Barack and Mitt: My view

I am sick of reading people's political post on Facebook so I refused to make any. However I do have some things to say therefore I am writing this blog post. First of all, I have not decided who I am voting for yet. I am leaning one way, which will be clear soon if it's not by my profile pic, but I am still undecided.

Wanting to head in different directions

I was accused recently of being biased for Obama which is probably true.

Why?

Maybe it's because of some t-shirts I have from the 2008 campaign. But there are several reasons. First, a little bit about my personal experience. I grew up in Cambridge, MA and as a result I went through a very liberal school system. I also grew up, and still practice, as a Mormon. (To see read more about this odd combination see several old blog posts). 

Personal

My family lives in the same stake (regional church area) as the Romney family. The closest interaction I had with them was that Matt and Tag, the two oldest sons, were leaders in my youth group while they were attending Harvard. My brother and I both had wonderful experiences with them, where they helped us learn and develop good character and Christ-like attributes. 

Mitt was also the Stake President (regional leader) from 1986 to 1994. I don’t really remember this very well because I was too young but there is one experience that has been recalled several times in my family. A teenager was trying to administer the bread and the water on Sunday in Church, which happens every Sunday. He had dyed his hair blue and Mitt did not allow him to participate even though he was dressed appropriately. The handbook for the Church says something to the affect that young men should be well groomed and clean. It could be argued that blue hair means not well groomed but my family does not agree with that. Soon afterwards he stopped coming to Church.

I have no personal experience with Barack. The closest I can get, is that we both like similar music; the Roots, Common, Mos Def, etc. If you like the Roots, Jimmy Fallon, or Obama check this out:

Governing

I have in some way or another been governed by both Mitt and Barack. Mitt was Governor of Massachusetts from 2003-2007. During this time period I was senior in high school, went to BYU (Mitt's Alma Mater), and was serving a mission for the LDS church in Mexico City, Mexico. So for the majority of the time I was not there and therefore did not experience much of his term. 

I did however feel some effect. My mother works for Boston Public Schools as an occupational therapist. She is a member of the Boston Teachers' Union and gets health insurance through the schools. Most have heard about the health care system that was instituted in Massachusetts while Mitt was governor. I think it was a good thing. I also know that to help pay for it my mom's insurance was changed from an awesome coverage, Tufts, to a less awesome yet still good one, Blue Cross Blue Shield, however she had to pay more money. More money for worse coverage didn't seem like a great plan to me. 

Barack has been president for almost the last four years, during which I have been living in the country almost the whole time. 

The health care bill he spearheaded made it so that I could be on my mom's health insurance for an extra year, despite being married. Despite what Mitt said in Debate #1, there is no way they would have covered me being over 25 and married had it not been for the health care bill. Also, my wife, almost 24, can be on her parents insurance for 2 more years. 

Over the last several years I received funding for my undergraduate education that I do not believe would have been there if it had not been for the Obama administration. This assistance made it easier for me to survive and enabled me to afford to get married just over a year ago. Also, I was truly grateful that Barack helped end the war in Iraq, a place we never should have gone in the first place. I believe it was a waste of lives and money.

So one of the republican slogans is something to the effect of "Are you doing better than you were 4 years ago?" 

My answer is yes. 

I realize this is not true for lots of other people but I have seen many improvements in my life over the past 4 years, some of them thanks to the current administration.

Projection

I believe both Mitt and Barack truly love America and want to make it a better place. However their ideologies and solution techniques are quite different.

I think if Barack gets reelected he will still keep trying to do what he's been doing. He'll probably be more aggressive, as all presidents are in their second term. 

I think if Mitt gets elected he will try furiously to balance the budget, which is not an easy task. Say what you want about the ethics of what he did, he was a good business man. If anyone can do it, he's probably the right guy. But at what cost? Big Bird is enjoying a revival of popularity because of Mitt's comments about PBS in Debate #1. PBS will not be the only victim. Mitt said that for every program he will ask "Is the program so critical it’s worth borrowing money from China to pay for it." If not he will get rid of it.

The question I ask myself is do I trust him to make decisions about what is critical? Is health insurance critical? Are support programs for the poor (or "pa-or" as Mitt kept pronouncing it in debate #1) critical? I know he said school funding is critical but what schools? Elementary schools? High schools? Colleges? Tuition assistance programs? How about science research funding? I would like there to still be a budget for  my master's program next year and my PhD program after that. Is that critical?

I still haven't decided between the two candidates but I'm leaning.

