10 Minute Rule

No, I didn’t give up on the rule. In the financial poostorm that is daily life my account lapsed–triggered by a change in banks (We no longer endorse BOA here). When switching banks and bill pay accounts there is certain to be some lag and resulting drama. The last few weeks have been all of that and worse. Hopefully the financial madness will stop trending and I can exchange that level of drama for a few weeks of focus on rebuilding myself.

“Some people just want to see the world burn.” -Alfred

Last night’s premiere of Nolan’s final Batman film was marred by the type of violence theater patrons expected to see on the screen as opposed to being victimized by it. A shooter stormed into a Batman premiere in Aurora, Colorado and opened fire. At least 12 died and 58 more were injured according to CNN. People are looking for answers. They want to know how and why and what we would do next. Sadly, there are no answers and I believe that a month or three from now we will crawl back into our shells and allow ourselves to forget. We will do this, because it is the only way we can maintain the illusion of safety.

I have already heard, “he didn’t look like the type to do that.” Well, what does that type of person look like? I believe that, to allow ourselves to feel safe, we ascribe physical qualities to the behaviors we seek to avoid. So when someone says, “he doesn’t look like…” they are trying to rationalize their world view with the reality of the actions that occurred. It is a useful and foolish exercise, because what you are doing is slipping back into that illusion of safety where none actually exists.

My heart goes out to the families of the victims. This crime did not need to happen, and I suspect it happened because the person wanted to, as the quote suggests, see the world burn. This was not an assault on Batman. It may have been the venue because the nature of the film would maximize the number of victims and help to reveal the deeper motive. In fact, some reports suggest the guy died his hair red and claimed to be the joker (who actually has green hair). This event should serve as a reminder of the fragility and illusory nature of a safe society. No, this is not Kandahar. More of us Americans believe in shared civility than not, but in this age of advanced weaponry and accessibility it does not take very much to hide who you truly are and create a situation where you can cause a great deal of damage.

I doubt the shooter is the only person in our society who wants to see the world burn, and I know he won’t be the last to make it happen.

By now Jeremy Lin is a household name. In a sport where Asian Americans terrorize high school courts up and down the seaboards, college athletics has not found much use for Asians in the NBA. There was Yao, and a handful of other VLA’s (Very Large Asians) who broke through the stereotype barrier and became NBA ballers, but for the most part Asians have been shut out.

Then Linsanity happened.

Even his own teammates aren’t sure how or why it happened, but for a 25+ span of basketball games, Jeremy Lin was a beast. The fact he is Asian-American is extremely relevant to this for one simple reason: Lin is a crowd player. He is the type of athlete that steps up in front of a big crowd of cheering fans. He feeds off it the way a baby suckles at his mother’s breast. It nourishes him and makes him a better player. This, and the fact that his offense scheme at the time gave him an opportunity to make plays, created that incredible stretch of games where everyone wanted to tune in and see this kid break some ankles.

The other day the NY Knicks said goodbye to Lin. They refused to match the very silly offer sheet put forward by Lin’s former franchise, the Houston Rockets. Lin did not want to go. He knows what the NY crowd is and loves it. However, it is very difficult to turn down a deal that offers you nearly 15 million dollars in the third year. That third year is what made NYC say goodbye. Based on the state of the Luxury tax, The Knicks would have been paying nearly 30 million dollars that year for Lin alone. I am sorry but as exciting as a player Lin was to enjoy, 30 million is too steep a price to pay.

In shedding themselves of Lin the Knicks have submitted to another truth, which is that the team really does belong to Carmelo “Black Hole” Anthony. To paraphrase what I heard one reporter say, what good is Lin if he gets to half court and Anthony sticks out his left hand and demands the ball. Everybody knows once Anthony gets the ball he isn’t giving it back. I believe (and Anthony’s benching tonight at the Olympic games further proves) that Carmelo Anthony is a gifted, perhaps even unstoppable, scorer who is completely incapable of finding any rhythm without the ball in his hands. Having him and Lin on the court at the same time is a joke; a 30 million dollar joke at that, and the Knicks saved themselves a ton of drama by letting that one go.

