Google is a Mapping Company

Google is a mapping company. For years I've used Google Earth in lieu of a physical globe in my world geography courses. If you have not experienced Google Earth download and install Google Earth (GE) after reading my post. Don't download and install now because once you realize the shear genius of GE I will have lost your attention.

GE is a wonderful teaching tool for children 7 and older. GE is easy to use and is loaded with simple features, like a measuring tool and bookmarks, which can help parents teach basic geography to kids. GE is linked to Wikipedia; thousands of sites are referenced via Wikipedia. YouTube places are also linked indicating where people have posted videos of some event occuring at the location. Be advised: some videos are not educational and only informative in the sense of illustrating Darwinian processes at work among people. But, some videos are nice and informative. GE contains a wealth of links to outside sources such as the World Wildlife Foundation, National Geographic, and the United States Geological Survey.

Grabbing screenshots from Google Earth is a cinch and embedding JPEGS from Google Earth can improve posters and presentations. Using a keyboard or a mouse, 3D terrain can be simulated providing a sense of scale and landscape relief. I recommend visiting the Karakoram Mtns in northern Pakistan, my favorite mountain range. The world's highest highway is found here.

GE also has a flight simulator embedded within. Using simple controls and basic physics, a user can pilot around any place in the world.

Now, Google recently revealed plans to map in 3D a number of cities using aerial photography. Nothing especially new about such efforts. Most large cities engage in aerial mapping missions every few years. As cities grow aerial photography helps city planners identify buildings, land use, help them plan for utility growth, estimate population density, estimate potential stormwater drainage issues, and in public safety efforts - all sorts of pursuits. Most states will fly aerial photography mapping missions every 5 to 10 years to help monitor landscape change. The federal government acting through the Department of Agriculture collects aerial photography across states dominated by agriculture. The USDA uses aerial photography information to assess crop type, acreage, productivity, and keeping farmers honest with regards to subsidies and set aside programs.

Kentucky has plans for collecting not only aerial photography statewide but also LiDAR statewide. LiDAR is an acronym for "Light Detection and Ranging." Essentially, a plane equipped with a laser shoots the ground a million zillion times and the laser reflected back to the plane is sensed, allowing distance to be calculated. The result after post-processing are highly detailed terrain maps or maps of city structures, or landforms. The amount of data points is immense; LiDAR collected for a small watershed in Arkansas was in excess of 300GB.

Right now, Google Earth users can fly around the world with some interesting terrain but the cities are mostly flat unless someone has used SketchUp to add 3D buildings. Examine Washington, D.C. for a good example of 3D urban builds.

With Google's new efforts to collect aerial photography of major cities people from around the world will be able to go on virtual field trips, or plan real trips. I'm sure Google will expand their Google Earth API to include such data for wild and crazy new apps.

Check out earth.google.com

PAX

Confederate Flag as Conceit, not Hatred

In the United States a definitive symbol of our history of racial tyranny is the Confederate flag. Other than the white robes of the Klu Klux Klan, few other symbols of U.S. culture evoke the same depth of visceral response. Apropos both the robes and the Confederate flag should both share the same regional ancestry, i.e. Tennessee.

Personally, I have the same distaste for the Confederate flag as I have for the Nazi swatika. Both symbols have their places in history in each of their respective countries, though Nazism has spread its poisonous tentacles throughout more societies than the Confederacy could claim.

A group in my current state of residence has obtained a small parcel of land near Interstate I-24, has erected a 60ft (20m) flagpole, and is now flying a large 12ft (4m) x 18ft (6m) Confederate flag over the city of Paducah, Kentucky (photo) and in full view of all travelers of Interstate 24. The photo does not do the flag justice. Had I not been perturbed upon seeing the flag I might have pulled over to snap a photo. I still might go back and capture one.

I don't  like emotions getting the better of me. Seeing the flag upset me, true, but I consider myself an academic and as such cannot really allow the anathema I feel towards the flag to cloud my ability to contemplate the history and geography of the American South.

