At the Rival Factions show presented by The Experts, the following wrestlers represented HIW:

Morgan Jones
Antonio Alves
Bobby Azula
Nightmare Inc. (Katherine Stryfe and Emma McIntyre)

To see what impact these men and women made, check out the Rival Factions results, up now at the Rival Factions minisite!

Mohitoz’ Law #160

Alcohol and calculus don’t go together, so mathematicians should never drink and derive.

Well done – you’re pregnant, mom! There’s no time more special than the one you’ve just entered and, as such, we’d like to make it even more special by sharing some of our secret facts as to why yoga for pregnant women is the new ’sliced bread’. So without further ado, let’s get started:

1.    No Fear – say it out loud! The truth is that yoga for pregnant women consists of an abundance of techniques that will help eliminate the usual pregnancy-related fear from your life. This will encourage greater piece of mind and reduced anxiety, which will be beneficial to you and your baby.

2.    Better than conventional exercise. Medical experts agree that conventional exercises during pregnancy can be detrimental to your health as well as baby’s health. Here’s why: your baby has no way of releasing the body heat you generate. During the first trimester this can affect the development of his or her central nervous system and brain.By choosing the correct yoga routines, exercises during pregnancy not only become fun, but actively target those muscles used during delivery whilst passively stimulating others to ensure that your pregnancy is as comfortable as can be.

3.    Prevention… is better than a cure. Say goodbye to stretch marks, weight gain, bad posture and the host of other pregnancy-related problems, before they even arrive! Yoga for pregnant women will ensure that you enjoy a peak physical state during pregnancy as well as after.

4.    Grow within yourself. As you’re probably well aware, this new stage of your life heralds a change in the way you see the world. Yoga for pregnant women is based on principles rife with wisdom and techniques that provide you with invaluable insight for all those difficult choices that lie ahead.

5.    Deep relaxation is what it’s all about. The changes that occur during pregnancy can become a strenuous experience. And to help the body recover, conventional wisdom states that sleep is the best solution. Yoga for pregnant women consists of deep relaxation techniques that encourage the nervous system to change from sympathetic to parasympathetic activity. In simple terms, this means you’ll be going from normal restorative rest to super restorative rest.

That being said, if that sounds like your cup of tea, here’s what to do next:Get in touch with someone who has an agreeable level of expertise when it comes to yoga for pregnant women. Having guidance to get a grip on the pregnancy and exercise will make the experience easier and more enjoyable.Take Care of yourself and your unborn child by choosing those routines that are easy to do and conducive to your pregnancy. These will more often than not consist of general or beginner positions and should be maintained for the duration of your pregnancy.

The key to success is daily practice. Having a routine and sticking to it will ensure that your body and mind adapts to the stimuli provided by yoga. You’ll be able to get into the mindset more quickly and resolve any emotional and physical discomforts with ease.

I just wanted to share a couple of links. The first is a truly amazing and inspiring piece of writing about Parenting in Freedom, and the second is to do with home education in England. It gives a very good overview of the current crisis in home education in England, and I thought people here might like to read it, to see what all the fuss is about in case they’re not already aware. I am planning a post about the current issues but until I manage to get that done, Elective Home Education in the UK, a brief history? is a very good place to start.

This is a fantastic science-related website!

——————–

MadSci Network represents a collective cranium of scientists providing answers to your questions. For good measure we provide a variety of oddities as well.

—————————–

Get all the details at Sci Network (http://www.madsci.org)

The National Instruction Board for Information Technology convened a meeting November 25 in Hanoi to discuss developing Vietnam’s information technology. Human resources in the sector should be prioritized, experts agreed.

Professor Vu Minh Giang from Hanoi said it was critical for the government to develop personnel resources to strengthen the field. The president of the National Instruction Board for Information Technology, Prof. Do Trung Ta from Hanoi, agreed, saying that it was even more important than developing IT infrastructure in the country.

Information technology students study at FPT University in Hanoi. The government needs to focus on training more quality IT personnel, a recent meeting heard.

Participants said it was wise for the government to focus on the burgeoning IT sector and that Vietnam had received recognition for its strength in the field.

However, there is much room for improvement, the meeting heard, and the IT sector must be analyzed in terms of strategic socioeconomic growth to 2020.

Discussing a project to fortify the country’s IT, Deputy Minister of Science and Technology Nguyen Quan said the allocation of funds for the project was unreasonable.

Total funding for the project is estimated at VND144 trillion (US$7, 8 billion), of which VND131 trillion (US$7 billion) (91 percent), is allocated for implementing broadband infrastructure. The remaining VND210 billion is slated for developing human resources.

The divisions should receive equal funding, he said. IT experts at the meeting agreed, saying the actual cost of developing a strong human resources sector to 2020 is closer to US$1-2 billion.

Following the meeting, a proposal was submitted to the Ministry of Information and Communications, and policymakers, outlining the strategy and projected costs of the project.

In addition, Prof. Ta said the project should focus on training and foreign language skills rather than simply churning out large numbers of IT graduates. Furthermore, the government should concentrate on integrating IT into other fields like security and national defense, rather than treating it as an exclusive sector.

If the project is successful, it will be a boost to the country’s socioeconomic development to 2020, said Prof. Ta. Moreover, the implementation of the project must have the participation of ministries like Science and Technology, Education and Training, Planning and Investment, and Finance in addition to the Ministry of Information and Communications.

Bookmark & Share

Welcome to High Impact Wrestling, the Golden Standard in EFeds! As you can see, we have a new site up and running; the pages are nearly complete, but feel free to browse the forums. We’re always looking for new applicants, so check us out!

Three experts that we've put our trust

      Today we live in a world of experts.  Or so you’d think.  It’s important to have letters in front and in back of your name. PhD, MD, CEO, and over 900 acronyms and abbreviations denoting certain expertise and standards for qualification have come to be important indicators of our place in society.  The complexity of society has been somewhat responsible for this as knowledge has become more focused and narrow.  No longer do I just work in the employment department at my company.  I may be an employment benefits administrator, or a FMLA/Leave specialist, or a Human Resources Analyst.  And these are just three jobs in the field of Human Resources.  A normal human being, after reading the job description of these positions can get a pretty good idea of what a person is supposed to do.  But take another field in the computer technology area. 

            ‘“Operations research” and “management science” are terms that are used interchangeably to describe the discipline of using advanced analytical techniques to make better decisions and to solve problems. In private enterprises, operations research is used in planning business ventures and analyzing options by using statistical analysis, data and computer modeling, linear programming, and other mathematical techniques.

Operations research analysts are often involved in top-level strategizing, planning, and forecasting. They help to allocate resources, measure performance, schedule, design production facilities and systems, manage the supply chain, set prices, coordinate transportation and distribution, or analyze large databases.’ (Bureau of Labor Statistics, Occupational Handbook, 2008-09 ed)

            I suppose that if you’re an Operations research analyst this is all very clear, but if I was a freshman student in college and was thinking about what I wanted to do with the rest of my life, I might have difficulty grasping the scope of this job. 

            The point of this discussion is that as our society becomes more complex the more we have to specialize, which in turn creates more cultural isolation.  Not only do we not know what our neighbor does but we can’t talk with him because of our language and paradigm orientation.  Experts are supposed to know more about their subject than the rest of us.  They’re schooled and accredited, whereas we aren’t.  This sometimes gives us a sense that we are not as good as they are thereby putting more confidence in them than may be deemed necessary or advisable.  That is the reason, at least in the counseling field, that boundaries between the counselor and counselee are so important.  The counselor has power that if used improperly results in unethical behavior.  The same can be said as it applies to other professions.   Those with accreditation have more power with/over their clients and the clients need protection from improper or sloppy behavior. 

