Venerate and Despise

A friend sent me this today, it's from the Guardian.

By any normal standard, including the ones applied to male presidential candidates of either party, she did not. Early on, she made the astonishing announcement that she had no intentions of actually answering the queries put to her. "I may not answer the questions that either the moderator or you want to hear, but I'm going to talk straight to the American people and let them know my track record also," she said.
  
 And so she preceded, with an almost surreal disregard for the subjects she was supposed to be discussing, to unleash fusillades of scripted attack lines, platitudes, lies, gibberish and grating references to her own pseudo-folksy authenticity.
  
It was an appalling display. The only reason it was not widely described as such is that too many American pundits don't even try to judge the truth, wisdom or reasonableness of the political rhetoric they are paid to pronounce upon. Instead, they imagine themselves as interpreters of a mythical mass of "average Americans" who they both venerate and despise.

De Tocqueville could not have said it better.

Trust Your Local Psychologist

My friends blog/My friend's Blog

"It’s McCain’s social skills that seems to belie his ability to effectively debate. He could almost pull it off, but as Chris Matthews was saying after the debate, Obama has this sincere smile that feels real and a natural ability to connect. McCain comes across as really creepy and insincere when he laughs/smiles. As a psychologist, I have to say that these social mistakes McCain keeps making get people at a real gut level. They don’t know what it is about McCain that’s rubbing them the wrong way, but people who are savvy socially know something just ain’t right - whether they can say what that thing is or not."

It's not hard to figure me out

If you see a dead bird, it means something innocent has died.  Something innocent died today.




Image: elratondecamp.com

Quote of the day

"It is another privilege of gentlemen that when they commit a crime, they are not punished as rigorously as the common people."

Loyseau: Traité des ordres et simples dignitez, 1610

Educating Millenials

Here's an interesting read from virtualwayfarer.com:

An educated populace is the cornerstone of a successful, affluent culture and a necessity if the United States wants to remain competitive. ...  Education, more than any other factor, is responsible for America’s success. It is for that reason that the current shift in enrollment and completion rates among males in higher education may be seen as a crisis. ...

While there are a lot of theories as to the cause, no one has been able to accurately explain why young male Millennials are abandoning the education system and especially, higher ed. The lion’s share of the discourse on the subject has focused on the increased presence of females in higher education, the shifting nature of male’s roles in society, and other similar concepts. While these may be factors, I believe they overlook the true cause and scope of the issue.

The Cause
The infusion of brilliant young female minds into higher education is a wonderful thing and there is without question some validity to the observations made that womens’ aptitudes are better suited to the standard classroom format. That said, I don’t believe the introduction of women to higher education is what’s causing men to drop out.  Rather, we are seeing a surge in the individual student’s ability to learn and comprehend in a more complex reality. The issue stems from the way members of the Millennial generation are developing and their use of complex, multi-tasking skill sets that have been honed in the daily practice of video gaming, internet access, chatting, and involvement in online social networks.  Simply put, tech savvy Millennials are not being engaged or challenged by the one-dimensional delivery systems in a majority of today’s classrooms. They are not interested in sitting passively and having information spoon fed to them. Much of this information is not interdisciplinary or connected to the real world. They can do better on their own in this new, comprehensive ‘digital classroom’. If we don’t reevaluate the way we educate Millennials, I expect female enrollment numbers to peak and begin to decline as they become more engaged in technology which follows the trend we are currently seeing among males.

Click here to keep reading...

Beloit's Mindset List

Every year for the past 11 years, Beloit college has released a list that, in words of its authors, "provides a look at the cultural touchstones that shape the lives of students entering college."

Here's the beginning of this years list:

1. Harry Potter could be a classmate, playing on their Quidditch team.
2. Since they were in diapers, karaoke machines have been annoying people at parties.
3. They have always been looking for Carmen Sandiego.
4. GPS satellite navigation systems have always been available.
5. Coke and Pepsi have always used recycled plastic bottles.
6. Shampoo and conditioner have always been available in the same bottle.
7. Gas stations have never fixed flats, but most serve cappuccino.
8. Their parents may have dropped them in shock when they heard George Bush announce “tax revenue increases.”
9. Electronic filing of tax returns has always been an option.
10. (Click here to see the rest of the list)

Of course I get the usual chuckle when I see this. It is funny to be reminded that events that are so clear in my memory that they could have happened yesterday were never part of the cultural landscape of our incoming students. It is fun to be reminded about life circa 1990 when I was already an adult.

Something has always bothered me about the list, though. For starters, the list is more about us teachers than the students since the cultural markers it references are mostly for adults (i.e., Martha Stewart). Secondly, the list is mostly about pop culture, which is fine and sometimes extremely important, but it limits the scope of what the authors mean when they say "Mindset List." Does knowing who Rosanne Barr is determine one's mindset? Somewhat perhaps, but to me it would be much more interesting to say that these children probably didn't benefit from welfare because Bill Clinton "ended Welfare as we know it." It would be more interesting and revealing to say that these children have only known Defense budgets that increased and education budgets that mostly decreased. It would be more telling to note that today's youth are more likely to have grown up poor than their parents. You get my drift, right?

Finally, look at the list. It is really from a White middle-class perspective. That does not come close to representing the ever more diverse U.S.

Yes, I know, my "list" would a bit heavy, but there could be some good things to it too: Today's students have always known an openly gay character on TV. Today's students are not scared by terms like "cold war" (just GWOT!).

My point is that if we're going to talk about mindsets, let's talk about the institutions and structures that have as deep or deeper connection to the existences of everyone rather than sticking to the cultural references like TV and shampoo. Let's also try to make our list a little more culturally informed with references to people other than, say, Martha Stewart.

Maybe I should make my own list. Hmmm.

Nah. I'll just be a curmudgeon.

Excuse me,

I've got an rss to feed.

How to Collaborate Without Even trying

Luckily I work in a place that is generally friendly and collaborative.  In fact, we collaborate in our teaching, our research and our committees more than most places I've had the opportunity to observe.  That said, we don't always succeed, that is, we fail miserably.  As the new school year approaches, this post from the folks at lifehacker, might serve as a reminder that a little civility can go a long way.

Memorize the names of those with whom you work. Sounds so simple but many of us don’t even know the people in our department or division. Learning their names makes them seem somehow, more human.
Learn from those around you. No one person has the monopoly on the truth so learn from those around you. Is there an application that someone could help you use more effectively? Is there a policy or protocol that you are rusty with but the next guy is an expert?
Be likable. No surprise here- nice people get results. This is not to have you be a pushover at work but an ounce of niceness goes a long way.
Walk the hall. This is not a diversion to help you avoid your own work but an easy way to get to know people is just to pop by and ask them how they’re doing. You’ll also learn something from them by seeing how they work. You might also find that you have something in common with them simply by seeing their workspace.
Compliment with tact. A quality compliment can earn mileage long after the comment is made. During a meeting, in casual conversation or in an email, a quick one liner can build up your collaborative bank account.
The best thing about all of these suggestions is that they’re all free. Being collaborative doesn’t have to be difficult but it does take intentionality. Don’t get me wrong- I’m still competitive but now I see it as one lens of many that can be used at an appropriate time. It’s not necessarily the default for everyday life at home and at work.

Again, these are frequently employed by the good folks at Whittier, so maybe this is just a note to myself...

A Fairly Significant List:

 Here's a nice list of all the films that cross-promoted through snack foods.  Remember, when kids are screaming at you to buy something, it's not their voice that speaking, it's the corporate mind-cloud.