I'm not going to turn my post into a history lesson. Too many Civil War sites exist for people to peruse at their leisure for me to even attempt a summary here. My intent is only to draw out some historical and geographical details.

The Civil War began April 12, 1861. After fives days, 11 states had formed an alliance against the Union. Representing the Confederacy were 9 million people, almost half of which were slaves. Texas would join against the Union, an action which bewilders me at times. Only 15 years earlier, the Republic of Texas had voted for annexation  essentially to stave off continual Mexican militancy. Then, on April 17, 1861, only a teenager, Texas declares war on the United States. Kids rebelling against their parents.

On the other side, the Union would eventually comprise 21 states and over 20 million people. The Union also had the bulk of the transportation infrastructure, railroads and canals, the vast majority of the wealth, the educated, and the manufacturing centers.

In geography, we talk about regions. In particular, we discuss perceptual regions. Perceptual regions are regions we create based on our knowledge, facts, and feelings. If I were to have a class of 20 students shade a map of the United States according to those states which they identify as the "American South" I might end up with 20 different maps. Sure, some overlap will occur; Tennessee and Alabama will appear as a Southern State always. But, what about Kentucky? Or, Texas? Look at the maps below and see if they compare to your mental maps of the South.

[caption id="attachment_983" align="aligncenter" width="468"] The American South, as defined by the Bureau of the Census (2000)[/caption]

The Mason-Dixon line is clearly delineated. For those unfamiliar, the Mason-Dixon line is the line of survey determined by surveyors Charles Mason and Jeremiah Dixon in order to settle a boundary dispute. The Mason-Dixon line has come to signify the cultural boundary between the American Northeast and the American South.

[caption id="attachment_992" align="aligncenter" width="438"] The Mason-Dixon Line separates four states, Delaware, Maryland, Pennsylvania, and West Virginia.[/caption]

[caption id="attachment_984" align="aligncenter" width="468"] The American "Deep South"[/caption]

[caption id="attachment_985" align="aligncenter" width="468"] Another perspective on the American Deep South[/caption]

The American South is also characterized by the self-identification of possessing strong spiritual values. To support the notion of people in the American South belief they possess strong spiritual values, I provide the map below.

[caption id="attachment_986" align="aligncenter" width="468"] The percent of people in each county professing adherence to the Baptist faith (2000)[/caption]

As the above map illustrates almost precisely, the Bible Belt overlaps very nicely onto a map of the American South. Apparent deviations in adherence should be noted along the Texas-Mexico border, south Florida, and an apparent weakening of faith in West Virginia, Virginia, and Maryland. Must be the liberalizing influences of all those atheists living in close proximity of Washington, D.C. The other religion which is finding expression in the light areas in the South is probably Catholicism. Again, geography.

Many proponents of the Confederate flag state the following when asked why they fly the flag: "It's history, not hate." In all honesty, I have to admit the supporters of the Confederate flag are probably right.

Because I admit the supporters are right does not mean I condone their actions, nor support their actions, nor agree with all the Confederate flag has come to symbolize.

What I am saying is the Confederate flag is not about Hatred. Nope.

What the Confederate flag symbolized then and I would argue still symbolizes is racism and the belief of racial or cultural superiority of white people over people of color. Additionally, I cannot limit my definition to only people of color. Southern Whites also appeared to have little regard for the Irish or Scottish and I suspect they possessed some disdain for the Jew.

Racism cannot be equivocated with hatred. Racism does not say, "I hate you." Racism says, "I am better than you because I am White and you are not White."

See, I think the opponents of the Confederate flag are wrong if they think the Confederacy and the flag of the Confederacy was about hatred of blacks, Jews, Irish, or Scots. The Confederacy was not about hatred. A white living in the Confederacy at the time did not hate blacks any more than they would hate their bull, their dog, their tobacco or cotton crops or anything else for which they invested good money. Would you hate your Fidelity mutual fund or your Harley-Davidson motorcycle?

