NicoleSwan.com

We hate big business. We hate the wealthy. We hate overachievers. Why? It doesn’t make any sense to me. The amount of contempt I’ve seen recently towards those who are successful is astonishing. Is it part of our society that wishes to bring everyone back to the average? More importantly, could this increasing contempt sabotage our economy? I think quite possibly (and might have already damaged it).

Let’s start with the wealthy. We can include big business in this examination as well since it generates a fair bit of our nation’s wealth and wealthy. Granted there are some in the upper income strata who reside there merely because of family wealth, but a majority of our nation’s most wealthy are first generation success stories. As the book The Millionaire Next Door: The Surprising Secrets of America’s Wealthy notes, fewer than 20 percent of America’s millionaires inherited 10 percent or more of their wealth, nearly half never received any college tuition from their parents or other relatives, and more than half never received as much as $1 in inheritance.

But, they’re still hated. Chad Lapa agrees,

For some unknown reason we are taught either as kids, or though the left wing media, that people wealthy and successful are born with some special gene that products their success. Due to this unfair power they possess over us, they should be punished and forced to pay crazy high tax rates so their wealth can be re-distributed to the “less fortunate”. [sic]

While I wouldn’t say that people are taught by “the left wing media,” I do agree that “progressive” taxes are the average person’s way of redistributing wealth and, in effect, “punishing” the wealthy. However, the negative repercussions of redistributing wealth are staggering. Frankly, wealth creation is not a zero sum game. Just because one person has it, doesn’t mean another won’t or that it was hostilely taken from another party.

Similarly, big business is often decried as evil. I don’t deny that there is corruption in some companies (see: short term vs. long term). However, they also contribute a majority of our nations productivity gains (read: more wealth) and generate much of our nation’s wealth. By nature, they are more efficient (generally speaking and when they aren’t regulated into inefficiency) and employ a large percentage of the US workforce. Don’t read this to mean I don’t like small/medium businesses or that I believe bigger is better in the business world. My point is that large corporations aren’t inherently evil. Plus, they produce people like Bill Gates and Warren Buffett who then donate nearly $100 billion back to the world.

But, let’s think smaller. How many smart kids (”overachievers”) are teased and bullied everyday in school? Why do we have terms like nerd, geek, and dweeb? In my experience, people have been bold enough to tell me to my face that they hope I fail. Or, in the web development world, what about the successful 37signals (software company)? Many people laud them, but with each new, successful offering more and more contempt is directed towards them (for more on this: read their blog about any given day).

So, everyone, when did we start to hate success? Is it human nature?

It’s true — I like to cruise through the congressional record. Mind you, I can only do this on an infrequent basis as the general asininity of it is almost more than a mere mortal can digest. What follows are a few nuggets from the Senate Congressional Record of June 6, 2006. I’ve inserted commentary in places where I managed to pull my weakened body and mind out of the deep, dark crevasse that is “The Record.”

The homosexual marriage lobby, as well as the polygamist lobby, shares the goal of essentially breaking down all State-regulated marriage requirements to just one: consent. In doing so, they are paving the way for legal protection of such repugnant practices as: homosexual marriage, unrestricted sexual conduct between adults and children, group marriage, incest, and bestiality. Using this philosophy, activist lawyers and judges are working quickly, State-by-State, through the courts to force same-sex marriage and other practices, such as polygamy, on our country.[…]

We need an amendment that restores and protects our societal definition of marriage, [and] blocks judges from changing that definition.

Senator Inhofe (R-OK)

I have a difficult time putting into words my aversion to the currently popular “we must stop activist judges” adage of which politicians are so very fond. The judicial process is not about what the majority of society (majority in society is in itself at best difficult to determine) feels should happen. God save us if it ever is. Perhaps a lesson in separation of power and the purpose of each branch of government is in order for Senator Inhofe.

I will go to several other countries that have redefined marriage, defined marriage out of existence. In the Netherlands, since proposals for same-sex marriage began to be debated, the out-of-wedlock birthrate has soared. It was a fairly stable country in out-of-wedlock births and was at low rate. […]

What happened to out-of-wedlock birthrates? You can see the situation in the Netherlands, which is particularly important because it was one of the lowest out-of-wedlock birthrate countries in Europe for a number of years, shows that until 1980, below 5 percent of the population was born out of wedlock. When we get the court cases which we have in the United States today saying marriage should be redefined, we see the impact, as well as a Supreme Court case that rules against marriage being the union of a man and a woman. Then we get symbolic marriage registration, registered partnership, same-sex unions, and now we are up to 35 percent as seen in this skyrocketing chart.

