Busy Day #2

People want to buy fiberglass trailers.  My phone was beeping all day.  So many people texting questions, wanting pictures.

I had to make room for my new trailer, which means the old one had to go.  This morning I connected it up to my truck and took it to an RV repair business (I've got an "in" with the owner!), and then went to pick up my new trailer.  Got it home and had "fun" backing it into my driveway from my tiny street.

While doing lunch with my dad, I got a text that a man wanted to see it as soon as possible.  An hour later I was back at the shop, showing off my "rig".  He liked it, we negotiated for about 30 seconds, and shook hands.

But he didn't have the right hitch or ball to tow this trailer, given the height of his truck.  So we drove about 20 min to my house, and completed the transaction paperwork in the air conditioned comfort of my home.  We took my old hitch and ball and went back to the shop--and everything fit perfectly.

I admit, I got a little sentimental as I watched the Egg-terprise drive away.  Here's a picture from good times past, at the Star Trek convention in Canada two summers ago:

I'm sure you can see from the dimensions why a guy of advancing years might want a little more room!  It was bought by a father with an 11-yr-old son, and they're going to take it to Yellowstone.  Perfect, just perfect.

Sold on Craigslist for 82.5% of my asking price in under 24 hours.

Busy Day

Plane got in late last night, but I had to be up relatively early this morning. While in Mexico I got word of a trailer for sale, and made an appointment to see it the morning I got back.

Now, you might remember how much fun I've had in my current trailer (for example, 2nd picture here)--but I'm getting old and need a little more room and comfort.  So we met, I inspected, we shook hands, and we're meeting tomorrow for the paperwork.

I came home, emptied out my fiberglass trailer, and started scrubbing.  It's got a few splotches of mold on the walls from the moist air of the winter, nothing some bleach spray didn't clear up mucho pronto.  Except for needing a new exterior paint job, it looks really nice right now!

Then I put an ad on Craigslist.  These fiberglass trailers have always been in demand, in part because they're so light to tow and also because there's no wood frame to dry rot.  According the the information on my ad, I posted it about 5 hours ago--and I've already had one lady come take a look and another guy texting me times we might meet.

I'm looking forward to having a new toy to play with!  And if I get anywhere near my asking price for my fiberglass trailer (I priced it to sell), that'll put a large dent in the purchase price of the bigger trailer.

Upgrading, baby!  From 13' to 20'.

The Janus Fight Isn't Over Yet

While yesterday was a great day for worker freedom, the battle isn't won.  This author demonstrates that the unions will try, by hook and by crook, to circumvent the Janus ruling:

As many chapters of American history reveal, rights aren’t self-executing; they must be defended. Michigan went right-to-work in 2012, and the abusive union tactics that ensued gave us a close-up view of how unions might behave in a post-Janus world. That experience has prompted us and others to anticipate what champions of individual rights must do now.

The best defense is a good offense. Keep them on their heels:

Public-sector workers across the country are seeking to recover back wages they paid to labor organizations in the event the Supreme Court declares mandatory union fees unconstitutional. 

Class action suits have been filed against eight unions in New York, New Jersey, Pennsylvania, Minnesota, Maryland, California, and the state of Washington, accusing individual unions of violating workers' rights by collecting mandatory dues payments. The Supreme Court is expected to rule on a groundbreaking case, Janus v. American Federation of State, County, and Municipal Employees, which challenges the constitutionality of forcing public-sector workers to pay union dues or fees as a condition of employment. The suits argue that any public-sector employee who participated in forced dues systems should receive financial "redress" from labor organizations.

We'll see how far such suits can go.

Tulum and Coba

The two other times I've visited Cancun, the most recent being 8 years ago or so, I've visited the Mayan ruins at Chichen Itza.  Sadly, visitors there are not allowed to ascend the Pyramid of Kukulcan.  I thought I'd try some different ruins this time, and imagine my elation when I found out that visitors are still allowed to climb the big pyramid at Coba!

