Monthly Archives: May 2018

Greg Fallis has a lovely rant about rules in fictional universes, which he calls cosmological events:

I mention this because I had a parting of the ways with a writer who has written a very good story. Her characters (both living and not-living) are interesting and well-defined, her dialog is bright and witty, the story is structured in a logical and supportive way, her writing is accessible without being pedestrian, and while her plot isn’t entirely original it has to be admitted that very few plots are. I won’t go into detail about the story itself but I can say this: it revolves around a murder victim whose ghost/spirit is trying to help the detective who is assigned to investigate her murder. As I said, it’s not an original idea, but it’s very well written and told in a charming narrative voice. It could be a very marketable manuscript.

So why have we parted ways? Because we fundamentally disagree on one thing: rules for ghosts. I say she needs a coherent and internally consistent set of rules for ghost behavior. What are the limits of what a ghost can do? She says rules and limits would stifle her creativity. I say rules and limits will actually force her to be more creative. …

But as a manuscript doctor, the thing that makes these stories interesting is also the thing that makes a lot of writers stumble: magic (or magick — and yes, for folks who work in this genre, there’s a difference; magic is grounded in illusion, magick is based on the physical manifestation of the supernatural or the occult). The most common problem I see in these stories is that the magick is used as a lazy way to solve problems in plot and character instead of as an existing supernatural system.

I would take this a step further and note that rules, well-thought out and rigorously followed, will keep the writer from those embarrassing plot holes which waste the writer’s valuable time and, if they escape into the outside world, lead to humiliating questions and might become a burden on their career.

The fact that the writer is whining about rules suppressing creativity tells me that he or she hasn’t yet given much thought to the theory behind good fiction writing. They no doubt work very hard at the craft, working out the dialogue and plots, but they haven’t completely considered the abstract why’s of the entire activity.

And I enjoyed Greg’s rant, except for his long list of questions he had for the writer. Then again, I’m not much into ghost stories. As Greg notes, they tend to be a little too …. magickal.

Kevin Drum looks behind the curtain when it comes to the unemployment rate:

The number of unemployed is indeed down by 239,000, but where did they go? Not to the ranks of the employed, which rose by only 3,000. It turns out they left the labor force entirely, which is why the civilian labor force fell by 236,000 even though the total population grew.

So, sure, the unemployment rate is down, but it’s because 236,000 people gave up and quit looking for work—which means they no longer get counted as unemployed. This is bad news, not good.

Retirement would also be congruent with those numbers, but I don’t know that they break that segment out. And why would so many folks retire en masse, anyways?

Regarding James Comey’s book, a reader writes:

I’m amazed you acquired a copy and read it so swiftly after its release. I read something which said, and I agree, that Comey’s biggest error was in how he handled the Clinton email thing. His motivations there were colored by consciously or not wanting to preserve his job. He believed there would be dirt found on Clinton (there wasn’t) and that if he did not announce the investigation (which he shouldn’t have done and wouldn’t have done under any other circumstances) and that suspected dirt came out later (which he thought it would), he’d be hung for letting her get elected.

Like I said, it was an easy read.

With regard to the email investigation, Comey states he knew he, or more properly the FBI, was in big trouble the moment that investigation began. He presents it as an attempt to deal with it in the best way he possibly could. Did he make mistakes? Maybe. Was he unconsciously influenced by a desire to keep his job? He states he expected Clinton to win, so it’s a little difficult to accept that he brought the investigation public in an attempt to keep his job.

So the readers have two choices. Accept him at his word that he was simply attempting to preserve the reputation of the FBI from charges of favoritism, or he’s lying through his teeth. That’s a judgment all of us have to make for ourselves.

For my part, I prefer, lacking evidence to the contrary, to believe him. It’s an approach I generally take with people, modified by observations of body language, general history, and that sort of thing. Trump has been caught in so many lies, boasts, and other character defects that I figure he should be doubted on every thing he says.

Deborah MacKenzie in NewScientist (28 April 2018, paywall) reports on the latest surprise findings on the life expectancy front:

MORE money, longer life, right? The latest research suggests that education actually plays a bigger role in extending lifespan. The finding could have huge implications for public health spending.

Back in 1975, economists plotted life expectancies against countries’ wealth, and concluded that wealth increases longevity. It seemed self-evident: everything people need to be healthy – from food to medical care – costs money.