Sen. Brownback (R-OK)

If I’m understanding Senator Brownback correctly, he’s attempting to correlate registered partnerships and same-sex unions with the increase of out of wedlock births. Is he kidding? I’m not a senator with a full staff and do not hold an advanced research degree, but even I can see that these are junk “facts” being drawn from non-correlating data. This information, regardless of politics, should be thrown out for its inaccuracy.

I, for one, believe that the institution of marriage and the principles of democracy are too precious to surrender to the whims of a handful of unelected, activist judges. The will of the people should prevail. […]

Sen. Allard (R-CO)

Can’t. Type. Laughing. Too. Hard.

Before I quit of exhaustion from reading the same tired arguments repeatedly and running the same circle of reasoning over (and over and over), I will conclude this piece.

Editor’s note: It is extremely hard to find consistent permanent URLs within the Congressional Record. I’ve tried to add accurate links where possible, but it’s just not possible in all instances.

How has the message of the web standards community somehow been boiled down into a concentrate of your website must only validate to be standards compliant? Is this the result of a horrible game of web telephone? Sadly, this reduced definition of web standards makes it quite easy for someone to dismiss the positives of standards compliance. Why should making my site pass the muster of the W3C’s validators take precedence over creating new features for my audience/client/web application?

I’m currently in the process of evaluating open source ASP.NET content management systems. Important to me, of course, are adherence to web standards (coding and accessibility standards), cross-browser compatibility, simplicity/ease of use, etc. While, I was trying DotNetNuke (DNN) I became increasingly concerned about adherence to standards and cross-browser compatibility (among other things). I went searching on the forums for more information. I came upon a thread devoted to the topic of standards compliance in which a user inquires as to the timeline for web standards compliance in DNN. The replies were mixed. Some from users linking to tutorials on jumping through the hoops (sadly) necessary to make DNN produce valid XHTML code. Others, even more concerning, came from DNN team members. A few examples.

I will tell you that in all the work I get asked about, no one asks about CSS and XHTML compliancy, unless it’s a designer who went to do a multimedia course and was forced to some XHTML compliant site.

I’ve posted in forums before about my view on all this - and while I am no means an expert in every field, I’m looking at DNN right down the line from installing, hosting, advising, assisting, learning, you name it, and I think you need to also get this into perspective as well.

A final note, I am not saying it is not important to be XHTML compliant. I believe people should be able to use tabless or tabled designs, I personally have no preference for one or the other and have worked with both. I do think in terms of priorities, this is something I would consider to be lower on my list of must haves for the DotNetNuke framework.

However, IMHO the issue of accessibility compliance is much more important than xhtml compliance.

The above quotes, to me, show a serious misconception of web standards and the point of web standards — not to mention near contempt for standards compliance. To be fair, the users in the forum thread had themselves boiled standards down to code validation or css-based design versus table design. To me, web standards is about the entire approach to the architecture and design of a webpage/website. It’s not simply about creating XHTML that validates. It’s a way of thinking. Well-structured semantic code thoughtfully organized and designed leaves a smaller bandwidth fingerprint, loads faster for people on slower connections, and goes most of the way in making a website more accessible. A website that follows web standards is easier to maintain, and we all know maintenance is the real kicker in website development. I also think DNN missing the boat on web standards will cause them to lose the standards community (which isn’t small). As a standards-minded web developer, will I run the DNN obstacle course necessary to make a DNN website standards compliant (and for each upgrade after that)? Or would I turn to a product like Cuyahoga where the team is concerned with standards compliance and making it easy for developers to maintain website sanity?

Ultimately, this must be our own failure. How can the web standards message be improved? How can we fix the misconceptions that have propagated as a result of our own zealousness?

My Montana vehicle tags expire at the end of this month. In the interest of neatly compartmentalizing official Colorado residency duties, I decided I should also get a Colorado driver’s license around the same time I get Colorado plates. Thus, I headed to the Colorado DMV website to learn what I should bring with me. From its driver’s license FAQ:

To apply for a license, instructional permit or duplicate, you must:

1. Submit 2 primary forms of identification. One form must establish lawful presence. Please see FAQ #1 for a complete list of acceptable identification documents.
2. Provide your Social Security Number.
3. Supply a Colorado residence address.
4. Pass all required examinations (written, vision and road performance).
5. Pay the required fee.
6. Be fingerprinted and photographed.

