What if the fire due west from me about 5 miles last evening wasn't contained? The 40-50 mph winds have been pounding us for weeks, especially in the late afternoons and evenings, and last night was no exception. The brush fire that started at the intersection of I-10 and an off-ramp was in a direct line from my community, with little but dry brush and a few desert homes between there and here. If the fire fighters hadn't been able to get the resources to the fire quickly enough, rather than 60 acres burned, there would have been disaster because the winds are still blowing this morning. Fire + winds = no stopping a fire until it has consumed all the available fuel in its path.
What if the teen circumnavigator had perished at sea? Would her parents still be telling the media that she needs to follow her dream? Or would the parents rue their lack of wisdom in encouraging this young girl to do something too big too young in her life? When we are teens, we all want to do more, to go farther than anything we've ever known, to succeed beyond our wildest dreams -- and our perceived limitations of our own parents' lives. Again, it's all about putting an old head onto young shoulders to give the perspective of both time and wisdom, but what if the old heads had prevailed when the young folks wanted to head west in their wagon trains? Sometimes, life gives us difficult choices to make.
What if the uncounted ballots had not been counted? According to the on-going tallies, there has been absolutely no change whatsoever in the outcome of the voting process last Tuesday. That's hard to believe, but apparently is true. Counting literally as many uncounted ballots as were counted for the precinct total has had no effect on the outcome of the election. The margins between winners and losers is identical, so it really hasn't mattered that 130,000 cast votes were not counted before releasing the "final" results of the election. There goes the old theory that MY vote can make a difference.
What if everyone listening to Geraldo this morning, who was ranting and raving about the residents of the oil-effected shorelines who are waiting for "someone" to clean up the mess, heard what he said? He echoed my earlier thoughts: everyone report to the shoreline. Suit up and start removing whatever floats in to containment barrels instead of calling the 1-800 number to file a claim against BP. If you aren't part of the solution, you are simply contributing to the problem. This is OUR country, so let's do it. Get the job done: stop waiting for someone else either to clean up the mess or pay to have someone do it for you. It isn't BP's problem, it's YOUR problem, so fix it, people.
And what if I locked up the house, got into my RAV, and took off for a couple of weeks? Could I take the dogs with me and just be gone? Why do I always worry about all the possible problems, rather than just do it? I spend so darned much time in "what if" land that I'm just not having fun.
Friday, June 11, 2010
Thursday, June 10, 2010
Not Quite Final Afterall
How awkward it is for the Registrar of Voters in Riverside County, who, after posting the results of the primary election Tuesday, then discovered somewhere between 100 and 105 thousand uncounted ballots! The number of uncounted ballots exceeds the total number of counted ballots, which means the final outcomes of the election have not been determined in spite of the published and celebrated results.
Oops doesn't seem quite strong enough to cover the mistake. What makes this mistake even worse is that no one caught it until a news reporter for a local station did some quick math and thought wow, this is the lowest voter turn-out ever. He called the Registrar's Office for comment the morning after the election. Personnel at that office did the math and agreed that the totals were less than half of the lowest voter turn-out on record, and sounded the alert.
What has not been counted is all of the ballots submitted by the voters who mailed their ballots directly, as well as those ballots hand-delivered on or before election day. These "absentee" ballots were found stored in boxes, ready to be counted, but simply over-looked in the pressure to get the totals published as soon as possible. It seems that no one said, hm, these totals are really low; or wow, we finished counting really early; or hey, are we sure we counted all the ballots? No red flags, no warning bells, no gut instinct activated anyone to make sure all the ballots were counted and the job was done.
So, all of the election results hang in the balance as the total number of ballots not counted exceeds the number of ballots used to determine the published results of Tuesday's election. The incumbent DA, for example, was ousted -- or was he? Several local tax measures hang in the balance, funding sources that can make -- or break -- local communities.
This is a huge mistake, one that should not have been made. Blaming the media pressure to publish the winners/losers on the 11 o'clock network news is not a strong rebuttal argument for the failure to get the job done right the first time.
