No More Trash: PyroRobots!

A teaser, with hair metal and robots.

Why business, art, and science are all, basically, the same thing.

So here's the basic idea: nothing ever goes away.

We're not just talking about Dunkin Donuts' styrofoam cups or the waste from Chernobyl. We're talking about everything. This is the Law of the Conservation of Energy and Mass.  Questions? iBlogAmerica brings you a demonstration.

PyroRobot Experiment

Take the most easily pictured reaction: burning paper. Let's be super nerd pyros in this thought experiment. Picture a perfectly sealed room-- nothing can get in or out of it. Imagine that room is sitting on an enormous scale that measures mass. Imagine there was a device that could also measure the precise amount of energy in that room-- light, heat, every type of energy possible.

Now for the fun part. Build a PyroRobot. Just because you've always wanted to. It's whole job is to take a match, strike it on a matchbook, and then touch the burning match to something (sure, we could just have a flame throwing robot or something, but I like the retro vibe of my PyroRobot.) Put the Pyro Robot, a match, a matchbook, and a newspaper in the room, then turn on Def Leppard. It's a lot of work, sure, but that's why you've got Def Leppard with you. To pour the sugar on it.

Ok, anyway-- proceed with the inevitable robot burning experiment and you'll find something wonderful: the law of the conservation of energy and mass. When the paper burns, it leaves ash and smoke-- but it also releases the energy of the paper into the air in the room. The newspaper suddenly appears to be so much less stuff but, in fact, the mass and energy have just a done little switching hands. It's like a game of poker: at the end, your money might be in someone else's pocket, but there isn't any more (or less).

Imagine if we took this idea away from the PyroRobots (they must be stopped!) and started applying it to less cool but way more pressing problems.  Imagine, also, that you downloaded "Pour Some Sugar On Me."  Because you know you want to listen to it. Right. Now.

Next post? I'll talk about how my idea of “The No Trash Principle” could save, well, everything.

Got your attention?

Wrong Story, Wisconsin

School's got 99 problems and money ain't one.

I'm not old enough to remember a time when the media referred to groups of teachers acting as “political demonstrators.” As a public school teacher, it's a bit unsettling-- but, I can't help but feel a bit of apathy about it. If you've seen a hundred protests, you've seen them all.

In fact, I suspect the whole “protest movement” looks a bit passe to people under the age of 50. On TV, I've seen marches for everything: civil rights, women's rights, gay rights, black men's rights, white men's rights, Puerto Ricans' rights, gun rights, Glenn Beck's rights, Howard Stern's rights, potheads' rights, and recently, moderates' rights (thanks, Jon Stewart).

I've also seen marches against everything: gun control, abortion, gay marriage, Bush, Obama, the war(s), oil companies, liberal media, Fox News, taxes, the government, and, sadly, dead soldiers (thanks, Fred Phelps). Protest marches don't seem to mean, well, anything. Protest marches often look fun, like a cool party or something, or scary, like a group of wackos, but they don't seem effective.

Protest marches just seem to highlight divisions. And, in this case, they are keeping us from focusing.

The Wrong Problem Problem

As the palpable tensions in public education bubble to the surface in the midwest, the whole country is finding that old arthritis of education woes more difficult to ignore. It's foolish to try and blame anyone, of course, but absolutely unsurprising battle lines are being drawn. The easiest narrative for both politicians and the media (our time's most powerful storytellers) is that the tension grows out of a clear rift in our country-- between those who support smaller government and those who support bigger government.

This story of big government versus small, of left versus right, will only keep distracting us from the cancerous problems of education. I'm not saying that we don't have a money problem. We do. But it is NOT the big problem. And it has to stop driving our discourse about improving education.

Here's what we keep talking about:

1.People want lower taxes

2.American students are getting whooped by students in other countries

3.Teachers' pensions are out of step with other professions

4.There are too many bad teachers

5.Teachers have “short” work days and have summers off, holidays, etc.

The budget constraints are making it more difficult to ignore the big problems. Look, when your mom gets an aggressive form of cancer, you don't say “what's the most cost-effective way we can save her?” Sure, you have to talk about money in that situation, but it's not the ONLY or BIGGEST concern.

Raising taxes, lowering taxes, abolishing unions-- none of these “corrections” address improving education. Sure, we can try and save money. But when do we start talking about better education?

Here's what we SHOULD be talking about:

1.Attracting and keeping great teachers-- and making them the most important element in our schools

2.Evaluating students to test skills and critical thinking, not regurgitation

3.Rebuilding our school infrastructure so that it serves the primacy of learning (not student containment)

4.Resisting the colossal error of making education a “customer service” industry

As long as the battle is between politicians and union members, we're going to have the same, tired arguments with the same, feckless results.

