Why Are Some People Successful and Others Not?

How much of success is nature?  How much is nurture?  Is it your talent?  Hard work?  Or good luck and helping hands?

Malcolm Gladwell's Outliers:  The Story of Success offers a challenge to the belief that all you need are talent and hard work.  It offers a mental challenge   for  those who are successful and take all the credit for themselves.  Or aren't and take all the blame.

When Obama said recently "If you’ve got a successful business, you didn’t build that, somebody else made that happen" he was echoing the sentiment of the book, though that single sentence, out of context, certainly gave the Romney team lots to work with.  He should have added "all by yourself" and left off the 'somebody else made that happen.'  But if you heard the whole piece, you know he meant it right. 

" If you’ve been successful, you didn’t get there on your own.  You didn’t get there on your own.  I’m always struck by people who think, wow, it must be because I’m so smart.  There are a lot of smart people out there.  It must be because I worked harder than anybody else.  Let me tell you something.  There are a lot of hardworking people out there.  If you were successful, somebody along the line gave you some help.  There was a great teacher somewhere in your life.  Somebody worked to create this unbelievable American system that we have that allowed you to thrive.  Someone invested in roads and bridges.  If you’ve got a successful business, you didn’t build that, somebody else made that happen." [For the video click here.]

 Now that my book club's discussion of Outliers is over let's see if I can give a more thorough look at the book than I did in the previous post that highlighted just one section.


First, the basic argument of Outliers is simple, but not quite straightforward.
Second, and more problematic, is that the proof he offers is a series of case studies.  The cases support his argument, but don't prove it.

Some of the cases are strong and well supported by data - like the hockey players' birthdates.  Others are incomplete (though detailed) and vague, thus open to other interpretations. 

So let me first try to offer the basic argument and then go through the some of case studies.  Even if they aren't clear proof, they are all interesting and raise interesting questions.

The Basic Argument (as I see it)

• Among the United States' most fundamental beliefs are  
• the self-made man.  If you are smart and/or talented and work hard, you can succeed.  
• people who achieve amazing feats - star athletes, star entrepreneurs, star musicians - are 'outliers'.  That is they fall statistically on the far end of the bell curve.  They are exceptions.  (Which somewhat contradicts the idea that anyone can succeed.)
• These are myths, at least to some extent.
• achieving recognized greatness depends on
•  having 10,000 hours of experience, not just innate genius or talent
•  being at the right place at the right time
•  cultural background which prepares individuals and/or privileges them

Basically, he's saying that while talent and hard work certainly help people succeed, individuals aren't necessarily responsible for their success or failure.  Other factors - beyond hard work and ability - play an important role: particularly being at the right place at the right time and your cultural background which does or doesn't prepare you to succeed in a particular environment.

Support 

Now let's look at the cases that most strongly support his argument.

1.  10,000 hours  - this was the subject of my previous post on this, you can get more details there.   He basically takes a study of musicians that says 10,000 hours of serious practice is the threshold separating those who succeed big and those who don't.   It's not special genius, it's the work.  He gives the example of the Beatles working 8 hours a day, seven days a week playing in Hamburg strip clubs that gave them the 10,000 hours that pushed them beyond the average band.  He cites Bill Gates getting access to a time-share computer in high school at a time when most colleges were still using punch cards as an example of someone who got his 10,000 hours in before anyone else and thus was ready to excel in the new world of ubiquitous computers.

He's not saying talent doesn't help, but the real demarcation between those who become great is the 10,000 hours.  And, those 10,000 hours include hard work.  But that's not enough.  Gladwell cites K. Anders Ericsson on the 10,000 hours rule for developing expertise and then extrapolates that to other areas. 

2.  Being at the right place at the right time.  His best example here is Canadian hockey players.  The best are overwhelmingly those who were born in January, February, March, and April, because January 1 is the cut off for each year's new kids in school hockey.  And for the 9 and 10 year olds, a year's difference is a lot in terms of size and ability.  So the oldest kids, those born in the first three months, start out better, so they get more game time, more positive attention from the coaches, and generally more help and recognition  that they are 'better.'  This extra attention, Gladwell writes, actually makes them better in a few years.  They are the ones who get their 10,000 hours.  Since there should be a more equal annual distribution of hockey skill, this argument is pretty persuasive and got most media attention when the book came out in 2008.  I covered this in more detail in the previous post too.

3.  Culture.  The example that seemed to have the most objective basis was Korean Airlines pilots.  After a series of crashes,  KAL had to examine why its pilots were crashing planes more than other airlines' pilots.  It turned out that Korean culture is one of the most hierarchically deferential.  Co-pilots were never able to directly confront the captain when they thought the captain was making an error.  They made very indirect hints.  With retraining led by Delta Airlines' David Greenberg, the pilots learned to overcome their culturally induced hierarchical deference so that co-pilots could confront captains in the cockpit.  A particularly telling comment (it's hard to find the data behind the comments because the notes in the back are sparse and there's no bibliography) is that most plane crashes occur when the captain is flying the plane (the piloting and co-piloting duties, Gladwell says, are split 50-50 between the captain and co-pilot).  The explanation is that the captain, when acting as the co-pilot, is much more assertive telling the pilot to make corrections. 

