Passed along from one of my teacher friends: Link]]>
The article is rather thick and takes some concentration to get through, but it's quite interesting. It boils down to a grid of test scores for children based on their family wealth, crossed with the average wealth of the children at their school.
The finding is that while poor school vs. wealthy school generates a half of a standard deviation in test performance, and poor kid vs. wealthy kid also generates a half of a standard deviation difference, the poor kid in the poor school is 1.5 standard deviations from the wealthy kid at the wealthy school.
Of course, the application of the results is all up to one's point of view... but the moral of the story is to send your kids to a wealthy school, regardless of your own personal wealth.
• Wall Street Journal: What they're doing after Harvard
• New York Times: A chosen few are teaching for America
In other news, some friends of mine are leaving to be missionaries in Uganda today. That makes headlines like this all the more alarming: 80 people were killed in Kampala by Somalian terrorists intent on breaking up the World Cup watch party with bombings. Please pray for peace and safety for both the Ugandan people and my friends John & Amanda.
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To celebrate, we went on our normal afterwork walk. We met up with my mother and walked her to the bus, and then we walked all the way to the Grant Park Dog Bark where we played for a while before walking home. When we got back, both dog and human were thoroughly tired, and just a little wet thanks to a thunderstorm rolling through the city.
For one last something special, Lily is enjoying gravy with her kibble tonight... and she loves gravy!
So - Happy 3rd Birthday Lily!
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Of course, what happened was a poor 45 minutes against England, followed by a muffed stop by England's keeper Robert Green, and then 45 minutes of the US outplaying England, but unable to come up with a victory. US, 1 point.
The next game, against Slovenia, saw the US down 2 goals before our boys kicked it into high gear and we rallied for 2 of our own. Then, in the last few minutes of the game, we scored again only to have the goal erased by a horrendous offside call. US, 1 point.
Entering the match against Algeria, the US controlled our own destiny, but it took us until added time for Landon Donovan to slot home a goal and deliver the 3 points we needed to advance. For the first time in 80 years, the US won our group, and we advanced to the round of 16.
Unfortunately, the US allowed an early goal to Ghana in the first elimination match and although we outplayed Ghana in the second half, we only managed an equalizer. In the first half of over-time, we allowed another goal and lost to Ghana 2-1.
Although the elimination was gut wrenching, I was proud of the team and am hopeful that we'll do even better four years from now.
Now, for two links: How MLS contributed to the USMNT success. And Why US fans should support the MLS.
So who's up to attending a Fire game with me?
]]>Chicagoist: A woman is being sued after criticizing a concrete company on Angie's List. Helen Maslona was surprised to learn a local concrete company refused to do work at her house, five miles from their headquarters, because they claimed to cover her area in their company profile. So Helen posted this criticism on the site (which is allowed on Angie's List) and gave the company an "F." This, apparently, warrants a lawsuit asking for $10,000 in damages. Said Helen: "I'm just floored. I can't believe it. First of all, $10,000 -- for what?" And said Michael Fitzgerald, owner of the company, "I'm not trying to be a jerk. It's just hard to have somebody slander you."
Either the owner is in fact a jerk... or he missed an opportunity to tell the reporter that Ms. Maslona's review was factually wrong. If the facts of the case are as claimed above, the owner of the concrete company should have his feet held to the fire and made to pay not only Ms. Maslona's legal fees, but also some pain and suffering (and slander) damages. PEOPLE, WE HAVE A FIRST AMENDMENT!
It is not just that commercial interests can use their comparative economic power to suppress people's speech... and the courts and legislature should even out the incentives to make businesses think twice about intimidating people through the courts.
From the NYTimes article, discussing another similar suit:
[Legal experts] consider the lawsuit an example of the latest incarnation of a decades-old legal maneuver known as a strategic lawsuit against public participation, or Slapp.
