arkstfan's sgudal

Rubbish and trivia

Komen Arkansas and sexual exploitation, blog rant from an unhappy father and husband

I've got a beef with Komen Arkansas that has nothing to do with the ill-fated foray into abortion politics.

I believe in the mission of Komen. It is important to my family. My mother-in-law died from breast cancer. My wife can be brought to tears over anything reminding her of her mother. My kids lost their grandmother too soon. I lost a great lady who insisted Cheryl wasn't nice enough to me and lived in dire fear I was starving to death. Breast cancer hurt our family and I want it cured or at least more successfully treated.

I just don't care much for the people doing the fund-raising.

Komen Arkansas has gotten icky with their firefighter craze.

If the Prostate Cancer Foundation raised money by selling a Hooters Girls type calendar the internet would explode. My twitter stream would be unreadable for all the outrage from the women I follow blasting them for sexually objectifying women to raise a few dollars.

Arkansas Komen will happily sell you a calendar (on sale now for only $10). I hear only crickets.

Hey what's a little beefcake calendar? No one is really hurt are they by exploiting the sexual desirability of someone else to get money for a good cause from the people who enjoy those photos are they?

Maybe you want more than just looking at photos. For a price Komen Arkansas can help you out.

You can drool in person for $25 at their event on April 21 to "judge" the men to make up the next calendar. For $75 you can go to the special VIP hour, presumably to get more time with the men you "judge" for sexual desirability to place on the calendar.

Again, if the Prostate Cancer Foundation had a similar event featuring women, the rage would be national news.

I want an end to breast cancer but do you have to be gross? Do you have to rely on sexual stereotypes and objectification to get it done?

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The real truth about Federal pay

The latest mug for the cameras campaign revolves around Federal employees and the Congressional Budget Office report indicating that Federal pay and benefits are higher than the public sector. The problem is that the hot air bags in DC, on TV, and writing political columns and blogs like to gloss over two troubling things.

First, Congressional Republicans are touting the study as justification to extend the freeze on Federal pay for an additional two years and to continue a hiring freeze to reduce the size of the Federal payroll. 

There are some serious problems with this "made for TV" idea.

Many agencies are commanded by Congress to carry out a lot of functions and they are running short of people to do that work. Businesses and private citizens are getting the benefit of longer and longer waits to get needed functions carried out. This moves us back into the realm where the politically connected can use pressure to jump the line making things even more unfair. That means delays for veterans getting services promised to them when they enlisted or when they were drafted. Federal retirees aren't getting a pass, they are waiting months to get OPM to calculate their retirement benefits and have to live their golden retirement time on as little as 1/6th of what is owed  them until they wind their way through the backlog. Social Security backlogs are growing so that hard-working citizens don't get the benefits they paid taxes for and are now due.

The other problem with this fraud solution is that the Federal workforce isn't like most of the public sector. Fully one-third of Federal employees are professionals with advanced degrees. From the doctor treating veterans at the VA, to the lawyers prosecuting drug kingpins, to scientist trying to determine if the latest shipment of toys from China are toxic and will cause brain damage in your child, the Federal work force is heavy in highly educated professionals and all legitimate studies of Federal pay, including this most recent CBO report indicate that professional pay and benefits remain below the private sector.

It is simply dishonest to call for Federal pay to come into line with the private sector and then pursue a strategy that pulls one-third of the workforce even further behind the private sector.

There is a second issue that is far more troubling for the long-term future of the country that everyone misses or refuses to see.

When the general pay scale (called the GS or GS scale) was adopted in 1949 it was designed to put Federal employees roughly on par with the private sector. Pay was lower but with the benefits of the old Civil Service retirement system and health benefits accounted for Federal employees were placed on par or at least almost up to par to the private sector.

Until the start of our current financial crisis, Congress would receive information about the rate of inflation and would approve a cost-of-living increase. The increase would generally be a bit less than the rate of inflation. If inflation were 5%, employees would receive about 3%. If it were 3% then the cost-of-living adjustment would be around 1.2%. The other private vs public difference has been that Congress has decreed that the government will pay roughly 78% of an employee's health premium. As health insurance costs have soared the government has continued paying the same ratio of the premiums. On the other side, Congress has phased out the old Civil Service Retirement plan for the Federal Employees Retirement System which offers a much smaller benefit.