H/t to AS.  Go read the full article here.

The Adventures of Jimmy Neutron: Boy Genius•• (canned pastas and soups,snack chips)
American Idol•• (candy, cookies, toaster pastries)
The Ant Bully•• (QSR children’s meals, non-carbonated beverages)
Avatar•• (QSR children’s meals, fruit snacks)
The Backyardigans•• (fruit snacks, fruit)
Barbie: Fairytopia•• (breakfast cereals, toaster pastries)
Batman•• (canned pastas and soups, fruit snacks)
Blue’s Clues•• (breakfast cereals, fruit snacks, fruit, yogurt)
Care Bears•• (fruit snacks)
Cars ••(QSR children’s meals, fruit snacks, snack bars, breakfast cereals, toaster pastries, frozen waffles, canned pasta, pudding, cookies, snack crackers, popcorn, yogurt, non-carbonated beverages)
Charlie and the Chocolate Factory•• (candy)
Charlotte’s Web•• (QSR children’s meals)
The Cheetah Girls•• (macaroni and cheese)
Chicken Little ••(fruit snacks)
The Chronicles of Narnia•• (QSR children’s meals, breakfast cereals, cereal bars, snack chips, fruit snacks, toaster pastries, packaged salads)
Clifford the Big Red Dog•• (QSR children’s meals, fruit juice, snack crackers, breakfast cereal)
Curious George•• (QSR children’s meals, breakfast cereals, snack cakes, fruit juice, bananas)
Danny Phantom•• (canned pastas and soups, children’s frozen meals, frozen desserts)
Disney Princesses (breakfast cereals, fruit snacks, yogurt, frozen waffles, toaster pastries)
Doogal•• (QSR children’s meals)
Dora the Explorer•• (breakfast cereals, canned pastas and soups, snack crackers, fruit snacks, cookies, fruit, yogurt)
Dragon Booster•• (QSR children’s meals)
El Chavo animated series (cookies)
Elmo•• and other Sesame Street characters (fruits and vegetables)
The Fairly OddParents•• (snack chips, macaroni and cheese, fruit snacks, frozen desserts)
Finding Nemo•• (fruit snacks)
Flushed Away•• (QSR children’s meals, breakfast cereals, snack bars, snack crackers)
Foster’s Home for Imaginary Friends•• (QSR children’s meals)
Go, Diego, Go!•• (fruit snacks, yogurt)
Goosebumps•• (QSR children’s meals)
Happy Feet•• (QSR children’s meals, snack crackers, breakfast cereals, yogurt, fruit snacks, baked goods, carbonated and non-carbonated beverages)
Hello Kitty•• (fruit snacks)
Holly Hobbie and Friends•• (QSR children’s meals)
I Spy•• (QSR children’s meals, fruit juice)
Ice Age 2 ••(QSR children’s meals, yogurt, fruit snacks, cereal bars, breakfast cereals, toaster pastries, frozen waffles, children’s frozen meals, canned pasta, pudding, cookies, snack crackers, popcorn, carbonated and non-carbonated beverages)
King Kong ••(fruit snacks, snack cakes, cookies, carbonated beverages)
Klutz•• (QSR children’s meals)
Lady and the Tramp•• (carbonated beverages, snack cakes)
Leroy & Stitch•• (fruits and vegetables)
The Lion King ••(fruit snacks)
Little Einsteins•• (breakfast cereals)
The Little Mermaid•• (QSR children’s meals, breakfast cereals, candy)
The Littlest Pet Shop•• (QSR children’s meals)
Looney Tunes•• (QSR children’s meals, fruit snacks, fruits and vegetables)
Madagascar•• (fruit snacks)
Mickey Mouse Clubhouse•• (breakfast cereals)
Monster House•• (frozen pizza)
Monsters, Inc. ••(fruit snacks)
My Little Pony•• (fruit snacks)
¡Mucha Lucha!•• (fruit snacks, frozen desserts)
Nanny McPhee•• (food service pizza and burritos served in schools)
Nintendo characters such as Mario and Donkey Kong (QSR children’s meals)
One Tree Hill•• (carbonated beverages)
Open Season•• (QSR children’s meals, breakfast cereals, children’s frozen meals, popcorn)
Over the Hedge•• (QSR children’s meals, yogurt, snack chips, snack cakes, popcorn, carbonated and non-carbonated beverages)
Paz the Penguin•• (fruits and vegetables)
Peanuts•• (QSR children’s meals)
Pirates of the Caribbean•• (QSR children’s meals, candy, frozen waffles, fruit snacks, breakfast cereals, lunch kits, popcorn, non-carbonated beverages, fruits and vegetables)
Polar Express•• (popcorn)
Robots the Movie ••(fruit snacks)
Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer•• (breakfast cereals, snack cakes)
Rugrats•• (fruit snacks)
Scooby-Doo•• (breakfast cereals, snack crackers, macaroni and cheese, fruit snacks, yogurt)
Shrek•• (breakfast cereals, macaroni and cheese, yogurt, fruit snacks, snack crackers, cookies)
Sony PlayStation characters Spyro the Dragon and Crash Bandicoot (popcorn)
Spider-Man ••(QSR children’s meals, breakfast cereals, cereal bars, cookies, pancakes, fruit snacks, snack crackers, snack chips, sliced cheese, macaroni and cheese, frozen desserts, non-carbonated beverages)
SpongeBob SquarePants•• (QSR children’s meals, breakfast cereals, snack crackers, macaroni and cheese, lunch kits, fruit snacks, cookies, yogurt, fruits and vegetables)
Star Wars Episode III•• (fruit snacks)
Strawberry Shortcake•• (QSR children’s meals)
Stuart Little 3•• (QSR children’s meals)
Superman Returns•• (QSR children’s meals, breakfast cereals, milk, cereal bars, snack chips, snack crackers, fruit snacks, packaged pasta, carbonated and non-carbonated beverages)
Surf’s Up•• (popcorn snack)
Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles•• (fruit snacks, fruit juice)
Trollz•• (QSR children’s meals)
The Wiggles•• (fruit juice)
The Wild•• (QSR children’s meals)
Winnie the Pooh•• (fruit snacks)
Winx•• (fruit snacks, fruit juice)
Xiaolin Showdown•• (breakfast cereals)
Yu-Gi-Oh!•• (QSR children’s meals)
Zoom•• (QSR children’s meals) 

Why Ayn Rand Was/Is Wrong...

Dear 18-year-old nerds and Alan Greenspan:

Here's a little article on why excessive individualism (aka, a purely "ownership society") can lead to bad results.  I know it probably won't change your mind.  After all, you say, libertarianism (or conservatism) never fails, people only fail libertarianism.  Well, just think about it, ok?

