It’s not exactly 2+2=4, but I think it still qualifies as a basic math equation. The breakdown:

Airlines reduce the number of flights as well as the sizes of planes (fewer seats) + business travelers and others returning to the airways following the worst of the recession (more people looking to fly)  = a likely record year for bumped passengers.

I told you it was pretty basic. In the first quarter alone, nearly 220,000 passengers bought tickets but were unable to get on the flights. We’re not going to get into a detailed discussion of overbooking, but those numbers are a problem (they are 25% ahead of a year earlier). Since we’re into the straighforward talk, I’ll share the comment of a Florida airline economic professor, who said, "If you go to a concert and there are 1,000 tickets, they don’t sell 1,100 tickets. They sell 1,000."

Some more numbers to keep in mind:

• After a 6.9% reduction in capacity among the six biggest U.S. airlines in 2009 (the biggest cut since 1942), another 2.8% was slashed early this year
• Southwest, probably the top dog in the business whether judging by results or personal experience, typically sells 140 to 142 tickets on a flight with 137 seats. The reasoning: empty seats mean lost revenue, raising the prices even more for future flights
• Despite nearly 89% of the first-quarter bumpings being voluntary (travelers accepting vouchers or other incentives to switch flights), the involuntary rate of 1.73 for every 10,000 passengers was a 37% increase. The 2009 rate of 1.19 was a 13-year high

In my infrequent travels, the search for those willing to give up their seats has seemingly been on the increase. I rarely have the flexibility to participate. For business travelers, being bumped can have costly consequences.

Airlines are struggling and this is part of their attempt at a solution (along with those nasty baggage fees; I’ll save that for another day). OK to overbook or do we need a no-bump game plan? You make the call.

Education funding ALWAYS generates interest. For many years, it was the funding percentage increase that schools would receive. In recent times, the focus has switched to cuts and trying to minimize the dollar reductions.

In New Jersey, cost cutting governor Chris Christie has state budget woes and education tied together. His target, however, is superintendents’ pay. Not only are there 591 school districts in the Garden State (that’s a ridiculous number), but apparently bidding wars contribute to driving up salaries. While the governor makes a tidy $175,000 a year, that salary is exceeded by 253 of the school leaders.

The solution (one that does not require any legislative or regulatory steps): superintendents will be paid on a sliding scale — the smaller the district, the smaller the salary. It was reported that 366 of the current 591 would be getting pay cuts. In addition, state government will negotiate the pay for the leaders of the 16 largest districts. There would also be caps for assistant superintendents and business administrators.

Christie’ s response when asked about the possibility of superintendents leaving the state: "If that’s the sole reason they’re here, then goodbye."

It just might be that Christie sees too much red tape to reducing the number of school districts (New Jersey also has tried unsuccessfully to eliminate townships), so this is a money-saving alternative.

I’ve written a few stories for BizVoice magazine on electronic medical records during my tenure here at the Chamber. Over the last few years, I’ve asked three different physicians (our longtime doctor moved too far away and the first choice apparently skipped the bedside manner/communicate with your patients class in medical school; thus, three family docs) about their use of EMRs.

The paraphrased responses, in no particular order: not using them and don’t ever plan to; been using for about a year but it’s been a painful transition; and they are the greatest thing in the world. The latter seemed particularly efficient as she zipped off a prescription to the pharmacy while we were wrapping up our conversation.

E-prescribing is the focus of a new national report. According to the Center for Studying Healthy System Change, few doctors were e-prescribing advocates or using the advanced features that are available. The caveat is that the survey represents 2008 use, a year before federal incentives before put into place and prior to additional government emphasis on all things electronic in health care delivery.

Here’s a portion of the study release and link to the full report.

Even when physicians have access to e-prescribing, many do not routinely use the technology, particularly the more advanced features the federal government is promoting with financial incentives, according to a new national study released today by the Center for Studying Health System Change (HSC).

Slightly more than two in five office-based physicians reported that information technology (IT) was available in their practice to write prescriptions in 2008, the year before implementation of federal incentives, according to the study funded by the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation (RWJF). And, among physicians with e-prescribing capabilities, about a quarter used the technology only occasionally or not at all.

