Monday Links for Feb 16

A lot of links this week....

1. The Importance of Civil Legal Aid - Story from Bill Moyers' website about the importance of legal aid, particularly civil legal aid, in addressing the war on poverty initiated by Lyndon Johnson.  I believe the article is right when it states that many think people have the right to free legal assistance in civil matters, as opposed to criminal matters, which is simply more problematic.  Unfortunately, this is an area that is often overlooked by policy makers, and the voting public.  We actually do a very poor job of funding legal aid in criminal matters, when it is required by our nation of laws and the Constitution.  This results in public defender offices being grossly overworked and underpaid in most situations.  But its hard to get people to support funding for something they believe just goes to the benefit of criminals, despite the constitutional requirements for such support.  In civil matters there is no true funding mechanism outside of legal aid organizations.  So, in matters of landlord-tenant relations, simple contracts, disputes over small amounts of property damage, etc., the poor have very little options for assistance because there is only so much pro bono work lawyers can do, and there is only so much legal aid funding available.  The result is a legal system that in civil matters discriminates on an economic basis in its availability for the poor to seek redress.

2. Vonnegut Graphs Stories - Neat story from the Washington Post regarding Kurt Vonnegut's theory of graphing the arcs of stories, utilizing their peaks and valleys of happiness versus bad fortune as the vertical axis and the length of the story as the horizontal axis.  The idea is interesting; and you can see in the graph examples in the story various archetypal stories that are told (and retold) in our civilization.  The story also includes a short video of Vonnegut giving a lecture on his graphing stories.   The video is a must watch, as it captures Vonnegut's humor and wit.  Ever since reading Slaughterhouse 5 I have been enthralled with Vonnegut.  I've read many of his essays and some of his other work, and have always come away better for it.  So it goes.

3. Rob Manfred's Uncommon Sense - Story from Rob Neyer regarding the new baseball commissioner, Rob Manfred, and his comments relating to how we (fans, society, journalists) treat players who may have used steroids.  Short blip, but to the point, Manfred notes his concern over how those are treated where there is only speculation because of what someone looks like, and there is no evidence.  Manfred notes that, having investigated players for steroid use, what a player looks like often has very little to do if a player used performance enhancing drugs.  I hope Manfred's reasonableness catches on, particularly with Hall of Fame voters, as the fact that guys like Mike Piazza and Jeff Bagwell are not gaining enough support for induction is a joke, when certain voters just believe without any evidence or data that they may have used steroids.  Bud Selig probably didn't act fast enough as commissioner in addressing steroid issues in baseball, and then when he did, didn't do enough to address the vilification of those that were simply guilty by association in the eyes of writers.  Here's hoping Manfred will continue to make these types of comments when discussing these issues.

4. I had something in last week's post regarding the issues in Indiana surrounding the tension between the State Superintendent of Education, a Democrat, and the Republican Governor and legislature. Said tension has continued to blow up this past week, focusing on the news surrounding the length of the ISTEP test, which is a result of how the standards changed in Indiana last year as a result of opting out of Common Core, and everyone's reactions to that.  As such, I read a lot about these particular issues, and as it is something I have paid attention to ever since Ritz started her campaign for State Superintendent (and before in considering her predecessor's, Tony Bennett's, policies).  Here are four (one, two, three, four) different articles discussing different aspects of this issue, including local editorials and national papers discussing the blow up and background to the myriad of issues and players involved.  And a fifth article that kind of sums up my thoughts to date on the legislative session in Indiana - lots of meaningless bills and actions taken to pander to certain votes, and little legislation seeking true education policy reforms, creating better business opportunities, and creating better environments for higher wages and income growth.  All in all, the legislative session thus far in Indiana has been a true mess.

5.  Left Out - Article written by Andrew McCutchen, center fielder for the Pittsburgh Pirates, and currently one of the best players in baseball.  McCutchen is responding to the news surrounding the little league baseball team from Chicago, but speaks to a growing issue with baseball - its lack of accessibility to lower income families.  Baseball has become a travel league sport in many ways, which excludes a lot of kids.  The issue runs deeper than just baseball, obviously, but the article was an interesting read.

6. Why 3 Hour Work Days Haven't Happened - The title refers to a prediction by the economist John Maynard Keynes, about how productivity increases in the future, and the distribution of enough resources to go around, would result in increase in leisure time for individuals.  While some of Keynes' predictions have been spot on, he has missed the boat on this one, as the article discusses.  Good stuff here.

7. Interstellar Messages - article discusses the debate about whether we should be sending radio messages into space with the intention of it being heard by any possible alien species.  I'm a sucker for stories involving astronomy and the scope of the universe, and this short read briefly makes me think about what would be appropriate messages to send to aliens, if any do exist and could ever be reached.

8. Exercise Can Make You More Thoughtful - I kept this in my reading list all week to post here for only two reasons.  First, a reminder to myself of the many benefits of exercise.  Second, the article mentions Descartes, and hints at the impact his philosophy has had on Western thought - the dualism of mind and body, and how we view them separately.  I often wonder how our thought would have evolved differently if we viewed the mind and body as one, not two distinct aspects of our reality.  For example, would it help remove the stigma and misunderstanding from "mental" illness if we viewed as a physical, body issue, not a mental or mind issue.

9. Are Picture Books Leading Our Kids Astray - Satirical look at some of the things that happen in kids books.  As a frequent sarcastic critic when I'm reading Maia's books, I found this amusing.

10. The Purge - The author discusses an experiment she did at the beginning of the year, when she purged herself of most social media interaction, in order to refocus and rebalance.  I often find that much of social media can be an unwanted distraction that you don't realize until you've wasted an hour.  I've been off of Facebook for almost a month (already received a couple emails from Facebook about my lack of logging in), and it's been nice.  I do think in many of our lives, including my own, that a "purge" that the author goes through would be beneficial - to reset and refocus on how time should be spent.