The Curmudgeon Speaks

I have been baffled lately by the number of GOP politicians I see in my Twitter feed. There are few that I follow, but my feed lately has been dominated by the GOP politicians and the GOP organization complaining about Biden’s documents and Buttigieg’s computer failure grounding planes. I take the time to explain the misinformation in both positions, but I get tired of repeating myself.

This problem recently seems to have grown much more severe. I have an easy way to combat the frequency of tweets from those I don’t follow. You can use Twitter in chronological order or to prioritize top tweets. Chronological order will show you the tweets from those you follow in chronological order and other content will follow if you keep scrolling. I want to see the Tweets from the people I follow and not the tweets selected by Twitter’s algorithms. On your desktop, you should see a “star” symbol in the upper right-hand corner of the Twitter screen to change this setting.

I have trying to locate this adjustment on my phone (iOS) and have not been able to find it. Finally, I did a search and found that Musk has changed this feature. So, it wasn’t my imagination, Twitter has been modified for the iPhone and offers less control over what users view.

I have been exploring the educational and hobby opportunities in hydroponic gardening now for a couple of years. In the late fall, I plant tomatoes and lettuce so we can have salads using our own produce. The tomatoes are just ripening now.

We have been interested in the potential of solar energy and decided to add panels to our home. We don’t really have high electric bills and were told when the panels were installed that we should not really expect to see any income from our investment. In part, they can make such predictions from an understanding of your normal consumption of electricity and the orientation of your roof. They were correct. In a good month (June in the example that follows we covered about half of our consumption).

After the first few months, I started to wonder what would happen in the winter expecting the panels to be covered by snow producing no electricity. This turned out to be partially the case, but so far snow depth of several inches with moderate temperatures has eventually slid off the panels. Perhaps a more important issue has been the frequency of overcast days we experience in the winter. You produce some electricity on a cloudy day, but not much. Clouds and snow can mean nothing generated for the day.

June – generated $64

December – generated $4.20

This image shows one set of panels (the other is on a different section of roof). You can see what I mean by the snow eventually sliding off the panels by comparing the panels to the depth on the adjacent area of the roof.

There are many data collection and analyses options associated with solar and this represents a project-based learning opportunity for educators.

It was the day before Christmas. I went to the dump. The guys were all working. Made me feel like a chump. …. [creativity ends]

I have taken nearly this same photo several times, but my dump buddy was not wearing his suit this year. Thanks Google photos for finding what I was thinking of from my collection of thousands.

If there is a message in this insight, it is one of appreciating opportunities and good times. Our year included a few negative experiences, but mostly life was good and we end with everyone well. We hope it is the same with you and yours.

We are spending the holidays at the lake place with Josh/Lynn and Todd/Jess and kids. Kim/Jim, Sid and Frankie will be joining by Zoom. The weather has been very wintery, but too cold for all but necessary outside activities. Great for photos and watching the holiday movies and football games. We save “Emmit Otter’s Jug Band Christmas” for this evening.

Happy holiday.

If I have hobbies, they would be technology and photography. Some time ago, my wife invested in an Indigogo project that combines both. The Bird Buddy is a bird feeder that contains a camera triggered by nearby moving objects. Such objects are intended to be birds. Think of one of those video doorbells positioned inside a bird feeder.

The camera captures pictures of these birds and sends them to your phone allowing you to keep copies of the birds you photograph. The system makes use of artificial intelligence that attempts to identify the birds and provides some facts about range, habits, and diet. The identification works pretty well. You can set the system up to post the images to social media, but I would find regular posts of birds in my account annoying so I don’t.

The following images show the Bird Buddy and pictures of a male and young female Cardinal our Buddy captured. The images are high quality.

I think we have captured pretty much every species we see in the winter. Now, it is fun to see just what interesting poses you get. The Spring should bring some new visitors.

I call this one “chubs”.

