MMM #128 Ombudsmen

     Complaints about the media date to the earliest newspapers, and probably back to the first human to carve out a message in stone.
     But the concept of an actual reader/viewer/listener representative on the staff is a relatively recent creation.
     There is, as with everything in the world these days, an official association for them, and the history section of the association's website places the first newspaper ombudsman in the U.S.:

The first press ombudsman appears in the U.S.A. in July 1967, with the function of listening to the complaints of the readers of the Louisville Courier Journal and of the Louisville Times, both in Louisville, Kentucky.

     There is only one Alabama media entity with an ombudsman that I'm aware of...The Anniston Star, long a shining light in the world of journalistic ethics. The paper employs former editor Paul Rilling for that purpose. He is called a "Media Critic", but his columns seem to focus on his own paper as much as anything.

     The media ombudsmen association I linked above has only thirty regular members, and there is some evidence that the days of ombudsmen may be eroding, probably a result of cost cutting as much as anything.
     The Washington Post's ombudsman has resigned, disgusted by the decline in the journalistic quality of the paper. Yet the fact that his final column, expressing that disgust, was even published by the paper says something about the integrity that remains.
     And a venerated volunteer group that tried to investigate reader/viewer/listener complaints about the media, the Minnesota News Council, is folding too.
     On the other hand, The Star and other papers founded a kind of group-critique organization last year called Bama Fact Check.

[The Monday Morning Media Memo is a regular feature of this blog.]

Mark Kennedy...back in politics.

     Former Alabama Supreme Court Justice Mark Kennedy has been selected as Chair of The Alabama Democratic Party, though there was hardly a crowded field.
    Kennedy was the only announced candidate.
    It's a fairly amazing turn of events if you recall the way Kennedy was treated in 1994 when he was mangled at the hands of Karl Rove. The Atlantic published a story with the details in November of 2004.

Not A Great Recession 4 All

A 40% salary increase in 2010 for the CEO of....

Grande'.

Cutting to The Bone and Beyond

     Governor Bentley has asked the heads of Alabama's Public Education...K-12 and Higher Ed...how schools would be impacted f he were to declare 3% cuts in the current budget and 10% in the 2011-12 budget.
     Let's put that in the proper perspective. In September, outgoing Governor Riley cut the Education Budget by 9.5 % in 2010 and 11% in the previous year. If Bentley orders the proration he's asking about, it would mean  budget cuts of about 33% over the past few years. How do you operate a school system on 33% less money?
     Stimulus money (that the Alabama Congressional Delegation voted against) is gone, though it saved thousands of Alabama teacher's jobs.

The Time$

The Wall Street Journal reports The New York Times will start charging for online access next month.Price undetermined, but possibly $20 a month for unlimited access.

MMMM #127 -- A Coal Ash Records Fight

     The coal ash spill at a TVA power plant in Tennessee two years ago has spawned an open records battle in Perry County, Alabama, where much of the ash was deposited in a commercial landfill.
     The Tuscaloosa News has the story, which includes the local water board now being ordered by a judge to hand over records. It's an open records battle that's common between the media and government entities, but in this case it's a local activist group that is on the winning side.
     The group that filed the suit also is suing the Perry County Commission, thought the paper reports all of the documents have finally been provided. The excuse? According to the News story, the lawyer for the County....

...said the county delayed giving the group the requested records because it was in the process of developing a policy for records requests. 

      Uh, the open records laws in Alabama state quite clearly "Every citizen has a right to inspect and take a copy of any public writing of this state, except as otherwise expressly provided by statute."
     And the laws date to 1975. So Perry County is developing a policy 35 years later?
     Why is it that government bodies think they can keep the business they conduct as employees of the voters, secret from those voters?
     The information fight is a reminder that the media have no real powers above and beyond non-journalist citizens (except the ability to easily publicise what they find!). Anyone can use the state's open records laws. Anyone can demand that the state's open-meeting laws are obeyed. It's just that journalists can do it full time because it's their job.
     Longtime media attorney Dennis Bailey represented the activist group in their suit. 

Food For Thought

“This is America, where a white Catholic male Republican judge was murdered on his way to greet a Democratic Jewish woman member of Congress, who was his friend. Her life was saved initially by a 20-year old Mexican-American gay college student, and eventually by a Korean-American combat surgeon, all eulogized by our African American President.”

