Ron's Log

Princeton Prop 8

Princeton students have organized a campaign for a proposition that would preserve traditional sidewalk values. Meaning, of course, sidewalks are intended as pathways for "sophomores, juniors, seniors, graduate students, faculty, staff, and other members of the university community;" but not freshmen. Being a freshman is a choice, of course, and they should walk on the grass, as they have traditionally. The article includes a comment from a resident of Berkeley who says that civil walkways for freshmen are good enough, and they should not traverse sacred sidewalks.

Virtual Town Hall On Prop 8, Tuesday Night

A 90-minute on-line forum on the subject of Prop 8 is being organized (or sponsored?) by the L.A. Gay & Lesbian Center starting at 6:00 PM, tomorrow, Tuesday, November 25. It will be audio only. You can submit your questions to TownHallModerator@gmail.com, but that's no guarantee your question will be read out verbatim so that the entire world can appreciate its beauty - so don't be like that shouting jerk at the UCLA forum 10 days ago.

Participants will include:

• Amy Balliett
  Founder, Join the Impact
  
  
• Lorri L. Jean
  Chief Executive Officer, L.A. Gay & Lesbian Center
  
  
• Geoff Kors
  Executive Director, Equality California
  
  
• Rev. Eric Lee
  President/Chief Executive Officer, Southern Christian Leadership Conference Los Angeles
  
  
• Shannon Minter
  Legal Director, National Center for Lesbian Rights
  
  
• John A. Pérez
  Assembly Member-elect, California's 46th District
  
  
• Steve Smith
  No on 8 Senior Campaign Consultant, Dewey Square
  
  

American Civic Literacy

An article saying that a random selection of Americans have done poorly on a civic literacy test that was prepared by the Intercollegiate Studies Institute. A group of seniors at Harvard scored 69.56% on the test. The average score for people with a bachelor's degree was only 57%. It was 44% for those with only a high school diploma (or was that the score for ALL people with a high school diploma?). The official [PDF] press release can be read here.

Elected officials taking the test also got an average score of 44%.

Overall, 71.4% of those surveyed scored below 60%, while only 0.8% scored higher than 90%. More details of the results can be found here.

And the quiz itself is right here. That's what you were waiting for, wasn't it? You too can answer the 33 questions and get your results scored. I did it and they say I got one wrong, giving me a score of 96.9%. But I have a dispute with that. You can stop reading here if you don't want to read about the possible answers to question number 33.

Question 33 says "If taxes equal government spending, then:" They say the correct answer is "tax per person equals government spending per person." Indeed, that would be the correct answer if it said "AVERAGE tax per person equals government spending per person." Instead I selected "government debt is zero" which I knew was incorrect because it doesn't address debt from previous years, but when you're faced with all incorrect answers, you make your best guess.

About Those Special Funds For The Desert Sun

My readers are well aware of my drive to buy the Desert Sun some spellchecking software (fund balance currently $1.17), but it's been a while since I mentioned my special fund to buy the Desert Sun a calendar. My lack of diligence is probably why the fund balance is still only 23¢. Today's article gives me a chance to ask for contributions to both funds. Not only does the headline misspell our name as "Deset Hot Springs" (which is at least not the usual misspelling), but also puts the city council special meeting this week on Wednesday, when it is, of course, on Tuesday, November 25, at 4 PM. I was pretty sure that no one would want to schedule a city meeting on Wednesday afternoon before Thanksgiving, but I did double check it.

Chief Williams will be giving an "Animal Control Kickoff Presentation." "Kickoff" seems to be an unfortunate word choice in this context. Couldn't it be called the "Animal Control Inauguration Presentation?" Director Hoy will also provide a capital improvements update.

BTW, somebody should drop by the Carl May on Wednesday at 4 and take Marcel Honoré out for a drink.