But soon it emerged that the data didn’t always fit that theory. Economic upturns didn’t always mean longer lives. In addition, a given gain in GDP caused increasingly higher gains in life expectancy over time, as though it was becoming cheaper to add years of life. Moreover, in the 1980s, research revealed that gains in literacy were associated with greater increases in life expectancy than those related to gains in wealth.

Finally, the more-educated people in any country tend to live longer than their less-educated compatriots. But such people also tend to be wealthier, so it has been difficult to figure out which factor is increasing lifespan.

Hmmmmmm. I always did poorly at academics.

But it does make some sense. While a certain amount of material possessions is necessary in order to ensure continuing existence, at some point, and apparently fairly early, its negatives begin to outweigh its advantages. After all, material wealth enables the consumption of tangibles that have a negative effect on life expectancy. Think of things such as whiskey, or activities such as recreational mountain climbing.

But education, it seems to me, rarely has such attributes.

Onwards to the books and tests, buds!

Erick Erickson on The Resurgent seems resentful that a not unknown tactic was used by the gay community to improve their lot in life:

Hey, buddy, ya wanna cigarette? It’s our best-selling export!

A space explorer returning to Earth begs to be destroyed by Mission Control because the fumes of the planet he and his companions were exploring have penetrated their suits and burned them – and Mission Control grants his request. Exciting start, isn’t it?

Too bad. Rather than investigate these mysterious fumes, we’ll just look for another planet to colonize, stumble into an alien space station or maybe rocket ship, a first in either case, have a rough & tumble with the alien crewman, resulting in his death, blow up the alien ship, and then encounter meteorites while near the Triangulum Galaxy (yeah, that rocket ship evidently goes really really fast) which forces us off course into an unknown planet with an ocean full of giant crabs and hostile fishy humanoids!

Got that?

Such is the plot of Space Probe Taurus (1965). Throw in a distracting romance between the captain and the female scientist, a lot of sexism, meaningless Mission Control scenes, truly wretched special effects, and some utterly preposterous notions of science and the Universe, and this is a total waste of time.

Oh, the acting was OK.

And it’s available online. Oh, lordy.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iQSRUIucFy4

In reaction to my comment about the EPA and regulating neonicotinoids, a reader writes:

“Will the EPA under Administrator Pruitt abdicate its responsibility?” To every extent that Pruitt and his closest henchman can manage to make that so, yes.

Which brings up the question, Is Scott Pruitt the most corrupt Federal appointee of all time? Just recently Steve Benen counted at least 13 investigations in progress – and then came up with 7 more scandals or incidents that occurred in a 48 hour period. They’re worth a read. And just to cap it off, CNN is reporting this:

A CNN analysis has found that embattled Environmental Protection Agency Administrator Scott Pruitt paid himself nearly $65,000 in reimbursements from his two campaigns for Oklahoma attorney general, a move at least one election watchdog has sharply criticized as being recorded so vaguely that there was no way to tell if such payments were lawful.

The reimbursement method, which Pruitt used in his 2010 and 2014 campaigns, effectively scuttled two key pillars of campaign finance: transparency about how campaign funds are spent and ensuring campaign funds are not used for personal purchases, according to a former top elections attorney and a CNN review of the documents.

Some of the reporting may also violate Oklahoma campaign finance rules, according to research done by the Campaign Legal Center, a nonprofit and nonpartisan group.

The guy appears to be an icon of how to be so desperate for power that he’ll do anything, anything at all, to gain that power. Long time readers will recognize the sentiment. He’s quite the third-rater – he may even qualify for fourth-rate.

But I can’t really answer my own question. For one thing, the metrics of corruption are a trifle hazy. But I think he’s right up there on the leader board throughout the entire history of the United States – and proof that the GOP is no longer about being fiscally conservative, or morally upright, or even about having a sound military. It’s become all about the money, and the hell with the health of the Republic.

I’m sure missing “no-drama” Obama. He knew how to be an adult.

In The Plum Line Paul Waldman notes a weakness in how the press operates these days:

Yet when he makes false charges about others, as he regularly does, they’re given what is functionally the same respect as any other statement, to be passed on and repeated until concrete evidence emerges to prove they’re false.

Trump understands all this perfectly well. As he once told his then-toady Billy Bush when Bush called him out (privately) for lying about how great the ratings for “The Apprentice” were: “People will just believe you. You just tell them, and they believe you.”

