Michael Braun's Blog

I first attempted to buy MarioKart Wii on Monday, checking at Target, where they didn’t have it. I went to Best Buy later that night, but evidently it closes at 9 (does that seem early to anyone else?). So Tuesday after work, I went straight away to Best Buy and was able to pick up my copy. It’s quite a steal at only $50 when it includes the Wii Wheel. Now, that wheel is pretty useless in the game, but I think they could have charged more and gotten away with it.

I started playing as soon as I got home and had a blast. The motion controls are very responsive, and I had no trouble figuring out how to steer properly. I’ve been playing with my hands set on my legs, like a normal controller, and seldom need to lift them up to perform a tighter steer. Lauren came over and played some herself; she said she felt like she could get the hang of it (whereas other MarioKart games have not felt that way to her). I played some more later that night and this morning and have been very pleased. I don’t feel as cool as I did when playing the Double Dash, but that’s just because my motions don’t have to be as coordinated. I don’t have to hold down accelerate, then press left or right shoulder buttons to slide, while rocking the steering joystick to get a boost. Instead, I just steer naturally and my kart goes where I expect it to.

After Lauren came over and played some, we went to work out, and then I went to the grocery store to get some food to cook for dinner. The results were quite good. First, for protein, I went with salmon, and cooked it in the way I’ve described previously. For carbohydrates, I went with some potatoes, chopped thin, with onions, mixed with olive oil, salt, and pepper, then baked in the oven at 400 degrees for around 25 minutes. To top both these dishes, I blended some olive oil, lime juice, goat cheese, and finely chopped fresh parsley in a small sauce pan over medium low heat. This sauce turned out quite spectacularly well – creamy but with a strong citrus taste. After putting it on the salmon, I put some fresh raspberries on top, to counteract the sourness. Quite delicious and visually pleasing as well. Finally, some raw sugar-snap peas, mostly because they looked good in the store. The sauce is definitely something I will make again. I’d like to experiment with other juices and the goat cheese. It seems a very easy way to make a cream sauce that it rich and low in calories.

I’ve an eye doctor appointment this morning. I’m excited to get my prescription updated so that I can buy some new glasses! I like the style of my current ones, but one of the lenses has two chips in it. I’m not sure what style to go with. I tried finding information online about what frame types go with what face shape. Not especially helpful, but one site did suggest frame-less frames, which I had tried on at LensCrafters and thought they looked pretty good. I’ve tried on trendy thicker frames but haven’t been pleased with the results (for the most part). We’ll see what happens! Maybe I’m going blind and will have no need for glasses shortly! I guess I’d better go play some more MarioKart while I still have the chance!

Update 4/30/2008, 0826: Hillary Clinton also supports the gas tax vacation. I guess bad ideas are not always on the right side of the aisle.

Gas prices are higher than ever! And it hurts me to fill up the small tank in my fuel-efficient Civic and have to spend almost $40! But it makes me drive less, simply by making me think twice about where I’m going. That means that a trip to Chicago to see friends, or to Mishicot or La Crosse to see parents, is much less appealing. My daily driving habits don’t change much, but mostly because they can’t! I need to commute to work.

Gas prices are expected to peak around Memorial Day and remain high thru summer. This is sure to put a kink in some people’s summer travel plans. John McCain has thus proposed we have a tax-vacation, temporarily suspending the federal gas tax for the summer months. This would surely encourage people to travel, as the price of gas would be likely to drop. But the cost of this initiative is too high for us to see any gains!

Here are my reasons why the gas tax should not be suspended (and why it should be raised).

1. Encourage local tourism. Believe it or not, there are tourist attractions all around you. To you, they may be old hat, who cares. But to people far away, they are worth seeing! In Madison, we’ve got the UW Campus, State St., and the Capital (to name just a few). In Algoma, WI, there’s Shanty Days, our red lighthouse, a beautiful beach, and charter fishing. Think of a town you know; imagine the tourist possibilities. If gas prices are high, people are more likely to take advantage of those attractions in their own backyards, rather than packing up the car for a long trip. It’s sure to be a boon for local businesses (especially those that don’t get much business from out-of-towners).