The label has traditionally referred to meritless defamation suits filed by businesses or government officials against citizens who speak out against them. The plaintiffs are not necessarily expecting to succeed -- most do not -- but rather to intimidate critics who are inclined to back down when faced with the prospect of a long, expensive court battle.
Snip
The federal bill, in the House Subcommittee on Courts and Competition Policy, would enable a defendant who believes he is being sued for speaking out or petitioning on a public matter to seek to have the suit dismissed.
"Just as petition and free speech rights are so important that they require specific constitutional protections, they are also important enough to justify uniform national protections against Slapps," said Mark Goldowitz, director of the California Anti-Slapp Project, which helped draft the bill.
Under the proposed federal law, if a case is dismissed for being a Slapp, the plaintiff would have to pay the defendant's legal fees. Mr. Randazza would not disclose specifics on the legal fees he has charged his clients, but he said the cost of defending a single Slapp suit "could easily wipe out the average person's savings before the case is half done."
Emphasis added
And then a gem of a quote from a college student sued for an online comment regarding a towing service:
"There's no reason I should have to shut up because some guy doesn't want his dirty laundry out," Mr. Kurtz said. "It's the power of the Internet, man."]]>
1. I hate being lied to, even if it was a lie of ignorance and laziness. (I called the Chicago Park District to see if I could bring Lily with me to a concert. The phone person said, "as long as she's on a leash.")
2. I like my friends. They are nice people. I would have liked to watch the concert with them.
3. Yesterday evening would have been quite pleasant if I hadn't already made plans. Instead, I had a frown that I could not turn upside down.
4. Sometimes when you're very frustrated/angry, you have to bring out the big guns.
Meanwhile, Representative Danny K. Davis, Democrat of Illinois, is pushing for federal legislation that would make police torture a federal crime without a statute of limitations.
From NYTimes - Verdict in Burge Trial will not bring Issue to a Close by Katie Fretland and Don Terry
For some of the best coverage of the Burge trial, please see John Conroy's blog, with a hat-tip to the Beachwood Reporter and Steve Rhodes who keeps linking to it.
Aside: Links to some of the best local Chicago journos/bloggers
• The Reader - if it's written by Ben Joravsky, you should read it.
• Beachwood Reporter - a great daily commentary on the news that's important in Chi-town
• Chicago Current - city and county news - exposing the nitty gritty. I particulary liked Alex Parker's county line blog before they reorganized the site...
• Lee Bey's blog - general awesomeness and architectural commentary
• Chicagoist - Chicago for the masses
• Second City Cop - I hesitate to put this on here. SCC is wrong just as often as he's right, but it's a valuable, if not partisan (party = police = good) perspective.
Introductory Pulpit commentary: We find our lives dependent upon the destructive forces that have been made visible in the BP oil spill, but which have been a sinful and deadly presence in creation for many decades now. We acknowledge that our current lifestyle of convenience and hyper-mobility, which is based on oil and oil-based products is at the root of the problem and that the irresponsibility and hubris of companies such as BP are only outgrowths of this deeper reality. As the prophets of old said, we hear the land witnessing and testifying against us.
In Bulletin: (emphasis mine)
A call to Lament and Reconciliation
Report from the Duke Divinity Center for Reconciliation Summer Institute
Unison Confession
Merciful God,
As followers of Jesus Chris, creator and redeemer of all creation, we mourn the Deepwater Horizon catastrophe and the BP oil spill now polluting the Gulf of Mexico.
We mourn the human and animal lives lost, the econimies and ecosystems destroyed, and the gifts of God, created from and for his love, squandered and poisoned.
Most of all we mourn our complicity and active participation in an economy based on toxic energy that has made such death inevitable.
We now make a public confession of the sins against God's creation that we have committed and have been committed on our behalf.
We pray for your grace to change our lives.
And we invite all of our Christian sisters and brothers to join us in this acknowledgment of our sin and culpability, and in working toward a true repentance.
Amen.
