What do you really want?

From Matthew Yglesias:

"If you ask people what they want, what you find out is what they say they want."

The blog post is a review of "What Americans Really Want... REALLY," by pollster Dr. Frank Luntz. Turns out that the answer very much depends on what the question is.

I found the same force at work when I ran an after-school program. The conventional wisdom is that boredom leads to bad outcomes for disadvantaged youth: after-school programs decrease boredom and, therefore, bad outcomes. And how do we know youth are bored? Because they say they are.

What I observed is that many youth ALWAYS say they are bored, even when they are clearly having fun. In addition, even in tiny, remote towns, there is literally plenty to do. In my somewhat qualified opinion, "boredom" is shorthand for "lack of adult involvement."

Youth who get in trouble, in general, lack the involvement of adults. Programs like Big Brothers / Big Sisters address this need directly. (Disclosure: I was a Big Brother.) But just try to get an adult to spend even a few hours a week with a teen. No wonder they're "bored." They say they want fun. Of course they do. They want sugar, too. What do they REALLY want? A relationship and involvement with adults. And vegetables. Seriously. They just don't know it. Why? Because they are children.

Upcoming blog posts: Native American organ donation?!?

I need to write a big paper because it is a law school graduation requirement. I was advised from Day One to not wait until the final semester to do so, which is good advice that I nonetheless ignored: I'm in my final semester. 

I've decided to blog about writing the paper, which could very well be published in the Michigan State University Journal of Medicine and Law, of which I am the business editor. The subject of the paper is whether Native American tribes could legally set up a Native-preference organ donation matching service. At first blush, the answer looks like "no," but making the easy legal argument is not as much fun as the novel theory. 

I figure I can kill two birds: continue to blog, and work on my paper. It's a win-win for me, and maybe for you, too. 

Relatedly, I have told no one yet (except Her) about this blog. I promised myself to wait until I have blogged regularly for awhile before blabbing. I think I will wait at least one more week. This is in stark contrast to Her approach: She started a blog, wrote one post, and told Her world on Facebook. 

Barely relatedly, I will investigate alternative methods for writing blog posts. Right now I'm just using Gmail, which works OK, but I can't tag my posts this way (I don't think). Other than that, I like blogging from e-mail because I already check and write e-mail, so it's one less barrier to blogging, eh? 

My new job

Starting this fall, I will clerk for Judge Esch at the Superior Court of the Second Judicial District in Nome, Alaska. I've never worked so hard to get a job, or have been as happy to have won it.

My wife and I lived in Nome for six years before we moved to Michigan for law school (his) and grad school (hers). We're going home!

The humbling aspect to this is that I'll be taking my legal baby steps in a small town where I know many people. This won't be the first time that I've launched a career in Nome. In fact, it will be the fourth. I was a journalist with The Nome Nugget, Alaska's Oldest Newspaper (1995 - 1997). I went back to school to get my teaching certificate, and ended up managing the Boys & Girls Club (2001 - 2004). I also worked for Wells Fargo as a business banker (2006-07).

Needless to say, I enjoy doing new things. Law school was a long play: I'd always wanted to go, and we had the chance to go to school. I figured that a career in law would be ever changing, which would satisfy my need to always be learning. And, I knew deep down that it was the best fit for me.

Now I need to graduate from law school and pass the bar. And schlep everything back to Alaska.

Most Important Jobs

I think it is excellent policy for there to be enough decent-paying jobs for the least-educated quartile of men. 

The least-educated among us star in most of the "bad" social statistics - unemployment, crime, etc. In addition, they are (it seems) often the fathers of the children who are being raised by unmarried young women - children who are very likely to be poor and to face the longest odds at getting out of poverty. It's part of the cycle we hear so much about.

If We the People desire to have fathers support their children, and the mothers of their children, then those fathers are going to need an income, yes? 

But the least-educated men are less and less employable with every passing year. The jobs that the least-educated men are most able to do are less and less available, such as any of the "Ten Worst Jobs in America," including manufacturing. 

The overall policy seems to be to try to make the least-educated men more employable by making them more educated: job-training programs, adult education, and even "school reform" for schools full of poor kids. 

I know this is taboo, but focusing on the education side of the equation seems weird to me. It assumes that the people we most want to educate - the least-educated men - are ready, willing and able to be educated. But if that were the case, then... wouldn't they already be educated? In other words, doesn't the proposed answer (more education) merely beg the question, which is: why didn't men get more education? 

From a labor cost perspective, the least-educated men are the easiest to replace: the work they do can be most easily mechanized, or most easily replaced by workers in other countries. 

It would be more expensive for companies to have less-educated American men do the same work, and would result in more-expensive goods and services. But if more men were working, supporting more children, wouldn't that be better for all of us? 

This assumes that the least-educated men would work the jobs if they were available. That's a different question for a different post. 

--
-Erin M Lillie
"The invisible and the non-existent look very much alike." - Delos B. McKown

Sweetheart in Seattle

This is a photo of my wife, Patti, taken atop the world-famous Space Needle in Seattle.