But first, Tulum, the famous Mayan-city-by-the-ocean, which I haven't visited since a cruise ship stop in Cozumel in 1989:

And of course, it wouldn't be the Yucatan without what I call the unofficial mascot of the land:

After Tulum it was on to Coba.  Coba is a huge city and so little of it has been excavated.  Still, it has the highest temple in the Yucatan (or so we were told) and we were able to climb it:

Just to give the faintest idea of how much more there is to uncover, zoom in on the 2nd picture immediately above and see the building sticking up out of the jungle.... Yes,  the site is so big that the best way to get around in Coba is on a rented bike.

We also stopped for lunch, stopped at a cenote (I didn't swim this time), and for a little shopping in Playa del Carmen.  The bus picked me up at 7am and dropped me off back at my hotel a few minutes before 9pm.  Very long day, and tomorrow I have to fly home.

Great trip :)

What A Great Day To Be An American--In The Land Of The Maya

I wouldn't say that today started like any other day.

Most days here I haven't gotten up until 10 or 11.  This morning, though, room service was knocking on my door just before 6 with breakfast--I had to catch a tour bus at 7.  I'd swear I didn't get a moment of sleep last night, but I was still able to get out of bed, eat, shower, and be downstairs in time.

Our first stop was Tulum.  I've only been there once before, in 1989, and hence my memory of the site has become somewhat hazy in time.  I had a camera with me, but I thought I should take a couple pictures with my phone so I could easily put them on Instagram later, so I powered up my phone.

I thought I had int'l roaming off, perhaps I missed a setting, but the notifications started coming in fast and furious.
Notification.
Notification.
Notification notification notification.
Notifi/notifi/notifi/notifi/notification.

Over a dozen messages and emails.  Clearly, something important had happened.

My heart started racing.  I had heard that perhaps the Janus ruling might come down today, and I hoped, hoped, for a positive ruling.  I wasn't sure I wanted to read them, but I just had to.  As in the Obamacare case, it would only take one out-of-place justice to make this ruling go the wrong way.  When Friedrichs was decided 4-4 2 years ago, I thought for sure that our best chance in a generation to eliminate forced unionism had died with Justice Scalia.  That was a very sad day.

I snuck a peek at a message from a politically-minded friend, and saw "5-4 along party lines".  That gave me the boost I needed to start reading the others, and what I saw overwhelmed me.  The Supreme Court ruled in Mark Janus' favor!  And I am to be free of being compelled to pay a union that doesn't represent me!

Here's what I was looking at when I started receiving the notifications:

For over 40 years since the 1977 Abood decision, freedom-loving teachers have wandered in the wilderness, looking for the Promised Land of Freedom.  I myself have wandered that wilderness for over half of those years.  But today, we were delivered.

The left in general, and unionistas in particular, are not taking today's news well.  Scratch a leftist, and a totalitarian bleeds--and many of them are showing their violent sides today.  One take-away is that elections have consequences.  All you Never Trumpers out there--had things gone your way, Felonia von Pantsuit would be on her 2nd Supreme Court pick right now.  Would it really be worth it?

In one day, Korematsu was repudiated, Abood was overturned, and the number of right-to-work states jumped from 28 to 50.  Is this a great day, or what?!

Update:  while the ruling came down today, don't forget that I was there the day history was made:

Update #2:  The Court, rather than a narrow ruling, went even further than some of us had dared hope (although the topic was mentioned in amicus briefs):  not only do we not have to pay a union, we don't have to opt-out.  Payment of union dues is now opt-in--and it's the law of the land!

Supreme Court Rulings

While the Supreme Court hears many important cases each year, I expend my hopes and energy on the outcome of only a couple.  After all, I'm not a liberal, I don't have limitless outrage!