2. Lower demand. Gas prices are high right now for several reasons. The dollar is weak, the supply frequently disrupted, the market volatile and panicky. But demand on oil resources has never been higher! If we waive the gas tax, it will encourage people to drive more, thus potentially eliminating the drop in price. Gas will be (at best) slightly less expensive, and the government will lose a much-needed revenue source. We’ve got a deficit going on, McCain, in case you weren’t aware of that.

3. Get people thinking realistically. Oil is not going to be around forever. There’s a very finite supply, and we’re burning thru it rapidly. Keeping prices higher will keep people’s heads and hopes in check. We need real solutions – renewable fuel, hybrid cars, aggressive mileage standards – not tax cuts. Attempting to stimulate the economy will not produce more oil; that’s the long-term problem here. Plus, are we prepared for gas prices to take a hike come September? That would hurt more than filling up does right now.

McCain is a danger, and he must be defeated in November. His ideas center around old school conservative ideas: if you cut taxes, things get better. You can take my money all you want (take more, even), as long as you stop wasting it on useless, unjust wars; social programs that support religion; tax incentives for businesses that send jobs overseas; and tax cuts for the wealthy. Unfortunately, McCain has come out strongly in favor of all these programs, despite his “maverick” ways.

You’re a sheep in wolf’s clothing, McCain. You act the maverick while staying right inside the lines of your party’s outdated and regressive policies. If this was 1861, you’d be in favor of slavery, because the word “progressive” is a pejorative to you. You make me sick.

There’s always a lot of talk in this country about the potential values of a law allowing citizens to carry concealed weapons. Wisconsin has had a few bills proposed (and voted down), and it’s come up in other states as well. Recently, on the 1 year anniversary of the Virginia Tech shootings, a gun dealer from Green Bay who sold one of the guns used, spoke about the value of concealed carry. When I imagine how arming citizens would work, I always get a bit confused about people’s arguments for concealed carry.

Many people argue that concealed carry will reduce crime. On the one hand, imagine you are a psychopath incapable of feeling guilt, and you have been steered towards a life of crime. You might think twice before robbing someone if you knew that they were likely to be carrying a gun. But how many criminals are truly psychopaths? Compare that number to the larger population – people desperate enough to think that robbing someone is a logical choice. For those folks, I doubt the fact that people are likely to be carrying a gun is enough to increase the clarity of their thinking. So, for that population, it seems unlikely that allowing concealed carry will decrease crime.

In the wake of such tragic killings, like those at Virginia Tech, many people claim that concealed carry would have stopped (or even prevented) the shootings, as a person with a weapon could have ended the life of the shooter. But as I visualize that scenario, it seems like one would need quite a cool head to actually be able to kill the shooter. First, you would need to secure yourself, outside the range of fire. The smaller the room, the more difficult this becomes. Then, you need to withdraw your firearm and find a secure way to fire it (stable, open line of sight). Finally, you must fire the shot (or shots) in such a way that no one else is hurt. If you are in a small room, it is easier to make sure you hit your target, but harder to secure yourself and find a clear shot. If it’s a large room, you will have an easier time getting a shot off, but your target is likely farther away. Rumor has it that police officers do not fire if they couldn’t throw their gun and hit the target. Handguns just aren’t that accurate.

Allowing concealed carry, with the expectation that people will discharge the firearms they now legally carry, leads to disturbing questions about the law. Let’s say a person charges into a classroom and aims a gun at you; you withdraw your gun and kill the person. Seems like self-defense, so it would be unlikely that you would be charged. Let’s say a person comes in and aims the gun at someone else; you shoot and kill the person. Is that still self-defense? What if the person was carrying a machete or a baseball bat? Still self-defense? What if the person was carrying a water gun? Certainly seems hard to imagine that this killing would be considered self-defense; yet police make this mistake all the time. I could pose legal questions for ages; are we ready for prosecutors to have to make these decisions, for judges to have to hear these cases?

Overall, having a gun on your person may make you feel safer. But knowing that so many public shootings end in suicide, the risk inherent in the attack is much greater than any other type of shooting. If a person wants to kill another, busting into a classroom to get a shot off at them is not the best way to do this. But if you are a suicidal, psychotic maniac, it might seem like a good way to get back and go out at the same time. Concealed carry won’t cure mental illness.

