A Rare Moment of Incompetency at the Post Office

I am not a fan of the post office. I usually only go after hours, when I can use the kiosk at my local branch to buy stamps, ship packages, buy insurance... basically every service the employee provides but in a fraction of the time with more accuracy, because instead of him reading it aloud I can see all the options at once.

The post office is always crowded. This is due to the fact that it is understaffed with incompetent people, and its customer base seems to represent the worst of society in intelligence, social norms and manners, at any given point in time. Add to this the variable that I would rather be doing anything else, and it is the perfect storm for frustration.

My task today was to renew Karsten's passport, which expires next summer. As a minor, his passport has to be submitted in person, with both parents present. Since there are only a few days a year in which Kim and I are both available AND the one post office in Boise that processes passports is open, it had to be done now. Here are the highlights of the trip:

1. Two employees, who are helping no one in the empty office and see us waiting, don't address us as they chat about a nasty cough one of them has. I finally interrupt and ask: "Is there a form I can fill out while I am waiting?"

"Oh, yes," one woman says quickly, and hands me a form. I notice the other employee is searching for something on Google. "Thanks," I said: " I wouldn't want to interrupt the Google search."

2. I don't have Karsten's SS number on me. I ask the employee if we can do everything else and call this in. She says no, but asks if someone else can call it in. I let this lack of logic slide and call my mom, who is fortunately home and able to go to my house. As we are waiting, more people walk in. Each of them is addressed quickly and provided with forms, much to my irritation, as we were not.

Another group comes in, and they apparently are ready to go. "Come back here," the employee motions to them, but the group doesn't move. "They were here first," someone says, pointing to us.

"They are waiting for someone... you are waiting, right?"
"Yes," I said, "but if this means I lose my place in line and will be here another hour, I would like to get going now, because my mom will be calling any minute."

Awkward pause. "Come back here," she grunts to me.

2. After we get to her desk, I hand her the form, which has Karsten's name and birthdate (1999). I hand her his birth certificate, current passport, and new pictures, which are of Karsten. I told her earlier during the SS number conversation that we are renewing Karsten's passport (the only one in the room under the age of 35).

She looks at the form and asks if the passport renewal is for Karsten. I look at her for a moment before nodding my head.

3. She asks how tall Karsten is. She points to a ruler taped on the wall. Karsten walks up to it. "Fifty-four inches," I said. She nods her head and stares blankly. I know what the problem is, but say nothing. She taps her fingers and looks at her computer monitor, as if it will speak to her. She starts to mutter under her breath: "Twelve, 24, 48...."

"Four feet, six inches," I offer.
"Okay," she says, and pushes the paper to me: "Why don't you write that in?"

4. Ironically, the more this went on the more friendly she was with us, telling us stories of passports that would make Joseph Conrad proud. It was almost as if she got paid by the hour with no connection to accomplishments and will close shop regardless of what work is left to do, so she has no incentive to be more efficient. It is almost as if she belongs to a union.

The waiting area is now filling up with people.

Kim asks how much this will be. "$85." I reply. "$60 for the passport, and $25 for processing."
"Yes, $85." the woman responds, as if she gets credit for knowing as much as I do from the web site.

Less than five minutes later, she pulls out a piece of paper to serve as an invoice, because I have to go to the post office cashier to pay for this (we are in a separate office). She writes $75 for the passport, and $20 for processing. I start to walk out but realize that isn't right.

"Excuse me, but isn't this charging me $95 for the passport in total? It is supposed to be $85, right?"

She smiles sheepishly and crosses out the $75 and writes $60. At this point, I honestly don't know if she is a complete idiot or a thief- you could convince me either way with minimal effort. When I hand the paper to the cashier, she doesn't bat an eye with the messy invoice, and I wonder what would have happened if I had crossed out $60 and wrote $2.99.

First NFL game

We went to the state-of-the-art University of Phoenix stadium to see the NY Giants play the Arizona Cardinals. It is a very impressive stadium, and even though we had horrible seats on paper, we could see the action very well- there doesn't appear to be a bad seat in the house. The only negative was they didn't open the stadium for some reason, even though it was sunny outside with a blue sky.

Because Phoenix is a horrible pro football town, not only was I able to get tickets on short notice, but so were about 10,000 Giants fans, many of whom apparently did fly in from New York to see a team that they aren't able to otherwise in their own backyard. It was strange seeing large amounts of blue spread out with red.

As a result, there was a lot of trash talking between drunk Cardinal fans and drunk Giants fans. It was in appropriate at times, but for the most part good-natured. When the game was close, the trash talking was even and fair, but as the Giants pulled away in the second half, the Arizona fans had less to say and the Giant fans wouldn't shut up.

Thanksgiving in Phoenix

We spent most of the day at the Phoenix Zoo, as it was the only place open on Thanksgiving (if you ever need to drive in Phoenix, I suggest 9am on Thanksgiving; it was a ghost town). It was about 65 and sprinkling lightly in the morning. We were wearing shorts and t-shirts and thought it was a nice morning. Meanwhile, all the locals were wearing pants, coats, carrying umbrellas, and complaining about how cold it was. The people in Phoenix apparently think anything below 80 is freezing.

