Funny story. True story.

At the Solipsist's place of employment, e-mail addresses conform to a predictable pattern: first initial, last name. Thus, our e-mail address is "TSolipsist@collegename.edu." Remember this.

Recently, YNSHC has been conducting training sessions for a new piece of instructional software, call it "Socrates." (NOTE: All names have been slightly altered to protect the innocent and shame the guilty.) He's been meeting with small groups of faculty members to walk them through the ins and outs of this program. He has been assisted in these trainings by the computer center coordinator, all-around tech guy "Mike Johnson." Keep this in mind.

The other day, we received an e-mail from one of the trainees we had worked with the day before. The subject-line: "Grrrrrrr. . . ." Seems this particular trainee had gone home and attempted to access "Socrates" (an internet-based program). As the subject line suggests, she had a less than optimal experience: She was frequently booted, her computer froze, she was attacked by monkeys--she was not happy. It should also be noted that this particular trainee is an award-winning poet with a certain flair for language. Her e-mail was thus full of fine phrasing and pinpoint denunciations of the program. And while she was very diplomatic towards the Solipsist and "Mike Johnson"--whom she in no way blamed for the program's malfunctioning--she was scathing in her review of the program itself--a program, it should be noted, that the college had just invested a substantial sum of money to acquire.

(Digression: Before you get into high dudgeon--or even low dudgeon--about extravagant purchases in a time of budgetary crisis, we hasten to point out that the money was from a grant that we were required to expend by a certain date. While we agree that the money could have done more good if it had been saved and doled out more judiciously over the next several months of austerity, that was not an option. Perhaps we will address the absurdist nature of state budgeting and expenditure processes in a future post. EOD)

Anyway, we mentioned that said teacher sent her e-mail to YNSHC and "Mike Johnson." Well, that's not exactly accurate. She sent her e-mail to "TSolipsist@collegename.edu" and "MJohnson@collegename.edu." But "Mike Johnson" is "MiJohnson@collegename.edu."

"MJohnson" had been assigned to somebody else, specifically, "Malcolm Johnson."

The college president.

Sigh.

The moral of the story, Sloppists: E-mail is a wonderful tool. Indeed, it is the Solipsist's favorite mode of communication, combining as it does the instantaneity of the telephone with the "not-having-to-actually-talk-to-somebody" distance of the postal system. But in e-mail, as in so many other things, it is dangerous to make assumptions. Remember, to paraphrase Dad-of-Solipsist, if you make assumptions, you make an ass out of u and mption.

Happy e-mailing!

Oh, THAT Law? Never Mind!

Is anyone else troubled by what's brewing in Massachusetts politics? Look, we mourn Ted Kennedy as much as the next guy--assuming that the next guy isn't some gun-toting, gay-bashing, intelligent-design-believing redneck--but we're concerned by the machinations underway in the Bay State to replace him in the Senate ("Push Grows for Fast Choice on Successor to Kennedy").

Until recently, Massachusetts law provided that, if a US senator was unable to complete his or her term, the governor would appoint a replacement. Indeed, this is the law in many states, as we all learned this year when the governors of Illinois, Delaware, New York, and Colorado, all had the opportunity to appoint senators to positions vacated as a result of the presidential election and subsequent cabinet appointments. The process is questionable at best, and often fraught with ethical and political danger, as was seen in the Illinois and New York situations. In Massachusetts, though, the law is different: Current law holds that a special election must be held between 145 and 160 days after the vacancy occurs.

Shortly before his death, Senator Ted Kennedy implored state leaders to change the law to allow the governor to appoint a successor to finish the remainder of the senator's term. His main concern was that healthcare legislation not be allowed to fail due to his own inability to see it through to passage. Since President Obama and sympathetic Democrats will need every vote they can get, Kennedy wanted to make sure that his "voice" would be heard even in the event of his death. (Presumably Kennedy felt confident that anyone appointed by Governor Deval Patrick would be in tune with his own views.) Massachusetts leaders are now considering the change. In order to blunt criticism, Kennedy had asked that any interim appointee be barred from running for the seat in the next election; legislative leaders are receptive to this idea, but it is unclear whether such a restriction would be constitutional.