I wonder if you begin to appreciate the value of history as you put in a few years and begin to have a little history yourself. I don’t remember much from my exposure to the history that is required as part of my high school education. It was probably one of those subject areas to which I was indifferent and did what I had to in preparation for examinations. I purposefully avoided history courses in college and favored other areas of social science to meet requirements. Sociology and psychology seemed more practical and I eventually pursued graduate degrees in psychology.

The notion that history repeats itself is frequently offered as a rationale for the universal study of history. I guess this is valid, but how does anyone decide which parts of history are relevant? The cumulative nature of history means that the options are pretty much endless and happening on useful examples seem rather random. I now dabble reading a few things here and there that others recommend.

After that lengthy intro, this post is a recommendation for a podcast offered by television personality Rachael Maddow. Rachael’s capabilities as a researcher and storyteller make the time investment both enlightening and entertaining. The podcast, Ultra, describes the history of an attempt by the ultra right to install an authoritarian government in the United States during World War II. With the assistance of Germain Nazi agents, politicians and at least one religious leader with a large radio audience supported and encouraged multiple extremists groups (America First, The Christian Front) that organized, secured significant stock piles of weapons, and engaged in sabotage of several munition plants. Politicians were using the franking privileges provided as a benefit of their office to distribute propaganda developed by German operatives in an effort to undermine the war effort and overthrow the U.S. government. The Justice Department found it difficult to investigate and Senators were able to remove DOJ personnel working on prosecutions. Scary stuff and a lesson to those in present time assuming the U.S. political system is immune to the efforts of bad actors. Substitute the Internet for mass mailing and popular radio personalities, different actors within a hesitant DOJ, other radical organizations as substitutes for America First and The Christian Front, Russia rather than Germany, and different politicians seeking power and wealth and the circumstances of the 1940s could be our present environment.

The true story is as engaging as popular political thrillers and spy novels I admit to having consumed. Presently the most popular podcast in the country, there are presently eight episodes each of which is approximately one-half hour in length. The link I provide above takes you to a website that provides links to the episodes and provides additional images and documents associated with each episode.

When you get older you may have to find different ways of doing things. Back in the day we went to football games outside when the temps approached zero. Now, I get cold when I sit through a game in the 30s.

Yesterday, the temps were in the teens, but Cindy and I came prepared. Electric socks and gloves. Supposedly 5 hours on a single charge. I tool the conservative approach and did not turn on the power until the game and then on the low setting. Cindy used hers during the tailgate and ran out of power during the 4th quarter. The conservative approach kept me warm to see the disappointing loss at the end of the game in comfort.

I find the process of political campaigning very frustrating. Political ads that are simplistic and I know are making false claims have always been an issue that sets me off. If you ou can’t claim that cigarettes are good for you in an ad, why can you make a false claim in a political ad.

I recently encountered an explanation that addressed this topic directly and is worth reviewing. Yes, lying in political ads is allowed and protected. It is important to understand this so you are not confused and don’t reach false conclusions about the ads you watch on television.

I recently watched an interview with an ad expert who was asked about the effectiveness of political ads and what type of ads are most successful. He was also asked about Republican vs. Democratic messaging. He proposed that Democrats don’t understand what works and that they keep trying to explain things. He suggested that productive ads make simple claims and are repeated many times. I could see myself in this analysis. I just don’t believe a lot of issues – e.g., the economy – are simple and careful analysis and evidence offer explanations requiring a different conclusion than what is often claimed in a simple way. I know these people’s eyes may start to glaze over when I try to explain, but I can’t help it. If you want to actually understand, you sometimes have to go a little deeper and invest a little effort in understanding.

So, this is likely to be my last political post before the election. I want to address what seems to be the top political issue as I understand the polls. Despite significant issues such as climate change, inequity, and the right of women to choose, the number one issue seems to be the economy and whether Democratic leaders are responsible for inflation. My mind generates the image of the sticker of Biden pointing at the total for your gas purchase Republicans have added to gas pumps when this claim is made.

