Month: September 2006

“And this is how democracy dies… to thunderous applause.”

You would not know it to look at CNN right now. Top stories over there include speculation over whether the girls taken hostage at a Colorado high school might have been singled out based on their MySpace pages, a high school freshman who had enough and shot his principal, a filmmaker shooting off his mouth, a woman who killed her husband because her lover was hiding in the closet, police shooting a suspected cop killer, a store clerk beating up a would-be thief on camera, something entitled “Guy in neon Speedo-thingy embarrasses nation”, Anna Nicole Smith getting married again, and one actual item of importance to the whole country, it turns out Abramoff talked to people in the White House lots of times, and “people” includes Karl Rove.


Nope, it isn’t at all important that the Senate passed something called “A bill to authorize trial by military commission for violations of the law of war, and for other purposes.” Please, take a moment to find out how your Senators voted on the matter. You can read the actual text here, or you can get the short version from the Washington Post’s write-up. It wasn’t even front page news over there; go figure. But here’s the ShortWoman’s even shorter version:

  • It’s ok to lock up any “individual engaged in hostilities against the United States” as an unlawful combatantant. Contrary to what many are reporting, this definition does not contain any mention of “citizenship” or “alien”. Sure, “hostilities” implies trying to do actual physical harm. But is that the definition they are using? Or could protesters be considered to be “engaged in hostilities”?
  • They can gain this status by doing something against the United States, or by giving material support to someone who does. So, uh, check out charities very carefully before giving anything to anybody, mmkay?
  • Such people have no rights whatsoever in American courts.
  • Nevertheless, some people like Arlen Spector have gone on the record as saying Well yeah, it’s not Constitutional but that’s ok because The Courts will clean it up!
  • Such people will have access to military tribunals, but they won’t get to see evidence against them, evidence in their favor may be supressed, and evidence obtained through beating someone until they say what the prosecutor wants is ok.
  • Anybody who is against this is accused of “supporting the rights of terrorists who want to harm us.”

If you haven’t had enough, please check out the excellent items posted at The Moderate Voice and The Boston Globe and — just for a bit of flavor — Buzzflash, twice. Even guys who don’t talk politics like Wil Wheaton are saying this is a sad, sad day for our nation.

They no longer have any reason to hate us for our freedoms, for our freedoms are fleeting.

Nobody — at least nobody sane — is saying we have to coddle people who were captured trying to harm Americans. But torture is illegal under World Law (which supercedes our mere American law much the way Federal law supercedes State law), doesn’t work, breeds resentment and mistrust around the world, and puts Americans at risk of harsher treatment in the event of their capture anywhere in the world.

These will be no “in closing” today. This is too important.

Moving Day!

There have been a few changes here at ShortWoman. One of them, the new look, is obvious. One of them, the new server, is not.

One side effect of these changes is that some static links may have become mangled in the migration. We regret any inconvenience and/or 404s this may cause.

Shorties House Massacre

Naming these “Shorties” items will be a lot easier now that I’ve discovered Horror Movies That Suck, which has reviews if that’s your thing.

How the lottery may kill the Electoral College. Ok, it’s more complicated than that. It turns out that the man behind the movement which “if approved by enough legislatures, would commit a state�s electors to vote for the candidate who wins the most national votes, even if the candidate loses in that state,” thus effectively undercutting the Electoral College, is also the guy who invented the scratch-off lottery ticket.

Not a full-on episode of Security Theatre, but funny nontheless. One fellow feels we are all the way up to Act 456, wherein those confiscated liquid items are dragged behind the security checkpoint, unsupervised. Woe is me, I’m only up to Act XIII! Even Britain, where the whole liquid bomb scheme was allegedly hatched, is relaxing the carry-on rules, wisely saying “We will never compromise on the safety of passengers, but it is right that we continually strive to strike the right balance between properly robust security and arrangements which minimize the burden on passengers and business.” If only we could be so reasonable here in the United States.