For years Congress tried to help employees almost keep pace with the rising cost of living. Today we should be in a situation where Federal pay is out-of-line with private sector pay by lagging the general economy. That has only happened in the professional sector.

Our economy has failed. If you have a high school diploma or less, you make 36% less than a Federal employee and all the Federal employee has received is raises that are around the rate of inflation. If you have a bachelor's degree then your take home pay in the private sector and Federal government are basically identical. The difference is that the Federal employee pays less for a wide array of health insurance choices that generally offer better coverage and the Federal employee has a defined benefit retirement plan that will pay 33% of the employee's average high three salary if he or she works for 30 years and has a deferred compensation package they may particpate in.

The real problem is that unless you have an advanced degree in the private sector you've lost pace with inflation and the growth of the economy.

What makes this even more striking is that as late as 1994 Congress was working to get the GS schedule in line with the private sector. Not because Federal pay was too high but because it was too low. The adjustments authorized have never been funded more than 50%. The lack of funds mean that the raises have been half what was needed at the time to catch-up. 

In less than a decade we've gone from Federal employees trailing the private sector so badly that retaining employees was difficult to non-professionals trying to flock to the Federal government.

How bad is the problem in pay? Comparing GS 9, which is a good entry point for a recent college grad in 1995 to 2012 might help. In 1995 that entry level pay was $29,405 today it is $47,448. Adjusted for general inflation the Federal employee has increased their spending power by $4,000 in 17 years or an average $235 a year and because of health insurance premium increases averaging double the rate of inflation, the Federal employee entering straight from college has less spending power today than one entering the workforce in 1995. That means the private sector worker has fallen even more.

How do we maintain an economy when the vast majority of Americans have less spending power today than 17 years ago?

The problem isn't that Congress has gone crazy giving away the store to Federal employees, the problem is that the private sector wages are falling rapidly in spending power. The latest political grandstanding is designed to distract Americans into resenting Federal employees so they won't notice they are growing poorer.

Finally an iPhone calendar worth paying for

(download)

After trying the 99 cent app Agenda I finally have found a calendar app I really like.

You can swipe left and right between six month, one month, week and day views. Swiping up and down changes dates. It integrates with Google calendar, has Exchange support as well as supporting the basic iOS calendar.

The app also integrates with mail for contacting others scheduled to be at a meeting.

Prayer, Tragedy, and Theology

I suppose I am a bit of an oddball in my reaction to most of the public statements I hear of answered prayers and God's power of protection.

To be blunt, my theology does not see as likely that God has selected the families in this house and that house to die in a tornado while the family in the house in the middle is spared.

The fast way to get me to set down a Christian themed book and never pick it up again is to proclaim that every person walking the earth was born precisely as God intended. I don't buy that God picked this person to be at risk of rapid death when exposed to shrimp, this person to never see, and that person over there to be unable to communicate with the people around them.

As you might guess, my theology pretty much excludes the creator of the universe from choosing which set of gamblers has the winning bet on Denver Broncos games.

I believe strongly in prayer. I also remember the story in Daniel when he didn't get an answer to a prayer for weeks because God's messenger was delayed by the enemy.

I believe that out of any tragedy God can be glorified by how we respond.

If our response is "God hosed me there" then not much glorification in progress.

If our response is "bad things happen because we live in a fallen and imperfect world. It's a world that has not yet been made new and perfect. My hope is in being a part of that world made new and perfect in the future and I will bear my burdens until that day." That is glorification.

This past week was flat awful. God apparently stayed out of the GoDaddy.com Bowl (only explanation for them Yankees winning) but more seriously the bad part of being in a fallen and imperfect world hit Cotton and Donna hard, and it touched so many of us in an event that caused hundreds of people to each feel a small sliver of their pain because it was that bad. 

It was terrible but God was glorified by their response and the response of so many others. 

The Calendar and sports

Switching between only four games at once it dawned on me that until the creation of the BCS and except for a short experiment with "pre-season classics" college football has been a game of the calendar.