The Confederacy was predicated on the ideal, a Christian ideal, by the way, slavery and the subjugation of non-White, non-Christian entities was not only acceptable but Divinely Mandated. Why did I say "entities?" I hesitate to say "human beings" as ample evidence exists supporting the idea many whites, including Western Europeans, doubted blacks and people of other races were actually humans, not true God-fearing humans. With the strong belief blacks were a form of sub-human, southern Whites were able to concoct essentially a fantasy with the guiding principle of economic success through the subjugation of inferior sub-human races.

After all does not even the Christian Bible proclaim,

"Slaves, submit yourselves to your masters with all respect, not only to those who are good and considerate, but also to those who are harsh. (1 Peter 2:18)

Southern Whites felt they were literally commissioned by God to own slaves. Truth be known, God was not advocating slavery but merely telling those who were slaves how to conduct themselves in the face of adversity.

I've been talking the presence of the flag up among the people I know. Everyone I've spoken to wants the flag down. To the progressive, reasonable, and rational folk among society, the flag is essentially the analog of flying the Nazi flag in Regensburg, Germany. Except no one will ever see a Nazi flag flying in Germany, nor any where else in Europe because civilized countries have made doing so illegal.

The Confederate flag symbolizes nothing positive from what I can gather. No one I've talked to can point to one positive attribute the flag or the Confederacy represents. I have not found a single logical, rational, or reasonable discussion on the Interweb detailing any positive characteristic of either the symbol or the subsumed state.

However, I can find copious arguments to the contrary, a litany of traits and characteristics which run the spectrum from "embarrassing" to "reprehensible" and ending with "criminal." Nathan Bedford Forrest, a Confederate Lt. General and superior tactician, was accused of war crimes at the Battle of Fort Pillow, near Memphis, for which he earned the nickname "The Butcher of Fort Pillow." In all honesty both sides had their saints and sinners.

The Confederacy advocated a class structure based on gender and race. White men constituted the upper echelon of the economic structure. Women were not generally allowed to own property or vote. Blacks formed the basis of labor along with Irish and Scots. Education was allowed to a meager few.

Unlike legislation undertaken by our European counterparts to prohibit the display of Nazi memorabilia, I am not advocating any one do anything. I want our society to open, and for people to be able to express themselves. In part, I want the really ignorant people to expose themselves, to hear how ignorant they sound, and for the greater progressive society to train themselves, their children, and their children how to conduct themselves. I want the Progressive portion of society to engage their brains and the brains of their children to develop Critical Thinking skills which will ultimately prevail and undermine the Fallacies of the Ignorant.

As much as I loathe racists, bigots, and racist bigots, to restrict their voice means restricting all voices. Then, the argument becomes "who gets to choose what is offensive?" Encroaching upon the Nature of Offensiveness, the argument could easily mutate into "your religion is offensive" which potentially leads down a dark and ugly alley and why I posit all politics should be void of religious context and content. Ideally, I'd like everyone to engage in mutual respect, but I realize my ideal is far too naive.

To argue the flag is a symbol of rebelling against injustice is a delusion. So, yeah, I don't understand some peoples continued allegiance to the Confederate flag. But, the flag is not about hatred.

The flag is about false ego, narcissism, arrogance, and conceit.

Education Is Not Simply About What One Knows

Whether one is a welder, a foreign diplomat, or a genetic engineer, being educated about the world makes a society better.

The Chronicle of Higher Education ran a front-page piece detailing the educational efforts of our state legislators, “How Educated Are Our State Legislators?” Definitely some surprises.

Arkansas, for example, ranks higher than Maine. I never would have guessed that. Also lower is Delaware; never would have guess that either. New Hampshire comes in 50th; the study really should have excluded New Hampshire, though. The NH houses meet infrequently, do not have full-time legislators, and few of the legislators posted their educational background. With better data, New Hampshire might rank higher.

California is at the head of the class, with 90% of legislators having at least a Bachelor’s Degree. In fact, if I were to include “Some College,” that percent would rise to 93%. Not bad, for a broke state.