In the end, I think we just see a lot of gun nuts running around, ready and willing to act the tough guy. They itch for a scenario where they could be the hero. My guess is that there were a few people like that in Columbine, or at Virginia Tech, or anywhere else a maniac has decided to take the lives of others before killing himself. Trouble is, those folks were given a chance to act and did not. No one got up and tried to tackle Seung-Hui Cho. No one fought back against Eric Harris and Dylan Klebold. I know of only one case where a person was brave enough to fight back against a would-be school shooter. That was in Cazenovia, WI, where principal John Klang lost his life while successfully subduing Eric Hainstock. Do these big-talkers think everyone would be so much tougher if we gave them all guns? And who’s to say that that toughness would translate into peace and not into further violence?

This is not a tongue-in-cheek post.

Today, the Treasure Department will begin issuing economic stimulus checks. The checks first sent out will be those that can be directly deposited. So if you got a return on your taxes and had it directly deposited, start checking your account balance! Otherwise, the IRS will start mailing checks on May 9. If you are a patriot, you will spend this money.

Our economy is struggling and consumer confidence is down. Why? Many people have lost their houses. Many more have seen their home prices decline. If you bought in a bubbling market a couple years ago, there is a good chance your home is worth what you paid for it or less. People are worried about the rising costs of daily living. Gas prices are through the roof. Food prices are on the rise too. And the constant media coverage of the economic turbulence is not helping. So the Federal Government devised a plan to help the American people: give out some money to stimulate the economy.

This is not money meant to pay your mortgage. It’s not money to help you pay off your outstanding student loans. It’s not money to help reduce your credit card debt, or to put in your savings account, or even to invest in the stock market. It’s purely pleasure money, and you should go out and spend it on a luxury item or two. If you can spare it, you should even spend MORE money than receive.

If you don’t want to spend the check to buy something big, at least try to use the money in constructive ways. How about a few nice dinners, with big tips for the waitstaff? How about a few more trips a week to your favorite local coffeeshop? Maybe a few DVDs and CDs to enhance your media collection? Just please, pump that money into the economy.

Maybe you don’t feel like spending that fat check, due to your concern about your debt, your savings, your cash flow, anything! I feel for you, and I do not want you to (continue to) make reckless decisions with your money. But this check from the government should not be a shot in the arm for your financial state. It’s a shot in the arm for the US economy.

It’s possible that the stimulus won’t work at all, this is true. But we won’t know unless we try. If half of all Americans receiving the checks put them into savings or towards paying off existing debt, we will only know that Americans did not respond well to direct stimulus. This will encourage Republicans to propose more trickle-down economic stimulus packages, like tax cuts for businesses that take jobs overseas. It’s not good for America, and it’s definitely not good for our economic bottomline. Spending this money is the only way to prove that we can pull ourselves out of this slump.

As for what I intend to spend my money on: first, a drum machine. I am planning to buy Roland’s Boss DR-670. But that isn’t even $300! So I will have some money left over. I was debating on buying a flat screen television, but my Wii doesn’t look especially good in HD, so that’s probably not going to happen. Lauren and I had discussed buying a digital piano, but I don’t think we want to invest the time to find the perfect one just yet. I had also debated about buying an Asus Eee PC, but don’t really see the need for one right now. I don’t know what I’ll spend the remaining money on, but you can be sure I will be spending, and I will be spending hard. I encourage you to do the same.

On Friday night, Lauren and I had the pleasure of dining at the Caspian Cafe before heading off to the UW Dance Dept.’s Spring Show. What a night! Though I was feeling a bit under the weather, I’d managed to go the whole day at work (not needing to take the afternoon off). A good dinner was just what I needed to keep my energy up. The Caspian Cafe seemed an ideal spot. I’d never been there before, not when it was in University Square and not in their current location either. Both times I had attempted to go there, they had been closed. This is partly because of their severely reduced hours during the summer.

