Awkward but not Brave - Brené Brown stays on Spotify

Brené Brown, a research professor at the University of Houston, decided on Feb 8 to keep her podcasts on Spotify after pausing her podcasts on Feb 1 in the face of the platform’s choice to continue streaming Joe Rogan’s inflammatory podcast. Although she made a career from “Daring Greatly,” her choice was awkward and not brave. 

 

In a post explaining her decision, she argues that because she has an exclusive contract with Spotify, she has fewer options than artists who can make their music available on other platforms. She compares Spotify to a cafeteria where people can come in and sit where they like justifying her association with a platform that hosts Joe Rogan because her fans needn’t “sit with them.” Neither point is convincing.

 

I’d like to address the free speech cafeteria analogy first because I think it misses some important facts.

 

Although Brown would like us to think of Spotify as a cafeteria, Spotify is more like a concert (or a festival) with headline acts. The most important difference is the money involved. Brown and Joe Rogan are like headliners at the show; they’re each convincing their fans to come and, when those fans come to Spotify, they either pay a subscription, or have to listen to advertisers, or both. That money is then used to pay Brown and Rogan for their exclusive contracts. And much like a concert or festival, some acts almost certainly get paid more (Rogan) than others (Brown). Still, everyone coming to the show ends up paying some to each.

 

The exclusive contract actually compounds the problem. Because you can’t hear Brown’s podcast except on Spotify, her fans must give their subscription and/or attention to Spotify to hear the show. Thus, Rogan also gets part of his compensation from every one of Brown’s fans she brings to the streaming service. But all contracts can be terminated, even though that is likely to cost Brown money and opportunities.

 

Brown says that “words matter” and that some of the content on Rogan’s podcast made her “physically sick”. The distance between Brown and Rogan comes across as being about more than just misinformation, a part of the Joe Rogan podcast that Brown thinks Spotify is beginning to address. Brown also seems concerned about core values and how they’re expressed in public. In fact, in her cafeteria analogy she says “sharing the table with Rogan puts [her] in a tremendous values conflict with very few options”.

 

One of those options is to stop sharing the table and to find a new (or return to an old) way of publishing her podcast. If her values are that much in conflict with Rogan’s, then she can make the decision not to force her fans to subsidize the Rogan show. It should, in fact, be “me or Joe”.

 

It’s great that Brown states that “I’m always going to stand firmly on the side of free speech”. But that’s not what’s at issue here. Brown leaving Spotify, or asking Spotify to remove Rogan, doesn’t mean Rogan doesn’t have free speech rights. If he left Spotify, Rogan would find another platform and his fans would follow. I think this issue is not about censorship or free speech; it’s about making your fans buy tickets to a festival where someone else is spreading misinformation and saying hurtful and racist things. India Arie really said it best when she decided to pull her music from Spotify: ”This shows the type of company they are and the company that they keep.“

 

Brené Brown should be brave and choose not to keep company with Joe Rogan. Words matter, and actions matter. By staying on Spotify, Brown is signaling that the cost of leaving the platform is more than she’s willing to pay to keep her fans from subsidizing Spotify or Rogan.

Calculus, the musical

Our family went to see Calculus, the musical when they were in town a year or so ago. It's an amusing play describing Newton's route to calculus, including old tunes updated with math lyrics. Some examples include:

• 5 Sizes of Numbers (In the style of: The Beatles - In My Life)
• The Limit’s Alright (In the style of: The Who - The Kids Are Alright)
• Differentiabul (In the style of: They Might Be Giants - Istanbul(Not Constantinople))
• Power Rule (In the style of : Petula Clark - Downtown)
• Under The Curve (In the style of: Red Hot Chilli Peppers - Under the Bridge)
• and a favorite: L’Hôpital(I have Calculus in the Heart) (In the style of : Bonnie Tyler - Total Eclipse of the Heart)

At their web site they have some new albums for sale, and they say they're ready to come around on tour again. I'd love to figure out how to bring them to Houston, either to Rice or to a local high school. Anyone interested?

