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Idle essays

What Do Surveys Survey?

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The beloved Charles M. Blow is holding forth on the Walter Scott case, which one would expect that he should. I’m not going to say whether I agree or disagree with today’s column (those of  you who’ve been watching closely can imagine). But I would like to discuss a source that he (graphically supported by the NY Times) uses to help make his finely honed point: a Gallup poll asking Americans about their views of police force.

Every time someone trots out statistics from one of these polls, I find myself asking What do these questions really mean? And more to the point, what did the respondents really mean when they answered “yes,” “no,” “maybe”?

Let’s consider the responses to the questions Mr. Blow’s graphic designer presents.

“How much confidence do you have in the police”? Those responding ‘a great deal/quite a lot’:

Whites: 59%
Blacks: 37%

How much confidence do you  have in the police? I’ll tell you what my answer is: “It depends.”

It depends on the call to which one asks the officer(s) to respond. It depends on the officer’s training. It depends on the officer’s years of experience and on the quality of that experience. It depends on the officer’s overall IQ: smart, normal, or dumb as a post?

I feel a lot of confidence in most officers’ ability to cope with a traffic accident. I feel a lot of confidence in their ability to respond to my call to 911 reporting that some creep is trying to get in a bedroom window.  I feel a lot of confidence in their ability to respond to a cell phone call saying I’m at Tatum and Shea, headed for the Paradise Valley Police Station, and someone scary is following me.

I do not feel a lot of confidence in most officers’ ability to deal safely with domestic violence in progress, although I suspect they would do better than I could. Especially if they were bigger than me.

I do not feel a lot of confidence in any man’s or woman’s ability to respond when someone threatens his or her life; no more than I feel a  lot of confidence in my own ability to respond to a direct threat on my own life (other than to know that if I had a pistol in hand I would not hesitate to shoot).

I do not feel a lot of confidence that a police officer would deal kindly with Gerardo or Luz if someone called to say they saw one or the other of them entering my property when I wasn’t home — even if I’d left the key for Luz or the back gate unlocked for Gerardo.

I do feel a lot of confidence in any officer’s inclination to sacrifice his or her own safety to help someone whose life appears to be in danger.

“How would you rate the honest and ethical standards of police officers.” Those responding “very high/high”:

Whites: 59%
Blacks: 45%

How would you rate the honesty and ethical standards of police officers? Me, I think 59% “high” or even 45% “high” is pretty damn good. I would rate the honesty and ethical standards of most human beings as “mediocre” to “low.” Police officers seem to be human beings, and so…well…

Is the American justice system biased against black people?” Those responding “no”:

Whites: 69%
Blacks: 26%

And you? Do you think the American justice system is biased against black people? Yes, no, maybe? As for moi, my response is WRONG QUESTION!

In my not very humble opinion, the American justice system is biased against poor people: the more money you have, the more justice you can afford. Thanks to a legacy of slavery and discrimination, a larger proportion of black folks than of white folks live in poverty, or in something close to it.

Is the American justice system biased against poor people? Damn right. To the extent that a lot of black people are poor, well, sure: the system is biased against them. If you asked me, out of the blue, “biased against black people?” I might or might not answer “yes.” Or “no.” Depending on my mood and on what you asked in the previous questions.

So you see…I hate these surveys. You see why?

Duck! Bees!

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Yesterday afternoon Ruby the Corgi Pup strolled out to the backyard and FLEW INTO A BARKING, BAYING FRENZY!

Yes. Corgis can bay, after a fashion. Ruby’s characteristic statement, when confronted with anything new, different, suspicious, or amusing is an ear-splitting arf-arfaROOOOOOO!

When this didn’t settle down and indeed seemed to be getting more and more frantic, I went out to investigate and found, lo! An intruder!

P1030447
Click on the images for a better view.

Yup. There she is. I’ve heard ducks will sometimes take up residence in backyard pools, but this is the first time I’ve seen one do so. Certainly the first time in MY backyard pool.

She’s probably started a nest under the (mightily overgrown) shrubbery near the pool. It’s a perfect spot to raise a duck family. I haven’t seen a mallard, though. Usually they’ll hang around for awhile after getting a female duck with eggs. As it were.

This morning it looks like she’s decided the hotel is open and it’s four stars.

P1030449Isn’t that cute?