Thoughts?
Questions for discussion:
• Is our economy based on energy?
• Is our energy necessarily toxic?
• Does the use of oil in our economy make death inevitable?
• If the answer to the above questions are affirmative, is there a safe, sinless way of providing energy for our economy?
• If there is not, should the church embrace the Amish mentality and avoid electricity?
I'm curious to hear other people's thoughts. I obviously am not fully comfortable with the confession and decided not to join in the confession until I had some time to process the implications of the statement.
]]>For several months years now, I've had a new cynical worldview boiling in my head related to the tradeoffs and relationships between economic growth, income disparity, political power, business regulation, education, media, profit, and shifting/rejecting/avoiding societal costs. I've tried writing a half-dozen blog posts, and they're all four or five paragraphs long before I just sort of stop. The idea is too big and complex to communicate simply... and if you can't communicate ideas simply, it's very difficult to actually communicate them (your audience will generally just disengage). Yet, if you choose to communicate simply, your ideas are easily picked apart by those who understand at least some aspect of the complexity of the situation.
But today, spurred on by the first 75 pages of "The Big Short" by Michael Lewis, and an interesting rant that Myles alerted me to, I've got another angle to approach my idea from: Incentives. And the bonus is, I think this angle helps to fill in some gaps that are hard to bridge.
As my thesis, I'll select the following statement:
The mainstream United States power structure is improperly incentivized. Futhermore, as reformers gain the power that would allow them to reform the system of incentives, the allure of those incentives becomes so great, even the most ardent reformer is distracted from their goals, compromised, and eventually puts self interest above societal interest, thus ending the push for reform.
I'm sure I'll refine this statement later on. I already know it's too broad, too ambitious, and too unnuanced, but it's a beginning. It's something I can print, and something I can try and build off.
Major topics:
• There is a trade-off between Economic growth and income disparity/wealth distribution. The less income and less wealth you have, the more economic growth you are prepared to sacrifice.
• With few exceptions, the only way to amass large amounts of wealth is through redistributive means, rather than productive capacity. This incentivizes and rewards those who become experts at capital allocation, rather than those who are the most productive. This is ultimately detrimental to society.
• Capital redistribution aids economic growth, but causes income disparity.
• The democracy of the vote is one of the last refuges of the masses and underclasses.
• The masses and underclasses primarily see and use government to impose their will to reverse (or flatten) the distribution of wealth and income.
• Large corporations and wealthy individuals seek to use their resources to influence government in ways that are advantageous to themselves.
• Government officials use their power predominantly for self-interest (power, wealth, fame, influence, etc.) rather than social interest.
• The media dictates much of the national agenda, it is the chief regulator of government officials.
• The media is by-and-large owned by large corporations. These large corporations often use their media holdings to self-interested purposes.
There's some more, but I've got to cut this short. More to follow, hopefully.
]]>While not sleeping, I started to obsess over how difficult it is to keep my condo clean. You try living in 400 square feet of apartment without letting things get cluttered. Every little item needs it's own place, and it's mandatory that you put it there when not in use... otherwise things look like a disaster area.
Well, I spent a fair bit of time cleaning the last few days... and things still look messy because I have too much stuff, so I made a list of things I'm going to do in the next month so I have a less cluttered condo.
•Sort books6-12-10
•7 boxes of books into storage!6-12-10
•Bring CD player to Smiljanichs6-27-10
•Put waffle maker in storage6-12-10
•Put wireless router box in storage6-12-10
• Rip classical CDs
• Donate clasical CDs
• Sell or return old DVR
•Donate unused kitchen utensils6-12-10
• Clean out closet - take to Goodwill
•Sell WiiIdea rescinded for now
• Finish transferring computer files
• Sell or donate old laptop
•Pack away winter items and old dog stuff5-19-10
•Throw away broken headphones5-19-10
•Declutter pantry6-12-10
•Donate excess tupperware6-12-10
• Sell or donate old VCR
• Sell or donate old N64
•Donate unused bookbag and computer bags6-12-10
•Declutter window sills5-21-10
•Throw out marshmallows5-19-10
•Clean off bookshelf area5-21-10
•Declutter junk drawer6-12-10
• Install hook for Lily's leash (Hook purchased 6-26-10)
•Put Tennis balls away5-19-10
•Throw out and donate VHS tapes6-12-10
•Throw out old mirror6-12-10
•Find permanent home for Lily's crate6-12-10
As you can see, I've already started. By the time I leave for Boston for Theis' wedding, the Keep will be a clutter free zone!