While this is something that should concern us each and every day, we need to be particularly on guard when the 2020 election begins. Trump is going to run a scorched-earth campaign against the Democratic nominee, not just of sneering ridicule but also of innuendo and outright slander. One way we can prepare for it is to stop treating the lies Trump tells — such as putting out false letters about his medical condition — as though they’re anything less than the scandal they ought to be.

There’s a need, I think, to differentiate news stories into three categories: news with assertions verified as true (“facts”), news stories with assertions proven to be false (“lies”), and news stories where the status of the assertions is uncertain. The first should be candidates for being reported, the second should either be discarded or held up as examples of lies, and the third should be held until the status of the assertions are verified.

Too bad that’ll never happen. “Scoops” are far too important in the press culture, and not without good reason. But the fact that a celebrity, or candidate, has opened his or her mouth and flapped their tongue about is not automatically news.

Author James Comey, the former FBI Director infamously fired by President Trump for any of a number of reasons, all of which have seemingly been denied by the President, is perhaps one of the most ambiguous figures in our little bit of national dramatic theatre to which we’re all witness. For the partisan zealot who views the world, and especially high-profile individuals such as Mr. Comey, exclusively through his or her favorite prism, their view of Mr. Comey, if contemplated seriously, brings a certain level of discomfort to their psyche, because his actions as FBI Director have been widely interpreted as favoring both candidates in the most recent Presidential contest, those being Hillary Clinton and Donald Trump.

The rabid personality, regardless of allegiance, no doubt thinks the worst of Mr. Comey, for that is the nature of such individuals. The world is black and white, and, in their view, Mr. Comey should select one side and ceaselessly work for its goals; any other effort marks Mr. Comey as an enemy, a traitor, or some other denigrative adjective.

In other words, he’s a shithead.

BUT for those of us who see the world in shades of gray, who are aware of our individual limitations, not only of ourselves, but of our fellow Americans, his conduct has certainly led to some questions. Whether we favored Clinton or Trump, the public announcements from Mr. Comey were troubling. Therefore, the publication of A HIGHER LOYALTY is an opportunity to see how he portrays the time in question.

First, this book is NOT a highly technical legal tome, for though Mr. Comey’s training is as a lawyer, spent mostly as a Federal prosecutor, he avoids stepping into the fatal peat-bogs of legal minutiae. Nor is this a catalog of cases in which he’s participated, or leaks in which he’s indulged. Such would be a dull tome.  It is, in fact, an easy read. Mr. Comey’s goal is to present an account of his time with the FBI, the investigations into the Clinton e-mail incidents and the decisions he made, and his interactions with President Trump.

And in order to accomplish this effectively, Mr. Comey feels that he needs to describe what has shaped his attitudes towards public service and life in general, so we get a short, autobiographical sketch. It covers his time as a shy kid, forced to move from a favorite school to a new school, and suffer the slings and arrows of the local group of bullies. From there he describes his mistakes, his own set of lies, and how he handled

This eventually leads him to the lawyer’s guild, because this is where he believes he can make a difference for his fellow citizens. He makes no bones about it, his experience of the bullies leads him to want to expunge the adult bullies which we occasionally run into. He has experience with prosecuting Mob bosses, and during that experience, he spent extensive time with those Mob members who turned state’s evidence. That leads to his observations on the nature of the Mob landscape: “made men” and how they see themselves as honorable men, even as they strangle their rivals.

One of Mr. Comey’s themes is the nature of effective leadership. Does your boss lead through fear and intimidation? Or does he strive to elicit the best efforts of her subordinates through nurturing?

Once Mr. Comey enters Federal service, he slows down and discusses the various decisions he’s made as he’s moved up the ranks. At one time he served under Mr. Guiliani, who would later be Mayor of New York, as an assistant prosecutor, and describes his leadership style, which was basically self-centered; he later occupied the same position, and described how he tried to lead the department. Once again, this is not minutiae, but broad declarations of how to get the best out of your people.

One of the most interesting aspects of the book is his focus on protecting the position of the FBI. For most folks, the FBI is an crime investigation unit, and that is by and large very accurate. But there isn’t enough emphasis on a primary attribute of such an agency: its neutral position. This is of critical importance to the proper functioning of the US Government, because crime is not defined in terms of being a Republican or a Democrat; a crime is a crime. If we suspect the FBI of favoring one party or the other, then we’re in danger of losing an important agency which is dedicated to discovering truth.