Postseason Celtics vs. Red Sox

First of all, you must understand I love the Celtics and I love the Red Sox. Having grown up in Cambridge, I've been going to games for both since I was little.

Second, you must understand I'm kind of weird. I'm graduating from BYU in August in Math. So sometimes I notice things that go unnoticed by normal people. But I couldn't hold this in any longer.

So check this out:

The postseason Celtics have gone, starting April 29th against Atlanta, 11-7. The Red Sox since that day have gone 16-19.

The nights the Celtics got those wins eleven wins, the red sox went 5-6.

The night the Celtics got the seven losses, the Red Sox went 4-3. They were 4-1 after the Atlanta Series losses.

Now I'm not saying the Celtics can't win if the Red Sox win but I won't be crushed if they lose when they play the Orioles on Thursday because I really want the Celtics to go to the NBA Finals.

I realize I could have done a better statistical analysis on these numbers but I don't think that would have strengthened my point much, if at all, and I've got work early in the morning. So whatever.

There is some small trend here and I know correlation doesn't mean causation but still...

Either way,

Go Celtics!

I Learnededed

Introduction

This class has been quite an experience. From the initial confusion as to what it was really about to the dispersed bits of confusion for grades being assigned, for what most of the time seemed like, arbitrarily. Overall I feel like I learned a good amount. It has not been Econ 110, the largest amount of learning I have had in one class, nor has it been Spanish 321 (RM Spanish), absolutely no learning. I feel like the greatest thing I have developed from this class is the ability to use the internet in a better way. Honestly, I have not changed what I use on the internet, except adding and using Google+ and actually writing in my blog, but I have changed how I use the internet.

Through this class I have developed the ability to use the internet to learn, connect with people, and share my ideas. I also learned through my class blog that people want to read what is trendy. My most popular blog post was KONY 2012 because I wrote it right as the Kony video went viral. This is interesting because I also learned through my assigned book, The Information Diet, that journalism is changing from being informative to telling people what they want to hear, which I think is very bad.

Nonetheless, I digress. I have really enjoyed this course and feel like I have reached a great level of aptitude on all the learning outcomes.

Here are the highlights of my learning under the learning outcomes sections:

I Invite Peoples/Woohoo for the Event

Pre-Event Report:

I like to invite people to things.

I did it for two years on my mission for the LDS Church, inviting people to come to church and read the Book of Mormon. I used to invite girls to go on dates with me. And now I've invited people to the "Digital Citizens Unite!" Event.

How did I do it?

First, I wrote a blog post explaining the event to people and invited them to come. I posted the link on facebook and google+. It got 16 reads so somebody might show up or check out the live streaming because of that.

Digital Citizens Unite!

So if you've been following my blog for the last four months I've been trying to connect past history to today's digital world. I've been doing this for my Digital Civilization class, a class at BYU that fulfills a general education requirement. It has been a pretty cool experience.

Half way through the semester we decided (well the teachers decided and we had to do it) to write a ebook that combines a bunch of ideas that have been developing over the semester. It was hard. We have a beta release of the book but it still needs a decent amount of work in order to be a good final draft.

We're having an event to present the ideas in the book on Wednesday, April 11, 2012 at 7 pm MST. If you're interested you should come. It's in 251 of the Tanner building on BYU's campus. If you don't live in Utah or are too lazy to get off the couch there will be live streaming available at digiciv.byu.edu.

I am part of the Arts chapter. I wrote some stuff that I thought was interesting. I put some of the ideas in recent blog posts.

We're presenting our ideas in the form of a poem with live and digital music, live and recorded dancing, and accompanying graphics. It sounds kind of weird. It is kind of weird. But it should be pretty good and it'll only be five minutes.

Each chapter of the book gets five minutes to present their ideas and these are the groups:

• The Arts
• Business
• Education
• Government
• IP & CC
• Inquiry
• Openness
• Science
• Ebook Team

The order is yet to be determined. It should be fun and there will be refreshments afterwards.

Whether you come or not, I hope you've enjoyed reading my blog and maybe even learned something. 

The Arts: One on One

Many of the arts can be learned easily through the diverse outlets available through the digital age, whether it be Youtube, Adobe, Paint, Garage Band, or something else. An argument could be made that this means that traditional arts education is unnecessary but this is not true. 

The problem with these digital learning resources is that there is no feedback, no personal criticism, which is essential for learning. 