The first games come on Labor Day weekend (or as early as the Thursday before) and finishes on New Year's Day (or January 2 when the first falls on Sunday). The season now stretches about an extra week and a half but it revolves around the calendar.

The NBA's labor strife pushed the start of their season to the day when casual fans first start paying attention to the game, Christmas Day. NBA fans start paying attention whenever the season starts but for the casual fan, Christmas Day often marks their first viewing of the NBA's new season.

The NHL struggles outside of its niche areas but many people who rarely notice the NHL pay attention thanks to the Winter Classic and its New Year's day time slot. For many casual fans, the Winter Classic is the start of the NHL season.

Maybe building schedules around the holidays rather than the pressure to play as many games as possible to drive revenue would help sports leagues increase fan awareness.

48 Hours With My Kindle Fire

The tech press has really failed readers with the hyper-ventilated articles asking if Amazon's Kindle Fire is an iPad killer.

The Fire versus the iPad isn't Hyundai vs. Lexus where you are making a cost-benefit analysis of roughly equivalent vehicles in basic function and the difference comes in top-end performance and luxury.

The Fire and the iPad are two very different devices and are interchangeable for only a small set of users. A Kindle Fire is no substitute for an iPad if you want to video conference, take photos, or do any number of content creation tasks.

The unlucky souls who wanted an iPad to do iPad things but received a Kindle Fire for Christmas are unhappy today.

For me, the debate was between whether I wanted a Kindle Touch 3G or a Kindle Fire. My primary interest was in an e-reader. I've been using an iPhone with the Kindle app and knew I wanted a dedicated reader with a larger screen.

I had to choose whether I wanted a heavier device that cost $50 more in order to get a bright LCD screen with some ability to play games, watch videos, and browse the web or if giving up those features, gaining better battery life and carrying a lighter device was what was important.

It helped that Cheryl already had a Fire. What I learned from her experience is that with the right case, the Fire's extra weight isn't an issue. Without a case, a Fire feels like it wants to slip from your hand and feels unbalanced. In a good case the weight seems better balanced.

The other thing that helped tip the scales in favor of the Fire for me is that I travel quite a bit. According to my hotel reward updates, I spent 62 nights in a hotel last year and that does not count the nights when I accompanied Cheryl on a trip of hers. It all works out to about 10 weeks in a hotel room. Even though this upcoming year will maybe be half of that you are still talking a month sitting in a hotel room. I rarely fly so the ability to get 3G updates to avoid the robbery that takes place in the name of wifi at most airports other than Little Rock National wasn't a big concern.

Most writers that have actually used a Fire complain about the bizarre placement of the power button at the bottom, it is a valid complaint. You need a decent case to protect yourself from unintentional shut-down. The Fire is a little laggy at times and weirdly enough you can sometimes select something without touching the screen if your finger is just hovering over. Typing, I struggle at times because my single spaces are sometimes interpreted as double spaces which then places a period at the end of the word rather than creating a single space.

The only other unfortunate thing is ESPN3.com. The folks in Bristol have figured out that the Fire is a mobile device and no longer allow you to watch streaming video unless you happen to be a subscriber of Brighthouse, Verizon Fios or internet, or Time Warner cable. When Cheryl got her Fire I was able to stream fairly effectively until they figured it out and cut it off.

Outside the little issues, the Fire is a great e-reader. As John Gruber of Daring Fireball often says, there isn't a tablet market right now, there is an iPad market. To me the Fire isn't an entrant in the iPad market, rather it is an e-reader that offers some versatility and enhanced features.

I was in the market for an e-reader and opted for the Fire because I liked the enhanced features. The web browsing, watching videos, or playing games are not my primary reason for wanting a Fire but the performance for those features is good enough for my occasional use. I may eventually buy an iPad but the Fire meets the needs and wants I have today... for an enhanced e-reader.

Another reminder why I don't subscribe to the news.

I grew up in a household where we subscribed to two daily newspapers, the Arkansas Gazette in the morning and the Searcy Daily Citizen in the afternoon. At times I was dispatched to buy the afternoon Arkansas Democrat from a newspaper box. I majored in journalism in college.

