charitable souls might even go so far as to acknowledge that parent's share some of that responsibility with the teachers. I guess that teachers can use their lunch break and prep periods to drive around town in ever-expanding spirals around the school, looking for truant kids. I mean, isn't that what we're (under) paid for?
Oh, well, someday they'll turn 18, and when some of them end up on welfare or in jail, then it will be your problem, if you pay taxes, that is. Until then, don't worry about it. Teachers are used to being underpaid to do impossible jobs with no support and then being blamed for society's ills. What's one more impossible task?
- "'One B: B-A-B-A-R.' 'That's 2.' 'Yeah, but not right next to each other, I thought that's what you meant.'"
Wednesday, February 16, 2005
I mean, how much do teachers DESERVE to get paid, anyway?
Arnold is backing a plan to link teacher's pay to "merit." I think this is an excellent idea. I mean, as a teacher myself, I would love to actually be paid a salary commensurate to the importance of the work that I do, as well as the time, training, and effort that I put into it.
As I said, this is an excellent idea. Far too excellent to be limited to teachers. I think that everyone should be paid an amount that their performance merits. I think that CEO's of major corporations in particular should be paid according to some sort of merit based rubric.
I mean, did you know that Carly Fiorina (outgoing CEO of Hewlett Packard) stands to make 42 MILLION DOLLARS... for being fired? This is not salary money, by which I mean money she receives as compensation for work performed. This is money she's getting for STOPPING working for HP! This woman is making more money than the entire faculty of my school will make in 15 years... for NOT working! And why is she being asked to stop working for HP? Do you think that it's because her performance has generated more money for the company than expected? Is this outrageous compensation merited on the basis of the amount of money her performance generated for the stockholders from whose pockets this money will come (not to mention the employees whose employment and salaries actually are directly affected by the performance of the company, and for whom those 42 million could have contributed to benefits or bonuses)? If it were, do you think she'd be fired?
Anyway, that whole paragraph was an extended aside. What I really want to write about is "merit pay" for teachers. There are two reasons I can think of to institute such a system. First of all, it could be intended as an incentive. If we link pay to merit, teachers will be encouraged to get off of their backsides and actually start doing their jobs. I don't think I need to explain to you why teachers find this attitude to be insulting, demeaning, unfair, inaccurate, misinformed, ignorant, and several other adjectives, too. I think, however, that this view is fundamentally flawed for another reason. Please bear with me as I set this up.
The Bureau of Labor Statistics reported that in 2003 (the numbers for 2004 aren't out yet), the average hourly wage for educators in non-supervisory positions was $15.64. Only two other categories were lower: Leisure/Hospitatlity (i.e. the people who put those mints on your pillow in hotels and clean rock-star excretions off the curtains) and Retail sales (i.e. the high school students at the GAP who are apparently in the middle of growth spurts rendering their shirts too short to cover their navels, and the elderly people who shoudn't have to work anymore but since Social Security isn't enough to pay the bills they've been fortunate enough to have their otherwise miserable lives filled with joy due to their job at Walmart, at lease according to the commercials). Who makes more than teachers? Well, manufacturing is slightly higher, with financial services, natural resources and mining, professional and business services and wholesale marketing making more than $17/hour on average. Construction is at almost $19/hour on average: that's over 20% more than educators. At the top of the list, Information services and Transportation and Utilities workers average over $20/hour.
So, what's the point of all these statistics? I just want to make the case that whatever motivates people to become teachers, it's probably not the money. Most people who come to education from other professions are not former hotel workers or Old Navy lifers. The level of education required to be a teacher (Bachelor's degree plus 1.5-3 years of postgraduate education) is a lot higher than most entry level positions. Your rank-and-file teacher does not see salary as a financial incentive to do their job and do it well. Rather, their salary allows them to pursue teaching by giving them enough money to live on so they don't have to get another job. The reasons they want to teach are not financial, but the salary is necessary for teaching to be a viable option.
