A book report on Catch-22

One of my SAT students is supposed to write a book report on Joseph Heller's Catch-22. "Oh, that's a good book," I tell him. Have you gotten to Lieutenant Scheisskopf yet?"

His reposnse, "Can I just watch the movie and get a sense of the book?

Read the novel. You might enjoy it!

Why I like Home Depot

The staff may not know the store very well, and often don't know anything out of their area of the store, but even if a disaster levels my local Home Depot, burns the remains and floods its site with ten feet of water, they can still get me the generators and tools I need to start putting the city back together. They can do this because they're a network - the store is merely the local manifestation of a large supply system. If you're in disaster management, get to know your local Home Depot's manager.

The decay of play

I'm listening to a story on NPR regarding the nature of play, its value, and how in the latter half of the 20th century it has degraded.

First, the nature of toys has increasingly scripted the nature of play. An electronic fire truck that flashes its lights and says three phrases is likely to only be used in the context of those three phrases.

Second, an increased concern for safety has moved children into more structured activities. Extracurricular sports, music lessons, etc are directed, and typically come at the expense of free (i.e. imaginative and unregulated) play.

Third, an increased worry about testing and academic achievement has led schools to spend more time "teaching to the test", and less time in free play.

The result? According to NPR, free play builds self-regulation skills - less free play: poorer self regulation.

And in other news, the Smurfs are back.

Star Wars - if they should bar wars, let this one stay

Back in the early 1980s, the Reagan administration proposed the development of a land- and space-based anti-ballistic missile system for the purposes of destroying ballistic missiles bound for the United States. In popular culture, this system (properly known as the Strategic Defense Initiative (SDI)) became known as Star Wars, after the movie series of the same name. For a variety of reasons, perhaps most notably the ending of the Cold War, SDI never came to be, but its basic premise was never forgotten.

Over the past year or so, the news has occasionally reported on the U.S.'s intention to place a missile defense site in Poland. Russia, in particular, has been against this development. One way around this would be to incorporate Russia in the project - the project is presently about defending against single missiles launched by a rogue state, which Russia is not. Indeed, Russia proposed this solution, to a degree, but was turned down.

Today, a U.S. ship fired a rocket that destroyed an orbiting satellite. Russia, and particularly China have protested the shooting-down of the satellite. If the U.S. can shoot down one of its own satellites, certainly it can shoot down one of Russia's or China's, and China, of course, shot down one of its own satellites last year.

Stay tuned. This may be the start of the next cold war.

Christian, Shadow, dominance

I wrote earlier about the first meeting between Shadow and Christian, but as I said at the time, there was not yet harmony in Catsville.

The cats also had another session or two of seeing each other through the crack in the bathroom door. Unfortunately, each of these sessions placed me in the bathroom with Christian - there was no way to properly work the bathroom latch if I was on the outside - leaving Shadow alone. She was pretty disturbed, and when I placed her first into the carrier and then locked her into the bathroom (enabling Christian to explore the apartment some, locking Shadow into the bathroom so that she could get used to his scent, but not confront him directly) I think she became convinced that she was being replaced and I would soon be booting her out.

Christian stayed out in the apartment for the day, but shortly before I went to sleep for the night I swapped them again. Shadow looked up at me with big, sad eyes and went off to a corner to curl up and sleep, and, I suppose, to do the feline equivalent of crying. My last act before crawling into bed was to collect her from her corner and carry her to my bed - something I don't typically do - and this seemed to convince her that she wasn't about to be abandoned, though she still wasn;t too sure about the new cat.

I don't blame her for being uncertain - Christian is close to twice as big as she is (his paunch is also about twice as big as hers). Nevertheless after three or four days they not only were able to more or less tolerate each other through a gate, so I let them into the apartment together - first for only a few minutes, then for progressively longer periods.