The Permission Problem, by James Surowiecki: In the second decade of the twentieth century, it was almost impossible to build an airplane in the United States. That was the result of a chaotic legal battle among the dozens of companies—including one owned by Orville Wright—that held patents on the various components that made a plane go. No one could manufacture aircraft without fear of being hauled into court. The First World War got the industry started again, because Congress realized that something needed to be done to get planes in the air. It created a “patent pool,” putting all the aircraft patents under the control of a new association and letting manufacturers license them for a fee. Had Congress not stepped in, we might still be flying around in blimps.
The situation that grounded the U.S. aircraft industry is an example of what the Columbia law professor Michael Heller, in his new book, “The Gridlock Economy,” calls the “anticommons.” We hear a lot about the “tragedy of the commons”: if a valuable asset (a grazing field, say) is held in common, each individual will try to exploit as much of it as possible. Villagers will send all their cows out to graze at the same time, and soon the field will be useless. When there’s no ownership, the pursuit of individual self-interest can make everyone worse off. But Heller shows that having too much ownership creates its own problems. If too many people own individual parts of a valuable asset, it’s easy to end up with gridlock, since any one person can simply veto the use of the asset.
The commons leads to overuse and destruction; the anticommons leads to underuse and waste. ... Even divided land ownership can have unforeseen consequences. Wind power, for instance, could reliably supply up to twenty per cent of America’s energy needs—but only if new transmission lines were built, allowing the efficient movement of power... Don’t count on that happening anytime soon. Most of the land that the grid would pass through is owned by individuals, and nobody wants power lines running through his back yard.
The point isn’t that private property is a bad thing, or that the state should be able to run roughshod over the rights of individual owners. Property rights (including patents) are essential... But property rights need to be limited to be effective. The more we divide common resources like science and culture into small, fenced-off lots, Heller shows, the more difficult we make it for people to do business and to build something new. Innovation, investment, and growth end up being stifled. ...
In theory, one should be able to break a gridlock by striking a deal that would leave all sides better off. Sometimes that happens. ... [But...] One reason deals founder is that there are simply too many interested parties. If, in order to create a new drug, you have to strike bargains with thirty or forty other companies... often things go awry because owners won’t make a deal at a reasonable price...
Recent experimental work by the psychologist Sven Vanneste and the legal scholar Ben Depoorter helps explain why. When something you own is necessary to the success of a venture, even if its contribution is small, you’ll tend to ask for an amount close to the full value of the venture. And since everyone in your position also thinks he deserves a huge sum, the venture quickly becomes unviable. So the next time we start handing out new ownership rights—whether via patents or copyright or privatization schemes—we’d better try to weigh all the good things that won’t happen as a result. Otherwise, we won’t know what we’ve been missing. (h/t: Economist's View)

BLS

The Bureau of Labor Statistics, as Atrios points out (and as Kevin ... also discussed in Harper's), keeps an array of data of unemployment.  For some reason, which I'll say is probably political expediency,  the "U3," which is basically all those who are out of work AND seeking work, is our official rate.  But the U3 does not count people who have given up after months of trying and who still want to work.  The U6, " Total unemployed, plus all marginally attached workers, plus total employed part time for economic reasons, as a percent of the civilian labor force plus all marginally attached workers.." Has a different and more comprehensive look at unemployment.  Click on the graph to see full size.  You'll note that U3 is 5.7 and U6 is 10.3.

As Kevin Phillips points out, the "truth," or at least a better picture of the various truths that one can glean about an economy, could set us free for some real discussion:

"The corruption has tainted the very measures that most shape public perception of the economy—the monthly Consumer Price Index (CPI), which serves as the chief bellwether of inflation; the quarterly Gross Domestic Product (GDP), which tracks the U.S. economy’s overall growth; and the monthly unemployment figure, which for the general public is perhaps the most vivid indicator of economic health or infirmity. Not only do governments, businesses, and individuals use these yardsticks in their decision-making but minor revisions in the data can mean major changes in household circumstances—inflation measurements help determine interest rates, federal interest payments on the national debt, and cost-of-living increases for wages, pensions, and Social Security benefits. And, of course, our statistics have political consequences too. An administration is helped when it can mouth banalities about price levels being “anchored” as food and energy costs begin to soar.

The truth, though it would not exactly set Americans free, would at least open a window to wider economic and political understanding. Readers should ask themselves how much angrier the electorate might be if the media, over the past five years, had been citing 8 percent unemployment (instead of 5 percent), 5 percent inflation (instead of 2 percent), and average annual growth in the 1 percent range (instead of the 3–4 percent range). We might ponder as well who profits from a low-growth U.S. economy hidden under statistical camouflage. Might it be Washington politicos and affluent elites, anxious to mislead voters, coddle the financial markets, and tamp down expensive cost-of-living increases for wages and pensions?" [Number's Racket, Harpers, May 2008]

The South

Hailing from the South, as I do, I'm always on the lookout for interesting interpretations of its development. My father, who became a sociologist and studied the effects of bringing electricity to the southern Appalachians, of noted the importance of having just a single electric light dangling from the ceiling--it changes everything. Children can study, farmers can work on record-keeping, all setting of a chain reaction of personal and public development. Mark Thoma points out this study today:

A novel contribution of this paper is that it appears to provide a real-world example of the 'Big Push' theory. Never heard of the 'Big Push' theory? Well, here is how the authors describe it:

According to the “big push” theory of economic development, publicly coordinated investment can break the underdevelopment trap by helping economies overcome deficiencies in private incentives that prevent firms from adopting modern production techniques and achieving scale economies. These scale economies, in turn, create demand spillovers, increase market size, and theoretically generate a self-sustaining growth path that allows the economy to move to a Pareto preferred Nash equilibrium where it is a mutual best response for economic actors to choose large-scale industrialization over agriculture and small-scale production. The big push literature, originated by Rosenstein-Rodan [1943, 1961], was initially motivated by the postwar reconstruction of Eastern Europe. The theory subsequently appeared to have had limited empirical application... [S]cholars have found few real-world examples of such an infusion of investment helping to “push” an economy to high-level industrialization equilibrium.

Until this paper, that is. The authors continue:

We argue here that the “Great Rebound” of the American South, which followed large public capital investments during the Great Depression and World War II, is one such application. Although 1930s New Deal programs are typically presented in the context of their attempt to bring relief and recovery to the U.S. economy through demand-stimulating public expenditures, the long-term economic effects of these and subsequent wartime expenditures were profound for the South. Specifically, and consistent with big push theoretical literature, the infusion of public capital—roads, schools, waterworks, power plants, dams, airfields, and hospitals, among other infrastructural improvements—fundamentally reshaped the Southern economy, expanded markets, generated significant external economies, increased rates of return to large scale manufacturing, and encouraged a subsequent investment stream. These improvements helped create the conditions that allowed the region to break free from its low-income, low-productivity trap and embark on its rapid postwar industrialization.

This paper deals with the break from the South's poverty trap. The sustained nature of the South's postwar economic recovery has been covered by other studies: Connolly (2004) looks to improved human capital formation, Cobb (1982) points to industrial policy, Beasley, Persson, and Sturm (2005) finger increased political competition, and Glaeser and Tobio (2008) discuss the merits of the climate or Sunbelt effect. (I will also note I have seen somewhere the advent of air conditioning did wonders for development in the South).

New Deal socialism spurred the development of the "New" South. My parents knew that because the saw it first hand, my father even wrote about it. I'm glad to see the dismal science is now joining in with a "Big Push" Theory. What's interesting to me, of course, is the degree to which the South has forgotten that the roots of its 20th-century growth were planted by FDR, instead opting to side with the neoliberal "conservative" faction. This is in no way surprising, since surplus labor in the South is still regarded as a story of race and not class, which has allowed for the divisive politics of the last 40 years. Division represents politics and economics in the South, where a vibrant middle-class has yet to arise, and where income disparity remains the greatest. I made up the following (hard to read) graph to show this. D.C., NY and CA all have great income disparity for their own reasons--NY and CA both have extremely large concentrations of wealth, for example. Of the next 10 states that follow them in income disparity, 8 are in the south: Lousiana, Texas, Mississippi, Florida, Connecticut, New Mexico, Georgia, Alabama, Kentucky, Tennessee. (I apologize for the chart being so hard to read. Click on it for the full size.)