“The shocking facts about health care in the United States are well known. There’s little argument that the system is broken. What’s not well known is that the dialogue about fixing the health care system is just as broken.” A nice overview of the problems with health care — or more accurately health care insurance — why most people want the same thing, and why their elected officials aren’t giving it to them.

“As Children Suffer, Parents Agonize Over Spinach” but nobody asks the critical question: Who’s been pooping in the spinach? According to The Washington Post, it is the Government’s fault. Or rather, lax government oversight. God forbid we should hold the actual people who created the problem responsible.

Yes, women do play video games! And that means there are web sites aimed at them, groups of professional, corporate sponsored women gamers, and a clan of women gamers big enough to have a Wikipedia article written about them.

“Statistics indicate times are good, with low unemployment and high productivity. But many voters say rising prices cut into their income.” Oh, and if you’d like a discussion of these issues with more statistics, charts, and econotalk, The Mess That Greenspan Made has laid it all out for you. One telling moment this week was on CNBC, when they had opposing Bond Geeks talking about what the Fed is likely to do at the next meeting. The short version is that nobody knows just yet whether inflation or a “hard landing” is a bigger risk to the economy right now. Maybe we need a new term — something catchy like “stagflation” — to indicate times when the official economic numbers say that things are benign, but people’s experience says otherwise. Of course odds are against that because guys like Larry Kudlow never actually have conversations with Joe and Jane Average.

And finally, if you ever get to wondering whether or not the news you receive is biased, don’t forget that things like Google News exist. They aggregate so you don’t have to try and hunt up all those English language news sites from around the world.

Renters Need Not Apply

I grew up in apartments. This has almost certainly colored my view of housing in general. By way of contrast, I have found myself explaining apartment life to schoolkids who were reading Judy Blume’s Tales of a Fourth Grade Nothing. The kids were all house-dwellers who had no frame of reference for living in an apartment, let alone living in a big apartment building with an elevator in a crowded urban area like Manhattan.

I first became aware of a psychological condition I call “house fever” when I was about 10. This condition is characterized by an intense desire to own a house regardless of whether market conditions or personal finances make it a good idea to purchase one. Sufferers will offer all kinds of reasons for their obsession, including “it’a a place of my own,” “I can have a dog,” “the kids need a yard” (this one struck me as very silly, as the apartment complex had a big playground and a big pool and lots of other kids to play with; why on earth would I want a little yard?), “nobody can tell me what to do with it,” “it’s a great investment,” “it’s a big tax break” (if it’s such a great investment why do you need the big tax break?), and so on.

I was in my late teens when I discovered that there are some things biased against apartment dwellers. This went over and above the disdain some house-dwellers had for “apartment people.” For example, the city ran a recycling program, but only for households who were served by the residential garbage service. A more egregious example was shot down in Dallas almost 2 decades ago: a proposal was made that in order to get tax revenues from those who worked in the city and lived in the suburbs (never mind the sales tax such people paid on their lunch), they could have a city income tax, with an exemption for anybody who could prove they paid municipal property tax. Now think about that. Junior has to pay income taxes on his job at McDonalds because the house is in Dad’s name? Or worse yet, a man in Chicago owns an apartment property in Dallas; for tax purposes, he lives in Dallas and the people who actually live on property don’t!

I was in my late 20s when I realized that over the course of a 30 year mortgage, Joe and Jane Average pay double the list price of the house when interest rates are much over 5.5%. If you have a copy of Excel, you can use their templates to prove it to yourself.

I was in my 30s when I found out that the Small Business Adminstration is nothing more than a facilitator of second mortgages. Renters need not apply. Contrary to popular belief, this is even true for women and minority businesspeople. Although it is well documented that there are differences in home ownership among various groups, I will leave to the reader’s imagination what that does to business ownership.

As a result I was not surprised to read that as much as 40% of the funds designated to help Manhattan small busineses recover from 9/11 went to large corporations. Actual “small” businesses often don’t have the assets to secure a loan, outside the family home. And as Judy Blume accidentally pointed out, many Manhattanites live in apartments.