                                                                                                Historian Allen Ginsberg

Domestic Spying

     The Washington Post reports on the use of drones by American Police Departments, including this objection from the ACLU in the story:

"We are not against them, absolutely. They can be a valuable tool in certain kinds of operations. But what we don't want to see is their pervasive use to watch over the American people."

  And if this is OK, when the technology arrives that allows viewing through walls --and it will-- will that be OK too? Should there be no limits on the powers granted police to catch law-breakers?

[And about the photo above...I fully believe the military intentionally downgrades any aerial photos or videos it releases so not to show the quality as it really is.]

Remote Farm

     I'll be you have a collection of remotes similar to these....one remote for the TV channels and another for the volume and a third for the cable box and a fourth.

     And I'll bet you've eyed, if not tried, a so-called "Universal Remote".

     Like the author of an excellent story in the NY Times today, I've declared them a dismal failure.

     One Christmas, I invested something like $180 on a top-of-the-line Universal Remote that was Internet-connectible and promised an easy way to completely eliminate the clutter on the coffee table. Alas, like all of the others I've tried, I could not get it to perform at least a function or two...meaning I still needed at least one other remote. And if that's the case, what's the point of the Universal Remote?

     I eventually gave that fancy photo-displaying remote to my at-home IT guy in exchange for some PC reapair work.

     Like Dr. McCoy in the time-travel Star Trek movie ("Savages!"), sometime in the future humans will laugh at how naive we were in using all these hand-helds to get stuff to work. "Daddy? Why didn't they just blink like we do?"

     But till then, we'll just do what we do with all of the technology in our lives that has become too complicated. We use what we can, devise work-arounds by the dozens, an move on, collecting more and more decidedly not universal control gizmos.

It's tough all over.

Boat for $ale.
$26-Million

An "F" Grade for Alabama

     Alabama is one of the U.S. States getting an "F" for its lack of anti-smoking activities.
     No, make that four "F's", from the Cancer Society. We Dare Defend Our Rights (to kill ourselves!).

Let the States Declare Bankruptcy?

      An article in the NY Times discusses just that.

Alabama can't run a deficit...that's a state constitutional provision that results in constant "proration"...i.e. cuts...in the two major state budgets all the time. Though the state employee pension fund is another story.
      One thing this article will do? Watch the municipal bond market today.

Chief Executive Preacher Man

     When I interviewed Dr. Bentley all of those times, it never occurred to me to ask him questions about religion, since he was a candidate and then Governor-Elect...but here's what he said in the Dexter-King Church Monday afternoon:

“Now I will have to say that, if we don’t have the same daddy, we’re not brothers and sisters. So anybody here today who has not accepted Jesus Christ as their savior, I’m telling you, you’re not my brother and you’re not my sister, and I want to be your brother.”

Read the entire story in the Birmingham News or elsewhere.
And no apology or retreat.
And this wasn't even after a full day in office...just an hour or so.
Amen.

[UPDATE: Governor Bentley apologizes.]

The Way Forward

     Governor Bentley suggested cooperation is the way forward for the state and the now GOP-majority Legislature...but he still made what appeared to be an odd ad-lib about most Americans being tired of the Federal Government. The comment came during the 150th Anniversary year of the Civil War, and just days after the 150th Anniversary of the state's decision to leave The Union.
     The least cooperative person sworn in may have been Secretary of State Beth Chapman, who dissed Democrats and offered this rational for Voter I.D.: you need a picture I.D. to rent a video, why not to vote?
     I don't know many people who still actually go and rent videos anymore, but I DO know that there's nothing in the U.S. Constitution about the right to do so. (Gee, Tim, that sounds like the argument people make against gun control measures!)
     Fortunately, the 40% chance for rain never hit the ceremony on Dexter Avenue or the afternoon outdoor events at the stadium Downtown.
    Here's to an interesting four years!

A R U Smarter than a 4 YO? Arf?

     Think you've taught your pup a lot?

     I had a Birmingham Humane Society dog in the 70's named Brandy---that's her on the right--- and I was amazed that she so quickly learned behaviours---"tricks"--- like crawling and jumping through hoops and running to whatever room I happened to name. She even won ribbons for her abilities.

     Now, meet maybe the smartest dog in the world. Or at least the one who has learned more than about any dog I've ever heard of. The story is in the NY Times, which I suspect the dog may subscribe to.
     Or own.

