Is Face Mask Skepticism Beyond The Pale? (Reason.com)

https://reason.com/2021/08/18/is-face-mask-skepticism-beyond-the-pale/

From the beginning, however, the Great American Mask Debate has been strongly influenced by partisan and ideological commitments, with one side exaggerating the evidence in favor of this precaution and the other side ignoring or downplaying it...  But rational discourse entails rebutting arguments by citing contrary evidence instead of treating them as too dangerous for people to consider.

I generally refuse to discuss masking with people anymore.  It's an article of holy faith, and I'm not prepared to expend the energy at this point against either side's positions. I'll wear one, but I don't like it, nor do I think it's going to save anyone's life.  

Folks, we've seen this movie before: Ultraviolet.

Chock Full O' Wisdom Today!

1. Men, zippers are your friends.  Keep them UP! 
2. When in doubt, get it in writing.
3. Email is forever, particularly when the Open Records Act is involved (Texas Government Code Chapter 552 passim)
4. When they pound the table harder and harder, they've run out of facts and the law is against them.
5. Any bureaucracy over a certain size becomes more concerned with its survival than its mission, and most politicians over a certain level are more interested in serving their own interests than serving the public.
6. Follow the money.
7. If the medicine cures one disease but leaves you vulnerable to something worse, consider riding it out. 

Relational Contracts and HCC: some observations

Innovation In Contracting

Psychological contracts are unwritten relationships in which an individual holds a belief in mutual obligations between themselves and another party. An often-cited example is an employment relationship. There may be a written employment contract but, beyond that, an employee may have tacit expectations about job security, personal development, recognition, promotion, growth, personal well-being and respect. If these are not met, they may withdraw effort. Employers are well-advised to empathize with the unwritten expectations of the psychological contract in order to optimize employee motivation.

Okay, that's something that tends to be forgotten by many administrators.  Good ones remember it, though.

A brand promise can be a similar psychological contract. Brand make overt promises regarding the benefits they claim to bring to users. In turn, users create their own expectations — as we always emphasize, value is subjective and customers engage in a value learning process when they interact with brands. Their subjectively-defined expectations undergo continuous change, especially as they make comparisons with alternative offers and alternative sources of satisfaction. It’s imperative for brand owners to monitor the evolution of customer-perceived mutual obligations. Customers hold a strong perception of how much consumption work they have to do to receive the benefits that the brand promised, and if the equation gets out of balance, they’ll withdraw their effort. 

Now this has multiple applications.  The idea of creating a unified culture at HCC, for instance, runs into challenges at multiple levels.  Viewed through this lens,  the students approximate being customers in the classroom.  The challenges of learner engagement can be understood from this angle in the present day.  This may not entirely be a desirable thing, but we cannot ignore the perspective entirely.  

At the same time,  instructors are internal customers and the various levels of administration are providers, particularly when we talk about culture.  The money quote: "It’s imperative for brand owners to monitor the evolution of customer-perceived mutual obligations."  If upper-level administrators are ignoring their end of the mutual obligations, they will not get positive results.  This is something we have seen repeatedly over the last twenty or more years: when faculty feel like their buy-in is not going to get them anything useful in return, they won't do it.  The implied threat of "we can find someone else, there are lots of adjuncts who want jobs" rings hollow, though, because we are not a closed society --word gets out when a place is not a good place to work, and we have trouble attracting quality applicants.  

Finally, the community at large is a customer base unto itself irrespective of the students.  If the college is not providing added value, they will not support the college.  This is why it is critical that the college maintain a good public image --and that means being honest and open and admitting mistakes when they occur.  

We Hold These Truths To Be Self-Evident

• That all are created equal
• That we are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable rights
• That among these are Life, Liberty, and the Pursuit of Happiness
• That when people complain about this country being a failure, most of them are at heart longing to make those words live and breathe in the world around them
• That there are scoundrels out there who would twist that disappointment to their own ends
• That the cure is oftimes worse than the disease, insofar as what the scoundrels would have of us
• That when they move to create silence, they do not have your best interests at heart
• That when good people do nothing, the nothing will consume all

More Wisdom!

• Orwell was right about so many things, it scares me a lot of the time. 
• "Four legs good, two legs bad" has a modern equivalent; I leave it to you to discern its identity.
• Bonus points: notice it's already begun a transition to "Two legs better!"  It's subtle, but I assure you that it's happening.
• Avoid making policies that are designed to remedy bad management.  The solution is better management.  The more policies, the more lawyers.
• Illegitimi non carborundum may be bad Latin, but it's still good philosophy.
• It's rarely too late to do the right thing, but it helps to start early.
• Maintain a wide circle, it broadens the perspective and enhances accuracy.  It's still okay to keep your own counsel, though.