Well, the mess she’ll make won’t be cute at all — duck droppings stain the pool plaster and the CoolDecking, so I suppose she’s going to have to find a new rental. Cleaning up last year’s algae infestation was a vast amount of work and expense, and this will make an even bigger mess to clean up than that. Besides, I can’t imagine what she could eat out there. Ducks forage on grass — there’s no grass in the backyard or the front yard, or in any of the neighbors’ yards. And of course nothing edible grows in a puddle of Clorox.

It’s against the law to harass wild ducks, so I’ll need to find some way to discourage her.

Ruby is anxious to take out after her, and that would be the ideal way to scare her off. But Ruby doesn’t yet know how to find her way out of the water (there’s only one spot, about two feet long by 18 inches wide, where she even can get out). The water is still a little t0o cold for me to jump in, which will have to happen for me to train her. Maybe M’hijito would bring Charley over — he can swim, but diving in ain’t his thing.

We’ve had a little cold snap, which has delayed pool water warming despite several days in the 90s and high 80s. So swimming season is coming on a bit late. Ordinarily I’d be in the water by now, and I’m sure watching a lumbering human splash around would be amply alarming to a momma duck.

LOL! I’ve seriously thought about converting that thing into a gigantic backyard pond. When replastering time comes along (which it will, soon enough: $10,000), have a dark color put in there; install a rock waterfall, dechlorinate it, float some pond plants, pull out the CoolDeck and replace it with gardens…wouldn’t that be nice? Put some koi in there…the the duck would be right at home.

But I’m not sure it’s legal to do that. There are mosquito ordinances, and the County flies helicopters to spy on people’s backyards. If they see a green pool, they’ll cite you. And of course, 18,000 gallons of pond water would register with them as “green pool.”

A-a-a-a-a-n-d… The new tree guy just found a brand-new nest of bees a-building. When we walked into the backyard, we found a bunch of them flying in and out under the deck.

This is a serious problem, because there’s no place else for the dogs to go — I’ve fenced off the pool area and can’t leave Ruby out in that area because she falls into the drink in the best of circumstances.

DAMN it! Just when I have to pay some guy $350 that I can’t afford to hack back the trees, now I’ve got to pony up ANOTHER $150 to have bees exterminated. Hell and Damn. That’s going to put the eefus on the plan to rent examples of the cars I’m interested in buying. I’ll have to let the car guy know I can’t do that next week. It also means the planned shopping trip later this month is off. And tonight I’m supposed to go out to dinner before a concert…will be ordering a cup of coffee and pretending to be too sick to eat, I guess.

Good thing I came in under budget for two months running…

Communication Complication

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🙂 So yesterday I bought a new communication complex at Costco. We used to call these things “telephones.” I’m afraid that term no longer suffices…

P1030444I bought it because if you have caller ID  you can use this contraption to block up to TWO HUNDRED AND FIFTY nuisance callers. Hee heeeeee! That is SO much better than the five-minute answering messages that cause robo-calling machines to hang up.

Also, my beloved Uniden set is getting old. Replacement batteries for the Uniden are hard to find and a pain to install, especially now that Radio Shack has closed. I used to take the dead handsets up to the Radio Shack around the corner, where the guys would not only sell me new funny-looking battery thingies, they would put them in, too. That was very nice.

The Panasonic uses ordinary AAA batteries — well, the rechargeable kind — which you can get about anywhere and you can replace easily. So that’s a big plus.

But…just lookit that thing. You can connect not one but two cell phones with it (does that mean when you’re using your cell you’re not using up minutes??). Its base unit will run on a handset’s batteries, so when the power goes out your phone doesn’t instantly go dead. It does things that no one ever heard of and no one really has any desire to do.

And thanks to all that functionality, the damn thing is SO COMPLICATED that the instruction manual is NINETY-SEVEN PAGES LONG!

The quick-start pamphlet alone is nine pages long. Holy mackerel.

However, once I figure out how to get it to work, it will have just as many extensions as the Uniden does (a phone in almost every room!), and it will allow me to block incoming nuisance calls.

Most times when the phone rings anymore, it’s a nuisance telemarketer. AARP (I suspect) sells its mailing lists to the crooks, so if you’re in the “senior” category you get blitzed with scammy pitches and frauds at all hours of the day and night. On average, I get three to five of these calls a day, even though I never answer the phone to them.