While we sympathize with Kennedy's goals, and we, too, want to see healthcare reform pass, we find something distasteful about this proposal. What troubles us is the fact that, as mentioned above, Massachusetts law used to provide the governor with the very powers that Kennedy was asking be restored. You know when the law was changed? 2004. You know why the law was changed? Because Massachusetts Democrats worried that, if Senator John Kerry won the presidency (laugh it up, but it seemed plausible for a few moments), then-Governor Mitt Romney would be able to appoint a partisan Republican to the vacant seat.

In other words, the law was fine as long as it thwarted a Republican appointment. Since it's no longer convenient, the politicians are looking for ways to change the law.

In a way, this is all "inside baseball": It's just politicians playing politics for the sake of political power. Indeed, Senator Kennedy himself--a master politician--would probably appreciate the whole backroom-dealing, smoke-filled room aspect of the whole thing. But we know how we felt when the political polarities were reversed: Anybody remember Bush v. Gore? And look at how well that turned out!

Yes, we know, this is a different situation. Still, we think there should be respect for laws. They shouldn't be enacted for temporary partisan advantage, only to be discarded when the advantage is no longer apparent. And while the political master Kennedy might applaud the maneuvering, we like to think the solidly liberal Kennedy would share some of our qualms.

Pink Like Me

As a teacher, the Solipsist has been exploring the seemingly limitless potential of groupwork. We figure we can get it down to a science, whereby we will simply walk into the classroom, yell "Start!" and then sit back and check out Facebook for the next hour and twenty minutes whilst our charges toil happily and productively in their little work-teams. We're not quite there yet, but every day brings us closer.

At any rate, one thing we ask of students, after dividing them randomly into teams of six or seven, is to come up with a team name. Childish? Maybe, but in college that's not necessarily a drawback. We've found that there's a somewhat tidal quality to student attitudes: What one loves as a child, one disdains as a teen, but then finds delight in again as a young adult (or old adult, for that matter). Thus, while a high-schooler will roll her eyes in disgust if her teacher returns a homework assignment festooned with a congratulatory Garfield sticker, a kindergartener will love it, and a 36-year-old single mother of three will squeal with delight. In other words, the students kind of get into the whole team-name activity.

In the years that we've done this, the team names have ranged from the "hip" ("Team Fresh") to the aspirational ("The Scholars") to the literal ("Five Chicks and a Dude") to the postmodern ("Team"). Today, however, we heard what may be our favorite team name yet.

In our current class, there are a number of African-American students. Some members of one team of seven girls suggested the name "The Black Panthers." Given their relative youth, the students probably meant this not so much as a militant statement but as something that sounded kind of cool: One is unsure if they even know who the Black Panthers are, but they'd probably heard the phrase and thought it sounded good. At any rate, a few of the girls raised a small objection: "We're not all black." Good point. Well, another girl observed, in that case, you guys can be "The Pink Panthers." Everybody laughed, and the group, "The Pink and Black Panthers," was formally chartered.

Some might look at this and see subtle racism--or at least separatism. We don't. If anything, the ease with which these kids discussed, negotiated, and, ultimately, laughed about their racial identities strikes us as somewhat promising. We're not a postracial society yet. But this often divisive issue is definitely becoming less incendiary.

Plus: "Pink and Black Panthers"? If you ask us, that's pretty damn clever.

The Banality of Evil--American Style

Comparisons are odious. As Barney Frank fans know, comparisons to Nazis are particularly fraught and can subject one--rightly--to questioning about one's planet of origin. Still, the CIA's guidelines for interrogators ("Report Shows Tight C.I.A. Control on Interrogations") remind one of nothing so much as the famed Nazi penchant for organization and bureaucratic control.

This lengthy and heavily redacted document spells out in minute detail the allowable techniques for softening up suspects.

The "sanctioned techniques. . . . in approximately ascending degrees of intensity" include:

Shaving (Shaving?)

Stripping

Hooding (Who decided that it's worse to be hooded than stripped?)

Isolation (Shaving, stripping, isolation. . . .? Sounds like a typical weekend for the Solipsist.)

