It’s been a while since I’ve posted anything about the Texas State Board of Education.  I’ve been pretty fed up with their crap and found that the more I paid attention to it, the more negative it made me feel, so I backed off for a while for my own sanity.  I don’t think I even said anything when the science curriculum standards passed (although it was a mixed bag).  But today provides a small amount of hope that things might eventually change for the better.

You see, today the Texas legislature took up the motion to re-confirm Don McLeroy as Chair of the Texas SBOE.  And luckily, he failed to be re-confirmed.  It was close with 19 votes for confirmation and 11 votes against (a two thirds vote is required).  So what does this mean?  Well, it simply means McLeroy will no longer lead the Texas SBOE.  He’s still a member, just not its chairman.  Gov. Perry now has to nominate a new Chair and the dance starts all over again.

But for now, I feel a tiny bit better about this state I live in.

I’m in the process of looking for a new car.  Not my favorite thing to do, but my current one is about 8 and a half years old and recently took a bit of hail damage.  But what I’m finding is that trying to buy a car is an education in behavioral economics.  What do I mean by this?  Well, a recent TED video put it in perspective.

The myriad of options the car companies throw at you at various price levels seem designed with the ideas expressed in that video.  Premium packages, technology packages, sport packages, extra value premium packages, sport technology packages…the options go on and on.  Providing choices that make other choices look more attractive seems to be the name of the game with the goal of the car company to upsell you with just the right option package so they can make more money.

I was planning to head back out this weekend for another round of evaluations.  Now after watching this video, I’ll pay a bit more attention while I’m doing my homework on how the options are presented and hopefully avoid the traps set for me.  I’m not optimistic I’ll succeed because lord knows I need that premium sport technology package that seems to have everything for just a bit less than buying all three packages separately.

No, not the ice cream store, but Johannes Brahms who was born on this day back in 1833.  Why do I care?  Well, I went through a period of about 3 to 5 years where I listened only to classical music.  I went out and bought the books to help a novice figure out what composers and pieces of music to listen to…it was an education process for me.  I hadn’t grown up with much classical music, other than what I heard in cartoons and such, so I was pretty much starting from scratch.  I even went as far as getting season tickets to my local symphony orchestra for a couple of years.

Over that period of time, I listened to quite a bit of music spanning a variety of styles and time periods and bought my share of CD’s, but of it all, I found myself drawn to Brahms.  I’m not sure why, but something about his music is enthralling.  Over his lifespan of nearly 64 years, he wrote only 4 symphonies.  Not many compared to Mozart’s prolific outpouring of 41 over a mere 35 years.  In contrast, Brahms took years to write his first symphony as he was nervous about the giant footsteps behind him, referring to Beethoven.  The 1^st is not his best.  My favorite is his 3^rd symphony which has a somewhat unusual quiet ending.  A close second for me is his powerful 4^th symphony.  However, if you limit yourself to these major works, you’ll be missing out on some very fine music, including his Quintet for Clarinet and Strings in B Minor, Op. 115 along with many other works.

I thought of embedding his entire 3^rd symphony, but elected to just add the 3^rd movement from that work.  Enjoy.

For a different look at Brahms, I’m embedding the 3^rd movement from his 4^th symphony.  If any of you are fans of Yes, you might recognize this tune from the song Cans and Brahms off their album Fragile.  It was Rick Wakeman’s take on this classic piece.

Classical music takes effort, but it’s worth it.  I find I can’t really have it on as background music, I have to sit and listen to it.  But finding that 30 to 40 minutes of uninterrupted time to just sit and listen can be difficult.  And with the growth of downloadable compressed music and MP3 players with their crappy earbuds combined with the short attention span of people busy with junk like twitter and blippr, I worry that classical music might die away.  I certainly hope I’m wrong and that this great music will be enjoyed by many for centuries to come.  Happy birthday Brahms.

It’s been a while, but the church I drive by to get in and out of my neighborhood has a sign that I don’t quite understand.

Prayer doesn’t need proof, it needs practice.

I guess that embodies the definition of faith;  No need for proof, you just have to believe.  But I’m not sure that’s the message they are trying to convey.  Maybe it’s because I’m coming at this from a non-religious perspective, but I never really seem to get the point of these messages.  I don’t think my mind is tuned the way theirs was when they thought this was a good message.

After contemplating it for a while, I began to ask myself, why does prayer need practice?  Can it be done incorrectly?  Do we need to go to prayer practice to be coached on the proper way to pray?  And if there is no need for proof that it works, how can we tell if we did it wrong?

Maybe they mean the other definition of practice in that we need to pray more often.  But should we have a set schedule for prayer?  I always thought prayer wasn’t for everything, but for moments of need.  Prayer was a deeply personal thing between the individual and God.  Telling me I need to pray more often doesn’t make sense.  I should pray when I need to, not just for the sake of prayer.  If we pray when we don’t really need to, how can God know to separate the wheat from the chaff?  Yeah, I know, dumb question…God knows everything…but wait…then I don’t need to pray…shit…I’m confused.

I’ve always thought of prayer as kind of silly anyway.  Do we really think God is going to listen to us?  Doesn’t he already have a plan that we can’t possibly understand?  Why would he change that plan just because we asked him to?  In my view, this gets to a deeper question;  Do we have free will or is everything predestined?  and also, does God care about us as individuals?

I think I’ve made my feelings on the latter subject pretty clear on this site.  I don’t believe in a personal God who watches over us and cares about what happens to us.  There’s too much crap in this world to think otherwise.  As for the free will vs. predestination question, that’s a bit tougher to answer.  I like to think there is free will.  If not, then according to the Christian faith in which I was raised, God created me to not believe in him, which means I’m going to burn in hell for all eternity.  That would be a pretty crappy God to create me this way knowing I can’t change it and that his plan for me is to suffer forever in a hell he created.  So hopefully there is free will so it will be my fault for suffering for all eternity, but then I probably messed up God’s plan, or that was God’s plan.  Shit, I’m confused again.

Anyway, here’s a video about free will that is pretty entertaining and if anyone can help me understand what they’re trying to convey with that sign, I would appreciate it.