That attitude has allowed market forces to keep the salary of a teacher low, below that of a construction worker or electrician. As long as the salary offered a teacher is enough to support themselves and their families in a modest fashion, the kinds of people who become teachers will continue to work. Labor disputes in education are the polar opposite of labor disputes in professional sports. Teachers protest when the amount of money they are paid are insufficient to support their families and will drive them into other lines of work just to make ends meet, or when starting salaries are insufficient to allow prospective teachers to pay off debts (remember, they need to take a year or more off of work to get their teaching credential (which costs money), take a lot of tests (all of which also cost money) and do their unpaid student teaching!) and survive the first few years at the bottom of the pay scale. How many pro athletes are going to leave sports for another profession that will pay them better? How many athletes worry that there aren't enough youngsters out there who want to join their ranks, and that the quality of the games will be hurt because prospective athletes are opting for a more lucrative jobs like driving a bus?
So, treating a teacher's salary as an incentive misses the mark, because the forces that motivate teachers are not financial. Rather than an incentive, it becomes a threat to their livelihood. It is not threatening their lavish lifestyle, it is threatening their ability to feed, clothe, and house themselves and their children. It becomes an incentive not to do a better job, but to do a different job -- preferably one where you aren't required to spend your days with your head on a wooden block under a masked man holding a big axe.
Remember that I said there were two reasons I could think of to institue a merit based pay system for teachers? The second reason (and, in my opinion, more likely) is that it's a way to save money. I really doubt that the proposals that come out will entail adding a bunch of money to the state budget for teacher's salaries. What will happen is that the same amount of money (or less, when adjusted for inflation) will be allocated, and redistributed to teachers on the basis of merit. Therefore, some teachers will get a pay cut, and a few might actually get a little more money. Of course, it will cost money to pay for the new bureaucracy that such a program would entail, and that money will probably come out of the pool, too, leaving less for teacher salaries. The beauty is, if an individual teacher's salary doesn't keep up with inflation, it's easy to say that it has to do with their merit, not with a lack of funding for teacher's salary in the budget. With an arbitrary scale to base salary on, it's hard to keep track of the big picture.
For all the talk in political circles of children being our greatest natural resource and leaving no child behind, the numbers tell a different story. CEOs like Carly and other super-wealthy Americans are getting huge chunks of the budget in the form of tax cuts (did I mention that half of Carly's 42 million is in the form of stock options, the dividends of which are taxed at a much lower rate as per W's tax plan? Convenient, no?), while children and their schools get less and less. I wonder if teacher's asked to resign because of low "merit" are going to get tax breaks, stock options, or any sort of severance package at all. I doubt it.
Later, I'll write about what the heck they mean by "merit" when it comes to teacher performance. It ain't pretty, I'll tell you that right now.
- "Yep, that'll do it."
As I said, this is an excellent idea. Far too excellent to be limited to teachers. I think that everyone should be paid an amount that their performance merits. I think that CEO's of major corporations in particular should be paid according to some sort of merit based rubric.
I mean, did you know that Carly Fiorina (outgoing CEO of Hewlett Packard) stands to make 42 MILLION DOLLARS... for being fired? This is not salary money, by which I mean money she receives as compensation for work performed. This is money she's getting for STOPPING working for HP! This woman is making more money than the entire faculty of my school will make in 15 years... for NOT working! And why is she being asked to stop working for HP? Do you think that it's because her performance has generated more money for the company than expected? Is this outrageous compensation merited on the basis of the amount of money her performance generated for the stockholders from whose pockets this money will come (not to mention the employees whose employment and salaries actually are directly affected by the performance of the company, and for whom those 42 million could have contributed to benefits or bonuses)? If it were, do you think she'd be fired?
Anyway, that whole paragraph was an extended aside. What I really want to write about is "merit pay" for teachers. There are two reasons I can think of to institute such a system. First of all, it could be intended as an incentive. If we link pay to merit, teachers will be encouraged to get off of their backsides and actually start doing their jobs. I don't think I need to explain to you why teachers find this attitude to be insulting, demeaning, unfair, inaccurate, misinformed, ignorant, and several other adjectives, too. I think, however, that this view is fundamentally flawed for another reason. Please bear with me as I set this up.