Only drawback I can see is that if someone calls in such a way that “no number” is available, the Panasonic will automatically block the call. Both M’jito and SDXB have phones that occasionally register with the Uniden as “Unknown Caller,” so I’m a little concerned that it will reject calls from them. Maybe there’s some way they can adjust their phones to make their numbers visible — it’s not consistent, so I don’t know why that happens.

Sure would be nice, though, to stop people from harassing you without having to buy a telephone that requires 97 pages if instruction…

Monday Morning Mountain Walk

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Early this morning the dogs and I walked about a mile and a half through the neighborhood. And once again I was left thinking, This is not the kind of exercise that’s gonna take the flab off the belly. Wrestling a half-trained dog around a park and up a few sidewalks does not, alas, fill that bill.

We got back to the house early enough, however, that I realized that I could lock up the puppy, throw on a pair of boots, and head over to North Mountain Park for a short hike over at least some terrain that offers a little up- and downhill walking. It’s been a year since I’ve been on the mountain. It’s a time-sucking hassle to get over there, and so not something one readily does without the impetus of a companion who wants to make the hike, too.

Entered by way of one of the south-side entrances, having no intention of actually climbing either Shaw Butte or North Mountain. There’s plenty of rolling terrain that will serve to get you started before you try for a stroll on the highway to heaven.

On the south side of Shaw Butte there’s a low rise, a hill with a trail that takes you to the top of the mound and then, if you follow it further, up a pretty steep incline to the main trail on the butte’s backside.

What the hell, thought I, and proceeded up the rise.

Well. It’s not very far. And when you’re on top of that thing, you’re almost halfway up to the junction with the Shaw Butte trail. So naturally, I kept walking.

It’s a less than perfectly pleasant place to walk, especially when the weather’s nice. The park has become very crowded, largely with stupid people who haven’t got enough sense to keep their yaps shut as they’re hiking. Apparently they think everyone within a quarter-mile of them wants to hear about the intricacies of their office’s politics or their boyfriend’s behavior. Yakity yakity yakity yakity yak yak yak yak!

More kindly, I expect that most people don’t realize how far their voices carry across a desert landscape. In the county’s mountain  parks, you can hear people talking a half-mile away — especially women, but a tenor male voice will carry a long way, too. I find that annoying…but I suppose it’s because I’m the rara avis that happens to relish solitude. And I’d really rather hear the doves cooing, the quail hooting, and the thrasher calling than to hear a human’s voice babbling on.

Oh well.

Before long, I’d hit the main trail. Decided not to proceed to the mountaintop, figuring discretion was the better part, at least for today. The southside trail has two or three fairly steep sections — one of which I’d just traversed — and I’d just as soon not be crippled tomorrow. Considered following the main trail down to its starting point, but that would put me on the flat about a mile and a half from my car. To get back to the car, I’d have to walk along a main drag through a dangerous district: Meth Central, we might call it. Since that didn’t seem like the brightest of strategies, I turned back down the trail I’d come up and before long, voilà! arrived at the trailhead parking lot.

The other reason these trails are less than perfectly pleasant for hiking — besides the ubiquitous yakkers — is that all the trails in North Mountain are paved, at least in part, with loose scree. This debris turns into roller-bearing rocks when you’re walking downhill. It’s pretty dangerous: real ankle-twisting terrain.

It was 10:30 by the time I got home, soaked in sweat: half the morning was gone and now I had to bathe and wash my hair and wash my clothes, and that burned some more time. It’s now after one p.m. and so far I have not done a SINGLE ONE of the several things I really need to do today: read 25 pages of the client’s magnum opus, ride herd on the course that starts today, read and mark up notes for the Boob Book, or even write this silly little blog post.

And therein lies the problem: getting enough exercise by hiking, while it’s a quintessentially effective way to build health and shed flab, consumes a lot of time. It often doesn’t leave enough time in a given day for me to do the other tasks I need or want to do.

I guess I could take the attitude that dedicating a couple of hours a day to moderately strenuous hiking is something that I need to do, as much as I need to do paying work. For some reason, I find that difficult to do. Don’t know why.