They close at 7 on week nights, but we got there in plenty of time (though our meal extended past 7). We ordered the Caspian Platter for an appetizer. It was filled with delights: humus, baba ganouj, tabouleh, yogurt sauce. The bread served with it was delicious as well. For dinner, Lauren had the special (chicken with pomegranate-something sauce); I had the shishkibob. Both were delicious. We ended up leaving the restaurant with a lot of leftovers. Not only was the food great, the service was too. We left a large tip.

After that, we walked over to Lathrop Hall for the performance. Tickets were pretty pricey ($15 each for non-students), but the show was so great, it was completely worth it. 8 pieces total, most were LONG! There was plenty of visual appeal, with excellent lighting and costuming. Also, some interesting set pieces, including some cardboard buildings built on remote control cars.

The dance was excellent, giving us much needed reassurance that the UW’s program is actually good, even after the couple of terrible performances we saw during the student show earlier this year. Most exciting was the piece performed by the African Performance class, which featured not only high energy dancing, but also drumming and singing! They should have ended the show with this piece as it was the most fun of the entire night.

Overall, the evening was exceptionally enjoyable. We didn’t get home until around 10:30 and by then were ready to collapse. Anyway, highly recommended: the Caspian Cafe, if you can make it within their limited hours!

Nothing makes you realize how much talking plays a part in your daily life like losing your voice. This unfortunate thing happened to me last night and into today. I’ve got a cold that is largely coughing and congestion. It seems to have paralyzed my vocal cords, plus a spate of rampant conversationalism didn’t help. Last night I had dinner with Tony, Jim, and Tony’s brother Bill and then went over to Lauren’s mom’s place (with Lauren) after that. Overall, the ensuing 5 hours of conversation didn’t do much to sooth my already ragged throat.

I wasn’t much use at work, feeling like I was shouting into the phone in a whisper voice, just trying to get enough force behind my air to vibrate those fragile cords. I ended up leaving around 2, as I did on Monday and Tuesday. I guess it’s nice to be at home, but I am really looking forward to recover. I need to go drug myself up again as I suspect my Tylenol and Sudafed have worn off (either that, or I’m taking a turn for the worse).

Anyway, I’m sure you all wanted to know that. In other news, Thursday, Friday, and Saturday nights, the UW Dance Department is putting on their Spring show. It was great last year and should be great again. Much better than the student choreographed dance I wrote about a while ago, these faculty choreographed routines are often fun and lively and a much better representation of why dance is a lot of fun. Highly recommended!

Because spring is finally here, I am ready to attack my spring cleaning with gusto! Not that my apartment has been all that dirty for the winter; I do try to keep up with cleaning, but I had started to feel that things were in a bit of disarray. Certain items in the kitchen (especially things that get used frequently, like my electric skillet) were not getting cleaned in a timely fashion. Who am I kidding with that passive voice? It was ME who wasn’t cleaning them and I was getting sick of myself for being so lazy!

I started with the bathroom, by scrubbing the tub with some Mr. Clean brand Magic Erasures. It’s some kind of fancy sponge that takes dirt right off things. Cleaned the tub up right pretty in no time flat. I also bought some bathroom cleaning wet-wipes made by Scrubbing Bubbles. These are great because they allow you to quickly wipe a surface clean and then flush the wipe right down the toilet (if you get it wet, you will notice it starts to disintegrate right away, making me feel not so bad about using something disposable.

On to the kitchen where I have been trying to stay more organized. That means emptying the dishwasher when it’s done running, rather than leaving the dishes to sit. And trying to keep dirty dishes either in the dishwasher or sink, not crowding the counter tops. I also moved my microwave to create a nice “work triangle”; it had previously taken up valuable prep space.

Laundry is next, and it’s been a lengthier process. One of the reasons I rented my current apartment was that it has its own washer and dryer. I thought for sure that would mean I did laundry more frequently. But I found myself still waiting just as long to wash clothes as I had before – back when I had to lug my clothes down to the basement or down the hall. Plus, when I tried to do a large load, it took forever to dry! So I finally stopped fighting it and started doing small, frequent loads. This has made laundry seem downright manageable, and I’ve nearly washed everything!

General organization has been an ongoing process. I’ve got some stuff for Goodwill that I need to get out of here. And some other things to put away (I still don’t have a good system for sorting my mail!). Buying a filing box has helped a lot. It’s an attractive box with rods for hanging folders. I now have papers I need to keep around sorted and stowed on a shelf. Easy access, but it’s also nice and out of the way.