               Ethical imperatives are not always consistent with similar professions.  Two particular licensures that many counseling practitioners in Texas have are the Licensed Professional Counselor and Licensed Marriage and Family Therapy license.  Both of these licenses are administered by the same state agency.  They each have their own board and they periodically modify the ethics criteria for their particular license.  The ethics criteria are basically the same with a few minor exceptions.  However, one difference that I’ve always wondered about has to do with sexual conduct between a counselor and a former client.  There’s a whole list of caveats for sexual conduct with a former patient but the one that jumps out at me is that if a person is a LPC they are permitted to have sexual relations with a former patient after five years, while an LMFT is allowed to have sexual relations with a former patient after two years.  I would never consider having sexual relations with a former patient under any circumstances but have wondered why one license board used five years and the other two.  I’m not familiar with other professions but I imagine that there are other inconsistencies and anomalies in professional ethics criteria. 

Not only are there a myriad of requirements for accreditation for hundreds of professional designations, the requirements for entry into many of these professions continues to stiffen.  In some cases this is understandable as the knowledge base of that profession expands requiring more knowledge on the part of the candidate.  However, there are probably many instances where this is not the case.  It appears that accreditation is more of a job security function.  Take for instance the requirements for Licensed Professional Counselor in Texas.  When I became an LPC twenty years ago one of the requirements for licensure was to have 1000 hours of face to face counseling internship experience under the supervision of an accredited LPC supervisor.  Today it is 3000 hours of supervised face to face.  Also, the criteria to become and maintain a supervisor’s are more intense, thus giving supervisors another source of income.  As far as I can tell there has not been that much addition to the body of knowledge in counseling for a person to be admitted to licensure in those twenty years.  The only conclusion I can make is that the move was to limit the number of new licenses issued. 

To further emphasize the power of the expert, you only have to look in our court system where we have dueling experts who sell their services to advocate for a client.  On the other side is another expert who is equally adamant in their testimony for their client.  Can both be right?  Years ago I was involved in a lawsuit involving the value of a piece of commercial real estate.  Both sides had appraisals for the same property.  Both appraisers were competent and accredited.  But the differential in their appraisals was as much as 50%.  The definition of value is “what a willing buyer and a willing seller, neither of which is being forced to buy or sell, are willing to pay for a property.”  So, given the same facts, how could two appraisers be that far apart.  Could it be that the fact that the appraisers were being paid to advocate for their clients, that the values were skewed towards the clients position?   Is that ethical? And if so, which one is unethical?  Obviously, both can’t be right.  At one point years ago there was a saying that MAI which stood for Master Appraisers Institute, really meant Made According to Instruction.  Because of this tendency by some unethical appraisers, after the savings and loan scandals a number of appraisers were indicted for overstating values on properties that were later deemed to be considerably less valuable than appraised. 

Most professionals are highly ethical and it’s unfortunate that when a few bad apples are unethical that it blemishes the whole barrel and causes those professions to be ever stricter, thus punishing other honest professionals.  But the power still remains and is generally subject to self policing which itself sometimes is flawed.

Cultural isolation that accents our hierarchal differences and places further impediments in our way of communicating, even though well meaning in nature, create more possibilities for ethical transgressions.

RUSNANO and AmBAR Announce the Business Plan Competition of Nanotech Projects 

    AmBAR creates a unique platform to facilitate the exchange of knowledge, ideas, and business contacts between technology entrepreneurs, professionals, and investors. The organization is also dedicated to accelerating access to capital for innovative projects and developing technology partnerships between Russia, Ukraine and other FSU countries and the United States. Through various seminars and conferences AmBAR provides educational programs that help entrepreneurs refine their business plans, and advance their product development and marketing efforts.

Ambar’s Mission:

·       To provide a networking platform for technology entrepreneurs, venture capital investors, and other business professionals from Russian, Ukraine and other CIS countries who are interested in innovation and commercialization of high technology products.

·       To educate, showcase, and support entrepreneurs in Russia, Ukraine and other CIS countries as they seek equity capital, corporate partners, and grow their companies globally.

·       To enhance all aspects of technology partnership between the United States and the countries of the former Soviet Union. 

SVOD Conference is right around the corner and we have an amazing lineup of speakers! Register today and don’t miss out on this unique networking opportunity!

 

    This is a not to be missed event for the entrepreneurs and the Venture Capital community. This year’s theme will drive a very exciting Agenda exploring “re-invention” as it affects the startup process on multiple levels — technologies, business models, financing, monetizing and team building.

 

 

• Vinod Khosla, Founding Partner, Khosla Ventures
• Charles Giancarlo, Managing Director, Silver Lake
• Steve Blank, Serial Entrepreneur; Founder, Epiphany; Lecturer, Stanford University, Graduate School of Engineering
• Sergei Beloussov, CEO, Parallels
• Ron Conway, Founding General Partner, Angel Investors LP
• Jason Pressman, General Partner, Shasta Ventures
• Adam Lashinsky, Editor at large, Fortune magazine; regular panelist and business commentator for Fox network programs
• Esther Dyson, Director, 23andMe, Principal, EDventure Holdings (sold to CNet), investor in Flickr and del.icio.us (both sold to Yahoo!) & Medstory (sold to Microsoft)
• Jeff Crow, General Partner, Norwest Venture Partners
• Vivek Mehra, General Partner, August Capital
• Ping Li, General Partner, Accel Partners
• Kittu Kolluri, General Partner, New Enterprise Associates
• Franklin Pitch Johnson, Founding Partner, Asset Management Company
• Peter Loukianoff, Partner, Almaz Capital Partners
• Guy Kawasaki, Managing Director, Garage Technology Ventures
• Pavel Pogodin, Partner, Sughrue Mion LLP
• Dmitry Dubograev, Partner, Femida LLP
• Leonid Gozman, Board Member, RUSNANO
• Mikhail Chuchkevich, Director, Project Office, RUSNANO
• Dmitry Vasuytinsky, Managing Partner, Allianz Asset Management
• Yan Ryazantsev, Investment Director, Russian Venture Company
• Bo Parker, Managing Director, Center for Technology and Innovation, PriceWaterhouseCoopers
• Phil Libin, CEO, Evernote
• Vlad Shmunis, CEO, RingCentral, Sequoia-backed company
• Matthew Trevithick, General Partner, Venrock
• Eric Buatois, General Partner, Sofinnova Ventures
• Vish Makhijani, COO, Zynga
• Vimal Solanki, Vice President, McAfee
• Evgeni Utkin, CEO, Kvazar-Micro, acquired by Sitronics, voted the Best Ukrainian Entrepreneur
• Greg Shenkman, General Partner, Exigen Capital, formerly CEO of Genesys, sold to Alcatel for $1.9B
• Mike Selfridge, Northern California Region Manager, Silicon Valley Bank

Whether you are looking for a deal flow, funding, information or networking – SVOD 2009 is the place to be! - WWW.SVOD.ORG 

 

 

Date: December 9-10, 2009

Location: Computer History Museum, Mountain View, Silicon Valley, CA

To Register: http://www.svod.org/

 

Russian Corporation of Nanotechnologies (RUSNANO) and American Business Association of Russian-speaking Professionals (AmBAR) announce the Business Plan Competition cor projects and companies working in the field of nanotechnology. Origination of the project may come from any country or person all over the world, but its implementation or some part of implementation has to be completed in Russia. In 2009 the nominees for the contest are pre-selected by AmBAR among the participants of the Fifth Annual High Tech Investment Conference SVOD 2009. For more information, please go to: http://www.svod.org/ or e-mail to info@ambarclub.org

The projects are evaluated by the following criteria:

• nanotechnology application;
• scientific and technical feasibility of the project;
• quality and feasibility of the business-plan;
• steps already made towards project implementation.

The winner of the competition receives the RUSNANO award and the prize in the amount of 300,000 rubles (~$10,000).

For more details, please see the Contest terms and conditions (in Russian)

Het wordt toch eens tijd voor een eigen domeinnaam met WordPress erachter. Het was leuk experimenteren via wordpress.com, maar ik zie meer in een eigen domeinnaam.

Binnenkort maak ik de domeinnaam bekend (nog niet bekend!), lay-out, plugins, enzovoort. Dan ga ik gewoon verder met bloggen over alles wat met social media te maken heeft en geef ik mijn ongezouten mening!

Mocht je nog tips voor mij hebben? Wil je me ergens bij helpen? Moet ik iets veranderen? Dan hoor ik dat graag!

Ik houd jullie op de hoogte!