About "The Dream"

The Washington Post reports on the background of the MLK "Dream" speech....and the fact that the "dream" itself wasn't part of the original draft:

Martin's favorite gospel singer, Mahalia Jackson, who had performed earlier in the day, called to him from nearby: "Tell 'em about the dream, Martin, tell 'em about the dream!"

...and he did.

On MLK Day...

Martin's view

     The view Rev. Martin Luther King, Jr. saw as he left church during his time as pastor of what is now called the Dexter Avenue King Memorial Baptist Church just down from the Alabama Capitol. The view is little changed from his time.

     Directly across the street was the old Alabama Supreme Court building, where several historic legal battles involving him were fought.

     Some Southern States school districts have cancelled today's King Holiday to make up for snow days, prompting criticism that it is always the first holiday to be cut. 

The Governors New and Old

     At Noon on Monday, Bob Riley will ride off into the sunset on a motorcycle (as the story is being spun), and Dr. Robert Bentley will become the state's 53rd Chief Executive.
      Both men are Republicans, but there a significant distance between them, despite comments about how supportive Riley is being and how many long meetings the men have held to make the transition go smoothly.
     The most obvious part of the chasm stems from Riley's support for candidate Bradley Byrne as his successor rather than Bentley, who came from behind (in money and expectations) and won both the GOP runoff and the General Election.
    But two other pieces of evidence have presented themselves since the election.
    Though Bentley says he gave his blessing to Riley's decision to call a special session on Ethics before he left office, Bentley really had no choice. What could he do other than protest publicly? Bentley says he did not see any of the legislation before the session---despite the claims of cooperation---and now he's told CBS 8* there may be changes to some of the bills once he takes office. One of those could be the new law that prevents AEA member teachers from having their dues withheld from their state paychecks (called The Kill AEA bill by members). Byrne and Riley used AEA as a whipping boy while Bentley accepted campaign contributions from the group and avoided rhetorical attacks.
    And then there was Friday's sudden resignation of Republican Alabama Supreme Court Justice Champ Lyons, and the equally fast replacement named by Riley on his last workday in office. What was the hurry? After all, a fellow Republican was taking over on Monday---did the Riley Administration not trust Bentley to name a new justice? Or did Riley just want to appoint his longtime friend Jim Main to the post, and not give Bentley the opportunity to start making his own imprint on the Judiciary?

     One way or the other, it will be a different four-year term in the Capitol, even though the new and the old Governors display the Capital R after their names.

[* You can watch the entire interview with the Governor-Elect Monday morning at 5:30am on CBS 8 in Montgomery.]

Spotted in Montgomery Today

An Education About Hospitals

The Alabama Supreme Court has voided a judgement against Baptist Health in Montgomery in a decision that dissenting justices said could give all Alabama Hospitals a fairly easy route to legal immunity from fiscal punishment for wrongdoing. From the Montgomery Advertiser story:

The justices ruled in a 4-to-3 decision that governmental immunity should be extended to Baptist Health because of its relationship with state universities.

     Dissenting Justices said the decision will likely result in other hospitals forming similar relationships with Universities to bock lawsuits against them.
     Decisions like this show why so much money is spent on the election of Alabama Supreme Court Judges. Alabama has the most expensive judicial election in America, and for some parties, the expense is worth every penny.

Before he becomes the 53rd Alabama Governor....

.....Robert Bentley went On The Record with us, exclusively at CBS-8, and y'all have two opportunities to see the interview.

This Sunday at 11:00am, and Monday at 5:30am,

just hours before the Inauguration.

He says he never saw the AEA Dues bill, or any of the ethics legislation, before the special session (and suggests that changes to those bills are possible once he's Governor)....that it would be hard for him to cut the Governor's office budget because it is expensive to hire good people...and that he expects proration of both state budgets in the next year.

By the way, Bentley is apparently the second M.D. to hold the office. The other was Alabama's first Governor, William Bibb.

(Governor-Elect Bentley holds a drawing by one of his grandchildren).

The President's Speech

It would have been difficult, regardless of your politics, to hear President Obama's speech last night without being moved. Perhaps the most moving part came during his disclosure that Congresswoman Giffords had opened her eyes that afternoon....and his statement about the nine year old student council president who died:

I want to live up to her expectations. I want our democracy to be as good as Christina imagined it. I want America to be as good as she imagined it. All of us -- we should do everything we can to make sure this country lives up to our children's expectations.

     Yet, I have to say I  found the frequent cheering somewhat odd. This wasn't a pep rally, or a political campaign event. It was, at least in part, a memorial for the six people who did not survive.

