Reach Upward

More Older Motorcyclists Makes for More Accidents

2008-07-17T20:07:00.003-06:00

Years ago before we had any kids, my lovely wife and I took a quick trip to Yellowstone National Park. We followed a couple riding a large Harley-Davidson motorcycle for some distance before arriving at the west entrance of the park.

The man driving the motorcycle sported long dark-ish hair, a black leather jacket, jeans, and biker boots. The long bleach blonde hair of his female passenger streamed behind her. Black leather pants and a trim black leather jacket stretched tightly across her shapely frame. Matching leather boots completed the ensemble.

We were baffled by the soda can the woman held in one hand. She occasionally brought it to her mouth but she didn’t appear to be drinking from it.

When we arrived at the park entrance, the woman dismounted while the man paid the entrance fee. When she turned, it was clear that her distant rear-view beauty had been deceptive. She had a stony face that belied years of hard living. She walked to the side of the road and spit a wad of chewing tobacco into the gravel. The soda can had been her spittoon. My wife nearly threw up.

Motorcycle ownership has trended steadily upward for years. The rate of motorcycle accidents and fatalities (as a percentage of ownership) has also trended upward since 1997 (see web Bike World report). Fatalities per mile and per 100,000 registered bikes have shot up. The rate of older bikers getting into accidents has increased significantly.

You’re not alone if you think you’ve seen an increase in the number of aging Baby Boomers riding motor cycles. The age groups with the largest increase of motorcycle ownership are the 40-49 and 50+ demographics. In 1990 these groups owned 16.3 and 10.1 percent respectively of motorcycles in the US. By 2003 those percentages jumped to 27.9 and 25.1, as the total number of registered bikes rose from 3 million to 5.4 million. Trends since then have continued.

Boomers have always been far more used to recreation and leisure than were their parents. Now that Boomers are empty nesters and retirees they have more time and more disposable income at their current age demographic than any previous generation. It is now possible for them to nostalgically relive the glory days of their youth, but in far higher style.

A bottom-line new Harley will cost you over $17K, but you can spend more than $35K on a nicer model. You can save some money by getting a used bike. Or you can rent one for a trip. Of course, not all Boomer bikers go for Harleys, although, older bikers buy Harleys more than any other brand. Many enjoy taking on the whole faux Hell’s Angels persona for weekend rides.

The sub-40 crowd can’t afford this expensive hobby. They went from owning 71.6 percent of all US motorcycles in 1990 to owning only 41.4 percent in 2003. The total number of motorcycles owned by this crowd remained flat from 1990 through 2003. So did the total number of accidents for this group during that period. This means that pretty much all ownership and accident rate growth has been among the older age groups.

My family owned motorcycles from the time I was 12 until I was in my mid-20s. Although I don’t currently own a motorcycle, I am still licensed to drive motorcycles and I have occasionally enjoyed riding other people’s bikes throughout the years. There have been times when I have nearly been hit by inattentive automobile drivers. Although I’m not planning on it, the day may come when I own a motorcycle again.

But I can’t see myself ever doing the whole weekend geezer biker gang thing. I simply can’t comprehend the value in that kind of activity. Wearing black T-shirts and head bandannas featuring skulls and bones when you’re getting increasingly closer to being a pile of skeletal remains yourself seems pretty strange to me. If others want to pretend to be ancient Sundowners, that’s fine with me. Older bikers need to be aware that they’re going to pay higher insurance rates.

I do suggest that anyone that rides a motorcycle should attend a rider education class. In the class you learn some surprisingly simple things that could save your life that are unknown to most riders. It’s not like they’re secrets, but few riders seem to know anything about them. If you’re going to ride, the time and money for the classes are worthwhile investments. It might help you avoid contributing to the statistical accident trend.

Let the Persecution Prosecution Begin

2008-07-16T16:47:00.002-06:00

I’m not quite sure what to make of Sen. Harry Reid’s (D-NV) push to have a congressional hearing about “alleged crimes involving the Fundamentalist LDS Church” (see D-News article, SL-Trib article).

Reid alleges “pervasive criminal activity” by the FLDS. Specifically mentioned are “sexual abuse, bigamy and sexual conduct with minors.” All of these are state rather than federal matters, unless a child is transported across state lines for the purpose of engaging in sexual acts. Also cited is the violation of child labor laws, which can involve both state and federal statutes.

More to the point, the SL-Trib article notes:

“Reid contends that the FLDS are an organized crime syndicate that has engaged in bribery, extortion, fraud, embezzlement, witness tampering and labor violations. He wants the Justice Department to launch a federal racketeering investigation.”

As with child labor issues, some of these could be both state and federal matters.

It seems problematic that the only people that are invited to testify at next week’s hearing are “politicians, [anti-polygamy] activists and ex-FLDS members.” That starts to look like a witch hunt. FLDS spokesmen have questioned the credibility of such testimonies and have called for testimony from the FLDS as well. It seems that even when a hearing has been held about mob racketeering, the mob has been able to present its side. Why not the FLDS? Is Sen. Reid afraid of something?

Sen. Reid’s allegations and approach seem all too similar to the federal persecutions that were heaped on the good senator’s own church in the 1860s through 1880s. If you look hard enough, you can probably find some federal statute that can be used to charge any strange group of people you happen to dislike.

Of course, “the women and kids” are cited as the victims that must be saved from the horrors of a polygamous church. Never mind the fact that far more children suffer much graver depredations in our inner cities and other parts of our society. We tolerate far more bizarre family configurations than the FLDS have. We may not like the way the FLDS organize themselves and their families, but they have been found by judges to have loving home and family environments.

If the FLDS are involved in real crimes they should be investigated and prosecuted. But they should get their day in court. If we are merely fishing for an excuse to charge them with something so that we can destroy their church, we should take a step back and realize that even people with whom we disagree have liberty to live and worship as they wish.

The Tragic Road of Addiction

2008-07-15T17:30:00.005-06:00

Two days ago a man with a history of domestic violence shot and killed two prostitutes in downtown Ogden because “he was having fantasies, wondering what it would be like (to kill someone),” reports the Standard Examiner. Only time will tell whether this man pays a debt to justice or is ruled incompetent to stand trial.

The St-Ex also reports that both of the murder victims were homeless drug addicts that sold sex to support their drug habits. A ‘street woman’ who was a friend to one of the victims describes the 42-year-old woman as “one of the most desperate hookers in the city.” She worked her trade “24/7” to support her addiction to crack cocaine, which is one of the most expensive drugs on the street. She leaves behind four children that reside with her ex-husband in Evanston, Wyoming.

The other victim, a 25-year-old woman, didn’t have to turn as many tricks because her addiction to crystal meth was cheaper to support. She apparently has borne at least one child.

It seems from the articles that many of Ogden’s ‘street women’ have spent time in jail. It is considered a courtesy among them to remember each others’ release dates.

Unlike the standard Hollywood stereotype and tales of politicians buying high-class one-night-stands to the tune of $10K, there is nothing glamorous or attractive about the lives of these women. Equally depraved are the lives of the men that purchase their wares.

The ugly trails of these women’s shattered lives lead through wretched living conditions, self loathing, debasing behavior, and the numerous broken hearts of their children, partners, parents, siblings, and other family members. Each of these women was somebody’s daughter, somebody’s sister, somebody’s mother, somebody’s cousin, etc.

Some libertarians will say that the dreadful lives of women like this demonstrate the utter failure of the American war on drugs. But it’s difficult to see how legalizing crack cocaine and crystal meth would have made the lives of these women much better.

Perhaps the price would be a little lower if addicts were able to walk into their local Utah State Liquor Store and Head Shop to buy their dope. But making nasty drugs more easily accessible wouldn’t help these people bring their lives under control. Indeed, reducing the barriers to obtaining addictive drugs would arguably result in much higher rates of addiction and more shattered lives.

Some of the liberal stripe will whine that we need to spend more money on programs to help addicts. While many do benefit from addiction help programs, for whatever reason, some do not. All of the street women in Ogden have been afforded many opportunities (sometimes at the requirement of the law) to take advantage of these programs, but many still have the same problems. Simply spending more money on government programs isn’t going to help much.

One Utah radio show host this morning said that it is horrid that Ogden has a downtown area where prostitution is carried on pretty much in the open. He suggested that city officials get busy making downtown Ogden less friendly to this trade. In other words, take measures to transfer the trade somewhere else, since no extended society in recorded history has successfully eradicated the trade.

That sounds all nice and dandy. Maybe Ogden officials can get around to that issue right after they get rid of gang violence, stop drug abuse, stop domestic violence, and raise the economic status of all downtown residents to above poverty level.

Ogden Mayor Matthew Godfrey is in his third term of working to turn “a blighted old railroad town into an outdoor adventure mecca” (see 11-18-2007 D-News article). Not everyone is happy about this. Some would prefer to keep their nostalgic blight. Others would like to see improvements go in another direction. And others just have serious questions about the propriety of spending taxpayer dollars on costly entertainment venues.