The study also found that  fewer than 60 percent of physicians with e-prescribing capability had access to three advanced features included as part of the Medicare and Medicaid incentive programs—identifying potential drug interactions, obtaining formulary information and transmitting prescriptions to pharmacies electronically—and less than a quarter routinely used all three features.

“Adoption of e-prescribing remains low, particularly among the half of all physicians who work in solo or two- to five-physician practices, said study author Joy Grossman, Ph.D., an HSC senior researcher. “And, among physicians with e-prescribing capabilities, many do not use the technology routinely, and even fewer use advanced e-prescribing features routinely.”

Don’t stop reading just because the word Washington appears in this post. We’re going to talk about fun things in our nation’s capital (and elsewhere), with no mention of current political issues or individuals.

My tourist tip of the year: take a bike ride during a visit to D.C. My family did just that earlier this month as part of an East Coast vacation. In a three-hour, nighttime guided bike ride, we learned more about and had time to reflect at all of the following: Washington Monument; White House; Lincoln Memorial; Jefferson Memorial; World War II, Korea and Vietnam War memorials; and a few other memorable spots. A little exercise and a lot of history in a short time period.

I come back to see a story on top presidential tourism spots in 2009. Abraham Lincoln leads the way, with Indiana contributing through visitors to one of his boyhood homes. Franklin Roosevelt and our first three presidents (Washington, Adams and Jefferson) were also high on the list. And there’s a few surprises.

Some highlights from the article:

According to figures collected by the National Parks Service , nearly 6.8 million people visited sites associated with Lincoln last year, including his memorial on the National Mall, Ford’s Theatre and childhood homes in Kentucky, Indiana and Illinois.

In contrast was John F. Kennedy, who falls at the bottom of the list. His Massachusetts home drew only 16,000 visitors last year, mostly nearby residents and students on field trips. It’s only open part of the year and few people know about it, a National Parks Service rep explained. Many Kennedy enthusiasts pay their respects at the Eternal Flame in Arlington National Cemetery, where he rests, or visit the Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts, his living memorial.

Those and several other popular spots like Washington’s Mount Vernon and Jefferson’s Monticello are not managed by the NPS or included on this list. Among the lesser known entities:

Who knew that 162,000 people visited Herbert Hoover’s home in Iowa last year? That’s just shy of the entire population of Des Moines, Iowa’s largest city. The popularity of the place may have less to do Hoover’s presidency, which was darkened by the Great Depression, and more to do with modern-day marketing. 

The similarly situated James A. Garfield home in Lawnfield, Ohio, drew far fewer people. Just 17,000 people visited the site recently acquired by the National Parks Service, placing it second to last on the list. Though the Civil War general is a local celebrity in this Cleveland suburb, his national status was limited by the short length of his presidency. Garfield was assassinated six months after taking office.

Special programs, especially those timed to historical events, can make or break a site’s popularity. They even gave Lincoln a boost to the top. Though Lincoln has always been a popular draw — 900,000 people visited his memorial in 1936  — tourists flocked to Lincoln sites last year to celebrate his bicentennial.

The Adams family home in Massachusetts also drew relatively large crowds. Some 250,000 people visited the home of John Adams, who was overshadowed in life and in death by other founding fathers.

The Massachusetts birthplaces of both the second president and his son John Quincy Adams, the sixth president, draws many New Englanders interested in the family’s history. Its location just nine miles from Boston and close to beachside vacation homes doesn’t hurt either.

Tourists are willing to go off the beaten path for one particular president, however. Seniors who lived through Roosevelt’s presidency comprise most of the visitors to his home 90 miles north of New York City.

"For so many in the World War II generation, FDR was their only president," the NPS spokesperson said.

Asian carp are a serious threat to the waterways of the Great Lakes, but the solution to their potential invasion must not create additional economic harm. 

The carp, which can weigh up to 100 pounds, are predators. They would threaten numerous fish species native to the area, the broader environmental balance and even boaters and tourists striving to enjoy recreational opportunities. Once positive contributors to helping remove algae from Southern fish ponds, they are now regarded as among the most dangerous of invasive species. 

One misguided attempt to deal with the risk is to close the navigational locks in the Chicago area. This would disrupt hundreds of millions of dollars’ worth of shipping and essentially sever Northwest Indiana’s crucial water-based commerce with the rest of the world. 