[UPDATE: Watch a CBS-News report on the "cheering" aspect of the event.]

Least we forget...

"Auburn cannot lock the crystal championship trophy in a case until the N.C.A.A. finishes the Newton investigation."

                                   The New York Times in a story this afternoon.

     I don't delve into football too often on this blog, but having spent the past week or so on-air doing stories about Auburn's rise to the top, this is of interest to even me. Always nice to see what the outside media is saying about us. (and I use "us" not as a partisan. I am the worst kind of  fan...I root for whatever school in Alabama in playing....and watch the Iron Bowl to see who wins.) Anyway, read the Times story. What cha think?

150 Years Ago Today...

.. Alabama Legislators voted the state out of the Union..secession was approved.
     Here in Montgomery you can stand in the spot where Jefferson Davis was sworn in, at the top of the stairs leading to the Capitol building from Dexter Avenue. On the other side of the Capitol, you can see the cornerstone marking Davis' participation after the war in the building of the state's memorial to the hundreds of Alabamians who died during the war.

     Although no major battles were fought in Alabama, her standing as the first Capitol of the Confederacy will make her forever a touchstone of the War.
    You have to wonder if someone had been able to tell Davis 150 years ago that the war would last four years and cost more than 618,000 military lives and those of many more civilians (not to mention the economic devastation visited on the South!)...if he had been told, would he have sued for peace?
     There is no formal recognition of today's 150th anniversary planned (though the new Republican majority Alabama Legislature will begin an organizational session this morning).

A First! No, a 1831st!

I was sure this has has to be the first time the New York Times has used the word "icky" to describe a distasteful thing...

The details of Mr. MacDonald’s case are icky, which may explain why prosecutors pursued it.

Anyway, the latest comes in a story about sex...and some visitors will in fact find it kinda icky, so read at your own risk.

...but no...a search of the century plus archinves of the paper turned up 1,831 other instances. Amazing.

MMMM # 126 -- Damned if you do....

 
     Predicting snow or ice in Dixie is a no-win business.
Predict it and there's none, and you're a loser.
Downplay the chances and you are just as much a loser if there's even a hint of ground coverage.

     Put yourself in the place of News Directors (and meteorologists)...what would YOU do?
     So I'm writing this on Sunday afternoon and the weather team at CBS 8 and The National Weather Service are predicting winter storm with ice overnight.
    The Governor has declared a state of emergency.
    Stuff is being cancelled...LOTS of stuff...including the Auburn Campus viewing events for the BCS game Monday night, and many many school systems.
    Please join me on-air or on-line with the rest of the CBS-8 team for storm information over the next 48 hours...the station is well staffed now, and I'll be joining them early early early. We look forward to serving you as a viewer during the storm.
    The photos on the right are from the last snow in Montgomery, in March of 2010.

[PLUS: Read about NPR's grievous error in the Giffords shooting story, reporting she had died when she obviously had not. No excuse, but when networks keep cutting back on staff and adding responsibilities to those left behind...]

[The Monday Morning Media Memo is a regular feature of this blog.]

Rep. Giffords was targeted.

A reminder: Democratic Arizona Congresswoman Gabrielle Giffords was on Sarah Palin's gun sight "map":

...and she had read the 1st Amendment as part of the tea-party inspired reading of the Constitution in Congress this week, saying she was pleased to do so.

     A surgeon who is treating her says he expects her to recover...but he would not characterize what "kind of recovery" that might be. A federal judge was among the six people who died. In all 18 victims were shot by a young gunman, about whom we do not know much as of this moment. A 9 year old girl was among those killed.

[UPDATE: a quote from the Arizona Sheriff handling the investigation:]

“The anger, the hatred, the bigotry that goes on in this country is getting to be outrageous. And unfortunately, I think Arizona has become sort of the capital, we have beome the Mecca for prejudice and bigotry,” he said. “There’s reason to believe that this individual might have a mental issue, and I think that people who are unbalanced might be especially susceptible to vitriol.”

                                                                          (From a New York Times story)

[UPDATE: There's more about the Sheriff in this Washington Post story published Monday.]

[UPDATE: video on MSNBC...via Roger Ebert... of the Congresswoman decrying the vitriol...including Sarah Palin's cross-hair target poster.]

[UPDATE: 1/12/11... It wasn't me!, Palin continues to say.]

Black Confederates

     The State of Virginia is eliminating a history of Virginia textbook that claims there were thousands of black Confederate soldiers fighting for Virginia and across the South.