If Godfrey is eventually successful, Ogden’s downtown district will slowly transform into an area that is more welcoming to middle (and upper) class people with some cash to spend. The nearby residential areas will transform as the market works to satisfy demand for classier living space. This will naturally push out the less savory residents and activities. But they will not go away. They will simply move elsewhere.

The murders of these street women were horrific events. The lives that they led and that others like them still lead are tragic. Legalizing recreational drugs isn’t going to improve their lot. Nor can they be forced to benefit from programs that are designed to help people in their situation. As unfortunate as some people’s choices are, their ability to make those choices can often be only temporarily abridged during jail terms. Unless they choose to change for the better, they have a ghastly road ahead of them.

Why Gasoline Taxes Are Charged Per Gallon

2008-07-14T09:26:00.001-06:00

The reliably pro-tax Standard Examiner Editorial Board is at it again. Yesterday they whined about Utah’s gasoline tax revenues coming in 1.4 percent below the estimates of central planners. Revenues have increased only 3 percent instead of 4.4 percent. That 1.4 percent difference comes out to a shortfall of about $11 million.

Here’s how it works. Unlike standard sales taxes, gasoline taxes are levied per gallon rather than as a percentage of price. When gas prices go up, people tend to use less gas. With fewer gallons sold — or in this case, more gallons sold, but fewer than government analysts expected — less tax revenue comes in.

To the St-Ex Editors, this seems to be a crisis. The only options, they moan, are to make up the difference from somewhere else in the budget, “cut back on … road building and repairing,” or “raise fuel taxes.”

Welcome to a tiny taste of the real world of revenue volatility that private businesses live in every day. When costs increase, businesses must either increase prices, try to charge the same price for less product/service (like marketing ice cream in 1.75- instead of half-gallon containers), find ways to cut costs, or accept reduced profits. Unlike most taxpayers, the customers of these businesses are free to walk away from any deal they don’t like.

The St-Ex Editors are usually in favor of whatever tax scheme sticks it to the taxpayers the most. But overall, these writers not very good at understanding economics or finances. There is a reason that gas taxes are levied per gallon rather than by price.

Gasoline taxes are like a use tax for roads. In general, the more gas you use, the more wear and tear you exact upon the roads. So it makes sense to charge by volume. When the cost of road building and maintenance increases, politicians are left having to cut back on projects or else increase taxes to make up for it. This gets debated as a public policy issue rather than simply slipped in secretly.

While oil (and gasoline) prices are currently at an all-time high (and increasing with no end in sight), boom and bust cycles are a basic characteristic of the industry. Let’s look at what it would be like if gasoline taxes were charged as a percentage of sales price.

For starters, the whole process would become more political. Can you imagine the hue and cry from the taxpaying public and consumer advocates about the government gouging and rolling in record gas tax revenues at a time when consumers are hurting the most? We’d already have had a special legislative session to grant relief. Utah would have something like its own summertime gas tax holiday.

But the real problem is that the volatility of gasoline prices would make gas tax revenues far less predictable than they are at present. Road projects can’t just be started and stopped willy-nilly, except for emergency maintenance. It takes time and planning. Road projects are planned and scheduled over years, not days or weeks.

Last year when gas went from $3.15/gallon to $2.25/gallon over the space of a few weeks, gasoline sales increased by less than five percent. That would hardly have compensated for what would have amounted to a 29 percent per-gallon tax revenue decrease. I wonder what kind of inflammatory lines the St-Ex Editors would have been dropping in that case. This example makes our current 1.4 percent revenue difference look pretty benign.

To be sure, politicians and state planners have a problematic issue on their hands. People don’t want to live with poorly maintained and inadequate roads. But advocating a tax increase in an election year when voters are hurting from record gasoline inflation would prove unpopular, to say the least.

Of course, the legislative session occurs after the election during the months when gasoline is at its traditional seasonal low price, so increased gas taxes could be a possibility in 2009. I wonder if any politician will seriously consider alternatives such as targeted private initiatives or congestion pricing.

The St-Ex Editors did not come right out and say that gas taxes should be tied to price instead of volume, but that position is consistent with other statements they have made. I believe it’s clear that such a policy would work poorly in reality.

What the St-Ex Editors did say in this piece is that voters should ask politicians running for state level offices in Utah to explain how they plan to address the issue of road funding. Unlike some of these editors’ past suggestions on public finances, that is good advice.

The People's Democratic Republic of Wikipedia

2008-07-10T16:49:00.002-06:00

The idea behind Wiki is to generate superior stores of information via the combined wisdom of the masses. This is done by “encourag[ing] democratic use of the Web and promot[ing] content composition by nontechnical users.” In theory, anyone has an equal opportunity to create and edit content.

Alas, reality falls short of this utopian ideal when it comes to Wikipedia, the world’s largest and most influential Wiki.

The democratic nature of Wikipedia works remarkably well in many instances. The online encyclopedia includes almost 2.5 million articles in English (more than any other encyclopedic reference), and all of these articles are available for free to anyone with Internet access. Thus, people are freed from annoying encyclopedia salesmen and the need to store shelves of increasingly antiquated tomes. Many Wikipedia articles include more information and are better researched than the average fare you find in traditional encyclopedias.

With anyone being able to contribute and edit, Wikimedia realized early on that it would have to create a mechanism for resolving disputes that would inevitably arise. They have rules and they have ways of dealing with people that break those rules (see here). However, it seems that some are immune from disciplinary action.

Lawrence Solomon notes that when it comes to articles about issues on which the Left holds strong positions, ideological purity trumps Wikipedia’s free speech and edit war rules. Check out entries on global warming, Roe v. Wade, and Intelligent Design, for example.

Administrators and editors that are a little more equal than the rest of us monitor recent changes and rapidly purge any entries that dissent from the Left’s view on pertinent issues. Documentation doesn’t matter to these folks. If it doesn’t comport to their world view it goes away as well. Go ahead and try it. See what happens.

If Wikimedia tolerates this type of thought policing on issues important to the Left, what does that say about how much trust should be placed in any other Wikipedia article? I wouldn’t be any happier about this if the ideological slant benefited the Right. Wrong is wrong.

I have always known that anything on Wikipedia should be regarded with a grain of salt, but I have very much appreciated using Wikipedia as a reference resource and I will likely continue to do so. Just realize that everything you read on Wikipedia should be regarded with suspicion as long as they permit (promote?) their thought police to squelch dissent.

Jumping for Freedom

2008-07-08T17:18:00.002-06:00

We are among those awful parents that abuse their kids by having a trampoline in the backyard. At least it’s abuse according to the safety Nazis that are professionals at wagging their fingers, saying, “Tsk, tsk,” and generally sticking their noses into everyone else’s business — all for the good of “the children,” mind you.

Children have become the perpetual tool for broadly restricting freedoms. Any limitation that can be conceived in the name of child safety is purveyed as a necessary public good. The basic idea is that children are de facto wards of the state and that families have steadily decreasing ability to determine their own destinies.

The American Academy of Pediatrics is a fine example of well-meaning organizations that go overboard for safety in the name of the children. The AAP asks its members to support a total ban on trampolines, as do other safety Nazis.

We made the decision to purchase a trampoline nearly a decade ago. It’s not that we were blind to the potential for injury. But there were many trampolines in our neighborhood and their owners had a variety of safety rules ranging from quite strict to none at all.

Kids will be kids. Regardless of how much we might instruct our kids to stay off neighbors’ trampolines, their desire to join their friends overcame these warnings. While we might have been stricter disciplinarians, neither my wife nor I were completely convinced that the risk was unacceptable. Both of us had used trampolines as children without significant injury.

Ultimately we determined that it would be better to have our own trampoline. At least the children would be close to home in the event of an injury. Also, it is a more controlled environment. Our backyard is surrounded by a six-foot fence, so additional jumpers generally come by invitation only.

Things to think about when considering a trampoline
My wife did the research and insisted that we get a higher quality model rather than a standard discount store cheapie. Sundance Trampolines claims that rectangular models are safest due to bounce distribution. Octagonal models are also relatively safe. Square models are less so. Round models are the least safe because they work like a funnel, channeling everything to the center.

While net trampoline enclosures have become popular, there is some question as to how much they improve trampoline safety. Most trampoline injuries result from collisions rather than by falling off. Net enclosures on round trampolines tend to enhance the funnel effect. Falling between the springs or impact with the frame causes more injuries than falling off. You get more safety improvement from having good quality pads than you do from having a net enclosure.

Safety experts advise allowing only one jumper at a time. But we have found that using the trampoline is frequently a social event for our children. Therefore, I suggest that it is better to get a trampoline that more safely serves that purpose.

One of my family’s worst trampoline injuries occurred at my brother’s home when my nephew was sitting calmly on the edge of the trampoline and lost his balance. He landed on his arm at a bad angle and sustained a serious fracture. He wasn’t even jumping. My brother subsequently had his trampoline put in a pit so that the surface is at ground level.