UPDATING: The Registrar explained that her office received approximately 130,000 absentee ballots from the US Postal Service between Monday and Tuesday (election day). Although the staff began counting the absentee ballots, they stopped Tuesday evening to prepare for the influx of ballots from the polling places. The reported election results were based on "100% of precincts" reporting, which gave the false impression to the media/public that those election results were final, when, in fact, they are not. As a matter of fact, it is now estimated that counting the 100,000+ remaining ballots will not be finished until sometime tomorrow (Friday). Therefore, the preliminary election results are subject to change based on the sheer volume of uncounted ballots that may affect the reported election results.
Oops doesn't seem quite strong enough to cover the mistake. What makes this mistake even worse is that no one caught it until a news reporter for a local station did some quick math and thought wow, this is the lowest voter turn-out ever. He called the Registrar's Office for comment the morning after the election. Personnel at that office did the math and agreed that the totals were less than half of the lowest voter turn-out on record, and sounded the alert.
What has not been counted is all of the ballots submitted by the voters who mailed their ballots directly, as well as those ballots hand-delivered on or before election day. These "absentee" ballots were found stored in boxes, ready to be counted, but simply over-looked in the pressure to get the totals published as soon as possible. It seems that no one said, hm, these totals are really low; or wow, we finished counting really early; or hey, are we sure we counted all the ballots? No red flags, no warning bells, no gut instinct activated anyone to make sure all the ballots were counted and the job was done.
So, all of the election results hang in the balance as the total number of ballots not counted exceeds the number of ballots used to determine the published results of Tuesday's election. The incumbent DA, for example, was ousted -- or was he? Several local tax measures hang in the balance, funding sources that can make -- or break -- local communities.
This is a huge mistake, one that should not have been made. Blaming the media pressure to publish the winners/losers on the 11 o'clock network news is not a strong rebuttal argument for the failure to get the job done right the first time.
UPDATING: The Registrar explained that her office received approximately 130,000 absentee ballots from the US Postal Service between Monday and Tuesday (election day). Although the staff began counting the absentee ballots, they stopped Tuesday evening to prepare for the influx of ballots from the polling places. The reported election results were based on "100% of precincts" reporting, which gave the false impression to the media/public that those election results were final, when, in fact, they are not. As a matter of fact, it is now estimated that counting the 100,000+ remaining ballots will not be finished until sometime tomorrow (Friday). Therefore, the preliminary election results are subject to change based on the sheer volume of uncounted ballots that may affect the reported election results.
Sunday, June 6, 2010
Well, That's Another Way of Looking at It
The suspended high school students are fighting back in the media after realizing that they will not be attending their graduation ceremony this week because they are suspended for playing the "Beat the Jew" game. Their point is that it's just a game and people are putting too much into the name of the game. They believe that if they called it something else, no one would be upset.
Yeah: that's the point, kids. It is the name of the game -- and the historical underpinnings of the name of the game. If it were the old "Fox and the Hounds," or "hare and the hounds," or "cats and dogs," or "sharks and fish," you are correct: probably no one would be upset with your playing it. But that's not what you named the game, so suck it up.
You blew this call and, perhaps, you'll learn from this experience what is versus what is not appropriate for future reference, including anything that invokes one's race, color, religion, political views, sexual preference ... well, you get the drift of where this is going.
Yeah: that's the point, kids. It is the name of the game -- and the historical underpinnings of the name of the game. If it were the old "Fox and the Hounds," or "hare and the hounds," or "cats and dogs," or "sharks and fish," you are correct: probably no one would be upset with your playing it. But that's not what you named the game, so suck it up.
You blew this call and, perhaps, you'll learn from this experience what is versus what is not appropriate for future reference, including anything that invokes one's race, color, religion, political views, sexual preference ... well, you get the drift of where this is going.
Floater
The four of us saw the same thing: the body of a child, floating face down, in the ocean. Three of us agreed that it was probably a child about 3 feet tall, and we all clearly saw arms, legs, a "bare" head, and I could have sworn the floater had on swim trunks. The only thing to do was to find someone at the life guard station and have them pull the victim from the ocean.