"Yes, yes, yes, I heard. Stop bugging me."

There appears to be a scandal in the offing just now, and sadly, I know some of the involved parties. For that reason, I cannot make public comment, and I'm tired of answering the phone and text messages.  What's done, is done.  So what have we learned?

• Little Brain is evil. Don't trust Little Brain.
• Thorough background checks are never a bad idea for anyone.
• Tell the truth early and often, because once you lie, it's over.
• Document, document, document.
• Fight like hell, but do what's right, and you will sleep well through the night.

Wisdom!

• If you go to bed at 7pm, you should not be surprised by waking up at 2am. 
• Your students will not read the Syllabus unless you make them.
• No matter how early you login to make tweaks to your course, there will always be at least a few students who already go in and are asking questions.
• Everyone likes tomatoes.  They are less eager for squash.
• Idle hands are the devil's workshop; idle feet walk the road from Matt Smith to Matt Berry.  (nb both are fantastic)

Gardening at night is never where...

 ...you want to be at any other time of the year except now.  We are now entering the "get it done before 9" portion of the summer, and that occasionally is going to mean low-light situations.  But it has to be done.  Now that I have downtime, I am starting to get things cleaned up thoroughly from the freeze.  It's too much to do in one day, even working through the mid-day sun. So I break it up into sections.  

Today was preliminary weeding in the Near Yard (as opposed to the Front Yard and the Far Yard), and that ended up involving the flamethrower ("Dracaris!")  I couldn't go all-out on the patio because the Bermuda grass is finally showing signs of life and I want it to take over between the flagstones.  Also, the shrimp plant has recovered and is going to remain the centerpiece of its bed, so no mass-flaming there.  

In theory, I should be also working on syllabi, reading, and doing a grade appeal panel, while dealing with larger integrity issues across the college.  I am, in fact, but I'm very non-linear in my approach.  

The rare moment of quiet

For absolutely no reason, I got up before the Mrs. today.  I would have gone for a ride, except it takes me about an hour to be fully ready, and by then I am on household duty in case Boy wakes up early and decides to turn on the TV.

There's only so much one man can do around the house until he annoys his still-somnambulant spouse. Laundry has its limits, as does policing the kitchen.  In the end, the office is still the safest refuge, at least until the coffee is ready for sharing (two Splendas, whipped cream on top --I take mine straight, the way God and Mom intended).

Grades were posted at 5:45am, and files uploaded shortly thereafter to the departmental server.  Enough of you have heard my semi-annual tirade about how this is NOT 1997 and most of this is pure kabuki BS, so I will spare you all but the details: Canvas plus PeopleSoft plus auto-generated reports from the Registrar equals much less work for faculty IF people become even halfway aware of how things work.

So I am done, at least until students actually notice their grades and start whining.  And it is at this point that they all get reminded of what I said on the very first day: "The time to worry about your average is today, not the end of the semester, and certainly not the day after the semester ends."  

Meantime, I drink my coffee in peace.  

An Open Letter On Shared Governance

To: my HCC colleagues, including admins and Trustees but primarily faculty
Re: Shared Governance

“David, why is shared governance eroding?”

Shared governance is eroding because there are those in the administration who believe that faculty will always do what is mandated, without complaint. If the mandates were mostly reasonable, or could be shown to produce demonstrably positive outcomes, that would be one thing.  But increasingly they are not so.  Yes, the Senate speaks out when we see questionable things, but there is a distinct impression that we are merely rabble-rousers.

I really don't want to get into personalities, because multiple fingers can be pointed at multiple people.  Ultimately, though, it comes back to "rank-and-file" faculty basically not speaking up.  Leaders believe it's just the same group of people, always causing problems and making mountains out of molehills.  Yes, I speak loudly and often, perhaps too much so.  I'll own it.  But if I don't speak, who will?

The Board, I feel, sometimes believes faculty are only self-interested, and have begun to ignore us. Again, part of this is because they are used to seeing the same people making the same complaints. This must end.  The Board will eventually meet in-person once again. When they do, we need to be there, and not just “the usual suspects.”

Those of us fighting the fight for shared governance are not in this for our own hind ends, or to advance our careers.  We are in this because at the heart of shared governance is the a priori tenet that faculty are the experts in dealing with students, and that the things we bring forward are going affect the students at some point.

True, HCC has traditionally been an exemplar in shared governance. Faculty here have had a louder voice than at our neighbors' joints.  Yet our peers also teach us something: happy faculty mean better outcomes.  No, that's not a demand to "pay us or we'll do lousy jobs." Being happy faculty is more than just being well-compensated.  It's about feeling valued as part of the institution. 