The list darkens, though, as we move on to coercion techniques like "sleep deprivation," various kinds of "slap," and "walling"--not even sure we want to know what that last one means--all the way up to the infamous "non-torture" known as "Waterboarding." The list ends with the following admonition: "In all instances the general goal of these techniques is a psychological impact, and not some physical effect" (emphasis added). The physical suffering is a bonus.

The level of detail provided to ensure "proper" care and feeding of detainees would be almost hilarious as part of a Monty Python sketch. Imagine the following read by John Cleese:

"The more physical techniques are delivered in a manner carefully limited to avoid serious physical harm. The slaps, for example, are designed 'to induce shock, surprise, and/or humiliation' and 'not to inflict physical pain that is severe or lasting.' To this end they must be delivered in a specifically prescribed manner, e.g., with fingers spread. Walling is performed only against a springboard designed to be loud and bouncy (and cushion the blow). All walling and most attention grasps are delivered only with the subject's head solidly supported with a towel to avoid extension-flexion injury."

"I'm sorry, Mr. Detainee, would you excuse me for a moment while I fetch a towel to support your head while I clench your face?"

The defense, of course, is that obsessive detail ensures that detainees will be treated, for want of a better word, well. We're sure the detainees appreciate it.

Consider that someone sat around and deliberated about exactly what needed to be done in order to avoid the impression of torture. As the Times reports, "Two 17-watt fluorescent-tube bulbs--no more, no less--illuminated each cell, 24 hours a day. . . . A prisoner could be doused with 41-degree water but only for 20 minutes at a stretch." The "Goldilocks" quality is striking. Presumably 40 degree water would be inhumanely cold, but 42 degrees--especially for hardened veterans of Afghanistan winters--would be positively spa-like.

Even if we give the benefit of the doubt and assume the authorities did want to protect from grievous harm the prisoners they were maltreating, we are brought up short by this focus on minutiae. Didn't the fact that they had to strive so hard to make sure they were presenting a facade of humanity tip these interrogators to the fact that they were somehow beyond the pale?

Uneasy Lies the Head. . .

The Solipsist doesn't have much time today--he's been stuck in meetings all day, and he has to go teach in a few minutes. But he'll be damned--that's right, DAMNED--if he lets that break his uninterrupted blogging streak. So, today, just a brief post on the despair that goes along with management.

Some of you may have heard that our humble state of California is having some teensy-weensy budgetary issues. Have no fear, the Solipsist's position as Solano County Dog and Pheasant Wrangler is safe. The problem is that the Solipsist is in a managerial position, one that requires him to arrange a staffing schedule for part-timers--part-timers who look to the meager offerings that we dole out to help them make ends meet. Facing a budget reduction of approximately 75% (in actual terms), the Solipsist has had no choice but to dramatically reduce, and in some cases eliminate, his young staff's hours.

In many cases, we probably take it harder than our minions. After all, for them, this is just a part-time job, not meant as anything like a career path; and it's not as if we're firing them for egregious failure--they'll all get glowing recommendations. But it's disheartening. When one has striven over the last several years to build something up, only to see it decimated once it's reached a certain level of success. . . .

Such is life in the public sector. We struggle on.

Money for Nothing

The other day we alluded to the fact that we have little interest in the world of high finance. We should amend that: We have an interest in everything. What we have for high-finance falls more neatly under the heading of contempt. We were reminded of this today when we read an article dealing with the phenomenon of "high-frequency trading" ("Arrest Over Software Illuminates Wall St. Secret").

Now, be advised, the Solipsist is no Master of the Universe, so he could be woefully misinformed about everything he's ranting about here. Bear with us.

Our basic understanding is that the stock market works something like this: A company sells shares of itself to the public. The price of these shares moves up or down based on how well or how poorly investors think the company is doing or will do. So, let's say shares of Solipsist, Inc. (SPSI), cost $20.00. If The Wall Street Journal announces that our humble blog is about to be bought out by, say, CNN, the price will probably shoot up--maybe to $25.00 a share. If, on the other hand, SPSI was bought out by some shaky or shady outfit like Enron or General Motors, our stock would move in a downward direction. This much we can understand.