Over the years we have had the garden variety of minor injuries from trampoline use at our home. We have had only two somewhat serious injuries. One son broke his arm eight years ago when his brother leaped from the swing set (yes, we also have one of those evil devices, along with a variety of bikes, scooters, skates, skateboards, etc) onto the trampoline. That activity was subsequently prohibited at our home. A teenage son miscalculated a back flip (a trick he had successfully completed thousands of times previously) and hit his shin very hard on the frame last year. That resulted in a serious edema and some physical therapy.

The orthopedist that set my son’s broken arm said that it is important to provide children with constructive and controlled ways for them to take risks, experience adventure, and explore their physical limitations. He warned that they will otherwise find other less safe methods to satisfy these inner needs.

Despite the occasional injury, our overall trampoline experience has been quite positive. Our kids have had endless hours of outdoor exercise that they otherwise might not have had. This is important to us, especially with the increased rates of childhood obesity and inactivity that plague our society. The trampoline is one of the few recreational items that the kids never seem to outgrow. I also occasionally use the trampoline for a varied cardio workout.

One benefit of getting a higher quality trampoline is that the frame is still sound after years of regular use, while many neighbors’ cheaper models have long since met their demise. The frame is also rather heavy, which is sometimes problematic when it needs to be moved for lawn mowing purposes. We leave our trampoline up all year long. When it snows, we clear the snow from the mat with a broom. This makes for extra work, but our kids enjoy jumping on the trampoline even in the winter.

The trampoline pads fatigue with exposure. We have replaced them twice and will probably have to replace them again next year. Many people leave the pads off rather than replace them. To me this represents an unacceptable risk. It costs nearly as much to replace good pads as it costs to buy a cheap circular trampoline at a discount store, but I feel the cost is well worth it.

Trampoline mats also fatigue. They eventually rip out. We have replaced ours once and will likely need to replace it again in one to two years. Again, this isn’t cheap, but I think the cost of a high quality mat is worth it.

Lobbying to control your life
I frankly resent the anti-risk we-know-better-than-you safety advocates that try to tell me that it is bad for me to provide my kids with a trampoline. I believe that my wife and I are intelligent enough to weigh the risks and make that determination for ourselves and for our family. Our decision to obtain a trampoline was well informed and our years of experience have validated that decision.

That’s not good enough for the safety Nazis. You see, it isn’t sufficient for them to simply provide information to empower people to make better decisions on their own. To generate more revenue from donations, professional memberships, etc, activists have to show that they are ‘getting something done.’ That something often comes in the form of getting rule makers to adopt restrictive policies.

In other words, your donations and professional membership fees to these organizations not only help their executives buy nice cars and houses, they are spent on lobbying your government officials as well. I wish that rule makers and the public at large would see through the chimera of activists’ supposed pure intentions and regard each peddler of reducing freedoms for what they truly are.

Weight In the Air II

2008-07-07T15:01:00.000-06:00

As a follow-up to my Weight In the Air post a few days back, I found these comments from Philippe Reines, a senior adviser to Sen. Clinton (D-NY). After logging more than 150 commercial flights during Sen. Clinton’s presidential campaign, Reines has some thoughts about how airlines can get passengers to willingly give up more money to fly.

You’ll smile at some of his ideas, such as charging “an extra $1.99 for the option of boarding the plane from the middle or back doors, rather than parading coach passengers through first class, only to be sneered at by people sipping Mimosas.” But my favorite suggestion was:

“C'mon. My BlackBerry is not going to bring the plane down. I don't know of a single documented case of a consumer electronic device interfering with a plane's avionics. If they did, al Qaeda would just fly around with iPods. Since we don't fear an iBomber, why not just let me use my BlackBerry as much as I want, whenever I want. (I do anyway.) This one would be free, because it would be offset by negating the need for the flight attendant to expend energy cruising the aisle before takeoff searching for perps, like a prison guard working the tiers of Sing Sing.”

I don’t have a Blackberry, but I do think the badgering about consumer electronics on every flight is more than a little tedious.

The gist of Reines’ commentary is that airlines could find creative ways to improve the air travel experience while simultaneously improving revenues. But such a business model can prove problematic. People don’t like being nickeled and dimed to death — particularly when they find themselves paying extra for something they think ought to be included in the first place. Also, sales could drop if people saw the extra cost as an effective rate increase.

I don’t fly frequently, but I have relatives that do. Airlines could probably learn a thing or two about how to improve their services and make more money by searching out and paying attention to the insights of such frequent flyers.

God Bless America

2008-07-03T17:06:00.006-06:00

Toward the end of World War I, a 30-year-old Jewish immigrant songwriter from Belarus named Irving Berlin joined the Army. While serving, he put together a musical review that people at his camp would perform. For the review, he wrote a patriotic song called God Bless America (also see here and here). He felt that the song was inspired from a higher source, but somehow it didn’t quite fit with the rest of the program, so he shelved it.

20 years later, the world seemed to be spinning out of control. Europe appeared to be heading toward another major war and anti-Semitism was on the rise. What this would mean for the USA was anybody’s guess. On Oct. 31, 1938, Berlin dusted off the song and started to rework it as a peace song.

Precisely at that time, Berlin was approached by singing superstar Kate Smith, who was looking for a song that she could sing for her Armistice Day radio broadcast. Smith asked Berlin for a song that would “convince America that America's going to be okay,” even if war or invasion by Hitler were in the offing.

Berlin told Smith about God Bless America, but said that he was uncomfortable with it. Some of the wording seemed out of step with the times. Moreover, it was voiced as a prayer. Atheism had become fashionable in elite circles. The song might seem presumptuous.

When Kate Smith sight-read the song, she told Berlin that it was perfect. He said, “It's boastful. It assumes that America is blessed and that God continues to bless it.” Kate Smith looked at him and said, “Irving, it is, he does, I'm singing it.” So, Berlin finalized the song on Nov. 2, 1938 and Smith performed it on Nov. 11, broadcasting from the New York World’s Fair.

But Irving Berlin felt that he could accept no payment for the song. Kate Smith predicted that the song would be a big hit that would generate plenty of royalties. Faced with this, Berlin donated his royalties from the song in perpetuity to the Boy Scouts of America. Smith donated her royalties to the Girl Scouts of America.

Kate Smith was right. God Bless America was an immediate blockbuster hit. It was particularly popular during WWII. It has remained popular for seven decades. Thanks to the generosity of an immigrant and a singer that both loved America, every time you hear a commercial performance of the song, the coffers of the BSA and GSA — organizations dedicated to building character in young Americans — get a little boost.

Today we still sing God Bless America to reassure ourselves that whatever happens, America will be OK.

God bless America, land that I love,
Stand beside her and guide her
Through the night with a light from above.
From the mountains, to the prairies,
To the oceans white with foam,
God bless America,
My home sweet home.

Have a happy Independence Day holiday.

Demanding Dependency

2008-07-02T16:51:00.003-06:00

I used to sort of like U.S. News & World Report when I was younger. My Dad has subscribed to it for at least three decades. Like all weekly news magazines, it was filled with lots of crap, but it also had some interesting articles. I eventually stopped my occasional reading of the magazine with the advent of the Internet and the ability to gather information from a broad variety of sources.

Yesterday Mom sent me home with her most recently received edition of U.S. News because she has little interest in reading it. I thought I’d flip through the pages before tossing it into the recycling bin. I came upon this whiny article about Gen-Xers being unable to maintain their parents’ standard of living.

In the article, Author Kimberly Palmer interviews Nan Mooney, the author of the book (Not) Keeping Up With Our Parents. The book’s subtitle is “The Decline of the Professional Middle Class.” Mooney makes some important observations about Americans’ financial habits. Increasing tuition costs means that it takes longer to recoup the cost of college (if it is ever recouped) and that people spend more years repaying their student loans. But the real problem is where our money is going. Palmer writes:

“The share of family income devoted to fixed expenses like rent, [Mooney] notes, has increased from 53 to 75 percent in the past two decades. Housing prices in most major metropolitan areas have risen six times faster than household incomes, and household debt has ballooned to over 130 percent of disposable income.”

Mooney whines, “I certainly thought I'd be in a financial position to consider having children. Instead, at 36, I was living with a roommate in New York, barely able to cover even the basics.” She has been forced to move back in with her parents in Seattle to make ends meet. Later in the interview Mooney slides in the fact that she is a single mother.

It is very hard to be a single parent. I would not wish this condition on anyone. Statistics show that this is more of a sure path to poverty than almost any other single factor. We are not privy to the reasons Mooney ended up being a single parent or why (or whether) her child’s father contributes materially.

On average, housing costs per family have increased substantially over the past two decades. But Mooney’s focus on metropolitan areas skews the facts. Housing costs far more in densely populated areas than anywhere else due to demand and due to stifling regulations that try to impose rent fairness via bureaucracy. Mooney should not whine about the cost of her decision to live and work in downtown New York — one of the most expensive spots on earth. Other options are available.