While the "New South" is in some ways only following the line of increased division between the rich and poor, it tends to be leading the way. By the way, you can find the data for the chart here: http://www.census.gov/hhes/www/income/histinc/state/state4.html

"Free Markets"

Joseph Stiglitz sayz:

"Fannie’s and Freddie’s free lunch, by Joseph Stiglitz, Commentary, Financial Times: ...The US government is about to embark on ... a partnership, in which the private sector takes the profits and the public sector bears the risk. The proposed bail-out of Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac entails the socialisation of risk – with all the long-term adverse implications for moral hazard – from an administration supposedly committed to free-market principles.
Defenders of the bail-out argue that these institutions are too big to be allowed to fail. If that is the case, the government had a responsibility to regulate them so that they would not fail. No insurance company would provide fire insurance without demanding adequate sprinklers; none would leave it to “self-regulation”. But that is what we have done with the financial system."
 [h/t economists view]

I heard some "left wing" talk show host yesterday on AM 1150 who kept going on and on about free markets and how if we just let them do their job everything would be ok.  Well, no.  Free markets, as an idea, may be perfect, but the truth is that they are a utopian concept, a shadow on the wall.  Power (as seen above) will always intervene, and, indeed, power structures (lobbyists, politicians, Wall Street) were present in the first place as Fannie Mae was massaged into a corporate model (with benefits for shareholders).  Until we have an open discussion about who is wielding this influence and whether such influence is undue and subject to corruption and failure, then our conversations will also remain in a "utopian" netherworld that fails to account for what is really happening.

Capitalism, the marketplace are incredibly dynamic systems, but they can be a threat to democracy when they become a corporatocracy.  It's funny, someboday was telling me how much China was becoming like us; I looked around and thought: "No, we're becoming like them."

(Death) March of the Penguins

Why global warming might not be good if you're a penguin:

RIO DE JANEIRO, Brazil (AP) -- Hundreds of baby penguins swept from the icy shores of Antarctica and Patagonia are washing up dead on Rio de Janeiro's tropical beaches, rescuers and penguin experts said Friday.

More than 400 penguins, most of them young, have been found dead on the beaches of Rio de Janeiro state over the past two months, according to Eduardo Pimenta, superintendent for the state coastal protection and environment agency in the resort city of Cabo Frio.

While it is common here to find some penguins - both dead and alive - swept by strong ocean currents from the Strait of Magellan, Pimenta said there have been more this year than at any time in recent memory.

Zirin does it again.

Thank you David Zirin.  It's rare that I post links almost entirely, but you say it all:

Zirin:

Let's start with an email I received this morning from Kap Fulton:

"Who are Justin, Josh, Lance, Ryan, Dan, Grady, Chase, and Evan?

A. Roll call for a second grade class in at a suburban Ohio elementary school
B. The most popular boys names in Denver, CO
C. Characters from the new 90210
D. Bud Selig's attempt at diversity: one Canadian."
If you answered D, take a bow. Yes, Justin Morneau, (the Canadian), Josh Hamilton, Lance Berkman, Ryan Braun, Dan Uggla, Grady Sizemore, Chase Utley, and Evan Longoria were the contestants in this year's Home Run Derby on the eve of the 2008 All Star Game, and it was quite the Caucasian ovation (although, as I've learned since posting this column, Grady Sizemore's father is African American). Granted, the big time rainbow coalition of home run boppers like David Ortiz, Alex Rodriguez, and Ryan Howard declined to participate, but it was still bizarre and even a touch disturbing to see a home run derby that looked a lot like a contest out of 1946, before Jackie Robinson integrated the game. The vibe wasn't helped when one of the announcers celebrated Josh Hamilton's record setting derby barrage, by exclaiming, "This is a bad night to be an atheist!" (Please may God have better things to do than watch - and intervene in - the Home Run Derby.)
Yet an all-white derby complete with hallelujahs and hosannas might be appropriate for All-Star festivities drenched in nostalgia for its host site Yankee Stadium. The 85-year-old ballpark is of course known as "the house that Ruth built," a testimony to the dominance of Babe Ruth in the 1920s, when the game was segregated and Ruth never had to face great Negro League pitchers like Satchel Paige or Smokey Joe Williams. In the All-Star game itself, the only African American to suit up was Milton Bradley, a player excoriated four years back for saying, "White people never want to see race-with anything. But there's race involved in baseball. That's why there's less than 9 percent African-American representation in the game."
The numbers back up Bradley's frustration.  In the 2008 Racial and Gender Report Card, Richard Lapchick, Nikki Bowey and Ray Mathew wrote,
"The game has the lowest percentage (8.2) of African-Americans in the two decades that we have published the Report Card. That number is less than half what it was in 1997 on the 50th anniversary of [Jackie] Robinson's debut with the Dodgers, when African-Americans made up 17 percent of the players, and less than the percentage of blacks in the general population of the U.S. (12.3 percent)."
Ironically this is occurring while baseball has gone global, with 29% of all Major Leaguers born in Latin America, with impact players from Asia making their mark as well. The number of white players has remained remarkably constant with the numbers at 58-60%. (86% of college baseball players are white.)
The debate about why the number of African American players has plummeted has been explored aplenty. The predominant argument is that baseball has an "image problem" in black America. It has no cultural cache and therefore young athletic black men gravitate toward basketball and football. I think this gets the argument completely backward, (although it can't help baseball's image in the black community that Barry Bonds can't find a team while all manner of proven juicers grace major league rosters). To make this an argument about whether or not baseball is "cool" is like saying there aren't any prominent African American harpsichord players because the harpsichord just isn't funky fresh. While it's true that if you poll an inner city classroom, and ask how many young people want to be baseball players you may get the same number that want to play the harpsichord. But is this a question of what is "cool" or is this about actual access, choices, and opportunity? Baseball requires equipment, investment, and infrastructure. But baseball owners have chosen to make this investment beyond the border where players can be developed signed and discarded on the cheap. This game of baseball that was so closely associated with the black freedom struggle in the days of Jackie Robinson has been removed physically from our cities, and is now as culturally alien in many areas as the steeplechase. I recently spoke with sports sociologist Dr. Harry Edwards and he put it very sharply.
"Forty percent of baseball is foreign born, they've gone global, globalization in sports follows globalization in corporations with the same outcome. There are off-shoring the jobs... Blacks are going to be displaced. The reality is that because of deterioration of education in the community, because of the violence in the community, we're disqualifying, jailing and burying our potential boxers, wide receivers, and baseball players. When you see that happening, then you understand that the Black athlete is really just a canary in the mineshaft because what they're really telling us is something happening in the African-American community. They're merely a canary in the mine shaft saying we have serious problems of survival."
If baseball is sincere about seeing the game return to the cities and if they don't want home run derbies whiter than the Republican National Convention, they are going to need to do more than offer meager urban academy programs. Major League Baseball might have to use its political clout to make sure our cities aren't hollowed out husks. They might have to forgo public stadium funding for a different set of priorities that pours money in instead of vacuuming it out.

Be sure to go to his page for some interesting comments.

Learning Styles--Not!

Sorry for Borat-style "not!", but I just attended a conference where the term "learning styles" was used over and over. I don't pretend to know a lot about the subject, but I have to say that, at best, it is a very grey area.