Het wordt toch eens tijd voor een eigen domeinnaam met WordPress erachter. Het was leuk experimenteren via wordpress.com, maar ik zie meer in een eigen domeinnaam.

Binnenkort maak ik de domeinnaam bekend (nog niet bekend!), lay-out, plugins, enzovoort. Dan ga ik gewoon verder met bloggen over alles wat met social media te maken heeft en geef ik mijn ongezouten mening!

Mocht je nog tips voor mij hebben? Wil je me ergens bij helpen? Moet ik iets veranderen? Dan hoor ik dat graag!

Ik houd jullie op de hoogte!

NOW AVAILABLE ON KINDLE/AMAZON!

So you have decided to challenge your servicer as to whether they really have the right to collect anything from you and whether they have been turning over payments to the “proper party” (the real lender) and whether they have any information regarding the securitization of your loan, and an accounting for ALL money exchanged or paid in connection with your loan.

You’ve decided to challenge the pretender lender on whether they really own your loan and whether they “represent” any other entity that might be the REAL LENDER. You want to know who the real lender is and whether they have any enforceable right to collect money, enforce the note or obligation, or enforce the mortgage or deed of trust.

You have decided to hire an attorney, but like all fields, there are attorneys that are good at one thing and not so much on others. You want an attorney who is a crusader, who is not looking for a single silver bullet like “produce the note.” You want someone who believes in you and believes in your case. You want someone you can trust and whom you like. Big retainers mean big bills generally speaking unless they charge you a project fee that is all inclusive.

Yes this is a lot of work to do, but hiring an attorney who is only halfheartedly representing you with the notion that you owe the money and anything he does for you is enough, even if it is a minor delay. Keep looking. Don’t expect the first one you meet to be THE ONE.

And remember it is YOUR case, they didn’t screw you (the securitization players did that) and they don’t owe you anything. They spent a lot of time getting educated and trained to practice law and they are entitled to substantial fees compared with other jobs.

Here are the the things you should want to know and to get CLEAR answers that are verifiable from any attorney you interview:

1. What type of practice do they have?
2. Have they litigated property matters before? How many times? With what results?
3. Have they litigated mortgage issues including foreclosures? How many times? with what results?
4. Do they have any specialization, certification or degrees in real property law, securities, contract law, Uniform Commercial Code, appraisals, real estate closings? What are those and when did they get it?
5. Do they have a working knowledge and experience litigating in Federal Court (bankruptcy preferred), State Court, jury trials, non-jury trials. How many trials have they been lead counsel? What is their record of success?
6. How would they rate themselves in proficiency in motion practice, discovery, trial, cross examination?
7. Can you get references from other clients?
8. Will they litigate to win or just delay the proceedings?
9. What are their personal views regarding the foreclosure crisis? Is their attitude one of outrage as to what has been done to homeowners, the national and world economy or complacency with a wink at the Judge that this is a real obligation that the “borrower” owes but wants to get out of because of some procedural sleight of hand?
10. What do they think of the financial bailout to Wall Street?
11. Do they agree that the homeowners were targeted victims of a vast scheme to drain homeowners and investors of as much wealth as possible or do they think borrowers were the greedy ones trying to buy houses they couldn’t afford?
12. What do they propose to do for you? Do they have experts with whom they maintain relationships? who are those experts? can you speak with them?
13. How much do they charge and how do they charge (by the hour, monthly, contingency fee, costs, expenses).
14. What is the total amount they expect that you will be charged for this litigation? (Ignorance would indicate they haven’t been doing this much or with much success).
15. Will you be provided with copies of all correspondence and notes to file?
16. Will you have telephone access tot he attorney? How often? For how long?
17. Will this attorney be representing you and working your file or an associate? If an associate, you want to ask the same questions regarding the above.

Listen carefully to the answers. Take notes. Go home and think it over even if it only for an hour. Don’t let “emergency” conditions dictate settling for an attorney who doesn’t understand securitized residential mortgages. It will only get worse that way.

Image via Wikipedia

Last night I participated in #edchat on Twitter as I have done on most Tuesday evenings at 7:00 P.M., since I returned to teaching.  I love the discussion, but it is almost turning into “we squeak”.

What do I mean by “we squeak”?  Almost every session that I have participated in seems to have at its core a recurring theme brought up of how bad standardized testing is, other teachers not embracing technology, blocking and controlling IT departments, lack of admin support for technology, lack of interest/participation by parents.  There is a lot of venting and complaining about how bad things are, but not too many substantive ideas on how to improve things (I know it is tough to do in 140 characters or less).  I am perceiving a certain sense of powerlessness on the part of many teachers who participate in this Twitter discussion group.

WE ARE NOT POWERLESS!  We may not decide what will be taught in our classrooms, but we do decide how we will teach teach it.

We are experts in what we are teaching or in my case on my way to being an expert.  Yes I did use the word EXPERT, because that is what we are or will be in our fields.  I have heard that it takes about 10 years to become an expert and that is what I am shooting for to be considered an expert in Literacy, Educational Technology and Special Education before I retire.  I guess that means lots of reading, writing, attending seminars, classes and being active in online communities as a part of my professional life.  It means not sitting on our laurels that we earned years ago and staying current in our fields.

If we do not have these expectations for ourselves, then how can we hope to appear as professionals, to those we teach or in the Court of public opinion, which in many places we are loosing right now.  Each teacher must be an expert in what they are teaching or preparing to be one, how else do we keep our creditability?  In other words that means we have to be at the very least Highly Qualified Teachers (HQT), wow that has a familiar ring to it.

Standardized tests are here to stay.  Sorry but that is the reality we have to accept.  Testing is not going away, so how do we use this focus to help our students?  I am not sure yet, but we have to find a way.  I know that there are much smarter and more experienced teachers/administrators than I am, working on this issue right now.  We have to keep our eyes and ears open to others who are having success and build off what they have learned.  No I don’t like Standardized Testing anymore than anyone else, but it is and will be a part of being a teacher in today’s world for the foreseeable future.

IT Departments and Administrations that lock down the internet.  Okay so they make it inconvenient for some of us to use applications that we would like to use in our classrooms.  My school district has a very, very aggressive blocking policy and I am trying learn to live within our policies  and learn the procedures to get what I want done in the classroom by working with IT and administration, NOT just bitching about it. Get to know your IT people, show them (and admin) the applications and the good they can do.  Work with them, they might even agree with you, but they may have marching orders to keep that you don’t know about. 

IT is not the enemy, but they do have different priorities then you do.  Ask them to help you in the classroom, to see the effect of the limitations that you see or perceive, maybe they have an alternative you didn’t think of to use.  They are a great resource, but only if they are on your side,if you alienate them, they can really make EdTech more difficult than it has to be.   Don’t ask to eat the whole pie at once, keep working at it, you might be frustrated at first, but consistency and showing that what you are doing is working for the students, does a lot more than whining and complaining about what you can’t do.  It does get you what you want – eventually, without alienating those who can help you most.

Complaining about other teachers not embracing technology in the classroom.  If a teacher chooses to not use tech in their classroom, that’s their problem not your’s, but by making it your problem, you are allowing it to affect you negatively and increase your stress level.  I know you are worried about how it affects the students they teach, but if you can’t control or fix it let it go.  LET IT GO.

If you prove that your use of technology is providing superior results in the classroom, than you might be surprised at who comes and asks for your assistance.  Most of these teachers want to do what is best for their students, but are not convinced of technology’s actual effectiveness – to many it is still just another fad.   If those teachers don’t begin to use technology effectively in the classroom, then eventually they will become an island and become rather inconsequential or be forced by new administration (when it comes and they will) to use what works for today’s students – not what has always worked for them.  Either way this issue is beyond your control (usually), focus on what you can control, it is a lot less stressful for you.

Administration not Supporting Tech.  When was the last time you were told you could not use technology in your classrom? There may be a shortage of computers for 1:1 or the equipment is outdated but get creative – use what you have.  We may not be able to use a certain application i.e. YouTube, blogging platform, Twitter, etc. but most administrators and school districts try to buy us all of these nice shiny computers, LCD project, smart boards and the approved software that goes with them (sometimes without asking if we really need it or know how to use it).  Remember sometimes an overhead projector is the technology that is actually needed for that lesson.  Use what is approved, be creative, download YouTube at home and use it during your observation by an administrator.  The biggest thing is work within the limitations set by policy (otherwise you set yourself up for disciplinary actions) use what you can creatively – then push the boundaries when you can.