In terms of constant dollars, housing generally costs about as much per square foot as it did three decades ago. But Americans have significantly increased the number of square feet of dwelling space per person. We all seem to want to live in much larger houses than our parents did. But another major contributing factor is the increase in rates of divorce and single parent households. The average houshold consists of far fewer occupants than a generation ago. The upshot is that we spend a greater portion of our income on housing than our parents did.

Mooney contends that “Consumer spending hasn't risen since the 1970s,” but that fixed expenses have risen dramatically. But not all of those fixed expenses go to housing and medical costs. Mooney completely ignores the substantial rise over the past two decades in the percentage of household income that goes to taxes (at all levels). Mooney also hammers on the myth of stagnant incomes, which U.S. News itself has debunked.

We are not told what kind of degree Mooney has. But it would not be unreasonable to assume that it is an English Lit degree. Over the span of a career, the average English Lit grad barely garners enough income over that of the average high school grad to cover the cost of college. It seems more than likely that Mooney’s economic situation stems chiefly from her own choices about education, career, marriage, child bearing, and location.

Fortunately, Mooney offers some good advice that all of us should follow. “Understand your financial obligations, from mortgages to credit card payments. Opt for the simplest financing options. Take steps to [make] your children financially literate.” Too many kids hit the age where they begin receiving credit card offers without having any clear understanding of how to manage their personal finances.

Mooney also suggests that we separate ourselves from materialism. “Most important, don't buy into the "you are what you make" value system.” Unfortunately, for Mooney this does not appear to mean working to become more self-reliant, but rather, sponging off of others.

The final solutions Mooney offers show that she was educated as a writer, not as an economist. “As intelligent, articulate members of the political system, we are in a position to demand more federal support for education, housing, child care, healthcare, and retirement.” Implementing these suggestions would exacerbate rather than reduce the problems she discusses. Increased taxes would further increase fixed expenses.

With all of the poor professionals that Mooney writes about, who does she think is going to foot the bill for all of the federal largesse that she says we should demand? The people that didn’t attend college? Oh, of course not. Mooney must be talking about “the rich,” which likely includes people like her parents and anyone that has more than $20K in their 401k plan.

So, let’s reword that last sentence I quoted from Mooney to say what she really means. “As people with political power, we are in a position to forcibly take money from other Americans that we classify as rich to pay for our education, housing, child care, healthcare, and retirement.” Mooney seems to truly believe that we can tax ourselves into prosperity and that stealing from others to pay for our wants is completely justifiable. Indeed she calls it “a moral issue about the shifting values of a country where a staggering number of people cannot manage to get by.”

Cannot? Cannot get by doing what? Spending more than they make? Expecting a far more opulent lifestyle than their incomes warrant? There are plenty of ways to live providently and frugally. Even the fixed expenses Mooney discusses are far more flexible than she implies. It just requires a goodly portion of self discipline — something that seems in short supply in our society.

Ms. Mooney seems to be pretty sour about her lot in life. Apparently she totally discounts her own choices with respect to her current fate. She offers some good advice about personal finances, although, it would appear that she hasn’t followed much of it. But her contention that we can achieve happiness by taking from others and increasing dependency is more than farcical; it’s diabolical.

Weight In the Air

2008-07-01T19:20:00.002-06:00

This morning on the radio I heard a report about airlines charging more for overweight luggage. Or maybe they were reducing the weight limit on luggage, because charging for overweight luggage is nothing new. I came in after the report had begun and I can’t seem to find any correlating story online to fill in the blanks.

Airlines have long employed a size limit to luggage, but each increased pound an aircraft must carry decreases its fuel efficiency. This wasn’t such a big deal when fuel was cheaper, but airlines are struggling to figure out how to cover their soaring fuel expenses. Size restrictions help ensure that there will be sufficient cargo space for all of the passenger baggage on a flight, but weight restrictions directly limit fuel costs, which is one of the expenses airlines find most difficult to control.

One disgruntled passenger suggested that if airlines are going to charge per pound of baggage, it would make sense for them to charge per pound of passenger. That started me thinking. What would happen if airlines decided to charge each passenger by weight?

That might prove impractical. Airlines would likely just charge for passenger pounds in excess of an established weight limit as they now do with luggage. What would happen if airlines announced such a plan?

First off, you’d have activists coming out of the woodwork freaking out about it. I mean, nobody can be faulted for being born with a given genetic makeup. What if your genetic makeup lends more easily to obesity? Airlines would be charged with discriminating against heavier people and creating a new elite status for the petite. It’s a lot easier to change the weight of your luggage than to change the weight of your body.

I doubt any such plan would ever be seriously considered because even airline executives must realize what a bad public relations move it would be. But what if that was not an insurmountable problem? What then?

I suspect that many airline passengers would suddenly get very serious about controlling their weight. Some might opt for rail or bus travel rather than be subjected to the indignity of being officially labeled as overweight. Our national obsession with thinness (while trying to live as decadently as possible) would be further enhanced. Maybe restaurants with a larger traveling clientele would offer more options for the weight conscious.

Airlines have substantial fixed costs, significant costs over which they have little control, and relatively few costs over which they have great control. They also have limited ability to pass increased costs on to customers. US-based airlines have yet to develop a successful model for turning a profit while meeting customer demands.

Ricardo Semler, the Brazilian promoter of industrial democracy, in 2004 said of the airline industry:

“I think that is the only industry so far that has managed to make all of the
stakeholders lose. The shareholders don't make any money. The executives don't
last. The planes don't get better. The air-traffic controllers have the worst
job in the world. The crew is never happy. The pilots are on strike. The food is
just awful. There's not a good thing you can say about the business of flying.”

He forgot to mention the bizarre security rituals through which we all dutifully pass before being permitted to fly. But at least we don’t appear to be doing racial profiling, eh?

The WSJ’s Holman W. Jenkins, Jr. suggests that airlines follow the successful path of another industry with nearly the same types of challenges. Most of us are blissfully unaware that the ocean shipping industry has heavily engaged in price fixing for over a century. The reason we don’t care is because “customers actually benefited, because it made the reliable service they sought economically viable.”

Americans would never settle for airline pricing that punished passengers for being overweight. But they might settle for cartel-style price fixing if the results are better than what we have today.

Still Snowy at Camp Loll

2008-06-30T14:48:00.001-06:00

I have often mentioned Camp Loll, a Boy Scout camp in the Caribou-Targhee National Forest between Yellowstone and the Tetons. Camp Loll made today’s D-News for still being in winter mode. I can personally attest to that.

The staff was originally slated to head up there on Saturday, June 14. When some of the senior staff drove up there the week before that, they found themselves driving through blizzard conditions and eight inches of new snow until they arrived at a six-foot deep drift that stretched down the road for some distance about six miles from camp.

They next planned to go up on June 17, but the forest ranger called on the evening of June 16 to say that the road was still impassable. The senior staff drove up again a few days later to discover that, despite a lot of meltdown, the road was still blocked with oodles of snow.

Finally, some of the staff drove up on June 23. They had to park their truck more than five miles from camp up against a five-foot deep drift of heavy slush and ice, but they were able to hike into camp. They felt certain that they could make the trip on June 26. The high adventure staff went to Yellowstone for training by park rangers on June 25. They managed to get to camp and sleep there that night.

Early last Thursday, the anxious staff finally loaded up in a small bus and various 4WD vehicles. I volunteered to drive. The trip went well until we arrived at the spot where the staffers had parked their truck on the 23rd. It was quite warm — around 80°. The five-foot snow drift was gone. In its place was a couple hundred yards of mud. The 4WD vehicles could make it, but the small bus and the large panel van full of equipment definitely wouldn’t.

We spent the next 2½ hours manning shovels and hauling rocks from the forest to restructure the road base by hand. Finally, we sent the first 4WD truck through. No problem. The next truck was hauling a sailboat on a trailer. That was a bigger challenge, but it made it. The bus driver rammed the passenger-free bus through the muck and emerged on the other side. The panel van survived the first portion of the bog, but sunk in the second portion. After much digging and pushing and pulling with 4WD trucks, the panel van made it to the other side.

The next five miles were alternating stretches of dry dirt roads, mud, and snow. Finally, we came into sight of the roof of the lodge. Everything was going OK until I watched the panel van slouch to the side as it sunk into a mud hole. I thought it would tip over. We ended up unloading it halfway (which was six pickup loads) until a 4WD could pull it out. After that, it was work, work, work, as the staff unloaded gear and moved gear to where it needed to go.

I walked around the camp taking over 150 photos. I was told that there had been significant snow melt since last Monday’s visit. But the amount of snow there was astonishing. I have tramped all over that camp many times during my lifetime, and I’ve never seen anything like this. I made sure to take photos of most of the spots where I have pitched tents. Every one of them was covered by at least two feet of snow, but some had more than five feet.

