Public Education – a Look at the Battleground

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Since the founding of the United States, public education always has been an orphan child amid governments and private institutions. Government budgets grudgingly admit there is a national responsibility to assure the nation is prepared for the society at hand. But budgeting falls far short of what educationists call a sustained philosophy of education. Symptoms are both conceptual and budgetary. Teachers are grossly underpaid in terms of their influence on children, on the need for sophisticated communication skills, on the required level of contemporary, continuing education, on resources, and in perspective, their role in sustaining an aggressive, competitive, and culturally mature nation. School architecture, forever looking like factories and prisons, confirms the disregard for investment, vision, invention, and genuine interest in the progress and importance of public education.

The private sector lauds its success in creating exemplary educational institutions similar to Ivy League private schools, which cater to more elite and proven achievers and tout fiscal success dependent on massive endowments and trusts – but disown the problem laden responsibilities facing the US population in general. In secondary schools, gerrymandering is as prevalent as it is in election precincts. Private and special curriculum secondary school boards work constantly to avoid being accountable for ‘public’ education by drawing school districts every bit as skewed as voting districts and, in typical fashion in an election, making application to be a student as difficult as possible.

The concept of ‘for profit’ schools, that is, a private firm contracts with the government to set curricula, set the budget, and do this with the aim of pocketing profit at the end must, by the very nature of the model, compromise student learning in deference to profit. That the ‘for profit’ model survives speaks to the indifference of legislators when setting public education budgets.

An emerging member on the education battleground is the corporation. Corporations have no choice but to have access to socially adapted and specially educated employees. In light of the indifference by government and private interest, corporations have no choice but to develop proprietary education programs. Just as with other players engaged in education, corporations feel no accountability for public education beyond corporate need.

The truth of the matter, at least in the United States, is no one wants to tackle the complexities of public education that must be resolved to elevate education to its functionally deserved station in society.

– – – –

There is another issue that will be present on the coming battleground: curriculum. Cathy Davidson, a leading voice in education, writes in “The New Education,” that the current model consisting of age-based grades, segregated subjects, trivia tests and student ranking, was created in 1853 when new accounting techniques were popular and everything suffered from intensive listing, pricing and product value – a movement related to a new economics called capitalism. Davidson complains, “That was 165 years ago. Things have changed.” Her book focuses on college education and suggests in the future four-year colleges may teach more like community colleges – especially trade instruction that puts together in a unified package “everything a student may need” to find a career.

The packaged curriculum has been utilized in singular institutions similar to Montessori and classless instruction in secondary schools, and in some community colleges. More specialized college curricula are emerging. Saint John’s College in Annapolis, Maryland has a curriculum based solely on reading a collection of classic books; Saint John students rank at the top in post graduate studies in subsequent institutions – including science and engineering.

Needless to say, the Internet stands alone as the primary cause for changing curricula. In the 1970’s mariner took a class in one of IBM’s education centers – then considered to be leading edge education for how to utilize computers in business. An instructor, whose name is long forgotten, said what’s different today (1970’s) is that information is free and fully available. Everyone has immediate access to all information. Just because you know a lot of detail isn’t the measure of worthiness – it’s how you apply the information that counts. That insight was known in the 1970’s and should have changed education methods then. But how does one rank students based on subjective application rather than process memorization? Is rank based on trivia testing passé?

– – – –

What deters anyone from wanting to solve the public education issue is its sociological quagmire. The old adage about leading a horse to water but not being able to make it drink looms large in the subject of education. Student motivation is not a constant. Further, everything from religion to job opportunity to distracting expectations to family circumstances brings rules, exceptions, disagreements, and specific mandates to the classroom. Public education does not have the advantage of discriminatory student selection; public education cannot recognize financial status; public education does not generate capital gains for public education. Yet, public education must deliver millions of children and adults to the cultural marketplace prepared for success.

Everyone knows the world lives on the cusp of the largest shift in culture in all of human history. The definition of virtually everything is unravelling on a day-to-day basis. Cultural stability will depend on being prepared to comprehend and participate in a montage of unknown values. At the moment, the education industry does not prepare the common citizen for survival. Society hangs in the balance.