Keep showing administrators the effectiveness of what you are doing (maybe that significant increase in test scores from your students, compared to those who don’t use EdTech will do the trick?).  Again don’t try for the whole pie at once, be patient.

Uninvolved parents.  This is a whole blog in itself.  It is up to us to keep reaching out to them.  Many parents have had horrible experiences when they were in school or with schools and are badly intimidated by a “teacher” (any teacher – yes even you or me) and it is difficult for them to overcome this “teacherphobia”.  Remember that the next time you talk with a parent, some of them automatically flashback to Mr. or Mrs. _________ and shut down. 

Parents also know their kids better than we do, no matter how much or well we believe we know their child 90% of the time.  If we come off as condescending or only speak to them when their kids are being negative, of course our relationship with them is going to be strained.  Parents can be a teacher’s greatest advocate, but we have to take the first step and sometimes keep stepping forward to have them help us educate their child.

Finally, when was the last time an administrator was in your room, telling you how to teach?  For me there has been no one in my room since I started on October 5th, other than my Teaching Assistants.  The administrators stop by once and a while to ask how I am doing but that is it. 

I am and so are you – expected to teach our students within the school’s curriculum, that is what we are paid to do and we are supposedly experts at teaching.  How we actually do present the information is usually up to us, there are not too many schools that dictate how each class will be taught.  I find that in teaching I have had a great deal more independence and latitude about what I do in my office (the classroom) than any other job or field I have ever worked.

Therefore, if my pay and/or evaluations are going to be tied to test scores, I am damn well going to teach in the manner where my success or failure is something that I am, comfortable with, fits my style and personality.  I don’t plan to teach to the test, but I do plan to teach my curriculum effectively and in a manner that I believe I will be most successful for my students. 

I personally believe that using technology to teach in the classroom is the best way for all students to succeed in life and on Standardized tests.  If I teach my students in ways they can learn, then scores on Standardized Tests scores will take care of themselves.  But the bottom line is it is up to me – about how I present my material and lessons in my classroom and I suspect it is the same way in the majority of classrooms today. 

I am not naive and understand the pressures that many teachers are under, but we are not powerless about how we teach in our own classrooms – WE MUST REMEMBER THAT. 

Why did I use the image at the start?  Because that teacher does not have many of the advantages that we enjoy in our classrooms, but he is still teaching.  Remember we have tools at our disposal that were unheard of just 10 years ago.  It is up to each one of us how we incorporate Educational Technology into our classrooms, not anyone else.  So as Nike says “Just do it.” 

It is after all your choice.

Remember it is about the students

Proof that the movement of collaboration has been gaining steam for awhile, John Chambers wrote an excellent blog post in 2007 that discusses the implications and aspects that created and are improving the Era of Collaboration…

A few weeks ago, The Nation posted an article about female sexual dysfunction, written by Joann Wypijewski, titled Sexual Healing. Rachel of Our Bodies Our Blog covered it with a link and some commentary. I saw several problems with the article in question, and have written about some of these problems not once but twice. And when it comes to talking about FSD, I’m still not out of steam yet.

How can I run out of steam, when authors, interviewers, doctors, therapists, and yes even feminists, keep on cranking out & covering new material about FSD, yet continue to make some serious mistakes when doing so? Wypijewski’s article has been joined by another in its well-intentioned but short-sighted spirit - “Restless Vagina Syndrome”: Big Pharma’s Newest Fake Disease, by Terry Allen.

What a funny title for an article about female sexual dysfunction, or at least Kate Harding over at Jezebel and the eponymous Kate Harding’s Shapely Prose blog found the title giggle-inducing and “Brilliant.” I’m sure she is not alone in her amusement – After all, Restless Vagina Syndrome – it’s like Restless Leg Syndrome (Is RLS inherently funny?) except this time it takes place inside your vagina. At first glance, without any further information, the term sounds like it must be synonymous with a high sex drive and frequent easy orgasms. How could anyone possibly label that a medical condition?

Actually, Restless vagina syndrome isn’t talked about for the rest of Allen’s article at all; whoever came up with that title merely exploited a documented condition (which we’ll get to in a bit) because it made the article more eye-catching and amusing to some.
No wonder Kate Harding thought RVS is a joke – Terry Allen provides zero information about the grain of truth he is riffing off of, and by labeling it (and more broadly, FSD in general) “Fake,” he preemptively discredits anyone who says otherwise, even if that means effectively calling the women & researchers involved in studying FSD fools and liars. And, after having done a little homework on Allen’s claims, I think he was counting on readers not to double-check him.
(No one with FSD read the comments section at either the Jezebel or Alternet article, as some of the comments are even worse and may cause explody-head.)

Allen’s article spends more time talking about the kind of female sexual dysfunction we all know and love (except not really.) He and Harding raise concerns about Big Pharma trying to invent and then market “Female sexual dysfunction” (Harding leaves the term in skeptic/scare quotes,) which she at one point refers to as “Listless vagina syndrome.” (I think that’s supposed to be another joke except that it backfires against me since I identify as having FSD. Do you mean to say that my vagina is lazy too?)

Interestingly, Harding uses skeptic quotes when talking about FSD, even as she acknowledges that, okay, maybe some of us really do have sexual problems that merit treatment… after all, she herself benefited greatly from a proper diagnosis of ADHD. But overall, the sentiment in Allen’s & Harding’s posts is that FSD must be a fake disorder invented by Big Pharma, in order to generate more money from a previously untapped market. FSD couldn’t have possibly existed before modern medicine (except that it probably did.)

But because folks like she and I exist, people with “Real” medical problems (and here I’m using quotes because I’m not comfortable with claiming my problems are more real & valid than anyone else’s, just because I can back mine up with medical records, which have also been and will continue to have their value questioned anyway,) we are putting everyone else at risk of exploitation by Big Pharma. Because I want treatment for my sexual health problems, I bear the responsibility & burden of enabling Big Pharma sneaking its phallic tendrils into all of our bedrooms & regulating our sexuality. That regulation might come in pill form designed to increase our libidios – but never too much, for if we become too sexual, too promiscuous, we may just be diagnosed with the dreaded Restless Vagina Syndrome.

I was really curious; is Big Pharma really trying to develop and then exploit a new, fake disease, by piggybacking on something that sounds similar to restless leg syndrome? (Only, it’s the vagina that’s restless.) What is this?

So I started searching for more information on this so-called Restless Vagina Syndrome. Luckily we live in the age of the internet, so my first starting place was Google. That search didn’t yield me much hard information about whether Big Pharma ever put out any material about RVS though – mostly it just points me back to Terry Allen’s article.

I was able to find an RVS parody video – Tranquivag on YouTube. The video pre-dates Terry Allen’s article by about 2 years; it was originally uploaded to YouTube in 2007. Is this what he was referring to? Did he get duped by a group of comedians?
It’s a comedy clip, so it’s not meant to be taken seriously. Or at least, I sure hope it’s not meant to be taken seriously. The viewer is supposed to find it amusing that a woman could be disturbed by invasive genital sensations that interfere with everyday activity and periods of rest – after all, who would find such usually pleasant sensations so bothersome, that you would have to take a medication with major potential side effects? I think the audience is supposed to think something like, “What a foolish woman; if she is bothered by her restless vagina, she should just have sex or masturbate.”  That’s not the way I processed the video though; to me it looks like hipster irony that backfires by re-enforcing negative stereotypes about FSD & the women who have it.
The video directs viewers to www.ivegotmunchies.com, which features other videos.
But no, this probably isn’t what Allen is referring to.