Finally, finances! I am about to pay off my credit card. I’ve been paying off/putting on a balance for some time now, rather than living solely on my take-home pay. Part of this is lack of preparation; I’m not ready for all the expenses that come my way (like my Federal tax bill). It’s also due to lack of self-regulation; I know I can purchase something that I want when I want it, so I do. The third reason is bad financial decisions at the beginning of the month. I only get paid once a month, which is a real drag. This means I look to a large pile of money in my account and often transfer money to my external savings account (through ING). Then, when the end of the month rolls around and I’m short on cash, I use my credit card to keep me going. But I should have just waited until the end of the month to save money! So I just transferred money from savings to my checking account, enough to pay off my credit card bill and stop using it (recklessly, anyway) for good!

I would encourage you to take advantage of spring fever by cleaning as well. If you are already clean, my garage needs to be swept out. I will be eternally grateful if you could do this for me. I’ll even let you use my new straw broom.

It’s funny to be reminded, on a regular basis, that people are watching you. Not for any good reason, not out of interest, not out of light-hearted curiosity. No, people watching with bad motives, the motives of someone who thinks they might get ahead by paying attention to something that is outside their sphere or responsibility and interest. These folks have sprung up from time to time to make my life interesting. I know this blog is public, and I relish this!

Anyway, here are some lyrics I wrote a while ago about this phenomenon.

A snitch and a spy
the sneaky-eyed demon
Scheming for any reason to seize him.
Grab him by the curb, leave him bleedin’.
Never saw it comin, never knew they looked
Never imagined the stunning revelations they cooked.
Conspired, plotted, planned, get him banned
keep his writing manned, monitored.
Know they shouldn’t look but never bothered
by conscience.  Inform his bosses,
tattle like little 3 year old monsters.
Don’t take it to his face, never wanted
trouble so they act a friend, then turn double
Two-faced in the worst way, not for harmony,
only to betray for their own gain.

In terms of the title of this post, I feel like the notion of “productivity” has been a buzz word in business since the era of the assembly line. If we treat people like machines, then we must have a way to measure what we are getting out of our machines. Are some people able to function like better designed machines than others? How can we learn about these differences so we can take most advantage of our workers’ labors?

But because this word gets thrown around so often, I think it becomes a disguise for bad organizational structure. If there exists an impediment to productivity, the most obvious thing would be to remove it. If having a manager who is not familiar with your work directly leads the worker to spend time explaining his work to the manager, let’s get rid of the manager! The employee will be more productive without having to report to that person. But then we discover that the employee is now producing much less than he was before. It turns out that the manager needed to assign work to this employee; without that constant communication, it now takes the employee twice as long to get new projects.

When an impediment to productivity exists, the first and best thing to do is study it. Not only will you gain a unique understanding of the problem, you will also be able to use this understanding when addressing problems in the future. In our example above, maybe training the manager in what the employee does would not only save the employee time, but it would also help the manager to more efficiently deliver work and projects, now knowing more specifically what the worker does.

Our manager story is a basic example, but these kinds of situations can often be overrun with previous biases and prejudices. For example, recent trends in business (since the dot com boom, though probably further back) have frowned upon middle management. Businesses today often have so little respect for these people that they are the first to be laid off when a company encounters financial trouble. But that doesn’t mean all managers (and structures of organization with a hierarchical managerial structure) are bad for productivity. This is only true if the organization responded to a productivity problem by not first studying it (and instead, slapped in some managers to make people work harder).

When productivity becomes our focus in business, we become blind to so many problems. Not only does productivity become a vague and nebulous master, it also blinds our vision for the future of a company. I recall reading about a study sometime back in college; it involved a factory and some testers who wished to see what working conditions would increase productivity. They changed the temperature, the lighting, the workstations, the layout – everything you could think of. And do you know what they discovered? Everything increased productivity. Their eventual conclusion was that the workers liked having someone concerned about their working conditions, and that made them work harder.