Update: 6-12-10 - Well, I'm not going to get the whole list done by Wednesday, but I made some tremendous progress today, and the Keep is looking better. My best accomplishment over the last month has been keeping the place cleanish pretty much every day! This is satisfying.
]]>From "The Big One: Bankers expect Megabuyout" in the WSJ by Peter Lattman
A private-equity deal Tuesday to acquire financial market data provider Interactive Data Corp. for $3.4 billion is one of the clearest signs yet of private equity's renewed potency.
The buyers, Silver Lake Partners and Warburg Pincus, secured more than $2 billion worth of loans from four large banks, according to people familiar with the deal. The debt financing is being offered at roughly than six times the company's earnings before interest taxes, depreciation and amortization, a leverage level among the highest since 2007.
Silver Lake and Warburg are also paying up for the Bedford, Mass., company, which has a relatively stable subscription-based business that holds great appeal to private-equity firms. The buyers are acquiring the business for 12.1 times its 2009 Ebitda of $281 million. This is the highest acquisition multiple since 2008, wrote S&P in a research note Wednesday, "a clear data point on the road toward expanding multiples."
But another element of the Interactive debt package reflects a more-conservative lending environment. Roughly $1.4 billion, or about 41%, of the purchase price for Interactive Data will come from the buyers' equity. Some large boom-era deals--such as the leveraged buyout of Clear Channel--had as little as 10% to 20% equity contributed to a deal.
For the uninitiated: If a company makes $100 a year from selling for more than it costs to make, that's essentially your EBITDA.
A 12.1x multiple means the company would have cost $1,210.
With a 6x senior leverage ratio, that's $600 borrowed.
If 41% of the purchase price comes from buyers equity, that's $500 of equity.
This implies $110 of additional 'sub debt', putting the actual debt level on the company at 7.1x EBITDA.
Assuming market rates on the senior debt (let's say LIBOR + 5% with a LIBOR floor of 2%, or 7%), the Senior debt interest burden is 7% * 600 = $42/year.
Assuming market rates on the sub debt of LIBOR + 15% (17%), the sub debt interest burden is 17% * 110 = $19/year
Now let's examine our cash flow. The $100 we earned annually was before paying our interest payments, so 100 - 42 - 19 = $39/ year. From the $39, we have to pay approximately 40% taxes, so subtract out another $16 and you're left with $23 a year to reinvest in the company (capital expenditures) and pay down debt. If you assume a 5% CapEx run rate, which is in the neighborhood of appropriate, you're left with $18 a year for debt repayment.
Remember, we have $710 of total debt, so assuming no growth (and no contraction), the debt would be repayed in approximately 40 years. (Not that the debt will ever actually be paid off... it will just be refinanced the next time an I-Banker convinces the CEO it's time to refi.)
Another major risk? Well LIBOR is at historically low rates. As LIBOR moves above 2%, the interest payments would increase $7/year for every percentage point above 2%. LIBOR was at 5.5% as recently as 2007, and interest rates will likely skyrocket as governments across the globe are forced to either increase rates to avoid inflation... or as the markets demand an increased rate as the global currencies begin to inflate. Regardless, the above cash flow scenario is a best-case-scenario when considering interest rates.