Maybe Google isn’t the best place to look for medical texts & research. I jumped through some hoops and got onto some online database systems. After several failed attempts on other databases, MedLine finally pointed me probably the right direction:

Waldinger, M., Venema, P., van Gils, A., & Schweitzer, D. (2009). New insights into restless genital syndrome: static mechanical hyperesthesia and neuropathy of the nervus dorsalis clitoridis. The Journal Of Sexual Medicine, 6(10), 2778-2787. Retrieved from MEDLINE database. [I'm linking to PubMed here instead of MedLine, since MedLine isn't accessible to everyone.]

Alas, even I don’t have access to the full text, and so I’m restricted to the abstract. Luckily, the abstract is useful for this discussion.
Based on what I’m reading in the abstract,
This doesn’t sound very funny at all… Restless vagina syndrome: “You keep on using that word. I think you do not know what it means.”

According to one sex therapist, RVS, or more properly Restless genital syndrome or Persistent arousal syndrome, sounds like it could be a form of pudental nerve damage.

I already know from reading other vulvar pain bloggers, that damage to the pudental nerve is serious – for some patients, it can be extremely painful to live with on a daily basis, and there’s no single cure for it. In this case, if nerve damage is the culprit for RGS, it manifests as hypersensitive genitals, prone to frequent orgasms even in the absence of actual sexual desire. There maybe other causes of restless genital syndrome besides nerve damage as well.

Regardless of the cause, the women involved in the study describe several related symptoms that would certainly cause me great distress -

Of 23 women included in the study, 18(78%), 16(69%), and 12(52%) reported restless legs syndrome, overactive bladder syndrome, and urethra hypersensitivity. Intolerance of tight clothes and underwear (allodynia or hyperpathia) was reported by 19 (83%) women…

To anyone who laughed at Allen’s title, did you even know what you were giggling at?
Why is this funny?
How is this fake?
Would you actually be comfortable having an orgasm in front of a stranger or in a medical setting, as three of the women in that study are reported to have experienced? What if you were sitting on a bus and the woman next to you started going into an uninhibited orgasm, what would your reaction be? Envy, discomfort, leering, slut-shaming… acceptance?
Why, when nothing else provides long-term relief, would this not merit medical research and possible treatment?

That doesn’t sound funny or something deserving stigmatization, nor does it sound to me like a condition that will be pushed onto the general, healthy population at large. I can only imagine how many doctors RGS patients are bounced around to in search of someone who is not dismissive of their concerns. And to be one of those women who lives with such a condition, and to read articles like this, must be humiliating.

PubMed offers just a few journal article abstracts about restless genital syndrome. The dates on the most relevant journal abstracts are all from 2009. That the dates are so recent, is probably why Terry Allen refers to it as “New.”
I get a few more research results when I search for an alternate term, persistent arousal syndrome. This is a relatively new field of study, according to Wikipedia. And, so far, I have been able to find one not-so-new article, from 2002, that details several other case studies of patients with persistent arousal syndrome, some of whom were desperate for long-term relief. One said of her experience, that it “Makes me so upset that I cry, as I cannot function normally; I make mistakes, get very hungry, and do not sleep… I would like the sensations to go away. I want to feel I can make plans and not have the strong sexual desire to make me miserable not knowing if I’ll get satisfied.” (She was also having difficulty reaching orgasm.)

Is Big Pharma really inventing this syndrome, or is could it be that only now is research being done, after years of neglect? I recall that in all my searches, I did not find much scientific research about Vulvodynia from years prior to the 1980s, and most of the books covering the topic in depth only started appearing within the last decade. Was vulvodynia such a controversial topic when the research was new, too? How long was its existence denied by so-called experts and laypeople? Perhaps that is what is going on here.

But really, RGS actually plays a very small role in Terry Allen’s piece. He just needed something that sounded interesting to grab the reader’s attention.

As is often the case, Allen’s article spends a lot of time talking about low libido and orgasm difficulties in women. Allen goes so far as to actually acknowledge that sexual pain exists, but he does not build on that topic. Allen even acknowledges the need to include the patient’s own feelings about their sex life in whether or not a diagnosis of FSD is appropriate. He gets this additional qualifier of personal distress needing to be present from a November 2008 article in Obstetrics & Gynecology, which pinpoints the statistic to about 12% of the population having FSD… but even this study excluded sexual pain in the researchers definition of FSD! I wonder how the figures would change if pain were included in the statistics.
(Also, as a side note, I’d like to point out here that when Jezebel covered that Obstetrics & Gynecology article, writer Tracie sounded shocked that more women aren’t distressed by their sex problems. I’m getting mixed messages here…)

Allen’s biggest concern, and one I’ve seen repeated elsewhere, is that Big Pharma has a vested interest in getting women to feel personal distress about their sex lives. The introductory line to his article goes so far as to claim that,

The pharmaceutical industry wants you to think that if you don’t have sex like a porn star, you’re in need of their drugs.

Even though I’ve been wandering the labyrinth of FSD for awhile now, I can’t say I’ve bumped into any doctors or reputable drug companies that say this to me. I’ve run into porn sites that tell me I should have sex like a porn star, and I’ve overheard conversations my peers have that tell me that. I’ve read that message in magazines and I’ve seen it on TV and in movies. And I’ve even gotten that impression while shopping for new sex toys. Sometimes, even the most sex-positive of sex toy stores, still manges to make me feel like I am somehow not measuring up, because I cannot or will not use one such toy or another, and because I cannot or will not have sex in certain positions.

Big Pharma doesn’t need to make me feel insecure about my sex life.
The culture in which I live does that already. Not only am I distressed by the experience of physical pain, but that pain is compunded by other messages I receive more broadly.
Why doesn’t Allen think about Big Porn, Big TV, Big Magazine and Big Body Image Distortion? For me, these are much bigger culprits I have to learn to navigate around in my sex life than Big Pharma.

Allen’s position is that if Big Pharma can get women convinced that there is something wrong with them for not having the sex life that Big Pharma (or, really mainstream media,) says they should be having, then Big Pharma can step in with cures, and thus make money. As examples, he cites the Orgasmatron, an accidental discovery stemming out of chronic pain treatment which has nonetheless been sensationalized by the media, (I wonder if the media raised the alarms when the Hitatchi Magic Wand first became readily available?) and LexaFem, an oral pill that has no entry on WebMD. (Must be an herbal stimulant or something. Not sure how likely it is that any doctor would prescribe LexaFem to me.) Allen is also sure to note Viagra’s use off-label for some women with FSD, and the dangers of using hormones to stimulate desire. (I’m not sure where that leaves me, as someone who had her hormone levels measured and found to be out of range for a healthy woman in her early 20s following birth control pill use. I’ve already used hormones, including estrogen & testosterone, to treat vulvodynia, although mine was a topical medication. That wasn’t in patch or pill form, but it’s still hormones. Am I supposed to be scared into not using them ever again? I still keep a little expired bottle of prescription hormone gel under my bed as a safety blanket.)

Allen then talks about conflicts of interest in medical research. Some of the studies on FSD have been sponsored by drug companies, including some of the bigger, more widely reocognized studies. It’s definitely worth taking a second look at these company-funded studies and thinking about how much influence that company may have had in the study’s outcome.

There’s two issues I can think of right off the bat that complicate matters regarding research independence. The first is, if these research studies, and others, about FSD including RGS are in fact independent of drug company funding, would Allen still be so quick to call FSD “Fake?” Does independence automatically redeem research? What about if independent studies draw the same conclusions that drug funded ones do?
One problem I myself am faced with is that, with the Restless Genital Syndrome articles I linked to above – I can’t tell from looking at the abstracts, whether these are independent research studies or whether they were sponsored by drug companies. I think I may need the full text to examine the full financial disclosure, if there is any provided.

The other issue I have with funding for research is, according to a recent NVA e-newsletter, some studies on Vulvodynia are also funded at least in part by drug companies. In this newsletter, I see Pfizer gave a financial award to Dr. Pukall of Ontario, Canada, for her research into vulvodynia & neuropathy.
Vulvodynia & pelvic pain conditions are still very much mysterious, misunderstood areas of women’s health. Can we afford to outright reject new research on vulvodynia and FSD broadly, on the basis that it is funded in part by drug companies? Or is it sufficient that patients, doctors and advocates be ready to closely examine these studies for possible bias?