The zoo was pretty good (meaning it was better than Boise but not as good as Washington D.C. or Chicago). We got to touch and feed sting rays in a pool, and they had an exhibit where you walk into an area that has about 20 squirrel monkeys jumping around like you were invisible. The keepers squirt water at them if they get too close to the people, but that doesn't seem to stop them from trying again.

After the zoo we hiked Piestewa Peak, outside of Phoenix. It is the second highest point in the Phoenix Mountains. It didn't look that hard on paper, at 1.6 miles, but it is not for the faint of heart. It is very steep (about 1200 feet gained in elevation), the "path" is almost entirely jagged rocks with steep steps, and there is no water or much shade. I can imagine it would be challenging in the Phoenix summer. It took us about 45 minutes to walk up to the top.

For dinner, we learned from last year (when we naively assumed restaurants would be open Thanksgiving evening, and then went into panic mode trying to find any food before finding a Denny's in a part of town in Tampa that was made up of extras from Deliverance) and got a tip that a Ruby Tuesday would be open to cater to the ASU students stuck on campus during the break (and the weirdos who travel during Thanksgiving to places in which they have no family or friends), so we ate there.

I kept my streak alive with a bison burger and salad bar (that is now seven straight Thanksgivings without a traditional meal, and counting, for me).

I am sure other states did this as well, but in Idaho, the online newspaper (the Idaho Statesman) listed profiles of all candidates, with a series of questions, such as experience, education, why are you running, etc. My favorite one was "last book you read."

Mike Moyle (R), running for District 14, House Seat A, replied: "The New Testament."

After careful consideration, he did not receive my vote.

Pathetically, he still won.

The Role of Race in the Republican Party

The role of race in the Republican Party

As we near an election in which Barack Obama is poised to become the first African-American to win the Presidency, race is a constant theme.

Republicans insist that a vote against Obama is not a result of racism, while Obama supporters wonder otherwise, implying that the only reason the average American (defined statistically by median income) struggling with inflation, rising costs in energy and health care, job instability, and less spending power would not vote for Obama is racism, as Obama’s policies on all of these issues would benefit this person much more than the Republican candidate.

When looking into the history of the Republican Party, it is clear that race defines the Republican party more than any other issue, and no doubt exists that racism has been a major unifier of the Republican Party, both past and present. The question is: How much of a variable is it in why one votes Republican today?

To be clear: It is neither fair nor accurate to claim that a person voting against Obama in 2008 is a racist by default (although those cases do exist without question), and certainly a percentage of Republicans are voting for their candidate solely on policies that are color-blind, such as tax implications.

However, race is still relevant for most voters, because even if you take the “black” out of the Republican tag line that Obama is “a socialist, elite, liberal, big city, anti-American, pro-terrorist, anti-military, black man,” the message is the same: Obama does not represent real America. However, what is real America?

The Founding Fathers that Republicans quote and celebrate on July 4th, President’s Day, etc., were mostly highly educated, pro-Europe, preferred urban cities, spoke multiple languages, traveled extensively overseas, held professional positions in law and medicine, were not religious extremists, and enjoyed healthy debate and exchange of ideas.

In fact, the Founding Fathers were very distrustful of rural America, hence the creation of the electoral college, which protected the country from having uneducated citizens directly determining the Presidency. This was intentional and by design.

James Madison, Thomas Jefferson, and John Adams would certainly not find much in common with the “real American” of Sarah Palin and majority of the Republican base, so what do Republicans mean when they say American values come from small rural American towns? Is it coincidence that rural America is mostly white?

Race, either explicitly (via promoting segregation or fighting civil rights legislation) or implicitly (Willie Horton ads against Dukakis in 1988, McCain supporters pushing a story of a woman beaten in Pennsylvania by a black man who was an Obama supporter in 2008 (proven to be false), or the tactic of leaving recorded messages in white neighborhoods of a black man using ghetto slang urging them to vote Democrat), has been used by Republican party leaders as the glue that unifies the party to one common goal: keeping the status quo of white America.

These Republicans may be at odds with each other daily (the Wall St. banker screwing the Kansan retiree by manipulating the market), have lives that will intentionally never cross (the CEO of a major corporation and the 18-year-old soldier serving in Iraq), or have conflicting interests (the immigrant Hispanic pro-life Catholic vs. the Idaho construction worker upset at immigration lowering local wages), but they still unify every four years on the mantra of “keep the status quo.”

A Republican Presidential candidate may run on a campaign of change, but the change is not to progress ahead but return to the past: America in the 1950s, when things were more simple, safe, and defined. The problem with this, of course, is this era was completely subversive to anyone except white males.

The transformation of the Republican Party from its birth in the 1850s to present day is remarkable, and one must understand this shift to explain how Abraham Lincoln and Strom Thurmond both belonged to the same party.

The Republican party was created when neither the Compromise of 1850 nor the Kansas-Nebraska Act of 1854 could relax tensions over slavery (without going into detail, both of these acts were about maintaining a balance between the Northern “free” states and Southern slave states).

The Whig party, which was the dominant party along with Democrats at the time, was split internally with opposing views of slavery (you can probably guess which geographic area was on which side).

When these slavery issues could not be resolved for the election of 1856, Northern Whigs left and formed the Republican party, which also included a smaller party called Free Soilers, as well as antislavery Democrats (a few did exist). The Democrats won the 1856 election partly due to this chaos, but four years later, Abraham Lincoln ran and was the first Republican to win the Presidential election.