With the exception of the campfire bowl (which was dry), where there was no snow there was water. With the temperature being quite warm, all the melting snow has to go somewhere. While they ended up canceling the first week of camp — which would have been this week —they should be able to run the program next week. A few campsites might prove problematic, but one of the staff’s main duties right now is clearing snow so that they can set up their own tents and so that troops will be able to set up camp next Monday.

Camp Loll’s mosquitoes are quite renowned for their size and number. They produce well as long as they have good breeding area, which is what the snow drifts and water puddles provide. This season promises to provide plenty of mosquitoes until everything dries out. I garnered a number of bites, even while wearing repellant that is 99% DEET.

I left my son up there to fend for himself along with the other staff members. The staff consists of hard working, high caliber, dedicated individuals that don’t make much money. 16-hour days are the norm, but they love it. I still recall with fondness the time I spent working on staff up there as a teenager. That’s why I go up and volunteer to work on projects for the camp when possible.

The camp season will be shorter this year at Camp Loll. There will be a number of challenges, thanks to Mother Nature. But they’ve got the right crew up there to address those challenges. I’m sure my son will have a great summer.

GOP Primary Upset

2008-06-25T13:35:00.003-06:00

Yesterday's primary election included only two races on which I could vote: state legislative district representative and state treasurer.

My four-term state representative was on the ropes. This was clear from the county convention last spring, where he lost to his challenger by one vote. As the spring campaign came on, it was clear that the 31-year-old challenger was doing a heck of a lot more legwork than was the 70-year-old incumbent. Usually, it is difficult to unseat an incumbent — even with lots of legwork — unless the incumbent has upset a lot of voters in his party. Past challenges have been relatively easy for my rep to win. But this time it was different.

My rep has a strong track record of holding the line on spending and of opposing tax increases. But his public reputation has increasingly been built upon his hard-line stance on illegal immigration. He has been convinced that his constituents hate illegal immigration and want the state to do everything possible to curtail it. I wrote about a differing conservative view of the immigration issue in a two-part post (part 1 and part 2) last month. I suspect that many of my district's voters aren't nearly as testy about immigration as my rep has assumed. It's just that a few have been very vocal about it.

Over the past several years my rep has increasingly come across as harsh rather than feisty. His public image (often due to press portrayal) has been that of a callous old politician.

Just how threatened my rep felt became clear in the last few days before the election. While we got no phone calls from the challenger, we were inundated with phone calls from the incumbent. Most of these were recorded calls. Many of them came from various advocacy groups or people associated with the legislature. Some were live calls from volunteers manning phone banks. One live call was from the incumbent himself. Just in the past week, I think we counted more than two dozen phone calls encouraging us to vote for the incumbent. We let all of these calls go to the answering machine.

I have personally known my rep for many years. And frankly, he's a bit of a nutcake. A couple of his votes this past session really chapped my hide. I did not like his brush-off explanation of his support of a bill that is the precursor to formal socialization of the entire medical industry in Utah. But, should I vote for the devil I know or for the unproven challenger with whom I disagree on education issues? It was a quandary, but as I went to the polls yesterday, I sensed that it somehow wouldn't matter much.

It was no surprise when I picked up the morning paper to see that the challenger had won the race. But I was surprised that the margin was 61-39 percent. While this sounds huge, it is important to realize that only 1,880 people voted in this race.

Anybody that follows politics in Utah already knows that the state treasurer race was an upset, with the Governor's stooge Richard Ellis beating out the legislature's stooge Mark Walker by a 60-40 margin (see SL-Trib article). Ellis proved to be a good closer with his accusation that Walker tried to bribe him to drop out of the race. That was a hard political calculation. It was difficult to know up front whether it would help or hurt Ellis. But with him trailing in the polls, it apparently seemed like it was worth the gamble, and it worked out great for him.

Upon hearing both Walker and Ellis on the radio in recent days, it seemed to me that both candidates were sensing the changing ground swell as the race came down to this single issue. Frankly, Ellis came across as credible on the issue while Walker, an investment banker, came across sounding like a lawyer.

I live in the 1^st Congressional District, but the biggest news in Utah this morning is that in the 3^rd Congressional District, challenger Jason Chaffetz beat out six-term incumbent Chris Cannon 60-40 percent (see KSL article). It seems that Chaffetz and Cannon are both far more surprised by this outcome than are the district's voters. Cannon whines that total voter turnout was too small for him to win. But with that large of a margin, it is doubtful that any get-out-the-vote effort by his campaign could have resulted in a Cannon win.

Like my rep, Cannon has come across (thanks to media portrayal and Cannon's own missteps) as increasingly callous and clueless. His negative public image overcame the fact that he has a very good track record on voting against spending increases and voting for tax cuts.

I was completely wrong on the Cannon race. I had predicted that, like past races where Cannon faced a serious challenger, Cannon would ultimately come out on top because not that many voters were mad at him.

Since this is Utah, the winners of the three races listed above will (unless something cataclysmic occurs) beat their Democratic opponents in November. While they still have to campaign, they can be considered for all intents and purposes to have won their respective offices.

Does this mean that voters have finally gotten mad enough that they want to kick incumbents out of office? LaVarr Webb of Utah Policy Daily says no (see Wednesday Buzz here). Webb writes:

"At first glance, I would say primary results are due more to local race factors than any overriding trends and patterns. Before anyone extrapolates primary results into the general election I would point out that this was a small number of races with a tiny turnout. Hard work and the basics of campaigning are still important factors."

This strikes me as about right. The common wisdom that all politics is local applies here. And it certainly appears that hard campaigning work really does pay off.

I will be watching to see how my new state legislative rep performs. If he messes up, he will be easy to unseat in two years. Otherwise, I'm not sure that having him there will be substantially different than having the former incumbent there.

As far as state treasurer goes, let's face that fact that most Utahns won't even remember the guy's name unless he does something bad that makes the news in a big way. Only the people in the executive and legislative branches that have reason to interact with his office will likely pay any attention at all to what he does in his job. When he comes up for re-election in four years, most Utahns will have totally forgotten the episode of the past few weeks. As long as he doesn't mess up, he can likely keep this job as long as he wants.

Many eyes will be watching Chaffetz as he goes to Washington. But quite honestly, little is expected of a first term congressional rep in the minority party. So it shouldn't be difficult for him to meet expectations.

Elections have consequences. But it is never clear up front what all of those consequences are. Only time will tell.

Just Religious Superstition?

2008-06-23T16:13:00.002-06:00

I first heard George Carlin when I was a kid. He was one of the early shock comedians, engaging in juvenile, potty-mouth humor that appeals to the immature. It was popular for kids to buy or bootleg his tapes, so I occasionally heard his routines at friends' homes. Some learned to repeat Carlin's routines, so you could hear his schtick on drugs or profanity in the hallways at school.

In this AP story memorializing Carlin upon his death, a 2004 interview is cited where Carlin defended his use of harsh language.

"The whole problem with this idea of obscenity and indecency, and all of these things - bad language and whatever - it's all caused by one basic thing, and that is: religious superstition. There's an idea that the human body is somehow evil and bad and there are parts of it that are especially evil and bad, and we should be ashamed. Fear, guilt and shame are built into the attitude toward sex and the body. ... It's reflected in these prohibitions and these taboos that we have."

Carlin is certainly welcome to his opinion. But he is wrong on this count. Or at least, his view is skewed enough that it fails to account for the real reasons that society aspires to a higher standard when it comes to profanity. Not that profanity hasn't achieved greater general acceptance during my lifetime, but there is still a more pure touchstone that society at least romanticizes about.

Although some religious thought sees the body and its sexual exercises as inherently evil, it is far more common for religion to regard the body as a sacred creation of God. Sexuality is regarded as spiritual and special. It is to be reverenced.

I suspect that even Carlin recognized this in his own familial interactions. Failure to do so diminishes the ability to enjoy the types of relationships humans hold most dear and leads to all kinds of dysfunction.

Dropping the F-word and other coarse and bawdy references to human intimacy is considered blasphemous because it detracts from sacred nature of humanity's most intimate expression. The fact that some misuse this expression is no excuse for others to do so. You can call this religious superstition. But Carlin's secular I-know-better-than-all-the-stupid-religionists insistence is itself a form of superstition. It comes complete with its rites and observances.

Another reason that we regulate profane expression is that children's minds are not fully equipped and are unprepared to grapple with such concepts. I wonder if Carlin thought it was OK for his daughter to view pornographic films when she was young. I suspect that he did not, although he was into drug use. Part of the reason we regulate such junk is that society generally believes that children should be shielded until they are capable of classifying and filtering content themselves.

George Carlin was a genius. But like many geniuses, he led an unbalanced life and engaged in skewed thinking. He could be very funny. But he could also be very wrong, as he was on this subject.

The Value of Political Involvement

2008-06-19T18:09:00.004-06:00

“Which presidential candidate are you going to vote for,” asked a colleague “seeing that you don’t like either of them?” He asked this before acknowledging that he is the least satisfied with the available choices of any election in his adult life.