Truth is one of Comey’s major focuses, and the importance being neutral in pursuit of that truth. For the partisan, this is a critical point, because a partisan, a member of the tribe, finds it hard to ascribe criminality to the tribal chieftain. Their loyalty to the tribe precludes it on an instinctual level; only the person who has considered the matter and has realized that fallacious behavior, whether it be an out and out crime, or simply lying to gain every advantage, will not lead the nation down the path to prosperity, but into the caldera of a volcano.

Once he has been confirmed as the FBI Director, he slows down more in order to give us a sense of what he was trying to accomplish, and how the shit-storm of the Clinton e-mail investigation upended all his efforts. He freely admits to self-doubt, examines alternative decisions, and wonders if he’d repeat certain minor decisions. On the major decisions, though, he sticks with what he did.

Once the election is past, he winnows his experiences down to those relevant to President Trump. This is a more familiar story, of Mr. Trump seeking Mr. Comey’s declaration of personal loyalty, and Mr. Comey realizing, to his horror, that Mr. Trump has little conception of how things should work in the Federal government, and his lack of concern about his ignorance. Indeed, Mr. Comey’s analysis of Mr. Trump’s personality suggests that he’s similar to a Mob boss, a man requiring personal loyalty while failing to return any, all the while gathering up all of value to himself, continually grasping.

One reads in order to gain knowledge and have it change you. How did this affect me? In two ways.

First, his discussion of the Clinton e-mail investigations disturbed me. They make me more hesitant concerning Clinton, particularly when learning that former Representative Anthony Weiner (D-NY) possessed a laptop containing copies of Clinton’s emails from her Blackberry domain. Mr. Comey cannot explain their presence, and that disturbs me. It makes me wonder about how she conducted herself during her tenure as Secretary of State. Was it really just ignorance of the vulnerabilities of email? We’ll probably never know, but I’d like to think the Democratic Party can present better candidates.

Second, Mr. Comey’s desire to dedicate his life to bettering the lives of his fellow citizens is inspirational. In some odd way, it makes me wish I had been a Federal prosecutor, although temperamentally I’m probably not suited for it. Still, there’s that niggling feeling that I could have done better with my life.

And what about our puzzled partisans who do not understand Mr. Comey? I’d encourage them to read the book, but for those who cannot be bothered, there’s a simple explanation. Mr. Comey, while nominally a Republican for most of his life, is not tribal towards them. Rather, he’s a member of the tribe of truth-seekers. He passionately believes that finding the truth will lead to the best results for this country, and if that shoots the leaders of either party inthe foot, so much the better. Corrupt leaders are a terminal brick tied to the ankles of the Party, and the more quickly they are recognized and ejected, the better.

Recommended.

In news on this long dormant thread, the European Union may have decided to stop using half measures, reports The Guardian:

The European Union will ban the world’s most widely used insecticides from all fields due to the serious danger they pose to bees.

The ban on neonicotinoids, approved by member nations on Friday, is expected to come into force by the end of 2018 and will mean they can only be used in closed greenhouses. …

Bees and other insects are vital for global food production as they pollinate three-quarters of all crops. The plummeting numbers of pollinators in recent years has been blamed, in part, on the widespread use of pesticides. The EU banned the use of neonicotinoids on flowering crops that attract bees, such as oil seed rape, in 2013.

But in February, a major report from the European Union’s scientific risk assessors (Efsa) concluded that the high risk to both honeybees and wild bees resulted from any outdoor use, because the pesticides contaminate soil and water. This leads to the pesticides appearing in wildflowers or succeeding crops. A recent study of honey samples revealed global contamination by neonicotinoids.

One of the objections, noted in the same article:

The UK’s National Farmers’ Union (NFU) said the ban was regrettable and not justified by the evidence. Guy Smith, NFU deputy president, said: “The pest problems that neonicotinoids helped farmers tackle have not gone away. There is a real risk that these restrictions will do nothing measurable to improve bee health, while compromising the effectiveness of crop protection.”

Careful measurement of bee community health over the next decade or more will now be necessary in order to evaluate the results of the ban, and that means tracking all the other variables involved, such as climate, other widespread human-generated chemicals, and any replacements for the banned substance which may be developed and marketed.

That’s a lot of work and resources.

Melissa Breyer on Treehugger notes a disturbing development in the United States:

Meanwhile, the United States EPA is considering an application by agrochemical giant Syngenta to dramatically escalate the use of the harmful neonicotinoid pesticide, thiamethoxam. If approved, notes The Center for Biological Diversity, the application would allow the highly toxic pesticide to be sprayed directly on 165 million acres of wheat, barley, corn, sorghum, alfalfa, rice and potato.