Driving the Chevy Volt

I test-drove the Chevy Volt today. I've been following the story of this car and its technology on the gm-volt.com web site for about three years now, and am excited to have the opportunity to finally see it in person.

The Volt is an electric car with a gasoline engine. It's not like the gas/electric hybrids currently available; the gas engine exists to charge the battery, not to drive the car. It's more properly known as an Extended Range Electric Vehicle. The battery will drive the car for about 40 miles before the gas engine kicks on into "charge-sustaining mode." The electric engine is still driving the car; at some higher speeds, the rotations from the gas engine help drive the car a bit, but never on its own. With a full tank of gas, the total range of the car should be about 250 miles.

The car itself was pretty nice looking; it had that new-car appeal. Under the hood there are what look like individual modules; the gas engine is in there, as well as a computer system, and containers for various fluids (brake, coolant, wiper, etc.). The back is a hatch-back, with a small open space behind the back seats; I worry a bit that things might fly forward out of there if you stop suddenly. Lifting up the "floor" of the hatch space, you see access panels for the battery terminals, and space for a charger cord. Not until later did I realize I hadn't seen the spare tire; there may be one under the vehicle.

There are four bucket seats in the car; the two seats in back are separated by what I believe is part of the T-shaped battery. The back seats fold down, to allow more cargo space. Someone remarked "that's plenty of room for camping gear!" but I thought "only if you don't take your kids with you." This is not a cargo car; it'll move groceries around, and take you and a friend to the airport, but maybe not more.

Overall, this is a practical electric car to have. It will take you around town on the electric charge, and take you on a longer trip with the gasoline engine as an extender. If you have a family, your second car should have some hauling space, and probably seat at least five. Houston won't likely have any available until next year or so; I just hope the $7500 tax break is still around when I'm ready to buy my Volt.

Project proposal - please vote

Please check out and vote for a new proposal at Mozilla's Drumbeat site. It's project which will create an interface which will allow educators to bring together disparate teaching materials online. This should allow teachers to create curricula from content available world-wide; allow authors to contribute more easily to a global educational corpus; and allow researchers and entrepreneurs to use the materials in innovative new ways. I urge you to look through the materials and give it your vote, to help convince Mozilla to fund the proposal.

Full disclosure: I am related to the project author.

Houston ISD Magnet Program survey - admissions criteria

I wrote earlier about Houston ISD's questionnaire about its magnet programs; in particular about the survey question on funding. Another such question asked about how students should be admitted to magnet programs.

The magnet programs at HISD exist both to cluster students with similar interests, skills, and abilities, and to allow students from under-performing schools to attend programs outside their HISD zone. In a perfect world, every student who wanted to attend a magnet program would; however, there are a limited number of programs, and a limited number of students the programs can admit. Therefore there needs to be some way for a program to admit a fraction of its applicants.

One thing that makes this a little more complicated is that HISD has a parallel program called "Vanguard" which targets a subset of the children who are identified as "gifted and talented." I think the idea is generally sound - it's easier to provide a centralized accelerated academic program in a small number of schools than it is to have a separate such program in each of schools. I'll address each program (Vanguard, magnet) for each grade level (elementary, middle, high school).

Elementary school

• Vanguard

  HISD uses a battery of tests to determine which students are identified as "gifted and talented"; within that population, a further set of tests determine which students qualify for the "Vanguard" program. I'm not sure the data convince me these second tests are effective - it's not clear that all the students chosen for the programs end up thriving in them, nor is it clear that the students excluded from such programs would not have done better as participants. If the second battery of tests does not effectively differentiate between those populations, then perhaps admission to a Vanguard program at this level should be by lottery from the pool of "gifted and talented" applicants.
  

• Magnet

  I believe most magnet programs at this level accept applicants by lottery. This seems pretty fair.
  

Middle school

• Vanguard

  At this level HISD has more data about its students, based on grades, test scores, and teacher evaluations. It may have enough information to be able to tell which students would benefit from accelerated Vanguard programs. If so, selection based on these criteria would be appropriate. If the data are not enough to be able to rank students, then perhaps a threshold to apply plus a lottery among the qualified would be better and would allow more students to participate. Some students might not thrive in such an environment and may choose to leave it; programs should actively recruit new students for open spots in 7th and 8th grades to replace them.
  