A second cultural example, Asian dominance in international math exams, is interesting, but the cause and effect relationship is harder to prove. (At least with the KAL example the explanation was tested through the retraining.)  He's arguing on two levels:

• Growing rice establishes a culture of hard work and perseverance that causes Asian students to spend more time on their math homework
• Chinese (and other Asian) words for numbers better express their numerical value and thus Chinese kids learn them faster and learn to do arithmetic faster 

Gladwell cites a Chinese proverb "No one who can rise before dawn three hundred sixty days a year fails to make his family rich."  (So, does that mean working hard is all you need and not good timing and culture?  Or is growing up in a Chinese rice farming area the culture?  Are all Chinese rice farmers who often get up early successful? What about all the years of starvation in China's history?)  He goes into detail about what's required to plant rice and how that's a great education.  It's meaningful work he claims because:

• of the relationship between how hard you work and the reward
• it's complex - effectively running a small business, juggling a family workforce, selecting the right seeds, building a sophisticated irrigation system, etc.
• it's autonomous - here he says the landlords, by the 14th or 15th Century practiced a hands-off relationship and merely collected a set rent and gave the tenant farmers autonomy

He compared the Chinese proverb above to a more fatalistic Russian proverb:  "If God does not bring it, the earth will not give it."  (Why not say it's the belief in God that's the problem?)

In the second part of the Chinese cultural example - the impact of language on how we know the world (a topic dear to my heart) - Gladwell argues that Chinese words for numbers make it easier to learn math.

• all the numbers can be said faster than, say English numbers, and the shorter time needed to say the numbers, the more numbers in a list you can remember. 
• the structure of the number words is different in Asian languages
• in Chinese 
• the teens are ten-one (eleven); ten-two, ten-three, etc. and 
• the twenties are two-ten-one; two-ten-two, etc.
• one hundred (bai) and one thousand and ten thousand are all a one syllable words, thus:
• yi-bai-yi (one hundred and one)

So not only are the numbers faster to say, but they include a numeric structure that helps to learn mathematics.  Gladwell writes:

"Ask an English-speaking seven-year-old to add thirty-seven plus twenty-two in her head, and she has to convert the words to numbers (37 + 22).  Only then can she do the math:  2 plus 7 is 9 and 30 and 20 is 50, which makes 59.  Ask an Asian child to add three-tens-seven and two-tens-two, and then the necessary equation is right there.  No number translation is necessary:  It's five-tens-nine."  [The literal translation is three-ten-seven, not 'tens']

The language makes doing math much easier than in Western languages.  The words for numbers fit the numerical structures and computational functions  better.  His backup on this is the fact that international tests of school children have Asian kids way out on top, every year.

"On international comparison tests, students from Japan, South Korea, Hong Kong, Singapore, and Taiwan all score roughly the same in math, around the ninety-eighth percentile.  The United States, France, England, Germany, and other Western industrialized nations cluster at somewhere between the twenty-six and thirty-six percentile.  That's a big difference."

Well, I looked at the TIMSS scores.  Here's part of one chart.

Chart from National Center for Educational Statistics - Supplementary Tables PDF link

[They seem to give the tests every four years and the 2011 scores aren't online yet.  China's not on the list because they do not take the exams.  They seem to be in numerical order for 2007, and so the 1995 list is somewhat out of order.  To make it large enough, I cut off the screenshot leaving out nine other countries.]

OK, the five top countries are Asian: three Chinese speaking countries and South Korea and Japan.  Both Japanese and  Korean numbers share the Chinese structure for teens, decades, and hundreds.  But the Japanese numbers are not all single syllable words.  Maybe that's why they are the last of the top Asian countries.

But I would point out that the language of Thailand, which is also a rice producing country - though the paddies aren't as intricate as he describes the terraced Chinese ones - also shares the linguistic numerical advantages of Chinese and Korean and Japanese, yet it is significantly lower on the list than the European countries and the United States.

Ropi, is there something about Hungarians that puts you just below the Asians?  Though there is a big gap.

I would also note that such comparative test scores are misleading, because other nations track their students out of the academic tracks at different stages.  The lower grades may be more comparable, but by the higher grades, the non-academic tracked students are in vocational schools and don't take the exams.  Also, in the US a wider range of students with disabilities often take these sorts of tests (I don't know about the TIMSS though) which can make the US look much worse than it actually is since a different set of kids is tested in different countries.  Also, Gladwell uses percentiles whereas the charts I found had raw scores and this way the gap didn't look as large. 