There are many facts I think argue that Democrats and especially Democratic leaders are not responsible for high costs and inflation. First, this is a world-wide challenge and it just makes no sense that Pelosi and Biden control world-wide economic issues. Second, alternative explanations seem obvious. Energy problems have been created because of the war in Ukraine and OPEC. I suppose Biden could stop supporting Ukraine, but is this what the American people actually want? We also know that companies providing goods and services are generating record profits suggesting that cost increases to consumers are not totally a function of political decisions.

Have the Democrats done nothing in response to economic challenges? Facts should indicate that multiple steps have been taken sometimes exclusively based on the votes of Democrats and sometimes despite active efforts of the Republicans to block. The effort of President Biden to reduce college student debt makes an obvious example of this second situation. Biden is trying to reduce student loan debt by $10,000 ($20,000 in some situations) and it is being blocked in court by Republications.

The only major economic move I remember from the Trump years was the reduction of more than a trillion dollars in the tax expectation from big companies. The argument was that this would stimulate infrastructure investments and salary increases from these companies. This is not what the companies emphasized and stock buybacks were a common use for the money. Yes, this drove up the value of stocks and those of us with significant holdings in the market benefitted. However, this is an example of the rich getting richer.

Specific efforts by Democrats to address the economy:

Chips bill – effort to bring industries generating computer components back to the U.S.

Inflation Reduction Act – title of the bill makes the focus obvious. Use this link to see who voted for and who was against.

Infrastructure bill – a jobs bill

One final observation. How people understand the economy varies. Yes, we are paying more for gas and eggs. This is obvious. However, consider that the employment rate shows unemployment is the lowest it has been since the ’60s. If you have been unable to find work, this would seem to be a good thing. One of those complexities people don’t want to consider is at play here. When more people work, there is more money to spend which increases inflation. This is what the Fed is trying to address by raising interest rates which make homes and any purchase made with borrowed money more expensive. When interest rates go up inflation goes down, but when money is more expensive to borrow, spending and employment decrease. Who will politicians blame then? Throw in evidence that the increase in jobs is mainly low paying jobs and objections to raising the minimum wage is not a cause many politicians will support and you have an even more complete picture of the economic situation. Turn this into a fifteen second television ad.

Elon Musk’s successful purchase of Twitter and the questionable behavior that has followed has caused users to quit or at least seek an alternative. I am waiting to see what happens and I would be reluctant to leave until after the election season has passed. This seems a critical time and not the time to withdraw. I am also concerned about heavily populated silos and then impact on individuals who receive little else in daily information. This is the reason I have joined and regularly comment on Truth Social.

I am a member of two alternative social platforms – Mastodon (twit.social) and WT.social.

Here are a couple of sources you might explore if you are interested in alternatives.

Verge article on Twitter alternatives

Mastodon – TechCrunch description

Post secondary education describes education that follows high school (in the U.S.). When we hear this phrase most of us probably assume the topic is college or university experiences, but other experiences should be included. A recent CBS Sunday Morning segment focused on trade schools. I would describe the purpose of the segment as increasing the prestige of these programs arguing that the professions require skill and creativity, prepare graduates for professions that can be quite lucrative, and while the programs may require as much time as college education involve paid internships not available to those running up high college debt. If you don’t watch this program, this segment is informative.

I understand the intent of the segment and agree that professions such as plumber and electrician are important, lucrative, and involve cognitive creativity and problem-solving. I also recognize that the graduates of such programs are often underappreciated. 

However, in attempting to dispel myths about trade schools I fear the message of the CBS progam may have promoted other misunderstandings. I am an academic, but that bias aside I see higher education as more than job prep and starting salaries.

Certainly, we see broader goals in high school. I happen to think it is interesting that there is public disagreement about the skills and knowledge that are goals at this level, but at least the disagreement is over what knowledge and values should be developed. College experiences in and outside of the classroom extend this process of exploring culture, values, and interpersonal relationships. I believe you see some of this impact in what has been described as the political divide between college educated and non college educated adults. It would be challenging to separate the factors that led to the decision of what to do after high school from the consequences of educational experiences that follow, but it seems obvious these groups see the world very differently. It is far more than how much money you make doing whatever it is that you do.