So to begin a mission with productivity as the end goal, one cannot assume that these changes will last. Crafting a pleasing workspace may work for those first workers you move into the workspace. They may find themselves able to concentrate more easily and work harder and faster. But those workers not receiving the special treatment may drop their productivity; no one is paying attention to them. And similarly, those workers getting special treatment may soon find that the gleam wears off quickly. Suddenly, they don’t see the advantages of their new workspace; they only see the problems that is has.

I don’t have any answers to increasing productivity. But if the key to worker happiness and production is attention, then I believe freedom to work in ways best suited to the individual worker (which may change day-by-day) is probably the key to keeping productivity as high as it can be (either that, or continually bringing in new workers so that they never become jaded by your company’s less-productive requirements, i.e. its bureaucracy). This requires planning upfront, but it also requires constant reevaluation of your working climate. A step made once does not mean that step is completed forever.

There are probably many books about working spaces, increasing productivity, organizing a company, et cetera; I haven’t read them, and the sad thing is, I suspect this is also the truth for many companies who respond with ignorant solutions to the “problems” of productivity.

Many of us enjoy Hip-Hop music. But so often the Hip-Hop we get exposed to is that we find on commercial radio stations. Nothing against popular music, but often commercial stations don’t play the kind of music that you and I are likely to find much depth in. No, the stations aim to play that which is already popular, rather than striving to promote artists needing promotion. So while there may occasionally be a breakthrough artist who also achieves commercial success, most often with commercial Hip-Hop we see success based on the quality of the production rather than lyrics or skill of delivery.

But thankfully I read something on the Onion AV Club’s website recently. Writer Nathan Rabin directed the readers to some excellent sites serving up free Hip-Hop mixtapes (read his post here). I downloaded some and was particularly impressed with artist Bishop Lamont. He’s signed to Aftermath, a Dr. Dre protege. Knowing the success Dr. Dre has in picking out up-and-coming artists (Snoop, Eminem, 50 Cent, The Game), I have high hopes for Bishop Lamont’s eventual commercial success. But until you are able to purchase his albums in your local record shop, his mixtapes serve to show you his excellent skills. I downloaded ‘Pope Mobile’ and thought it was excellent.

Anyway, if you are looking to listen to some Hip-Hop outside of the mainstream, I highly recommend grabbing some of these free mixtapes. Not only will they make you remember why you got into Hip-Hop in the first place, it will also make you appreciate those artists who use the internet for their advantage, rather than trying to fight against it! Hip-Hop is great, and free Hip-Hop is even better!

First, Lauren and I are trying out a new coffeeshop – The Froth House on Allen Street. The connection to this coffeeshop for us is rather long. One of the owners is the brother of the girlfriend of a co-worker of mine. So Ryan, that co-worker, recommended it, and Lauren and I drove over to check it out. It’s really nice! It’s got a good location, not to far from where we live, in a quiet area. Plenty of tables and even outdoor seating. The coffee is excellent, as was the smoothie that Lauren had. Overall, not too many people here right now, but there have been a good stream in and out since we arrived. Hopefully it continues to do well, as it seems like a very nice place. On the other hand, I wish the same success for Barrique’s, but often their Fitchburg and Middleton locations are too busy, and you can’t find a table. So maybe a middle level of success.

Second, I’m reading a great book right now! Lauren gave it to me for Valentine’s Day (such a romantic gift); ‘The End of Faith’ by Sam Harris. Before our trip to Paris, I read his book ‘Letter to a Christian Nation’, which transformed my own view on defending my views on religion, rather than advocating tolerance of illogical ideas. It also expressed a lot of what I think in a clear and straightforward way, with plenty of humor thrown in.

‘The End of Faith’ follows along the same lines, though with much more logic and philosophy (as it’s quite a bit longer than the 80 page ‘Letter’). I really appreciate his logic and thought exercises, as well as his straightforward criticism of all organized religions, rather than simply attacking Christianity. I think he bravely confronts Islam, while still not giving much ammunition to Christians who would use his argument to support their own crusades. Overall, a very good book so far. If you don’t have time to read it, I would still recommend ‘Letter’ as an absolute must-read.