Although Lincoln spent his entire Presidency in war (the only US President with this distinction) and as such never was able to focus on a domestic policy, the Republican party did stand for something besides opposition to slavery; the new Republican party put forward a progressive vision of modernizing the country by emphasizing higher education, banking, railroads, industry and cities, while promising free homesteads to farmers. Its initial base was progressive elites in the Northeast and farmers in the Midwest.

The Republican Party also played a leading role in securing women the right to vote. In 1896, Republicans were the first major party to favor women's suffrage. When the 19th Amendment finally was added to the Constitution, 26 of 36 state legislatures that had voted to ratify it were under Republican control. The first woman elected to Congress was a Republican, Jeanette Rankin from Montana in 1917.

Yet if you took Abraham Lincoln or James Garfield (who wrote in his presidential inaugural address “the elevation of the negro race… has added immensely to the moral and industrial forces of our people”), and introduced them to Strom Thurmond, Jesse Helms, or Ronald Reagan, the former would be completely flabbergasted by the policy and social stances of the latter.

So what happened to the Grand Old Party (GOP)? The same party that invited Frederick Douglass to address delegates in the 1876 convention while nominating the most reform-minded person they could find in that election in Rutherford B. Hayes?

Four big moments led to the transformation of the Republican Party from 1860 to 2008, and most were race-related.

The first was the election of 1876. Up to this point, opposition of slavery and support of African-Americans was the glue of the party, but that glue quickly eroded in a moment that would replay itself in the 2000- an election with disputed electoral votes.

In the 1876 election, Democratic candidate Samuel Tilden had more popular votes than Hayes and a 184-165 lead in electoral votes, but the returns from four states totaling 20 electoral votes were in dispute.

To sort out the controversy, Congress appointed a commission (eight republicans and seven democrats) and the two parties reached in agreement, called the Great Compromise. Democrats agreed not to contest the commission finding that all 20 electoral votes went to Hayes, giving him the presidency (no surprise that a “non-partisan” commission managed to vote along party lines). In return, however, came the sell-out: The Republicans promised to remove all remaining federal troops in the South, which ended the period known as Reconstruction.

African-Americans called the deal the Great Betrayal (historians call it the Nadir period), as many of the gains of Reconstruction were lost and replaced with even harsher anti-black legislation and social policies. By 1900, all southern states, in new constitutions, had written into law the disenfranchisement and segregation of blacks. For example, a Negro farm laborer in the South made about fifty cents a day and was paid in “orders”, not money, which could only be used at a store controlled by the white farm planter. Policies like this helped keep African-Americans poor and without political power.

Many Negroes fled the South to escape violence and poverty. This complete reversal of reconstruction Federal policy and enforcement and the impact on African-Americans cannot be understated, as it led to almost 100 years of Jim Crow laws, whose impact is still felt today (unfortunately, Reconstruction and the following Nadir period is typically ignored in the US history books and few Americans know anything about it, but that is another article). The Nadir period began the shift in political parties; Republicans lost a lot of support from African-Americans but gained support from racist Democrats.

After the 1876 election, Republicans stayed the dominant party in politics (with a brief break coinciding with World War I) until 1932.

During their roughly 60 years in power, other shifts began to take place. Republicans now became synonymous with laissez-faire economics, which held that non-interference with business practices ensured a healthy economy for all (the genesis of the Republican Wall St. banker/investor who desired no Federal oversight or regulation).

Republicans created an anti-immigrant stance during this time, which led to isolationism in the country-wars in Europe and the rest of the world. Both of these platforms also contributed to the lack of active support of black civil rights, as Republicans believed that a healthy economy eradicating poverty should be enough, especially combined with a decrease in immigration.

In other words, “trickle down economics” was a staple of the Republican party long before Ronald Reagan. It was also the time when it was entrenched in the Republican mind that someone who worked hard would be successful financially, so if you were poor, it was because you were lazy- not a result of any global discrimination towards those who had darker skin or spoke little or no English.

However, during the Depression and World War II, the nation ceased to support these ideas. No matter how much the average Republican was against government help towards blacks or immigrants, when unemployment was 25%, banks lost everything, and no one escaped the impact, government intervention was welcomed as a way of preventing life-ending poverty and struggle (similar to how a stock market/home market crash of 2008 led to a public cry for government oversight). In 1936 the GOP reached its low point; a Democrat in the White House and only 17 GOP senators and 89 GOP representatives in the Congress.

At the end of World War II, however, the country took another turn with Republicanism due to the unpopularity of Herbert Hoover (a Democrat), the Korean War, the economy, and five consecutive terms of Democratic rule, and Americans elected Dwight Eisenhower President in 1952 and gave Republicans control of Congress.

At a time when Republicans expected to be at their strongest, they were greatly disappointed Eisenhower had not reversed the New Deal that had been Roosevelt's hallmark nor defeated Communism (intervention in foreign affairs was now held as a virtue by the Party, a trait that George W. Bush took to new levels).

Ironically, the second big moment that defined the Republican party was a pro-black decision by a Republican president; it was Eisenhower who supported the Brown v. Board of Education decision in 1954, which permitted black students to attend white schools.