If there really is a linguistic advantage for math in Asian languages, that totally changes how we think about the meaning of the test scores and perhaps how we teach math.  This argument is more persuasive for me than the rice farming one, though I understand that Gladwell is saying that people in these cultures have a tradition for harder work.  But so does every generation of immigrants to the United States and that drive lessens, it seems to me, with each generation.  I suspect the story is much more complex than Gladwell portrays it.

There are a number of other interesting cases, but this is long enough. I'll try to do a couple more of his cases in another post.  Especially his discussion of cultures of honor and how that explains some Southern behavior.  

Basically, Gladwell's book is consistent with Obama's point that successful people are successful because of a combination of things.  Obama's blunt "you didn't build that, somebody else did" isn't quite the right message though.  And just as Obama supporters use every Romney gaffe, I'm sure the Romney folks enjoyed this one from Obama.  But the context of the statement shows he's really saying that no one does it alone.  The fact that there are more small business successes in the US than most other countries, for example, makes the point - our system is more supportive of that kind of success.

But I suspect many would disagree with Obama even if his wording were perfect.  The Ayn Rand contingent believe the individual is successful on his or her own without help from others. (If that were actually true, then Ayn Rand could have stayed in Soviet Russia and succeeded.  They'd say the freedom of the US fosters individual freedom.  And I'd say that was what Obama was saying.)

An example of someone who apparently believes that the individual deserves all the credit  is described in a Gladwell chapter note about Jeb Bush from S.V. Dáte's Jeb:  America's Next Bush:

"In both his 1994 and 1998 runs, Jeb made it clear:  not only was he not apologizing for his background, he was proud of where he was financially, and certain that it was the result of his own pluck and work ethic.  'I've worked real hard for what I've achieved and I'm quite proud of it, ' he told the St. Petersburg Times in 1993.  'I have no sense of guilt, no sense of wrongdoing.'
The attitude was much the same as he had expressed on CNN's Larry King Live in 1992:  'I think, overall, it's a disadvantage,' he said of being the president's son when it came to his business opportunities. 'Because you're restricted in what you can do.'
This thinking cannot be described as anything other than delusional."

 I don't think anyone needs to apologize for their family background, but one should be able to acknowledge that being the son of a US Senator/ Vice President/President of the United States might have offered some contacts and access to resources that most people don't have.  It's this blindness to one's privileges compared to others that allows rich people to say that the poor are all lazy shirkers.  If they weren't they'd all be rich, right? 

Gladwell isn't saying special talent and hard work aren't important.  He's saying that lots of people have talent and work hard.  But it takes more than that.  It also takes luck, being at the right place at the right time with the right individual and cultural skills for the times.  That makes sense to me.

Here are the other two posts on Outliers:

• 10,000 Hours - Gladwell's Outliers Part 
• Does Culture of Honor Explain Southern Murder Style - More From Outliers

"to secure a citizen's right to acknowledge Almighty God according to the dictates of his or her own conscience"

[UPDATE 7:47pm:  The people of Missouri sure do like to pray.  Here's the result (with only two precincts missing) from the  Missouri Election page:

Constitutional Amendment 2

yes no

779,269 162,326

83% 17%

HTML Tables

 942,032 Missourians voted out of  4,137,545 registered voters (as of 2010.)  22% of the registered voters made decisions for the other 88%.  The result will be expensive legal battles when this amendment is challenged in court.]

People in Missouri today are voting to amend their Constitution's Article I, Section 5 Religious Freedom--Liberty of Conscience and Belief--Limitation.  They are going from about 100 words to about 600 words. 

I was first struck by this phrase which only gets changed by adding "and women":

"all men have a natural and indefeasible right to worship Almighty God according to the dictates of their own consciences;"

The Alaska Constitution, for example [in contrast], mimics the US constitution:

§ 4. Freedom of Religion

No law shall be made respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof.

Specifying "Almighty God" seems to suggest a particular god, a single god, one that has ultimate power.  There's no article such as "an" almighty god.  And it's capitalized which suggests it's a proper name of a specific god.

I'm guessing it refers to the Judeo-Christian god.  Possibly the Muslim god is included since Muslims also worship Almighty God.

But what about Hindus or Buddhists who don't worship an Almighty God?

It doesn't include "not worship,"  only worship.  What rights does  "according to the dictates of their own consciences" give to agnostics and atheists?

The most controversial language, apparently, is that part that allows school children to opt out of curriculum that conflicts with their religious beliefs.

"no student shall be compelled to perform or participate in academic     assignments or educational presentations that violate his or her religious beliefs;"

The Kansas City Star's Midwest Democracy writes:

Susan German, president of the Science Teachers of Missouri, said the amendment could have a major impact on the teaching of certain topics in classrooms around the state.
"It is evident that some of the major areas of concern include teaching the age of the Earth, evolution, or climate change in the science classrooms," German said in a letter to the organization's 450 members. "While this may not be a direct attack, it certainly opens the door."
German said her organization has not taken a formal position on the amendment, but it is urging its members to go beyond the summary to fully understand potential ramifications.

