Categories
culture life

Each Little Bit Helps

I spent most of today (8:00 am to 3:00 pm) helping my brother-in-law move. I have done this kind of thing quite often in my life and I have noticed something worth mentioning. When there are lots of people around to help the moves go much easier. (This would be a good time for every reader to say “duh!”)

In the evening I went to the priesthood session of general conference at a local church building. When the session was over there were hundreds of folding chairs that needed to be put away. It occurred to me that if ever person in attendance folded one chair the work would be done in 30 seconds. Some might argue that only the people on the folding chairs should have to help. If that were the case it would be two chairs per person and the work would be done in less than one minute. Reality is that 75% or more of those in attendance leave without thinking about the chairs and many only pick up one or two chairs so those who try to clean up all the chairs have to take 6 or 8 chairs each and the work takes 5 minutes.

I am not trying to complain about those who do not pick up chairs. As I have shown, it is a small job even with most of the people not participating. What struck me was that there is another attitude which could make a long task out of cleaning up the chairs. If the chair cleanup were assigned to a group of perhaps 5 people, instead of a large-scale volunteer effort, the chair cleanup would require each person to pick up at least 40 chairs and the cleanup would likely take half an hour to accomplish.

As I watched the chairs disappear almost magically this evening I began to contemplate how much of the work in our lives really works best if each person would just contribute a small effort rather than having each major job assigned to a small group of specialists.

Categories
life

Need to Work

I have been busy trying to land a job this week. I’ve had interviews and lunch meetings. I’ve had phone calls and applications. I just have not had work yet. I had been hoping something would happen and I could post it, but not so far.

Today I just had to work. I have been working at helping my brother-in-law move. He and his family are going to New Zealand so they have to get rid of almost everything. They gave us almost all of their food storage. When we brought it to our house on Wednesday night we just stacked it without organizing it. Steve said he expected that it would just stay there for two years – untouched. What he didn’t count on was that I have lots of time on my hands right now. What he couldn’t have counted on was that I would get a bug today to do some serious work.

I organized all the boxes, labeled all the cans and moved everything around the garage so that we could store as much as possible (which was only 2/3 of what they had to give us – we have to give the rest to another sibling). By the time I was done today I felt tired, but much better. I realized that people have more reasons to work than just to earn money – it also helps them to avoid going crazy. Now I just need to find a job to keep me gainfully employed so that I don’t have to make up my own work around the house.

Categories
culture life politics

What is “America”?

I have been listening to the debate about how we define torture and what we allow in the treatment of prisoners in the war on terror. I have heard at least one listener call in to an NPR program on the subject a few days ago and say that how we treat prisoners is a reflection on us as a nation rather than a reflection on them as individuals. That is one of the forgotten keys in the official debate on this subject. As I thought about that sentiment it sent me back to the Declaration of Independence. The second paragraph starts by saying:

We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness.

Is this the same America that is torturing prisoners, in any degree? If we truly believe that all men are created equal and that all men posses certain inalienable rights including – but not limited to – life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness then we should, in all our official conduct, treat all men as if they are equal and as if they posses those inalienable rights. We should, in all our conduct as a nation, do what we can to protect and promote those rights for all people, not just citizens of our nation.

When our nation takes a stand on anything it should be done in a way that upholds the fundamental values of our nation, such as the idea that all men are created equal and posses certain rights. Our soldiers should treat prisoners in a way that acknowledges their equal standing as human beings. Torture is terrorism on an individual scale. Therefore when we practice any degree of torture we become terrorists. If there is one thing we should know about fighting terrorists it should be that we cannot beat them if we join them.

Men of faith (any faith) – as our sitting president claims to be – who recognize a controlling power in the world superior to the United States (I’m not talking about the UN here), should believe that their supreme being will assist the side of righteousness in any conflict between good and evil with the condition that there must be some way to tell the good side from the evil side. So long as we condone any degree of torture – and this may go beyond the Geneva Conventions – we blur the lines between who is good and who is bad in this conflict – no matter how clear the title “War on Terror” sounds.

Update 10/4/2006: I just stumbled upon this discussion from September 25th on NPR: Talk of the Nation. It was very interesting to listen to the perspective of Mr. Dorfman.

Categories
politics

Mutual Dependence

I found it very interesting to read the news story in Reuters about the whole Hugo Chavez address to the UN. What really got me thinking was this snippet:

Despite accusing the United States of seeking to oust him, Chavez has never stopped Venezuela’s supply of crude to the United States, its biggest customer.

It seems obvious that we are dependent on Venezuelan oil and if they stopped selling to the U.S. our economy would suffer. I then wondered what would happen if we just stopped buying from Venezuela. The answer is – their economy would suffer, probably worse than ours. So while President Chavez can make all the inflammatory remarks he wants, the fact is that he probably could not afford to stop the flow of oil to the U.S.

Even if President Bush wished to stop buying from Venezuela, the fact is that it is not the government that is buying all that oil, it is a wide range of U.S. businesses who operate independently. They have a stake in the nation, but sadly their greatest concern is making money for investors so they don’t care who is the devil and who isn’t so long as the well does not run dry.