• Magnet

The Magnet schools at this level are impressive - foreign language, performing and visual arts, etc. Students are likely to self-select at this point, so it may be that a lottery is reasonable as a selection process. On the other hand, it may be better to use the screening processes that high school programs use, below. Students can further be clustered in the school by aptitude for acceleration, if appropriate.

High school

• Vanguard

  By high school, the district should have enough data to be able to determine which students will do well in a Vanguard/accelerated program. Students will also self-select at this level, since these programs will typically include an expectation that students take a decent number of IB or AP courses and exams. The pressure to have a high GPA may convince students not to attend unless they're sure they'll succeed. Therefore, at this level the schools should probably have open admissions or a lottery of all candidates who qualify based on grades and test scores.
  

• Magnet

  The Magnet schools at this level are really incredible - foreign language, performing and visual arts, science/medical, engineering, even a school with a flight program. If the program has some minimum ability requirements it should test for them (language fluency or aptitude, science/math scores or grades, performing ability, etc.) Like the Vanguard programs above, students will likely self-select at this point, so programs should probably have open admissions or a lottery among all who qualify. The assumption is that anyone applying to such a school will be interested enough to succeed if they have the skills to do so.
  

Since one of the goals of the magnet program is to allow students to "escape" an under-performing they're zoned to, perhaps at each level some preference should be given to an applicant who is zoned to such a school. There also, frankly, should be more magnet programs!

Houston ISD Magnet Program survey - funding magnet programs

Houston ISD is conducting a survey of parents and teachers about its magnet program, sending out questionnaires and holding town hall meetings around the city. The survey they sent out asks a number of thought-provoking questions; I'm curious to know how they collate and respond to the submissions they receive. I wonder if they will hold a subsequent round of discussions so we can react to each others' responses.

One question asked how you would recommend funding the programs at magnet schools; they give three suggestions: (1) equal funding by school; (2) funding by pupil; (3) differential funding by type of program. They give only a small box for the response, so I thought I'd elaborate on my submission here:

Each paradigm has its merits and demerits.

• Funding by pupil has the problem that programs with few pupils, especially starting programs, may not have enough baseline funding to hire the personnel necessary to get established.
  
• Funding "by program type" implies differential funding - do STEM schools get more than music/arts schools? How about Vanguard/Gifted schools? Do we decide there are a small number of "types" and assign funding amounts to them? How would an innovative new "type" of program get established and funded?
  
• Finally, while equal funding per school sounds fair, it can be attacked as providing inordinate funding to schools with small magnet populations. It might also under-fund popular programs with a large number of applicants.
  

Perhaps a "tiered" system makes sense. Schools with 1 - 100 magnet students would receive some baseline amount; schools with 101 - 200 get more; and perhaps a per-capita allowance for every student over 200. That might be supplemented by service-based funding for things like after-school programs, or grants of initial capital to do things like purchasing art supplies and tools, musical instruments, gymnastics or dance items, etc.

Curbside recycling

Our neighborhood has recently improved its curbside recycling program. We used to have a small open green bucket to put our paper and other recyclables in; this bucked lived outside, and got put out every other week next to our giant, closed trash container. We would never remember which week was recycling, and we didn't want to keep the materials outside in the bucket to be waterlogged by rain. Therefore we rarely used the curbside recycling; I'd occasionally take our saved materials to the recycling center, but not on a regular basis.

Now we have a giant, closed container for recycling as well. It's just like our trash container, except it's bright green, and it has a handy sticker on the outside which describes what's appropriate to put in the container. It's so easy now to just toss recyclables in the container outside; much better than trying to manage them inside in the small space we can spare in the kitchen. Paper, plastic, cans, glass - it all goes in together, as soon as it's clean.