The Bureau of Labor Statistics reported that in 2003 (the numbers for 2004 aren't out yet), the average hourly wage for educators in non-supervisory positions was $15.64. Only two other categories were lower: Leisure/Hospitatlity (i.e. the people who put those mints on your pillow in hotels and clean rock-star excretions off the curtains) and Retail sales (i.e. the high school students at the GAP who are apparently in the middle of growth spurts rendering their shirts too short to cover their navels, and the elderly people who shoudn't have to work anymore but since Social Security isn't enough to pay the bills they've been fortunate enough to have their otherwise miserable lives filled with joy due to their job at Walmart, at lease according to the commercials). Who makes more than teachers? Well, manufacturing is slightly higher, with financial services, natural resources and mining, professional and business services and wholesale marketing making more than $17/hour on average. Construction is at almost $19/hour on average: that's over 20% more than educators. At the top of the list, Information services and Transportation and Utilities workers average over $20/hour.
So, what's the point of all these statistics? I just want to make the case that whatever motivates people to become teachers, it's probably not the money. Most people who come to education from other professions are not former hotel workers or Old Navy lifers. The level of education required to be a teacher (Bachelor's degree plus 1.5-3 years of postgraduate education) is a lot higher than most entry level positions. Your rank-and-file teacher does not see salary as a financial incentive to do their job and do it well. Rather, their salary allows them to pursue teaching by giving them enough money to live on so they don't have to get another job. The reasons they want to teach are not financial, but the salary is necessary for teaching to be a viable option.
That attitude has allowed market forces to keep the salary of a teacher low, below that of a construction worker or electrician. As long as the salary offered a teacher is enough to support themselves and their families in a modest fashion, the kinds of people who become teachers will continue to work. Labor disputes in education are the polar opposite of labor disputes in professional sports. Teachers protest when the amount of money they are paid are insufficient to support their families and will drive them into other lines of work just to make ends meet, or when starting salaries are insufficient to allow prospective teachers to pay off debts (remember, they need to take a year or more off of work to get their teaching credential (which costs money), take a lot of tests (all of which also cost money) and do their unpaid student teaching!) and survive the first few years at the bottom of the pay scale. How many pro athletes are going to leave sports for another profession that will pay them better? How many athletes worry that there aren't enough youngsters out there who want to join their ranks, and that the quality of the games will be hurt because prospective athletes are opting for a more lucrative jobs like driving a bus?
So, treating a teacher's salary as an incentive misses the mark, because the forces that motivate teachers are not financial. Rather than an incentive, it becomes a threat to their livelihood. It is not threatening their lavish lifestyle, it is threatening their ability to feed, clothe, and house themselves and their children. It becomes an incentive not to do a better job, but to do a different job -- preferably one where you aren't required to spend your days with your head on a wooden block under a masked man holding a big axe.
Remember that I said there were two reasons I could think of to institue a merit based pay system for teachers? The second reason (and, in my opinion, more likely) is that it's a way to save money. I really doubt that the proposals that come out will entail adding a bunch of money to the state budget for teacher's salaries. What will happen is that the same amount of money (or less, when adjusted for inflation) will be allocated, and redistributed to teachers on the basis of merit. Therefore, some teachers will get a pay cut, and a few might actually get a little more money. Of course, it will cost money to pay for the new bureaucracy that such a program would entail, and that money will probably come out of the pool, too, leaving less for teacher salaries. The beauty is, if an individual teacher's salary doesn't keep up with inflation, it's easy to say that it has to do with their merit, not with a lack of funding for teacher's salary in the budget. With an arbitrary scale to base salary on, it's hard to keep track of the big picture.
For all the talk in political circles of children being our greatest natural resource and leaving no child behind, the numbers tell a different story. CEOs like Carly and other super-wealthy Americans are getting huge chunks of the budget in the form of tax cuts (did I mention that half of Carly's 42 million is in the form of stock options, the dividends of which are taxed at a much lower rate as per W's tax plan? Convenient, no?), while children and their schools get less and less. I wonder if teacher's asked to resign because of low "merit" are going to get tax breaks, stock options, or any sort of severance package at all. I doubt it.
Later, I'll write about what the heck they mean by "merit" when it comes to teacher performance. It ain't pretty, I'll tell you that right now.
- "Yep, that'll do it."
This is really cool... or really scary.
In case you don't know, I was on Jeopardy in February of '04 (I lost). Anyway, I Google-d my own name, and I came up with this. I can't believe that anyone has the time or inclination to actually maintain this site (not affiliated with Sony Pictures Entertainment, the producers of Jeopardy!). I'm kind of glad this person exists, but curious as to why...