The Arts: An Annotated Bibliography

I tried to find people who were interested in the arts and especially with education. I used some regular Google searches, fiddling with different key words, to find groups that fit this category. These were my findings:

http://www.arteducators.org/
http://artsusa.org/networks/arts_education/default.asp
http://www.yea.org/
http://www.ijea.org/

I also thought about people I knew. Being a music minor, I have had contact with some professors in the music department. Here are a couple of them:

Luke Howard

Eric Hansen

Claudine Bigelow

I also did a search on Google+ in order to find thought leaders without much success. So I used the library to find a book and used that to find people.

Education: Promoted by The Arts

The arts are an important part of education. They foster creativity and help students to develop in many other areas. Some of these areas will be explored.

Creativity

The arts help students explore a skill that is not used that often in school, that of creativity. There is creative writing but that is about the extent of creativity in schools outside of the arts. There are only so many ways to do a math problem correctly. Some of these solutions may be more interesting than others but it is hard to call a math solution creative.

KONY 2012

Yes, I am jumping on the KONY 2012 train.

If you haven't seen the video here it is:

The video is kinda long so I'll summarize it if you don't feel like watching it. Central Africa has a bunch of problems. One of them is that this guy named Joseph Kony kidnaps kids and makes the boys be soldiers and the girls be sex slaves in his army called the LRA. Also the movie maker's kid is pretty cute.

This isn't a new thing though. 

17th Century & The Arts

The 17th Century began the shift away from dependence on religion for the arts.

Composers started to develop their own styles. Instruments were being invented.  Pieces were written for only instruments, no vocal.  Opera was born in Florence out of an attempt to revive the music of Classical Greece.

Arcangelo Corelli (17 February 1653 – 8 January 1713) was the first composer to make a career off selling printed music, free of church control and restriction.

There were academies of art (visual arts) through out Europe starting in Italy and France. 


Dance in the 17th Century was not that big of a factor in education. Louis XIV was a big fan of dance. He was the Sun King and the state of the court was perceived by the level of performance. Here’s a clip from the “The King is Dancing”:

This is pretty awesome.

Control Theory

This is a little more about control theory with links to appropriate learning sources. As I said in class I work in IDeA Labs, a research lab in the computer science department.

Control theory is mostly used in systems that have some sort of feedback. This theory was born out of electrical engineering so the original feedback systems that were modeled were electric circuits.

The theory is rich in mathematics with theorems and regulations for stability.

Religious and Liberal: Self-Promoting

This is a follow up on my blog post, Oxymoron: Religious and Liberal. That post was more background and history then how my beliefs coincide and even support each other. I will focus on the latter part here.


Article of Faith

In 1842, Joseph Smith wrote a letter to John Wadsworth, editor of the Chicago Democrat, in which he outlined the basic beliefs of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints, which are now called the Articles of Faith. The eleventh article says "We claim the privilege of worshiping Almighty God according to the dictates of our own conscience, and allow all men the same privilege, let them worship how, where, or what they may." 


I truly believe this.

Oxymoron: Religious and Liberal

In today's society, it seems being religious means you are conservative and being liberal means you are not religious.  But that's not necessarily true.

City of Cambridge Seal

I want to explain how I am both religious and liberal.

I was raised as a practicing member of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints but I was raised in Cambridge, MA, one of the most liberal cities in the world.  I went to church every Sunday but I also went to inner-city public schools and was part of a gymnastics/hip-hop group called Jam'nastics.

My parents took us to church every Sunday and held family home evening every Monday teaching by word and example about the Gospel of Jesus Christ and how to be accepting of other people's differences.

Prohibition vs No Child Left Behind

Both pieces of legislation had very good intentions. Prohibition was an effort to protect women and children from abuse of alcohol*.  The "No Child Left Behind"(NCLB) law was an effort to provide an equal opportunity to succeed for all children**.

Neither worked.

Prohibition was passed as the 18th Amendment to the Constitution on January 16, 1919 and repealed by the 21st Amendment on December 5, 1933. 


The "No Child" law was proposed by President Bush on January 23, 2001 and enacted on January 8, 2002.  On February 9, 2012 President Obama approved waivers of the law to 10 states.

Turning Points

Both pieces of legislation had some sort of negative turning point.  Today, ironically, in 1929, the Valentine's Day massacre took place, which made people think that the positive outcomes of prohibition might not outweigh the negative ones.

Some might say the turning point for NCLB was when the GOP went back on a promise to provide more federal aid for low-scoring schools to improve. Others might say it was when President Obama announced waivers for 10 states on February 9, 2012.

Really? You Think That?