Our family tries not to have too much to recycle or dispose in the first place; the best policy is to eschew things with so much packaging. Nevertheless, we do generate trash, except now our trash container is rarely full. Instead, the recycling container has been almost full every two weeks, as we are more disciplined about putting in the newspapers, junk mail, cans, and even plastic clamshells from berry and tomato containers. I think this new program, with its bigger, closed containers and its automated pickup, must be drawing a lot of material out of the garbage stream. I'm looking forward to seeing the numbers when they're published.

Spaced out

I've always been fascinated by the cosmos - imagining on a huge scale, in both space and time. I enjoyed the Scientific American imagining visiting the 8 wonder of the solar system; as my daughter said, "it almost feels like it's real!"

I am, however, emphatically disappointed in NASA's Be a Martian site, which allows some web users to help NASA explore Mars. The most obvious problem with the site is that it requires a proprietary piece of software (Microsoft Silverlight) to even use it; in that sense, it's not a real web application at all. Requiring that particular plug-in makes it impossible for anyone using Linux, or any supporter of free software who still uses MS-Windows or Apple MacOS-X, to interact with the site. I'm disappointed that a government agency, funded by my tax dollars, has taken a compelling idea and locked it behind an application which is not free, and which advertises a single commercial software company. I realize this is just part of Microsoft's attempt to replace Adobe's Flash as the dominant platform for rich web applications; it's embarrassing that a government agency has enlisted itself as a participant in that commercial battle. The site does not give much of an opportunity to submit feedback; if you want to contact NASA about it, you might try this email address.

HOWTO: Houston Flu

The City of Houston has a resource dedicated to information about the H1N1 and seasonal flu viruses, including a list of places where the vaccines (shot and spray) are available at no charge. Google has a map facility where you can put in your zip code and find commercial sites which have stocked, are stocking, and will stock the various vaccines. Houston ISD is opening campuses to provide vaccines this weekend; check back because they're likely to continue the program for a while.

And finally, Google Trends is predicting flu severity by tracking geographically-identified searches for flu related terms. Their methodology is interesting; they basically look for search terms whose temporal frequency matched historical outbreak data from the Center for Disease Control (CDC) for particular locations, and then use those terms to predict forward what CDC trends will be based on current searches. It's an interesting approach, especially since CDC data is only available after a lag of two weeks or so. It's just a correlation, and may be useful to provide earlier warning of outbreak. But it all depends on how well current and future search terms match ones used in the past, and depends on how representative Google searchers are of the population, etc. YMMV.

Stay healthy and safe this flu season!

This, I don't understand

The Houston Chronicle published a story about the Texas unemployment tax going up again next year. The logic behind such a move is perplexing. The fund, which is established by the Texas Labor Code, increases its impact on businesses (especially small businesses) during bad years, and reduces its impact on business during good years. This is because the tax rate goes up in bad years; the rate is calculated (roughly, and in part: see 204.062ff) by taking the unemployment claims to September 30 (in bad years, this goes up) and dividing this by taxable wages for the same period (in bad years, this goes down). The result is to essentially exacerbate the effect of recession by putting a higher burden on solvent businesses to support the unemployment fund in bad years.

The fund is organized as a reserve (see section 203.028(b)), so contributions should instead be increased during good years, to reduce the load on businesses during bad years. This would allow the state to assess businesses when they can best afford it, and save money for periods when businesses could use a break.

Disclaimer: I'm neither an economist nor an actuary. There may in fact be sound business reasons why the tax is structured the way it is, but I'm afraid they're too obscured by what seems like an obvious flaw in the reasoning behind the calculation. I'd appreciate any comments explaining why the current setup makes sense.

More support for a single payer system

Here's an article from the Houston Chronicle, written by the inimitable Helen Thomas, exhorting President Obama and the Congress to extend Medicare coverage to all as the most effective way to reform health care in America.

Houston Opera Vista Festival Threatened

From Joe White:

HOUSTON – The organizers of the second annual Opera Vista Festival suspected one of their featured operas would draw controversy. But when an anonymous letter threatening the founders of the Nova Arts Project arrived at founding director Amy Hopper’s doorstep, she realized the show had potential to ignite a firestorm.

“We received this letter that was all about ignorance and hate, and that’s the whole point of this opera – to confront ignorance and hate. It makes it even more important to tell the story,” Hopper said.