I told him that I had three answers to his question. The first reflects the reality of living in a republic that is a representative democracy. In Utah, it simply won’t matter who I vote for. Senator McCain will undoubtedly garner far more than the necessary number of votes to win all five of Utah’s electoral votes. I could vote for Senator Obama or anyone else, but it won’t matter.

The second answer comes from humorist Uncle Jay. When a supposed viewer asks whether dissatisfied voters can simply vote NO when voting for president, Uncle Jay says, “No, they can’t.” But they can select from a number of third party candidates or they may even write in a name. Doing so, Uncle Jay explains in a humorous aside, is essentially casting a vote for the major candidate they dislike most. (Click here to see 3-minute video segment.) The suggestion is that you derive the most benefit from voting for the guy you dislike least. More about that in a moment.

My third answer is that what the Supreme Court does probably has greater and longer impact than anything a chief executive does. Democrats have a strong track record of appointing liberal justices and judges. So do Republicans, for that matter. But Republicans sometimes end up appointing more conservative members of the judiciary. If you care for judicial restraint, your best chance — such as it is — is to vote for a Republican. If you prefer judicial activism, you would do better to vote Democratic.

True libertarians would disagree with Uncle Jay about voting for the major party candidate you detest the least. In fact, many libertarians argue that the marginal value of voting is lower than the cost of informing oneself about the candidates. They argue that from a results-based analysis, the margin of difference between how the different candidates would actually perform in office is incredibly small.

While rhetoric tends to differ substantially between opposing politicians, their tangible actions in office vary minimally, the argument goes. Once in office, they respond to the incentives produced by whatever political winds happen to be blowing at the moment. This is true, they say, for our most revered and our most despised politicians, as well as all in between. When their actual behavior differs from their campaign rhetoric, they always have an excuse for the difference: changed conditions, newfound understanding, bipartisanship, traded for something of greater value, it’s in the best interest of the country, etc.

Some of my libertarian friends argue that a President Obama simply isn’t going to be much different than a President McCain. It will simply be a rearrangement of the deck chairs. The ship will pretty much continue sailing as before.

The political differences about which we argue so vociferously are actually infinitesimally small, says my friend. We are really quibbling about nothing. The same old stuff will happen regardless of who is in office. And for that reason, people like my friend see no sense in spending their valuable time messing with politics. After all, choosing not to vote is a way of voting against the political system altogether.

The usual comeback to this kind of attitude is that people that refuse to vote get the kind of government they deserve. They have no right to complain about it because they did nothing about it. They are slacking and leaving the rest of us to do their duty. The counter to this is that they are already doing their part to make a positive difference simply by living their lives and making their choices.

Those that favor doing one’s civic duty find these kinds of attitudes abhorrent. GMU economist Don Boudreaux thinks otherwise. Check out his post titled Get Involved By Avoiding Politics for a sampling of this brand of thought. To be sure, Boudreaux paints private business to look cleaner than it really is, but he makes a valid point.

While we wring our hands about the politically uninvolved, participation in general elections has steadily increased over my lifetime. To people like Boudreaux, that’s a bad thing. It indicates that people are increasingly incentivized to participate politically because politicians are continually expanding the amount of control they have over citizens’ (and even non-citizens’) individual lives. In fact, it is my observation that many people clamor for and welcome such increased government control.

As a side note, many libertarians don’t bother with the Libertarian Party because they believe political involvement is a poor investment of their time and resources. Per this viewpoint, the party represents the antithesis of what they believe.

I am in the civic duty camp. I believe in doing my civic duty. I think that some of my libertarian friends underestimate the value of political involvement. On the other hand, I think it would be unwise to dismiss my friends’ arguments out of hand. They aren’t completely wrong.

Programs vs. Dads

2008-06-16T12:36:00.001-06:00

For Father’s Day, my wife and children gave me two photographs. It’s difficult for me to imagine any earthly gift they could have given that would have been more wonderful than these two photos.

One photo is a magnificent and cheery portrait of my beautiful wife and daughter. The other photo is a breathtaking portrait of my four sons standing in a line, dressed in age-appropriate Scout uniforms, and saluting while solemnly looking off into the distance. Those that haven’t tried to get well coordinated portraits taken with five children in tow have no clue how much effort went into these two pictures.

I’m even more surprised that none of the children spilled the beans before the gifts were given. All of this is a testament to how wonderful my wife is. She knew that these portraits would greatly honor me. I am also blessed with wonderful children.

I have just written an eight-part series to honor the memory of my father.

My wife, my children, and I have all been blessed to win what is becoming one of life’s greatest lotteries: being born into and raised in a family with a functioning father and a functioning mother. While the number of children raised in homes without a functioning mother is relatively small, the percentage of children raised without a functioning father has increased by about 1,000 percent during my lifetime.

As explained by NPR’s Juan Williams in this WSJ op-ed, the majority of our nation’s poor, drug addicts, illiterates, and criminals — in short, most of society’s dysfunctional people — grew up (or are growing up) without a father. Of course, not having a father doesn’t mean that a child will necessarily fall into any of these categories, but the chances of a child falling into one of these categories increases by orders of magnitude if the child is raised without a father.

Williams writes, “Having a dad, in short, is now a privilege, a ticket to middle-class status on par with getting into a good college.”

We have plentiful government and private programs that are aimed at helping at-risk children. But the sad fact is that all of them put together cannot adequately overcome the lack of an actual dad.

I have a silver maple tree in my front yard. Each year it drops thousands of seed pods onto the lawn. Some of them get blown into neighboring yards. Each year I treat the maple sprouts with broadleaf herbicide. I could mount a huge and expensive effort to pluck the seed pods before the tree releases them. But nothing would be as effective as killing the tree at the root.

The programs I mentioned above are a lot like trying to treat the problem after the seed pods have already grown. What is really needed is to treat the root cause of fatherlessness.

Our good intentions are simply insufficiently effective in countering the sense of worthlessness that comes from “feeling like "throwaway people."” It is not the child’s fault that she or he has no father figure. But many fatherless people still grow up with a deep-seated sense of guilt and inferiority. Another dilemma is that some of our treatment programs actually exacerbate the root problem.

This presents a quandary. How do you get men to step up to the responsibility of fatherhood, especially when an increasing number of them have no role model to use as a basis for positive fathering? Some men that had no father figure amazingly make this jump. Most do not. Many men become biological fathers, but never become caring dads.

The answer is to change the culture, but all indications are that culture is going the opposite direction. There is no quick fix to this problem. We seem to be on a divergent path to a society of haves and have-nots: those that have a dad and those that don’t. This increasingly taxes our nation’s institutions that strive to address societal dysfunction.

The answers to the problem are quite simple and can easily be arrived at with some consideration. That does not mean that the answers are easy. Many of them contradict myths we have come to cherish. And for that reason, few are willing to go there.

A Tribute to My Dad (part 8)

2008-06-14T18:59:00.001-06:00

Not too long after Mom & Dad’s mission, Mom was called to be the stake Relief Society president. Dad seemed to slow down quite a bit. Mom complained that Dad spent a lot of the day resting. A couple of summers ago, Dad had a series of heart attacks. A lot of people aren’t familiar with real heart attack symptoms. They mostly know theatrical heart attacks from TV and movies. So when they are having tightness in their chest and difficulty breathing, they just think they’ve been overdoing and are in need of a rest.

Denial is another common heart attack symptom. And that’s how it was with Dad. He refused to get it checked, figuring that he’d feel better after a rest. Well, each time he did feel better the next day. But he violated the two-hour rule. If you can get treatment within two hours of first noticing symptoms, they can usually prevent serious damage to the heart muscle. While Dad felt somewhat better, his series of heart attacks left significant portions of his heart muscle dead, meaning that his heart pumped much less efficiently.

Dad probably had been experiencing some level of congestive heart failure for years. But his heart attacks made this a serious issue. Oddly, the primary care doctors failed to accurately diagnose the problem. After tests, they sent Dad to a guy that was a liver specialist because tests showed some anomalies with liver enzymes. In retrospect, we now know that this was mostly a result of decreased blood flow to the liver. Dad had a lot of respiratory congestion and he had a lot of fluid gain. He didn’t feel well at all.

Dad resisted Mom’s suggestion that he needed to see a heart specialist. Eventually Dad’s problems became so bad that I took him to see a different primary care doctor that had a reputation for figuring things out. He immediately determined Dad’s CHF problem and soon discovered that Dad had a clot in his heart that could break loose and cause a stroke. They began treatment for CHF, but the stroke occurred anyway.

Following Dad’s stroke, they tried treating him with this horrendous cocktail of drugs that made him goofy and dropped his blood pressure so low that he could have died. A few months later, a drug interaction with a common antibiotic resulted in a bleeding bowel that almost killed him. The doctors said Dad had dementia, but after getting off most of the drugs, he was able to be quite rational again.