There are many flaws that are arising with increased participation in the digital world. Here are some of these problems:

• Miscommunication
• Misunderstanding Sarcasm
• An Increase in Contention

Miscommunication

The more we write the more we will be misunderstood.  It's bound to happen.  This is a gigantic problem.  We've seen it on Google+ and also on Facebook.

Sarcasm

Another problem is that no matter how many times you try, you cannot type sarcasm.

I know I've tried.

Sarcasm in blogging, texting, commenting, tweeting, etc. is practically impossible to convey. The only way it can sort of work is if the person knows you really, really well. And even then it usually doesn't work.

This can lead to all sorts of problems.

The First Printer

The first printer in British North America, Stephen Daye (1594 – 1668), emigrated to Cambridge, MA in 1638.  He printed the Bay Psalm Book, the first book published in the American colonies.

This picture is a plaque that was found in the basement of 15 Dunster St. Cambridge, MA.  It inspired the name of the restaurant called The First Printer, which is located at the same address.

The restaurant opened last week.

Revolution - American vs Arab Spring

So I've been thinking a lot about revolutions since my Enjoy the Revolution blog post. 


When we think about revolution we can't help but think of the Beatles:

How do revolutions start? What is the relationship between different revolutions? In particular, what are the relationships between the Arab Spring and the American Revolution? 

Dynasties - Ming to the Patriots

A dynasty is "a sequence of rulers from the same family, stock, or group."

This is the article that inspired this post:  Are The Patriots Building Another Dynasty?

The Patriots dominated the league when I was in high school, winning the Superbowl my freshman year, my junior year, and my senior year.  They went from underdogs to heavy favorites under the direction of their wise coach, Bill Belichick, their savvy owner, Robert Kraft, and their now super-star quarterback, Tom Brady.

After that they were still good.  They went 16-0 in the regular season, which had never been done and hasn't been done since.  But they lost in the Superbowl to the Giants mostly due to some bad luck on their part and a ridiculously lucky catch on the Giants part.

I want to compare the Patriots to another dynasty, the Ming Dynasty (1368-1644).

Can't Catch Me

Lots of people and police departments have started using these little GPS's to track the cars of spouses, teenagers, grandparents, and suspects. It seems like a  definite intrusion of privacy.

But is it all bad?

I read about someone that used it to find their elderly parent who got lost driving in New Jersey.  Another guy was able to find out his wife was being unfaithful and gained an advantage in their divorce case. Cops have also used them to catch bad guys.

But the supreme court ruled against a police department in United States vs. Jones saying it was a violation of the 4th amendment.  Here is a NY Times article on the subject.

 In the GPS Case Issues of Privacy and Technology

I'm glad they ruled against the police officers.   I personally don't like the idea of somebody tracking my every move.  But the court's ruling doesn't stop somebody from throwing a GPS on my car.  

I'm okay with Open Science and Open Source software but I'm not okay with Open Phil Locating.

Chant This!

Music in Western Civilization started under the control and patronage of the Roman Catholic Church.  

First was Gregorian chant.

China Heavyweight

On Friday, Jan 27th, my wife and I attended the Sundance Film Festival, arguably the most famous independent film festival in the world.

Here is a more detailed history of the festival if you're interested, courtesy of BYU"s Daily Universe: Sundance: Then and Now.

The film we saw was China Heavyweight, a documentary about boxing in mainland China directed by Yung Chang.  Before the film started Yung explained that the Chinese title, Qian Chui Bai Lian, is an old idiom that means "to be tried and tested a thousand times over" and that this film was about more than just boxing.

The film was a compelling story about a school that takes some students, mostly children of poor farmers, and trains them to box.

Enjoy the Revolution - Egypt Then & Now

"Enjoy the Revolution":  In May I had the opportunity to go to Egypt.  I took this picture of a wall adjacent to Tahrir Square in Cairo, the capital of Egypt.  

Today marks the one year anniversary of thousands of Egyptians storming Tahrir and demanding the resignation of their then dictator-president Mubarak.

Their success was shocking and it was celebrated world-wide.  It inspired the uprise of many other oppressed peoples in the area.

It was the beginning of what is now known as the Arab Spring.

The Good, The Bad, & The Ugly

We've all heard the anecdote that a picture is worth a thousand words, well then maybe a moving picture is worth a million words.   

Reflecting on the history of the 20th Century made me think a lot about different movies I've seen.  I posted before about the movie "The Untouchables."  It has caused be to start thinking about other movies and television shows that have molded my perception of the 20th Century such as "Schindler's List," "Saving Private Ryan," "The Godfather" series, "Mary Poppins,"  "MASH," "The Simpsons," etc.