Living Desert

My friend Andy has been visiting from New York recently. Last Sunday we went to the Living Desert. The photos are here, and these are a few of them:

Immediately upon emerging from its chrysalis, this new butterfly landed on Andy's ankle. One of the workers came over to alert him, explaining that the butterfly needed to dry, which might take about twenty minutes in sunlight, but we were in shade.

After a few patient minutes, the Living Desert worker coaxed the new butterfly onto his finger and moved it to a plant in the sun.

Other Interesting Things To Be Seen At Forest Lawn Glendale

A scan of the map of Forest Lawn Glendale. You might want to print this because the one they hand out at the cemetery is small and printed in blue, making it difficult to read. The complete set of photos from Forest Lawn Glendale can be seen here. And here are some of the more interesting:

Wrestlers.

Edward Bezazian Paul whose grave marker is interesting because, unlike 99.9% of the markers in Forest Lawn, it includes a biography:

Ed excelled in numerous fields of activity. He accepted his awards modestly. Candidacy for the Rhodes Scholarship, Phi Beta Kappa, Graduation Cum Laude from the Chicago University with Honors in Geology, graduate study in astronomy, representative for the Illinois Geological Commission. President of Chicago Cinema Club with Honors in movie photography, outstanding service as President of the Post College Club, Evanston, Illinois.

Member of Edgewater Presbyterian Church, Chicago, buyer for the Killian Co., Cedar Rapids, Iowa, active partner and co-owner of Bezazian Bros. Carpets, Inc. in association with the Tobey Furniture Co. across from the Palmer House on Wabash Ave. in Chicago. Merchandise Manager of Broadloom City, Tarzana, California. His most loving devoted thoughts were of the perpetual well-being of his son.
Honor with remembrance.

The Mystery of Life.

The Atheist in The Mystery of Life.

Going through eternity with a spelling error and extraneous quote mark.

Inside the Great Mausoleum which is, unlike much of Forest Lawn, genuinely stunning and impressive.

More Forest Lawn Glendale Celebrities

Ted Knight.

Ethel Waters.

Keenan Wynn and Ed Wynn.

Joe E. Brown and family.

Jimmy Stewart.

Clayton Moore.

Spencer Tracy.

Robert Young.

Dan Dailey.

'David'

I have no idea how I missed the copy of Michelangelo's David at Forest Lawn Glendale on my first visit. It's huge and obvious. The full set of photos is here. These are some samples:

Netflix Recommendations

Two years ago Netflix announced a million dollar prize for anyone who could improve their recommendation system by a mere 10%. After two years of work, the closest anyone has gotten is 9.44%. All of the teams trying to get the prize have come to a plateau. The stumbling block for all of them is Napoleon Dynamite.

Mathematically speaking, "Napoleon Dynamite" is a very significant problem for the Netflix Prize. Amazingly, [competitor Lon] Bertoni has deduced that this single movie is causing 15 percent of his remaining error rate; or to put it another way, if Bertoni could anticipate whether you’d like "Napoleon Dynamite" as accurately as he can for other movies, this feat alone would bring him 15 percent of the way to winning the $1 million prize. And while "Napoleon Dynamite" is the worst culprit, it isn’t the only troublemaker. A small subset of other titles have caused almost as much bedevilment among the Netflix Prize competitors. When Bertoni showed me a list of his 25 most-difficult-to-predict movies, I noticed they were all similar in some way to "Napoleon Dynamite" — culturally or politically polarizing and hard to classify, including "I Heart Huckabees," "Lost in Translation," "Fahrenheit 9/11," "The Life Aquatic With Steve Zissou," "Kill Bill: Volume 1" and "Sideways."

Personally, I find Napoleon Dynamite to be unwatchable - and Netflix currently does NOT recommend it for me.

Ed & Pete's RV

Ed and Pete have bought this vast RV. At future Burning Mans I will be able to set up my little tent on the lee side for protection from the wind.

Photo by Ed (well, probably Pete, actually, since that's Ed standing there).