Will the EPA under Administrator Pruitt abdicate its responsibility?

Remember the shocking referendum in Britain concerning membership in the European Union, which resulted in a vote to exit same, nicknamed Brexit? This report from Bloomberg is fascinating, if true:

The founder of one of the most influential pro-Brexit think tanks was suspected of working for the Kremlin, a member of Prime Minister Theresa May’s Conservative Party said.

Christopher Chandler, chairman of investment group Legatum Global Holdings Ltd, has been an “object of interest” to French intelligence since 2002, “on suspicion of working for Russian intelligence services,” according to Bob Seely, a Conservative lawmaker who cited 2005 files of the Direction de la Surveillance du Territoire (DST).

There is little doubt that the net effect of free trade is a positive for all sides, although it’s also generally granted that there will be groups who lose within the national boundaries. Prices drop, efficiencies are found due to higher levels of competition, and all that sort of thing. This economic activity is generally considered to be a positive, resulting in material prosperity and strengthening the stability of the nations involved.

So, if you’re Russian, dislike the West’s most popular political system, and your name happens to be Vladimir, what do you do?

Sow chaos.

Britain is certainly a stalwart in the defense of the West, so destabilizing its economy through the Brexit strategy certainly makes sense. Whether this report constitutes hard evidence, though, is not entirely clear to me.

Conspiracy theoriy? Certainly, for the moment. But it’s worth keeping it in mind as, so far, it’s congruent with all known facts and motivations, not to mention indictments. Neither the Brexit vote nor the result of the Presidential run was anticipated. It would be interesting to know if the Russians have had their hands in the American anti-science movement as well, perhaps even way, way back. After all, you don’t beat your enemies with your piety. You beat them with manpower and / or … technology.

Because the tree just shat upon us.

On Lawfare Benjamin Wittes discusses the possibility that Special Counsel Robert Mueller will issue a subpoena ordering President Trump to sit down in front of a grand jury. When it comes to the decision facing the Trump legal team, it really gets a bit surreal:

Now look at the matter from the perspective of Trump’s legal team—at least if it were acting rationally. (This may be condition contrary to fact, but let’s run with it for now.) It is a simply terrible idea for Trump to sit for an interview. He’s a liar; he speaks both impulsively and compulsively, and he probably has some legal exposure if he tells the truth. So the interview is a lose-lose proposition. This is particularly the case if Trump’s lawyers believe that Mueller has nothing serious on Trump personally without an interview but also that the president may lie if he sits for one—and that his greatest criminal exposure involves not what he has already done but the lies he is likely to tell.

Normally, in such situations, the subject asserts his Fifth Amendment right not to incriminate himself—the right whose whole purpose is to relieve the so-called “cruel trilemma” of self-incrimination, perjury, or contempt. But while the president has a right to assert the Fifth, he can’t easily do so without serious political damage. So the alternative for his legal team is to bet that Mueller won’t actually pull the trigger and issue the subpoena, either out of fear of litigation defeat or out of desire not to delay. Rather than assert the Fifth, the Trump team is playing chicken with Mueller.

That’s really something, isn’t it? We’ve gone a long way down the rabbit hole here.

My suspicion is that if President Trump sees this as a challenge to his acting skills, he may ignore his legal team and insist on doing the interview – or the grand jury testimony. His grip on reality being what it it is, he’ll believe he can make it work and come out looking clean.

Hell, even if he screws up, he’ll tweet that he handled it perfectly and the more credulous of his supporters will believe him.

But at that point, it may be members of Congress on the jury, and it could get messy very quickly.

CNN just reported that Trump’s representative Ty Cobb has resigned. CNN believes …

But, there’s little doubt that the sentiment Cobb expressed to ABC is one he’s expressed to the President and his advisers in private before. That sitting down with Mueller might be the best option for Trump because of how bad, politically speaking, not sitting down with the special counsel would be.

Cobb’s departure comes as Trump himself has seemed to sour on the prospect of an extended interview with Mueller. That souring has coincided with contentious conversations between the special counsel and Trump’s legal team in which the possibility of Mueller subpoenaing Trump to testify was broached. It also comes as the more than 4 dozen questions Mueller wants to query Trump about were leaked to the New York Times.

