kaizen
what's been floating my boat lately:
  • hiking with the family

    • "How fortunate for governments that the people they administer don't think."
    -Hitler-
    "Only two things are infinite, the universe and human stupidity, and I'm not sure about the former."
    -Albert Einstein-



    9/3/24 (20:42)

  • Not sure if I mentioned it earlier, but in June Meryl and I went on a hike that was supposed to be about 21 miles and ended up being 25. So we decided to double back a bit and make it a marathon. Averaged a 20 minute mile pace as well, so I think we did pretty well on that one. We're gearing up for a 30+ mile hike that goes along the Bay Area Ridge Trail. In total that trail is supposedly about 550 miles and we've done several hikes on various parts of it, but this would be 33 miles going through about 4 different cities in the east bay.
  • The new house is dragging along. Still waiting on EBMUD and the city to coordinate and approve everything and then we can get in the queue to actually do the work. Amazing how long all this crap takes. Also waiting for final inside inspection, which was going to happen tomorrow, but the inspector didn't call Meryl back so who knows when it will happen.
  • Girls are in new schools in the new town so that's probably the most important element. Once the inspections are all passed we'll move into the office and then make changes to some things before officially moving into the main house. Way more complicated than it needs to be. Empire State building was completed in 13 months.
  • In the early 1970s men were about 13% more likely to get a 4 year degree than women. This was a big part of the reason they passed Title IX. Today Women are 16% more likely to get a 4 year degree than men. When Title IX was passed only 42% of college students were female. Today 60% of college students are female.
  • I had Perplexity pull together some stats on gender gaps in teaching:
  • "Teachers:
  • Elementary Education: The teaching profession at the elementary level is predominantly female. As of 2024, 87% of elementary school teachers in the United States are female, with only 13% being male. This trend is consistent globally, with women comprising 68% of the teaching force in primary education.
  • Secondary Education: While women still represent a majority, their proportion decreases at higher education levels. In lower secondary education, women make up 58% of the teaching force, and this figure drops to 52% at the upper secondary level. In U.S. high schools, women constitute 59% of the teacher workforce.
  • Administrators:
  • Principals: At the secondary level, there is a notable gender gap in leadership positions. In the U.S., 58% of middle school principals are male, and this increases to 70% for high school principals.
  • Superintendents: The disparity is even more pronounced among school superintendents, where only 24% are women, despite women making up 76% of the overall K-12 educator workforce.
  • Superintendents:
  • In the early 1970s, women held only about 1.3% of superintendent positions. By the early 2000s, this figure had increased to 14%, and as of recent data, women now hold approximately 24% of superintendent roles. This represents a substantial increase, though women remain underrepresented in these top leadership positions compared to their overall presence in the education workforce.
  • Higher Education:
  • In higher education, the representation of women in administrative roles has also improved. Since the 1980s, there has been a steady increase in the number of women holding administrative positions. By 2016, women constituted roughly half of all higher education administrators. However, women are still less represented in the most prestigious and higher-paying executive roles.
  • Perception always lags reality. In some cases that perception can lag reality by decades.
  • It's funny how the media covers fundraising. After Trump was found guilty in NY the media widely reported that he raised over $50 million and some stories even claimed that it was mostly small donors. But the reality turned out to be that it was one guy who gave $50 million.
  • When Harris officially became the nominee the story was that she raised a huge amount of money. Of course this was all part of the plan. Big donors withheld money until Biden dropped out (this is part of the reason he finally dropped out), so a lot of the money she raised was money that was going to go to the ticket, but was just being withheld.
  • I like good arguments. One of the arguments against Harris is that the DNC didn't let her run, rather they coronated her. "For a party that cares so much about democracy, it's pretty sad that they don't have a nominee who received a single vote." That's the argument, but the problem is that when you vote for Biden you're actually voting for the Biden/Harris ticket. He drops out, dies, etc. then she's next up. That's the way it works.
  • Trying to listen to new music, but so much of it is total crap. I keep getting drawn to the oldies and classics and just keep mining those. Dusty Springfield, John Prine, Stevie Wonder... exploring more of their catalog or just discovering them for the first time. Seems to be a lot more bang for my buck.
  • Back has been hurting for a couple weeks. Started as just a little discomfort and then it got kinda bad and now it's mostly just a morning thing that goes away as I get warmed up. Our bed is over 10 years old and I guess that's what you can expect from beds these days so we ordered a new one. We'll see.
  • We were hanging out the other night and Merritt was doing some homework where she needed to come up with verbs associated with a given prompt. So, the prompt might be "sports" and she could list a verb like "running" or "swimming." One of the prompts was "old people" and I said "dying" and then someone said "falling." We cracked up for a while coming up with "old people" verbs. Hanging out with my family is my favorite activity. The down side is that it make going to work and sending them to school a real bummer.
  • We've got an epidemic of incompetence in this country and it's been going on for a while. If we keep lowering standards for a variety of reasons (some may even be nice reasons) then we'll have to continue to have bullshit that shouldn't happen crop up here and there. The secret service dropping the ball is a recent example. The excuses given after the assassination attempt were comical. "The roof was pitched" was one of the more funny reasons given. At least the director was finally pressured out, but it shouldn't have gotten that far in the first place.

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