Nor was I particularly surprised to read that “Renewal Money for New Orleans Bypasses Renters.” In New Orleans, however, the problem is worse. Much rental property was damaged and most rehab funds are going to homeowners in a town where about half the population rented their housing. As a result, rents have skyrocketed, pricing out a large percentage of the former population — if you may recall 28% of New Orleans population was living below the poverty line. This page contains statistics both on poverty and home ownership in New Orleans and Louisiana in general. And “State officials acknowledged that renters were not their first priority.” Well I don’t know where they think janitors, fry-cooks, mailroom clerks, jazz musicians, and the rest of the 53% of the population of New Orleans who are not homeowners are going to live.

In closing, it turns out that cheap illegal labor does not keep prices low, low, low, so we won’t have a huge wave of inflation if we make employers follow the law; Fox intends to capitalize on the Christian community by making a dozen cheap religious films a year based on best-selling Christian novels (they will probably be collosal money-makers but What Would Jesus Think?); the Washington Post reports “Some Officials Say Voting Law Changes And New Technology Will Cause Trouble” and that’s before finding out that you can open a Diebold voting machine with a hotel’s mini-bar key; and finally why go overseas to find terrorists when we can create own very own home-grown terrorists in American prisons.

I was a Shorties Werewolf

Trivia: Did you know that ground was broken for the Pentagon on September 11, 1941? Or that you are more likely to die of the flu than of a terrorist attack?

What is more disrespectful, turning the American flag into a floor mat, or stepping on it?

Good news for those of you traveling by air to and in England: starting next week security rules will be relaxed:

Larger bags will be allowed along with some liquids – such as toiletries, including toothpaste.These items may have to be placed in plastic bags so they can be easily examined at security.

Musical instruments will also be allowed on board again, after professional musicians complained the measures were hindering them.

This move did not come soon enough for J.K. Rowling.

Congress is very very busy. Much too busy to do anything like lobbying reform. Find out where your Congresscritters stand before voting in November, mmkay? At least they are finally working on a bill that addresses port security. They’re only 4 and a half years late on that. Oh, and a 700 mile long fence along the Mexican border, thus insuring that at least illegal immigrants from Mexico will be physically fit. Never mind Canada. Never mind the economic forces in Mexico that make it seem like a good idea to come to the United States illegally. Certainly never mind the employers willing to exploit these illegal workers. Pay no attention to the man behind the curtain.

Two items on education and stupidity, one of them news (“Study: H.S. dropouts face steeper costs”) and one of them opinion (“Are You Too Stupid to Enjoy the Economy?”), but both worth reading.

For your amusement, a couple of cartoons: thing one and thing two.

Apparently, writing in the Americas began 3000 years ago.

Whatever else may be going on in Iraq, “Iraqis feel weight of high prices, few jobs”. A choice quote:

“Economic development and the establishment of social order and public services … are the conditions which must be set that will result in the support of the local people, and ultimately cause the defeat of this terrorist-backed insurgency,” Maj. Gen. Richard Zilmer said earlier this week.

We are talking about unemployment rates of 30-60%, CPI increase of 70%, prices of some essential items tripling since 2003, and average monthly wages of $200. It was not specified whether “average” wages were mean or median, nor whether the “average” included the unemployed. Either way, I think most of us would have a hard time getting by in such circumstances.

On the use of torture, we have The Myth of the Ticking Time Bomb.

I don’t know how many studies we need to say this, but once again it is official: the polar ice caps are shrinking, the oceans are getting warmer, and “greenhouse gases” have something to do with it. At least Honda is working on a car that works on pure ethanol, and a better way to make that ethanol.

Finally, Rest in Peace, Ann Richards. I am proud to say I voted for her. Twice.

Four Days

All times approximate, Pacific Time Zone

Tuesday, September 11, 2001
5:50 AM

The alarm clock said 6 AM as it went off, but even half asleep she knew it was really ten minutes earlier. She rolled over, slapped the OFF button, and grabbed the TV remote. The TV — still tuned to CNBC from yesterday morning — turned on, and she saw a skyscraper on fire.