The sponsor, state Rep. Mike McGhee, according to the article, says the intent is to allow students to not take a class on Buddhism or Islam if they so choose.  And a Muslim student wouldn't have to learn about Christianity.  He thinks if the curriculum is offensive to some, it should just be changed.

There is a difference between "learning about" and  being proselytized.   The only reason I can think of that a parent might not want their child to learn about other religions is that such classes may raise questions about their own religious beliefs.  Blocking objective knowledge about other beliefs deprives their own children's right to religious freedom. 

The article then points out that this section of the amendment is not mentioned in the ballot summary:

"You can't put the entire amendment in the summary, but letting students opt out of assignments is a pretty big change," said Anthony Rothert, the legal director of the ACLU of Eastern Missouri. "I don't know if voters will know that this is what they are voting for."

It appears that the vagueness of the amendment - despite its length - means it will be resolved in the courts.  Perhaps that will have the unanticipated effect of questioning the language which specifies worshiping Almighty God.

Read more here: http://midwestdemocracy.com/articles/right-to-pray-amendment-spurs-debate-about-students-opting-out-of-schoolwork/#storylink=cpy

Read more here: http://midwestdemocracy.com/articles/right-to-pray-amendment-spurs-debate-about-students-opting-out-of-schoolwork/#storyli

Where Are You On The Climate Change Policy Hierarchy??

It seems to me there is a hierarchy of Climate Change statements.  Some don't agree with the first statement.  Others get further down the list.  Here are the statements that I see.  How far down the list do you get before you don't agree? 

1. Global Climate Change is occurring.
2. Humans actions are causing most of it.
3. We can do something about it. 
4. We can be fossil fuel free by 2050, possibly 2030.
1.  It's technically possible, but alternative fuels are too expensive
2.  It's technically and economically feasible, but not politically feasible.

[UPDATE August 9:  I should have added 4.3 here.

•  3.   It's technically, economically, and politically feasible.]

I was probably at statement 3 a year ago. At the Bioneers in Alaska  conference last year, I heard a telesession with Amory Lovins discussing his book Reinventing Fire.  He argues that we can be carbon energy free by 2050 and it wouldn't cost more than the path we are currently on.  (You can hear his TED talk explaining how, here.)

A friend who is far more technically savvy than I expressed serious doubt.  So I started going to Citizens Climate Change monthly meetings, another group I learned about at the Bioneers Conference.

Let's look at the four (plus 2) statements.

1&2.  Climate change is happening and people are causing it.

Most scientists agree this is the case.  A small minority are still skeptics.  Their number decreases regularly.  A major recent convert is UC Berkeley Prof. Richard Muller, who had been a high profile skeptic, and recently wrote a New York Times opinion piece, “The Conversion of a Climate-Change Skeptic,”

“Three years ago I identified problems in previous climate studies that, in my mind, threw doubt on the very existence of global warming. Last year, following an intensive research effort involving a dozen scientists, I concluded that global warming was real and that the prior estimates of the rate of warming were correct. I’m now going a step further: Humans are almost entirely the cause.”

The Koch brothers seem to be the main supporters of global warming deniers.  They even paid for part of Muller's research.

3.  There's something we can do about it.

I think most people who accept that people cause climate change believe something can be done - like turning out the lights when you aren't using them, buying electric cars, and other energy saving activities.  But is this enough to prevent irreversible harm to the earth and our ability to survive?  That gets us to statement 4.

4.  We can switch to alternatives by 2050.

This was where I was getting hung up.  After Saturday's Citizens' Climate Lobby (CCL) meeting I have come to understand why my tech friend doesn't agree and why he might be wrong.

4.1 - If you compare prices of oil, coal, and natural gas to alternative fuels, it looks like it will be impossible to be able to switch.  But the people who argue that we can,  include the externalities of coal and oil in their economic calculations.  That is, they look at the costs that are imposed on society by these energy sources that the companies don't pay - health costs and all the environmental damage.  If they were forced to pay for this, then alternatives would be more than competitive.  There are a number of other issues that help support the idea of things being switchable.  I don't claim to understand it all, but I do know that human history is full of such changes from old technologies to new, unbelievable ones.  Anyone living in the last 40 years has experienced this first hand on a lot of fronts. 

4.2 - Even if it were technologically and economically feasible, many people just think it's not political possible.  I'm seeing a number of books at the CCL meetings.  One is a book of statements on climate change by most of the major religious groups.  Most of them recognize that climate change is a human caused problem.  So that's a big step.
Second, there are people working on a carbon tax, that uses market forces, to tax carbons and give every American part of that tax.  As an Alaskan I think about the Alaska Permanent Fund dividends, though I'm not sure that's quite the right model.