Stahl (1999) notes in particular 1) the flawed assessment tools used in determining learning styles and 2) how learning styles "theory" has little practical to offer in the classroom:

"I have interviewed a number of teachers who have attended meetings of 200-300 teachers and principles, who paid $129 or so to attend a one-day workshop or up to $500 to attend a longer conference. They have found them to be pleasant experiences, with professional presenters. The teachers also feel that they learned something from the workshops. After I presed them, what it seemed that they learned is a wide variety of reading methods, a respect for individual differences among children, and a sense of possibilities of how to teach reading. This is no small thing. However, the same information, and much more, can be gotten from a graduate class in the teaching of reading.
These teachers have another thing in common--after one year, they had all stopped trying to match children by learning styles." [Different Strokes for Different Folks?]

Of course, I'm only citing one article, but that is one more article than the conference organizer's used to convince me of learning style theory.  There is nothing ground-breaking in the idea that EVERYONE learns best when confronted with a multiplicity of activities.  And there may be evidence that learning occurs most precisely when students find themselves obliged to work with methods that take them away from their metacognitive "comfort zone" because this forces them to contrast and compare.

There is a lot to say, of course, and this blog post is certainly not a review of all the literature, but, please, oh please, don't bombard me with learning style theory without discussing the negative literature on it or the negative side effects of perhaps wasting class time determining "how students learn."

It rained last night

It rained last night and was such a relief. It washed away the long, stressful week and was a particular treat since we had worked all day on our backyard project and because we usually don't get a drop of rain until November or December.

non-French French

At a conference

I'm currently at a conference on language learning with a team from Whittier College. There is interesting discussion of integrative learning, metacognition, technology, etc. There is a lot of overlap with NITLE types of issues. I'm quite intrigued by inserting more critical thinking, literature and culture into the 1st-year language experience.

Some of the influences on this are the writing of Barbara Ganley: "For the past 25 years I have tried to get my students out into the world...to have those slow conversations that billow out around the central learning purpose, deepening, and adding complexity and richness to the learning--making it real. I want them to feel what Ted Nelson says: 'Human ideas, science, scholarship, and language are constantly collapsing and unfolding. Any field...is a bundle of relationships subject to all kinds of twists, inversions, involutions and rearrangement.'... But it has not been easy. Our educational systems conspire against a messy, organic approach to learning."

Celebrate the ideas

As I read the news today about an embedded reporter who was barred from further reporting because he dared take pictures of what a suicide bombing actually does to people, I'm reminded that this is not the season to celebrate our country, but rather a time to celebrate the ideas on which it was founded. Jefferson was ok. I don't like Washington. Madison, definitely. Most importantly:

Arctic Ice Cap Gets Capped.

This is good news:

Arctic warming has become so dramatic that the North Pole may melt this summer, report scientists studying the effects of climate change in the field. "We're actually projecting this year that the North Pole may be free of ice for the first time [in history]," David Barber, of the University of Manitoba, told National Geographic News aboard the C.C.G.S. Amundsen, a Canadian research icebreaker.

I'll be conferencing and blogging the next few days if the wifi gods are with me, but I'd rather be swimming. At the North Pole, of course.

Words to live by

"I'm not here to say that the government is always right, but when the government tells you to do something, I'm sure you would all agree that I think you all recognize that is something you need to do," [Kit] Bond said." (via GG)

Forget FISA, let's look at pictures.

Ok, I'm still fuming about the house vote today. I am also upset that Obama is playing right in the dirty, unconstitutional hands of the current administration and the telecoms.

So let's change the subject.

Did I tell you I took pictures in morocco?

Click on the picture to see the show

I just made my contribution

Steny Hoyer must go. I just made a 50$ contribution to the act blue page. The link to contribute is at the very in of Glenn Greenwald's post, which I quote here:

Our first ad, featuring Steny Hoyer, is almost finished and will run as a full-page ad in The Washington Post and in numerous newspapers in his district, aimed at his core Democratic base. We are excited that Color of Change -- the online, grass-roots African-American organization devoted to demanding more responsiveness from Washington officials -- has now joined our coalition and is directly working with us on this ad campaign against Hoyer. And we hope to expand our work with them to include the other campaigns we are doing, including -- just for now -- the ones against Rep. Chris Carney and Rep. John Barrow.

The total amount we have for this campaign is now almost $250,000. The response has been overwhelming. I know that many of you have donated as much or even more than you could, but the more we raise, the more of an impact we can make against the individuals responsible for this travesty. Making them know there is a real price to pay when they do this -- not by getting deluged with angry phone calls or merely having primary challenges, but doing everything possible to expose their real character, remove them office and put a permanent end to their political careers -- is the only real way to deter its repetition. Contributions can be made here.

Thanks, Linda.

Here's what I wrote to my congresswoman a few minutes ago:

Dear Congresswoman Sanchez,

I was writing to follow up on today's vote on the FISA bill. While the bill still passed, your 'nay' vote is greatly appreciated. I hope that when it comes time to elect a majority leader, Steny Hoyer will not be at the top of your list!

As always, thanks for your service to Whittier and congratulations on being patriotic and voting against laws that undermine the constitution.

I will be contributing to your election campaign.

Roadkill Hat Club of America Giclee Ltd Edition

Roadkill Hat Club of America Giclee Ltd Edition
Originally uploaded by JimFromIowa

The things one can learn.

I just got back

from dinner, but before dinner I had beer with friends (Jeff, Dave, Carolyn, Seamus and Leslie). But before beer with friends, we had all just gotten back from a bluegrass jam in Pasadena. It was a lot of fun.

Now Anne has just called from Detroit. She's been in the airport for something like 5 hours because of a flight delay. They aren't saying when the flight is leaving.

Ugh. I haven't talked about the travails of JFK last week. I hate--HATE--American Airlines.

Anyway, just a blog blurb to remind myself that, occasionally, I write in my blog.

McSame McCain

McSame McCain:

John McCain Votes to Filibuster Minimum Wage Hike.

McCain: Bush right to veto kids health insurance expansion

Doorway

_DSC3756 copy
Originally uploaded by andrethegiant

Well, I'm back from Morocco and stunningly up to my eyeballs in work. That didn't stop me from uploading some of my pictures to flickr...

You can see the full set here

Roadkill Wednesday™

Roadkill
Originally uploaded by aknacer

Ha!

Update: It turns out Abby (and Abby), friend of x number of years, knows photographer in this week's Roadkill Wednesday*. Small world. (Or maybe Abby's big world connecting with my small world.)

RKW: because there is death on the highway of life.

P.S. Sorry for the lack of blogging lately. I am buried beneath a pile of work. Hope to emerge soon.

*RKW=my day for my bad days.

Roadkill Wednesday™

Contemplating Roadkill
Originally uploaded by bokjonbok

It's roadkill Wednesday again. Here's a great polaroid from bokjonbok.


Wednesday Roadkill Blogging™
"Because there is death on the highway of life."

Gay Marriage

Even though I believe more in civil unions, I'm really happy that gay marriage is now legal in California (or not illegal, or something.)

Tolerance and justice are good.


Thought for the day.

Wednesday Roadkill Blogging™

Ok, I'm out of town on a school-related trip so this is a pre-planned post of Wednesday Roadkill Blogging™ ("Oh No!" Courtesy of J-Easy)

I'm hoping I'm feeling pretty good by the time this post hits the presses.

How are you feeling?


Think of this as therapy.
Think of this as homage.
Think of this as honesty.
Think of this as the highway.
Think of this as a mash-up.
Think of this as art.
Think of this as life.

Wednesday Roadkill Blogging™
"Because there is death on the highway of life."