That looks like New York City, she thought, but if it were, there would be two of those towers instead of just one.

The phone rang. It was her husband. He was out of town on business. He said “I hoped I could reach you before you turned on the television.” She was still a little sleepy, trying to figure out what he was saying, and make sense of what Mark Haynes was saying on CNBC at the same time.

“What our people on the scene do not realize,” Mr. Haynes said evenly, “Is that the South Tower has collapsed.”

She came to understand what had happened: that several madmen had flown fuel-laden planes into the buildings; that another plane had hit the Pentagon; that a fourth plane was missing and presumed hijacked. The footage was live, and so she saw a person jump from the remaining tower. With a sinking feeling in her guts, she thought Well, I suppose if you know you are going to die anyway…. Within a half hour, the other tower fell.

Data was coming fast and furious. The markets would be closed until further notice. Air traffic closed until further notice. Lists of companies — including many brokerage houses, the IMF, and the World Bank — that had offices in the towers. Phone numbers for employees and families to call for information. Data about the square footage and height of the now demolished towers. Hastily prepared maps of Lower Manhattan with the towers and other landmarks labeled. Estimated 80,000-90,000 people visit the towers for business or tourism daily — needless to say the worst case had to be assumed until proven otherwise.

7:45 AM

After she had showered and gotten dressed, it was time to wake her son and take him to preschool. She had decided he didn’t need to know a lot of details about what had happened. She also hoped air traffic would be back to normal by the time his Dad was supposed to come home. Pretending nothing was wrong, she packed his snack and helped him pick out clothes. She had already scribbled a note for his teacher, reading “He does not know. I trust you will do what is best for the kids.”

They got into her car, and she made sure he was safely strapped in before starting the engine. She pounced on the radio’s OFF button as she realized her regular station was going to be talking about what had happened in New York, and probably nothing else.

Then she drove. The only sounds were the car engine, and her son singing the same four notes over and over again. They formed an odd little minimalist composition, repeating endlessly for most of the ride.

8:50 AM

They arrived at school. Before she could offer the note, the teacher asked simply “Does he know?”

She replied “No.” They both nodded.

The teacher, with effort, put on her happy preschool teacher smile and turned back towards the class. The mother went back to her car.

Alone, she turned on the radio. She changed the channel three or four times, before coming to the conclusion that everyone was talking about the same thing. The same meager set of facts she had learned a couple hours earlier was being repeated, some details superceded by more accurate ones. Now they thought only 40,000 or 50,000 people might be dead. Rescuers were searching for survivors. Interviews with people who had been fortunate enough to be late for work on that particular morning. Locally, there was talk about the air traffic situation, and the fact that the ferries would be running, but no vehicles would be allowed. Well that’s sure going to mess up traffic.

She tried to leave the school parking lot. Traffic was awful; she couldn’t make a left turn. Finally she gave up and turned right. I am going to the beach, she promised herself. As she drove the mile and a half to the beach, she passed multiple churches. One of them was even the denomination she belonged to. She half-thought about going inside, but then changed her mind. God isn’t in there. He’s out here.

She arrived at the rocky beach. It was cold, windy, and she could see the huge ferry coming in, loaded with people but no cars. She could hear the radio of the car parked next to her, continuing to stream the same facts and theories. She crossed the railroad tracks to a little coffee shop. As one barrista made her a cappucino, the manager was talkig on the phone to a second barrista who wasn’t sure she would be able to come in to work because she didn’t know if the ferries would be running. The woman helpfully relayed what she had heard on the radio. The manager thanked her, and the barrista handed her the drink.

She has no idea how much time she spent standing on the rocky beach, sipping a cappucino, staring out across the water and at the mountains beyond. The same four notes her son sang rang in her head.

Wednesday, September 12, 2001
Various Times

As she looked back upon this week, she always felt that Mark Haynes and Alina Cho deserved some kind of award for their coverage of 9/11. Maria Bartiromo was starting not to look quite so shaken. Bob Pisani was starting to look quite frazzled; clearly he was not sleeping, and frankly she couldn’t blame him. She was shaken herself, and she hadn’t been in New York City.