I'm also impressed with the CCL strategy.  Their goal is to have groups in every Congressional district who can build relationships with their US Senators and Congress members where they can share their expertise and counter the lobbying by those who have an economic or ideological stake in fossil fuels.

At the monthly meetings there's an international (Canada and the US) teleconference call which includes a presentation by an expert and then there is discussion among the different local groups.  The meetings are run very efficiently.

You can learn more about CCL at their website.  Folks in the Anchorage area can talk to CCL reps at the CCL table at the

Renewable Energy for Alaska Project (REAP) Fair 

on the Parkstrip 

Saturday August 11, 2012 

between 11am and 9pm. 

Curiosity Lands Safely On Mars - Live Via Ulive

There's been a lot of bad mouthing of 'scientists' these days, mostly by some politicians who don't like what scientists are telling them.  But I'd like to see members of Congress perform as spectacularly as these scientists at the Jet Propulsion Lab as they landed their cargo safely on Mars.  This was no small feat.  Here are some screen shots from the live online video feed.  Double click to enlarge them. 

Four minutes to go

JPL Staff Waiting

Simulated Image of Parachuting Down

Touch Down

Safe On Mars - Lots of Hugging

More Happy Scientists

First Two Images - Left Shows Shadow of Curiosity, Right is Wheel

There is still live coverage, as I type, online here.

This is what science can do when supported by politicians approving their budgets. 

Who Are The Sikhs?

We've been out all day enjoying being in Alaska, so I only just heard about the attack at the Sikh temple in Wisconsin.  

I'm guessing a lot of Americans don't know much about Sikhs.  I don't know a lot, but we did get to go to the Golden Temple in Amritsar, India in 2006.  The Golden Temple is the center of the Sikh religion. I'm editing together a few posts from that time. 

November 10, 2006

We gave up on the idea of going to the Golden Temple at 4 am to see the Book procession. That turned out to be fine and we got to sleep in a bit. We were at the Temple at 8:30am. You come into the complex, check in your shoes and socks, (Yeah, I got to go barefoot!) and then walk through the water pools (running water to clean your feet). Then up the stairs to this magical view of the temple shimmering in the middle of the water.  We walked around the temple first, then along the causeway out to the temple. The place is full of people in all manner of beautiful and/or interesting types of clothing. Men strip down to their shorts and bathe in the pool. Women have a more private bathing area. This is the Vatican of the Sikh world. Built about 400 years ago it is a beautiful and spiritual place. The chanting inside the temple is broadcast throughout. You watch Sikhs enter and a look of joy comes over some of them as they then prostrate themselves toward the temple. We were there early enough that it wasn't too crowded going into the temple. No pictures allowed there. In here is the holy Book of the Sikh world. Beautiful carpets, the walls intricately painted, the rhythm of the chanting, pilgrims meditating. There is such a spiritual and calming sense here. Someone gives me a round sweet. Someone else mimics sticking it in my mouth. Another asks if we have gone upstairs. We follow the winding stairs to another room with a man reading a huge book. Views from between the golden 'knobs' surrounding the roof of the temple.

A really special place. Our short stay in Amritsar has been fantastic. Then after circling (squaring would be more accurate) the temple again, we eventually decided we needed to move on. We stopped in a book store and bought a couple of books and some CDs of the chanting, retrieved our shoes and wandered out into the world again. By the way, when I pulled out my map of Amritsar to ask the man at the book store directions, he said, Put away the maps. Maps are useless in India. One gains spiritual enrichment by helping others find their way.

The world. Bike rickshaws, motorcycles, horse drawn carriages, shops selling all sorts of Sikh related paraphernalia, people squeezing between the vehicles, horns honking... up the street and into another oasis - at least today. This is the Jailliawalla Bawg, where the British massacred about 1000 Indians. If you saw the movie Gandhi, you saw the Indians protesting in the park while the British came in through the only entrance and set up their guns. Today it is a lush green park full of school kids visiting the various memorials to the dead.

We stopped in a cyber cafe and got all my pictures downloaded to a CD and then into a restaurant for a delicious lunch.

 October 25, 2006

We're going to India next week and so today we met with a Sikh friend to talk about our trip. While talking about visiting the Golden Temple in Amritsar, he told us that every day "The Book" is ceremoniously carried into the Golden Temple at 4am and then returned in the evening. And - here's the interesting part - that ceremony is covered live every day by satellite! So we saw a tape of today's ceremony. Below is more about it from incredibleindians.com.

Amrit Vela
Amrit Vela means the pre-dawn moment. It is actually the time when the watch strikes four o'clock in the morning. The pilgrims wake up and start preparing for a serene early morning visit to the Darbar Saheb. After reaching the temple entrance, one must take off their shoes at the 'shoes counter'. The next step is to dip one's feet at a channel of running water. On the way to the temple, there are lined up flower stalls, for one to buy garlands or just fresh flowers for offering...