The Eyeglass Artist

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Here is something extremely fun. I mean, from an entrepreneurial point of view. I was down at my fave eyeglass outfit — really, just dropped by to say hello to the gents, who are fairly charming — and found my attention diverted by the most amazing pair of shades…

DiamondShadesI think they are gorgeous beyond belief and covet the things, but I say to the proprietor, Tommy, “Gosh, those are too, too cool…but how can you see out of them?”

He explains that he’s set the rhinestones that adorn the lenses so that they’re out of the field of vision. I try them on, and darned if he isn’t right: when the shades are hanging off your nose, you’re not even aware of the decoration.

As the conversation devolves, it develops that Tommy has diverted a considerable artistic talent into designing fancy glasses based on the type of lenses that are fastened to the temple pieces by little screws through the lens itself. This, alas and expensively, happens to be the style I favor. How do I want these glasses? Let me count the dollars…

So now Tommy produces a few more of his small masterpieces. Some of these could only be made as non-prescription sunglasses that you’d wear with contacts (if your vision needed correction). Some could be done with Rx glasses. All of them are more fun than life.

Now, imagine yourself with your guitar and a mike and an awesome voice and an awesome song and ten thousand berserk fans screaming in front of you, and you’re wearing these…

RockStar

Tommy, ever modest, labels  this one “Image 4.” If I’d made it, I’d name it “Rock Star!” 🙂

What, rock is not your thing but “Ten Rounds of Jose Cuervo” is more your speed? How about a pair of cowboy boots to go with your stage presence?

boots

Brreee-hah!

This design is a little more demure — appropriate for street wear, once you’re off the stage and strolling around Rodeo Drive:

Quieter

You say you are a rock star and can afford a $600 pair of glasses for every holiday in the year? How’s about one for St. Patty’s day?

shamrocksAre those fun, or not?

So I say to Tommy, “You need to take these things up to Vegas and sell them there. People would fall all over themselves to have them!”

Alas, Tommy is a family man, and he’s not about to leave his wife and kiddies here and take off for Sin City. So we await his discovery by a famous rock star’s famous agent. If you know the person, pass this along.

Central Eyeworks
Tommy Libert and Ray Gonzales
14 East Camelback Road
Phoenix, Arizona

(Totally NOT a paid post!)

Post of the Day

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So, yes, the Post of the Day is over here. I converted this morning’s Scottsdale Business Association presentation to a blog post. Turned out better than I expected. Longer, too.

Hm. That squib elicited a like from this WordPress blogger, a fellow named Anthony Vicino who writes an engaging book review. If he can emit fiction as entertaining as his reviewing, it surely must be worth checking out his books.

Otherwise quiet on the home front. Spectacularly beautiful day (sorry, you Easterners). Nice doggy walk. No bills in the mail. No burglars in the living room. What more (or less) could anyone want?

The other day Anne remarked that it must be possible to save even MORE dollahs than planned by not visiting a grocery store every week. Ah, but no, argued I: lettuce and other fresh veggies don’t last more than a week in these parts: surely refraining from a grocery visit was IMpossible.

But nay: score 1 for Anne, minus 1 for Funny. I wuz wrong. This morning there was no real reason to visit a grocery on the way home from lovely uptown Scottsdale. I did make a brief run on the gourmet market, but for a non-grocery item. Anne could be right: with careful planning, it may be possible to evade even an ordinary grocery store for ten-day to two-week stretches. Hot diggety!

In other fine news: I just got excused from jury duty, on the Mayo’s say-so. Thank you very much, WonderSurgeon and staff! The alternative was a 90-day extension, which might have been OK, but in fact I have no idea whether I’ll be able to wear a shirt for the entire day by then or not. So that’s good. I guess.

Students are quiescent. So far no one has bellyached (much) about the quizzes I substituted for the reading reviews. Very nice…and it sets me up to have to read a whole lot less drivel.

Meanwhile, a small mystery: in one section only a couple of classmates (of 22) elected to turn in the extra-credit rewrite of the first District-required essay. These things represent 50 extra points — 50% of the value of one of the required essays, a free give-away. Most of the other section returned edited versions of one variety or another. But this bunch: ?????  I have no idea why they didn’t take advantage of such an easy opportunity to rack up free points.

Oh well. That much less to have to read.

And it frees up this evening to work on drafting the Boob Book!

 Dolly: Funny
Talent Scout Dude: Future employer
Auditioners: Freshman comp students

😆