Observations – Oh, Contrarian!

Why I Write

I don’t have a particularly effective system for disseminating my blogs, and I’m too busy to invest the time in improving it. As a result, unfortunately, a lot of the things I write aren’t seen by as many people as I would like. So, particularly on policy topics, why do I bother?

Some 65 years after his death at the age of 43, we have, basically, no record of what our father thought, felt, believed, and experienced. The reason why is complicated and not really important here; but I am determined that my descendants will know what I thought, experienced, and observed.

So . . . even if I don’t change one vote, the articles in this blog will provide that record.

A Parliamentarian Looks at POP

POP home page — *POP’s Home Page*, https://www.pop5.org

POP has a self-perpetuating closed governance structure in which the members’ only role is to fund the corporation.
Author’s conclusion

This post will be of interest primarily to Ohio public employees, particularly those who are retired. Approximately a quarter of American public employees–Ohio’s among them–participate in public retirement systems separate from Social Security.

I am pretty good at keeping up with email, but I tend to get behind on postal mail. Just last weekend I opened a mailing that I received, probably weeks ago, from Protect Ohio Pensions, Inc. If you’re one of the thousands of Ohio retirees who got their mailing, perhaps you’ll want to read what follows.

Okay, Zoomer.

Zoom has been wildly popular in the time of the pandemic shutdown–to the point where it’s become a generic catchall for all videoconferencing technology. (In fact, that’s how I’ll use it here: for “Zoom,” please substitute whatever system for videoconferencing you are presently using.)

And there’s a good chance you’re using one. People are using it for deliberative meetings, for casual video calls, and for playing Pictionary with their family members. In my family, we’re using Zoom, Skype, Duo, and FaceTime depending on the people involved.

Within a few weeks after the pandemic shutdown, Zoom memberships expanded twentyfold, and if you needed technical support you were in big trouble. After hackers started providing infantile demonstrations of their prowess, security revisions to the Zoom platform forced users to re-learn how to administer their systems.

But this post isn’t about that; really, it isn’t about Zoom at all. It’s about what happens when a technology challenges the status quo.