I tell you this to let you understand that a newspaper subscription is strong in my history. I just don't subscribe to a paper and haven't in many months. 

My reasons for abandoning something I really like? My morning routine doesn't include time for reading a paper and more often than not the articles that would be most interesting I've already read or read a similar article the afternoon or evening before online. My favorite sections were the Sports and on Monday I would read the Business/Technology section but the tech news was often articles I had read days before. A newspaper has to offer unique content but the sports section at the Democrat-Gazette has lacked depth for years.

I'm not a Hog fan, just never got into them but they dominate the local sports coverage but whether it is coverage by the two well financed newspaper chains or the TV and web coverage of a number of TV stations, the coverage is generally shallow and fawning, you know like those bad evil blogs.

Today visiting my parents I picked up the sports section and saw all the stuff that caused me to drop the paper. AP articles on things I'm interested in that I've already read or seen similar elsewhere, other AP content I'm not interested in. Local generated "outdoor" news which isn't "outdoor" but simply "huntin' and fishin'" that they refuse to call "huntin' and fishin'" in favor of the "outdoors" euphemism.

Then there was the gold strike that truly reinforced my opinion that the Democrat-Gazette doesn't offer anything compelling and more importantly made my point about the general state of sports coverage.

Wally Hall's column was about the departure of Rotnei Clarke. In the course of the column Hall mentioned the story broke on CBSsports.com and then added that CBSsports.com had also broken the story of former head coach John Pelphrey making contact with potential student student athletes in violation of NCAA rules.

There are two or three dozen people who devote a significant portion of their workday to covering the University of Arkansas and two of the biggest stories that weren't dictated by the schedule of the last game, next game, or who is being recruited (in compliance with the rules) were developed and broken by national writers. That should not be acceptable.

I complain about coverage of Arkansas State from time-to-time but the Jonesboro Sun shows more initiative and real coverage than the over-abundance of reporters covering UA. 

If you want people to pay for coverage you have to have to actually cover the news.
 

Why Apple isn't a "tech" company, giving people what they want

People want what they want, unless you show them something else they want and help them understand WHY they want it.

I don't write a lot about tech because those who eat, sleep, and write tech have far more expertise. What I find interesting though is if you are out on the bleeding edge you don't understand what the consumer market wants.

Despite a lot of scorn (a lot of earned), Wal-Mart is the nation's largest retailer because they understand most people don't want to pay any more than they have to on the basics. If you want a flat screen TV as large as your budget will allow, you will have a hard time beating their offerings. If you want a better refresh rate, angle of viewing or resolution, you go somewhere else and pay more.

Apple doesn't market to people who just compare specs. They didn't become the world's richest tech company by getting into spec wars, they instead built products that most any user regardless of expertise or comfort level with technology could sit down and figure out how to use quickly. Somewhere around the house I have Dell and RCA versions of iPod killers. They could match or beat specs but never came close on usability.

Apple's new iCloud service is getting mixed reviews. This is one example. Apparently iCloud is disappointing to many because it's not an all-you-can-eat subscription service and is even compared to the music lockers offered by Google and Amazon. 

This is called not getting it.

Cellular data plans aren't cheap and if you didn't get grandfathered in on a plan, heavy use of cellular data is expensive. If you want to spend much time listening to music not locally stored on your device it could become very expensive, very quickly. WiFi is an alternative but free open WiFi is still not that common and not feasible driving to work. Fly across the country and a day of listening can easily cost you $20 or more in WiFi fees from airports and airlines.

Local storage matters.

Apple gets it. In fact I would say Apple FINALLY gets it. The "Purchased" button in iTunes on my iPhone allows me to swap in a song I'm wanting to hear and gives me a safe back-up of my purchases. I don't want to stream, I just want to be able to listen to songs I hadn't loaded.

It's not just a music locker. Few people could truly stand uploading all their music to Amazon or Google. That is a lot of work and then requires remembering to add new purchases.