The battleground lies ready for a skirmish.

Ancient Mariner

Matters of Preponderance

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Mariner receives from a relative each year at Christmas a calendar with daily sayings. The theme tends to be ethereal, whimsical, transcendental and often profound. Mariner confesses most sayings leave him puzzled or blank in reaction. Still, there are many that provoke obscure thought.

For the weekend, February 3 and 4, two sayings were offered:

“I prefer keeping in mind even the possibility that existence has its own reason for being”

– Wislawa Szymborska. (Maria Wisława Anna Szymborska was a Polish poet, essayist, translator and recipient of the 1996 Nobel Prize in Literature.)

“If we don’t turn around now, we just may get where we’re going”

– Native American saying.

Both sayings piqued mariner’s curiosity. The two are as far apart as one can imagine. The first truly is profound and runs amok in the Cosmos while the other is pragmatic, skeptical and of the moment.

Examining the second saying first, the Native American saying, mariner is reminded of the current advertisement on television showing a rookery of penguins marching across the endless miles of Antarctic ice sheets back to their nesting area. Two penguins, however, are using a GPS device to find their way and seem to have taken a different path. Finally, the penguins reset their destination and are advised that they will arrive in 92 days.

Similarly, mariner often tells a story in his sermons about the housewife who, when baking a whole ham, would always cut away a significant portion before baking the ham. Her daughter asked, “Why do you cut off the end?” “Oh,” her mother said, “that’s how Grandma always does it.” Later, when the mother and daughter were visiting Grandma, the daughter took the opportunity to ask Grandma why she cut the ham: “Because the pan is too small,” Grandma replied.

Ingrained habit has its dark side. Mariner’s grandmother, a feisty German immigrant, would reject an individual with great ire if they suggested a better way to do a habitual task. It is human nature to allocate as much thoughtless behavior as possible to the deep reaches of the basal ganglia – a part of the brain that runs habitual behavior without need for logic or reconsideration. One has many, many gestures and emotional reactions that are thoughtlessly launched from the basal ganglia. Does one follow an instruction list when using the toilet? Virtually every gesture is thoughtless and automatic. To prove it, try wiping yourself with the opposite hand; raise that zipper with the opposite hand. Disrupt enough habitual gestures and a person will find themselves lost as to what to do next. Like the penguins, which relied too long on the automatic nature of their GPS without considering reality, they got where they were going because they didn’t turn around.

The heart of the matter is that long held emotions and attitudes also reside in the basal ganglia and are launched thoughtlessly. Consider any prejudice – take racism or class rejection or personal arrogance; like the housewife cutting the ham, reason is not in play. In fact, one would be unable to leave the house to go to work except that the majority of emotions, gestures and opinions are automatically deployed. At least a person has space in their frontal cortex to solve Sudoku. Evaluate your habits once in a while or you may get where you’re going.

– – – –

The first saying, about a reason for existence, defies thinking about functional values as reasons to exist. This is not an exercise solved with an instruction list. Wislawa’s wish is more in despair than it is in pursuit of obscure philosophical speculation. One hears loss and waste in her words.

The twenty-first century has started with unimaginable confusion in a time when everything we know about the Earth and the life living on that Earth is under stress – both physically and existentially. To twist a trite commercial saying, this is not your father’s world; it may not even be the father’s world mentioned in the Christian hymnal. Whatever reason existence has to exist, it blessed Wislawa by calling her home in 2012 – before Donald.

Ancient Mariner

 

To Every Thing There is a Season

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Mariner opened his email account to read new mail. He opened the New Yorker email to find a sad, poetic article by David Remnick. It is about the slow decline of football. Mariner played football from the age of eleven to twenty-nine in recreation leagues, high school, college and semi-pro. It was and still is an important emotional base in his life. Older men regret loss of the capability or right to have sex, smoke cigars, drink bourbon, lift very heavy objects and climb ladders . . . mariner, too, suffers these absences and further he regrets that never again will he play football.