"I run for President... I didn't win, though..."
"I run for President... I didn't win, though..."
Monday, January 31, 2005
So, you wanna be a theologian...(Part 1)
Here's my first list. I thought of doing this when my aunt was very interested in a great book (The Everlasting Man by G.K. Chesterton) that I got for Christmas, and I thought about the other books that I had read that lead me to want that book in the first place.
A great many of the books that have been very enjoyable to read and helpful in forming my understanding of the world through a Christian lens were written by C.S. Lewis. In this first book review (the first of many, I'm sure), I'll list some of Lewis' books that I think are a good place to start if you're interested in reading about Christianity.
If you'd like to just read an entry level treatise on what Christianity is and how it makes sense of the world, read Mere Christianity. For a more personal story from Lewis, read Surprised by Joy, Lewis' account of how he came to be a Christian. It gives some great biographical info as well as a peek into the way that brilliant mind works. Lewis' Pilgrim's Regress is a fictional tale of a young man who wades through the dominant philosophies of western civilizations and arrives at Christianity at last, and mirrors Lewis' own journey.
Another good story, and probably Lewis' most popular work, is the Chronicles of Narnia series. Its presentation of a lion named Aslan reclaiming a magical land corrupted by evil is a great allegorical (although Lewis himself resisted that word) picture of our own history and plight. There are 7 books in the series, and Lewis wrote them in a particular order, even though the events in books 5 and 6 do not follow the chronology of the story. Unfortunately, recent publications have reordered the books to follow a linear chronology, and I think that this does a lot of damage to the way that Lewis wanted the story to be read. If you do read a recent edition, read them in the original order (The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe; Prince Caspian; The Voyage of the Dawn Treader; The Silver Chair; The Horse and His Boy; The Magician's Nephew; The Last Battle) and you'll enjoy it much more!
Less well known but every bit as good are the three books that make up what has come to be known as Lewis' Space Trilogy. The first book is Out of the Silent Planet, and imagines a journey to another world with a very old history where the inhabitants never rebelled against God, and the struggle to keep evil (from earth) from corrupting their civilization. The second book, Perelandra, presents a world that is just beginning, and the first couple are presented with the same temptation as Adam and Eve were... will they succumb? The last book, That Hideous Strength, depicts secular academia leading a revolt against humanity, ostensibly in its service, and the resistance that seems doomed to failure. These books are in some way Lewis' response to the unquestioned assumptions that plague secular science-fiction: "progress" is inevitable (no racism in Star Trek!) and unquestionably good, "religion" and "tradition" as the enemies of "science," and the hope put into the intelligentsia for the future of mankind.
Lewis takes on some of the big questions that everybody asks in Miracles and The Problem of Pain. Miracles tackles the assumption that although people in Biblical times could believe in miracles, it is a bit absurd to ask modern humanity to believe in them anymore now that we are so scientifically advanced and know better. The Problem of Pain addresses the age-old question: How can a good God allow such terrible things to happen to good (or at least, not totally evil) people? I heartily recommend both of these great books.
For bite-size Lewis, try God in the Dock or Christian Reflections. These two books are collections of letters, essays, or other correspondence by Lewis on a variety of topics Many of the topics he writes on in these books are explored more fully in his longer works, but some of them are unique and give some interesting dimension to a picture of the world as Lewis understands it from unexpected angles.
The Four Loves is a fantastic book that explores the human experience of love, and tries to find a way to understand what God reveals to us when he claims that word as a name for himself.
The two most dangerous attitudes we can have about devils, according to Lewis, is to harbor an unhealthy fascination with them or to assume that they don't exist. The Screwtape Letters is a wonderful book which Lewis writes in the form of correspondence between Screwtape, a senior demon, and his underling (and nephew) Wormwood. Screwtape counsels Wormwood to use some techniques when discouraging his human charge away from a Christian life that are unexpected and often uncomfortably close to home. Lewis said this was his least favorite book to write, since it was tiring and emotionally discouraging to have to keep putting himself in a mindset violently oppossed to everything he holds true.
Finally, Till We Have Faces is an amazing work of fiction, where Lewis reworks the ancient Greek myth of Cupid and Psyche into an exposition of how our pride and merely human love can lead us to hurt the one's we claim to love the most, and reject the love we so desperately need.