Things get strange when stock movements become self-perpetuating--basically all the time. In this phenomenon, one person decides that a stock is extremely desirable (or undesirable) and buys (sells) many shares. Someone else sees this person buying shares and decides he, too, must get in on the action. But because the first person has bought so many shares, the price of remaining shares has gone up. Which, of course, makes the first person happy because he has just made a (paper) profit, but the second person is in a slightly less enviable position--though not as unenviable as the third, fourth, fifth--and so on--investors, who will pay ever greater sums for this ever-more desirable stock. But the whole movement started with one person who, for all we know, knows nothing about the stock's inherent value. This is what is known as a "bubble."

Now, "high-frequency trading" really sleazes things up. As far as we understand, HFT works like this: A bunch of computer geeks devise algorithms to enable computers (often independent of people) to spot very small movements in stock prices. These computers then execute very high-volume trades in very rapid succession--far faster than any human trader could. To illustrate, a program may execute a purchase of 10,000 shares of Widgets, Inc., at a dollar each and then, within fractions of seconds, when the price goes up to $1.01, sell those shares and make a quick $100 profit. Not much in absolute terms, but when you consider that these algorithms allow firms to execute hundreds or thousands of such trades at a time, you realize we're talking about a lot of money.

Traders argue that this improves efficiency, but it sounds kind of sketchy. After all, wouldn't the very act of buying so many shares so quickly cause the price to rise and thereby virtually guarantee a profit for the algorithm-user, irrespective of anything like the actual value of the stock in question? And, if other traders pick up on the apparent "volatility" of the stock, might they not flee the company in panic--even though the volatility is completely artificial?

The Solipsist is no communist (although socialism looks better and better every day). But isn't this kind of pointless, non-productive capitalism-for-the-sake-of-capitalism exactly the kind of thing Marx was talking about when he called for the workers of the world to unite? Can anyone defend this kind of pointless greed?

More from The Cutting Room Floor

Some more out-takes and miscellany.

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From "Ouch" (August 21, 2009)

Our dentist has quite the enthusiasm for drugs. When he told us he was going to extract wisdom teeth, he wrote a prescription for Vicodin and Amoxycillin. He also offered Valium.

"Well, Valium isn't a painkiller, right," we asked.

"No, it's just to relax you."

"But I'm not nervous."

"Oh, OK, no problem. It's just that a lot of people like to have it before coming to the dentist."

"No, I don't. . . I mean, you are going to use painkillers, right?"

"Oh, yeah, don't worry, you won't feel anything, but, y'know, just. . . if you wanted the Valium, you could have it."

You should understand that the dentist, whose musical tastes run toward the Offspring and Nirvana, seems to be a bit of a reformed (?) hippie. Soul patch, earring. He's mostly bald, now, but he must have sported a ponytail in his partying days in dental school. We ultimately turned down the Valium, as well as the laughing gas offered by the purple-haired dental nurse. We can't help but feel that the dentist was disappointed.

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We want to learn to speak "Dentist."

At one point, while extracting our lower tooth, the dentist asked if everything was OK. We told him we were feeling some pain in our jaw, but it wasn't from what he was doing--it was just from keeping our mouth open wide for so long.

Well, that's what we said. What came out was, "Iehhullr alill. . . . nguuh chrumm heeing ouwouchhh owen."

But then the dentist said, "Oh, OK. Let's put a bite block in, that'll take some pressure off the jaw."

!!!!

Now, we know what you're thinking: Well, that's just something that he hears a lot, so he's figured out what the basic sounds are like. We thought so, too. So we decided to test it. The following is a transcript:

Solipsist: Uhhh. . .cho. . . gu oo lie gachegall?

Dentist: Oh, yeah. Giants fan.

S: Huh. . . chey'lre gooing gell.

D: Yeah, I think they could still get the Wild Card.

S: I'n churhise. . . I hoou chooo. U, ee-ooo, hong-hong-hong. . . .u ngot. . .I uh ehch!

D: The Mets, huh? Yeah, they've had a rough year. . . .

S: Ho ngany inku-ees!

D: Right, when Beltran went out it just killed 'em. OK, now spit!

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Has there ever been a more perfect name for a world-class sprinter than Usain Bolt?