Eisenhower sent Federal troops into Arkansas to enforce the Supreme Court ruling that the Governor of Arkansas refused to enforce, but this angered many Republicans who felt it was the wrong decision. While this caused many Republicans to drop support of Eisenhower (he was in his second-term anyway), the racist tones of the moment unified the party. The party of Lincoln was far from its founding beliefs at this point.

This strife led to the election of the Democrats, with John F. Kennedy followed by Lyndon B. Johnson. During the Johnson administration, the third big moment took place: LBJ passed the most sweeping civil rights legislation since the 13th, 14th, and 15th Amendments after the Civil War.

LBJ signed the Civil Rights Act of 1964 (barring discrimination in public places and employment), the Voting Rights Act of 1965 (which outlawed poll taxes, literacy tests, and other barriers white southerners had erected to keep blacks from voting), Medicaid and Medicare, federal aid to education, food stamps, and Head Start.

This legislation angered many southern Democrats, who were so upset that they left the party and became Republicans. Here are two examples:

Strom Thurmond served as governor of South Carolina and as a senator. He ran for the presidency of the United States in 1948 under the segregationist States Rights Democratic Party banner. Thurmond represented South Carolina in the United States Senate from 1954 to April 1956 and November 1956 to 1964 as a Democrat, but due to the shift of Democratic support of African-American civil rights, served 1964 to 2003 as a Republican.

Jesse Helms, an outspoken conservative who opposed many progressive policies such as school integration, the Civil Rights Act and the Voting Rights Act, served as a campaign aide for Democratic segregationist Willis Smith in the early 1950s, but was a Republican when he served five terms as a Senator from North Carolina. Helms, much to the joy of his supporters, tried, with a 16-day filibuster, to stop the Senate from approving a national holiday to honor black civil-rights leader, Dr. Martin Luther King Jr.

These are just two of many examples of racists jumping from the Democratic party to Republicans specifically because Civil Rights legislation was passed. The reversal of Democrats being racist to pro-minority, and Republicans supporting Reconstruction to blocking Civil Rights amendments, was complete.

In 1968, Richard Nixon was elected, but this endorsement was not so much a support of Republican ideas as it was the hope that he would end the war in Vietnam. His resignation from the office, in disgrace, damaged the Republican Party more than his progress in ending the war had helped it. The nation once again turned to the Democrats, electing Jimmy Carter in 1976. But Carter’s perceived failure in the arena of foreign affairs, combined with a recession at home, directly led to the election of Republican Ronald Reagan in 1980.

The election of Reagan led to the fourth major moment of Republican history, and for once, it wasn’t race related (not directly, anyway).

In 1979, Jerry Falwell founded the "Moral Majority". The following year, Falwell embraced Reagan, in a move that helped shift millions of long-time Southern Democrats and born-again voters into the GOP column (Carter, a self-professed born-again Christian, had first captured this emerging voting block in 1976).

The Moral Majority is credited for giving 67% of the white evangelical vote to Reagan over Carter, handing him the presidency. Reagan never forgot this, and all Republican presidential candidates since, worried that they cannot win the White House without fundamental Christian support, have never stopped catering and making policy decisions aimed at pleasing this faction (for example, McCain picking Sarah Palin as a running mate).

It is important to note that while the founding principles of the Moral Majority were mostly around social issues, such as opposition to abortion and homosexuality, they also opposed the Equal Rights Amendments. In other words, the racists were still on board and voting Republican.

Reagan reshaped the Republican party, gave rise to the modern conservative movement, and altered the political dynamic of the United States. More men voted Republican under Reagan, and Reagan tapped into religious voters. Bill Schneider, senior political analyst at CNN, said, "[T]he whole Republican Party traces its lineage, its legitimacy to this one man." In the 2008 Republican primaries, all presidential candidates, regardless of differences, from McCain to Thompson to Guliani to Huckabee to Romney, all made references to how they admired and wanted to be like Reagan.

Reagan (who, by the way, was yet another Democrat who supported FDR and Eisenhower in the 1950s before switching to be a Republican in the 1960s after Civil Rights legislation passed) embodied many qualities that the New Right faction of the GOP admired; anti-Communist, willingness to be intervene in foreign disputes, and economic policies that effectively rendered null the remnants of the New Deal. Additionally, this administration was committed to opposing what they perceived as overly liberal steps taken by the courts in the direction of abortion, civil rights, and school prayer. This was not Barry Goldwater’s party.

The economic boom of the 1980s helped gain re-election for Reagan, and in 1988 for George Bush; however, when the economy entered a downturn in the early 1990s, this was seen as being indicative of a failure of the GOP economic policies and led to the election of Democrat Bill Clinton in 1992.

Ironically, the other factor that hurt the Republicans was the dissolution of the Soviet Union that it fought so hard to achieve; anti-Communist rhetoric lost its appeal when the Communists became capitalists, and it didn’t take long for Republicans to completely switch gears and support Communist China, when it benefited big business.

In 2000, George W. Bush ran as a “compassionate conservative,” using the Ronald Reagan game plan very effectively. He campaigned on a platform that included increasing the size of the United States Armed Forces, cutting taxes, and catered hard to the religious right. Bush became just the third president elected without receiving a plurality of the popular vote, so his election was hardly a ringing endorsement of Republican values, but he also won re-election in 2004 by a small margin in the popular vote.

