Facebook's IPO is a GREAT Success!

If you sold your home for $500,000 and several hours later the buyer sold it for $800,000 would you be happy or would you think 'I left money on the table?' %$%@#$%&*%^$

In the strange world of IPO's, the Investment Bankers who handle selling Initial Public Offerings, IPO's, (not the same companies that ACTUALLY invested earlier!) almost always convince companies that their IPO's should be under-priced!  For example, Google Corporation sold stock at $85 and at the end of its first day, it was worth over $100 per share. In short, it's a good thing for stock to be sold at $30, if the speculators (sorry, NEW investors) at the end of the day sell it for $70!  Really?

To his great credit, Mr. Zuckerberg of Facebook, sold stock at $38 and it closed at $38.23.  No one lost money, and Facebook the company, didn't leave money on the table. Isn't this really a good thing for all of its investors?

It should be noted that the Investment Banks have rights to buy/sell the stock themselves and give them to good friends and themselves. They usually make instant mega-profits, but that's just part of the game, that no one, yes, no one publicly, questions.

Consider the absurdity of the following headline, one of hundreds:

Facebook IPO falls short of the Hype

Facebook's flat performance on its first day of trading raises questions about the stock's prospects.

This is from a business section. Read its first simple sentences. You can surf for hours and see no other interpretation. What insane hogwash! There is no evidence, or at least certainly none cited, to back up such outrageously stupid interpretations.  Is black, white?

Smart, successful people all mouthing lemming-like dumb statements - this is scary on many levels. When elites say the opposite of the truth in lock-step, we have a taste of a people or a class going through the motions.
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Similar lemming behavior is/has occurred in education.  The emphasis on tests and standards has no basis on learning; just educational outcomes.  Everyone mouths the pieties.  It's as if the Geico ads were actually valid.  I mean people do know they are a joke, right?

Some get it, but they are so non-mainstream and not in big cities. They are ignored.

Monet Klimt and Shaw

T.D. Lee, the second youngest Nobel winner in Physics, closed Stanford's 1979 Schiff lecture on why symmetry isn't necessary for beauty with one of Claude Monet's paintings of poplar trees:

A few years after Monet painted poplars, Gustav Klimt painted birch trees:

The impressionist influence combined with exaggerated senses of form, structure, and color renders Klimt's work on par with Monet's.

One hundred years later, Adam Shaw painted trunks or limbs to suggest metaphors such as the Dance of Shiva that amplify those of of Klimt:

Other works of Adam Shaw, all of which are on display at Whistler Art in British Columbia, explore the territory seen by Monet and Klimt. Scotch Mist, Epistle, and Living with the Law follow:

The quality, the substance, and the depth of Adam Shaw's work builds on Monet and Klimt, and, frankly, in some ways surpass them; although priority in time is of extreme value. The photographs of all of the works do not justly show the interplay of form, color and meaning. It is worth the time to view the four paintings of Shaw's in Whistler.

While it's somewhat coarse to speak of money, there is irony in that the works of Monet of Klimt sell in the tens of millions of dollars, hundreds of millions; while Shaw's sell for between 10 and 20 k$.  He's an interesting and vibrant artist who appears worth knowing professionally and artistically.
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Background

• Claude Monet and The Poplar Series
• Gustave Klimt and the Block-Bauer Paintings
• Whistler Art and Adam Shaw
• Adam Shaw's portfolio showing Trees

Being Played - May This Post Prove Wrong

Hamilton established the US credit rating as A - solid over 200 years ago.  The Republican House will end this at the end of the July 2011.  Who wins?  It is very simple:

The physical fundamentals of the US economy will stay the same.
Interest rates will increase on US Treasury bonds when the debt limit is reset.
Less money for government operations
More money for Wall Street/Hedge Fund investors from Interest payments.

Seems pretty simple to me.  The Republicans are selling out the country to make Wall Street happy.  The Democrats are having trouble keeping up with toadying.  The fiscal responsibility stuff is to keep current bond holders happy.

It's all about keeping current investors on top. It is that simple.