While my inner geek loves the idea of the Google and Amazon systems, it's more work than most consumers will put up with. While streaming sounds great, the cost and the technology just aren't here. Would you rather pay $9 a month for all you can eat or $25 a year to back-up the music you've ripped or your non-copyprotected purchases from stores?

Apple has done it right by understanding their customers.

A false comparison

Last night Twitter and Facebook lit up with the news of the death of Osama bin Laden. Reports began appearing of celebration crowds in New York, Washington and other spots around the country. Social media began to light up with statements along the lines that Americans were no better than the people who celebrated the 9/11 attacks.
Is that fair?

Let's take a look.

Reason to celebrate: The American celebrations were of the delivery of justice or vengeance or both, depending on your viewpoint, to the man who had ordered and planned thousands of murders of innocents starting before 9/11. The Middle Eastern celebrations attached glory to an event where Bin Laden was successful in killing thousands of innocents. To declare the the celebrations equal you have to declare that celebrating the deaths of thousands of innocents is the same as celebrating the death of a sworn enemy who has bathed in the blood of innocent victims.

Content. One set of celebration was marked with calls of Death to America, Death to the West, Death to Bush, and anti-Christian slogans. The mood rather clearly was that the 9/11 attacks were one piece in an ongoing war where American civilians were enemy combatants worthy of death and the message was they should be prepared to remain targets of murder. The mood last night was not taken over by a dominating declaration of desired war against the Middle East or Islam. The celebration was more that one chilling sub-chapter of world history was closed. We will still go through crazy airport exams and still have to worry about limits or lack thereof on government investigatory powers, but the cause of that shift has been punished.

Did the celebration last night violate a sense of decorum? That is certainly open to debate based on a person's belief about civil conduct but there is a chilling lack of distinction in declaring that celebrating the death of a mass murderer is equal to celebrating the deaths of his victims.

Things people don't understand or know

Nearly every day I encounter people doing things or saying things that just prove that they don't quite understand the world.

Government spending. Many people believe that there is some sort of giant furnace that government spending dollars go into and the money just disappears. That's not remotely accurate. Some goes into salary and benefits that are then spent on things like mortgages, car notes, dinner at restaurants, clothes and basically anything else that private sector employees spend money on. A new government office that hires 50 people will have much the same impact on a local community that a new employer with 50 employees will have. Depending on the type of office it might have a bigger impact if it is higher professionals with higher salaries compared to a lower wage business like a retail business.

The public sector relies heavily on government spending. Cardinal Health, a fairly large Central Arkansas employer is one of the largest US government contractors. Lockheed Martin and Boeing depend on Federal spending to keep their factories busy. Other major contractors are GM, GE, FedEx, Dell Computer, IBM, and GlaxoSmithKline. Government spending is a major revenue source for free market businesses.

Elevator buttons. Once lit, they are good.

President Reagan was a small government tax cutter. Not really. He did push a big cut in 1981 but took about half of it back over the rest of his time in office. Government spending increased as did the number of Federal employees. The number of Federal employees never fell until Clinton took office. As governor of California the state budget was $6 billion and he promptly raised taxes by a billion dollars.

Referees. A team having more fouls or penalties called on them isn't evidence of bias or a bad job by the refs. A player who gets beat or out-matched is more likely to foul.

Bowl games. Those announced million and million plus dollar payouts for bowl games? They are mostly BS. Many games require the participating conference to pay them a "marketing fee" that payment is then used to help fund the payout from the bowl to the conference. The numbers also reflect the face value of tickets. Depending on the game each team is required to buy as few as 4,500 tickets (New Orleans) or as many as 32,000 (Rose). Don't sell the tickets? Too bad. UConn saw scalpers who loaded up on Fiesta Bowl tickets dump them on the internet for as little as $5 per ticket. The school 17,500 tickets to sell and the cheapest was $111 guess how many people bought from the school rather than StubHub.

Casinos. Here in Shreveport the casinos are a big business but the city's attempts at a River Market style district have been a bust. It's hard to be a player in the food and entertainment business where the food, drinks, and bands are what you pay for when a few blocks away there is competitor with far more parking available and willing to sell food, drinks, and bands much more cheaply to get you to throw money in a slot machine