I knew that perhaps the largest issue the cats would have to settle was that of dominance. With Scruffy, Shadow was dominant, though she rarely made use of it. She and her brother shared their food very amicably, for instance, each deferring to the other as they ate from the same dish. The only time I remember her showing dominace was at the climbing pole, which she rarely let him use.

But Shadow and Scruffy worked out their dominance issue before I met them, whereas Shadow and Christian would be doing so under my nose. I quickly discovered that I had difficulty determining whether their fights and chaces were in play or in earnest. On the one hand there wasn't any hissing or yowling, but on the other hand their ears were back much more often than when Shadow and Scruffy had wrestled. Shadow sometimes turned sideways and arched her back, bristling the hair along her spine, but just as often she had her tail in the air. Frequently they had standoffs - staring contests which were sometimes won by one cat, sometimes by the other. The issue of dominance was in doubt, and at times it seemed that the issue of Christian's successfully moving in and staying was in doubt, too.

Freeware, free software threaten Microsoft

The New York Times is reporting what many computer users already know: freeware and free software have grown to become a real competitor for Microsoft's products. But the Times goes one step further, and states that it now appears that M'soft is taking notice, though analysts debate how much notice M'soft is actually taking. It's about time.

I say this for a few reasons. First, if M'soft is recognizing that it has real competition, it might pay more attention to quality control. Second, this suggests that Microsoft's monopoly may be starting to crumble, which would be good for competition. I expect there are many programmers who have hitherto refrained from creating or releasing their products because they doubt that they can prise any customers away from M'soft. Third, this also proposes that off-site data holding is becoming increasingly available. Where previously I had to have my floppy disk, Zip disk, laptop or thumb drive with me if I wanted to work on my [insert name of paper or project here], now I merely need an internet connection; the paper is saved on someone else's computer, and I access it through the 'net. Fourth, though I recognize the right of a software developer to charge for his software, I don't enjoy paying for software any more than anyone else. Perhaps even less so than some people, my finances being what they are.

More on this later. I have to go teach cell bio.

There is one major dfference between the photos

There is one major difference between the photos, though - look at their pupils: Christian is a lot more relaxed than Scruffy.

A better photo of Christian

There is a striking resemblance between his photo and several that I have of Scruffy, such as the one below. I'm not sure what I think about that. Another thing that I don't understand is how Christian fits himself into that condo. At fourteen pound and change he is a bit overweight, but according to the vet his optimal weight is probably about thirteen pounds, so he's a big cat.

Building a democracy takes time

I'm a little unclear on why people are expecting Iraq to have a stable democracy by now, or in the next six months, or in the next six years. The US, which fought for and initially established its own democracy over 200 years ago, continues to struggle with what it means to be a democracy (our president was for a Constitutional amendment to deny civil rights to a subgroup of American citizens). For us to expect a country which had democracy forced upon them,* which is composed of three rival groups of people, and which is situated in one of the least stable regions of the planet to be a fully functional democracy in less than a decade is absurd.

* Given that democracy is government whose power derives from the people, can it realy be forced? Doesn't it need to develop within the people?

VOTE!

Today is Super Tuesday; if your state holds a primary, and if you're allowed to vote (e.g. closed vs open primaries), then get out there and vote! Democracy only works if the citizens play an active part.

• Super Tuesday on Wikipedia
• Primary elections from a British point of view
• Democratic Party official website
• Republican National Committee (official website?)
• Wikipedia: List of political parties in the United States

* If gop.org is not the Republican Party's official website, please leave a comment letting me know.

The healthcare choices we face

I've already discussed (some of) the reasons why modern Western medicine is so expensive. Now I'd like to discuss some of the choices we're facing.

Simply put, we're up against the law of diminishing returns. We're also facing the reality of several finite resources: money and personnel being two of them.

I'll give several examples:

• should a 95 year-old, but generally healthy person receive a hip replacement?
• how about a 95 year old in poor health?
• should a chronic smoker be given a lung transplant, given that his smoking (a voluntary act, in theory) is the reason for his lung disease?
• should that smoker be given priority over a patient in need of a lung transplant due to accidental exposure to toxic chemicals?
• or over a 35 year old father of two who was severely injured in a car accident?
• what if the 35 year old had caused the accident because he drove while drunk?