Allen concludes his article with a quote by Liz Canner, mastermind behind the new film Orgasm Inc, which takes a critical look at the Big Pharma’s involvement in FSD. It is becoming increasingly clear to me that even though I don’t particularly want to watch this film and it will probably give me a brain aneurysm, eventually I’m not going to have any choice but to force myself to watch it sooner or later. Canner says,

“Maybe the best approach is not ineffective, over-hyped drugs with nasty side effects, but an end to disease mongering and a strong dose of comprehensive sex education”

Allen then tacks on, “Her film hits female erogenous zones that pharmaceutical fixes can’t find: your brain and your funny bone.”

What sort of sex education does Canner have in mind? How comprehensive are we talking here? In Canner’s sex education class, will we be focusing on the Masters & Johnson model of sexuality, or will we provided a wider variety of sex education materials? Will we be taking a Western point of view or a more global one that looks at many cultures and sexuality?
I ask because the sex education I went through a few years ago, was sorely lacking.
I would hope that Canner’s definition of sex education includes not just a critical examination of Big Pharma, but of the culture in which we live – a culture which both markets and condemns sexual activity. A culture that is uneasy talking openly about masturbation, consent and mutual pleasure. A culture which, in media depictions, often upholds sex and gender roles in sexuality, and leaves many subjects, such as BDSM, porn, open relationships, and certainly painful sex, taboo.

When Canner talks about sex ed, is she willing to spend any time educating the general public on the subject of dyspareunia, which can be (and for me is,) a form of FSD, and whether or not it’s worth treating? Or is dyspareunia to be overlooked in sex education the way it was during my high school sex ed, precisely because it can be a form of FSD?
I wish someone had taught me about vulvodynia earlier on. Would Canner consider that a form of “Disease mongering” too?

As for Allen’s last statement, he himself has to look a little harder to find my funny bone. Or perhaps I’m just one of those legendary dead-on-the-inside humorless harpy feminists, one who takes sexual dysfunction much too seriously.
Regardless, based on what I’ve seen Allen and others write about FSD & Big Pharma so far, I’m not so sure that I myself would find Canner’s film particularly funny. This is yet another example of an article about FSD which, rather than amuse and educate me, distresses & drains me.

In our four plus years together, my wife and I have eventually found out that one of us is better at something than the other. Now I don’t know if this is just because of diplomacy or ego building, but this person is labeled the ‘expert’ at this task.

Am I really better at driving than my wife? Probably not, but damned if I am not the expert driver in our house. I think it is just because my wife doesn’t want to drive the 5 hours on our typical road trip. It works I guess, because I get to be the expert at something, and that is better than not being the expert at anything at all. Of course, my wife is really better at her expertise areas, like loading the dishwasher. (I can’t do puzzle-like tasks apparently.) Maybe that’s what it is, I get to be the expert for reasons of her convenience, and she is the expert at things that if I don’t do right, will result in my death or dismemberment. I mean really, how hard is it to mow the lawn? How can somebody be the ‘expert’ at that? But I am, and it works.

EXPERTS have sent out a warning to Brits buying DIY botox kits online and injecting themselves with the drug.

Injecting the wrinkle smoothing jab can cause paralysis and blindness.

Figures show a rising number of Brits in the recession are using cheaper homekits, costing around £100 rather than spending £250-£300 for surgery treatment.

Buyers learn how to inject themselves using crude injection sheets or by following videos posted online.

Gwen Davies of the Clinic group Transform, based in Manchester said: “Buying botox off the internet is very dangerous, bypassing the procedures which are in place to protect the public.”

In the UK, Botox is a prescription-only drug but can be bought from internet sites, mainly in Russia and the Far East.

Online Pharmacy Escrow is a Canada based drug store also selling Botox online.

Sometimes people take it too far,and botox goes wrong

Sunday evening is always a problem. The kids know they go back to school in the morning, and they’re sullen and morose. Even if they did their homework they know there’s probably something wrong with it – something they overlooked, some mistake they just could not see no matter how many times they stared at the page. They watch a bit of television, glowering and angry, at what they can’t say, because they don’t yet know – that will come tomorrow. And the father knows he goes back to work in the morning – another week if saying things are fine when he’s not sure they are, doing what must be done, being pleasant to the boss and the customers when he’d rather walk away, and perhaps dealing with subordinates who think he’s a fool or a weakling, or hope he is. Mom may work and have the same feelings, or else know she faces another week the home and hearth stuff – making things right for those who won’t say a word about it, as that’s what she’s supposed to do, without comment.

Everyone feels a bit murderous on a Sunday night – even the kid’s teachers, who feel Sisyphus had it easy. There are lesson plans and then there’s reality. As the military folks say, no battle plan survives the first encounter with the enemy. It’s like that. It always is, kids being what they are. And perhaps the reason CBS’ “60 Minutes” was such an overwhelming success on Sunday evenings in America, for decade after decade, is that Sunday evening is when you want to see someone else in awful trouble, ambushed by Mike Wallace and the hidden cameras and all that, or you want to see some big shot on the hot seat, explaining what he cannot explain. It serves’ em right.

And of course this drives many into a forced crash-course in existential philosophy. What does this all mean? Why is this so? Is everything somehow, in the end, absurd, without inherent meaning? Do we have make it up as we go along, slapping meaning on some elaborate but personal Monty Python skit, but one with no humor in it? Sunday evening can lead you to deep thoughts. No, we’re not talking about that kind – “Before you criticize someone, walk a mile in their shoes. That way, you’ll be a mile from them, and you’ll have their shoes.”

No, we’re talking about the other kind. Between 1982 and 1992, Dennis Prager moderated a popular weekly radio show in Los Angeles on ABC radio – just the thing to listen to with the wife on the way home from Sunday dinner with the mother-in-law. That show was all about the big questions, and you didn’t have to think about Monday morning, and you also didn’t have to answer questions about what you really thought of the mother-in-law. It was a gift – the show featured a Roman Catholic priest, a Protestant minister and a rabbi, and beginning about 1987, a Muslim.

Prager mentions that show here – but he doesn’t get to the essence of it, or really, his pet thesis. Every Sunday evening it was the same thing, the same question – how can there be ethical behavior, much less any kind of morality at all, without religion? And then he’d let each faith have its say – my religion is just as ethical and moral as yours, and maybe more so, given this, that or the other thing. And they argued.

Of course that got deep, and sometimes kind of silly, but then they’d all smugly agree that those poor people who were indifferent to religion, or even opposed to like, like the hard-core atheists, must feel it’s okay to lie, cheat, steal, rape and murder. What else could they think? They had no grounding in what was right and wrong, which comes from religion and no place else. Everyone agreed on that, and the show ended for the evening. And then of course much later Prager went on to become the most hysterical of the defenders of all things George Bush – Bush was everything that was good and right about America, and God. See Dennis Prager calls liberals “Barbarians”‎ – by opposing torture liberals want us all to die, or some such thing.

But no matter – here in Hollywood on a Sunday evening, even with his old radio show long gone, his thesis lives on. Call it The Prager Hypothesis.

But it is a hypothesis. And any hypothesis can and should be tested. You want to know if observable facts match what is claimed to be true.

And in fact, Heather MacDonald just doesn’t seem to appreciate how the faithful connect religion to ethics:

Would someone please provide an example of a. someone actually claiming that murder, say, (or theft) is fine at all times and places, or b. someone claiming that murder (or theft) is fine at all times and places because there is no God, or c. someone claiming that murder (or theft) is fine at all times and places because there is no God, and then being recalled to sanity by an invocation of the Sixth (or Eighth) Commandment?

I have simply never witnessed the need to reference to God to establish the validity of our laws against extortion, say. Real-world moral disputes are more complicated: Is health care a right? Who should pay for it and how much should one group pay for another’s health care? Is economic regulation theft? Is theft admissible to stave off starvation? We answer these questions by drawing on our innate and developed moral intuitions and our society’s legal framework.

Does anyone really believe that Denmark and Copenhagen are going to stop enforcing contract law because they have “exhausted the patrimony” of Leviticus and are uncomfortable invoking God as the source of their commercial code?