When you love going to your job (or, pace Covid, logging in to your job), you can accept certain trade-offs.  One of the trade-offs we at HCC have historically made is that we aren't paid as much as our friends at Austin CC, or Tarrant County, or Alamo.  But we can't do all of the giving here.  We can't lose our voice in helping run the college AND be paid less AND be made to do things which will ultimately hurt our students, all good intentions notwithstanding. 

If regular faculty sit by and let these things happen, or rely on the same folks to fight their fights, it's all going to keep going downhill.  And I cannot fight alone.  I'm tired.  I should be up at the lake, doing a lot more fishing and cigar-smoking and grading.  

But not yet. I will be heard instead. Here I stand, I can do no other.

Join me.

--David

Some of the Austrians have already said we're entering Weimar territory. They may be right.

Looming Budget Catastrophe in Pictures So Simple Even Congress Can Understand  --Reason.com

Read the whole thing, as The Man might say.   But then go starting looking at these folks at the Mises Institute.  The Austrians have long warned that inflationary effects usually benefit those nearest the spigot, and that when they have exacted all the benefit they can from it, they turn the spigot off to stop the flooding from reaching their doorsteps.  We may be seeing this now, as even the Fed is starting to say that interest rates may need to rise to stop inflation.

Hey, I remember the Seventies vividly.  Inflation is for tires, not for people.

Things are quiet when you're watching and waiting.

 There's just not that much good news to report these days, other than I did NOT ruin a tire on my first long ride in a month (mind you, it did cut the ride short, literally).  

• Today's word is "necrosis," as in "tomato apex necrosis."  Look it up, it's totally a thing (that's driving me nuts).
• Still no one remembers the Soviet Union, or Pravda, or Solzhenytsin.  I, however, am becoming familiar with the concept of samizdat. 
• I don't speak thirteen-year-old-girl, I speak Dad. You learn my language, not vice-versa. I will still fight rabid wolverines blindfolded for you, however. 
• I may have to buy a dredge.  No, seriously.  They can be had for under five grand, they float, and this might be a long-term solution to my vexing problem.

This is the coolness you didn't realize you were lacking, until now.

 

To be honest, an honest appraisal of Covid will take at least twenty years...

 --and that's assuming the historians haven't fully become an arm of the state/establishment.  But that's a concern for another day.  

Is Covid Almost Over? (Powerline.com):

All of that said, the Wuhan bug has in fact increased the number of Americans who have died over the past year. The best index of covid’s impact is, I think, the number of excess deaths over a demographically predicted norm. I have little faith in the CDC, a thoroughly politicized organization, but I assume they can aggregate local death statistics with reasonable accuracy, and this is what they report. The chart shows deaths from all causes. 

Contrary to what some have suggested, covid has actually led to a substantial number of excess deaths compared to a demographic norm over the past year. But what is notable about this chart is that the number of excess deaths is sinking like a stone. What will be interesting to follow over the coming months is whether the total number of deaths declines below the demographic norm.  

Why might this happen? Because most covid victims are people who were likely to die soon in any event, but whose death may have been accelerated by the Wuhan flu. I suspect that most Wuhan victims would have died a few months later, or perhaps a year or two later, regardless of covid.

If that hypothesis is correct, over the next year or two we should see overall mortality falling below the currently predicted norm.

In a completely detached world, I compare this to "Cash-for-Clunkers" where new car sales accelerated, only to be met by a(n unanticipated-by-everyone-but-rational-economists) extended slump in the months following the end of the program. 

Covid is not a hoax, and I have lost friends to this virus.  But never lose sight of the long-term, particularly with the arguments in mind made by Robert Higgs (see previous Mojo Bison Range's entry).

What Rothbard's Defense of Religion Teaches Us about Resisting the Covid State

What Rothbard's Defense of Religion Teaches Us about Resisting the Covid State  --Mises.org

 ...the notion that our traditions and culture are both glorious and under attack is not obvious to even some Rothbardians, although it is true. If that goes ignored, then the long-term optimism Rothbard personified will become vacuous.

Individual resistance is great, and it can even be brave and heroic in the covid era, but it should not be the essence of any long-term strategy for libertarian victory. Institutional resistance, on the other hand, ought to take precedence. 

...

Rothbard would’ve turned ninety-five this week. As we look back on his treasure trove of work, let’s pay special attention to his insights that most ring true for a new libertarian strategy going forward.

That may call for us thrusting ourselves into the institutions that have deteriorated over the last century or more but whose fires are not out yet. Free-thinking individuals with an appreciation for institution formation can be the oxygen to fuel their embers. 

 Yeah, but I'm getting tired of being the Lone Ranger.