Keep in mind that care provided to these people cannot be provided to someone else; care for these people is care that is denied to someone else.

These types of decisions appear in medicine every day, several times a day. There is only so much care that can be delivered, and demand outstrips supply. How do we fairly allocate a scarce resource?

Christian? Maybe I should rename him Jewish

One of my concerns, in the wake of Scruffy's death, has been to find a playmate for Shadow. Friday I went down to the Elmsford shelter and filled out paperwork, and I saw several lots of cats, including a beautiful little grey cat with a white chest, who was very affectionate and allowed herself to be picked up. She was absolutely perfect, but then it appeared that she doesn't get along with other cats very well. So, no go. By the time the shelter closed I hadn't found a cat that fit the bill, so I left empty handed.

I had completed the paperwork, however, and although I was up at West Point for the weekend, I did have time to get some of the litter and food that the shelter uses, to make the transition for Hypothetical Cat a bit easier. I returned to the shelter today, and quickly found another nice grey cat, but as I petted him I guess he got overexcited and he bit me with enough force to draw blood. He went back into his cage. The next cat that seemed a possibility, a cute black and white kitty, turned out to be part of a pair, so since I don't have the room for three cats, that cat was also a no go. But the shelter staff led me to a largish grey/brown tabby named Christian, who is about two years old and was a stray until the beginning of the summer. He was very affectionate, and seemed ideal. I guess they checked my references over the weekend, because they let me take him home right then:


For the moment, he is living in the bathroom (which, as was pointed out to me, is much bigger than a cage) so the cats can have the opportunity to get to know each other a bit without having the opportunity to maul each other.

The two cats have sort of met. I had the bathroom door open a crack so they could see and smell each other. Christian seemed curious, as did Shadow, but she also gave a tiny hiss - like a brief bit of soft static on the radio, so I don't think she's ready to accept him yet.

Why healthcare is expensive

I just stumbled across this post, about what appears to be a current debate in England regarding what type of medical care should be provided by the state (England has socialized medicine, so in theory, all medical care is provided by the state). Two issues are on the table:
1 - should the state pay for expensive medical care that is unlikely to yield much benefit?
2 - should the state pay for medical care that is needed due to the patient's own folly, e.g. a heart-lung transplant for a chronic smoker?
The writer of the post seems to think that the state should indiscriminately pay for these things. I disagree. But before I go intot he reasons why, I'd like to discuss why medicine is so expensive to begin with.

We have yet to figure out how to pay for all of medical care that people lay claim to. There are a few reasons for this.
* Many people are their own worst enemies when it comes to maintaining their own health. People eat too much of the wrong foods, and not enough of the right ones. People fail to get adequate exercise. People smoke, drink, and fill their bodies with all manner of noxious substances. The result, of course, is poor health.
* Much of modern Western medicine is expensive. CTs and MRIs are useful, but pricey. Lab work can be costly. Pharmaceutical costs can rival mortgage payments. And neither medical education nor malpractice insurance are cheap.
* More medical care is given than is needed. Reasons for this include defensive medicine and patient demand (e.g. demand for antibiotics to treat a common cold).
* Many people without access to a true primary care provider are left using the emergency room for all of their care. ER beds are among the most expensive beds in the hospital, so using one to treat a common cold is extremely wasteful.
* Similarly, the complicated nature of insurance sometimes makes a visit to the ER appear to be the easiest way to go.
* Some people delay seeking medical care (often because they can't afford it, or can do so only with real difficulty) until their problems become severe; severe problems are more costly to treat than minor ones are.

So, our medical costs are high, and in the forseeable future, they are only going to get higher (greying of the population, etc).

Next: the necessary choices we face (link fixed 5 Feb 2008 0207hrs)