It took me a full 5 minutes to find a life guard because there was no way into the compound below the life guard station. In frustration, I finally asked the woman manning the "Save the Seals" table if she knew how to contact the guards and she found a phone number written on a scrap of paper inside the cash box. I called and reported that there "is a body, perhaps of a child, in the water off the steps down to the cliffs." When he asked me where I was, I told him that I was standing below the guard tower, but he needed to know if I was at the Children's Pool or somewhere else, and it took me a minute to communicate that I was standing at the fence, at the foot of the tower, in front of the porta-potties.
When a guard opened the gate in front of me, we took off at a hurry toward the walkway where my friends were keeping the body in sight so we could get to it. Quickly the one life guard became a dozen, with some deployed directly into the water, while others scrambled down the cliffs to get a line of sight. My friend confirmed that the body had gone behind the rocks from her viewpoint, so she lost a direct visual, but we knew where we had seen it and we knew where she lost sight of it.
It's amazing how quickly a crowd gathers and how large a crowd of on-lookers can become in mere moments. Everyone was straining to see what was happening from up top, but I was down on the cliff with the guards, providing them with details. I told them that it was, perhaps, a child -- maybe 5-6 years of age, judging by the size of the body I had seen floating face down in the water. However, I pointed out, I hoped that it was just a doll or a practice dummy for water rescues. Yes, I could clearly see arms and legs splayed to the sides, and I thought I saw swim trunks, too.
It took a few minutes, but suddenly one of the guards took off running, alerting the rest of the crew via radio. When he came scrambling back up the cliffs to where I was standing, he was smiling: it was a doll, a rather small doll, that he rescued from the shoreline. We were all relieved, but I was a bit befuddled as I doubt that I could have seen a doll that small from the sidewalk -- and I am sure the "body" I saw floating face down in the ocean was about 3 feet in length. The guards thanked us several times and assured us that they would rather deploy and find a doll than have anyone see what they think is a body in the ocean and continue walking.
Someone once made the point to me (forcefully and forever) that perception is reality, but, once again, it is clear that perception is simply what someone thinks, based on an individual's interpretation of what s/he thinks they see: it's not reality. Reality is that my 3-foot tall child floating face down in the ocean and wearing swim trunks was just a 12" doll. I'm glad that it turned out to be a doll, and not a child, but there is still a part of my brain that spent the night wondering if there still is a 3-foot tall child floating face down in the ocean off the shore in LaJolla!
It took me a full 5 minutes to find a life guard because there was no way into the compound below the life guard station. In frustration, I finally asked the woman manning the "Save the Seals" table if she knew how to contact the guards and she found a phone number written on a scrap of paper inside the cash box. I called and reported that there "is a body, perhaps of a child, in the water off the steps down to the cliffs." When he asked me where I was, I told him that I was standing below the guard tower, but he needed to know if I was at the Children's Pool or somewhere else, and it took me a minute to communicate that I was standing at the fence, at the foot of the tower, in front of the porta-potties.
When a guard opened the gate in front of me, we took off at a hurry toward the walkway where my friends were keeping the body in sight so we could get to it. Quickly the one life guard became a dozen, with some deployed directly into the water, while others scrambled down the cliffs to get a line of sight. My friend confirmed that the body had gone behind the rocks from her viewpoint, so she lost a direct visual, but we knew where we had seen it and we knew where she lost sight of it.
It's amazing how quickly a crowd gathers and how large a crowd of on-lookers can become in mere moments. Everyone was straining to see what was happening from up top, but I was down on the cliff with the guards, providing them with details. I told them that it was, perhaps, a child -- maybe 5-6 years of age, judging by the size of the body I had seen floating face down in the water. However, I pointed out, I hoped that it was just a doll or a practice dummy for water rescues. Yes, I could clearly see arms and legs splayed to the sides, and I thought I saw swim trunks, too.
It took a few minutes, but suddenly one of the guards took off running, alerting the rest of the crew via radio. When he came scrambling back up the cliffs to where I was standing, he was smiling: it was a doll, a rather small doll, that he rescued from the shoreline. We were all relieved, but I was a bit befuddled as I doubt that I could have seen a doll that small from the sidewalk -- and I am sure the "body" I saw floating face down in the ocean was about 3 feet in length. The guards thanked us several times and assured us that they would rather deploy and find a doll than have anyone see what they think is a body in the ocean and continue walking.