As of today, I'm 1-0-1.  The win was today's ruling regarding the president's "travel ban" on nationals from 7 countries.  For those (idiots) who want to call it a "Muslim ban",

The court sided with the government, which argued in April that the restriction "would be the most ineffective Muslim ban that one could possibly imagine."

Roberts agreed with that argument. Though the ban applies to five countries with Muslim majority populations, "that fact alone does not support an inference of religious hostility," Roberts wrote, noting that those five countries amount to only 8 percent of the world's Muslim population...

While the court upheld Trump's travel restriction, Roberts noted that the ruling did not reflect the court's judgment on the "soundness" of the policy.

Good. That's not the role of the Supreme Court. Their role is to determine the legality of the presidential action, and they ruled correctly.

Liberals don't have to like this ruling, but it's the law whether they like it or not.

The tie was the Masterpiece Cakeshop case.  I'd have preferred that the Court go further than they did.  Must a lawyer accept every case?  Must an artist accept every commission?  Clearly not, but why not, when a store must sell to everyone?  There's clearly a difference (I'd argue there's an issue of "compelled speech"), and the Court should have addressed this issue once and for all rather than merely sending the case back to lower courts because of the obvious anti-religious animus shown by the Colorado Civil Rights Commission:

The court held that the Colorado Civil Rights Commission showed hostility toward the baker based on his religious beliefs. The ruling is a win for baker Jack Phillips, who cited his beliefs as a Christian, but leaves unsettled broader constitutional questions on religious liberty. 

"Today's decision is remarkably narrow, and leaves for another day virtually all of the major constitutional questions that this case presented," said Steve Vladeck, CNN Supreme Court analyst and professor at the University of Texas School of Law. "It's hard to see the decision setting a precedent."

My last big case for this term is, obviously, Janus. The Court has only a couple more days in which to issue a ruling.  For all of us agency fee payers, I hope they rule in Mark's favor.  And when they (hopefully) do, the next fun battle to watch will be this one:

Public-sector workers across the country are seeking to recover back wages they paid to labor organizations in the event the Supreme Court declares mandatory union fees unconstitutional. 

Class action suits have been filed against eight unions in New York, New Jersey, Pennsylvania, Minnesota, Maryland, California, and the state of Washington, accusing individual unions of violating workers' rights by collecting mandatory dues payments.

Update, 6/27/18: 2-0-1! The Court's ruling in the Janus case came down today!

What A Beautiful Place

This is my 3rd time in Cancun, and never before have I felt anything like the relatively cool breeze coming in off the water.  It feels almost Hawaiian outside!

For those of you who've been to Cancun, you'll notice the Telmex tower in the 3rd picture.  That view from my balcony shows I'm on the southern edge of Punta Cancun.

I'm a little burned from yesterday, so I'm heading out to the pool for a little "hair of the dog that bit me".  Just more sunscreen today.

How To Secure The Southern US Border

Put Mexican hotel security in charge.  That will keep the vast majority of unauthorized people out.

I've written before about "security" at Mexico resorts before, here.  I explained in this post why I think this "security" exists.  And here I am in Mexico again, 6 years and hundreds of miles away from Puerto Penasco, and I'm up against "security" again.  Have you seen Spinal Tap?  "Security" at resorts here in Cancun goes up to 11.

My resort includes an all-inclusive option, and from what I understand, that is the issue.  What if someone were to sneak in and get a free drink, you might ask, to which I'd reply, they can't get a free drink if they don't have the resort's wristband on.  Same for food.  What about the pools?  Everyone working around the pools is looking for those wristbands!   This morning, I got thumbs-up from one employee as I was setting up my beach chair; he confirmed I was authorized to be there.

We have a security guard at the entrance to the resort whose job is to raise and lower the barrier so that cars can enter.  All the employees at the entrance to the building are checking for that wristband.  Why, I wonder?  What would be the harm if someone wanted to see the inside of the hotel?  Are they concerned that "the locals" would use the hotel as a thoroughfare to the beach?