Is this deal doomed to fail? Not necessarily. But it's got a ton of debt on it, and there's not all that much room for error from the company. As someone who regularly reviews capital structures of LBOs, I'll say that a 12.1x valuation is high... and when I see a company with a 7.1x debt multiple... well, we're usually rather uneasy about that. Seeing these numbers at the onset of a deal... well... I sure hope the company is as steady as it's been described to be.
]]>Question #1: You're walking your dog a few blocks from home. You live downtown in a major American city, Chicago, and you take your dog to the one empty block in the loop where some weeds thrive, despite many of the Loop doggies actively raising the nitrogen levels on a daily basis. However, on this Sunday, your dog is much more interested in something than she normally is. (See picture).
That, there, is a dead fish, about a foot and a half long, wrapped in foil, and sitting just a few feet off the sidewalk. The temperature has been in the forties most of the day, and the fish appeared sometime between 10 pm on Saturday and 10 am on Sunday. What do you do?
A: Ignore the fish. You did not put it there, and even though it disgusts you, it's not your responsibility to clean dead fish off the sidewalk.
B: Assume the property owner will take responsibility for the fish, even if this property owner can't be bothered to shovel the snow in the winter.
C: Let your dog try and eat the fish. She seems really interested in it.
D: Call city services at 311 and let them know about the fish... even if the sales and property taxes are ridiculously high, and the city has a massive budget deficit, and it will probably cost the taxpayers close to $100 to pick up the fish.
E: Walk half a block, get a free copy of the Red Eye from the newspaper stand, walk back, pick up the fish, and deposit the Red Eye and fish in the garbage can on the corner.
F: Other, please explain.
Bonus Question - Essay format Is it appropriate for a church to make an announcement about filling out the US Government Census during the church service?
Use the comments, and let me know what you think.
]]>I can begin to see the roots of myself as a Fuddy-duddy. I'm no longer as technically in tune with things as I used to be. I still don't have an iPhone, and probably won't get one as long as I work at my job. But, the iPhone is the killer app technology of this decade, and I'm missing the boat. As a result, I haven't participated in the App writing gold rush, nor do I understand the world through the lens of the iPhone. Kids 10 years younger than me certainly do... and that's one of the first steps to being... old.
Another indicator of my fuddy-duddiness was my misunderstanding of Twitter. I'd been hearing about Twitter for a long time prior to it becoming such a mainstream thing, but I didn't understand the implications of the communication forum. Five years ago, I would have been proselytizing about the thing, but being old, I completely missed the point. And what's worse yet, I let the same old media that missed the point for two years influence me. Oops. I always prided myself on being an early adopter, especially for free things. I was on thefacebook.com when you could only friend people from your own university who shared a class with you... but Twitter, I ignored for two years because I missed the bigger picture!
Another technical fuddy-duddiness indicator is my refusal to learn web programming beyond the basic html that I know. I can already foresee the conversation I'll have one day with Byron Jr. "But Dad, why would you stop at basic html... all you can write with that is static web pages!"
In the non-technical arena, I'm paying less attention to sports than I used to. Some might argue this is healthy, but I know the contempt I held/hold older men in when they "pretended" to be sports fans, but didn't know the Cubs starting rotation. This doesn't mean I'm willing to forgive my Father for not knowing who Willie Stargell was, but I am starting to sympathize.
Is all this fuddy-duddiness bad? Not necessarily, it just means I need to allow my own definition of myself to evolve. I'm not the tech-savvy kid I once was (nor am I claiming to be ignorant of such things). While I know less about iPhones and web programming than I would like to, I did spend some time this morning learning how to train a scent hound (although I already had the basic principals from re-reading Where the Red Fern Grows last summer).
For some, including myself, I guess, this well-roundedness is an improvement, but the sixteen year-old inside of myself still gets upset at myself for being a bit of a phony when it comes to the things I used to care about more than I do now. (And no, I didn't particularly enjoy Holden Caulfield.) On the other hand, I enjoy a dinner party (and am enjoyed at one) more than when I was sixteen. I guess this is called growing up.