So there you have it. Start reading!
- "Safe?.... Of course he's not safe. But he's good..." (I'm cheating; this one's from a book, soon to be released as a movie!)
A great many of the books that have been very enjoyable to read and helpful in forming my understanding of the world through a Christian lens were written by C.S. Lewis. In this first book review (the first of many, I'm sure), I'll list some of Lewis' books that I think are a good place to start if you're interested in reading about Christianity.
If you'd like to just read an entry level treatise on what Christianity is and how it makes sense of the world, read Mere Christianity. For a more personal story from Lewis, read Surprised by Joy, Lewis' account of how he came to be a Christian. It gives some great biographical info as well as a peek into the way that brilliant mind works. Lewis' Pilgrim's Regress is a fictional tale of a young man who wades through the dominant philosophies of western civilizations and arrives at Christianity at last, and mirrors Lewis' own journey.
Another good story, and probably Lewis' most popular work, is the Chronicles of Narnia series. Its presentation of a lion named Aslan reclaiming a magical land corrupted by evil is a great allegorical (although Lewis himself resisted that word) picture of our own history and plight. There are 7 books in the series, and Lewis wrote them in a particular order, even though the events in books 5 and 6 do not follow the chronology of the story. Unfortunately, recent publications have reordered the books to follow a linear chronology, and I think that this does a lot of damage to the way that Lewis wanted the story to be read. If you do read a recent edition, read them in the original order (The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe; Prince Caspian; The Voyage of the Dawn Treader; The Silver Chair; The Horse and His Boy; The Magician's Nephew; The Last Battle) and you'll enjoy it much more!
Less well known but every bit as good are the three books that make up what has come to be known as Lewis' Space Trilogy. The first book is Out of the Silent Planet, and imagines a journey to another world with a very old history where the inhabitants never rebelled against God, and the struggle to keep evil (from earth) from corrupting their civilization. The second book, Perelandra, presents a world that is just beginning, and the first couple are presented with the same temptation as Adam and Eve were... will they succumb? The last book, That Hideous Strength, depicts secular academia leading a revolt against humanity, ostensibly in its service, and the resistance that seems doomed to failure. These books are in some way Lewis' response to the unquestioned assumptions that plague secular science-fiction: "progress" is inevitable (no racism in Star Trek!) and unquestionably good, "religion" and "tradition" as the enemies of "science," and the hope put into the intelligentsia for the future of mankind.
Lewis takes on some of the big questions that everybody asks in Miracles and The Problem of Pain. Miracles tackles the assumption that although people in Biblical times could believe in miracles, it is a bit absurd to ask modern humanity to believe in them anymore now that we are so scientifically advanced and know better. The Problem of Pain addresses the age-old question: How can a good God allow such terrible things to happen to good (or at least, not totally evil) people? I heartily recommend both of these great books.
For bite-size Lewis, try God in the Dock or Christian Reflections. These two books are collections of letters, essays, or other correspondence by Lewis on a variety of topics Many of the topics he writes on in these books are explored more fully in his longer works, but some of them are unique and give some interesting dimension to a picture of the world as Lewis understands it from unexpected angles.
The Four Loves is a fantastic book that explores the human experience of love, and tries to find a way to understand what God reveals to us when he claims that word as a name for himself.
The two most dangerous attitudes we can have about devils, according to Lewis, is to harbor an unhealthy fascination with them or to assume that they don't exist. The Screwtape Letters is a wonderful book which Lewis writes in the form of correspondence between Screwtape, a senior demon, and his underling (and nephew) Wormwood. Screwtape counsels Wormwood to use some techniques when discouraging his human charge away from a Christian life that are unexpected and often uncomfortably close to home. Lewis said this was his least favorite book to write, since it was tiring and emotionally discouraging to have to keep putting himself in a mindset violently oppossed to everything he holds true.
Finally, Till We Have Faces is an amazing work of fiction, where Lewis reworks the ancient Greek myth of Cupid and Psyche into an exposition of how our pride and merely human love can lead us to hurt the one's we claim to love the most, and reject the love we so desperately need.
So there you have it. Start reading!
- "Safe?.... Of course he's not safe. But he's good..." (I'm cheating; this one's from a book, soon to be released as a movie!)