Contract Negotiations Through a Foggy Crystal Ball

Disclaimer: I am a union site rep, but I'm not privy to any union negotiation strategy that isn't public knowledge. The following comments are conjectures on my part. No one has suggested or approved them. While not fully independent, I respect district concerns.


Background to Negotiations with the Teacher's Union

1. After rehiring most teachers and district administrators dismissed last year, the district doesn't want to increase class sizes again and doesn't want furlough days to save money. The district has stated "no pay decreases," which is actually a concession. While no money for pay increases exists, the annual Anthem health insurance increase of about $3,500, negotiated to about $2,800 must be paid for somehow.
2. The district has a tradition, that is actually in the public interest, that all employees, classified, certified, and administrative, pay the same health contribution to the same health plan. Unless one thinks that public agencies cutting private deals for employees is smart, like the City of Bell, this is wise. Don't think that so-called transparency actually is reliable as an alternative. The best Freedom of Information Request is one that's not needed.  On the other hand, maintaining this tradition ties weakens the leverage to ask for concessions.
3. Complicating the district's position is that classified staff negotiates at the same time as certificated (teachers and counselors) and all groups need to be simultaneously signed up on the same health plan to earn the lowest rates.
4. As a result, the district has handled its negotiations with the union awkwardly, understandably.
1. Asked the teachers's union to sign a memorandum accepting the health plan without stating its costs to teachers.
2. Responding to the teachers contract proposals with excessive disdain in public.

Union Responses to the District

1. The union hasn't signed the memorandum, understandably. Imagine going into a Ford dealership, wanting to buy a Fiesta car, where the dealer immediately demands that you sign a binding memorandum stating "I will buy a Fiesta with two, not four doors," without stating the price!  No one sensible person would accept that.  Furthermore, imagine that the dealer says, "I will not discuss the Fiesta with you further until you sign the memorandum."  Beyond strange, but that's the situation the union is in with the district currently.
2. The union resents, understandably, the district response to new contract language with merely dismissals due to cost.  Contract language is required to start a discussion and is accompanied by an explanation of why the contract text is needed.  The union made no demands. For example, if five days of prep time are requested for Special Ed (which sounds costly), the reason given was that preparing for attorney's questions have greatly increased over the past few years.  The district is expected to respond with statements like "our data shows no increase, therefore we don't agree," or "yes, there has been a slight increase, but the need for time can be met by doing this or this."  Instead, the only response by the district has been "no, it costs too much."  If you think: "OK, so what," consider this analogy. A senior goes to a parent and asks "I want to go to the prom," and the parent says "no, it costs too much." Yes, that's an allowed response, but it's not wise. Proms are important. It would be better to say "A prom costs a lot, can we figure out some way to reduce its cost? Could you help me out with some chores to offset the costs?"
3. A contract negotiation is a tough discussion, not a sequence of postures. The union suggestions are not fixed. The district's approach is inappropriate from a union perspective, but it is understandable.  Is there a resolution.

A Possible Union Solution

1. Take the memorandum and add the same terms given to the Classified Employees, sign it and give it to management.  Place it in their corner.
2. Agree to any changes that correspond to Classified changes.
3. Optionally, if the district signs the memorandum, in the spirit of longterm cooperation, consider granting the district a reasonable change in the contract without a tradeoff.  For example, change all teacher votes that require supermajorities to simply 50% + 1.  This applies to bell schedules for example.  This gives the administration more flexibility in their work and actually increases teacher democracy.
4. Ask that this contract receive tentative approval from both sides, but hold out on voting.
5. Discuss other areas of the contract as appropriate, listen, make trades if possible, if a new tentative agreement can be found, then it's all to the good.

Irony

While at first, it may seem that the union wins this negotiation, by not losing much. In the long run, it's the opposite.  Imagine the district having money for possible pay raises one day.  There would be no raise!  The money goes to escalating health care costs.  It's conceivable that union employees may never get another raise.  The finance/insurance industry grabs all of the money before it is even spent!  Welcome to 21st century America.

Book Review - True Grit - Charles Portis

True Grit truly belongs on every young adult's reading list. It is the genuine YA title. A fast pace, snappy, easy, hilarious dialogue when read out loud and a heroine, who really is! The book is short, but the lessons last long. Mattie Ross pays; as does Rooster Cogburn. We all pay. Nothing comes without a price.