Dad’s heart muscle slowly weakened over a year and a half until it was pumping at only 10% of normal. He finally suffered a stroke that incapacitated the left side of his body. He was already in hospice care by this time. Over the next few days, Dad’s body functions shut down until his heart finally just stopped beating.

As long as I have known Dad, his faith in Jesus Christ has been the chief hallmark of his life. He frequently expressed this faith in the final year of his life. He regularly expressed his willingness to pass to the other side and continue on the next step of his journey. Now he has his wish.

My brother works one day each week in the Salt Lake Temple. The day after Dad passed away, my brother was working in the Temple when he very clearly sensed Dad’s presence. He felt a message conveyed that Dad was happy and busy. That’s good, because Dad never enjoyed being idle.

I have learned many things from my Dad. He taught me loyalty. He has been endlessly loyal to his family and to his faith. Dad was a hard working man and he taught me how to work. Dad was a spiritual man. He was a visionary man. He taught me the value of spirituality and spiritual experiences. Dad was a man of reason. He taught me the value of clear analysis. Those that know my Dad will understand what it means when I say that it is a great honor to be called his son.

Dad is no longer with us in this moral realm this Father’s Day. But I am grateful that he is still my Dad — and will be my Dad forever.

A Tribute to My Dad (part 7)

2008-06-14T18:48:00.001-06:00

My older brother married while I was on my mission. There was some dust-up about this, because my parents thought he wasn’t ready to get hitched. But he and his wife have a great marriage that has lasted nearly 30 years.

I had been home from my mission for about a year and a half when my parents did something that really surprised me. They had always been very careful with their finances. But suddenly they decided to install an in-ground swimming pool in the backyard. They explained that they wanted a venue for bringing the family together as children were leaving the nest and forming their own families. They thought about a boat, but that requires a lot of time each time you use it, and only a few can use it at a time. So they settled on a pool.

The pool was fun, but it is a lot of work. In fact, it was really a lot of work for the first couple of years. We installed the gas and electrical lines ourselves — by hand trenching in rocky soil. We leveled the deck area and installed a brick deck. We built the six-foot cedar fence around the backyard. Dad, of course, did most of the work. But the boys provided a fair amount of brute labor. The pool has repeatedly been a gathering point for summertime family activities over the years.

I had been home from my mission for a couple of years when Dad was called to serve as a stake patriarch. That was a pretty stunning thing for him. PCs were just starting to be common for home use. I helped my folks get their computer set up to print out patriarchal blessings. Dad did a lot of fasting and praying. And then he just went forward, relying on the Lord to make it happen. And it did. Over the next 17 years, Dad gave about 750 blessings. Mom typed up most of them. I typed up a few.

Dad was enjoying his employment with Utah Power, when the company merged with another company. They offered an early retirement package for targeted workforce reduction. Dad was not considering the idea at all until he actually analyzed the package. After painstakingly looking at the issue from every angle, Dad turned to my Mom and said that it would only make a difference of $5 per month if he stayed and worked another decade. So he retired. But Mom was still working.

A couple of weeks after Dad retired, he got a call from a company that was renovating all of the major electrical systems at Kennecott. They needed someone with Dad’s skills. But that would have required a three-hour daily commute. But the job was slated to last only two months and they offered Dad a very handsome rate. The job ended up stretching out over a decade. Dad left the job several times, but was always lured back. Although he was not a certified electrical engineer, he was doing that kind of work. The credentialed EEs frequently came to him for help.

A couple of years into Dad’s Kennecott employment, I got married. Within 11 months, my oldest brother and my younger brother each got married. This was challenging for my folks, but they took it all in stride. My older brother had already provided them a couple of grandsons. He provided one more during this time. Within a few years, the three newlyweds started providing more grandchildren. Dad can be rather stiff. But he loves horsing around with younger children. He almost becomes another person when goofing around with his grandkids. It’s fun to watch.

When Mom retired, Dad retired for the last time. Eventually my baby brother left on a mission to Brazil. Mom & Dad both soon found themselves so busy that they wondered how they had ever had time for employment. They did lots of volunteer work. They did a stint serving as workers in the Ogden Temple. My baby brother didn’t last long after his mission. He was soon married to his sweetheart and was attending college.

After a few years of retirement, Dad & Mom were called to serve as LDS missionaries in Hamburg Germany. Their bishop had connections with church headquarters. He pulled some strings to get Dad’s missionary call issued in German. My folks were soon back in their old stomping grounds. But Germany had changed a lot in 45 years. Every day of their mission was busy, busy, busy. They enjoyed many of the duties and associations, but also found some drudgery involved. When they returned home, they said it was like getting off a fast moving carnival ride and standing on the pavement somewhat dazed.

When my parents arrived home from their mission, Dad came into his house, sat down on the couch and said, “It’s good to be back home in America.” I said, “I thought you had just spent a year and a half back home in Germany.” He replied, “I may have been born and raised in Germany, but I’m an American now. I got back over there and remembered all of the reasons I left in the first place.” Dad was a patriotic American from the time he had become a US citizen decades earlier.

Next time I’ll write about the end of Dad’s life.

A Tribute to My Dad (part 6)

2008-06-14T18:42:00.001-06:00

Mom went to work for IRS as a seasonal worker when I was five. She worked swing shifts for a few months out of the year. I hated it when Mom was gone to work. But she would bring us little treats from the vending machines each Friday night. They would be on the kitchen counter when we got up to watch Saturday morning cartoons while Mom & Dad slept in a bit. The whole purpose of Mom’s employment was to finance a trip back to Germany.

The fall that I turned eight, the trip to Germany became possible, thanks to some families in our LDS ward. One day four families approached my parents and said that they had talked it over, and that each family would take one of us boys while Mom & Dad went to visit Dad’s family for a month. Mom & Dad were overwhelmed by this generous offer.

Dad & Mom arranged with a Volkswagen dealer to pay for a fire engine red VW Bug that they would pick up at the factory in Germany. They drove the Bug around during their stay in Europe, and then they shipped it home. I missed my parents while they were gone. The wife and mother in my host family was a school teacher that made me and her kids go to bed at 8:00 PM every night.

Our host families mowed and watered my parents’ yard. They also cleaned the home and restocked the pantry and fridge before Mom & Dad returned home. We had difficulty getting to bed the night Mom & Dad returned, but the next day was school. I still remember the distinct European scent of the items Mom & Dad brought back. Dad wanted us to get to bed, so he finally yelled at us, but it was in German. We got a laugh out of that. Mom made the four of us wear lederhosen shorts to school the next day. It wasn’t so bad for me, but it must have been harsh for my oldest brother that was in sixth grade.

My oldest brother got a newspaper route when I was 10. For the next decade, our family had one or two newspaper routes. It was a great source of learning and income for us boys, but it was truly a major pain in the tail. Sometimes Dad would take us out delivering papers in our 1969 VW Bug, especially when the weather was quite bad or when we had really huge newspapers. Sometimes we’d stand on the running boards while riding between houses. The safety Nazis would freak out about that nowadays.

When I was 15, my two older brothers spent the summer working in Hawaii planting pineapples. It seemed like such a fantastic adventure that I wanted to go. After the summer, my oldest brother went on a mission to Germany. Sometime in late winter, my parents sat the rest of us down after breakfast one Saturday morning and told us that Mom was pregnant. We were stunned. Mom said that she was initially stunned as well. Dad informed us that this meant that we would be taking a larger role in the household chores.

One day Dad was in a meeting in Salt Lake City for work when he developed an awful pain. He didn’t know what to do, so he left the meeting and started driving. He ended up driving home and honking until we came out. When Mom saw his condition, she got Dad into the back seat and had my brother shuttle her and Dad to the hospital. It turned out that he had a kidney stone. Life was pretty awful for Dad until he passed the stone.

The following summer, I ended up going to Hawaii to plant pineapples. I hated it. I endured, but there was nothing that would have gotten me to do it again. In the middle of June, I got a telegram saying that I had a new baby brother and that all was well. By the time I got home, Mom was working full time. I did a lot of child care. The next two summers I worked on the staff of Camp Loll, a Boy Scout camp up in the Tetons. During this time, my oldest brother returned from Germany and my older brother went on a mission to Finland.

The night before I was to leave on my mission to Norway, Dad pulled me aside and said that I looked like I was experiencing the same kind of anxiety that soldiers face before going into battle for the first time. While I was in the MTC, my parents took my baby brother with them to Germany, where they met my brother that was returning from Finland. They were able to spend some time with the German side of the family for the first time in years.

After I returned from Norway and went back to college, my younger brother went on a mission to Japan. All of these missions cost money, and my folks footed most of the bill for each of us. Dad worked a lot of overtime to make this all work out, but somehow it all worked out.

Next time I’ll write about the transition to being grandparents.