Yet, the truth is out; football can and usually does cause C.T.E. (Chronic Traumatic Encephalopathy). A long list of mental inabilities is included in CTE, most of them end in death. Parents are asking the same question posed about boxing decades ago only this time it’s about football: Do you want your kids to play football?

It is a kind eulogy, like petting a dying dog gently on the head. Mariner recommends the pleasure of reading David’s article. See:

 https://www.newyorker.com/news/sporting-scene/footballs-long-eclipse?mbid=nl_Daily%20020318%20Control&CNDID=49421095&spMailingID=12871100&spUserID=MTg3Njg2NDM4MTg0S0&spJobID=1340252035&spReportId=MTM0MDI1MjAzNQS2

Ancient Mariner

 

 

Walking as a Cultural Phenomenon

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When was the last time you rode a horse to the Post Office, elementary school, fast food restaurant, relatives, friends or a nearby shopping district? Probably not for a long time if ever. Most likely you ride in or on a vehicle. Walk? Poo – who has time to walk? Walking is for health obsessives and retired people. However, it is true that the most important physical function of Homo sapiens is walking. Walking was our survival tool back in the early days; we could walk all day without stopping. Still present today are parts of the brain that lie idle until you walk.

Walking has more benefits than lifting weights, yoga, meditation, housework, gardening – even swimming. None of these are bad; in fact if you pursue them, continue! But walking is magical. The whole brain – conscious and unconscious, troubled and untroubled, thinking and unthinking, healthy and unhealthy – knows immediately when you begin to walk. At a proper pace, walking even induces meditation, leaving the rest of the brain to pay attention to the erstwhile idle walking instructions.

The benefits of walking have been proven over and over and over again. The health industry is rife with advice to patients to walk. Mariner went to Mayo Clinic recently with four diverse conditions in mind. Every physician said walking will improve mariner’s situation.

Why don’t we walk as part of our daily routine? Time. Time is why we don’t darn socks anymore, don’t have clothes that should be ironed, prefer to survive on frozen, ready-to-eat meals, order everything online instead of using storefronts, use Interstates instead of US highways, put up with abuse when flying, driving one’s self and the kids to a neighborhood event instead of walking, on and on . . . except watching television. We always have time for television from 5:00AM to 2:00AM; certainly there is no time to walk for Pete’s sake!

Actually, we all have time. It’s just not how we do things. Using mariner’s town and family as an example, we do drive everywhere even though walking anywhere in town is not a great effort. Two things must occur: 1, slow the day down. Believe it or not, everything still will be accomplished. 2, if your destination is within a mile or two, walk instead of drive. In mariner’s town this applies to the bank, Post Office, laundry, three family households, library, churches, golf course, convenience store, discount store, lumber yard, fair grounds, car garages, etc. In our town, we can walk to two gas stations. Simply make time in your time-driven schedule to walk as part of your daily experience. Simply say to your family as you leave, “I’m walking to the Post Office.”

Mariner will not engage in the detailed chemistry or benefits of walking – information is everywhere; just type ‘benefits of walking’ in your search engine or go to your library.

If mariner must walk, you must walk, too.

Ancient Mariner

Old Testament Christians in America

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Politico.com headlined an article about millions of voters who believe God arranged for Donald to be President. It turns out it was primarily Pentecostals early in his campaign. Still, polls show a lot more citizens than just Pentecostals believe God interceded (He must have His reasons). The theme ‘Make America Great Again’ has a lot to do with Pentecostal support and with other fundamentalist-leaning believers who have an increasingly difficult time as American culture drifts left.

An interceding God who would do such things as impose Donald on a population is a God the vast majority of Americans accept. It is rare to visit with an individual who believes God is an unchanging, nonjudgmental power of love that does not interfere with our daily lives but requires us to use God’s power to improve the wellbeing of everyone – including ourselves. The disturbing issue to mariner is that it is the Old Testament God who plays pranks like anointing Donald. It is the Hebrew God – a theology that dates back to when theology and faith were just beginning to coalesce.