Thursday, January 27, 2005
bitter irony
You've probably heard or read about the man who caused a huge train accident in LA when he parked his SUV on the tracks.
Apparently, he intended to commit suicide by letting the train hit him in his vehicle. At the last moment, however, he changed his mind and exited the vehicle. When the train hit the empty vehicle, it derailed and headed straight for an oncoming train going in the other direction, hit that train, and finally crashed into an empty, "parked" freight train.
The man has been charged with 10 counts of murder for deaths sustained in the crash, and the D.A. has included "special circumstances" in the charges which makes him eligible for the death penalty.
This case is certainly tragic, and I do not in any way want to say that the horrific results of this man's thoughtless, self-centered, and inhuman act do not merit the harshest penalties that society hands out in these cases. I also do not want to use this case as a place to debate the death penalty... well, not really.
I do want to take this example and use it as an opportunity to discuss the idea of "justice" in our society, and to hold it up against what the word "justice" actually means.
In our society, we have courts and a legal system that are designed to deliver justice. In some cases, justice involves compensation to an injured party for damages sustained. By and large, this compensation takes a monetary form, even if the original damages were not monetary in nature. "Justice" is done when the perpetrator renders back to their victim a sum of money equal in value to the amount of harm that they caused.
Obviously, we're going to run into problems when the damages were not monetary in nature. If I stole $5,000 from you, it would be just if you returned $5,000 to me (plus interest, I suppose, to make it neater). But what if it was not money that was lost, but a limb, or a life, or an opportunity, time, or trust? Can the courts mandate a return to the victim of the 3 years with their children they lost because of false imprisonment, or the ability to cheerfuly give to a charity without fear of it being a swindle, or the lost moments of holding an infant daughter because of the loss of a limb, or her life lost because of an industrial accident, or his life lost because of pollutants poisoning the groundwater, or the life of a child lost because of a drunk driver? We award vast sums of money, because ultimately, that is the limit of what our justice system can do. We don't have the ability to execute real justice and return the irreplacable items, time, experiences or people who have been lost, so we just keep piling on the money, blinding ourselves to our impotence to right wrongs in any sort of meaningful way.
In other cases, we seek "justice" by punishing those who have done wrong in other ways: by taking away their liberty in jail or in subtler ways (e.g. restricting their freedom of employment, voting, travel, etc.), or by even taking their lives, in the most severe cases.
In these cases, I think that reasonable people can hold the opinion that some people actually deserve to lose their lives because of the intense evil of their actions, and that to end their lives is an act of "justice," by which I mean rendering unto someone the appropriate consequence which their actions merit. The trouble is, that's only half of justice. The other half would render back to their victims their lives or innocence, or expunge their past from pain and awful memories. Isn't this what they deserve? Alas, it is not in our power to do these things.
What results is a justice system that is lopsided. In seeking to restore the balance of justice and put things back to the way they ought to be, we find that the only way we can try to balance the scales is to heap death and imprisonment onto one side of the scales, since we are unable to remove it from the other. In the final analysis, we cannot erase the scars of evil, but we can spread it's gruesome consequences back onto the perpetrators.
I'm not saying that this is wrong, and we should never do anything. I'm saying that it's the best we can do, and we should always be mournful and dissatisfied with human efforts. And I think we should be more humble, too. It's in our nature to want to... actually, to need to do something, anything to pursue justice when we see things that are so obviously not the way they're supposed to be. We need to realize that our best efforts are not enough, and often, our best efforts just make things worse.
There's a great moment in the Lord of the Rings (the book, not the movie... okay it's in the movie, too, but it was in the book first!) Where Frodo tells Gandalf that he thinks that Gollum deserves to die. Gandalf replies that he's probably right... but there are also many that die who deserve life. "Can you give it to them? Do not be so swift to hand out pain and death, Master Frodo."
The "Bitter Irony" I reference in my header is that this man in LA decided to park his car on the railroad tracks because he wanted to end his life. Even though he changed his mind at the last minute, wounds on his wrists and chest indicate that this was not his only failed attempt, and will likely not be his last. Ironically, the most "justice" we can mete out as society is to do for this man what he desired to do but found himself unable to do, that is, to end his life, while doing nothing to restore the lives of his victims. This is the uppermost limit of human justice. Don't you long for something more?