As a mere viewer, she knew they had all lost people they knew, people they had interviewed, people who had been regular guests. She began to wonder about friends and business associates in New York City. Are they alright? It would be weeks before she knew: One friend had watched the towers drop from his office; Another had been in Building 7.

More details became available. Akamai had lost their CTO in one of the planes. Other companies were disclosing lost high-level personel. Some companies, like Cantor-Fitzgerald, had lost over half their staff. The New York Stock Exchange is talking about hoping to be able to open for normal business next week. Miraculous rescues were still happening. Details about what the President and Vice-President had done the day before were now becoming widely known. Now they thought probably only 5,000-10,000 people were dead.

Still, those same four notes rang in her head like an endless tape loop.

CNBC’s David Faber apologized for the fact that they are a business news network, and that in addition to the terrible events that happened yesterday, they will be reporting important business, national, and international news as it happens. Various guests talk about what will happen next week when the markets reopen. Sell airlines, because air travel is changing forever! Sell aviation manufacturers! There will almost certainly be a recession so sell everything! No, buy defense contractors!

Sometime amidst this, she thinks with alarming clarity Well, no matter what else happens, people will need to get from place to place, and American Airlines and United Airlines both have planes to replace. And no matter what gets built at “Ground Zero,” it will need air conditioners and elevators. Buy United Technologies when they open.

At some point she went outside. The eerie quiet of the skies was broken by a fighter jet from a nearby military base.

Thursday, September 13, 2001
Various Times

As she was out and about, she noticed American flags everywhere. It was like the Fourth of July on steroids! She was even noticing people who had painted their old beater cars red, white, and blue. She couldn’t help but wonder if those people were going to be quite so proud of those paint jobs 6 months from now.

She still made sure the radio was off when her son was in the car. There was still too much talk about what had happened than she really wanted to expose a preschooler to. She was also very very cautious about turning on the TV at all. Luckily, she was already in the habit of taping Sesame Street for later viewing.

The four notes were not in her head anymore — at least not constantly — but she still couldn’t go an hour without wondering why Tuesday had happened.

Friday, September 14, 2001
9:15 AM

The moment her son was safely in school, she went back to her car and turned on the local NPR affiliate. They were supposed to run the memorial service live from Washington Cathedral. Billy Graham was supposed to give the sermon, and she desperately hoped he had something truly inspired to say.

“…And now they are passing the offering plate…” the announcer said.

Stunned, she stared at the radio for a moment before turning it off and driving away.

Green Traffic

So maybe gas prices are down a little bit — and my inner cynic supposes they will remain so until at least November 7 — but they are still higher than they were 2 years ago.

Meanwhile, traffic congestion has become a serious problem in pretty much every major metropolitan area, and it’s only getting worse. Now, nobody likes being stuck in traffic. Really. But there are reasons not to like it beyond the simple waste of time: it’s stressful; it’s a waste of gas; it pollutes the environment for no good reason; it is a drain on productivity, particularly for workers whose jobs involve driving; it can give a city a bad reputation; it might even cause heart attacks. If you want to know more about the problem, you can start with these studies.

One ongoing argument in this arena is whether we should solve this problem with more roads, or with public transportation that gets people off the roads in the first place. Rarely does anybody talk about doing the best we can with the traffic situation we have.

The Washington Department of Transportation, however, is in the middle of a project that will make traffic run more smoothly whether you drive a H2, a Prius, or ride the bus, and they are doing it without a single construction zone! For some years, Washington commuters have been able to select routes based on traffic conditions before ever getting into a car. Now the WDOT is smoothing traffic by precision monitoring and adjustment of traffic lights. It requires no action on the part of motorists, other than to obey traffic laws.

It’s one of those “why don’t they do this everywhere” kind of ideas.