Lin may find success in Houston. Based on what I’ve seen, he is a flash in the pan player who can be extremely good in the right offense. I don’t know if Houston will build around what he can offer, but looking at the pieces that are in place, I suspect he will do just fine. This would not have been the case in NYC where he would have been a PG without the B-A-L-L. It is a sad result of trying to successfully exist in the wake of a black hole.

“The world, as I see it, is a remarkable place.” — Jason Mraz

A year or so ago I found myself invested in a series of movies that tackled reality; specifically how we all perceive reality in different ways. Shutter Island, Inception, and Suckerpunch all dealt with the different shapes reality takes, all admitting that reality is subjective. It is not difficult to agree with that point of view, especially when one considers that the very idea of ‘point of view’ exists. Here is a simple POV trick I learned from my dean: Take your hand, extend the index finger and point that hand straight into the sky. You should be looking up at your hand. Slowly roll your wrist in a clockwise fashion. Now as you continue moving that hand clockwise, lower your arm so that you are eye level to your hand. Now lower that arm so it is waist level. You should be looking down at your hand. What happens to your perception of the direction your hand is moving?

That simple trick indicates how perspective shapes perception. Merely shifting the angle at which we see something may change how we see that thing. Consider then how emotion can shape reality. I am writing this while watching DMV workers, merely an hour into their shift, approach critical mass. From my perspective their anger and apparent disgust towards customers feels like an overreaction. However, when I consider their perspective from behind the desk, I suspect there may be some legitimacy to that rage. See, I am seeing customer confusion and slow moving tendencies for the first time. They see it 4-5 days a week.

Right here a physicist would stop me and say, quite rightly, that these people are experiencing an identical reality. Perhaps, but being a social scientist, I also recognize that their histories, attitudes, and current physical state affect how they perceive that reality, and furthermore, their perspective is key in determining that perspective.

A cop and a crook walk into a bank and see a robbery in progress. What do they look for? This comes down to role, an aspect of perspective. So, to cut it short, the main lesson from this is to be aware of your own perspective and those of others perceiving the same situation. Use that knowledge, as opposed to just your own point of view, in order to shape a 360 view of the situation.

Some thoughts:
1. I’ve been thinking a lot about grading and the role it plays in teaching. My students, for the most part, are in the class to receive a grade. It is the carrot that compels them to study and retain information for long enough to complete whatever assessment I can create in order to determine if they have retained information for said limited timeframe. This is not learning. So, I am considering moving to a more comprehensive mastery model. In this model students are required to complete an online remediation program that is designed to continue testing them until they reach a mastery level (80 or perhaps 90%). If I can tie this into their grade in a significant way (make it worth half the grade?) then their ability to pass is intrinsically tied to their ability to master the content. Given my proclivity to games, I can also tie higher levels of mastery (100%?) to additional class bonuses like the removal of an assignment or overall grade points or some way to do both. Now I need to. Create the same sort of mastery system for essays–maybe using the existing rubric as a guideline. You write 3 essays and cannot get a grade below a B. I keep sending it back until you hit that 80% threshold. Those who don’t make it by the time class ends (or by a drop dead due date) don’t get credit. In other words, they become the C students.

2. This brings up the argument of what does a C grade mean? C reflects average, right? Perhaps that is a longer discussion for another day.

Today’s post comes from a Chick-fil-A where I just spent $19 on what amounts to three kids meals and a chicken sandwich. This is not a complaint but a fact of reality. Nowadays a cup of coffee is upwards of $3.00 and date night costs as much as a yearly membership to most kids’ or a month at a really nice Gym. Such is the price of life in America, and we pay it, because we feel these prices are a bargain compared to what we could be paying in other places. Last night my wife got a bit upset with Walmart. There are many reasons she could and should be pissed at the ‘mart, but this fresh anger was brought on by their online store. She saw some outdoor furniture priced in the $3000 range. She felt it was ludicrous and it is, but I am also sure it exists because people will buy it at that price, which brings me to my point of the day.