- "He says that he also is a king, and he also will not listen to what you say."
Apparently, he intended to commit suicide by letting the train hit him in his vehicle. At the last moment, however, he changed his mind and exited the vehicle. When the train hit the empty vehicle, it derailed and headed straight for an oncoming train going in the other direction, hit that train, and finally crashed into an empty, "parked" freight train.
The man has been charged with 10 counts of murder for deaths sustained in the crash, and the D.A. has included "special circumstances" in the charges which makes him eligible for the death penalty.
This case is certainly tragic, and I do not in any way want to say that the horrific results of this man's thoughtless, self-centered, and inhuman act do not merit the harshest penalties that society hands out in these cases. I also do not want to use this case as a place to debate the death penalty... well, not really.
I do want to take this example and use it as an opportunity to discuss the idea of "justice" in our society, and to hold it up against what the word "justice" actually means.
In our society, we have courts and a legal system that are designed to deliver justice. In some cases, justice involves compensation to an injured party for damages sustained. By and large, this compensation takes a monetary form, even if the original damages were not monetary in nature. "Justice" is done when the perpetrator renders back to their victim a sum of money equal in value to the amount of harm that they caused.
Obviously, we're going to run into problems when the damages were not monetary in nature. If I stole $5,000 from you, it would be just if you returned $5,000 to me (plus interest, I suppose, to make it neater). But what if it was not money that was lost, but a limb, or a life, or an opportunity, time, or trust? Can the courts mandate a return to the victim of the 3 years with their children they lost because of false imprisonment, or the ability to cheerfuly give to a charity without fear of it being a swindle, or the lost moments of holding an infant daughter because of the loss of a limb, or her life lost because of an industrial accident, or his life lost because of pollutants poisoning the groundwater, or the life of a child lost because of a drunk driver? We award vast sums of money, because ultimately, that is the limit of what our justice system can do. We don't have the ability to execute real justice and return the irreplacable items, time, experiences or people who have been lost, so we just keep piling on the money, blinding ourselves to our impotence to right wrongs in any sort of meaningful way.
In other cases, we seek "justice" by punishing those who have done wrong in other ways: by taking away their liberty in jail or in subtler ways (e.g. restricting their freedom of employment, voting, travel, etc.), or by even taking their lives, in the most severe cases.
In these cases, I think that reasonable people can hold the opinion that some people actually deserve to lose their lives because of the intense evil of their actions, and that to end their lives is an act of "justice," by which I mean rendering unto someone the appropriate consequence which their actions merit. The trouble is, that's only half of justice. The other half would render back to their victims their lives or innocence, or expunge their past from pain and awful memories. Isn't this what they deserve? Alas, it is not in our power to do these things.
What results is a justice system that is lopsided. In seeking to restore the balance of justice and put things back to the way they ought to be, we find that the only way we can try to balance the scales is to heap death and imprisonment onto one side of the scales, since we are unable to remove it from the other. In the final analysis, we cannot erase the scars of evil, but we can spread it's gruesome consequences back onto the perpetrators.
I'm not saying that this is wrong, and we should never do anything. I'm saying that it's the best we can do, and we should always be mournful and dissatisfied with human efforts. And I think we should be more humble, too. It's in our nature to want to... actually, to need to do something, anything to pursue justice when we see things that are so obviously not the way they're supposed to be. We need to realize that our best efforts are not enough, and often, our best efforts just make things worse.
There's a great moment in the Lord of the Rings (the book, not the movie... okay it's in the movie, too, but it was in the book first!) Where Frodo tells Gandalf that he thinks that Gollum deserves to die. Gandalf replies that he's probably right... but there are also many that die who deserve life. "Can you give it to them? Do not be so swift to hand out pain and death, Master Frodo."
The "Bitter Irony" I reference in my header is that this man in LA decided to park his car on the railroad tracks because he wanted to end his life. Even though he changed his mind at the last minute, wounds on his wrists and chest indicate that this was not his only failed attempt, and will likely not be his last. Ironically, the most "justice" we can mete out as society is to do for this man what he desired to do but found himself unable to do, that is, to end his life, while doing nothing to restore the lives of his victims. This is the uppermost limit of human justice. Don't you long for something more?
- "He says that he also is a king, and he also will not listen to what you say."