Alright, enough introspective angst. Onto the extrospective angst (did I just invent a word, I think I might have.)
I went with Adam and some friends to watch The Hurt Locker on Saturday. I neither liked it, nor disliked it. I can tell you that I didn't enjoy watching the movie, but I'm better for having seen it. It dealt with a lot of things, but for me, the takeaway was poverty. (Perhaps that's because I've been listening to Greg Boyd's poverty series for the last few months.)
There was so much garbage and the streets and everything were unkempt. Iraq, in the movie, was unsanitary and uncared for. It was the contrast between the streets of the movie, and the streets of the supposedly 'tough' Logan Square neighborhood where I watched the movie that really struck a chord with me. So today, walking through downtown at lunch time, I'm watching people and everyone's wardrobe runs to the hundreds of dollars. (For instance, I was probably wearing $270 of clothes and carrying $300 of electronics as I made this observation, and I was dressed fairly casual in comparison to a lot of the other pedestrians.)
Conclusion: We are insular in our culture, and it's good to see other expected norms... even if it's just a film, even if it's just for a few hours.
Second Conclusion: Best Picture of 2009, Really???
]]>Basically, a Lesbian wanted to bring her girlfriend to prom and wear a Tuxedo. The school said it violated their rules, and when pressed with the fact that they were discriminating against the girl because of her sexual orientation, the school decided to cancel the prom rather than allow two Lesbians to attend as a couple.
There is, of course, some analog to this virtually every year. Last year, I believe there was a school in Georgia that canceled Prom rather than having a mixed-race dance. It gets national news play, as it should, and the local school board is shamed nationally for being 40-50 years behind the times, and life goes on.
In this instance, however, the young girl is suing and asking the courts to set a dangerous precedent. She's asking the court to order the school to host the dance, and allow her to attend. The problem is, (IMHO) the school is no longer discriminating against the girl. They've been backed into a corner, either do something they don't want to do, or do something illegal. In this instance, they canceled the prom to avoid allowing a Lesbian to attend, but they've treated all students equally.
The school administration should (IMHO) be ashamed of themselves for being backward... but school administrators are in the business of educating children, not hosting proms. If the school had simply decided (for some other reason, e.g. budget) not to host a prom in the first place, no court would intervene and force them to do so, because proms aren't necessary to running a school correctly.
If the court does intervene and force the school to host the prom, they will have crossed the line from prohibiting unlawful behavior to dictating the requirements of running a school. Can't afford a music program? All it takes is for some aspiring diva to sue and reinstate the program. After all, the administration was discriminating against me because I was (fill in the blank). That's really why they canceled the program. Budgets be damned, school administrator's judgment be damned, the courts, unelected, will legislate as they please!
And now, to put an exclamation point on my flights of slippery-slope hysteria, we'll examine the link where Dutch nurses have to campaign against a push to require them to provide sexual services for their patients. I kid you not. I checked the date, it's not April 1st. Maybe April 1st is pushed up a few weeks in Holland.
Could you imagine, some disabled guy suing a nurse because she wouldn't provide him with sexual services? Could you imagine a country with a legal precedent in support of forcing the nurse to provide those services, because after all, some other nurses do. It's the same concept as the prom question. An auxiliary service was being offered by some nurses, while other nurses didn't want to offer that service. If a court crosses the line from prohibiting behavior to requiring behavior, you've turned the courts from a judicial body into an unelected legislative body.
And finally, back to the Jackson school district. I'll note that some appropriate responses are mentioned in the article. A New Orleans hotel owner is planning to host a prom (at which the Lesbian couple would presumably be welcomed) and some of the townsfolk are also talking about hosting another prom (at which the townsfolk could enforce their sense of proper comportment). As in a great many things, the private market offers a sensible solution.
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