My adopted state of Kentucky fairs pretty well, too. 77% of our state legislators have a Bachelor’s Degree. Toss in another 9% for those who have had “Some College,” and that percent pops to 86%. Pretty amazing.

Some legislators created profiles for themselves on their state-supported web sites. Sometimes, educational information was listed, such as school attended, what he/she studied, and what degree was attained, if any. A few even posted a GPA. Good for them.

Some posted as education the “School of Life,” or “Self-Educated.” One legislator stated she went to “gun school.” One legislator is 19 years old. Kyle Jones (NH) works the night shift at Burger King and goes to school part-time. That is awesome!

Adam Brown, Brigham Young University, makes some good comments about politics and education. “Legislators aren’t only supposed to represent the white-collar workers of the world. They need represent everybody.” Brown then goes on to say something that somewhat boggles me. When asked if he learned anything about public higher education, or about education in California, he is quoted as saying, “No, of course not. I was just a student.”

I hope this not quoted properly. How can a person not learn something about higher education while being a Ph.D student? Hell, as a graduate student at a small regional university, I learned about grants, state funding for capital projects, state funding for educational programs, salaries, allocation of degree programs throughout the state. I find this statement almost to incredible to believe, actually. I can see that comment coming from a BA/BS student; frankly, most of them have no idea what goes on in higher education. Nothing against them, they simply do not work behind the scenes. Just because I watch the Space Shuttle launch doesn’t mean I know all the details behind the planning of a launch.

I am really bothered by a couple notions.

First, people misinterpret the word, “liberal,” when used with education. Or, rather they choose to identify with only 1 or 2 of the word’s 15 potential meanings. When used with “education,” “liberal” does not mean “socialist,” or “communist,” or “left-leaning,” or “to advocate for political reform as defined by progressive social Democrats.”

Liberal Education simply means “generous” or “abundant.” We could extend that to include “tolerant of others,” or “to encourage the pursuit of intellectual thought and discourse in an academic manner.”

To receive a liberal education, simply puts, means a student has been exposed to a number of different influences, local, regional, national, and global in reach and depth. Nothing is wrong with this, and a lot of things are right about it.

Which brings me to my second notion.

Daniel Thatcher illustrates my problems with the anti-intellectualism that is rearing its ugly and ignorant head in the U.S. Definitely a dragon that St. George needs to behead.

Daniel Thatcher is a self-taught electrician in Utah and is a freshman senator. College drop-out. To be clear, I have no issues with college drop-outs. People who are uniquely motivated and have skill, drive, desire to do something with their lives – more power to them, I say. Bill Gates dropped out of Harvard to begin Microsoft, probably the most famous example. Dave Thomas, founder of Wendy’s, same thing. Drive, desire, and determination are powerful influences in a person’s life.

But, remember this, they did not sit on their asses, watching TV, and wondering what they were going to do for the day. They did something. They taught themselves, and surrounded themselves with smart people, many of whom were/are highly educated people.

Here is what Daniel Thatcher is quoted as saying,

“You go to college, you take a foreign language, and all these ridiculous diversity requirements-how does that help you become a better welder? Why is it that we’re telling kids, ‘You can get any degree you want, and you’ll make all of this money,’ when they won’t?”

And, in a nutshell, this is what is wrong with America.

Let me deal with the only thing he said correctly first. How does learning Spanish make you a better welder? Technically, being versed in Spanish will not help you make a better weld, that is true. You win, Mr. Thatcher, on that point. On that point alone, you win.

Having learned Spanish might make you a much more marketable welder, though. Being able to speak Spanish might make you a crew chief, team leader, foreman. One day, you might be a consultant on a job where the ability to speak a foreign language comes in handy. Perhaps the language is Russian instead of Spanish.

Perhaps your jobs become fewer and fewer because clients are taking work to other facilities because they not only work on domestic contracts but are able to work on multi-national contracts, too.

Go ahead, Mr. Thatcher, weld yourself into a corner.

Who cares about globalization, global labor markets, the global movement of labor, the movement of production and products, and the growing interconnectedness of the world? Not the United States, right?