     The claim is disputed by most historians, though it's long been a talking point of the Sons of Confederate Veterans groups...a way to erase, or at least diminish, the slavery issue.

     This Tuesday, by the way, is the 150th anniversary of Alabama voting in favor of seceding from the Union...and also the day the current Alabama Legislature will meet in organizational session.

     Anyone know what the Alabama History textbooks say on the subject if black Confederate soldiers??

  

The Impact of The Great Recession

     You probably can think of a dozen ways life has changed since the start of this economic turmoil, but The Atlantic has published an interesting chart that examines the hard facts and figures.
     My hope is that the characteristics in the chart have no impact on your personal life...so you may count yourself blessed.
     But I suspect the majority of visitors to this website will recognize themselves in the pie charts and graphs. Click on the page linked above to enlarge the charts for easier reading.
     I was pointed in the direction of the chart via a link from Anzalone Liszt Research in Montgomery.

With The Governor Elect

(Photo: Krista Littlefield)

     With Governor-Elect Bentley in his transition offices this week, during a taping of an "On The Record" program that will air on Sunday January 16th at 5:30 at 11:00am and on Monday the 17th at 5:30am on CBS-8 in Montgomery. Lots of topics covered, budgets, of course, AEA, his inaugauration on the 17th and more.

Editing Twain

     New South Books in Montgomery is combining two Mark Twain stories in a single volume in which the "N-word" has been replaced with the word "slave".
     The "N" word is used a couple of hundred times in the stories.
     Publisher Randal Williams---who used to work at the Southern Poverty Law Center---is working on the project, with an an Auburn University Montgomery Professor and Twain scholar. The book is due on bookshelves in February.
     One of those awful "online polls" in the Washington Post has just under two-thousand voters almost unanimous in their condemnation of the racially sensitive work substitution. Censorship!, they're screaming, though I wonder how many of them felt the same way about "Heather Has Two Mommies"?
     I say as long as the change is noted somewhere in the book, change away. New South also changed "Injuns" to "Indians".
     You can watch the AUM professor's comments about the editing at the CBS-8 website here.

[NOTE: The New York Times editorializes against the new volume.]

Auburn Obama Mouthpiece Leaving

     You have to wonder how much his Alabama upbringing helped lead to his departure...or not.
     The Nation includes a column that's harshly critical of him for ignoring the progressive left's part in his boss's election ("A bland and forgettable player").
     The Press Secretary's parents were politically active professors at Auburn University, and he came up the ranks in Rep. Glen Browder's staff, yet he riled liberals early and often in the Obama Administration.
     Does Gibbs share any of the blame for November's bloodbath?
     Maybe he's leaving to attend Monday's BCS game in Arizona? If he wants to come home, I'm sure there are any number of positions open to him.

An Early Statement of Alabama Secession

     The Yankee...er, New York..Times...has a wonderful dispatch about a message of Alabama Secession that was sent to Abraham Lincoln a half-dozen days before the Alabama Legislature's official declaration on January 11th.

     Being the Northern media that they are, the story focus is on the life of a Federal soldier. Still, an interesting read,as they say. (-:

MMMM # 125 Media Heroes (and NOT)

      Twice in recent days, a newspaper employee has turned hero to save lives endangered by fire.
      Last Tuesday, it was a Huntsville Times newspaper delivery guy with fire department experience who won praise because he woke up a family and called 911 to report a fire in the home.
    And on December 21st, a newspaper photographer for the Press-Register in Mobile spotted a motel on fire and alerted the desk clerk and knocked on doors to wake up guests.
     The incidents reminded me of what happened in Anniston in 1983, when a man set himself on fire as a TV crew filmed him. He later filed a lawsuit against the TV station for not stopping him, a suit that was thrown out of court.
     The ethics of the case are still discussed in journalism classes today. We had a short discussion about it in the Electronic News Gathering course I've been teaching at Trenholm State a few weeks ago. A new class begins next week.
     Flip sides of an Alabama media coin, almost thirty years apart.

[ALSO: There's been a settlement in a suit filed over reader comments on a newspaper's web site. The suit was filed a judge, who complained when the paper identified her as the writer of harsh after-story comments about a case she was hearing.]

[The Monday Morning Media Memo is a regular feature of this blog.]

