I permitted my facial hair to grow unfettered for a little over a month. Though it received generally favorable reviews and probably made me look eight to twelve times more thoughtful than usual, there were some concerns.

First, it constantly felt like there was something on my face. Granted, that was because there actually was something on my face, which I suppose goes with the territory, but it was a mildly unpleasant sensation I’d prefer to go without.

Second, I constantly had to check and re-check my face for spaghetti sauce and ice cream and salad dressing. And cake frosting. And bread crumbs. And ketchup and mustard and balsamic mayonnaise and salt and compound butter and basically any sort of remnant of anything I ate. It was mildly amusing the first few times, less so afterwards.

Third, I had aesthetic concerns about the proto-beard. True, the bulk of humanity gazed upon my glorious befurred visage with a reverent awe oft-reserved for perceived miracles and other transcendent phenomena, but all I saw were the flaws. For instance, there was less-than-ideal growth between the “soul patch” and my chinny-chin-chin that, to me, made the beard look incomplete. Furthermore, under decent lighting, the moustache was much redder than the rest of the beard, which was dark brown.

Actually, that’s not entirely accurate, because apparently somebody had been sneaking into my room at night and attaching a bunch of white whiskers next to my real whiskers. So as time went on, I saw a red moustache, brown-black muttonchops, and a white chin. After hours of deliberation, the Council decided that while the white added an acceptable degree of gravitas to the beard, the red was unacceptable, and might even necessitate genetic re-sequencing. Unless, of course, something unfortunate were to happen to the beard.

So after yesterday’s hair shortening, I used the clippers to trim it back a good bit, and will continue to keep it either short or off. A month’s experiment was long enough. The important thing is now I have a good sense of what Alternate Universe Me looks like, in case we must ever do battle.

It seems to me that if the facts of the matter are as Mr. Putin has presented them, then there is a simple and elegant solution to the Crimean crisis.

If a majority, however slim, of people in the Crimean peninsula are ethnically Russian, and if they have no objection to Putin’s presence, and if Putin is genuinely interested in protecting Russia’s lease in Sevastopol, and if the Russian troops and flags are there already, then what harm is there in permitting Crimea to peacefully secede from Ukraine and join Russia?

Similarly, if a majority, however slim, of people in the rest of Ukraine wish to join the European Union, and can be persuaded into pursuing fast-track admission to NATO, and are willing to host a missile defense system similar to those we should immediately install and/or expand in the Czech Republic, Estonia, Latvia, Lithuania, Georgia, Poland, and Turkey, then what harm is there in permitting Ukraine to develop international friendships as it sees fit?

I had occasion to break out an old gem earlier today, in response to some nonsense along the lines of “I understand that that’s how you feel…”

Me, paraphrased: “That’s not how I feel. That’s what I think. I didn’t say what I just said because it felt good. I said it because after careful research, careful reasoning, and careful studying, that’s what I have to say because that’s what I think and that’s what I can prove.”

Pretty sure that didn’t earn me too many brownie points, but such is life.

…

Lots of hits and visits from Ukraine lately. I hope everything’s OK over there.

My brain has hurt too much over the last several days to compose much more than a paragraph or two about some minimum wage stuff I was discussing with Dr. Hmnahmna. But here’s this:

There are a few problems with the minimum wage that don’t disappear no matter how high or low you set it. Actually, if you set it at zero, at least some of these problems will disappear, I suppose, but anyways, here’s one:

The minimum wage restricts job opportunities.

Wherever you set the minimum wage, you essentially ban every job that pays less. By fiat. Not because anybody found a more efficient way to get the job done (e.g., a technological advancement reduces the need for labor), but because the law says so. That’s inefficient, which is a cold way of saying it’s bad for the economy, so let me humanize the problem a bit more.

The minimum wage is bad for those workers who would benefit from building up their skills and résumé by working in jobs that pay less than minimum wage. Envision what would happen to most fast food jobs if the minimum wage were raised to, say, $20 an hour. Those jobs would probably disappear, likely replaced by machines or by much higher-skilled workers that we wouldn’t think of as normal fast food workers. And a wide range of opportunities to build up basic job skills would also disappear.

Now, nobody’s actually suggesting raising the minimum wage from its current level to $20 an hour– it’s too obvious that severe unemployment would result. But is it unreasonable to assume that the minimum wage has already had an effect similar to that described above? Is it unreasonable to assume that raising the minimum wage from $7.25 to the proposed $10.10 (almost a 40% increase) would similarly restrict jobs?

People are better off with more opportunities to work than they are with fewer opportunities to work. The minimum wage reduces those opportunities.

One might respond that, yes, the minimum wage puts some people out of work, but you can give those people welfare. Well, yes, you can, but you can give them welfare even if they have jobs, right? Wouldn’t they be better off with jobs so they can build up some skills and contacts and know-how? The two aren’t mutually exclusive– it’s not jobs or welfare. So why not eliminate the minimum wage, let workers get what jobs they can, and get what skills and experience and contacts they can? Wouldn’t taxpayers rather foot a smaller welfare bill for somebody already earning $5 an hour than a larger welfare bill for somebody who had no job at all?

It seems to me that when you’re climbing a ladder, it’s easier to get to the second rung from the first rung than it is from the ground. (Spare me the semantics and pedantry about removing the first rung, which would make the second rung the first rung.) In the same vein, it’s easier to climb to $10 an hour from a lower paying job than it is from joblessness.

…

Hopefully this makes sense. My head’s been hurting enough that I was just chatting with Dr. Hmnahmna about trephination.

This school year I’ve suffered through career-highs in absences on test days. I say “suffered” because it means having to administer make-up tests, which means being stuck in my office before and/or after school for anywhere from thirty to ninety minutes. Last semester, I was pretty angry when more than one-seventh of my students missed a particular test. At least, I was pretty angry about that until two weeks ago, when over one-sixth of my students missed the test.

For the record, I have six sections, which means that the equivalent of a full classroom missed that test.

Now, some students, like the one with mono and the one whose mom just passed away, had entirely valid reasons for missing the test. But that explains just two of the thirty-odd absences. Still no word on the others.

Today was another test day. My first class got off to a rousing start: six of my twenty-four students were missing, including a few who still hadn’t made up the previous test. Needless to say, I was not happy. So I took a moment before the test to announce the new make-up policy: henceforth, make-up tests shall be short-answer and essay instead of multiple-choice and essay, and make-ups shall receive no curve.

That’s nothing draconian– after all, the absentees have the advantage of extra time to study, right?– but some eyes widened and some jaws dropped. I asked the students who bothered to show up if they’d mind texting the news to my other students, both those who were absent today and those who might be thinking about being absent today.

Within ten minutes, five of the six absentees showed up to take the test. Could’ve been coincidence, maybe traffic had held them up… but then I had fewer total absences today than I’ve had on any test day so far this year.

So goes the struggle to trick, intimidate, and, when necessary, extort our nation’s children into learning.