She suggests one look at how things have worked out over time:

During large swathes of European history when religious belief was at its pinnacle, burning heretics at the stake and bludgeoning to death members of opposing sects were considered perfectly compatible with the Ten Commandments. Today, we would disagree, not because we have suddenly discovered that murder is wrong, but because that inevitable human taboo has been fleshed out differently, under pressure from Enlightenment values. In 1608, Pope Paul V ordered that Rafael’s Deposition, painted to honor a mother’s fallen son, be spirited in the dark of night away from its home in Perugia’s church of S. Francesco al Prato. Paul V bestowed it on his nephew, Scipione Borghese, for his art collection. Today, a pope would not secretly purloin an altarpiece painting, not because he has suddenly discovered the Eighth Commandment, but because our conception of the proper scope of papal power has changed.

Well, as a Sunday night thought, that does raise the question of authority itself, of who has the say as to right or wrong, be they secular, or, as they say, profane? Clay Shirky, writing about whom to trust on the web, but implying more, considers that:

Authority… performs a dual function; looking to authorities is a way of increasing the likelihood of being right, and of reducing the penalty for being wrong. An authoritative source isn’t just a source you trust; it’s a source you and other members of your reference group trust together. This is the non-lawyer’s version of “due diligence” – it’s impossible to be right all the time, but it’s much better to be wrong on good authority than otherwise, because if you’re wrong on good authority, it’s not your fault.

So let’s make that operational, or mundane, and consider a popular politician much in the news, who many people trust implicitly, even though what she says can be disproved, or she later says is nonsense, or at least contradicts what she previously said. Somehow that doesn’t seem to matter, as Sarah Palin has some sort of inherent authority in many eyes. They trust her.

This is a logical puzzle, but explained by David Benjamin:

There are no lies in Sarah’s book – nor in her life, nor in her heart. Utterances that seem untrue are not lies, because Sarah believes them true. If she says one thing, then later forgets what she said and says the opposite, Sarah Palin is neither lying nor mistaken, nor forgetful, because at each moment, she believes what she has said. And a minute later, she will believe something else, if she says it. Whatever she says, if she says it, will be true. But if it’s not, so what? It’s words, only words.

Sooner or later, words fail everyone. This goes double for Sarah and her faithful. Sarah Palin is the voice – and the embodiment – of the inarticulate.

In the Sunday Times of London, Andrew Sullivan, considering her new book, puts it this way:

Palin is indeed a feisty Alaskan and a genuine triumph of red-state feminism. But her narrative is embellished and embroidered to such an extent that it resembles not so much a memoir as a work of magical realism.

If you treat it as a factual narrative you will soon falter. Among the few early reactions were those of Nicolle Wallace – a McCain campaign staffer – who said of one passage: “It is pure fiction. No such discussion took place.” A reporter Palin says targeted her daughter Piper after a press conference was never at the press conference cited. Palin’s claim that she was personally billed $50,000 for vetting is point blank denied by the McCain campaign. Palin’s account of her record in the Exxon Valdez lawsuit was described last week by the chief lawyer for the case as “the most cockamamie bullshit”. I could go on.

None of this is particularly surprising. Palin has a long and documented record of saying things that are empirically untrue but asserting them as if her own imagination is the only source of objective reality. So you simply read the book as if it is fiction and enjoy it. Or you read it as non-fiction and believe that Palin is a magical mythical figure who defies the laws of time and space and normal human nature.

Thus Dennis Prager thinks she’s wonderful – or maybe he thinks she’s divine, but not in the vernacular sense.

Well, as another Sunday night thought, that does raise the question of listening to wise men on the radio, or watching them on television, or reading their wise columns in the major newspapers. Take the man they call the Dean of Washington Politics, the Washington Post’s elderly David Broder with this recent column:

The more President Obama examines our options in Afghanistan, the less he likes the choices he sees. But, as the old saying goes, to govern is to choose – and he has stretched the internal debate to the breaking point.

It is evident from the length of this deliberative process and from the flood of leaks that have emerged from Kabul and Washington that the perfect course of action does not exist. Given that reality, the urgent necessity is to make a decision – whether or not it is right.

Steve Benen comments:

The Commander in Chief, in other words, should put expediency over merit. Speed is preferable to accuracy. It’s only the longest military conflict in American history, with the future of U.S. foreign policy on the line – the president should worry less about due diligence and thoughtful analysis, and worry more about picking a course, even if it’s wrong. Other than the loss of American servicemen and women, untold billions of dollars, and undermining U.S. interests in a critical region, what’s the worst that can happen?

Benen notes “a painful decline in the quality of Broder’s analysis” in recent years, but this column is absurd:

He’s effectively calling for President Obama to act and think more like President Bush – make decisions first, and think through the consequences and implications second.

Worse, Broder goes so far as to castigate the administration for “all this dithering” – using Dick Cheney’s preferred choice of words.

The premise of the piece is that a decision is needed immediately. Where did this arbitrary deadline come from? Broder doesn’t say; he just warns of the Taliban “coming back in Afghanistan,” as if the Taliban hasn’t already reclaimed much of the country.

Afghanistan hasn’t gone well over the years, but Broder can’t imagine that might because of how Bush made decisions, or had decisions come to him in a flash of inspiration rather than thought.

Benen has a hypothesis:

Indeed, reading today’s Broder piece I get the distinct impression that the columnist had lunch with John McCain at some point this week, and then rushed back to his desk to jot down the senator’s criticism. That’s a shame. Given the reality, Broder was facing an editorial deadline, and he decided the urgent necessity was to write a column – whether or not it was right.

That could be. But Broder is matched by the Post’s Jackson Diehl:

Bush was renowned for summoning plenty of resolve, and not enough critical thinking. No one questioned that Bush’s heart was in his bid for “victory” in Iraq. Not a few wondered whether he had weighed carefully enough whether dispatching 20,000 more American troops in early 2007 was a reasoned strategy or a reckless gamble.

Obama, on the other hand, is known for his rationality. But his personal commitment to the two wars he inherited has not been so obvious.

It seems, as with those who trust Palin, you want personal commitment, not thinking:

That question brings us to the biggest difference between Obama’s Afghanistan review and Bush’s on Iraq – and to the most compelling cause for unease about this president. …

Another week or two of thinking won’t hurt. But the impression that gets created is of a president who knows what course he must take – one of expanding American involvement in a difficult and increasingly unpopular war – but can’t bring himself to embrace it. It’s an image that risks undermining any commitment Obama eventually makes. In the end, it’s not enough for a president to be seen as having thought through a decision to send more troops to war. Enemies, allies and the country also need to be convinced that he believes in it.

David Sirota calls out this nonsense in Intelligentsia against Intelligence:

In the parlance of our times, the term “idiocracy” means a nation run by idiots – and the term “idiot” is defined by the dictionary as “an utterly foolish or senseless person” who exhibits “a mental age of less than 3 years old.”

There are obvious reasons to believe America is becoming an idiocracy – a series of horrendous government and business decisions strongly suggest that we’ve seen the ascension of utterly foolish, senseless people, many with the mental age of infants (yes, W., I’m looking at you). And if there remained any flicker of hope that we aren’t turning into a full-on slobbering idiocracy, that hope was snuffed out last week by two of the Washington intelligentsia’s most respected voices.

So we have the “dean” of the press corps attacking President Obama “not for choosing any particular policy, but for simply taking time to meticulously consider his options in the Central Asian quagmire.” And Jackson Diehl, the Post’s foreign policy “expert” saying we should all be uneasy with Obama:

Diehl’s rationale for such an incendiary statement? He alleged (without proof, of course) that “there is unanimity in the Pentagon and considerable agreement in Congress and among the NATO allies” that a military escalation has to happen – and therefore Obama “knows (the pro-escalation) course he must take” but “can’t bring himself to embrace it.”

How does Diehl know this? It seems one just knows such things. Some people prefer observable facts, but some don’t. And Sirota sees a deeper issue here:

As leading opinion-makers, Broder and Diehl are paid to carefully ponder issues and then offer their considered thoughts. That’s not part of what they’re supposed to do – it’s what they are singularly employed to do. It’s how they earn their living and credibility – indeed, it’s their entire raison d’être. And yet, these leading lights of the intelligentsia are overtly preaching anti-intelligence, insisting the president must avoid taking time to think through his actions.

