Resignation

Today, I hereby abdicate any hope of being a master quantitative statistician. I sat down to catch up on some reading for my statistics class. I flipped through a couple of chapters casually because the words seemed pretty familiar. We have been talking about t-testing, F-distributions, ANOVAs [analyses of variance], and chi-square testing. The latter two are slowly going out of vogue since regression models can give us more precise information about the relationship between two variables, and only a select diehard cadre of psychologists are still messing with those methods. I can tell you that we can use a chi-square distribution if we're only concerned with what a sample is doing. Since I try to make generalizations of a population based on sample data, then I don't use much of the chi-square.

I have one more assignment to do in statistics before the final exam. I have to do an ANOVA and a chi-square test on a data set to determine if religious denomination has anything to do with garnering education.

Last time, I tested whether or not education had anything to do with children. It does a little, but not much. The sample revealed that for every five years of education received, you are likely to have one less child. It was a statistically significant finding for the sample, but I was not apt to make any generalizations for two reasons. One, in a matter of common sense, American education is compulsory up to twelve years, and the next largest proportion of the educated stop at a Bachelor's degree. If it takes four years to earn that, then we might not see much of a difference in having children. Education is bimodal between two values that may not lead to a difference in the dependent variable. Also, the regression showed that education only accounted for 21% of the variation in the number of children, so there may be one or more better explanations (e.g. independent variables) that may better account for the number of children in a family.

Okay, so I get that stuff -- in rather general terms. I have to admit that statistics language is very sticky, even with something simple like hypothesis testing. [clears throat] "At the 5% significance level, we reject the null hypothesis. There is more than a 95% chance that we could get a test statistic of some specific value if the population mean were as indicated in the null hypothesis." That's right. A lot, a lot, a lot of words.

Here's what I'm willing to do. For starters, I'm going to enjoy my Thanksgiving holiday come hell or high water. Dan has graciously invited me to hang out with him and his family, so I will take a drive to Los Angeles this coming Wednesday and I'll return home Friday evening. When I get back, I will get a good night's rest and slowly whittle away at the rest of the term. I have a stats assignment and a short paper due on the second, an exam to proctor on the twelfth, grading, and then a seminar paper and a final exam on the sixteenth.

Come to think of it, if I need to run away from my statistics book, then let it be for a good reason. I need to do some research for my social psychology seminar paper. I'm doing a literature review to see if there is a relationship between group size and positive affect generation. If something pans out there, I imagine it will be easier to write a compelling paper on the differences between working with a densely intraconnected, loosely interconnected grassroots organization than a vast political party in the city.

Yeah. I'll just take this one day at a time. I think it takes quite a man to admit when he's confused. I have no qualms about saying I don't understand this stuff. I suppose it's fair, too. I haven't taken statistics in many, many years and none of the stuff we covered in undergrad got this advanced. I would even say the same thing about sociological theory. It has been a good number of years since I've spent time studying it; thankfully, I feel like I'm learning something new quite often and I find value in it. I feel that way about statistics too. I just need to get the confusion out of my system first in order to appreciate it.

So, let's leave it at this. I'm going to go on an educational bender. I may be a little hard to find, but I don't know want you to worry. I will be sure to get some air on a regular basis. I will eat. I will probably have a beer or two during some downtime. I will call my mother and encourage her to pray for me, and I will not hesitate to solicit care packages from friends and family. I will be happy with whatever grades I wind up with, but I will do my best to get as high of a grade as possible.

Fred on Election Day

I'm so happy for Obama, but then I realized that the man provided nearly nine out of ten entries of subject matter for my blog and I'm a bit tapped for ideas. While I'm letting some of my thoughts marinate, humor is a pretty way to buy me some more time.



I won't go into all the specifics, but this kid has a huge following on YouTube and I think he's trying to be a serious actor when he's not dicking around with voice editing software.

Here's to Our Next President

The Brainsplitter Project offers its congratulations to Barack Obama and Joe Biden for their successful election to the highest offices in our land.



Tonight was a splendid evening. I was fortunate enough to gather with friends and supporters. We camped out in my living room, shared food and beer and champagne, and sat at attention as electoral predictions and votes came pouring in. A couple of hours ago, John McCain stood with his supporters in Phoenix to offer his concession speech. Despite the booes, jeering, and outbursts from the crowd, McCain, finally, urged his supporters to quiet down and he offered his support and his backing to, also finally, help lead our country in a new direction.

Barack Obama took the stage in Grant Park about half an hour later. One of my friends cried intermittently throughout the acceptance speech, and another had phoned me earlier in tears, saying that he couldn't believe that this was happening and that everything seemed unreal. Unlike the mass disorientation that I experienced the day after some four years ago, we were alike, enlivened. I kept pinching myself. I kept joking that any minute now, I would wake up to the sound of my alarm and march my way toward my theory class -- an impromptu Groundhog Day. A do-over to rival all other do-overs. The steps into a Twilight Zone universe.