Mariner could find no polls specific to the preference for an interceding God or a God with a universal, constant presence that leaves history to humans. Based on his readings and personal experiences over a lifetime, mariner speculates that Christian believers in the New Testament (Christian) God are at best 1 in every 500; 1 in every 5000 if nonbelievers (called ‘nons’ today) are counted.

Aside from the Trinity being irrelevant when one believes God can play with history, God immediately becomes our own belief in who God is. If God is not a singular, universal presence, then God can have opinions – maybe opinions just like each of us. God can be prejudiced, racist, allow wealth to reflect faith – just like each of us. We end up believing in ourselves – conveniently blaming a sham God if things don’t go our way.

All of us are aware that theology of any kind is under stress today. We must be careful not to humanize our theology else there is no ultimate truth to our being. One will have only one’s self to be God.

Ancient Mariner

 

REFERENCE SECTION 1-26-18

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Today’s post is all reference section. It is composed of three distinct areas of interest: Gerrymandering, Philip K. Dick, fiction writer, and successfully cloned monkeys.

– – – –

Gerrymandering

It is excellent news that Nate Silver, mariner’s preferred statistician and odds maker at www.fivethirtyeight.com, is sponsoring a detailed look at gerrymandering. His staff has launched a project called “The Gerrymandering Project.” It made its first splash today and is, in typical 538 style, loaded with insight and detail that is free of political nuance. For example, it states that there are many ways to skin a rabbit when it comes to new thoughts about how to fix gerrymandering. The ‘Project’ looks at six models:

To maximize the number of usually Democratic districts

To maximize the number of usually Republican districts

To make the partisan breakdown of states’ House seats proportional to the electorate

To promote highly competitive elections

To maximize the number of districts in which one minority group makes up the majority of the voting-age population in the district (what we’ll refer to as a majority-minority district)

To be compact while splitting as few counties as possible

If ever, ever, ever mariner wished his readers would click on a link, this is the one: http://fivethirtyeight.com/tag/the-gerrymandering-project/?ex_cid=TheGerrymanderingProject . Load this website in your favorites.

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Philip K. Dick

Our overall attitude about life is blended with many current events that defy definition. Philip Kindred Dick was an American science fiction writer who wrote during the psychological turmoil of the sixties – the Age of Aquarius. Dick explored philosophical, social, and political themes in his novels with plots dominated by monopolistic corporations, alternative universes, authoritarian governments, and altered states of consciousness. His work reflected his personal interest in metaphysics and theology, and often drew upon his life experiences in addressing the nature of reality, identity, drug abuse, schizophrenia, and transcendental experiences. Dick is chronicled in an article in the Boston Review, a literary magazine online and on Facebook. An excerpt is reproduced below:

“Standard utopias and standard dystopias are each perfect after their own particular fashion. We live somewhere queasier—a world in which technology is developing in ways that make it increasingly hard to distinguish human beings from artificial things. The world that the Internet and social media have created is less a system than an ecology, a proliferation of unexpected niches, and entities created and adapted to exploit them in deceptive ways.

Vast commercial architectures are being colonized by quasi-autonomous parasites. Scammers have built algorithms to write fake books from scratch to sell on Amazon, compiling and modifying text from other books and online sources such as Wikipedia, to fool buyers or to take advantage of loopholes in Amazon’s compensation structure. Much of the world’s financial system is made out of bots—automated systems designed to continually probe markets for fleeting arbitrage opportunities. Less sophisticated programs plague online commerce systems such as eBay and Amazon, occasionally with extraordinary consequences, as when two warring bots bid the price of a biology book up to $23,698,655.93 (plus $3.99 shipping).

In other words, we live in Philip K. Dick’s future, not George Orwell’s or Aldous Huxley’s.”

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China has cloned Long-Tailed Macaques – a fellow primate. Let’s jump right to hyper speed paranoia. Artificial Intelligence will control society; now, computers, if they need a human, can make their own! How long will it be before naturally bred Homo sapiens will be extinct? Get a job in 2085? Hah! The NFL needn’t worry about dementia; just clone another left tackle! Harmony.com will offer spouses made to order from a catalogue. Forget those antique mechanical Stepford Wives; get the real thing at Macy’s!