That’s what happens in an interconnected world run by impersonal business interests. There must be a better solution.

Categories
culture politics

Semantics

I have been wanting to write about this for a while but never got around to it – while listening to The World on NPR, which is produced in part by the BBC, I have noticed British reporters refer to the democrats as “the opposition party.” Many democratic governments around the world are structured differently than ours. They refer to the party in power as the ruling party and the largest party to challenge them is called the opposition party. The reason for this is that the parties come and go more than ours and the ruling party often cannot rule by themselves, but must build a coalition with other parties to rule.

As I was noticing this, I began to think about the significance of the fact that we do not consider the Democrats to be the opposition party even though the Republicans have controlled all branches of government for multiple election cycles now. So long as we consider both parties to be legitimate voices in politics then I have hope for this country. As soon as one party starts to act like “the opposition party” by standing for “whatever the ruling party is against” I think our political dialog goes downhill and we quit making progress as a country.

Categories
culture politics

Media Monster

I have been listening to the political coverage on NPR today and I recognized that as individual political races were being covered from around the country, the message by the national media suggested that the overall makeup of the Senate and the House, in other words which party was in control of each chamber, was more important than who won the individual races. Admittedly there are probably a lot of people who view politics that way, but in reality, the way the system should work is that I only worry about Senator Clinton being re-elected if I am from New York (whether I back her or oppose her). If I am from North Dakota I should not care if Jim Talent is re-elected – because he is from Missouri. The way things are supposed to work is that the people in Florida elect their representatives and then those representatives promote things that are in the best interests of the people of Florida. Each state is represented and regardless of which party is in the majority the interests of each state are weighed in all matters. If all the elected representatives felt that way it would not matter how the voters selected their representatives, but too many of those who are elected seem to bend to their party more than they bend to their constituents.

I have said previously that:

What I am sure of is that between the presidency and the two houses of congress each of the major parties should be in control of at least one of the bodies – thus forcing the various governmental bodies to compromise in order to make things happen.

With that in mind I began to wonder what would happen if every voter followed a simple pattern to ensure that each party controlled one house of congress. The formul for doing this would be simple. Every voter would vote for the candidate of one party for the house and vote for the candidate of the other party for the senate. I would suggest that you vote for the candidate representing whichever party you thought should be in power in the House and then vote for the opposite party candidate in the Senate. With this formula, the party with the most support across the nation would control the house and the party with less national support would control the Senate. I chose this method because the members of the House face re-election every two years. The Senate would have a mix of the national sentiment from the previous three voting cycles and the House would represent the prevailing national mood form the last election cycle. People could choose the President any way they wanted with the assurance that the president would rarely, and for only short durations, ever have his party control both houses of congress.

Does anybody wish to give this a shot?

Categories
politics State

A New Senator for a New Century

I have been very interested in the senate race in Utah where Senator Hatch is running for his sixth term in the US Senate. I spent a lot of time last year hoping that some of the challengers in the Republican party would be able to unseat Senator Hatch in the Republican primary vote. Sadly, these challengers had basically fallen away before the primary even arrived and Hatch is still the Republican nominee.

I think my position with regard to Senator Hatch are fairly plain. I think I should explain why. While I agree with some of what the senator has done over his three decades in office, I do not believe that he is doing a good job of representing Utah in the last few years. His votes seem to be driven more by his party affiliation than his state affiliation. He appears to have a lack of understanding with regard to some legislation regarding intellectual property and emerging technologies. I honestly doubt that his views and votes are based on a lack of understanding as much as they are based on voting in favor of whoever has money tied up in the issue. In addition to all of that, Senator Hatch has continued to waste time and energy on a flag burning amendment that is no longer relevant. Perhaps when he began pushing this legislation, early in his 30 year tenure, it was an issue worth fighting, but the problem has proven to be a thing of the past. Even among protesters there is not enough flag burning taking place to warrant a constitutional amendment. Changing the constitution is a process which is difficult by design, but each time we make the attempt we run the risk of diminishing the original document. For that reason we should be very careful when deciding to amend our constitution.

In the other corner, the Democratic nominee for Hatch’s seat is Pete Ashdown. Pete is a political newcomer, but he has a few things in his favor. Pete understands about technology and will not be fooled by money or terminology with regard to those types of legislation. Pete understands that the old way of running politics by the money should be a thing of the past. We have the ability to increase communication, transparency, and accountability in our nation by making use of technology. Pete is doing that in his campaign. His status as a Democrat has more to do with necessity than ideology. In fact he complains about the lack of transparency among Democrats as much as he does among Republicans. I believe that Pete will strive to represent anyone who cares to communicate with him rather than representing anyone who can out-pay the competition. Whether Pete wins this race or not, I hope that his ideas will catch on throughout our political system and change how our political leaders represent, interact with, and answer to their constituents.

To learn a little more about Pete, visit his website at http://www.peteashdown.org/. You can also listen to his interview on RadioWest. I will post links to Senator Hatch’s website and interview with RadioWest after that interview takes place (not sure when that will be).