This link tells you more about the Golden Temple and has spectacular photos that give you a better sense of the whole temple grounds.

Here's a link that tells you a little about the Sikh religion.

What Takes Precedence For Americans - The First Amendment or The First Commandment?

"In the Bible, God doesn't grant the freedom of speech.  God doesn't grant the right to bear arms. God doesn't grant the right to assembly.  God doesn't even grant the freedom of religion either.  If you don't worship Him, you're screwed!"

 A little notice in the paper said that Joe Raiolo, an editor at Mad magazine, was talking at the library on "The Joys of Censorship."  There were several years when a preteen kid who used to be me had a subscription to Mad magazine.  And the adult who blogs today always wants to hear what someone says about censorship. 

As the quote above suggests, this was a lively event.  More standup comedian than lecturer, Raiola covered a lot of ground.   He said he wasn't going to use euphemisms -  he would say asshole, not A-hole, fucking, not freeking, and nigger, not the N word.  He spent some time explaining that last one, which he said was the second most controversial word, but he protested that people were not allowed to use it.  It depends on the context.  He deplored an Alabama book publisher who put out a version of Huckleberry Finn that substituted 'slave' for 'nigger' so more schools would use it. On the other hand, rappers are taking back the word and defusing its explosive power. 

He went through a list of Supreme Court decisions on first amendment rights:

• it's ok to sell and watch films depicting criminal torture and killing of animals
• corporations have the same free speech rights as individual humans
• the Westboro Baptist church can picket military funerals with "God Hates Fags" signs
• the most violent and repugnant video games can't be restricted to adults
• it's ok to lie about your military service and medals

In contrast, Raiolo said, it's still illegal for radio and televisions stations to broadcast George Carlin's seven dirty words routine.  

I didn't think to ask whether he thought that if Carlin's case were heard today whether it might get different treatment, since the fines CBS received for showing Janet Jackson's exposed breast were thrown out and the Supreme Court refused to hear the appeal.  

He also covered comic book history and the birth of Mad magazine with a look at some of the old covers and article, including their international editions (which can use US copy, but have control over their own content.)

In the Q&A there was a discussion of where Mad magazine draws the line on what it publishes.  Raiola said he could describe it, that comedians try to know where the line is and then push it.  But he gave some examples of things they don't push - like common offensive four letter words and sexuality.

I see on Raiola's website, that people in Wasilla will be able to see Raiola twice on Tuesday.  He'll do something on Mad magazine at 4pm at the library and the censorship talk at 7pm at the Old Mat-Su Cinema.  

[I have some video, but I did ask permission to post it and Raiola wanted to see it first. I tend to respect such requests for performances.  I could argue that his free presentation, at the library, on censorship could be interpreted is fair game for reporting.  But just because one can do something, doesn't mean one should.  And I suspect Mad magazine has pretty good legal expertise and representation on an issue like this.  So I'll wait to post any video.]

___ Is To Alaska What Football Is To Penn State

This is just a little thought experiment.  I’m going to try to keep the analogy simple.  [I didn't succeed.  Life is complicated and so many things are interrelated.  But the basic analogy you can read quickly.]


Fill in the blank:

___ is to Alaska  what football is to  Penn State.

 I'm sure every Alaskan reader would immediately say "thoughtfulness."  No?  How about that black gooey stuff?

When things go wrong, the very least we can do is learn something from them so that when the elements return in a different disguise, we can recognize them.  What then are the key elements of these two stories?

The Penn State

1.  A sacred cow - At Penn State, football served the function of uniting everyone in spirit and (at least people believe) generated a lot of money, which was translated into enhanced programs and lots of jobs on campus for people in the surrounding community.    Certainly the hotels and bars and restaurants benefited from crowds coming to home football games, and buying Penn State paraphernalia. The  university benefited from the television money the highly ranked football team brought in.  
Challenging the sacred cow in any way 1) is disloyal to the Penn State spirit and 2) threatens a lot of people’s income. 
This results in relatively little scrutiny because 1) everyone wants to believe in the goodness of football and 2) those benefiting don’t want to threaten those benefits.  The rule of a sacred cow is that no one should raise embarrassing questions.  So people self-censor, knowing that any criticism will bring on quick retaliation.

2.  Big fish in a  small pond.  Penn State is located in a relatively small city where its and football's influence is much bigger than it would be in a larger city.  A challenge from inside is unlikely.