Ignorance is bliss, right? Americans should be down-right jolly with more of your ilk in state legislatures.

I ask, how can Americans understand how labor works, or how the economics of Nike, or of Dell, or of Toyota work, if all we do is learn just the modicum that we need in order to weld?

We can’t.

How can the United States prepare our current population, and our future workforce, and continue to evolve our society, with such ass-backwards, 1950s, riding forward into the future sitting backward in our saddle, thinking?

Our ignorance will be our undoing.

And, you Mr. Thatcher, are guilty of the irresponsible argument that education is completely and totally useless for most professions.

U.S. citizens need to be educated. I am not advocating formal education, compulsory education. The growing anti-intellectualism in the U.S. must end, though. Americans need to be aware of their communities, their state, their nation, their national neighbors, and understand the dynamics involved in even the simple economies that make our world what it is today.

Technorati Tags: higher education,education,senators,representatives,legislators,university,college

29th in Infant Mortality, #1 in Your Heart

My tirade continues.

Ok, look, just to reiterate, to compare the United States with Poland is like comparing apples and bowling balls. Nothing wrong with Poland; I'm sure the people there are wonderful. I would love to visit sometime. But, Poland is Poland and the United States is, well, like no other country on the planet. Stop making asinine comparisons.

I dove deeper into these statistics. I want to map the most recent data. I found some stuff so a map is forthcoming. But I found some real troubling info.

First, a national goal of a 4.5 IMR is probably not doable. The goal is admirable, but consider what has to happen. The 4.5 IMR represents the sum total of all states in the United States. That has to include states with excellent health care and a relatively homogenous population, i.e. Maine. Also, we have to consider states like Mississippi and Alabama that fall way short of Maine in terms of health care and population homogeniety.

Secondly, we have to ask ourselves, Is our national health care system really that bad? We have the best trained doctors. We have the most sophisticated dianostic equipment. We have the best teaching schools and teaching hospitals. There must be something else going on for our "national" IMR to be so "bad". There is something going on.

Your assignment is to first read these news releases from a variety of state health departments:

• North Carolina Department of Health and Human Services
• South Carolina Department of Health and Environmental Control
• Mississippi State Department of Health
• South Dakota Department of Health

Here is a table from the Kaiser Family Foundation that provides some details, and gives away where I am going with my diatribe.

Questions:

1. Are all ethnic groups equal when it comes to IMR?
2. Which ethnic group has the lowest IMR?
3. Which ethnic group(s) have the highest IMR?
4. Does any state have an ethnic group with an IMR close to 4.5?

Obviously, if you answer these questions, a pattern should emerge. If you are white, your baby has a better chance of living to his/her/its first birthday. If you are not white, then the chances of your baby living to his/her/its first birthday decrease by at least half.

Really, though, everyone is pretty lucky to live in the United States. Chances are good that your baby will see its first birthday, anyway. But babies born underweight, premies, general birth complications, anything that makes the first few days of life difficult, are going to fare better if they are white than if they are not.

It isn't because white babies are hardier or more robust - but they may be. There are lots of mitigating factors:

1. Whites tend to be less poor
2. Whites tend to have better access to health care
3. Non-whites tend to be poorer
4. Non-whites have less access to health care
5. Poor tend to lead unhealthier lives; smoke, drink, worse diets, don't see their doctor regularly.

If we look at really successful states, like Maine, we can see a couple things. People are pretty educated. The population is relatively small. Few minorities live in Maine. And 85% of the population have access to health insurance or are covered by some type of plan. This rate is one of the highest in the nation.

If we, and by we I mean our government, want to reduce our IMR, then we have to address the IMR of our minority populations; we have to address the health care of babies born to minorities. This is where we will see the greatest impact in reducing our national IMR.

Can anyone say National Health Care coverage? Socialized medicine?

Movie Review: Taxi To The Darkside

Abu Ghraib.

Merely thinking about Abu Ghraib makes my skin crawl. Such an honorable example of American culture. But wait, that isn't right. American military culture under Bush. It doesn't represent me, my ideals, my concerns, or my beliefs. Anyone with any ethical or moral fibers in their bodies are probably not represented by Abu Ghraib, hopefully.