I can't begin to express not only my extreme pride and support for my next president, but for the wonderful experiences of being just one voice, just one organizer scattered among hundreds of thousands across our country. I am really proud of my country because times like this give me the hope that, despite my cynical days or my sociological skepticism, more of us than not are over these divisive issues. I get the feeling that this is one giant step in the journey of turning America around and making it a place of realistic opportunity, not just the bastardized chantings of the first few words on the etchings of the Statue of Liberty. I get the feeling that we don't just talk change, but that we actually take real steps to achieve it and to keep things moving forward.

My friends, my city, my state, and my country: We're alive tonight.

I have no false illusions about the power of this sweeping change, and Obama made that pretty clear in his speech. We can celebrate this evening, but we will roll up sleeves and put in telephone calls and chip in what we can to keep things going. We have an immense amount of work to do ahead of us. We have a standing in the world to recover, a protection to instate for the health of our people, an economy that needs to be mended, and a call to serve and to make provisions for our children of today. I don't think it will be done in a day, in a week, or even in four years. But, unlike empty promises of before, I do believe that we're all feeling a little more united in our struggles and committed to ensuring that we won't continue any further down this path.

It is on this preparedness to do what needs to be done to make America that I sleep peacefully tonight.

Good night, President Obama, Vice President Biden.



Cheers from Zaran, Joel, Jacquelynn, Laureen, Amanda, McBee, Tracy, Malina, Sharon, Megan, Seth [taking the photo], and myself [center]. Congratulations on your special evening. You and your legacy to come deserve nothing but our sincere respect and appreciation for a campaign well fought and a victory well earned.

Sincerely,
Dee Hill Zuganelli

I Can Play It Again

David Shuster, political analyst and commentator at MSNBC, said this when speaking with McCain national campaign spokesperson, Ben Porritt, regarding Sarah Palin's recent statement about negative campaigning and the First Amendment. When asked to comment on the perception that McCain campaign has been going negative, Palin responded with concern that her talk of negative associations of Senator Obama's needed to be recognized, not labeled as negative campaigning, for fear that if the media were allowed to do so that this would jeopardize free speech in America. Hear it straight from the pit bull's mouth.

What Palin failed to recognize is that the First Amendment guarantees both a freedom of association and a free press, both of which are crucial for journalists to analyze and criticize objectively (we would hope) our politicians running for office. I heard a metaphor about a job interview: that we, the employers who pay the salaries of our public servants, have a right to scrutinize their policy positions in order to determine who would best serve the office. The applicants don't demand the protection; we do. And Glenn Greenwald states this quite a bit more eloquently than I could hope to. What can I say? It's almost dinnertime.

I think we have a troubling eight year, perhaps longer, history of drawing razor-thin lines between freedom of speech and assumption of dissension. We heard it during the Bush administration, and we are hearing its precursors in the McCain-Palin campaign. It's the idea that who you "pal around" makes you culpable in terrorism. It's the idea that there are real parts of America and fake parts, "Communist country" and hometown values. It's the idea that gross distortions of not only the opposition but also of definitions of legal terms, amendments, and liberties of the public are encouraged and thought to be required to swing a vote. It's the idea that informing the public makes them dangerous and that inducing fear keeps them manipulated. It's the idea that "just enough" is fine in the political area as opposed to education in which you'll bank a C average at best.

Logic need not apply here. Regarding taxes, it is appropriate to appeal to the old conservative yore about not raising them, and to say that is a good enough buffer to real questions on how to generate our economy. Never mind that we wouldn't tolerate in science that idea that something can come from nothing. Apparently, you can lower taxes and not solidly propose a new way to generate revenue, and balance the budget, and fight two wars. But, apparently, just appealing to the idea of not increasing taxes keeps that veil over reality lowered just far enough.

But, really, it doesn't make sense in real life either. If my goal is to pay off my credit card debt, I can, in some limited capacity, reprioritize my spending. I could literally cut down the number of happy hours attended or the number of times I eat lunch on campus. That might save me some money in the short term. But if I want to hasten the speed of repayment, like it or not, I need more money. I can quit a job for something better paying, or I can take up a side position or a spare route to earn money. For the quaintness that is selling an item on Craigslist or eBay and maybe making a recoupment, the most helpful solutions integrate both the short term and the long term and cover a wide range of proactive options. The relevance of this toward how a president governs his or her country cannot be understated.

"I can play it again," Shuster said, perhaps intending to provoke the spokesperson but to also call up in us the recognition that, yes, we need to hear these common sense messages as many times as we need in order to break this suspension of sense.