Maybe I’ve written too often about the coming of spring. I think that the endless winter we suffered thru as had a real detrimental effect on my psyche. Rather than be excited about the change of seasons, I have only trepidation that it is not real, that it is only some cruel joke played on us by the weather gods. And the folks at WKOW are not especially helpful, as they keep incorrectly predicting drops in temperature. I expect it to fall back into the 40s and stay there for weeks, maybe even long enough to deliver us another dose of snow. And all I can think about is those summer days when it is so hot and humid outside that you just want to lay in front of the air conditioner.

So while I still don’t believe that actual hot weather is ever going to come back, this weekend is certainly shaping up to be a nice one. Lauren and I spent some time walking on State Street and found the weather to definitely be warm. It was 65 as we drove back to my apartment. Pretty darn nice! And the temperature is supposed to break 70 tomorrow. Maybe it’s time to get out the tennis rackets and hit the court!

Rather than do something energetic today, we went to look at digital pianos. Lauren’s great at the piano, and I like to tinker around, but currently neither of us has an easy place to play so we thought purchasing a digital piano would be an ideal thing to do! Trouble is, we went to the Steinway Gallery in Madison (off Mineral Point, next to Panera Bread), where they sell Roland brand digital pianos. Very expensive (and nice) pianos. The guy had nothing but praise for them, and criticism towards Yamaha and Casio. But since we don’t want to spend $2000 on a digital piano, we didn’t make a purchase, and probably won’t at that store. He mentioned that Guitar Center, off Whitney Way, sold less expensive models. We looked at those and they seemed pretty darn good (though, to be fair, not as good as the Rolands), even though Guitar Center was noisy and jam-packed with musical stuff. Anyway, maybe a digital piano is in our future once we get our economic stimulus checks.

Tonight, we are going with Beth and Tony to see ‘Forgetting Sarah Marshall’ a Judd Apatow produced romantic comedy that has gotten excellent reviews. I’m hoping it will have something to offer both the romantic comedy critics and those seeking a nice romance. We’ll see! I’m also predicting the movie to do well at the box office. Judd Apatow, despite TV flops of ‘Freaks and Geeks’ and ‘Undeclared’ has done very well in the movie business. ‘Knocked Up’ and ‘Superbad’ were two of my favorite movies from last summer. Hopefully this one will be just as good!

One more thing – pitch out there for folks looking to network with people over what books they read: Tony got me to sign up for an account at GoodReads. It’s a nice easy way to put what books you’ve read and are reading and then to share that information with friends! If you sign up and add me as a friend (michaeltbraun@gmail.com), then I will have two friends (or more!), so give it a try!!

I heard an interesting story on Morning Edition yesterday. It was part of their ‘Climate Connections’ joint with National Geographic. The story was about a 16-year-old, Kristen Byrnes, global warming skeptic. She doubted global warming when she first heard about it and has since reviewed a lot of the research (with help of her step-dad and fellow skeptic). She even has a website, which you can view here.

She seems to have a lot of good points and reason to raise skepticism. She’s also more than willing to engage in debates with people who have written her. Overall, she’s the kind of young woman who has a bright future. But there’s one point she misses: even if we are overstating the effect that humans are having on climate change, the benefits of cutting our energy consumption and pollution far outweigh the costs.

If humans cannot affect global warming, the logic should go, then why should we cut our consumption of oil? Why should we worry about factories pumping pollutants into the atmosphere? Why should we try to drive less, use cleaner technologies, or sign international treaties?

For Ms. Byrnes, the rejection of mainstream thought related to global warming seems to be a hobby, a cute cause, or even a great college application side note. She doesn’t seem to be an oil industry fan, nor does she seem to want to protect big business from stringent pollution controls. No, she’s just 16 and thus doesn’t seem to be able to understand the consequences of her actions.

But when she stands up and says, “It’s a hoax”, she is saying to the whole world that we should ignore effects of pollution, no matter what they are. If this were the 1970s, she would say that there is no solid evidence that DDT is hurting birds. But we all see the effects of regulating pesticides; you can thank smart-minded forward-thinkers every time you see a hawk perched along the side of the highway.