3.  An aging hero with long incumbency- Joe Paterno's 45 year career made him the longest serving head coach in US college football.  Born in 1926, Paterno became Penn State’s assistant football coach in 1950, and the head coach in 1966.  Dan Rorabaugh at US News wrote a line that appears repeatedly online:  “Joe Paterno is Penn State.” Paterno did a lot of good.  In addition to winning, Paterno's team regularly had high graduation rates.  In 2011 his dynasty ended when it was disclosed that he knew that his trusted, long-term assistant coach and friend, had been sexually molesting young boys in Penn State related programs for many years.   Paterno died shortly after that. 


4.  A  spoiler:  A good friend of the hero who turns out to have some serious problems - For whatever reasons, personal loyalty, protecting the sanctity of PSU football, disbelief, Paterno turned a blind eye to Jerry Sandusky's crimes.  More than a blind eye, according to the Freeh Report.  The hero, it turns out, knew and blocked attempts to do something about it.



The Alaskan Story

1.  The Alaska sacred cow has to be oil.  And probably to an even greater extent than football at Penn State.   Close to 90% of the state revenue comes from oil.  Every community has projects that were built on oil money.  Every citizen is eligible for a permanent fund check. 

2.  Oil is a whale in a small pond up in Alaska. 

3.  An aging hero with long incumbency -   There is no hero as closely linked to oil as Paterno was linked to football.  The Alaskan most similar to Paterno was Senator Ted Stevens.  Senator Lisa Murkowski said at Stevens’ memorial "Ted was Alaska – he just was Alaska.”  He was born in 1923 and was appointed to the US Senate in 1968. Seeing any patterns?

When he left, he was the longest serving Republican in Senate history. In 2008 a good friend and political ally from the oil industry testified against  Stevens in court.  Stevens was convicted and lost his reelection bid months later. (The charges were later vacated by Obama’s incoming Attorney General because of prosecutorial misconduct.)  Stevens died in a plane crash two years later.

4.  A spoiler:  A good friend of the hero who turns out to have some serious problems.  Bill Allen, a high school dropout  who became a powerful political king-maker as the head of his billion dollar oil support company VECO, became a witness for the Department of Justice against a number of Alaskan politicians including Ted Stevens.  Aside for political corruption on behalf of the oil industry, Allen is alleged to have had an affair with an underage young woman. 



In the Penn State case, the Pennsylvania Attorney General's office came into the small Pennsylvania town where the University is located to prosecute Jerry Sandusky.  Penn State University accepted Joe Paterno's early retirement.  A University commissioned report by former FBI Director Louis Freeh harshly condemned a number of Penn State officials.  Paterno and three other key officials "are portrayed as manipulating administrative channels to protect Sandusky, the football program and their own reputations."  [If Alaska is a model, Pennsylvanians should watch for the rehabilitation of Joe Paterno in the not too distant future.]

In Alaska, the FBI began a covert operation which video taped Bill Allen's hotel suite in Juneau as he entertained legislators and made deals with them trying to prevent tax changes that were not approved of by the oil companies.  Allen cooperated with the Justice Department and was a witness in a number of court cases where state legislators were convicted of various corruption charges.  He also was the key witness in the Stevens trial in DC, where Stevens was convicted as well.  Stevens lost his reelection bid shortly after, narrowly.   However, Obama's attorney general vacated Stevens' conviction because of prosecutorial misconduct.


In the meantime, a former oil company lobbyist is now the governor of Alaska.  And few see any problem with this. Can you imagine the outcry if the former lobbyist for Green Peace or Wilderness Society were governor?  Although the oil companies have been tarnished, their interests are still in power and they are spending money to maintain their sacred status,  aided in the upcoming election by the Citizens United decision. 

Oil plays an important role in the world.  Oil has brought Alaska wealth and benefits we could not have had otherwise.  But any faction that gains so much power and influence in any society or institution, begins eventually to feel entitled and gets harder and harder to keep accountable. 

The stifling of sacred cow challengers shows up in lots of places. 

• Why weren’t people asking more questions about the home loan industry?  Or listening to those who did?  
• Why didn’t parents believe their kids who said the priest molested them, of if the kids remained silent, why didn’t they question the kids’ different behavior?  
• Why has it taken so long for the military to address the many psychological problems of soldiers returning from Iraq and Afghanistan?  Or take seriously the complaints of sexual harassment and assault by women in the military?  
• Why do we continue to spend billions on the so called War on Drugs when it clearly is so ineffective? 

All of these issues involve sacred cows that people want to believe in and people resist those who challenge those beliefs.  They all involve people who benefited from silencing and marginalizing those who challenged the system.  All of them have wealthy interests funding misinformation campaigns to convince the public and the decision makers that there is no problem. 

This is nothing new in human history.  Ruling classes have brainwashed their subjects from the beginning.  Americans think they are different, yet large numbers of our populaltion succumb to empty slogans, and to appeals to their fears and insecurities. 

I think about Egyptians and Libyans and Russians and Syrians who see through their government’s lies and risk their lives to change things.  Americans are willing to sacrifice the lives and mental health of the relatively few Americans who serve in the military, but what are they personally willing to sacrifice? 