The worlds financial engine is predicated largely on the principles of supply and demand. Where there is significant supply and little demand, prices are low. Where there is the reverse the reverse will likely be true. A wise businessman can manipulate these factors, artificially raising or lowering one or the other in order to create value. Meanwhile, the value of fixed and plentiful items remains the value that is most often manipulated, like water. That was monetized in a major way in our lifetimes.

I am no economist, but I am curious to know what will be the next big monetization. We monetized failure with the creation of derivatives, so anything is possible. Maybe we can monetize birth rates.

Some Thoughts:
1. I was thinking about souls and what happens when the well of souls is full. Will, at some point in creation, all the lives ever lived need to be recycled because we have reached the limit of all imprinted souls in creation? What would it be like to wake up 876 trillion years into the future. What would reality look like?

I need p90x.

This will be the second time I make this post. The first fell victim to the sticky hands of a three year old boy. He erased the post ‘accidentally’. A lot of accidents popped up in the hours following my arrival. It leads to the conclusion that they do cause more problems when both parents are around. I thought the distance might reset me, which it did partially. But their speedy return to negative behavior highlights a need to be recognized–for good or worse, and I know that I need to stay aware of that before tumbling into the old routines that did us no good to begin with.

I am being reflective.
Everything I tell you about learning and writing winds back to that idea of being reflective. Reflection is a huge part of meta-cognition, which means thinking about how you think, and even thinking about what it means to think at all. Trust me, there is no universally accepted definition of what thinking is.

Some thoughts:
1. This morning my boys were talking about the past and one remarked to the other, “you weren’t alive yet.” I listened to that and thought about what that meant. What were we before we were alive. If it is true that matter cannot be created nor destroyed then we existed in some state, even if it means we were not us.

2. Sleepy. It is too early to sleep, but the desire is there. Maybe I will just lay here for a while…

Of the many rules I learned in writing, the use of ‘said’ remains among the most controversial. According to some, the use of said is mandatory. You should end or begin a line of dialogue in this fashion and this fashion alone. However, other famous authors and practically all of my editors deplore the over usage of said as a dialogue tag. Here is an example of how said vs, other tags changes the temperature of a story:

“I didn’t think you were that type of person.” Taro said.
“You didn’t want to.” Rati said. “It wasn’t much of a secret.”

This version strips away any intentionality from the dialogue tags and forces the reader to focus on the language as a way to understand the situation. How does changing the flat tags to emphatic tags modify meaning?

“I didn’t think you were that type of person.” Taro spat.
“you didn’t want to.”Rati smirked. “it wasn’t much of a secret.”

In this second version the author, me in this case, intentionally forces the reader to interpret the words in a specific way. I do the work for you. Instead of making you dive into the context on your own, I give you a ladder and walk you down into that context. I suppose it could be called a matter of audience. Typically speaking, you want to do more hand holding with younger readers, so it could be the case that the more mature (from a sense of ability to interpret literature) the audience is, the less likely you are to want to use dialogue tags.

This is just speculation here, and don’t take it as fact. What is fact is the dichotomy between plain tag and flare tag writing. There are differences there, which affect the meaning of the writing.

Some thoughts:
1. Very few people pull of the bald head very well. I think you need to have the face and head shape for it. I likely do not, though the recent hair loss means I soon may have no choice. I met a guy who pulls it off rather nicely and it made me believe that facial hair may play a pivotal role too. In other words, bald and nicely groomed is good, but bald and letting your facial hair run wild is not so good.

2. WordPress does not support automatically numbered lists as far as I know. I’m okay with that. It just means spaces between the numbers; another formatting change to a blog that is still evolving.

3. My ghost armor on my iPad is heavily damaged. It keeps peeling, and I think it is the result of the climate shift. The iPad and I are in Washington where the air has moisture. I installed it in Arizona where the moisture is lacking.