Like we don’t have enough change already.

The cloning is in the news right now. Most major newspapers cover the event. Try online at http://www.chicagotribune.com/news/nationworld/science/ct-clone-monkeys-20180124-story.html

Ancient Mariner

 

Whence Compromise?

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Below is a ‘two feet on the ground’ quote from the National Public Radio (NPR) website:

“….Democrats call them “American dreamers,” Republicans call them “illegal immigrants.” Democrats say they should be allowed legal status. Republicans say no, they are here illegally and need to go — or their status should be part of a larger immigration overhaul that limits and controls future immigration.

Who Will Carry The Blame For The Shutdown? Maybe No One.

Both sides say they have the American people with them as they struggle to end the government shutdown, and both are right — in a way.

Polls show at least three Americans in four agree the DACA population should have legal status to stay. But a clear majority of Americans also think it was not worth shutting the government down over DACA. That’s true too, and the shutdown is the issue of the moment, right?

Truth be told, neither party is ever in touch with all the American people, or even most of them. They are in touch with the people who voted for them or gave them money (or both) — or who are most likely to do so going forward.

They may say they hear America singing, but they are really only listening to their own section of the choir….”[1]

If we stand back far enough, we notice that the Federal Government is not capable of compromise; there is no dominance by a common-sense political center. From the end of WW II until about 1986, citizens were accustomed to common sense governance when the likes of Fulbright, Byrd, Kennedy, Baker, Humphrey, Dole, Biden, Rockefeller, Daschle, Bradley, Chaffee, LBJ, Dirksen and other moderates controlled the Senate. Deals were pragmatic, in the interest of the citizen majority, and (we may miss this more than anything) a half-hour breakfast between party leaders guaranteed a civic minded bill. It may be important to mention that until Nixon in 1968, Reagan in 1980 and Trump in 2016, Presidents were not demagogues.

Civic minded. Is that what is missing? It is true that an elected body reflects its electorate; are we not civic minded? We are not. We are cleaved by color, wealth, environment, entitlement, guns, religion, drugs, economy, war and basic human value. There is no common cause; there is no way to walk a straight line through all these differences – there is no common definition of America. It is no wonder other nations have begun to look askance at our leadership.

Today, as mariner writes this post, the Senate backed away from civic minded legislation. Both parties chose to salvage their party interests rather than step forward to a compromise that would move anything forward except a continuation of samo-samo: duck reality for another three weeks. The democrats caved rather than stand for moral principle; the republicans caved to the fringe right (Steve Miller) rather than stand for moral principle.

– – – –

Like changes in weather caused by global warming, government suffers increasing incompetency as it is overwhelmed by fragmented factions that do not represent the pragmatic center of our nation. Who is to draw the straight line across a fragmented populace? It is, of course, the citizens.

Start with state governments by eliminating gerrymandering. Political parties, as today’s news suggests, are not centrist in nature. The party comes first and any neutral process is challenged to serve the party’s best interest. Redistricting is severely abused by parties to control specific interests regardless of generic public interest. As a first step in restoring control of our democracy back to the electorate, and having the electorate at large decide what civil mindedness means, make redistricting an apolitical process.

Remove monetary influence from campaigns and from Congressional rules for appointment to important positions, which currently go to members who can raise the most party contributions to go along with length of membership. Monetary privilege will be difficult to stop. Like the proverbial snake, its head must be cut off. Eliminate political action committees; eliminate private donations from outside the district; require promotional advertising to be funded locally. In other words, force the candidate to come to the people, not to the special interests. This will stop corporate privilege in legislative processes and make citizens the more important influence.

Make voting tax deductible. As the leading democracy in the world, we are 27th in terms of voter turnout; only 47% of eligible voters voted in the Trump/Clinton election. Further, allow dropping voters from the roles if they didn’t vote in the two most recent sequential Presidential elections. Further, in addition to in person voting, permit 30-day early voting, voting by mail, email, and links to election sites.

