Good taxes

So, today I filed my taxes.  With a mortgage, three kids, two working spouses with jobs that have some stock incentives, and deductions worth itemizing, it took a little effort.  I remember to not complain about it too much. The burdensome things earlier in this paragraph are good problems to have.  I am thankful that dealing with the tax consequences associated with them and getting the returns filed was the biggest headache I had to deal with the last couple of weeks.  When I started, I didn't realize that I'd have to actually file paper, but more about that later.

I have friends, people I genuinely like, who style themselves fiscally conservative and socially liberal.  It's an innocuous sounding description.  It sounds responsible.  It's like they're saying they are being prudent with their money.  I don't have a problem with that part.  That's like when my wife and I go shopping for a new bathroom faucet.  We're making tradeoffs about what what we need (something to turn the water on and off) and what we want (something that looks awesome).  The thing that irks me is when this philosophy becomes a justification for blindly cutting taxes and social programs.  This is usually closely followed by a resentment of paying for bond measures or derision of the idea of supporting our local public school foundation.  The reasoning usually goes like this

• taxes are too high and there's too much waste in the system, therefore 
• I'm already overpaying, therefore
• I shouldn't feel guilty about not paying more, therefore
• I'm not going to give any more money to anything

I know that's an exaggeration, but not all that big of one.

I have that in mind when I figure out my taxes and remember that being responsible means paying for things.

Our school district is facing a crisis.  Apparently, no one could have foreseen that rebuilding a school on hilly ground near water and an active earthquake fault was going to be tricky, expensive and maybe not even possible. This week, things came to a head when additional geological reports were required and the school board decided to cancel the project instead.  Obviously, there's more going on here and I really don't have the motivation to untangle all the conflicting interests.  I'd much rather see someone use a metaphorical sword and cut the Gordian knot of local politics and find a solution we could all get behind.

I spent some time this morning reading a number of opinions expressed by my fellow town residents.  The ideas ran the gamut from insightful suggestions to ludicrous invective.   One thing everyone agrees on is that it's more than just the Lexington School families affected.  The whole district is going to pay a price and the fallout is just starting.  How did we get here?  It's tempting to blame others:

• The LGUSD school board.  They didn't plan adequately.  Or, they lacked the courage to kill the project earlier.
• The Lexington School families.  They have unrealistic expectations about what can be done to build a school in the mountains to serve their children.
• The families from the rest of the district.  They want to shirk what's fair and not modernize Lexington School after all their schools have been updated.
• The bureaucrats in Sacramento. They make up arbitrary policies to thwart local school boards.
• The consultants hired by the district.  They're just dragging the project out to squeeze more money out of the district.

It's a mess.  The families of Lexington School should be used to it.  There's an excellent history on the school's website. The school is currently in its third location.  The first location, in the town of Lexington, was abandoned in 1911 and the school was moved to the nearby town of Alma because Alma was bigger than Lexington.  The third school was opened in 1953 after both the towns of Lexington and Alma were submerged by the creation of Lexington Reservoir.  Throughout its entire history, those served by the school started by Louis Hebard in 1859 have been moved, flooded out and inconvenienced for the needs of larger nearby communities.  Surely, the current crisis is just the latest chapter in that story.

However this mess gets resolved and no matter how we got here, there's little doubt that it's made worse and more complicated by the tenuous manner in which public education is funded in this state.

In a culture that worships youth and dotes on its children, why is the funding of public education such a problem for us? Since the mid-1970's, there has been a constant eroding of the quality of public education in California as the result of one well-intentioned action after another.  California schools, once near the top, now rank 48th out of 50 in the country. [We still beat out Louisiana and Mississippi!] This 2005 report has an in-depth analysis of some of the forces that brought us to this point.

Prior to 1978, local voters had decided at the ballot box how much to tax themselves for local schools. But when the resources started to become equalized across districts statewide, local voters lost some of their incentive to spend so much on schools, thus precipitating a substantial decline in statewide school spending relative to that in other states. The decline in spending likely led to larger class sizes and, perhaps, to lower achievement levels for students in California compared with those across the nation.

Basically, what the past four decades have show in California is that while people will act in their own self interest or that of their immediate neighbor's, they will cease to care if you spread the responsibility too thinly.  Maybe the answer is more local control of school funding.  Maybe the answer is better awareness that quality eduction for the whole state IS in everyone's self interest.

I don't know.

What I do know is that, in the long run, denying governments the means to do good things for people that private enterprise will not is NOT in my own self interest.  I've seen that tried in my own lifetime and it just doesn't work.  Governments don't always spend wisely, but that does not mean that the funds need to be cut off.  It means that our own engagement must increase to provide the right governance.