Someone once made the point to me (forcefully and forever) that perception is reality, but, once again, it is clear that perception is simply what someone thinks, based on an individual's interpretation of what s/he thinks they see: it's not reality. Reality is that my 3-foot tall child floating face down in the ocean and wearing swim trunks was just a 12" doll. I'm glad that it turned out to be a doll, and not a child, but there is still a part of my brain that spent the night wondering if there still is a 3-foot tall child floating face down in the ocean off the shore in LaJolla!
Saturday, June 5, 2010
Beat the Jew (update)
It's a week after the game (formally known as Beat the Jews) came to light: one volunteer is the Jew, the other participants are the Nazis. The Jew takes off running and the Nazis jump into their cars and try to find him. Not just the obvious racial/ethnic cleansing aspect of this activity is reprehensible, but the fact that adrenalin-filled high school kids are jumping into their cars and tearing off down a major thoroughfare, speeding, weaving in and out of lanes, running red lights -- while trying to catch the Jew.
Surprisingly enough, the community outrage has been muted; perhaps it would have been stronger had the Nazis driving the vehicles been involved in an accident during the chase, especially if someone had been maimed or killed. Regardless, the punishment phase landed right in the middle of the school district and the students involved have been suspended, which means some of them will miss graduation. The reasoning behind the district's actions is that the students were on-campus when the game began. The 18-year-old student who let the cat out of the bag fears for his life: he has not left his home since the story broke because he has literally been threatened with death for ratting out the game-players.
The backstory includes that approximately 70 (yes, that is 7-0) students were involved in this scenario via FaceBook. They thought it hilarious and couldn't wait for the games to begin. Had it stayed in the electronic world, the school district may have been able to avoid involvement, but the participating students brought it onto campus when the student parking lot became the point of origination for the chase. Thankfully for the parents, they no longer have to figure out what the hell to do about their children's actions because their focus is now on a lawsuit filed against the school district for denying their children participation in graduation.
If we do not learn from history, we are condemned to repeat it; if we do not do our job as parents during our children's formative years, our children are given permission to act with impunity when they are older. Rather than holding the school district accountable for "ruining" their children's lives by denying them participation in graduation vis a vis the suspensions for their reprehensible actions, perhaps the parents could be more proactive. How about taking control of the car keys, selling the vehicles and putting the proceeds into a college fund, deleting the FaceBook accounts, and shutting down the computers for the summer as a starting point. The parents could organize a family field trip to the Museum of Tolerance in Los Angeles, as well as a sober on-site visit to the memorial park that is within a couple of miles of their children's high school parking lot!
And then there needs to be some serious conversation: really serious conversation.
Surprisingly enough, the community outrage has been muted; perhaps it would have been stronger had the Nazis driving the vehicles been involved in an accident during the chase, especially if someone had been maimed or killed. Regardless, the punishment phase landed right in the middle of the school district and the students involved have been suspended, which means some of them will miss graduation. The reasoning behind the district's actions is that the students were on-campus when the game began. The 18-year-old student who let the cat out of the bag fears for his life: he has not left his home since the story broke because he has literally been threatened with death for ratting out the game-players.
The backstory includes that approximately 70 (yes, that is 7-0) students were involved in this scenario via FaceBook. They thought it hilarious and couldn't wait for the games to begin. Had it stayed in the electronic world, the school district may have been able to avoid involvement, but the participating students brought it onto campus when the student parking lot became the point of origination for the chase. Thankfully for the parents, they no longer have to figure out what the hell to do about their children's actions because their focus is now on a lawsuit filed against the school district for denying their children participation in graduation.
If we do not learn from history, we are condemned to repeat it; if we do not do our job as parents during our children's formative years, our children are given permission to act with impunity when they are older. Rather than holding the school district accountable for "ruining" their children's lives by denying them participation in graduation vis a vis the suspensions for their reprehensible actions, perhaps the parents could be more proactive. How about taking control of the car keys, selling the vehicles and putting the proceeds into a college fund, deleting the FaceBook accounts, and shutting down the computers for the summer as a starting point. The parents could organize a family field trip to the Museum of Tolerance in Los Angeles, as well as a sober on-site visit to the memorial park that is within a couple of miles of their children's high school parking lot!
And then there needs to be some serious conversation: really serious conversation.
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