A Tribute to My Dad (part 5)

2008-06-13T15:05:00.004-06:00

Although Dad knew it was right for him to join the LDS Church, they had rules in Europe back then that investigators had to finish a long series of lessons and attend church for many months before being allowed to join. Dad felt a closeness with one of the sister missionaries that worked with him. She finished her mission and returned to the US before Dad was permitted to be baptized. But they continued to correspond.

Having experienced a mighty spiritual conversion, Dad visited his family out on the coast and talked to them with great zeal about his newfound faith. They simply couldn’t understand how such an intelligent young man could go off and join some cult centered in the American West. Dad felt that they treated his message with great contempt.

When Dad later announced that he was seeking to emigrate and live in the American West, his family showed increased animosity. My Uncle, who was still in grade school, felt that the Mormons were stealing his older brother away from him. In reality, Dad had been going through the process of trying to immigrate to Australia before coming into contact with the LDS Church. He wanted to get out of Germany. His newfound faith and his newfound girlfriend simply sent him in a different direction.

Eventually, the former sister missionary got her brother-in-law in Colorado to sponsor Dad. This allowed Dad to get a work visa and move to the USA. He took a ship to England. His school English served him fine during his layover there. But when Dad got off the ship in New York, he couldn’t understand anyone. He found the westerners in Colorado easier to communicate with.

A man that was a supervisor at a city owned electrical utility took a chance on hiring an immigrant, and Dad was soon gainfully employed. He and the former sister missionary courted. After Dad had been a member of the LDS Church for a year, he and my Mom traveled to the Salt Lake Temple and were married. My brother was born just over 40 weeks later.

Dad & Mom spent the first five years of their married life in Colorado, during which time three sons were born to them. They served in multiple callings in their tiny LDS branch. Dad fulfilled the requirements to become a US citizen. After that, he was always a patriotic American. He often quipped about coming to America to pay taxes for the bombs that were dropped on him in Germany.

Eventually Dad bid on a better job with Utah Power in Salt Lake City. He was selected for the position, so my parents packed up their family and headed to Utah. But when they arrived, they found that the job was actually in Ogden. They were soon living in a rented small house in a decent part of Ogden that has since become a slum.

They soon built a new rambler (rectangle box) home in a developing subdivision in North Ogden. Dad did as much work as possible, such as the electrical work. Being on a tight budget, he was so careful with materials that he had only a few inches of copper wiring left at the end of the job. Other homes were soon added to the development and adjacent developments. I ended up growing up in a neighborhood full of young kids. It was a great place to be. My younger brother was born about a year after we moved in.

Dad had many interesting experiences in his career. He helped pioneer the construction of power lines hot (with live electricity). The National Geographic even included that in an article. Dad eventually went from climbing power poles to being a relay technician. He ended up doing a lot of electrical engineering work, but it bothered him that he was never able to go to school and get a degree for the work he was doing. He dealt with some highly complex electrical systems.

Once Dad was working at a substation when a crew came to repaint various parts of the substation. They had a number of standard safety procedures to follow. Dad was concerned about one fellow on the crew. He liked the fellow, but didn’t think the man was very bright. Dad was inside the shack when he heard an electrical explosion. When he ran outside, he found the painter had been electrocuted. He had violated one of the basic safety rules and had touched his brush to something live. Amazingly, the man was still alive, but he was badly burned. Dad administered first aid and called for emergency help. It took the painter many months to recover. Dad said that the man would have died had he not been a strong guy.

When I was in seventh grade, we had a massive snowstorm in the middle of March that shut down schools (and just about everything else) for a couple of days. Us kids were ecstatic. But we didn’t see Dad for three days. He was out working on power problems. The power in our home was out for almost a whole day. Dad made sure that our neighborhood was one of the first brought back on line. But the main line to Box Elder County had been destroyed. Some parts of that county didn’t get power restored for over eight weeks.

In the church, Dad served in the Elders Quorum presidency, in a bishopric, and on the high council. Dad was gone to meetings a lot on Sundays. And when he did come home between meetings, he frequently napped.

Next time, I’ll continue the story of American suburban life.

A Tribute to My Dad (part 4)

2008-06-13T14:57:00.004-06:00

With time, Dad apprenticed as an electrician. When he passed all of the tests to become a journeyman electrician, he began working for a company that installed telephone systems. He was working on a job in central Germany that was nearly complete when there was a delay in receiving some of the needed parts. The bosses sent all of the workers away for a few days.

With some money in his pocket and some time on his hands, Dad decided to go home and visit his parents. His father took him out fishing in the sea. Dad fished all day with no shirt on. But his skin hadn’t seen that much sun for a long time. Consequently, he was sitting in his parents’ living room the next day in great pain. He had no shirt on because of how tender his skin was.

When the doorbell rang, his little brother answered it and talked to someone briefly. His brother then ran into the kitchen and told his mother that the Mongols were at the front door. “This I have to see,” said my Grandmother. But it wasn’t Mongols at the door; it was Mormon missionaries. Grandma wasn’t interested in religion, but she knew that her oldest son was, so she brought the missionaries into the living room.

Dad said that these two young men had a very poor command of the German language. They wore bad suits and had bad haircuts. Dad could speak some English, so that allowed them some kind of rudimentary communication. Dad thought that what they had to say was rather odd. He was stunned when he found out that they were not professional ministers, but were volunteers that were spending their own money to preach their message to Germans for 2½ years each. Dad invited the missionaries to return the next day.

That evening, Dad wrote down 50 fairly deep philosophical questions to present to the missionaries. When they returned, he told them that if they could satisfactorily answer all 50 questions he would join their church. Some of the questions were ones that Mormon Primary children can answer, but many of the questions were way beyond the missionaries’ understanding.

After struggling through the concept of addressing all 50 questions, the missionaries told Dad that they could teach him a series of lessons and that through these lessons, most of his questions would likely be answered. Dad replied that he was leaving the next day to return to central Germany. They said they would be glad to send missionaries to meet with him. But Dad explained that he would be at that location for only a brief time before moving with his job to an unknown address in Hamburg. They said that he could look up the church when he got to Hamburg.

While Dad chatted with the missionaries, he asked how their church got started. They responded by telling him about Joseph Smith and his first vision. Then one of the missionaries bore his testimony of the truth of this message. Dad felt something go through him that stunned him. It felt new, but somehow also felt like something he had previously experienced. He knew that he had to find out more about this message.

A few weeks later, Dad was settled into a dingy little apartment in Hamburg. He went to the American library and researched everything he could find about the LDS Church. It was almost all bad. It ranged from mildly anti-Mormon to virulently anti-Mormon. But he said that it was easy to see that much of it was bluster and hyperbole. He thought that anything that generated so much blatant falsehood in opposition had much more to it than was apparent.

Dad then looked up the nearest address of the LDS Church. The streetcar went right by there, so he went there one evening. It had the name of the church on it, but it looked like a standard brownstone office building. When he went inside, he saw people practicing for some kind of theatrical performance (road shows). He wondered if this was part of their worship service. If so, it seemed pretty strange. He went back outside and looked to make sure he was in the right place. It looked like he was, so he went back inside.

Someone then saw Dad and asked if he was the piano tuner. Dad responded that he was there to see about joining their church. They got kind of excited and ran upstairs. They returned with two young ladies that introduced themselves as missionaries. They took Dad to a classroom and started chatting with him. They went the rounds with him on his 50 questions again, and ultimately arranged to meet again.

At their next meeting, one of the sisters told Dad that they would start by kneeling and praying. Dad was a bit uncomfortable with this ritual, but he went along. He appreciated the discussion, but he felt like it was far too puerile for him. They arranged for another meeting.

Before starting their next lesson, the sisters again invited Dad to kneel in prayer with them. Dad obliged. Then one of the sisters turned to Dad and said, “It’s your turn to offer the prayer.” Dad was dumbfounded. He had never prayed and he had never thought of God as a personal being. The thought of praying out loud like this seemed a bit ridiculous to him. Still, he figured that it seemed to be a ritual that was valued by these people, so he decided to give it a shot.

As soon as Dad opened his mouth, even before the first word came out, Dad suddenly knew with every fiber of his being that God was listening to him and that God intimately knew him and loved him in a very personal way. Dad could almost not manage to say any actual words. After that experience, the lessons the missionaries taught him seemed unnecessary. He knew in ways that no human can communicate that Heavenly Father and Jesus Christ are real beings that personally love him, and that Christ wanted to relieve him of the burden of his faults.

Dad found the experience of praying so wonderful that he found himself praying continually. Moreover, he started having visions. Night after night, Dad would lie down in bed, and while fully awake, he would have something that looked like a screen appear in front of him. The scriptures in German would appear just as they look in print, and would begin scrolling. Dad didn’t even own a set of scriptures, since German language scriptures were rather difficult to come by at that time. Yet Dad soon had read the entire Standard Works and was well versed in them.

As Dad learned about the Plan of Salvation, the meaning of his recurring dream finally became clear. Things came into focus and started to make sense.

Next time I’ll write about Dad becoming an American.