On Tuesday the Political Arithmetik blog featured a post titled U. S. Monthly Deaths in Iraq that featured a chart showing the trends in the number of US Military deaths in Iraq over the last few years. It was interesting, but I wondered if the trend would look different if you looked at it as a rate and took into account the varying number of troops in Iraq over that time period. I emailed Professor Franklin asking just that. He hadn’t examined it that way but pointed me at his data source at Brooking’s Iraq Index. Although the first time I looked I was blind and didn’t see it, this did have the total number of US troops as well as the deaths per month. So, dividing appropriately, this is what comes out:

The trend line is just a simple centered average of 7 months. (So, for instance, the trend in June is just the average of March through September.) There are definitely more sophisticated ways of marking a trend, but this is easy. :-)

As it turns out, even with the surge, the number of troops in Iraq hasn’t actually varied THAT much, so it doesn’t really tell you that much that’s different than the trend in the raw death numbers in the original post that inspired this.

But, for me anyway, looking at this as a rate somehow seems a more satisfying measure of… what should you call it… the “risk of death” measure or some such. It compensates for the fact that when there are more troops present one would expect more to die, all other things being equal.

There does look like there is a noticeable drop in the last few months after the surge was in place… but the downward trend is really only the last five data points, but there have been other periods in the past with five points in what looked like a downward trend, but which disappeared into the variation once there were more data points.

So we shall see I guess.

Two candidates:

• Sue Bowman
• Gary F. Kohlwes

And the official page on them here.

I like Bowman. She points out some of the same gripes as Hemstad and she’s had a nice long career in health care. Sounds reasonable. Although again there is very little info here and I haven’t spent any time digging for more. But given that, my vote goes to:

Sue Bowman

Two candidates:

• Jan Still
• Michael Murphy

The official page on them here.

Also, after the last one and before this one, I found this article which goes more into where Sheila Killeen (who I already filled in the bubble for on the last line item on the ballot) and Michael Murphy (on this one) are coming from on the math.

And I’m not so sure I agree with them fully. They are into emphasizing computational mathematics over the more abstract ways of teaching math. I can understand where this is coming from, but I also stongly see the value of NOT teaching computational algorithms directly, but rather teaching how to think about problems and how to come up with the algorithms when needed.

However, I think the truth here is that which method is best depends highly on the child being taught. I do not think there is a one true right answer here. I think this is a perfect example where the method used should really be adapted on a per child basis depending on the child’s learning style. Unfortunately, things are just not set up to allow for that sort of thing.

Given that, I guess I am OK with going with “more traditional” methods that Killeen and Murphy advocate in the case where you have to pick one primary method. But I would really hope that more flexibility is put in place, and the actual mix of the council would allow for a more hybrid method. For people who will be going into higher math levels, learning to think of math as a problem solving exercise rather than somewhere where you memorize and follow rules is crucial. But for making sure people have the basic skills first, you need a bit of the computation and “this is how it is” bit, especially in early grades. You really do need both.

But I will go ahead and cast my vote for:

Michael Murphy

There is again only one candidate for this position: Judy Bushnell.

Once again, she may be just fine, but I will always vote against anybody running unopposed if I have the ability to do so. Since there is a write in possibility, I will once again vote for myself. My vote goes to:

Samuel A Minter

There is only ONE candidate for this position: Claudia Balducci.

I know nothing about her, and I have not yet done any research on her like I normally would if this was a contested position. She is probably a fine person and probably a fine City Council member. However, I fundamentally believe that in a democracy nobody should ever run unopposed.

So I will not vote for her. I can do this because there is a write-in slot. So I will vote for myself.

My vote goes to:

Samuel A Minter