Hyatt has a very nice resort next to the one at which I'm staying, and I thought I'd go see what it looks like.  I approached the front and was met by a pleasant but forceful man--I wasn't authorized.  I told him I wanted to see the resort so I could determine if I wanted to stay there some time, so he sent me to the concierge desk--and he watched me the entire time I walked there to make sure I didn't deviate from the prescribed route.  After a brief explanation to the concierge, I got a personal tour of the lobby and pool areas of the resort!

Why couldn't I just have walked around?  It's not like I could have gotten any free stuff, as I didn't have that resort's wristband.  The only thing I can come up with is that the resorts don't want their lobbies to be used as routes to the beaches, which are all public.  They want people to use the few public entrances to the beaches.

OK, I get that, but not every place will give a tour to a visitor.  I can't be the only person who visits other resorts to see what they look like so I know if I want to stay there! Is this not done in Mexico?

Bottom line:  no one breaches the frontier!  Yes, I'm sure there are ways people can sneak in--not every possible entrance, especially from the beach side, is manned at all times, but in general, no one except a guest steps inside.  And they're serious about that, too.  And employees will call people out, even guests, if they're not authorized somewhere; for example, there's an infinity pool here, but I can't use it.  It's right out the back door of my hotel, but it's only for guests of the Altitude Tower.  I have yet to see more than a few people in it at any one time, but I've heard (and read reviews) of employees calling out to unauthorized users (e.g., people whose rooms are in the original tower) and requiring them to leave that pool immediately, embarrassing them in front of other guests.

Security.  "Security".  They're not there to protect me from harm, they're not that kind of security.  They're there to keep unauthorized people out of the resort.  And from what I've seen, they don't do a horrible job at it.

So how does this post relate to the title?  How might we secure the American southern border?  Take a page from the resort security playbook!

"Whale Sighted Off Port Bow"

Just got back from spending about 3 hours down at the pool.  Banana daquiris--mas ron!--and chips y salsa con pollo (sin crema), and lots of sunspray.  Nice way to spend an early afternoon--so soon after waking up!  (Keep in mind the blog keeps Pacific Time, not Darren Travel Time).

I'm not so arrogant to think that anyone not speaking English is talking about me, but if they were, they'd be talking about el gordo viejo.  I've never weighed more, and I wonder if I was hogging the sunshine from all the other tanners.  I should really lose some weight.

No plans today, not a care in the world.  I so need this sometimes!

En Route

Update:

No longer en route:

Cobá

I should like to visit here some day soon.

Lots Of Things Wrong In This Story

Kids today think they can (and should) record everything with their phones.  That's how you get famous!  They don't seem to understand appropriate boundaries.

Students should follow school rules.

Illinois law in this case is ridiculous.

Just as we don't expect law enforcement officers to be recorded at all times, neither should we expect school employees to be recorded at all times.  However, as a society we seem to be leaning towards body cameras on law enforcement officers when they interact with the public--for the sake of the officer and the public.  Should we expect something similar from school officials, that is, the recording of interactions when discipline is being conducted?

Paul Boron is 13 years old.

And he’s facing a felony eavesdropping charge that could change the course of the rest of his life.

His story stands as another chapter of controversy surrounding an eavesdropping law some experts have criticized as ripe for abuse and misapplication.

On Feb. 16, 2018, Boron was called to the principal’s office at Manteno Middle School after failing to attend a number of detentions. Before meeting Principal David Conrad and Assistant Principal Nathan Short, he began recording audio on his cellphone.

Boron said he argued with Conrad and Short for approximately 10 minutes in the reception area of the school secretary’s office, with the door open to the hallway. When Boron told Conrad and Short he was recording, Conrad allegedly told Boron he was committing a felony and promptly ended the conversation.

Two months later, in April, Boron was charged with one count of eavesdropping – a class 4 felony in Illinois...