The emphasis above was mine. So, um, I have to be fingerprinted to get my CO driver’s license?!

Refusing to believe that the website information was correct, I called my local DL office. They confirmed that one digital fingerprint was taken for “security purposes.” In other words, if someone came in to get a license claiming to be me, they couldn’t if their fingerprint didn’t match. Hmmm, for my security then? I was skeptical. As my local DL Office rep could give me no information as to where the information goes and what government agencies have access to it, I placed a call to the Colorado State Driver’s License Administration office. On my second customer rep, I struck upon useful though dubious information: Colorado is a “central issue” state. This means that once I apply for a driver’s license, my information is sent to the federal government in DC, it goes into their database, then my license is sent back to me. So for a recap:

Even though I am not a criminal, my fingerprints are now forevermore in a governmental database for no reason other than that I moved and wanted to get a new driver’s license.

This is a result of the Real ID Act which was passed because of its connection to a military spending bill (another topic of contention). The Act, besides violating my privacy, hands even more power to the inauspicious Department of Homeland Security.

So, what do I do in the meantime? Wait (my Montana license is good until 2012) until the ACLU has a chance to mount legal opposition to the bill? If I get my DL now and the Act is overturned, my information is still sitting out in a database. Realistically, I doubt that I really have any other option than getting a DL and being fingerprinted.

As part of the bigger picture, this legislation scares me. How much are we willing to give up for some perceived measure of security? Is living in a police state a price we’re willing to pay to “be secure.” Also, history shows us not to trust our government unconditionally, so why now are people so willing to give up civil liberties? Government officials didn’t suddenly get more trustworthy.

As they say, absolute power corrupts absolutely.

Does anyone know the official status of the Real ID Act? Has the ACLU taken any steps to overturn it or test its legality? Can I refuse to give a fingerprint?

Impatient as I am, I’m not going to wait for the other coaches to weigh in; I’m just going to leap ahead and name Jeff Croft the MVP of the All-Star team. I love this design. He’s not a flashy Kobe Bryant, but more of a solid, dependable, thinking-person’s Tony Parker or Mike Miller design equivalent. From the backend architecture to the beautiful, usable design, each piece of the site is well thought out and purposeful. I dare you — try to find a piece of this site that wasn’t well redesigned.

I very much like this design as well. Rob Goodlatte’s site is a strong design departure from my MVP choice, but also awesomely complete. My favorite part of his site, though, is his full entry format page. It’s wide. It’s super readable. It has newspaper-style columns! Love it. Yes, I would marry it.

Pink is not for everyone, but Matt Brett’s new design is hot. I love the strong choice of color, the grittiness, and the overall feel of the site. It’s an artistic design.

Another CSS Reboot site rocking the super large footer look, Critical Web Design’s new blog design is tickling my color senses. The blue is different and bold. The small graphical details are crisp, well-placed, and unique.

Now if people would stop voting up the crappy sites and vote for these guys instead.

Gas is expensive. My bike is not. Thus, in addition to taking the bus to work most days, I’ve been biking when possible or not driving. And, despite the fact that my skis still wait wishfully by the door, gas money is no longer required for ski adventures. I realize that not all people can make these adjustments, but is a gas rebate a solution? NO! Even disregarding the fact that a $100 gas rebate from the government is something we already paid for with our taxes, it essentially accomplishes nothing. I have my $100 back, but do I have any additional incentive to reduce my oil consumption? Is the $100 helping drive incentive to create alternate fuel sources? Would that $100 have been better spent on supporting other public services?

While I, like everyone else, finds the oil companies suspect and, in no way, believe that all their practices are on the up and up, they are providers of a non-renewable, highly demanded product. Should a private corporation in a low margin industry with inelastic demand hold their price artificially low? Idealogically? Sure. Realistically? No. It would only serve to lengthen the process of alternative fuel sources innovation. It’s that darn long term vs. short term quandary again.

UPDATE: Late last week, the Democrats, not wanting to be left out of the gas price relief game, introduced their plan for a 60 day gas tax holiday. Again, what does this really do? For 60 days people feel okay about the price of gas? What does that accomplish? It, in the Dems’ world, gets them more votes.

Also, I forgot to mention that the Republican bill, of course, tosses back in the provision of opening up ANWR to drilling. Hopefully that provision clouds any possibility it might have had of passing.

See also: Defective Yeti’s humorous take.