In 2008, it appears the country is ready for a change. But how deep that change is nationally, and what impact it has on redefining the Republican Party, remains to be seen.

Sheraton Palo Alto

I recently stayed at the Sheraton in Palo Alto, California for a business trip. My company paid for it, so I didn't get hurt financially, but it was a rather overpaid hotel considering what they offer and what the services are.

First, it is located on the corner of a strange intersection, meaning you can only turn right. If you need to turn around, you have to go to the next light and go through three lights to get back on track. If you are coming from the other direction, you need to go past the hotel to the next light and do a u-turn. So while it is located closely to Stanford and Palo Alto downtown on paper, it is a bit of a pain to drive anywhere or explain to people how to get to the lobby.

If you do make it via car, you have to pay for parking. It is the only hotel I know of in Palo Alto that does this. A bit ridiculous. Even though I didn't have to pay as a guest, I still had to swipe my room card 15 times each morning and night to get out of the place, which is frustrating when six cars are ahead of you all doing the same thing. Around Wednesday I realized it was easier to just punch the ticket button and then throw it away in my room.

There was free wireless in the lobby, but if I wanted it in my room, it cost $11 a day. But, who would want Internet access in their room? I would much rather hang out in the lobby. They also had the usual overcharged $3 water bottles, but that is par for the course.

Behind the hotel, and facing my room, was the Palo Alto train stop for public transportation. Needless to say, I had my ear plugs in all night. That was a markdown in my book, listening to a train and ringing bells late at night and early in the morning.

It was convenient if walking downtown to the restaurants, but that was about the only positive. It was an older hotel, the rooms and hallways are getting old, and it is overpriced at over $200 a night. The staff was friendly and helpful.

My favorite part of the stay was the last night, when I got a letter from the Director of the Front Office. I already knew the name, as a few nights earlier I got a letter apologizing for the "incocninvience" of a fire alarm that resulted from some mechanical issues.

This letter told me that they would like me to take a survey discussing my stay. The catch, however, was that I first had promise I would give them a "10" before they sent me the survey:

Our goal is to always excel and receive a score of "10". If, for any reason, we have not met your expectations and that you would not be able to give us a 10 in any area of your stay, please let us know before you leave.

If we have met your satisfaction we would appreciate it if you could confirm with us your email address so that we may ensure you receive a Guest Satisfaction Survey.

That is one way to make sure you get good feedback.

Meeting New People

Last year I had a problem.

I wanted to spice up the social life with a new group of friends to supplement the current collection, but being married with a child and involved in many activities, I didn’t have much time to invest in the pursuit.

In an effort to streamline the process, and avoid the nightmare of making plans based on a conversation at a party only to find later that person was an idiot, I had an idea that a list of questions would determine quickly, at first contact, if a recruit was worth my time.

After several iterations, I was able to reduce the list to five questions, each chosen for their specific topic and insight revealed. In application, my plan has had much success. Now, in an effort to help others in the same predicament, I share the list with the public.

While some may think the questions are superficial and could not possibly determine compatibility, the fact is most do not want to discuss serious topics with people they’ve just met, and it is initially the superficial topics that determine whom we socialize with.

The rules are simple: Each correct question adds 20% to the odds of a successful compatibility match (note: this test can also be used to determine success in team activities, such as a project at work or a traveling ultimate team spending a week together in South Korea).

Good luck.

1. Do you have a wind chime in your yard?
correct answer: no
intent: identify social responsibility

Wind chimes are arguably the most heinous invention ever. Its intent is solely to provide unsolicited noise for a large geographic area, usually at the moment you want absolute silence (at night when you sleep).

It is unclear how society is able to legislate noise from barking dogs, house parties, or construction work, yet a person can do nothing about hours of hideous clanking and banging of metal or wood in four different octaves every night until one takes a baseball bat to the persons and item causing the disruption (not necessarily in that order).

How have we made it to 2008 without legislation banning wind chimes? I can’t add a covered porch to my house without getting a permit from the city, but I can have 16 wind chimes nailed to the fence so every neighbor within three miles can experience sleep deprivation. Anyone who owns a wind chime has a complete disregard for society and is not someone you should invest further time with. Be thankful you found out now.

2. Do you like Flight of the Conchords?
correct answer: yes
intent: identify sense of humor

FotC is a comedy on HBO about two musicians from New Zealand who moved to New York to make it big. Each episode includes a few songs that parody a genre or musician, with humorous lyrics related to the episode. The running gag in the series is that while the duo is completely incompetent in their regular lives, they are creative, talented, and confident in the fantasy music videos about their lives.

FotC is an acquired taste that requires the ability to watch an entire 30 minute episode, so this question also identifies if one has ADD or is addicted to crack cocaine (an added benefit).

3. Is the BCS good for college football ?
correct answer: no
intent: identify concept of fairness

College football, without question, has the most arbitrary and unfair system to pick a champion than any sport at any level in the civilized world except for Olympic sports involving judges.

In every sport, college or pro, no one really cares where a team is ranked in some arbitrary poll or computer formula- except NCAA Division I football subdivision. This is because every other sport understands that the media and its coaches do not have the time to watch every game and accurately rank teams (most submit their polls before the late games in the West have even finished), even if they were able to somehow put aside geographical, friendship, and conference biases (which no one can).