That brings me back to my taxes.  I filed them today.  I wrote the US Treasury a big fat check.  I found out yesterday that I could not e-file because someone had stolen my wife's social security number and already filed a fraudulent return with it.  Apparently once that happens, electronic filing is not an option.  So, for the first time in 15-20 years, I actually mailed a paper return, along with an additional form to cover the identity theft.  I made the most of the trip, walking to the post office this morning and enjoying the nice weather and a cup of coffee in the relative calm of a nice April morning.

On the way home, I felt good.

Back to writing

This week was conference week at my daughters' school.  My daughters are still in an elementary school that allocates time to such things.  It's nice.  A whole 30 minutes dedicated to talking directly with the teacher about your child's progress.  My seventh grade son no longer gets this treatment. They don't have time for such things in middle school.  But for my daughters in kindergarten and fourth grade, this concentrated educational progress review is something that my wife and I eagerly anticipate.

Counting the two this week, I've been to 24 of these conferences since the fall of 2004 when I went to my son's first one.  I never miss them.  I'm lucky to have the type of children that teachers want in their class.  These conversations are mostly a love-fest about my kids.  But, occasionally, some actionable feedback does come up.  That was the case this week.  What was striking was the same point came up in both conferences.

My daughters could be better writers.

They are by no means illiterate.  In fact, for their grade levels, they are avid readers.   Their writing is adequate, but they are capable of increased volume, better organization and more depth of written expression.

It made me think.  What sort of example am I setting for them as a writer?  Most days, my writing consists of a dozen or so emails, maybe some technical documentation and, if I'm lucky, I get to spend time actually writing computer programs.  The programming part is what I enjoy about my profession and why I do it.  The rest is just baggage that comes along for the ride.  None of it is terribly interesting to read.  Necessary in some contexts, important, profitable.... but hardly interesting.

I don't write for enjoyment anymore.  Sure, I read for enjoyment.  But write?  Who has time for that?

Last night, I was watching Ken Burns' The National Parks: America's Best Idea and I was struck by the writings quoted from the 19th century thinkers that were influencing the creation of the park system.  Take, for example, this sample from John Muir's The Yosemite,

But no temple made with hands can compare with Yosemite. Every rock in its walls seems to glow with life. Some lean back in majestic repose; others, absolutely sheer or nearly so for thousands of feet, advance beyond their companions in thoughtful attitudes, giving welcome to storms and calms alike, seemingly aware, yet heedless, of everything going on about them. Awful in stern, immovable majesty, how softly these rocks are adorned, and how fine and reassuring the company they keep: their feet among beautiful groves and meadows, their brows in the sky, a thousand flowers leaning confidingly against their feet, bathed in floods of water, floods of light, while the snow and waterfalls, the winds and avalanches and clouds shine and sing and wreathe about them as the years go by, and myriads of small winged creatures birds, bees, butterflies—give glad animation and help to make all the air into music.

Clearly, this is a man used to writing things people want to read. Less than 200 years after Muir wrote those words could we really become a postliterate society?

In 2009, Patrick Tucker wrote an article called The Dawn of the Postliterate Age in The Futurist.  He presents a compelling case and research to suggest that by 2050, no one will write anymore.  He ends the piece with a hopeful, alternative suggestion in the face of such a bleak future

This scenario exists alongside another future in which young people reject many of the devices, networks, and digital services that today’s adults market to them so relentlessly. Being more technologically literate, they develop the capacities to resist the constant push of faster, cheaper, easier information and select among the new and the old on the basis of real value. If we are lucky, today’s young people will do what countless generations before them have done: defy authority.

This week, I've decided to dedicate myself to do more to help my children become those who make choices based on "real value".  I need to do more to help them become content creators, not just consumers.

I am hopeful that Tucker's alternative vision might come to pass.  This week alone, I came across three examples of people that moved more to the creator side of the content consumer/creator dichotomy.

Kassem Gharaibeh
Ok, so KassemG doesn't immediately stand out as a savior to divert us from the postliterate age.  At first glance, he seems to be what a thinking person would fear as the epitome of the postliterati.  I first heard about him in a piece on KQED's California Report on Maker Studios.  He went from working at a BestBuy and doing standup in Chinese restaurants to being a fulltime video creator with almost 2 million subscribers on YouTube.  According to a 2011 NY Times article, Maker Studios makes it its business to find video creators like KassemG and nuture them.  What I find remarkable about the trend is that the creators start out just doing stuff they like and it grows.

Kevin Clash
If you want to find someone who starts out doing something he loves and just runs with it, you'd be hard pressed to find a better example than Kevin Clash, the puppeteer responsible for the muppet character, Elmo.  I watched Being Elmo, a documentary that follows Kevin from being an awkward kid that cuts up his dad's coat to make a puppet to being an acknowledged master of his craft giving back to kids who aspire to be puppeteers just like him.  I really did find his story to be inspiring.

