On your mark, get set...

Okay, we as in members of humankind, and more specifically, a bunch of Europeans just landed a man-made object of space travel on a frigging comet this week! If you’re a member of the same species and did not get a bit tingly at the news then stop right here and read no further. But, if you stopped for a second and realized what just happened, then you know we have born witness to science doing what it does best — pushing out on the envelope of ignorance.

“With so many going hungry in the world, I just don’t understand how we can afford to go to space.” This is the constant refrain from the same people who see this milestone as nothing more than (insert favorite deity here) allowing mankind a bit more slack in the umbilicus that is our inseparable link to our maker(s). These acolytes complain at trying to understand the universe. To them, if reference to such things does not exist within the pages of their sacred scribble, then it must not be of relevance nor importance. Things like germ theory, evolution and historical facts are considered suspect. 

Remember Galileo? He’s the guy that described the universe without the Earth at its center and was summarily placed on house arrest for the remainder of his life. Even after it became old news, the Church did not pardon him till 1992. He died in 1642! Talk about holding onto a grudge.

I grew up during the Space Race fomented by the constant beep of Sputnik and our President’s admonition shortly thereafter. Like a latter day Babe Ruth he stood up at the plate and pointed his bat at where the country needed to put the ball. Out yonder, that bright disk in the night sky. That’s where we are going and back by decade’s end. And we did. I wish he could have seen it.

Cooler still, we did it in my own backyard. I was living one hundred miles inland from Cape Canaveral and on the day the first Saturn V rocket lifted off, I could see it climb into the sky from the rooftop of our home. Better still, I could hear it. A deep crackling sound as the ball of light trailing white condensation rose ever faster until disappearing into the ethers. When it broke the sound barrier the windows rattled. It was glorious.

I shinnied down from the roof and joined my parents in front of the large black-n-white Philco with Walter Cronkite reporting the event. He looked shaken. My parents told me that when the Saturn V's Rocketdyne F-1 engines fired up, things in the newsroom started falling off the walls.  

CBS had underestimated the harmonic resonance that the rocket’s five engines created. Visibly shaken, Mr. Cronkite, always the professional, composed himself and carried on though at a slightly higher pitch. Those engines remain the most powerful ever produced by mankind.

With that the Space Race was on and no expense spared. That is the America I miss. The one with the cojones and the chutzpa to get what needs to be done, done. We all benefit from it in measurable ways by the products and technologies born of the time and inclination. We as a country need that again. Make no small plans. Everyone benefits and besides, I want my Space Race back.

and a side of psychometrics too, please...

    My local school district has just dumped north of $106,000 dollars in annual salary for one newly minted expert in psychometrics.   
    Now wait a minute, I know what you’re thinking and that’s a little presumptuous coming from the likes of us. We simply do not know what the going rate is nowadays for good help in the field of study concerned with the theory and technique of psychological measurement.  Maybe we got her on the cheap.
    However, we do know what the going rate is for three newly minted teachers. And, that we could get two doctorate degree seeking teachers with a signing bonus of free parking, weekends off and all the bad coffee they can chug. And, we would know how to measure their performance. 
    The world would know them by the inspired and edified minds they’re able to turn out semester after semester year after year with dwindling support and little hope of advancement unless they join the likes of the new Senior Director of Assessment, Accountability and Evaluation.

How will we know how good the new Senior Director is at her job? How will the new Senior Director elevate the District’s credibility? Most important, how will the teachers and students of the district benefit from her expertise today and tomorrow?  Time will tell.

One thing for sure is the District has just added another layer of deniability in case the current direction of education in our fair county doesn’t markedly improve.  Even if the student's grades don't improve, I am sure that psychometrically they will track on an advancing plane adjusted for shift in the demographic mean.  Right?

Wait a minute, what am I talking about? This isn’t the REAL world where results are what matter most.  This the realm of school boards where our property taxes go to fatten the backsides of only those smart enough to ditch the “I do it for the kids” routine and latch onto the real money in education — administration — where no one ever gets fired, only laterally promoted with a bonus and a parking space upgrade. 

Silly me.

So money!

Everyone who has seen the movie, Swingers, knows that line. They know it as the favorite utterance from Vince Vaughn’s character signifying something unusually good. After the vote tallies of last night the line has obviously made its way into the lexicon of political operatives that I believe the likes of which America has not seen since Tammany Hall or the Teapot Dome Scandal. 

The moneyed interests in pachyderms have conquered Congress, the Supreme Court and as of today, the Senate is in their pockets too. I fear that the next election cycle will stack the deck with another one in the White House.  God forbid.  

Historically whenever all three tips of the trident are sharpened on the same bias, Americans suffer.  We’ve heard that we have no one to blame for this but ourselves. But is that true? If we chafe under the weight of knowing then it shouldn’t be a stretch for us to understand that it just might NOT be all our fault. 

If not, then shouldn't we be handing out pitchforks and torches? Where is the reasoned response? The outrage? The righteous indignation? Where in Hell are the Democrats? We know where the Republicans are. They’ve expanded through gerrymandering, misinformation, fear mongering and Fox News. Wait a minute, that’s just being redundant. Sorry.

The Democrats resemblance to Nero stroking his lyre while the poorer parts of Rome go up in flames is not much of a stretch. THINK: Urban blight solved.  And if all you know about the sack of Rome was that it was done by the Visigoths in AD 410 then you miss the more important aspect as to why. Simple math is the answer. 

By the time Alaric plundered the Eternal City, the population was two thirds enslaved. That’s two out of three people on the street being already screwed and tattooed by the empire. So it's easy to imagine them holding the gates open with, “Come on in. Make yourself at home. The treasury is that way and the bordello this way. Would you be so kind and kill my boss?  Can I get you something to drink?”

Another truth is that the fiction of rugged individualism is a lie. No one raises a barn on his own. Bill Gates and Steve Jobs had help and some of it via virtual slavery. 

When a nation’s powerful and elite take liberties with us, it is our duty to the country to reassert our own liberty and call them out. Historically that has been the only way real change has taken place in our system. It has never been a top down game. Only of late, and done to us while we were sleeping. In other words, those are not hemorrhoids we are suffering from. 

When so much of the country’s wealth is concentrated among a handful of corporations, banks and oligarchs, we’ve got a stew simmering. One that smells faintly familiar and one particularly appetizing to Visigoths.