The effect these shows have had on me caused me to think about this powerful medium that has emerged out of the 20th Century.

Cinematography can be used for good and bad.  It can be a great learning tool, a good form of entertainment, a waste of time, or a great instrument of hate.  It can be used to free the audience from ignorance, make them laugh, make them bored, or trap them in a ball of propaganda and injustice.

Untouchable

This weekend I watched a pretty classic film that I had never seen before, "The Untouchables."  It depicts the story of Eliot Ness and his "Untouchables" who during prohibition swore to take down the head of the mafia, Al Capone.  This is perfectly related to this week's class, the 19th Century and control.

Prohibition was an attempt to control alcohol manufacturing and sales.  It was ratified as the 19th Amendment in 1919 and states "the manufacture, sale, or transportation of intoxicating liquors within, the importation thereof into, or the exportation thereof from the United States and all territory subject to the jurisdiction thereof for beverage purposes is hereby prohibited."

The story of the Untouchables is how they battle the whole city in order to take down the head of the illegal liquor flow.  They stand up for the law, sacrificing their time, hearts, even their lives.  They eventually take down Capone on tax evasion charges and he is sentenced to 11 years in prison where he died.  The movie is inspiring and teaches how we should stand up for the right even when the challenges before us seem insurmountable.

Frederick Was Great

Something that I talked with my group in class today but was not really discussed with the whole class was adaptation some leaders made during the 18th Century.  The enlightenment was changing the way people thought.  Self-worth was being preached.  People were starting to realize that they could and should be able to obtain happiness in this life.  The leaders who were smart, started to adapt to their new surroundings.  In a way, giving a little more in order to secure control over their state.

A good example is Frederick the Great of Prussia.  He built canals, built roads, and drained swamps for crops.  He supported the intellectuals and the artists.  He was close friends with Voltaire and supported Bach in his court.

He was a very shrewd ruler who was quick to do what was necessary, whether it was go to war or control the price of grain.  He was a great leader but not very humble, self proclaimed the "first servant of the state."  Nonetheless he still did run an autocratic state.

Frederick, and other leader's like him, experienced much more enjoyable ending to their reign as opposed to France, where Louis XVI and his wife were executed during the French Revolution.

Fighting Control with Control

Congress is trying to control the internet.  Wikipedia has a lot of power itself.  So it has chosen to fight control with control.

And so is Google is showing its support as well

Can't Touch This - Control

I am in the control group and have been keeping my eye out for any current control issues.

As was discussed in class Congress has been trying to pass some shady anti-piracy bills.  I voted for the current administration and can't say that I've been completely pleased with everything they have done but some of the things I have really appreciated are an increase in college funding, allowing children to be covered under their parents health care until they're 26, trying to end the wars in the middle east, and now this can be added to the list:

White House Says It Opposes Parts of Two Antipiracy Bills

Good stuff.

I agree that the piracy issue is a problem that must be addressed and I don't know how to solve it but this was not the right way to do it.  They can't be allowed to touch, change, anything they seem fit without oversight by an informed enforcer.

What do I know about the historical period and the digital concept assigned to me?

What do I know about control?

Well, I am a math major with a computer science minor.  I have taken several control classes.  This is a little different than control as a digital concept but the idea is related.  Given some system with inputs and outputs, a controller can be built to manipulate the outputs by affecting the inputs.  For example, consider the printing press, possibly one of the most powerful tools in history.  It changed society, classes, learning, etc.  The Catholic Church tried to control this phenomenon by instituting the Index Librorum Prohibitorum, a list of prohibited books.

What do I know about the 17th Century?

I took Music 201 last semester and we covered up through the Baroque Period.  I know that the Renaissance was coming to a close and that the Baroque period took over during the 17th Century.  The most influential and important book in the English language is published, the King James Bible.  The pilgrims landed at Plymouth in 1620.  Great authors and scientists were producing great works including John Donne, Cervantes, Descartes, Galileo, Hobbes, and Locke.

And that's about all I know so far.

How digitally civilized am I?

Good question.  I'd say I'm decently digitally civilized, in the way that I know what I'm doing, how to get around, and I've been around the block a few times.  I'm not a super nerd with an astounding level of digital civility, which I am proud of, but I can hold my own when I need to.

I read all my news online.  I check out a few blogs every once and a while, nothing close to "follow" though.  I mostly check the news (NY Times), email, espn, facebook, and I guess now google+.