I’ve been having interesting conversations via email and FB on the question of the ACA and certain theological questions, ranging from Biblical exegesis all the way to Gould. They’e been fruitful and have jogged many things out of memory.

I’ve just completed my typical readings of the Supreme Court language on the ACA and my reaction, at least at this time, is that Justice Roberts’ and the Scalia lead dissent are somewhat strange. The majority opinion and dissent appear to be talking past each other, though more on the dissent side. The dissent is particularly flavorful in its rejection of Justice’s arguments.

Their’s a chasm in this ruling. Withal, Roberts holds that

it is reasonable to construe what Congress has done as increasing taxes on those who have a certain amount of income, but choose to go without health insurance. Such legislation is within Congress’s power to tax.

He writes on page 50: “The Federal Government does have the power to impose a tax on those without health insurance.” Earlier above D, he writes:

The Affordable Care Act’s requirement that certain individuals pay a financial penalty for not obtaining health insurance may reasonably be characterized as a tax. Because the Constitution permits such a tax, it is not our role to forbid it, or to pass upon its wisdom or fairness.

This is one of the key logic principles:

Congress’s use of the Taxing Clause to encourage buying something is, by contrast, not new. Tax incentives already promote,for example, purchasing homes and professional educations.
See 26 U. S. C. §§163(h), 25A. Sustaining the mandate as a tax depends only on whether Congress has properly exercised its taxing power to encourage purchasing health insurance, not whether it can. Upholding the individual mandate under the Taxing Clause thus does not recognize any new federal power. It determines that Congress has used an existing one.

I can understand this in terms of renters vs homeowners. But I think this logic misses a finer point: that indeed, people who have health insurance are involved in transactions some of which contribute to those who don’t have it.

When I took up the guitar a few years ago, I hardly knew what I was getting into. I’ve since gone through the tips of several pairs of shoes kicking myself for the decision. But I’ve learned a lot about learning over the course of my thousand or so hours of practice.

Because I don’t have the benefit of the typical lessons, I never know if I’m developing bad habits. This may or may not matter. One way of getting around this to to watch lots of YouTube videos. I type in the name of a song and find that the performance bears little resemblance to months and months of my learning the notes. Conclusion: learning the notes is not the same as playing the song.

The relationship between the left and right hand is partially the issue. I’m going after two modes: classical guitar and bluegrass/folk/Celtic. Conclusion 2: while folk uses a picking style, classical mode does not because of the range of polyphony possibilities on the instrument. They’re both totally cool forms, but one can’t play Sor with a pick. The modes here require different forms of math and complement the problem of notes and songs, or, perhaps better, music and copying. One can copy the notes to memory and not really play music. In classical mode, the right hand is playing simultaneous voices to a high degree of approximation. In folk, two guitars are required for this, but this has a lot to do with arrangement and, I would assume, the influence of the fiddle on scoring. I don’t know enough about this to be confident, though. But the violin is defined as monophonic, while the guitar is just as bizarre as a harp.

I struggle with the right hand, to find the proper structure of a song’s texture. These renderings of Stanley Myer’s Cavatina illustrate what I mean. The first is by Peo Kindgren. The second by Ana Vidovic. When I observe each these, I’m looking at the right hand, but not for too long as to become overwhelmed with grief at my own inadequacy. The skill here partially requires some sort of loosening up of the brain over many many years.

In any event, I’ve learned to be patient and to listen. I’ve also come to appreciate even more the significance of process in learning. For some skills, following patterns of developing–and thinking about those patterns–is critical to creative rule breaking. For example, I started to take strumming a little more seriously these past few weeks. Yesterday, I got into strumming for reel patterns and found that this is an interesting way of training the left hand to move faster, while at the same time being more precise about clipping the proper string with the right hand. The finger nails have to pluck the “noted” strings. Once this is done, the player can put some rhythm to work. Time to work on some rhythm.

Process learning. Traditions are important in this regard.

David Callahan at the Policy Shop writes about masters degrees in this post. He begins by posting numbers on graduates. He writes

Here’s a statistic that I found surprising and also troubling: Roughly 730,000 master’s degrees will be awarded this spring. And it’s estimated that another 2.2 million master’s degrees will be handed out over the next three years.

I’m assuming he means “this spring” as in “now.” It’s a good estimation to make, also, in that more will be coming. But then he writes this:

Investments in education are often positive, and it’s good to know, for instance, that over 40,000 young people will receive master’s degrees in engineering and technology this spring. This country badly needs a more skilled workforce.

I don’t know why the author uses the qualifier “more skilled.” Engineers may have other skills than poets, but they are certainly not “more skilled.” The logic is important. The poet may not be of much use to Space X but because Space X requires engineers does not mean that Space X engineers are “more skilled.” This goes to my critique of our current administrations “science and math” priority.

This muddying of language creates a false sense of a problem, much as Steve Jobs did in claiming that the U.S. doesn’t produce the kinds of workers to sustain tech.

It’s definitely a problem if a whole bunch of masters degrees are given in fields that don’t require them. For example, if a million people graduate from masters programs in teaching and there are only 100 teaching jobs, then this represents a problem, I would assume. In the United States, however, we need excellent teachers with lots of effective ability. But it’s also true that we don’t prioritize this need, in my opinion. I also suspect the rigor of these degrees.

So, the bottom line: is the issue for Callahan a question of rigor or a question of structure? He writes

This spring, over 185,000 people will received master’s degrees in education. Many of them will carry student loans that won’t be easily paid down given that the starting salary of public school teachers is under $40,000 in every state and, in many states, it’s under $30,000. Moreover, even as credentialization and debt burdens have gone up for teachers in recent decades, salaries have generally stagnated.

He makes an interesting point about over-credentialing but the evidence needs development.

Start with business. While MBA students certainly learn a lot of useful things, it’s also true that many of these same skills can and should be taught by employers.

How does he know this?

In our current economic state, and the state of college entrance numbers, we will certainly be seeing labor problems in the future. But remember, while the big banks were bailed out, the education institutions were not.