As such, everyone else tolerates the polls for friendly debate- and then resolves who is best by having a playoff system. The BCS resolves it by guesswork.

Many people want to dump the BCS, but many inexplicably want to keep status quo, as if it is some historical tradition that should be appreciated (it started in 1998). No other sport has its fan base asking for their current playoff system to be dumped and replaced with a process similar to the BCS. Can you imagine the NFL picking the top five teams in training camp in August and having it actually significantly determine who plays in the Super Bowl?

It is asinine, and if your social recruit is for the BCS, let him know that your computer rankings just came out, and he wasn’t selected (but ask him not to despair, because if your current top five falter he will suddenly be worthy again).

4. Do you believe in dinosaurs?
correct answer: yes
intent: reveal religious fanaticism

People who take the bible literally believe there is a conspiracy to mass produce fake bones that are then shipped to museums in an effort to brainwash people. Those same people call gravity a “theory,” even though no case exists of a person climbing out of bed in the morning and finding himself walking on the ceiling.

Combining a dinosaur believer with a religious fanatic is a relationship that will never work, because the forthcoming intellectual clash is inevitable, regardless of subject or environment. For example:

Todd: “I am sweating a lot playing basketball on this hot day. I better hydrate so that I may retain a proper water volume in my body to avoid headaches, dizziness, and possible death. What do you think Fred?”

Fred: “I think that is another example of the phony science machine brainwashing you so they can get your money selling useless water products to finance their orgies, drugs, abortions, and homosexual agenda, when that money should go to something important, like new carpet in the church. If you are thirsty, pray to God, and if you are worthy, his love will hydrate you. If you die, it was your fault for not having faith.”

You can’t cherry-pick science. You either believe in the process of gathering observable, empirical, and measurable evidence to support a belief and test that belief to determine validity, or you do not.

5. Do you smoke?
correct answer: no
intent: identify death wish

In 1966, the U.S. Surgeon General cautioned that “Cigarette Smoking May be Hazardous to Your Health”. In 1970, it was upgraded to: “The Surgeon General Has Determined that Cigarette Smoking is Dangerous to Your Health.”

Thirty-eight years later, when even the people who don’t believe in dinosaurs agree nicotine kills, an estimated 20% of Americans still smoke and about 90,000 die of lung cancer each year.

You don’t need to know why your potential buddy smokes, because there isn’t a reason that will justify it. If he is trying to quit, offer your support for that action, then excuse yourself and try the girl in the corner who likes to bungee jump- at least her death wish won't contribute to your early exit.

Faith in Marriage, Part II

People often say you need to have faith. The word faith, or faithful, is common in wedding vows.

I recently read a book called "End of Faith" by Sam Harris. The book is an argument against religion, and he makes a differentiation between religious faith and faith in something proven. Harris argues that religious faith is harmful and wrong, because religious faith is the belief in historical and metaphysical propositions without sufficient evidence. Faith in someone or oneself, however, is okay, if it is based on quantitative results.

For example, I have faith in my son's ability to do well on a spelling test, as he has done well in every spelling test he has taken this year at school. That would be a valid use of faith. In contrast, it would not be good to place faith in my ability to bench press 300 pounds, because I can have never done more than 250, no matter how much you believe in me or I pray to God to give me the strength. Any bets on that result would be lost money.

So, to have faith in a marriage succeeding is fine, but not if that faith is in the words of a vow, an overlord god, or in superstitions that even today still play a huge role in planning a wedding. The faith has to be in something that can be proven, in order to be a valid prediction of success.

But the problem here is that the most important attributes of a successful marriage are subjective concepts that cannot be quantitatively measured nor uniformly defined.

In other words, you cannot have faith in a marriage. It is an oxymoron.

How do you identify or measure the faith a couple has in themselves and each other? How do you identify or measure their love? What about trust? People can say they have faith, love, and trust in their spouse, but all couples said the same wedding vows, so obviously what someone says at a wedding cannot be taken as a true oath until death do them part, even if the bride and groom speaking at the time say it with honesty and sincerity.

To have faith in someone being married forever is no different than believing your next coin flip will be tails, that your dealt blackjack hand of 14 will bust with another card, or you will win a game of eeny meeny miny moe (all of which have odds around 50%).

People may want the marriage to last, but there is no evidence to think that the wedding you went to last week is any more likely to last than the next one Britney Spears is involved with.

In fact (and this will really anger you), there is no reason to believe YOUR marriage is more likely to last than a neighbor's, for the same reasons: You don't know what is in your spouse's heart any more than I do.

Do you think every divorce ended with one spouse saying, "Yeah, I knew he would cheat on me" or "I could see it coming that she would neglect the kids" or "I knew he couldn't hold a job and would lose everything we had in savings" or "I knew I would get bored with her sexually"? Of course, not. So what makes you immune to this possibility?

People change as they get older, and now, more than ever, the likelihood of not being aligned over time exists. It wasn't much of an issue when women couldn't hold property, vote, initiate a divorce, be a CEO, file charges against the husband for rape or abuse, and do everything a man can. It's easy to keep the divorce rate low when a women has no rights, but that is not the case now in America. Sure, Muslim arranged-marriages are still going strong, but I don't think that is reason to push women's rights in the Western world back to the 14th century.