Require civics education in high schools; require election overviews in community colleges; mandate universal holiday for all Federal and State elections. Prohibit campaign promotional sources outside the district.

Slowly, special interests have eliminated the common voter. If the voters want civic minded government, they must assure that their involvement in elections is the dominant influence.

Perhaps a strong moderate legislative process can return…

Ancient Mariner

 

[1] For full article, see: https://www.npr.org/2018/01/22/579397310/shutdown-question-who-s-out-of-touch-with-the-american-people?utm_source=npr_newsletter&utm_medium=email&utm_content=20180122&utm_campaign=breakingnews&utm_term=nprnews

Our Life of Constant Upheaval

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Many historians and political writers have identified the Bernie Sanders movement, the Donald trump movement, and the tea party movement, among many lesser movements, as populist movements. This is not a new phenomenon in US history. In fact, populist rebellions have emerged regularly since the founding of the nation.

Mariner has written many posts addressing populism. There are a few common issues that are present in all populist movements: Most common is the belief that ordinary citizens should have authority over the elitist class; the cause is common to many uprisings – Bernie, for example, is a rerun of the 1890’s uprising that protested the existence of an elitist class and income inequality. Donald Trump sounds exactly like the ‘Know-Nothing’ rebellion – in more ways than one. The rebellion was due to immigration and threats of job security.

In the 1880’s corporations were charging excessive fees to farmers and other labor level citizens (an issue that has a familiar ring in today’s world where corporations are excessively hoarding wealth at the cost of salaries in general) a situation that led to the creation of the ‘People’s Party.’ William Jennings Bryan led this movement through three presidential campaigns and is famous for the quote, “You shall not crucify mankind upon a cross of gold.”

It is obvious that populist uprisings occur when significant change to the culture is necessary. It is also true that at the voting booth, populists always lose – almost always.

– – – –

Standing to the side of history and watching populism not as a process but what the impact is on about a fourth of the population, the disruption to stable daily life is not pleasant. To willingly suffer insecurity, a growing doubt about the future and a willingness to physically challenge authority with little rationality suggests maltreatment by the core society that gives them personal definition. Why does this happen? Why does society drift away from fairness and the psychology of teamsmanship?

Many will surmise that it is the innate nature of Homo sapiens to be competitive and possessive – two characteristics that improve security and survival. This suggests that mitigating these behaviors is why humans created governments. There are only three philosophies of government that can pretend to mitigate base behavior: socialism, communism and democracy. There are many cultural variations, of course, but why hasn’t the world mastered any of these philosophies?

Perhaps we never will. But the current conflict of change includes populism, capitalism, democratic authority, displacement by artificial intelligence, environmental constraint and a world population wavering on dysfunctionality. Governments will not reconcile this massive change by next Christmas.

What is new in context is that an informed and personally responsible electorate must take charge. Not the familiar party-driven, lobby-funded, class-defined society thus far. Not the faux citizenry of Robespierre. It will take management by collective population to stabilize government inadequacy. Unfortunately, we who are alive today will not see success in our lifetimes. Nevertheless, continuous improvement toward that day rides on you. Vote wisely.

Ancient Mariner

Mariner goes to the Garage

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Mariner is of an age similar to his favored old pickup truck. In times past, he and the truck had good times together hauling lumber, driving through snow and floods, tossing hay to the livestock, driving across the continent, towing everything from logs to sailboats. Even now the truck’s power and drive chain work fine. The interior shows wear, is stained in places from coffee, oil and chemicals. The body is rusting through at the quarter panels and the rear bumper shows a patch of rust. Manufactured in 2002, it is just a plain old truck without the high-tech toys of new models. The fact is the good times are in the past; it sits in the shed a lot. It isn’t worth much anymore and the time has come to weigh the cost of keeping it on the road or cashing out with whatever one can get on the market.

So it is with mariner.