In closing: yet more follow up on McGavick, who it seems has a lot worse than an old DUI to worry about; new story on old news, David Cope was writing computer music well over a decade ago, but Wired just noticed; sharp drop in terror prosecutions “because of weak evidence and other legal problems”; “For young people, U.S. wages trail costs” but tell them something they didn’t know; cutting edge study suggests that fat toddlers become fat teenagers; reality, working, and lactation; and finally, Welcome to the World, Little Prince.

The Kids Are (not) Alright

Today I present two wildly divergent things from two vastly different regions of the world.

First, American higher education.

Years ago, I had an argument with my father. I had graduated high school and had been admitted to the University of North Texas. We were standing in the kitchen and it went something like this:

The school says I am required to live on campus until I have completed 30 credit hours.

But for what room and board cost, I could buy you a decent car and put gas in it and you could still live here.

But they say I have to live in the dorm.

But the dorm costs $X and that’s more than a Hyundai costs.

But they won’t let me enroll without living in the dorm.

You get the idea. I have no idea how long this went back and forth. The short version is I didn’t go to UNT. Even though I could have afforded tuition, I couldn’t afford tuition and room and board.* I went to another local school, which I could only afford due to some grants and a merit based scholarship. It was the sort of school that considers things beyond an SAT score.

College expenses have gone up since then. Tuition isn’t the only culprit, as the average college student spends $900 per year on textbooks. And Pell Grants have gone down. And there have been many changes to the student loan system since then, none of them particularly good for students. And changes in the bankruptcy code makes matters worse for those who got buried under student loans, following the Pied Piper who sang “education is the key to good paying jobs.” Oh, and that was before the FBI started poking through student financial aid records looking for terrorists.

And as if that isn’t bad enough, many American teens have unrealistic life goals. Sorry, Harvard only has so many slots, and American Idol only has one winner per season. And thankfully, the job of being Paris Hilton has been filled by Paris Hilton.

Meanwhile on the other side of the world, getting to college can be the least of kids’ concerns.

The Associated Press summarizes it nicely: “The good news is that child labor in Asia is decreasing. The bad news? It’s not declining fast enough.” And solving the problem is not as simple as “just say no to products built with child labor,” because “a crucial problem was that there were too many people who, despite wanting their children in school, either could not afford fees or related costs like transportation and uniforms or would find it hard to get by without the extra income.” In other words, putting kids out of factories merely moves them into worse occupations.

As bad as this sounds, it gets worse! About 1,200,000 children are trafficked each year. These kids are sold, kidnapped, or just plain tricked. Some get involved in illegal adoptions, some become slave laborers, some become part of crime or begging rings, some become prostitutes. It is a huge problem.

I stumbled across some figures on this yesterday and was horrified. In some areas of the world, a child’s chance of being trafficked by age 16 can be as high as 30-40%. That in turn led me to RiverKids. They are trying to prevent trafficking on a small scale by making sure the kids they sponsor stay in school, have the resources to continue their education, and have safe places to go after school. If you like what you see, check out their financial statements (posted regularly) and click the “make a donation” button.

In closing, we are getting fatter; the good news is household income is (slightly) up, but that’s only because “more family members were taking jobs to make ends meet, and some people made more money from investments and other sources beyond wages”; once again Japan has learned to take the best from the West; the DNC says The Bush Administration Has Made America Less Safe (how dare guys like Limbaugh say the Democratic Party wants America to loose the War on Terror!); and two items from the Christian Science Monitor, “Legal landmines emerge in ‘dirty bomber’ case; The Jose Padilla trial is a test: Can US avoid legal tangles of its ‘war on terror’ tactics?” and “Opposite ends of the labor market face opposite problems: Rising efficiency and technology are adding work for highly paid professionals while taking it away from low-skill employees”.

* My problem was hardly a new one. And I can see why colleges might want to make sure their (theoretically) youngest students are semi-supervised in a dorm environment. But there should be an automatic exemption for students who are either a) over 21, b) married, c) formerly married, d) have kids, e) have served in the military, or f) can prove they will be living with a close blood relative in the same or adjacent county. There’s nothing more pitiful than a college freshman living in the dorms with his wife and kids.