The opera is “Edalat Square,” one of two works that won Opera Vista’s inaugural festival competition in 2007 (think “American Idol” for opera composers). Written by Atlanta‐based composer R. Timothy Brady, the opera recounts the true story of Mahmoud Asgari, 17, and Ayaz Marhoni, 16, who were hanged in Iran in 2005 for the crime of lavaat, or sex between two men. Brady was inspired by the story to craft a poetic work that offers an unblinking look at bigotry, but is also prayerful and mystical, said Viswa Subbaraman, artistic director and co‐founder of Opera Vista. “It’s an amazing appeal to the soul,” Subbaraman said. “It’s some of the most poignant music and lyrics in opera. I don’t know how you could watch it and not be moved.”

Because of its exploration of two hot‐button topics – radical Islam and homosexuality – performances of “Edalat Square” have faced opposition before. At its world premiere at Emory University, the university’s president contemplated canceling the show because of complaints. Some critics have said the show is persecuting the Islamic faith, which festival organizers say it doesn’t. Others object to the homosexual content.

On May 5, Amy Hopper found out the show was already pushing buttons here in Houston. She opened her mailbox to discover a hand‐stenciled, anonymous letter that said: “You are pigs to mix Islam with gays. You must stop! We will not let you do it.”

The festival’s organizers actually are glad the opera could spark debate or criticism. That’s part of the purpose of the performing arts – to provoke discussion and ignite the emotions, they said. “Great art should open a discussion, and I think that’s what this opera does,” Subbaraman said. “Art has never existed in a vacuum – it often has a political bent, and that’s as it should be.” “Edalat Square” will open the Opera Vista Festival at 8 p.m. Thursday, May 21, in the Wortham Theater Complex at the University of Houston. For more information and a schedule of operas being performed at the festival, visit www.operavista.org or www.novaartsproject.com/shows/ovf. Nova Arts Project is a Houston based, not‐forprofit performing arts organization that seeks to recreate classics and inspire new works in a fearlessly theatrical way.

Opera Vista is dedicated to continuing the growth of the operatic tradition by producing fully‐staged versions of new and contemporary operas, giving living composers a performance venue, and establishing and developing an audience for new opera. Opera Vista is a 501(c)3 nonprofit organization.

Progressive Forum Houston

I attended a presentation tonight by Lester Brown, sponsored by the Progressive Forum of Houston. They have an impressive list of past speakers, and are in the process of uploading audio and/or video from the various events. I'm glad we have such an active progressive institution in our otherwise very red state! According to the moderator (Forum President Randall Morton), they will have Speaker Nancy Pelosi on June 12.

A brief history of the Forum

The Progressive Forum premiered on June 13, 2005 with Robert F. Kennedy J. and Houston Mayor Bill White a the Hobby Center, Sarofim Hall, in a program called "Our Environmental Challenges". The year before in June, 2004, founder Randall Morton saw Robert Kennedy on Larry King Live and called one of Houston's fine speaker organizations and suggested they present Kennedy, but nothing came of it. Morton had created and hosted another speaker series in the oil industry, a client base for his advertising and public relations agency. Dismayed after the election of November 2004, he called Mr. Kennedy's representatives who were responsive to Kennedy appearing at a new event series. The great turnout and excitement at the Kennedy-White event showed the forum's unique model had viability long term. Six months later, the Forum opened its first spring season in 2006 with Jared Diamond, Seymour Hersh, and Molly Ivins. Al gore appeared June 7th in a sell-out event launching An Inconvenient Truth at The Progressive Forum, his first U.S. book event for that title. ...

Get out of jail, free

The Houston Chronicle has an article about technology at the Houston Municipal Court system. The court's computer network has been hit, hard, by a virus - the report suggests Conficker but the chief technical director for the City doesn't think so. The effects include a shutdown of the muni court on Friday, and a suspension for arrests for Class C misdemeanors.