In March 2014, the Illinois Supreme Court struck down Illinois’ eavesdropping law, holding that it “criminalize[d] a wide range of innocent conduct” and violated residents’ First Amendment rights.

But during lame-duck legislative session in December 2014, the Illinois General Assembly passed and Gov. Pat Quinn signed a new eavesdropping law. In the wake of the Supreme Court ruling, lawmakers included changes aimed at allowing residents to record interactions with police, for example, but kept intact the “all-party consent” provisions and introduced a difficult-to-gauge standard for when a person must get consent for recording.

As is so often the case in these types of stories, none of the characters is covering himself in glory.

Are Women "Underrepresented" In STEM Degrees?

It depends on whether you look at overall numbers or in specific fields:

The supposed underrepresentation of women in science, technology, engineering and math is a myth, at least if you’re looking at the most recently available Department of Education figures.

Economist Mark Perry of the University of Michigan-Flint crunched the numbers and found that women actually earned a majority of bachelor’s degrees in STEM fields that were not engineering or computer science – “biology, mathematics, and physical sciences (e.g., chemistry, physics, etc.)”

They are an even bigger majority if you include “health professions” as a STEM field with all other traditional STEM fields represented, including engineering and computer science.

Stick A Fork In It, The ACLU Is Done

From Reason:

The American Civil Liberties Union will weigh its interest in protecting the First Amendment against its other commitments to social justice, racial equality, and women's rights, given the possibility that offensive speech might undermine ACLU goals.

"Our defense of speech may have a greater or lesser harmful impact on the equality and justice work to which we are also committed," wrote ACLU staffers in a confidential memo obtained by former board member Wendy Kaminer.

It's hard to see this as anything other than a cowardly retreat from a full-throated defense of the First Amendment.

Explaining Your Answers In Math

In all my discussions and readings and trainings pertaining to having students "explain" their work in math class, this one is the closest I've found to encapsulating my own thoughts:

When did we decide that maths needs to be explained in words? I am quite insistent on my students providing explanations; a call them ‘workings’ and they are the series of mathematical steps that they have followed to arrive at their answer. This is how things are explained in mathematics.

However, for some reason this does not show understanding. In order to understand mathematics, we need to be able to waffle on about it in English. And yet mathematics was invented in order to make it easier to express notions that are cumbersome to express with words. That’s part of the beauty of it.

It is as if we were to insist that the only way to understand German is to translate it into English; that reasoning in German alone does not show an understanding of German. Clearly, translation is a useful device for novice learners and a key component of teaching, but being able to work entirely within the target language is a sign of sophistication rather than of a lack of understanding.

Every year, I teach my senior physicists about wave particle duality. Light, I suggest, can be thought of as a wave or as a particle, depending on the situation. “But what,” they ask, “actually is it?”

“Ah,” I say, “If you really want to understand what light is, you need to understand it through the maths. It doesn’t translate well into English.”

And the more math you learn, the less easily it translates well into English.

What Goes Around, Comes Around

From Instapundit:

I’M SO OLD, I CAN REMEMBER WHEN BILLIONAIRES SPENDING TO INFLUENCE ELECTIONS WERE A THREAT TO DEMOCRACY: Michael Bloomberg Will Spend $80 Million on the Midterms. His Goal: Flip the House for the Democrats.

Multiculturalism

Makes sense to me:

Exactly how beneficial to a society is multiculturalism, this word that is so celebrated in the West?

...Put differently, all values prized by the modern West -- religious freedom, tolerance, humanism, gender equality, monogamy -- did not develop in a vacuum but rather are inextricably rooted to Judeo-Christian principles which, over the course of some 2,000 years, have had a profound influence on Western epistemology, society and, of course, culture.

While they are now taken for granted and seen as “universal” virtues, it’s not for nothing that these values were born and nourished in Western -- not Islamic, Buddhist, Hindu, Confucian, or pagan -- nations...