In fact, the comparison is very similar – just switch the word truck for mariner. Fortunately, most humans aren’t sold to a junk yard or forced into life-ending labor. Mariner will lumber on, sitting in the shed a lot and pursuing chores of less dimension and adventure. Do not construe this perspective as depression. One senses that times and experiences change as one grows older; mariner doesn’t jitterbug anymore or play football or shoe horses or work 17-hour days but there are other pleasantries that emerge: Time to enjoy others around you simply because they are there. Time to piddle (piddle means to be deeply occupied with issues of little significance – a strange blue flower in the hedge row; squirrels living an entire life experience in the back yard; watching the wife fold clothes; writing posts for the Ancient Mariner.)

It is time to take mariner to a garage for a full checkup. The garage is called Mayo Clinic in Rochester, Minnesota.

Having experienced only the typical clinics and hospitals scattered about the towns and cities of the United States, mariner is struck by the different way this colossal medical city performs in comparison. Mariner is assigned to an admissions team of 23 physicians, nurses, specialists and clinical assistants who quickly launch Mayo operations into dozens of examinations, diagnostics, and consultations all of which reveal pleasingly extensive expertise among the mechanics. His first visit, primarily a discovery of who is mariner, took three days.

Mariner is back for a few days of continued testing and data gathering and to have consultations that discuss the ramifications of rusty quarter panels. He must state that the overwhelming advice is to get out of the shed and back on the road. In the near future, mariner will visit Mayo again to discuss the carburetor and the GPS.

Aside from the medical efficiency and notable expertise are the experience of tunnels and the logistics of moving smoothly from one check-in desk to the next covering 19 floors in two Admissions buildings. Available to patients are many rooms for urine tests, bloodletting, x-rays, ultrasounds, MRIs and other functions such that the patient moves quickly between stations.

But it is the tunnels that are the most fascinating experience. As the reader may know, Minnesota harbors the coldest winter weather in the United States. Mayo likely would empty in the winter. Mayo has dealt with this by arranging tunnels between every hospital building, along with several hotels and restaurants. One never need face the bracing experience of high winds and whiteouts above. Mayo truly is a city within the City of Rochester. Its tunnels are as busy as a major airport or Grand Central Station. In the main tunnel, a cavernous space, patients continuously play a grand piano.

Finally, it’s a great place to have prescriptions filled.

Mariner gives Mayo high marks across the board – which is in line with their annual rating for US hospitals: number 1 every year.

Ancient Mariner

 

Only So Much is Tolerable

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Like millions of folks, mariner is a fan of the late shows on television: Trevor Noah, Brian Williams, Jimmy Kimmel, Jimmy Fallon, Seth Myers, James Corden, Carson Daly, even the weather channel and CBS Overnight News if mariner is still awake.

One show mariner doesn’t watch much anymore is Stephen Colbert. His opening remarks are just too much over the top. This evening, Colbert trashed the North Koreans with full blown character assassination misrepresenting the quite legitimate skating pair that may come to the Olympics. This intense character assassination occurs in every show. Mariner is no friend of Donald but making fun of Donald in a uselessly destructive way does not help the audience understand reality. Not even Fox News goes to the lengths of Colbert. Mariner agrees with Anna Faris, star of the sitcom Mom, who told Colbert in a Late Show interview that she would not date him because he was a narcissist. Strong judgment perhaps but in mariner’s view, Colbert is not entertaining.

– – – –

On to legitimate news, two issues are rising in Congressional dialogue: The critically important fact that Russia is meddling in US elections – under reported by the media who are entranced with the Donald show. Donald, of course, still pretends that nothing is wrong. Surely this attitude alone leads to criminal neglect by the office of President and, to spread neglect, the Congress is so wrapped up in the survival of their careers that the validity of our election system does not matter as long as they are reelected. On the horizon is the Supreme Court hearing two cases about gerrymandering – keep an ear.

The second is the raping of policy and regulations that protect citizenry from big money abuses. The issues are slow to rise in the news cycle but the 2018 election will focus on the destabilization caused by Donald’s cabinet.

Mariner is in a sour mood. Best he ends it here.

Ancient Mariner