The Real Cost of Income Inequality

     Nicholas Kristof writes in the NY Times today about the cost to society of steep wealth inequality.
     Now, especially after having recently posted about my limited math skills, I don't want to wade in too deep here, but I went looking for a statistic ranking the states on that subject. and here's what I found:

 

     Other than New York, we here in Alabama, and some of our neighbors, have the widest income inequality in America. Here's the link to the blog that posted the map.

     That blogger writes: the GDP per capita in the US is one of the highest in the world. But more of that wealth is concentrated in the hands of relatively few people, meaning fewer people (relative to that high per capita GDP) are well-off.

    If you look at the criteria cited in Kristof's column---teen pregnancy, drug use, heart disease, violent crime---Alabama certainly have higher rankings than most other states.

    Is it inequality of income, rather than just plain poverty that gives us those grim stats?

Sign of The Times

     Parking meters in the "Loop" in Chicago now costs $5.
     $5 an hour.
     It was already the most expensive meter parking in America, so I suppose Chicago drivers were already used to it.
     One of the niceties of moving from Birmingham to Montgomery a decade ago was being able to a) find a parking spot downtown in the middle of the day and b) be able to toss a nickle or dime into the meter to cover the time it took to run into a bank.
     As I've blogged about before, the first meters installed in Alabama, in Mobile, were the target of vigilantes (We dare defend our rights!) who used axes to take them out, according to a 1950's Reader's Digest article, and The Wall Street Journal reported a major court battle over meters was fought in the Alabama Courts:

 ...in 1937, the Alabama Supreme Court declared Birmingham's parking meters to be an unauthorized exercise of the city's taxing power, and ordered them removed. Other state courts allowed parking meters, but only if their primary purpose was to regulate traffic, not to raise revenue, a distinction that quickly faded in the lean days of the Depression."

     When the meters were installed in Paris, the good citizens of that city burned the building where the traffic authority was located. Or so says a widespread reference online...which I also have not been able to track down.
      Two friends, former Alabamians, now live in Chicago---former Birmingham News cartoonist Scott Stantis and Former Birmingham Radio and TV journalist Steve Sanders. Maybe we should take up a collection?

Country Crossing

     The Dothan Eagle quotes the lawyer for Country Crossing as saying he sees light at the end of the electronic bingo tunnel in recent statements by Governor-elect Robert Bentley.

     Bentley has said he'll let Attorney General Luther Strange handle the task force on gambling, though Bentley had said several times before the election that he would eliminate the task force.
     The lawyer apparently sees reason to believe that Strange will have a different take on the electronic bingo question than Governor Riley did.     
     Sheriff Joe Bennison told CBS-8 last week he was planning to meet with Bentley on Tuesday to work out a solution, presumably one that would allow Greentrack to reopen.
     Will Strange really have a different opinion about the constitutional amendment that allows electronic bingo in Greene County? Or has the entire bingo well beem poisoned by the pending trial of eleven folks on bribery related charges involving a bingo bill?

Miniature Panda Cows

     For real. Not like jackalopes or snipes, these are real small cows bred to have a panda like black and white  pattern around their eyes.
    Read the story and see photos of the newborn in the local newspaper in Loveland Colorado. My favorite quote is about how friendly the breed is:

“Cows are very social animals. They like people. He’ll come into the house eventually.”

     Yea, as a pet, or eventually, as dinner.
     I wonder how sociable they would be if they went for a visit to the local McD's?
     Remember the Twilight Zone episode with the alien book titled To Serve Man.
     Indeed.

Math

      I've been known to say that if I had math skills, I'd be in business making money instead of in journalism. Math has never been a strong subject for me, and I remember coming face-to-face with Algebra the way a child might remember confronting a forest filled with hungry, wild creatures.
     I'm finding slight comfort in knowing that I am not alone.
     A new study finds parents' confidence in their ability to help their kids with math plummets when the kids start taking Middle School math.

     My own math confidence started low even earlier, and stayed there. The only lesson I learned was to fear exams, especially math exams, and I still do.
     Geometry I kinda got, dicing and slicing all of those various shapes made some sense. But Algebra started me down the path of Duhhhhh? And it only got worse after that.
     That study, by the way, compared several countries, and found that parents in Singapore are much more likely to hire tutors to help their kids than U.S. parents, with resulting better grades.
     Like the American kids in the study, I had help from my family, but that only went so far. Left brain/right brain? Whatever.
      My PC and other electronics take care of most of my math needs now, and that's just fine with me. I wonder if I would have had more confidence if I had those tools in school?