In an interview with the Washington Post’s Bob Costa, former New York City Mayor Rudy Giuliani, a recent addition to Trump’s legal team, suggested that a sitdown with Mueller was still a possibility — but with certain conditions.

It’s a little like watching someone fighting to bring in that sailfish for the last 12 hours. The question is whether or not, like the trophy in The Old Man And The Sea, will Mueller end up with a Trump ready to talk and reveal all – or a chewed up carcass of little worth, as Trump takes the 5th on every question put to him?

Or would he? The 5th is, in its way, self-incriminating. Would supporters begin to sour on the master showman then, realizing they were conned?

On AL Monitor, Maziar Motamedi reports that Iran is trying to ban the use of foreign cryptocurrencies:

Last week, Iran joined the growing list of nations to crack down on cryptocurrencies. But why did it choose this approach? Why now? What consequences will it have? As is the case with most things concerning the Iranian economy at present, the ban seems rooted in Iran’s ongoing currency issues.

The Central Bank of Iran (CBI) on April 22 announced through a directive that “all branches and affiliated units of banks, credit institutions and currency exchanges” must refrain from purchasing or selling bitcoin and all other cryptocurrencies and do away with any activities leading to their “facilitation or promotion.” The regulator said it has communicated the directive because cryptocurrencies have the potential to “turn into instruments for money laundering and financing terrorism and to be used by criminals for money transfers.”

How many Iranians are using cryptocurrency, and why?

“Naturally, I don’t like to do something illegal, but I will continue buying bitcoins if I’m left with no other viable option,” said Sepehr, a millennial Tehranian who has been purchasing and using the most popular of cryptocurrencies and a few others for micro payments outside — and inside on a few instances — of Iran’s borders since 2013.

[Nima Amirshekari, the head of the electronic banking department at the CBI-affiliated Monetary and Banking Research Institute]
cited unofficial figures as saying that 3-4 million Iranians dabble in cryptocurrencies.

Iranians are bereft of common international methods of payment, including Visa and MasterCard, which can only be bought through websites that purchase them in other countries after taking hefty fees. They also do not have access to direct dollar transactions because of decadeslong US sanctions. As such, they clearly have incentives to turn to virtual currencies.

But the next step, in my opinion, is not likely to work out:

With other cryptocurrencies effectively out of the picture from a legal standpoint, Iran’s own upcoming virtual currency — first officially announced by Jahromi in a tweet — seemingly remains as the sole focus of the envisioned regulatory document.

In his remarks on April 27, Jahromi also briefly referred to many foreign media reports that liken Iran’s virtual currency to that of Venezuela’s and the prospects of circumventing US sanctions. He said, “All cryptocurrencies are capable of circumventing sanctions because they are not under supervision of the US financial regulatory apparatus, and this issue naturally exists concerning national virtual currencies as well.”

According to Amirshekari, the Monetary and Banking Research Institute has already developed a lab model of the national virtual currency and has conducted mining and transaction tests as part of a pilot program. But that is as far as it has gone up to this point, as no concrete decision has yet been made about some of the currency’s fundamental elements, such as what it will be backed by.

The problem with “national cryptocurrencies” is that the supply of “coinage” is controlled by the government, which returns the currency back into the pool with all the paper-based currencies and their risks. The point of decentralized currencies is that the generation of the representation of wealth is not, theoretically, under the control of any single entity – although, in practice, this has not proven as true as one might wish.

This problem renders national cryptocurrencies just as attractive as their paper equivalents, and with the same exchange problems.

WaPo publishes a report on signing bonuses for blue collar workers:

This year, BNSF Railway, one of the country’s largest freight railroads, aims to hire 3,500 workers across the United States — a challenge at a time when employers nationwide say they are struggling to fill vacancies.

So, BNSF is offering something rare in blue-collar America: signing bonuses up to $25,000 for hourly workers, including conductor trainees, electricians and mechanics.

“We want to meet our customers’ needs, and we’re going to do what we need to do to hire for our company,” said Amy Casas, the railroad’s director of corporate communications.

Wow. In some ways, it makes me wish I was a lot younger, so I might investigate one of those jobs – just for fun. But it does speak to how our society has failed to value certain skill sets – not financially, but in terms of prestige – and thus left us with a bit of a shortage.

And, yet, we’re also facing a generation that still lives in their parents’ basements, or so the urban legend goes.

The question then becomes, how do we raise the prestige of those jobs so that people will actually undertake them?