Friday, January 21, 2005
"You're either with us, or you're with the terrorists."
Okay, I hope that I don't need to tell you who I'm quoting.
Anyway, when I heard this, I wanted to yell in exasperation. Now, I have a blog, so here I go!
The faulty logic in this statement presupposes an issue in which there are only two possible positions. Two forces against which only one form of resistance is possible. I thought of a couple of examples to illustrate the absurdity of this frame of mind.
First off, let's visit the schoolyard. We've all been in a situation where two of our friends are fighting... usually over something stupid. Anyway, you always end up in the situation where one of them tries to force you to "choose sides." This is incredibly demeaning to both parties. It reduces a complex person and rich relationships to a single issue. You are asked to consider a person who is your friend to be nothing more than "the enemy of _________," and to filter all aspects of your relationship with them through this very narrow issue. It strips them of their identity as an individual, and discounts all of the history and common experiences that make up a real friendship. When you're in that situation, don't you want to say, "I'm not going to choose sides: you're both my friends, and you need to work this out between yourselves."
So, what am I saying? People should be friends with the US and with the terrorists? No... let me give you another example that illustrates my point better.
WWII. Hitler attacks Russia, breaking his promise to Stalin. Can you imagine Stalin saying, "If you're not with us, you're with Hitler"? Can you imagine a reasonable person completely detesting Hitler and his agenda, and wanting nothing more than to overthrow his leadership, defeat his armed forces, and liberate those under his oppression... but not being huge fans of Joe Stalin, either?
I mean, Stalin was not a good guy. But we had to defeat Hitler, so we went along with him, and sowed the seeds of the cold war and set the stage for repressive regimes and the loss of human rights for millions of people for decades to come.
That old philosophy of "the enemy of my enemy is my friend" has gotten us into trouble again and again: in Latin America, in the Middle East, in the cold war and continuing in those regions today, etc.
So, what do we do? Do we wave our flag because we're afraid to be accussed of "providing aid and comfort to the enemy"? Do we vote for W because he's the only force for good in a world of pure evil?
Guess what? I'm not going to give you an answer. I just want to let you know that it's okay for you to ask the question!
- "Be excellent to each other... and party on, dudes!"
Anyway, when I heard this, I wanted to yell in exasperation. Now, I have a blog, so here I go!
The faulty logic in this statement presupposes an issue in which there are only two possible positions. Two forces against which only one form of resistance is possible. I thought of a couple of examples to illustrate the absurdity of this frame of mind.
First off, let's visit the schoolyard. We've all been in a situation where two of our friends are fighting... usually over something stupid. Anyway, you always end up in the situation where one of them tries to force you to "choose sides." This is incredibly demeaning to both parties. It reduces a complex person and rich relationships to a single issue. You are asked to consider a person who is your friend to be nothing more than "the enemy of _________," and to filter all aspects of your relationship with them through this very narrow issue. It strips them of their identity as an individual, and discounts all of the history and common experiences that make up a real friendship. When you're in that situation, don't you want to say, "I'm not going to choose sides: you're both my friends, and you need to work this out between yourselves."
So, what am I saying? People should be friends with the US and with the terrorists? No... let me give you another example that illustrates my point better.
WWII. Hitler attacks Russia, breaking his promise to Stalin. Can you imagine Stalin saying, "If you're not with us, you're with Hitler"? Can you imagine a reasonable person completely detesting Hitler and his agenda, and wanting nothing more than to overthrow his leadership, defeat his armed forces, and liberate those under his oppression... but not being huge fans of Joe Stalin, either?
I mean, Stalin was not a good guy. But we had to defeat Hitler, so we went along with him, and sowed the seeds of the cold war and set the stage for repressive regimes and the loss of human rights for millions of people for decades to come.
That old philosophy of "the enemy of my enemy is my friend" has gotten us into trouble again and again: in Latin America, in the Middle East, in the cold war and continuing in those regions today, etc.
So, what do we do? Do we wave our flag because we're afraid to be accussed of "providing aid and comfort to the enemy"? Do we vote for W because he's the only force for good in a world of pure evil?
Guess what? I'm not going to give you an answer. I just want to let you know that it's okay for you to ask the question!
- "Be excellent to each other... and party on, dudes!"
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