No, Ms. Byrnes probably doesn’t hug polluters. And she probably wants a clean earth like the rest of us. But she’s 16, and she’s got an enabler of a step-father. And maybe she isn’t going to college. No, Ms. Byrnes just doesn’t get it. If we take the hard steps now, even in the face of inconclusive evidence (because the evidence she cites can only raise doubts about current thought; it cannot reverse the overwhelming evidence that humans indeed are contributing to climate change), we can only do good. Regulating carbon dioxide emissions can only hurt big business; it cannot harm our environment.

Get it straight – Ms. Byrnes – you either support environmentalism or you support big business. You can’t have it both ways.

CNN has an interesting story about a suicidal student at Virginia Tech, the place of a massacre by gunman Seung-Hui Cho just a year ago. The story features a suicidal student, Daniel Kim, who became depressed after the shooting, fearing students would mistake him for the shooter. He exhibited classic signs of depression, including talking about killing himself. A concerned friend informed the University. They sent police to look in on him. The police ruled that Kim was okay and left. A month later, Kim shot himself.

CNN’s usually inflammatory yellow journalism reporting seems to blame the school. After all, Cho was a suicidal student who killed a bunch of people before taking his own life. Shouldn’t the school have taken Kim’s warning signs more seriously? Also, school policy states that a suicidal student must be referred to the on-call psychologist. Instead, they just sent police to check in on him, because Kim lived off-campus.

But the fact is that Kim is a private citizen. In this case, the school and the police could have done more, but within the bounds of the law, they acted appropriately. Perhaps the family would have preferred that Kim be arrested, then forcefully admitted into a mental hospital. Perhaps they would have preferred the school to expel him for the semester until he got help. But there are limits to the law, and Kim has a right to his privacy.

No, the only person with the ability to save Kim was Kim himself. He did not seek treatment. He suffered delusions that others might judge him because of his ancestry. Could the University and police have done more? Yes, but it was not within their rights or obligations to do so. They judged Kim not to be a threat to himself or others, though this judgment was flawed, and cannot act further. And just as the police and University could have done more, so could Kim’s family and friends. The parents could have worked to get him to come home or visit a psychologist. His friends could have attempted to put similar pressure on him. There are many areas of failure here, and in the end, a sad end to a life.

But to pin the blame on the institution seems short-sighted. While the University must watch out for its own security, it cannot become the police force for any student experiencing depression issues. If the University was required to round up and institutionalize all students who were currently or had experienced depression, class sizes would drop dramatically. Simply receiving a prescription for depression medication could end up getting you kicked out of the University. This is America, and suicide is a cost of freedom. When we give people privacy, they are free to do things that may harm themselves. This truth may have tragic consequences, but it is true: freedom isn’t free.

Figured it out! I was looking in the wrong place for the corrupted file. I found it and everything seems to be working great!

Thank you, WordPress forums, for all your super-duper help! I love my blog!

As some of you may have read, or heard about, or helped me trouble-shoot, something weird seems to be going on with my blog. When I write a new post and attempt to post it, thru the nice WordPress interface, it doesn’t work! It tries to load a certain PHP code file and stops there, for some reason not able to continue to post. I am naturally pretty boggled by what may be going on.

I’ve tried to figure it out via the WordPress forums, with some success. Others have noted the same problem on the support forums, and today I finally found someone who had resolved the problem. But following their instructions got interesting!

First, I had to log into my webhost’s portal to gain access to my SQL databases. I had done that once before, just to see what they looked like, so getting to the database was not a problem. But then, I had to track down a table called wp_settings. But that table didn’t exist! I figured that this was the problem; if it needs this table (said the support forum), and it’s missing, that sounds like an issue. I attempted to create the table, with no success. The forums pointed to a bogus entry on the table that was causing the code to quit when reading over these settings. Figuring something could be wrong with a bogus entry elsewhere, I went and looked at wp_posts. And there, I did see an entry that looked weird. It was listed right after my last successful, and non-test, post. So I deleted that. Still no luck.

Finally, I went into the wp_posts table itself and made a new entry, so that I could have a post show up. That worked great! But I obviously don’t want to have to do this every time I want to post something to my blog. I guess the next step is to export someone else’s wp_settings table and import it to my database. Either that, or try to set up an entirely new database, which sounds like a really horrible thing to have to do.

Whatever happens, I just hope I can get my blog back up and running soon!