Taxi to the Darkside tells the story of what happens when someone is at the wrong place at the wrong time. And he dies from bad timing. Not because he was holding a weapon, firing weapon, in possession of a weapon. He dies from being impoverished. He dies from the color of his skin. He dies from excessive violence promoted with a wink and a nudge from the US military apparatus.

Watch the movie.

Whose the Greater Destabilizer?

In geography, we talk about devolution. Devolution is the breakdown of a state [country/nation] due to internal division. Some other terms that are also associated with devolution are Balkanization, Shatterbelt, and Failing/Failed States. When people within a region, whether that region be a state, nation, or realm, become disenfranchised with their government or method of governance, conditions are ripe for devolution.

The United States is embroiled in a process of nation-building in Iraq. We are encouraging Iraqi people to reduce their cultural ties to their tribes or larger family units and increase their identification with the greater Iraqi state. However, admirable this action might seem, the United States has not proven to be the Great Unifier.

I begin my argument by submitting that the current state of U.S. affairs in Southwest Asia can be traced to 1953. In reality, the creation of the state of Israel might be the birth of the modern era of conflict in Southwest Asia. I choose 1953 as my baseline due to the U.S. support of the Iranian Coup that overthrew the democratically-elected government of Mohammed Mossadeq. The British petroleum company, BP, was the private oil industry in Iran at the time. The Iranians, weary of seeing their oil and oil profits siphoned off to the West, nationalized the oil industry. The West, namely the United States and Great Britain, saw this as a threat. Operation Ajax was born out of the desire to regain control of oil resources in Iran.

Eventually, this would lead to the overthrow of the Shah of Iran, Reza Pahlavi, in 1979, beginning the theocratic rule still in place today.

Let us not forget that Iran was once Persia, which was once the Persian Empire, and is a nation and a people whose history pre-dates that of any European nation.

In 1982, the United States threw their support behind Saddam Hussein in his war 8-yr war against Iran. At that time, the war was turning against Iraq, and the U.S. did not think that it was in its interests for Iraq to lose.

In the meantime, during the decade of the 1980's, the United States cast its lot with the Muslim Afghan rebels in Afghanistan. The effort to help the Afghans against the Soviet march resulted in the most successful covert action in the history of the CIA. We also helped train those we are at war with now, in Afghanistan, and Pakistan.

In 1990, two years after its war with Iran, Iraq found itself at war with its former weapons supplier, the United States.

In 2002, the United States instituted a policy of regime change in Afghanistan, a nation that we were the benefactor of for almost a decade.

In 2003, the United States implemented regime change within Iraq. The coup in Iran in 1953 might also be termed, "regime change."

Currently, the United States has engaged both Syria and Iran in helping resolve conflict within Iraq. Both Syria and Iran have been marginalized through the "Axis of Evil" label. Both the United States and Iran have engaged in finger-pointing - "You're responsible for making this worse!"

Iran is being accused of providing more sophisticated IEDs and other weapons to Iraqi insurgents. In April 2007, ABC News ran a story about our secret efforts in Iran.

Lebanon had parliamentary elections the other day. A predominantly Muslim nation, but with sizable Christian and Armenian minority populations, by the way. The candidate supported by the United States - lost. The former president, Amin Gemayel was trying to win the seat vacated by his son. Analysts believe that the support by the Bush Administration doomed his election.

In closing, I offer this. Destabilization of this region cannot be attributed to any single nation. Russia, China, France, Great Britain, the United States, Iran, Israel, Egypt, Saudi Arabia, Libya - who am I leaving out? - are all responsible. Destabilization may have a core cause: Oil.

One thought I do have is this: discounting Oil, the basis for this destabilization is founded on the inherent disrespect that nations have for each other. Nations, and administrators of those nations, lack fundamental respect for differences among themselves, the people they government, and the lives in the far-flung reaches of our global that their policies directly or indirectly affect.