Returning to the initial confusion, that cultures are often conflated with race, it bears stressing that being wary or critical of multiculturalism is in no way the same thing as being wary or critical of other races or ethnicities (that is, “racism”) but rather being wary of disunity...

In short, there’s nothing wrong and much to be celebrated if a nation’s citizenry is composed of every race and ethnicity -- but only if they share the same worldview, the same priorities, the same ethics, the same rights and wrongs -- in a word, the same culture. Then it will be a strong and healthy nation, perfectly capturing the meaning of E pluribus unum.

The author is Raymond Ibrahim:

Ibrahim’s dual-background -- born and raised in the U.S. by Coptic Egyptian parents born and raised in the Middle East -- has provided him with unique advantages, from equal fluency in English and Arabic, to an equal understanding of the Western and Middle Eastern mindsets, positioning him to explain the latter to the former.

The Difference Between A Teacher And A Student

I periodically need to be reminded of this, which I'll screenshot for ease:

It's the same whether the student is a 10th grader or a PhD candidate.

Political Math Raises Its Ugly Head Again

Over at Campus Reform:

A professor at the University of Illinois-Chicago contributed a chapter to a new textbook arguing that math teachers "have a responsibility" to adopt "social justice pedagogies."

Eric Gutstein advocates "explicitly political" approaches to math education as a way of countering "climate catastrophe" and the "racist and sexist billionaire in the White House."

I'm not going to rebut this idiot now.  I already did--13 years ago.

Update, 6/21/18:  The left is really trying to impose itself in the real sciences now, as opposed to the social sciences:

According to a new textbook written by a professor at the University of Exeter, learning mathematics can cause “collateral damage” to society because it “provides a training in ethics-free thought.”

“Reasoning without meanings provides a training in ethics-free thought,” Paul Ernest writes in “The Ethics of Mathematics: Is Mathematics Harmful?” — a chapter of his book The Philosophy of Mathematics Education Today.

In an abstract for the book, Ernest claims that although he does “acknowledge that mathematics is a widespread force for good,” “there is significant collateral damage caused by learning mathematics"...

The article's author goes too easy on Ernest:

Some things in life are objective and rational, and that’s perfectly okay. The idea that learning about something that doesn’t involve emotions would somehow make people emotionless overall makes absolutely no sense. After all, there are plenty of things we learn as humans that are strictly practical. For example: I learned how to brush my teeth without any sort of discussion about ethics or feelings whatsoever, and I continue to brush my teeth without having any feelings about it to this day. Has that affected my ability to have feelings in other areas of my life? Absolutely not, and neither did learning about math. Students have all sorts of opportunities to study subjects that lend themselves to conversations about ethics and emotions, such as literature and social studies, and they learn even more about this part of life outside of the classroom. To actually suggest that learning a subject with “unfeelingness” is going to create “collateral damage” of any kind is certainly an absurd one — and I certainly don’t think that math is our enemy in any way.

Raising Up, Instead Of Trampling Down

Lefties like to trample on others, though.  It's who they are, it's what they do.  Haidt is an optimist:

Heterodox Academy has created an educational app called OpenMind to help students learn virtues like intellectual humility and empathy so that they can speak to one another across the divide. So far it has been used in over 100 classrooms.

As encouraging as these initiatives are, there’s a more fundamental shift that needs to take place—a rethinking of identity politics. Rather than promoting a “common-enemy identity politics” that admonishes white people and others with “privilege,” Mr. Haidt said Friday, professors and administrators should embrace a “common-humanity identity politics.” Isn’t that what liberal education is all about?

You don't build unity by telling everyone how they're different, and you certainly don't build unity by pitting one group against another. You build it by playing up commonalities.

Despite what they'll tell you, the left isn't trying to build unity. It's fairly obvious.  It's easier, and perhaps more fun, to rip people apart than to build unity.  That's why Haidt's hope above is pie-in-the-sky.