Fighting for cash

Like a dozen squealing piglets fighting over six* nipples, Hoofer leaders are spending their offseason arguing over what else they can get paid for. Paid keelboat instruction is the latest rage. What's wrong with giving people money to teach on the club's largest boats..? Everything.

For one, there has never been a shortage of qualified volunteer instructors on those boats. This contrasts with the lower fleets, e.g. Techs and Badger Sloops. The ratings flowchart naturally requires more ratings on those beginner boats, which is logical and necessary, but it creates a huge demand for Tech lessons--and the responsibility to provide enough of them. Plus, the smaller boats leak, they're tippy, and so on. Thus paid instruction is necessary for Techs and Slops in particular (and probably sailboards). Everything else should be 100% volunteer because Hoofers is a club, at least according to its constitution. It is not a paid service organization where employees work for members, although it's coming to resemble that more and more.

The more money that flows within the "club", the higher the membership cost and the more incentive there is to shut people out. It's hard enough to get rated on the keelboats without having the added disincentive (from the paid instructors' point of view) of you the student potentially taking their paying job away.

Simply put, the large keelboats are the pinnacle of sailing in Hoofers. Paying anyone to teach on them is like paying someone to have sex. It just isn't necessary. In fact, it's decadent and degenerate. And yet, some people who've been teaching on the keelboats for years are salivating at the thought. They should be ashamed because skippering those boats is reward enough.

If you want a job, go find a bloody job.

*Most sows actually have 12 teats, but they nurse lying on their side, so only six are accessible at any one time.

A crook on the board

Here's an amazing and disturbing new story about public employees. Journalist Steven Greenhut, author of the new book "Plunder: How Public Employee Unions Are Raiding Treasuries, Controlling Our Lives and Bankrupting the Nation" (good summary and review here), talked about it this week on WPR. You can listen to the entire 45min show for a limited time.

Although Greenhut focuses on California, he makes very clear that this is a serious nationwide problem. And although he focuses on public employee unions, they are assisted in their plundering by administrators, legislators, and the courts—the three branches of "government". Could anyone possibly believe it's just coincidence that the people who write the laws also happen to have the best pension plans, the best health care, the best benefits packages, and the most vacation time..? And that's not all. Despite being grossly overpaid to begin with (e.g. $175,000/year for Orange County firefighters!?), many public employees manipulate loopholes in the law—laws made up by their fellow state employees—to obtain extra benefits. Many even engage in actual criminal behaviour to obtain even more cash. All of this comes from the taxpayers, of course, i.e. from the people the state employees supposedly work for. Meanwhile, the rest of us have expensive health plans, or none at all. We have shaky retirement "investment" plans, limited unpaid vacations, and we work 70 hour weeks like slaves. As if that weren't enough, the state employees work actively to eliminate social security, they refuse to pass national health care, they charge us with every little violation they possibly can (to wring even more money out of us), and so on.

Take a minute to read this short but stunning Wall Street Journal article on the issue.

What does all this have to do with Hoofers..? I think you know (sung in melodic voice).... All Wis. Union and Hoofer staff are State of Wisconsin employees. Most of them are grossly overpaid (e.g. Susan Dibbell: $101,000/year plus benefits!?), and many of them are crooks.

For further reading [click]

At the risk of straying too far from HSC topics, it's worth noting that the United States has more people in prison (as a percentage of its total population) than any other country. Whatever your theory to explain that, it indicates that something is wrong. We're researching the percentage of inmates who are state employees, but those stats are not easy to find.

Corruption permeates every level of American government now. This means that most or all judges are corrupt. That's self evident because the more power you get, the more corrupt you become, and judges are right at the top of the power pyramid. Check this story out. Two Pennsylvania judges were convicted in 2009 of extorting more than $2.5 million in kickbacks to sentence minors to private prisons! Predictably, the Pennsylvania Bar immediately decried the judges' behaviour and assured the public that all remaining judges are honorable, upstanding guys. Anyone with a brain knows better. Those were only two judges who got caught, the tip of an enormous iceberg of corruption.

Yale scholar James Whitman writes: "Far from serving as a model for the world, contemporary America is viewed with horror" (Social Research 74:2, 251-68, 2007). Similarly, Hoofers should be viewed with horror by anyone who desires a functional, egalitarian, and nourishing club environment.

Hoofers looking to marry ASA

The push to join the American Sailing Association (ASA) continues. Hoofer Sailing club is desperate to find a way to streamline its chaotic and foundering keelboat program. It seems those kb instructors also want to get paid even though club rules don't allow it.


We see several problems with Hoofers marrying up (and the problems are mostly for the ASA):

(1) Hoofer leaders include too many rump-humping yahoos who like to play bumper boats, blow out spinnakers, and even sink boats. And they normally do it drunk. Nothing is going to change Wisconsin's alcoholic culture, but it could affect the reputation of the ASA.

(2) Hoofers is run by criminals, not the least of whom is Hoofer Coordinator Jim Rogers. A formal relationship could have repercussions for the ASA.

(3) Over the past decade, several leading club members tried on several occasions to make the keelboat program more rigorous and were laughed out of the room each time. Now Hoofer keelboaters are looking for outside help?

(4) Hoofers is located on tiny Lake Mendota, so the only courses that could even be taught here are ASA 101 (Basic Keelboat) and perhaps 119 (Weather). Even 101 is iffy because it requires "moderate winds and sea conditions" and L. Mendota never gets moderate sea conditions, only rarely getting waves of more than one foot. Only during thunderstorms do we get bigger waves, but then the red flag goes up!

(5) All other ASA courses are clearly out, e.g. coastal cruising, bareboat chartering, etc.

Which begs the question: What is the real motivation for wanting ASA affiliation? It can't be to teach ASA classes because only a handful could even be taught here. Is it to justify paying keelboat instructors..? There is a long tradition of not paying them since Hoofers is (in theory) a volunteer-run club, not a sailing service. At least the kb program can take pride in abiding the club's constitution, while the rest of the club cannot. Now the keelboaters want to do an about-face!? Or are they hoping to standardize and validate Hoofers' ridiculously erratic program? That was already tried in the past and failed utterly.

We suspect certain club leaders have had trouble getting approved to charter and figure easy ASA ratings would be the best way to fix that problem.

March 8 update: You never can tell whether Hoofers are serious or not. Check out this flowchart of the proposed ASA program. It looks like maybe they're joking after all.