It is "important" to me that one always refer to the Space Needle as "world-famous," because it is.

Patti is starting up her own blog. When she sets it up, I'll link to it.

First photo post

This is a photo of Dasher, my parent's cat, in a box.
I wanted to make sure I could post photos from Picasa, and one can't go wrong with a photo of a cat in a box.

Bail bond industry: off the rails?

From NPR, a fascinating look at yet another way poor people, usually with addiction or mental health conditions, get the shaft in an expensive way that does no one any good - except for the police state industry. And bail bonds companies. 

"Jail doesn't do anybody any good," he says. "The only thing that jail is good for is to keep the dangerous people in the community away from the people who don't pose a risk."

But that is not who is in the nation's jails. According to the Justice Department, two-thirds of the people in the nation's jails are petty, nonviolent offenders who are there for only one reason: They can't afford their bail.

Fear is good for business, if your business is expanding the police state. What's weird is the influence of the bail bonds industry. Like the deputy says, jail is for dangerous people. Non-dangerous people with addiction or mental illness conditions need help. Not hugs and kisses, but help. 

Bad boys: whatcha gonna do?

One of my favorite shows is "Cops." I liked watching it before I went to law school, and now, a few months from getting my J.D., I still like it. It's fun to watch out for Fourth Amendment violations (rare) and listening for the admissible incriminating statements made by the freshly-arrested (common). 

I also pay attention to the news, especially the crime stuff. To be fair, a lot of this is probably me trying to confirm my own biases. But I think I'm right. 

At any rate, it doesn't take a PhD in criminology to figure out that a supermajority of people who are in the criminal justice system were intoxicated at the time of arrest, mentally ill, or both. Thus, most "crime" is basically people (usually men) being high and behaving badly. This was true in the district court in which I handled misdemeanor cases last summer, and it's true on Cops and in the news. 

Also, a supermajority of people in jails and prisons are illiterate, do not have a high school diploma or GED, or both. 

Also, a supermajority of violent crime victims knew the assailant. 

Also, a supermajority of criminals are poor. 

From these facts, I draw two conclusions.

1. If you do not know any poorly-educated people, or are not around people who are high, then one's chances are being the victim of a crime are really, really low. Thus, you have very little to be afraid of regarding crime and criminals. 

2. Crime is directly connected to intoxication. Put another way, one of the possible effects of extreme intoxication is crime. And extreme intoxication, or substance abuse, is a pretty strong indication of addiction. Thus, trying to reduce crime is as simple - and as unlikely - as trying to reduce addiction. 

One way to react to crime is to arrest people after the fact. Another way is to reduce the number of criminals. A serious approach would be to encourage addiction and mental health treatment. But addiction treatment requires resources, especially a network of sober people, and poor people who are poorly educated and have addiction or mental health condition have very little in the way of those resources. 

Either way, taxpayers are on the hook. But one approach expands the police state, and the other way doesn't. 

Human biases point us towards the police state. First, we scare easily. Most people have virtually nothing to fear from most crime, but "criminals" are scary. 

Second, it is really hard to treat people for mental illness or addiction. They are lifetime conditions, which require occasional intensive involvement by trained professionals, and trained professionals are expensive. And everything they do is secret, or out of public view, and kinda boring. Few TV shows portray this world. 

On the other hand, cops are awesome, and so is Cops. Many TV shows portray this world. 

Relatedly, it is much, much easier politically to demand more cops, prisons, and tougher laws, even though none of it can stop people from getting high and hurting people they know. 

Also, it is much, much easier to become a cop than an effective mental health professional. No offense to cops: I love 'em. But cops are not responsible for changing the behavior other people, which is probably the hardest thing there is. 

I'll build more on this later. 

Racism: still kickin'

Some dumb-ass in Georgia wants to start a basketball league with only white players born to American parents. 

Don "Moose" Lewis, the commissioner of the AABA, said the reasoning behind the league's roster restrictions is not racism.

 

"There's nothing hatred about what we're doing," he said. "I don't hate anyone of color. But people of white, American-born citizens are in the minority now. Here's a league for white players to play fundamental basketball, which they like."

 

Lewis said he wants to emphasize fundamental basketball instead of "street-ball" played by "people of color." 

Atta-boy, Mr. Lewis, for the Southerner-stereotype-perpetuating two-fer: ignorant AND racist. Oy vey. 

State of the State of Alaska: too pristine?

Gov. Parnell gave his first SOS speech (full speech at Alaska Dispatch).

It's mostly Alaskan boilerplate: federal environmental regulations are bad because it hampers development, and development is good. But Alaska also will "leverage" $800 million in "federal infrastructure funds" for capital projects: that's like $1,200 for every man, woman and child in Alaska, right? Dang feds! Dang stimulus!

Here's my favorite part, though:

We will continue work on the road to Nome . . . .