Categories
life

My Interviewing Weakness

As I face the task of finding a new job, I have been thinking about the process and thinking about how I do in that process. I have come to some conclusions which are not surprising, but which have been enlightening as I approach this.

Because of my personality I have an uncanny knack for escaping the notice of other people. I know this “skill” would be bothersome for many people but it works for me. I have no internal need to be noticed by others. While I was talking to Laura about the process of getting a job she articulated the problem I face by going unnoticed when looking for a job. When it comes time to interview I am apt to leave no impression on the people who interview me.

The problem is that an interview can only give a very small snapshot of a person. It also happens to be a time when every potential candidate is trying to show themselves at their best. I’m like every other candidate in that regard, but I seem to be unable to put on a face that leaves a noticeable impression.

Those people who have the chance to get to know me are able to see that I am capable and dependable etc. (Many of the same things that a potential employer would like to know.) Unfortunately, an interview seems completely insufficient to let an employer see that I do posses the qualities they would like to have in an employee. Instead they are likely to barely remember that they did, in fact, interview a “David Miller” for the position. They will not remember me for having made a bad impression, but they will not remember a good impression either. After the interview they are left with the same impression of me that they had before the interview, which impression is based entirely upon a resume which has only one year of experience outside of work I did as a student.

Functionally, the problem of leaving no impression during an interview translates into me having little chance of landing anything better than a mediocre job. As I said when I posted what I wanted, I am looking for a job that challenges me and gives me the chance to make a positive impact. I doubt that any mediocre job would offer that kind of a situation.

Categories
culture life politics

Undoing Past Progress

I read two articles today in the New York Times today that got me thinking about how we are undoing the benefits that first made our country the place it was when I was growing up. The first article was about the increase in people in my age group without health insurance. I understand firsthand what they were talking about – not because I do not have health insurance, but because I had to spend more than 10% of my pretax paycheck to pay my portion of the company sponsored health plan. To put that in perspective – I was making something close to the national median income (if I remember correctly what that figure was).

The second article was about why college educations are no longer affordable and what changes have caused that problem. I have long had strong feelings about this problem. I think that the fundamental problem here is that we have lost sight, as a society, of what we were trying to accomplish with tuition assistance and other forms of federal education assistance in the first place. From the article:

By subsidizing public universities to keep tuition low, and providing federal tuition aid to poor and working-class students, this country vaulted tens of millions of people into the middle class while building the best-educated work force in the world.

Another article at CNN elaborated on this by saying the following:

“There’s been a sea change in the last decade-and-a-half over how (colleges) spend their money,” said National Center president Patrick Callan. “It used to be about giving students opportunities they wouldn’t otherwise have. Now it’s about giving them money to go to one college instead of another.”

At first these programs were designed so that there would be money for students to go to college, now the money is being used for students to go to “the right college.” We seem to have lost sight of the fact that the goal was to educate large volumes of people, not to make education one more field for competition in our society.

Some startling statistics to back this up from the CNN article:

The report card finds colleges awarded grants to 36 percent of their students from families earning $20,000 per year or less. Those grants averaged $4,700. But wealthier students received comparable attention.

The colleges gave grant aid to 29 percent from families earning $100,000 or more. And those grants were even higher on average: $6,200.

Let me make that clear – slightly over 1/3 of students from families living in poverty (or very close depending on where the poverty line falls) are getting under $5000 a year to help them go to school. Almost 2/3 of students from those poverty situations are going to school without grant money. At the same time nearly 1/3 of students from families among the top 5% of wage earners are getting over $6000 a year – we can assume this is to lure them to “better” schools.

I do not mean to argue that all schools are equal, but we would probably be better off as a nation if we thought of them that way.

If my experience and the experience of other people I know is any indicator, there is another problem that also plagues our nation with regards to higher education. The degrees that we are paying so dearly to get are often being underused once we graduate and try to use them. Many jobs I have seen require a degree for work that could easily be done without a degree. What is worse, many jobs in which a degree is useful are more interested in experience than in the degree. I have known many people who choose to work and gain experience rather than finish a degree and they end up with better jobs because they have more experience.

If experience is the best teacher – and I believe that it generally is – then our college degrees should be designed to provide marketable experience. If they did, perhaps companies could eliminate the requirement to have a degree as a prerequisite for jobs that do not actually require the training that comes with a degree.

Categories
life

Wanted: A Chance to Make an Impact

If I were taking out an advertisement seeking my ideal job it would have a title similar to this. I have often thought about how to articulate what I am seeking in a job and I thought I would make some attempt here. Let’s see how this works.

I am looking for a job where I can make a positive impact. This would require that I be in a position to share ideas, because if I have learned anything about myself over the course of my life it is that I will have ideas to share about how to improve something. It may be an improvement in a product, it may be an improvement in the way we approach a problem, or it may be an improvement in the world around us that we as a company are able to make. If I am in a job where I am expected to do – while others do the thinking – I will not be comfortable. If I am in a position where I am allowed/expected/required to think but only within certain predefined domains then I will likely start to feel constrained.

If I were asked to put that more concisely I would say that “I need a job where I work with the company, not for the company.” That probably does not sound right without explanation, but it is the best I can do right now at stating my position succinctly.