It turns out that not staying alert has cost people their homes, their savings, and their jobs.  It wasn't a voluntary sacrifice.  Rather,  enough people voted for those false slogans and put people into power whose faith in unbridled capitalism allowed bankers and traders to make fortunes on what turned out to be giant swindles.

We get another turn at bat in November.   The propagandists are already spinning their lies and spreading hate and fear to convince voters to forget the size of the catastrophe that Obama inherited and instead blame him for the fallout of the Bush2 administration. 

----------
While I was looking for a link to support a point I'd made, I found that Cliff Groh had already made the Paterno-Stevens comparison in November 2011.

Hotel Booking Scam

I got this email today. Fortunately, I know I did not book a hotel for August 4-6 and I'm reasonably sure that opening the file will not reveal any information I want, but rather would be an attempt to mischief.

Subject:  Reservation Confirmation [1342976], Thu, 2 Aug 2012 09:47:18 +0800
From:  "Booking.com" <customer.service@my.booking.com>
Date:  Wed, August 1, 2012 5:47 pm
Priority:  Normal
Options: 
View Full Header |  View Printable Version  | Download this as a file  | View Message details | Report as SpamHotel Confirmation:   7395329

Date:   Thu, 2 Aug 2012 09:47:18 +0800
---
Herewith you receive the electronic reservation for your hotel. Please refer to attached file for full details.
Arrival: Saturday, August 04, 2012
Departure: Monday, August 06, 2012
Number of rooms: 1

Sincerely, Customer Service Team
Booking.com  http://www.XXXX
Your Reference ID is: 3225161

The Booking.com reservation service is free of charge. We do not charge you any booking fees or administration fees, and in many cases rooms offer free cancellation.-Booking.com guarantees the best hotel rates in both cities and regional destinations - ranging from small family hotels to luxury hotels.


Attachments:

What are some of the telltale signs of a scam?  This one is deceptively simple, but . . .

The email doesn't list a recipient, there's no  "To"

• My name is not mentioned in the reservation
• No hotel is mentioned in the reservation, though there is a legitimate website called My Booking, but there is an extra 'dot' in the email address listed
• I have to open a file - a well known way to infect computers with whatever evil the spammer/hacker is sending

I'm sure there are other signs I'm missing*.  But  . . .


How many people will unthinkingly click on the attachment in attempt to clear up the confusion?
How many people have hotel reservations for August 4 who will open this?
If the world were a fair and equitable place, would there still be people who would need to disrupt other people's lives with stuff like this?


*There are lots of sites that offer advice on how to deal with email hoaxes and scams.  I even found one that let's you paste the email into window and they'll check if it's a known scam.  But you have to give them an email address.  I passed on that.

Here are a couple sites.  It's useful to check them now and then as a reminder, plus these things evolve and get more sophisticated.

Microsoft Office tips
Kansas State University - Email Threats
(Three years old, but still interesting)  Wired - Identify a Phishing Scam

[UPDATE: August 7:  MX Lab reported on July 31 that the linked zip file contained a trojan:

The attached ZIP file has the name Booking_Confirmation_073120123972991.zip and contains the 37 kB large file Booking_Confirmation_07312012.exe.
The trojan is known as W32/Falab.J2.gen!Eldorado, Trojan-Spy.Agent, Downloader.Dromedan or TROJ_KRYPTIK.NC.
At the time of writing, only 9 of the 41 AV engines did detect the trojan at Virus Total.
Virus Total permalink and SHA256: 78cca5db33888091d98854835d6ca80b77568d5f106a9d7739e7a3efa02df659.

Hmmm, I should have found that before I posted.]

Mary Louise Rasmuson Dies Monday at 101

I didn't know Mary Louise Rasmuson, but anyone who lives in Anchorage is directly impacted by the Rasmuson name.  My office at the university was in Rasmuson Hall.  The Anchorage Museum has Rasmuson in its name.  Of the 'old' Anchorage wealthy families, the Rasmuson family is the one that has established a major foundation that funds a large variety of people and causes.  The first time I knowingly was in the same room with Mary Louise Rasmuson was May 5 of this year when she was awarded a Meritorious Service Award from the University of Alaska Anchorage.  Here is my sketchy, from across the room, video tape of her response to receiving the award.




Here's the description for her UAA award.

Here's today's Anchorage Daily News article on Rasmuson.

Running with Eagles and Salmon

A 3.5 mile run from my house and back yesterday afternoon had me communing with three bald eagles (the other two were too far to catch on the camera)

A few minutes later, going over a Campbell Creek bridge there were salmon coming home to spawn. It's the red/orangish splotch in the lower middle of the photo. This is an untouched photo - no games in photoshop. Just the way the light was reflecting on the water.

Today it's raining again.