Folks, I lived in Nome for several years. The Road to Nome has been a dream since before statehood, I think (and a nightmare to some Nomeites). It's about 500 airmiles from the road system; the dog trail is about 1,000 miles. Plus the road would probably need at least one ice-proof bridge across the Yukon. Most of it would go through federal land and over permafrost. The cost of a real live road would include the word "billion," maybe in the plural, and nevermind the upkeep. Unless someone finds the world's largest deposit of something special out there, it ain't happening. But if someone DOES finds the world's largest deposit of something special, especially oil, then that road would appear like magic.

It cracks me up when Alaskans seem genuinely angry at the effect of federal environmental policy on Alaska natural resource development. Of COURSE it sucks. The policy is that unique places, critters, and plants are off-limits. Most of Alaska is "unique." So 60% of the land and most of the water is off-limits. Duh.

In other words, Alaska is a giant park for the rest of America, which drives a lot of Alaskans nuts. Americans want the park to be pristine, and Alaskans want to dig it up - not a lot, just a little bit, here and there. You wouldn't even notice! Besides, Alaskans know that the odds of any American actually visiting said park is ridiculously small. And letting the locals dig up the frontier (a little bit, here and there) is the Story of America. Anyway, what else is Alaska supposed to do? Make toys? Resource development was the whole point of statehood, for cry-i-ay.

I'm pro-oil myself, if only because I understand that Alaska has two (related) major businesses: oil and the military. Everything else - timber, fish, minerals, tourism - is small potatoes. None of it can pay for Alaska's government. Oil can, and does, and thus oil is king. Therefore, I say: Long Live the King. It is a very thin line in Alaska between being anti-oil, and hypocrisy. But I can't line up behind the "feds are killing Alaska" meme. It's political noise. If I've learned one thing over the years, it's this: there is no real conflict between Big Oil and federal policy. And Big Oil always, always wins.

Unstable families: Common?

Reading about the newest Senator from Mass. in the NY Times, and this caught my eye:

Mr. Brown's craving for discipline and order was born of a chaotic childhood. His parents were divorced when he was 1, and each one was married four times. He lived for a time with his grandparents and dealt with an ever-changing cast of stepparents.

"Some of these marriages were not that pretty," said John Encarnaceo, a retired colonel in the Massachusetts National Guard and former boyfriend of Mr. Brown's mother, Judith Brown.

"I grew up fast," Mr. Brown recalled. "I remember waking up in the middle of the night, and hearing the banging and the screams and having to be the 5- or 6-year-old boy having to save Mom."

All of which increased Mr. Brown's chances of becoming a burden on society, but fortunately for him it didn't turn out that way (although certain political observers may feel otherwise right now). 

One thing I'll go on and on about is that dysfunctional parents have serious and long-lasting effects on their kids. Sometimes things work out, and sometimes they don't. But t's common. It's so common that I hypothesize that it's actually normal. Interestingly, many dysfunctional people are dysfunctional in ways that help them become "successful": driven, ambitious, "workaholics," people-pleasers, etc. Now, being a driven, ambitious people-pleaser is not necessarily a sign of dysfunction, and, even if it is, it might not matter than much to anyone. But it's really common to be a miserable person who makes others miserable, even in secret. I'm not saying this is the case of Mr. Brown, but there is certainly a very real risk of it - just like many (or most) of us.

Blogging to blog

Patti and I talked a lot about blogging this week. I have not succeeded yet in overcoming blogging inertia, so all of my blogs have fizzled out like the vast majority of new blogs do. Nonetheless, I've been encouraging her to start her own blog because I think she has something to add to the world. I encouraged her to quit worrying what her blog should be "about" and just to do it, and let the rest work itself out.

Naturally, she threw this reasoning right back at me, and here we are. Like writing in general, I think publishing probably requires as much tenacity as talent, so I may occasionally write a blog post about blogging itself, as I'm doing now, just to force myself to do so. Someday, maybe I'll look back on this and be glad I did. 

Juvie Justice: where rubber meets road (NY Times)

Of course fewer children should go to jail, so that's what NYC is doing.

Juvie prisons in NY are nasty and expensive, and most of the kids in them are harmless. Also, they're usually poor and from least-stable families.

Michael Jacobson, the director of the Vera Institute for Justice, said he thought the combination of agencies was a natural move, given the numbers of children who commit crimes and have also previously had contact with child-welfare agencies. Studies have shown that nearly 20 percent of prisoners under the age of 30 have spent time in foster care, according to data from the Center for Family Representation, an organization that provides legal help to parents involved in Family Court.

Many juvenile offenders are expensive people, since they will almost certainly re-offend if they don't get help.

At juvenile prisons, the recidivism rates are high: three-quarters of the young people released from detention are arrested again within three years.

I think understanding the context of juvenile offenders and the juvenile justice system sheds light on a bigger picture of the causes and effects of individual dysfunction, and the generally irrational responses to it all the way around. Over the years, I've pieced together a perspective about this dynamic that seems unorthodox and might be worth sharing, which is probably going to be a major theme in this blog. 

A blog post from e-mail

Apparently, this is possible. This post is merely a test, because I've been told that seeing is believing. 

I'm back

I'm forcing myself to blog again. Someday, I'll look back at this and smile because it's funny.