The divorce rate increase in America is not a result of sex education, rap music, or the removal of "Merry Christmas" from public schools, as Christians would have you believe; it is directly aligned with the progression of women's rights. Over two-thirds of all divorces are initiated by women, with the rate increasing with the level of education of the woman involved.

In other words, the more women are given options in a society, the more likely they are to decide the option of staying with their husband sucks, because the fact is marriage has always been broken- women just weren't able to do anything about it in the past. In addition, the reality that people died in their 30s hid a lot of discontent that may have existed over decades of marriage, as exists today.

Again, my point is not to push women's rights back to what they are in Saudi Arabia but to point out that the issues with marriage have always existed but have been masked by flaws in society- marriage has always been flawed.

In Vegas, the odds always favor the house, yet people still give their money, risk their future, their children's future on the next bet, and wonder what happened when they lose everything or their lives don't turn out as they imagined. Marriages seem to be the same method of operation.

People think the weddings of their family and friends will work, because they think they know the bride and groom, the family, and other key players. They feel they have well-founded faith in the happy couple who are, by all accounts, good people. But no matter how hard you try to quantify it or create a test, the reality is you can’t predict the success of a marriage, because we can’t look into someone’s heart and know if the "feeling" is there.

So, can we do anything about it?

It is a fact many people get married who should not. We also know that the consequences of these decisions are significant and impact us all directly. Yet I don't know of a way to fix it, because only the bride and groom know if they really have faith in each other and if the love they feel is truly for better or worse, through changes unforeseen.

I do think that many engaged couples know deep down they aren't ready to marry at the time they plan to, but do so anyway. Society doesn't encourage or acknowledge doubt in weddings ("It is normal to have cold feet... You can't call it off now... You do love me, don't you?"), so they keep their doubt quiet, accept the gifts and attention, and hope in bad times or moments of temptation that somehow behaviors demonstrated in the past will suddenly change and pleasantly surprise them.

So, lacking a mind-reading lie detector and a time machine, we cannot prevent divorces in American marriages. But can we at least decrease the frequency?

I think so, but no one will support me on it. I believe that we need to create via mandatory pre-marriage counseling session to better educate people before they get married, using the third-party impartial interviewer solution that I previously described.

Similar to an inspection before you buy a house, adopt a child, or visit with your bank to get pre-approved for a house loan, this solution is not perfect, but it would identify the big showstoppers.

If you would gladly pay $200 on a $200K investment of replaceable wood, cement, and glass, how could you not pay $200 to better understand the investment that will be with you forever, in flesh and blood.

If this cost is too high for everyone, then maybe the government should subsidize it for the poor, because surely the cost saved in a significant decrease in divorces and all of its consequences would easily pay the cost of state-provided counseling.

I realize most people, if not all, will laugh at the idea of having state-mandated marriage counseling by a stranger not affiliated with any religious organization, and will say they don't need the government telling us what to do, but I have seen the results of the religious counselors, and I am not impressed.

And if we require government-mandated training to own a gun, drive a car, or flip burgers at a fast-food restaurant, why not for marriages?

The government already tells us how we can raise our kids (social workers remove kids from homes every day), our pets (animal control takes pets from people every day), and take care of our yard (homeowner association fines for weeds), so what is the big jump to marriages? A strange result of all this thought on marriage is that I started off thinking marriage should be completely redefined or dissolved as an option for relationships without children, but I found that marriage does work for some and that option should not be removed.

I still have faith in marriage, if not in the people who are getting married and their ability to handle it. After all, I estimate 20% of them are happy, and they should not be punished.

My wife's friend Jen certainly is not going to seek my approval on her decision to marry.

But, if she were to ask me: "Should I get married?"

I would respond: "I don't know. But if you choose to get married, I promise to be supportive, not be silent or turn a blind eye if I witness actions that are harmful to your marriage, and I do everything in my power to help your marriage last forever."

And maybe that is what we all need; a little more support from our friends and family beyond a new blender, a car with cans tied to it, and a Hallmark card.

Faith in Marriage, Part I

My wife has a friend (we'll call her Jen). I have known Jen for about 18 months.

Jen's boyfriend, who lived in another state, recently got a new job and is moving to the same city Jen lives. They have a serious relationship, and when you remove the barrier of distance, it is likely a marriage proposal will take place in the near future.

Coincidentally (or not), Jen and I have had some deep conversations on this topic. I have a negative opinion of marriage, even though the most honest and open relationship of anyone I know is between myself and my wife.

We have been married for 13 years this month. Neither of us has committed an act of infidelity, we have a happy and healthy son, we vacation together several times a year, we go out and do things together, and we have an open communication on the topics that tend to result in marriages falling apart (finances, sex, religion, in-laws, parenting, employment, etc.).

Despite this background, I think marriage is a broken concept that needs to be fixed.

(ground rules for this discussion: I am not saying that people who are unhappy should not get divorced, as it is unhealthy to be unhappy until you reach your breaking point and shoot your spuse, your co-workers, then put the gun on yourself. If a father is sexually molesting a child, then you obviously have to divorce the bastard. My comments are not for extreme corner cases that are not preventable but directed at the relationsips that most of us experience every day.)