Education is the mother f#$%ing future of the country! When can we get serious about fixing it?

For some of my ideas about fixing education, read my fun-to-read (and smartly handled) four part series “Scapegoats and Saviors.” And I barely swear at all in these articles.

Use the search box at the top of my page. Tell your friends!

Walk Like an Egyptian

Yes, they did.

It's been an amazing few weeks watching the revolution unfold in Tahrir Square.

For those who do not often follow world events, the news of the Egyptian revolution has probably been a bit like not knowing that a snow storm was coming. You wake up, there's snow, and you decide how it affects you. Some are moved, others are irritated, others just forge ahead with the daily ritual.

For those who have been watching, the political significance seems lost on no one: one of the great, ancient civilizations of the world, sitting astride two continents and between the Arab world and Israel, has shrugged its tyrannical (and Western-backed) autocrat, Hosni Mubarak. Hundreds of thousands of protesters have faced down tanks, riot police, and each other, all on television and mostly without violence.

The spectacle has been thrilling; it's all of that “this is history unfolding” without the “I can't believe how awful this is.” Those of us who have lived through televised wars, the fall of the Berlin Wall and revolutions in the Eastern Europe, African tribal violence, various bombings and terrorist attacks-- we have a special appreciation for the world- changing-event that isn't about carnage or destruction.

On Friday at my school, a couple of kids put up signs that said “Mubarak stepped down at 11:05 today.” Ironically, the school tried to stop them at first-- I suppose, in order to manifest why the revolution happened in the first place.  The school relented after realizing that, probably, none of the other kids would even know what the news meant meant. Those in power are always a little nervous.  I looked at those signs, hung in multiples like tiles, covering huge sections of the walls in the school. I love that these kids know that it's important that people witness this.

Maybe you've almost missed it. Take note. What's happened in Egypt is astonishing.

The nearly bloodless revolution happened in a place where autocratic rule has been in place for the majority of the last 5000 years.  It happened on the backs of people in prayer, of young and old, of men and women. Women in the Middle East rarely get to speak-- and, yet, there they were, waving flags and holding signs.  It included soldiers leaving tanks and kissing protestors. Artists and business people constructing human barricades. Young people rallied people through facebook; older folks rallied through mosques and cafes.  The revolution stretched across class lines, religious sects, international boundaries, and has captivated the world.

Look to Egypt this week and people are banding together to clean and rebuild the square.  Amazing.

As usual, nothing speaks better than the photos. Need an argument for the importance of a free press?

http://www.nytimes.com/packages/html/world/middleeast/201101-egypt-protest-gallery/

The message: truth can bring justice. Free people can band together and demand freedom. Those who are in power only remain there as long as they are allowed to. Our society is whatever we make it.

It's a story for the ages. It's a story of our age.  No one is sure what happens next in Egypt-- but what they've accomplished is marvelous.

Be inspired, America. Be inspired, world.

Hot Bourbon

Mixology

Ah, winter time.

Look into the grim, grey curtain of a February day. The snow, once so gleaming, now looks like tattered bed sheets dripping on the pavement. The cold sneaks her fingers down your collar, into your gloves, and through your socks.

Winter doesn't play. She likes to remind you that, in fact, you are not in charge. The simplest walk is now a harrowing journey; you negotiate whether or not you really need that gallon of milk or want to see that movie.

Winter forces you to get creative. There are always choices. What can you imagine? If it's a choice between being sad and cold or being happy and warm, why choose misery?

Hey! It looks like we're in for another storm, my gentle readers. Care for a suggestion?

Hot Bourbon

boiling water

2 tablespoons of honey

1 quarter of a lemon

3-5 whole cloves

bourbon (I like Elija Craig or Makers for this-- but any bourbon will do)

1. Get that nice mug in your cabinet that you love to drink coffee/tea/hot cocoa out of.

2. Fill it with a couple of ounces of boiling water (about ¼ full of a typical mug)

3. Stir in a a tablespoon (or more) of honey. I like more.

4. Stud the lemon quarter then squeeze the lemon into the mug. Then drop it in.

5. Add bourbon until you double the amount in the mug

6. Stir-- and then sip until it's gone. Repeat as needed.

The Hot Bourbon: a great way to lean into the last few weeks of winter.

Thanks to Esquire magazine, and the entire of country of Ireland, for the recipe for Hot Whiskey Punch.

UPCOMING BLOGS:

review of True Grit and 

an essay on your least favorite food