Without the Coen Brothers movie version, I wouldn't have read the text. The Coen's closely follow the text, delete a scene, with a reasonable justification, but made three small changes, two of which are baffling. First, her black farm hand Yarnell escorted her to Fort Smith, but this color was deleted. Mattie would not have gone alone. Second, the order in the execution was changed and coarsely modified. The Indian (ie Native American) repented, referred to Christ, and sought to die with honor. Why did the Coen's simply go with racism and have the executioner bag him? This decision, along with not showing the Indian's struggle to die, suggests that the Coen's don't see racism in particulars, but only in general.  There are good white people and bad white people, other people don't exist; especially thoughtful religious people. Portis shows more respect from a 14-year-old than the directors inherently have evidently.

The third change concerned the inability of Mattie to kill Tom Chaney. Portis was trying to suggest something. Perhaps Ahab vs Moby Dick was his guide, but the Coen's have Mattie finish him off; not letting Cogburn, following Portis.  The Coen's version was a bit more believable, but a little poetry and love was lost.  The bond between Cogburn and Ross became the core of the story.  The Coen's may have weakened it, but not too much.

There is a resolution to the Coen's changes. Portis and the Coens share a great idea: changing the canon. The Coen's Brother Where Art Thou was a twisted retelling of the Odyssey.  As children, the Coen's read True Grit and probably saw that Portis did the same twisting with Cain and Abel. They saw that Tom Chaney has the mark of Cain from previous murders. No one can kill him. The Ranger failed and so has Mattie twice. Only the avenging angel Rooster Cogburn can destroy him and even then he has to push him into the pit of hell to do so, past the purgatory where Mattie struggles. Yes, Mattie is being punished for trying to kill Cain and also because everything has a price; only the grace of God is free.  Note that before the snow falls, Cogburn is not himself. He's very drunk the day before. After the white snow, he is an angel first attacking the fallen angels on a plain, like Michael in Paradise Lost, and then delivering Mattie from the pit. The Coen's chose to toss Portis's intensity, by making the Chaney's mark blue, having Mattie blow him away literally, and denying the Indian's right to praise God. As a result, Mattie's self is not a recognition of the power of God, but merely a lifestyle choice in a harsh world where everything has a cost. There is no redemption to the Coens; although grace is a possibility.


The role of LaBoeuf has subtlety. What exactly is he? In the book he is the one to get Chaney's body out of the pit - a harrowing task. He seems to be an angel who does cleanup. Would Milton call him a cherub?  Is he a cypher from Portis? Consider his name: it has all of the vowels except "i." Is he everyone and no one and definitely not the author or the reader? He appears suddenly and then disappears quickly. Mattie finds no trace of him years later.  Still, he comes through in the clutch. The Coens claim he was a marksman at 400 yards, but the book says 600 yards (>1/3 of a mile). No one shoots that well. Is he the finger of God? He reclaims "cain" from Satan in a way. Remember Cain didn't know he committed evil when he killed Abel. He only knew it was murder after the fact.  He seemed dimwitted to Mattie, but sharp to LaBoeuf.  Perhaps LaBoeuf understood what Tom Chaney truly was.


True Grit is a great American novel. The negotiation between Stonehill and Mattie ranks with Who's on First and The Devil and Daniel Webster as great comedy. Samuel Clemens would have doubled over in laughter reading the book and would have regretted not being able to write such a quick read  with depth himself.  It's that good.

Book Review - The Death and Life of the Great American School System - Ravitch

Diane Ravitch, Bill Gate’s number one enemy in his words, doesn’t stoop to blogger-style comments. She is an educational historian! Her critique of education reformers and their emphasis on tests may not rise to Susan Sontage levels, but it is devastating nonetheless.  My review that follows tries to supplement her kind words

Perhaps it’s best to read The Death and Life of the Great American School System in reverse order.  The last chapter stresses what can be done to improve our schools in ways that are achievable and positive.

The penultimate chapter discusses the non-criticized roles of Gates, Broad, and Walton family (Wal-mart). These foundations have contributed to almost all “elite” ed institutions: dissent has been minimized.