It is pretty much accepted by all sides that about half of all marriages end in divorce (and the divorce rate is higher for second and third marriages). So, if we have 100 married couples, 50 are getting divorced.

Of the remaining 50, I think it is safe to say not all are happy. I estimate about 20 of these couples are on their way to getting divorced but taking a bit longer to get there. That leaves us with 30 couples.

Of that 30, it is likely not all of them are perfectly happy, so let's assume 10 of them are not really considering divorce as an option and will never be a statistic, but at the same time aren't happy with the relationship (in counseling, cheating on their spouse, avoiding each other, hiding financial issues, etc.). That leaves us with 20 couples.

I could probably argue that a significant amount of those 20 are on thin ice themselves, just an unexpected pregnancy, layoff, bad financial decision, in-law moving in, etc. away from becoming an unhappy marriage because the relationship is only as strong as their success, but let's give them the benefit of the doubt and state they are happily married.

That means I estimate about 20% of marriages are successful and happy. I could go into more detail with my thoughts on the reasons for believing this and the explanation of why marriage is falling apart, but that is another blog entry. For now, understand that I have explained these thoughts in detail to Jen.

I have asked her, if you had a 50% chance that the car you buy will blow up when you start to brake, would you buy that model? Of course not, she replied.

If you had a 50% chance of getting food poisoning at a restaurant, would you eat somewhere else? Yes.

If a toy had a 50% chance of breaking, would you buy it for a child? No.

Yet, even though everyone knows there is a 50% chance of a marriage ending in divorce, marriage is still valued by society and encouraged as the only option for at-risk individuals who clearly don't have the resources, capabilities, and maturity to handle the complexity of marriage.

I told Jen most people shouldn't get married. The risk is too great, and the impact financially, socially, and mentally on people is too devastating and long-lasting. And while some may say that it is a personal choice and not my concern, I disagree. It does impact me, because most people cannot contain the problems of their personal life to just their personal time.

I have to deal with your transference when you commit acts of aggression on the road, blow off your responsibilities at work, or act ignore the rules of civility in society, all because you are fighting constantly with your wife and you've had enough with everyone and everything.

And the impact is even greater when children are involved; the majority of prisons in the US are filled with males who did not have a father influence in their lives due to failed relationships/marriages, and the father was no longer a daily influence (research shows the greatest influence on a child's life is the same gender parent). This doesn't include the millions of kids who are not felons but are disruptive in classrooms, bullies outside of school, and destructive to themselves and society, who also grew up raised in the home of a failed marriage.

Why should our kids get beat up walking home because your son is acting out his aggressions from watching years of mom and dad yell at each other? Why should we have to pay for the vandalism your kid caused because he watched mom throw things at dad when he was six and thinks that is how you behave when you don't get your way? Not only should you not have had kids; you never should have been married to begin with.

After listening patiently to this rant and waiting for me to pause for air, Jen asked me (and I am paraphrasing here): "What am I supposed to do when there is only person who makes me feel that way? Am I supposed to avoid it? I want to experience that feeling."

That, of course, is the crux of the problem: Every engaged couple feels their love is eternally strong. Even if one concedes my argument on the number of failed marriages, no one thinks that they will be the ones getting divorced.

So how do we know a marriage will be one of the successful ones?

After all, in every wedding I have been to or heard about, everyone celebrated the bride and groom without reservation, hugged and cried, gave gifts, said congratulations, commented on how great they look together, and by doing this explicitly supported the union.

I have never heard of anyone ever actually speaking up when asked to by the preacher and saying: "Walk away! He's a bum! In seven years she will tire of your looks and start to fool around with your neighbor!"

Clearly you can't trust friends or family to tell you if this is the right person for you to marry, because they are either incapable of considering the possibility the marriage might fail, too emotionally attached to see things clearly, or maybe they have doubts but don't have the guts to tell the truth; either way, we celebrate and buy presents for thousands of couples each year who will hate each other before the warranty runs out on the applianace you gave them.

I told Jen that although it may be awkward and certainly unusual, the best thing one could do before marrying is to find someone who is neither a family member nor close personal friend of the bride or groom, someone who has no agenda, someone who is open-minded and an intuitive thinker who bases decisions on fact and not emotion, and ask that person if the marriage should take place, based on honest evidence and arguments presented by the person getting married, supporting the case for marriage.

While a religious person is often the most common third-party advisor in pre-marriage counseling (as was the case with mine), they are not a good resource for this task, as their religious agenda makes them no better than family and friends.

I know many people who have been "counseled" by a religious person from a church prior to marriage; I know of none whom have been told not to marry. The goal of the church is not to honestly counsel these people but to have them do some surveys, hear scripture about God, and get them into the Church machine.

Only a true impartial person would have the best opinion on the possible success of the marriage. It may not be perfect, but it certainly would result in a success rate above 50%. It may be a whole new profession- the Wedding Approver. Sure, it would raise the cost of a wedding, but it would be money well spent if it avoided years of screaming, crying, and heartbreak- "The best $200 I ever spent!" people would tell their friends years later, after emotion passed and they realized what a big mistake they almost made.

I joked with Jen that I am available for this consultation when she is ready.

(see part II for conclusion)