Scheduled Poetry

The canaries
are dying.
Should we save
them?
Should we try?
Is it a problem with the air,
or is it
them?

Crashing the system II

I'm happy to see (via M. Thoma) that those who are crashing the systems are at least not making quite as much money.

Change is in the air for financial superclass, by David Rothkopf, Commentary, Financial Times: ...The re-engineering of international finance has been one of the transformational trends of our times – in just a quarter-century, capital flows became massive, instantaneous and controlled by a new breed of traders representing a handful of major financial institutions from a few countries. Their rewards have transcended any in history as shown by an estimate ... that the top hedge fund manager last year made $3bn.

The concentration of power has also steadily grown..., the key executives are in the US and Europe, underscoring the transatlantic nature of this elite. Change, however, is in the air. The history of elites is one of their rising up, over-reaching, being reined in and supplanted by a new elite. Several recent developments suggest that the financial crisis could signal the high-water mark of power for this group.

First, the crisis is prompting a re-regulatory drive. The power of financial elites had been evident in their ability to argue that global financial markets and markets in new securities should remain “self-regulating” (how many of them would hop into a self-regulating taxicab?), then when crisis comes ... these champions of less government involvement have then persuaded governments to cauterise their wounds.

Now, however, there are encouraging, if preliminary, signs of a push towards more effective collaboration between governments – the first steps towards creating the much needed checks on global markets... This could erode the agility of financial elites to play governments off against each other, with the weakest regulator setting the rules.

Checks on markets? Gosh, I wish someone had thought about that before.

Draft.Blogger: Dear Blogger

Dear Blogger,

When you post this, I'll be gone. Don't look for me because I'll be far away.

I won't forget you, but know that sometimes I need my freedom.

See you soon.

Roadkill Wednesday™

Vicke och döden
Originally uploaded by ida katari

If you noticed my blog entry yesterday with the beautiful and haunting dead bird, you probably know that sometimes I get disappointed with myself and, well, let's be honest, others. When I have a bad day, I usually blog the dead bird. It's symbolic of the death of innocence. My theory is that innocence never completely dies (and doesn't really exist, but that's another story), it just dies a little bit at a time.

In that tradition, I'm starting Wednesday Roadkill Blogging™. Roadkill happens to the little canaries and to the largest and most fearsome beasts. It is any combination of the following: sideswiping, crushing, flattening, deflating, splatting and crippling. It occurs both night and day, and may involve the complete awareness of the victim (the proverbial "deer in the headlights") or come as a total surprise.

In this vein, I will try to post tasteful pictures of roadkill. This is not an attempt to be gruesome or nonchalant about death. On the contrary, I really wish it didn't happen, especially to the innocent. But it does.

Think of this as therapy.
Think of this as homage.
Think of this as honesty.
Think of this as the highway.
Think of this as a mash-up.
Think of this as art.
Think of this as life.

Wednesday Roadkill Blogging™
"Because there is death on the highway of life."

Says it all...

One Boring Old Man:

As my father was known to repeat endlessly, "I don’t mind you peeing in my boot, but don’t tell me it’s water."

One of those days...again.

Brain Dead

Ok, people: enough! My brain is fried and, like you, I'm looking to summer. It's been a great year, but this semester has left me feeling like a baby seal in the clutches of a polar bear. I'm just glad to get out alive. (Oh, wait, I better not count those chickens [or baby seals] until they hatch [or escape from the jaws of the polar bear]. After all, there are still two days of school and some exams.)

But I'm thinking about summer. I've earned it too. I've taught overloads and I've been on more committees than you can shake a laser pointer at.

Without further ado, and in the fashion of the Pillow Book, here are some things I'm happy about:

• Giving money to Obama--more than I can afford, actually. I'll be Obama blogging more as the year goes on. Go Obama.
• Using Google reader. My daily news is much more closely linked to my brain now. How did it take me so long to get those RSS feeds coming in (and going out!). Rss is awesome. It provides for my glutonous cravings for news from France, Asia, and Africa; it brings Open Left and Firedoglake to my screen; it is seemless and fast; it is me; I am it.
• The Language Lab Photo Contest. We will have student art in the lab. So easy--why has no one ever done this before? (I'll put up a link to our web exhibit when I get the chance.)
• Working hard. I've worked hard.
• Moodle. I'll admit that I did not get to explore moodle as much as I wanted (because I was so busy), but, still, I've gained some insights into how to enhance some of my teaching.
• Not using moodle. That's right. There's a time and a place.
• Calling senators and congresfolk to lobby against torture and telecom immunity.
  
• Having the restraint not to buy a new computer.
• Walking to school.
• Inventing the word "disappointless."
  
• Going mostly vegan. (Ate meat last night. Emphasis on "mostly.")
• Neutering some stray cats.
• Several charitable donations.
• I really enjoyed my teaching this year even though I am worn out.

Things I am disappointed about:

• Not having the strength or insight to deal with personalities when the time was right.
• Working hard to no apparent end, as in "That was disappointless."
• Not talking to friends enough.
• Being holed up working all the time.
• Occasional endless pontificating in class.
• Being such a slow grader.
  
• Not writing enough. I have to carve out time more time for this activity.
  
• Not always setting an example of excellence for students.
• Not proofreading my blogging.
  
• Ever thinking that Hillary would end the primaries gracefully.
• Not getting enough exercise.
• The state of my office.

I'm sure there are more things I'm disappointed about, they are just not coming to my mind right now. Let's just call that a healthy attitude of denial.

L'été arrive enfin. I've got something like 3 conferences this summer, so that will keep me more than occupied. I will be writing (see list above). We've also got some good old-fashioned manual labor projects that should keep me busy too, and I need some of that to keep me sane and balanced... Expect to see lots of pictures from Morocco...

Globalization

B. Delong quotes a post from James Poulos that strikes me as common sense:

Globalization, in its natural, uncontrolled diversity, will be and should be an irregular process in which countries pragmatically adopt and appropriate a la carte things from elsewhere that work for them...

This view contradicts the average "proponents" of globalization as an economically inevitable, scientifically incontrovertible and longitudinally beneficial process(1). If one sees and empowers globalization as a dynamic and more or less democratic process, then I think Poulos has hit the nail on the head. Unfortunately, the Fareed Zakarias (and the majority of pro-globalization forces) tend to speak in the most utopian and abstract ways about globalization and it is from this that they promote a program, not a process. The key words here are "adoption" (democratic) and "à la carte" (signaling mutual benefit and optimization of comparative advantage).

Unfortunately, it is much easier to find globalization's dreamers in our public discourse than it is those who have serious critiques and who can speak to its upsides and downsides, for there are both.

(1) JMK: In the long run, we're all dead.

Obama: Fight Mediocrity and Mediatocracy

Here's, IMHO, the most important part of Obama's victory speech from last night:

This primary season may not be over, but when it is, we will have to remember who we are as Democrats . . . This fall, we intend to march forward as one Democratic Party, united by a common vision for this country. Because we all agree that at this defining moment in history – a moment when we're facing two wars, an economy in turmoil, a planet in peril – we can't afford to give John McCain the chance to serve out George Bush's third term. We need change in America. [...]

Yes, we know what's coming. We've seen it already. The same names and labels they always pin on everyone who doesn't agree with all their ideas. The same efforts to distract us from the issues that affect our lives by pouncing on every gaffe and association and fake controversy in the hope that the media will play along. The attempts to play on our fears and exploit our differences to turn us against each other for pure political gain – to slice and dice this country into Red States and Blue States; blue-collar and white-collar; white and black, and brown.