David Raccah
David is a former coworker of mine.  I really don't know him that well, but we are connected on LinkedIn and I noticed that his profile lists his primary occupation as "Blogger and editor of Kosherwinemusings".  David is a guy that could probably land any tech job he wanted.  He might just be working in stealth mode on something, but I like to imagine that he's moved past the need to clock in at a tech job and is feeding his passion.

These three guys, while all embracing modern means, are at various stages of careers that one way or another require them to communicate to an audience.  To varying degrees, they each inspire me to try harder to find a way, through words, to share ideas that are of "real value".

That brings me back to my daughters' teacher conferences.  This week, I've resolved to devote more effort to writing in order to be an example for them.  I found this blog I started 4 years ago with a nostalgic post longing for, of all things, the Reagan presidency.  I can do better, and not take so long between posts, too.

Going down to the corner drugstore to look at the magazines.

You gotta love the internet.

It's an election year and I found myself thinking back to the more simple times when I was first old enough to vote. For some reason I kept fixating on remembered quotes about Ronald Reagan going down the corner to buy some magazines. I remembered it as a quote he would repeat often and how the commentators at the time would make snickers like, "I wonder what kind of magazines he's talking about."

It was "scandalous". It was funny. It was oh-so-much-better than reading about the latest suicide bombing in Iraq or about the latest revelation about the Bush White House exceeding the bounds of executive power envisioned by the framers of Constitution. [outing CIA operatives, firing US attorneys for not aggressively pursuing witch hunts, distorting intelligence estimates to wage an unjust war, .... oh the list goes on.]

This morning I read an op-ed piece by no less than George McGovern [originally published in the Washington Post] advocating the impeachment and conviction of Bush and Cheney. That's not a lone voice in some leftist political rag... not some unwashed, anti-globalism radical... but a respected elder statesman [a bomber pilot veteran of WW II, a former US Representative, Senator and presidential candidate] published in a leading national newspaper.

I found that I couldn't disagree with him, but a part of me really did wish that things hadn't gone this far.

That's probably what brought up the "down to the corner drugstore" memory, a longing for the scandalous issues of THAT time.

Anyway, a little patient searching on the internet and voila! It didn't take much to assemble a list of 6 separate tellings of the "corner drugstore" spiel by the Great Communicator, including primary sources for half of them. Maybe that's why they called him the Great Communicator... he repeated the same bits over and over again.

Here they are, for your own pleasure and edification.

For me, "going down to the drugstore to look at the magazines" has become a code phase for longing for a time when things were more simple.

---

(from http://www.quickchange.com/reagan/1982.html)

8/11/82 President Reagan tells The Time's Hugh Sidey that he sometimes feels trapped in the White House. "You glance out the window and the people are walking around Pennsylvania Avenue and you say, 'I could never say I am going to run down to the drugstore and get some magazines,'" he says. "I can't do that anymore." (see 12/9/82)
[article http://www.time.com/time/magazine/article/0,9171,925681-3,00.html]

12/09/82 "Sometimes I look out there at Pennsylvania Avenue and see people bustling along, and it suddenly dawns on me that probably never again can I just say "Hey, I'm going down to the drugstore to look at the magazines,'" - President Reagan discussing his feelings of confinement with a People reporter (see 12/16/82)

12/16/82 "Sometimes I look out the window at Pennsylvania Avenue and wonder what it would be like to be able to just walk down the street to the corner drugstore and look at the magazines. I can't do that anymore." - President Reagan conveying one of his regrets to The Washington Post (see 12/18/82)

12/18/82 "Sometimes I look out the window at Pennsylvania Avenue and wonder what it would be like to be able to just walk down the street to the corner drugstore and look at the magazines. I can't do that anymore." - President Reagan sharing a sudden thought with a radio interviewer
[full transcript http://www.presidency.ucsb.edu/ws/index.php?pid=42130]

(from http://www.ludickid.com/lists060504.htm)
RONALD WILSON REAGAN, MASTER STORYTELLER

... [same quotes referenced above]
4. "Sometimes I look out the window at Pennsylvania Avenue and wonder what it would be like to just turn to my wife and say, 'Honey, I'm going down to the corner drugstore to look at magazines.' I can't do that anymore." (Jan. 13, 1983)

5. "You find yourself remembering what ti was like when on the spur of the moment you could just yell to your wife that you were going down to the drugstore and get a magazine. You can't do that anymore." (Jan. 27, 1984)
[article http://www.time.com/time/magazine/article/0,9171,954135-2,00.html]