Dr. Ravitch doesn’t discuss particular silencings, but my favorite group, Core Knowledge, which pressures for improved curriculum has become very quiet over test, test, test. The organization merely presses for more integrated content from curriculum to test.  Again, she doesn’t stoop to my levels of writing things like why don’t they preach what they practiced: Gates went to a wonderful, liberal high school that allowed him time to work on projects, why does he stress accountability now.  He’s like G. Canada of the Harlem Charter School who brags about reading constantly while growing up, but now presses for accountability.

The third to the last chapter focuses on the limitations of testing. No legitimate organization and no country has adopted testing of students as the way to target teachers. Yet we say that we are research-based.  Of course, here Dr. Ravitch agrees, but she still pulls back. She shreds the VAT people, because they also advocate for no licensing, no advanced education etc of teachers because it doesn’t correlate to higher test scores.  Dr. Ravitch doesn’t state the obvious conclusion: If VAT results don’t correlate to anything, then they are worthless.  The key fact that Dr. Ravitch leaves out is that TIMSS scores correlate with the number of demographic questions answered.  This implies, or I infer, that test results are a cultural issue, not a teaching issue!  The only strange omission in her text is that the unreliability of VAT results is due to “regression to the mean.” She left out that well-know term.

The funniest chapter is the one on “choice.” Who can be against choice? She points out that Schools of Choice were the standard to keep white schools white after 1954 in the South. Choice means segregation. Of course, it will mean the same thing now, but it will be seen differently.  Of high importance is that even schools that try to be random in student selection are not in practice. Low achievers are dismissed.  This can be seen in my school district Newport-Mesa. Early College High School is meant to have 100 students per class. Only 34 graduated! The other students returned to different schools. The good news was that the test scores of this school were equal to those of a high-SES school for everyone. Are congratulations in order?

In other words, Dr. Ravitch presents evidence quietly and the reader brings the heat to this work.  This is clear in that she doesn’t argue, as I would, that all of the attacks on public education are to reap its cash in privatization. This is obvious to me because Gates, Broad, and company refuse to put any money into Catholic schools; even though they have excellent track records in educating poor students. They are in decline because of subsidized competition from charters, which most of whom deliver weak results.

This is the book to read if you value the value of local community schools, see the value in local democracy, and worry about the unchecked power of reformers.  If you just think the market should decide things, while ignoring the impact of regulations and foundation money on the market, don’t bother.

Book Review - Darkly Dreaming Dexter - Jeff Lindsay

Being a Dexter fan until this TV season (No loose ends was one of the joys of Dexter - now no one can ID him as Trinity's friend and demolished cars having his DNA can be at murder sites - no problem.), it was only a matter of time until I read the book that was optioned for the series.

Jeff Lindsay's Darkly Dreaming Dexter starts fast with crisp writing bordering on parody: "Moon. Glorious moon. Full, fat, ..." and "All calling to the Need." It captures you and compels you to keep reading. I finished its 288 pages between Chicago and Salt Lake while flying American Airlines.  Like the show, an extreme amount of interior dialogue takes place.  Even better is that the all-knowing Dexter is revealed not to have a clue at the end of the book.  The text, like the series, stresses that he can barely relate to people, that he has to pretend, while at the same time Dexter sees and understands all of the office politics, which is pretty funny really.

In this book, the plot weighs down the character, Dexter seems to think that the serial killer that's stalking him is a semi-playmate.  For such a short text, a great deal of time is spent on the playfulness and its affects on Dexter and his silly behavior.

(Spoiler alert - Stop reading)

The silliness is then compounded by one of the worst conclusions of any book I've read. A key TV character is killed, the wounded serial killer is allowed to run free (with the hope that he is caught) and Dexter's sister is all good with it.  All of this occurs in about three pages.  Absolutely preposterous and far too abrupt after the endless words about the refrigerated truck!

(End Spoiler)

Quite simply, the TV series fixed the obvious errors in the book's plotting and characterization. For example, in the book Deb is a super hot babe working in vice. Dumb and unnecessary. In short, there is no need to read the book. It adds nothing to the series. Lindsay just isn't a good enough writer.