This is what they will do – no matter which one of us is the nominee. The question, then, is not what kind of campaign they'll run, it's what kind of campaign we will run. It's what we will do to make this year different. I didn't get into [this] race thinking that I could avoid this kind of politics, but I am running for President because this is the time to end it. . . .

This is all about media, voice and democracy. It's about the FCC, the FEC; it's about pundits and CEOs. Obama knows this and this is the subtext of his campaign. The media know this too--and they've been fighting back.

The last three weeks have been a virtual blackout of positive Obama news, a blackout of Obama himself. Indeed, Obama was presented only through the filters of the Kristols and the Crowleys, while smiling pictures of Hillary giving motivational speeches were aired.

This period seems to be over and the media has seen the momentum shift for the final time. They saw it on Bill's face last night.

Does this mean the fight against Obama is over? Hardly--the long hard slog is beginning. We will see more of the same: Wright, few excerpts from speeches and first-person Obama, little talk of Obama's incredible and populist fundraising. The media narrative will "stay the course" in that Obama will be portrayed as elitist, disconnected, different, radical and strident, while McCain will be fluffed beyond belief.

Can they keep him off the air? Can they keep him on the defensive? I don't think so, but they will try.

The goal now, short of preventing Obama's election, is to limit his mandate and define what he can talk about.

Cognitive Heat Sinks...

Here's Shirky elaborating on his ideas in "Here Comes Everybody."



Gin, television, cognitive heat sinks... It's worth a viewing, even if you've already checked out his work.

I'm always pleased to see France leading the way again--well, not always. Case in point: this amusing list of insults. What can a French professor do? I could get mad, but instead I will just laugh and fight this battle elsewhere. Luckily for France, I think the term "blogger" is close to becoming the single most potent insult in the English language. While that does not help me, it will help France, and for that I am happy, for few other "peoples" get insulted as much, especially by those ninny-hammers on Capitol Hill.

Here's the list:

1. FRENCHIFY (v)

Definition: 1) To make French in quality or trait 2) To make somewhat effeminate, and 3) To contract a veneral disease (a 19th century slang).

Analysis: We have the English to thank for this word. Most people implicitly understand that it means to become more like the French, but not a lot know the second or the third meaning. We’re still not sure which is more insulting.

2. BESCUMBER (v)

Definition: To spray with poo.

Analysis: Actually bescumber is just one of many words in the English language that basically mean “to spray with poo”. These are: BEDUNG, BERAY, IMMERD, SHARNY, and the good ol’ SHITTEN. In special cases, you can use BEMUTE (specifically means to drop poo on someone from great height), SHARD-BORN (born in dung), and FIMICOLOUS (living and growing on crap).

Alternative: If that is too vulgar, you can use BEVOMIT and BEPISS, which meanings should be obvious to you, as well as BESPAWL (to spit on).

Oh, and if you want to say poo without looking like you're saying it, you can use ORDURE, DEJECTION, and EXCRETA. To mean something more specific, you can use MECONIUM (first feces of a newborn child), MELAENA or MELENA (the abnormally tarry feces containing blood from gastrointestinal bleeding), LIENTERY (diarrhea with undigested or partially digested food), and STEATORRHEA (fatty stool that's hard to flush down).

Here are some words along the same line that may one day prove to be useful for you: TURDIFY (turn into turd), COPROPHAGIA (eating of feces [wiki]), and COPROPHILIA (Think 2 Girls 1 Cup [wiki - don't worry, SWF], if you don't know what this is, I shan't corrupt you any further).

Let's end entry number two with these two amazing words COPREMESIS and MISERERE, both of which mean fecal vomiting. Yes, fecal vomiting. It's a medical emergency caused by the obstruction of the bowel (source).

3. MICROPHALLUS (n)

Definition: An unusually small penis.

Analysis: Self explanatory.

Alternative: Insulting a man’s private part is a very reliable way to put him down (if he’s smaller than you) or to get beat up (if he’s larger than you). Usually, even a dimwit can decipher the meaning of this word, after all, it’s just a combination of “micro” and “phallus”.

So, to insult a physically larger opponent, we recommend you use these words instead: PHALLOCRYPSIS (retraction or shrinkage of the penis), CRYPTORCHID (undescendend testicles), and PHALLONCUS (tumor of the penis).

4. COCCYDYNIA (n)

Definition: Pain in the butt.

Analysis: It's a real medical term: coccydynia is pain in the coccyx or tailbone. Most people simply call it "buttache."

Similar: PROCTALGIA, PROCTODYNIA, PYGALGIA and RECTALGIA all mean pain in the butt.

Alternative: CERVICALGIA (pain in the neck), PHALLODYNIA or PHALLALGIA (both mean pain in the penis), and PUDENDAGRA (pain in the genitals).

The word "butt" is highly versatile in its vernacular use - you can say "butt face" or "hairy butt" - dem are fightin' words - but it's much better to use these instead: ANKYLOPROCTIA (stricture of the anus, the state of "tight-assity"), STEATOPYGOUS (fat-assed), DASYPYGAL (having hairy buttocks), and CACOPYGIAN (having ugly buttocks).

nbsp;

5. NINNYHAMMER (n)

Definition: A fool or a silly person.
Analysis: The word "fool," unless you're Mr. T, is sometimes woefully inadequate to express the stupidity of the person you're talking about. So use Ninnyhammer. Or at least NINNY.

Alternative: The English language is chockful of colorful words meaning stupid person, such as: DUMMKOPF, IGNORAMUS, JOBBERNOWL, GOWK, and WITLING.

For mental retardation, eschew the ubiquitous 'tard - rather, use AMENTIA (extreme mental retardation because of inadequate brain tissue), CRETINISM (mental retardation associated with dwarfism, caused by the deficiency of a thyroid hormone, a person with cretinism is a CRETIN), and MORONITY (used to mean mild retardation of having a mental age of 7 to 12 years, now it's an obsolete term though we still use the word moron).

There's more!

Religious Right Tells Pastors Christianity Being Suppressed

Yes, Christianity is being repressed! It is so difficult to be Christian in the U.S. right now. If you don't believe me, watch these serious thinkers conflate religion, fear of others, and nationalism into neat little packages.

From Firedoglake:

"Hate the liberals and the gays" has a resurgence, just in time for the election. Shocking.

For the power pastors of the religious right, it's about maintaining their hold on power and the illusion of control of political dialogue. For with such control and the trappings of power come large and regular donations. And those donations perpetuate their hold on power.

PFAW's Right Wing Watch put this YouTube clip together of a Coral Ridge Ministries program designed to motivate pastors to involve their congregations in electoral politics:

On Saturday, Coral Ridge Ministries—the televangelism empire of the late D. James Kennedy—broadcast a special program to encourage pastors to involve their churches in this year’s elections. While the panelists—Tony Perkins of Family Research Council, Mat Staver of Liberty Counsel, Jordan Lorence of Alliance Defense Fund, and Gary DeMar of American Vision—offered the usual admonishments that there’s no such thing as separation of church and state, the theme of the evening was that Christianity is being “suppressed” in this country by liberals and the “militant homosexual agenda.”...

This is the persecuted majority syndrome: the idea that it’s a whole lot simpler to convince people to join your political program if you convince them that their faith is “under attack.” This has been one of the Religious Right’s dominant themes over the last few years through campaigns such as FRC’s “Justice Sunday,” a series of televised, church-based rallies to support President Bush’s most radical judicial nominees, who the Right claimed were being opposed because of their religion.