This isn’t interpretation – it’s what these Beltway sages are literally saying. Broder is explicitly demanding Obama make a knee-jerk decision – any decision – even if it has catastrophic consequences. Likewise, Diehl is calling for Obama to immediately risk thousands of American lives simply because that’s what Diehl believes the establishment wants.

And as these are just two of many similar examples, Sirota see a deeply disturbing trend:

It’s one thing for talk-show-host wannabe Sarah Palin or carnival-barking provocateur Glenn Beck to glamorize willful ignorance – that’s been the narcissistic act of celebrity court jesters since the dawn of history. But it’s an entirely different thing when hostility to intelligence and to the basic process of thinking itself emanates from the very professional thinkers who lead the nation’s intelligentsia.

When that happens – when the supposed guardians of political cognition and empiricism begin publicly flaying leaders for taking time to fully evaluate potential decisions – it’s a sign our country is becoming the ignorance-deifying idiocracy we should all fear.

And here on a Sunday night, the very evening for the weekly forced crash-course in existential philosophy and weary contemplation of the absurd, when one does tend to consider of the supposed guardians of cognition and empiricism, questions arise. Who are we listening to, and why do we believe them at all? And given such murderous thoughts, what’s the point of going to work Monday morning? What would they say about that?

But tomorrow is another day, if only by definition.



Jonah Lehrer at The Frontal Cortex has an interesting bit up on expertise. The parts I found most interesting were on punditry and mutual fund managers. Key quotes……

Look, for instance, at mutual fund managers. They take absurdly huge fees from our retirement savings, but the vast majority of mutual funds in any given year will underperform the S&P 500 and other passive benchmarks. (Between 1982 and 2003, there have only been three years in which more than 50 percent of mutual funds beat the market.) Even those funds that do manage to outperform the market rarely do so for long. Their models work haphazardly; their success is inconsistent.

Or look at political experts. In the early 1980s, Philip Tetlock at UC Berkeley picked two hundred and eighty-four people who made their living “commenting or offering advice on political and economic trends” and began asking them to make predictions about future events. He had a long list of pertinent questions. Would George Bush be re-elected? Would there be a peaceful end to apartheid in South Africa? Would Quebec secede from Canada? Would the dot-com bubble burst? In each case, the pundits were asked to rate the probability of several possible outcomes. Tetlock then interrogated the pundits about their thought process, so that he could better understand how they made up their minds. By the end of the study, Tetlock had quantified 82,361 different predictions.

After Tetlock tallied up the data, the predictive failures of the pundits became obvious. Although they were paid for their keen insights into world affairs, they tended to perform worse than random chance. Most of Tetlock’s questions had three possible answers; the pundits, on average, selected the right answer less than 33 percent of the time. In other words, a dart-throwing chimp would have beaten the vast majority of professionals. Tetlock also found that the most famous pundits in Tetlock’s study tended to be the least accurate, consistently churning out overblown and overconfident forecasts. Eminence was a handicap.

But here’s the worst part: even terrible expert advice can reliably tamp down activity in brain regions (like the anterior cingulate cortex) that are supposed to monitor mistakes and errors. It’s as if the brain is intimidated by credentials, bullied by bravado. The perverse result is that we fail to skeptically check the very people making mistakes with our money. I think one of the core challenges in fixing our economy is to make sure we design incentive systems to reward real expertise, and not faux-experts with no track record of success.

Occasionally watching CNBC with my wife, I am struck by how young some of the “experts” appear to be. The divergence of opinions, given with complete sincerity (ha!) is also remarkable. There are people like Buffett and Soros who do seem able to beat the market, but the large majority are just making money off of other people’s money while adding no value.

Punditry comes off even worse in my opinion. They make predictions that do not come true, with less frequency than one would expect from mere chance. They do this publicly on air or in print. Their lack of success does not faze them. They keep predicting and the public keeps listening and quoting them. One would think that if the free market worked as applied to punditry, the better paid, more famous pundits would do better, Alas, that is not the case.

So, when I hear the pundits say this program will fix all of our problems, I take it with a grain of salt. When some expert breathlessly announces we will go bankrupt if we pass some bill, I do not panic. The odds are on my side.

“Hundreds of private e-mail messages and documents hacked from a computer server at a British university are causing a stir among global warming skeptics, who say they show that climate scientists conspired to overstate the case for a human influence on climate change” (New York Times, 20 November 2009; “Hacked e-mail is new fodder for climate dispute”, by Andrew C. Revkin).

Mutatis mutandis, the same story could be written about HIV/AIDS:

“The e-mail messages, attributed to prominent American and British climate HIV/AIDS researchers, include discussions of scientific data and whether it should be released, exchanges about how best to combat the arguments of skeptics, and casual comments — in some cases derisive — about specific people known for their skeptical views. . . . In one e-mail exchange, a scientist writes of using a statistical ‘trick’ (and a computer model) in a chart illustrating a recent sharp warming trend increase in HIV/AIDS. In another, a scientist refers to climate HIV/AIDS skeptics as “idiots.” . . .
Some of the correspondence portrays the scientists as feeling under siege by the skeptics’ camp and worried that any stray comment or data glitch could be turned against them. The evidence pointing to a growing human contribution to global warming HIV as cause of AIDS is so widely accepted that the hacked material is unlikely to erode the overall argument. However, the documents will undoubtedly raise questions about the quality of research on some specific questions and the actions of some scientists. In several e-mail exchanges, Kevin Trenberth, a climatologist at the National Center for Atmospheric Research, (any of Fauci, Gallo, etc.) and other scientists discuss gaps in understanding of recent variations in temperature failures of vaccine trails, increasing death rate from side effects of HAART, and no sign of heterosexual HIV/AIDS epidemics outside Africa. Skeptic Web sites pointed out one line in particular: “The fact is that we can’t account for the lack of warming findings that viral load, CD4 counts, and clinical progression are not correlated with one another . . . and it is a travesty that we can’t,”  . . . . The revelations are bound to inflame the public debate . . . .
Dr. Trenberth (you choose) said Friday that he was appalled at the release of the e-mail messages. But he added that he thought the revelations might backfire against climate HIV/AIDS skeptics. He said that he thought that the messages showed “the integrity of scientists.” Still, some of the comments might lend themselves to being interpreted as sinister. In a 1999 e-mail exchange about charts showing climate HIV/AIDS patterns over the last two millenniums, Phil Jones (you choose), a longtime climate HIV/AIDS researcher . . . said he had used a ‘trick’ . . . to ‘hide the decline’ in temperatures HIV and AIDS numbers. . . . Dr. Mann (you choose) . . . said the choice of words by his colleague was poor but noted that scientists often used the word ‘trick’ to refer to a good way to solve a problem, ‘and not something secret.’ . . . .
But several scientists whose names appear in the e-mail messages said they merely revealed that scientists were human, and did nothing to undercut the body of HIV/AIDS research on global warming.”
[Yes, it does. Since humans can make mistakes, and since scientists are now acknowledged to be human, therefore scientists can make mistakes and claims made by scientists may be wrong --- especially when they have conspired for a decade or two or three to suppress data that contradicts the theory they have been peddling.]

“At first, said Dr. Michaels, the climatologist who has faulted some of the science of the global warming consensus, his instinct was to ignore the correspondence as ‘just the way scientists talk.’
But . . . after reading more deeply, he felt that some exchanges reflected an effort to block the release of data for independent review. He said some messages mused about discrediting him by challenging the veracity of his doctoral dissertation at the University of Wisconsin by claiming he knew his research was wrong. ‘This shows these are people (John P. Moore, Mark Wainberg, et al.) willing to bend rules and go after other people’s reputations in very serious ways,’ he said.”

“Spencer R. Weart, a physicist and historian who is charting the course of research on global warming, said the hacked material would serve as ‘great material for historians.’”
So will the files of Peter Duesberg, John Lauritsen, Neville Hodgkinson, Joan Shenton, Gordon Stewart, and the many other courageous fighters for the integrity of HIV/AIDS research.