Federal investment, in the form of additional electric barriers, would prove more effective in keeping the carp out of the Great Lakes while still allowing Indiana and the other states in the region to maintain the shipping prowess that benefits so many companies and their employees.

Washington is paying attention – as it should. The barrier plan emerged from a White House-led summit. Indiana and its neighbors must now work together to support this prudent alternative. The threat is real; a radical closure of shipping lanes and economic opportunity, however, is not the answer.

A new organization called Unlock Our Jobs has formed to tackle this issue, offering alternative options while keeping our waterways open for business. Its web site can also help you quantify the economic impact of river traffic and lock closures on your state.

An intriguing article by biologist Christoph Randler from the Harvard Business Review contends that morning people are actually most successful in the business world, due to their proclivity to be more proactive. Honestly, it makes a lot of sense.

And if you’re not a morning person (I’m not either), just please don’t be like that guy in a recent McDonald’s commercial who refused to speak to anyone - regardless of the critical nature of their inquiry – until he had his coffee. Oh, you’re so precious and delicate that no mere mortal is allowed to speak to you until you’ve had some caffeine? Wish somebody in that ad would’ve just said, "Great, here’s some scalding Folgers in your face. You awake now, tough guy?"

Anyway, here’s an excerpt:

If I wanted to train myself to be a morning person, how would I do it?

The fascinating thing about our findings is that duration of sleep has nothing to do with the increased proactivity and morning alertness that we see among morning people. But while the number of hours of sleep doesn’t matter, the timing of sleep does. So you could try shifting your daily cycle by going to bed earlier. Another thing you could do is go outside into the daylight early in the morning. The daylight resets your circadian clock and helps shift you toward morningness. If you go outside only in the evening, you tend to shift toward eveningness.

If I taught myself to be a morning person, would I become more proactive?

I don’t know. One theory is that morning people are more proactive because getting up early gives them more time to prepare for the day. If that’s true, then increasing your morningness might improve your proactivity. But there’s evidence that something inherent may determine proactivity. Studies show that conscientiousness is also associated with morningness. Perhaps proactivity grows out of conscientiousness.

An innovative vote center option has been unable to expand beyond the pilot stage in Indiana. In Hawaii, meanwhile, various methods of casting absentee ballots are in play with an effort to institute all-mail elections. The Honolulu Star-Advertiser has the story:

As of last year, Hawaii was among 29 states allowing some form of no-excuse absentee voting and is now among five states that allow citizens to become permanent absentee voters, according to the National Conference of State Legislatures.

Hawaii’s Legislature approved the system in 2008 over Gov. Linda Lingle’s veto, but a bill to require statewide all-mail election failed in last year’s session.

The governor expressed concerns that the permanent absentee ballot could result in fraud because it lacks a means for verifying that the intended voter was the person who mailed in the vote. That should no longer be an issue since the 2009 federal Military and Overseas Voter Empowerment Act requires states to be equipped with reliable ballot tracking technology.

The Honolulu administration has sent out permanent absentee voting applications to the state’s 250,000 registered voters and other counties also will reach out to their voters. Applicants must provide their Social Security number and sign the form. Election workers are to compare the signature accompanying the mailed-in vote to the one on file from the application.

Oregon initiated all-mail elections in 2000 and appears to have avoided serious fraud by leveraging signature verification and ballot tracking, while increasing turnout by 7 percent in previous years to 67.6 percent in 2008.

Voting by mail follows a trend in that direction in Hawaii.

Thirty-eight percent of votes were cast by absent ballot in the 2008 general election, compared with only 19.7 percent in the 2000 election.

In Oregon, the cost of elections has gone down from $1.81 to $1.05 per voter since the move to all-mail balloting. However, the Los Angeles city clerk warned last year that an all-mail election would entail the prohibitive cost of hiring 480 new employees to process ballots. Hawaii is closing only about one-fourth of polling places, so cost-saving in this year’s election seems doubtful.

This year’s primary and general elections in Hawaii should provide an indication of whether voter turnout is enhanced by permanent absentee ballots and the cost would be affordable if the state were to move to all-mail voting. The Legislature should visit the issue in its next session.