To me it seems clear there are a number of lessons to learn:

1. Keep your critical computers away from the Internet. There are computers which are necessary for your department to function, and then there are the computers people use for less critical purposes. Think strongly about keeping an "air gap" between your critical infrastructure and the Internet.
2. Avoid an operating system monoculture. Another hard thing to do - it's a trade-off between being easy to manage (the Southwest Airlines approach) and being robust. Having even 20% of your computers running something other than Windows can mean the difference between an inconvenient virus attack, and shutting down your courts for the weekend.
3. Migrate off Microsoft Windows. It's a bug-ridden virus magnet.The sooner you move away from MS Windows on your critical infrastructure machines, the sooner you become more resistant to viruses and worms.

Feeding the Hungry

At First UU Church Houston a few years ago, our Parent's Group started a project to create meal packs for the hungry in Houston. We were not trying in a broad way to feed the homeless; instead, we were trying to give congregants an alternative to giving money to street solicitors. In this way, we thought people might find it easier to be more generous in the moment.

With the packs themselves, were looking to accomplish a few goals:

1. Packs should comprise non-perishable items, so they can be stored at home and taken with you in the car/on your bike so you can give them to people who are in need;
2. The nutrition should be balanced, with a good amount of protein;
3. There should be plenty of liquid, important especially in the summer;
4. Items should be edible even with bad gums or teeth (soft foods);
5. The packs should be inexpensive and provided at-cost to purchasers so they feel comfortable buying many and handing them out.

With those in mind, we managed to create the following packs for about $3 each (by purchasing items in bulk):

• A quart sized "zip" locking bag
• A paper napkin and plastic spoon or spork
• A postcard with a map of Houston and locations/phone numbers of aid agencies
• A liter/quart of water
• A juice box
• A tuna-fish based lunch pack (the most expensive item, but the most nutritious)
• A pudding
• An applesauce
• A pack of cheese its or other snack
• A pack of cheese or peanut-butter stuffed crackers
• A granola bar

We managed to stuff almost 2000 calories of long-lasting food with a good mix of nutrition, while providing water and kind of fun snacks. The packs were easy to shop for, simple to assemble, and are satisfying to give out. Because we were able to recoup the cost of the packs each time, the project itself was self-sustaining after an initial "investment" from the social action group of the congregation. By taking pre-orders, we were even able to expand the production at various times.

I'm proud that my daughter's Girl Scout troop did a similar project this year at Thanksgiving. Because of fund-raising rules, they were not able to recoup the costs from outside the troop; still, they considered it a valuable project and invested their collective dues into making five packs for each girl.

This is not a project which tries to address the causes of homelessness or hunger; it's not a program which will help people get off the streets. Those are additional, sustained efforts which need to take place as well. But as we know, structural change doesn't happen overnight; in the meantime, we can make these small efforts while we work on the large problems.

Here I go

I read Lisa Gray's article in the Houston Chronicle the other day, and it made me want to help Houston remake its image. So here I am, doing my part; I plan to write about various issues including Houston ISD, my church, and other things that come to mind. Although there are a few posts today, I only plan to update this once a week or so. I'm just not a good or quick enough writer to add things more often.

Does Houston need an "image overhaul"? Coming from a brand marketer such as Patricia Martin, the answer can only be yes; if it's no, she's out of a job. So take that recommendation with a grain of salt. It's going to be necessary, and of course it's going to be expensive.

But more importantly, what does it mean for "us" to have an image? What are "we" trying to sell? How homogeneous are "we" - and if we're trying to accomplish different things with a "brand", wouldn't that logically imply we should have multiple "image"s?

Overall, I'm pretty skeptical that such a large and diverse group of people should have a common identity. Of course, I go to a UU church, and such a small and diverse group of people has to frequently remind themselves what principles they hold in common, so I don't hold out much hope for 4 million people who come from all over the world, with so many languages, so many different skills, talents, and careers, and so many different goals. Do I care that Houston has a reputation for something or other in particular? Would I be proud or embarrassed to be associated with that image? I worry it's a 50/50 chance of either, so why spend a lot of time and energy on the project? From previous efforts, what do we have? Houston - Expect the Unexpected, Houston - It's Worth it, and Houston - It's Hot!. For this, we could pay millions?