Oh, please. Why do they still have tax exempt status when they are very clearly operating as a shell wing of the Republican party, motivating their flocks through fear of damnation to vote for the GOP? Personally, I find using denial of salvation as a means of political whipping offensive, and a contemptible, shameful abuse of the power of faith. And I'm not alone in thinking this.

After watching the Rev. Wright media hoohaw, why do the "pastors of the right" continually get a pass? Especially when they deliberately and provocatively insert themselves into the political process with a vengeance? Hypocrisy, much?

As Emproph at Pam's House Blend puts it:

Just like the thief who thinks everyone is stealing from them...
Just like the liar who thinks everyone is lying to them...
Jordan Lorence of the Alliance Defense Fund thinks...

the ACLU and the homosexual activists, who are into coercing unwilling people to do things, and to silence them, and all of that. There is an authoritarianism to that, that they are in total denial about

Ever heard of projection, Jordan? You may want to look it up.

Amen. Having uncovered DOJ personnel decisions by political and sexuality hiring purity tests, and with an office of religious dole in the White House dispensing public funds for church programming, I think I can safely say that their version of "Christian persecution complex" is a load of election year hooey. Shouldn't the religious right be called out for lying to their flock? Or is bearing false witness no longer a sin?

Especially when their hold on power within the GOP is tenuous -- or is being honest about their declining influence not something of interest?

The Coming Collapse of the Middle Class

Educate yourself to live.

Selective Prosecution and Enforcement, part II

As if right on cue, my Google Reader leads me to Pandagon, who brings home the issue of understanding structural violence and instututional bias right here in L.A.:

Uh huh. Here’s yet another reason why there is distrust out there about law enforcement “protecting and serving” everyone equally.

Los Angeles Police Department officials announced Tuesday that they investigated more than 300 complaints of racial profiling against officers last year and found that none had merit — a conclusion that left members of the department’s oversight commission incredulous.

It is at least the sixth consecutive year that all allegations of racial profiling against LAPD officers have been dismissed, according to department documents reviewed by The Times. I’m sure the vast majority are claims that cannot be proven since you have to prove the officer’s intent to say, pull over a black driver more often than a white one. But the LAPD has a sorry history, and that makes it difficult for some to believe the outcome of the report.

In February, the inspector general released a report that concluded investigators frequently failed to fully investigate citizen complaints against allegedly abusive officers, often omitting or altering crucial information.

The report, and extensive media attention, sparked calls by commissioners for a review of the complaint investigation process. The issue of racial profiling reaches back into one of the department’s darkest periods. Since 2000, the department has been working to implement scores of reforms included in a federal consent decree that stems from the Rampart corruption scandal. As part of the decree, the department is required to gather and analyze racial data involving vehicle and pedestrian stops.

But conclusive figures that might indicate whether systemic racial profiling is a problem in the LAPD have remained elusive. Department and city officials early on acknowledged that the raw data collected by officers when they make a stop are unhelpful because they do not include factors such as the race of the officer, the predominant race of the neighborhood in which the stop was made, and whether the stop resulted in an arrest and conviction.

Of course it’s hard to prove, but none of the cases had any merit? Come on, let’s be real. The problem here is that the profiling is less about race in some instances, but a focus on a particular demographic (dressed in hip-hop wear, in the “wrong” neighborhood, etc.), and in that case, you will end up with young minority youth getting pulled over or searched more often. When does a law enforcement officer’s “hunch” cross the line into straight-out bias — remember, as Francis Holland pointed out in an earlier post, you can be a black police officer and be color-aroused. Check out the comments in the LAT article’s thread — they run the gamut.

The question here is about the effort to curtail the bias. Collecting all the data about the officer and the suspect/victim doesn’t

Selective Prosecution and Enforcement

Whittier College is consistently ranked as the most diverse liberal arts college in the U.S. Teaching topics such as globalization and first-year seminar here, I frequently encounter one of the challenges/strengths of having a diverse student body. For example: while Whittier students are definitely engaged, entrepreneurial, and have a very good sense of social justice, many of them, like me, come from upper-middle class backgrounds and are not exposed to structural or institutional violence such as police repression, severely underfunded schools or selective prosecution of crimes. Therefore, helping people to see through other lenses and to look at their society in novel ways has become a veritable leitmotif of my teaching, regardless of the context (global studies, language courses, first-year seminar, theater, etc.).

Well, here's a case even the most privileged can understand. The RIAA has been sending out thousands and thousands of letters to universities and colleges around the country. Somehow, Harvard has been exempt. Something tells me that it's not because Harvard freshmen are significantly more honest than the average person, so there must be something else afoot. Read to the end of the Wired posting for their take, which I tend to agree with.

It must be the water at Harvard University.

Illegal online trading of digital music files is running rampant in universities across the nation, but not at Harvard, according to the Recording Industry Association of America.

The RIAA, the legal lobbying group for the music industry, has sent out hundreds if not thousands of letters to universities asking them to "remove or disable access" to infringing materials the RIAA has detected on IP addresses linked to schools ranging from MIT, Stanford, University of Chicago to UC Berkeley and dozens more.

THREAT LEVEL reported Wednesday that there is a sudden surge in these so-called take-down notices, which often are the precursors to legal action by the RIAA seeking the student's identity behind the IP address who is oftentimes then sued.

Harvard, however, seems immune from the RIAA's file-sharing campaign that commenced last year against universities. Perhaps it's something in the water system at the Cambridge, MA.-based university that is hindering Harvard students from doing what their fellow students area doing at other universities.

"Harvard hasn't gotten prelitigation letters or subpoenas asking for identification of an IP address," said Wendy Selzter, a Berkman Center for Internet & Society fellow. (A prelitigtion letter is one in which the RIAA sends to the school, and asks the school to forward to its students asking them to settle for thousands of dollars or face court action.)

Whether it’s the water, the RIAA says Harvard students are exercising file-sharing restraint.

"While we have detected incidences of theft on the Harvard network, the levels are not sufficient enough to warrant legal action. Of course, this could always change, depending on what we find," RIAA spokeswoman Cara Duckworth tells THREAT LEVEL.

Duckworth said no school was "immune," not even Harvard.

"We try to manage our program in the most efficient and effective way possible with the resources that we have," Duckworth said. "When we detect certain levels of piracy on school networks we reserve the right to bring legal action."

Seltzer had her own theory about the RIAA's tactics. "It might be that somebody doesn’t want to go against the Harvard legal team or endowment or law faculty or brand," she said.

Perhaps the RIAA doesn't wish to make waves with the next-generation of the rich and powerful. Also, Charles Nesson, of the Berkman Center at Harvard, has told the RIAA in an open letter "to take a hike." [my emphasis]

Nesson, as part of his evidence class, also requires students to draft motions quashing a subpoena from the RIAA demanding the identity behind a university IP address.

Friday Word Blogging: Disappointless

Disappointless (adj.):

Used to describe a feeling or situation that is simultaneously disappointing and pointless. Example: "After months of frustrating effort without result, the committee could only term the situation as 'disappointless.'"

Mission Accomplished

As Juan Cole reminds us, it's been 5 (f-i-v-e) years since Bush was flown onto an aircraft carrier and gave a speech in front of a "Mission Accomplished" sign.

Throughout the years, I've often wondered whether the administration actually thought it was that simple, or whether they knew and hoped for what has been happening. The truth probably is in the middle, but either way those of us who have lived to witness the unfolding war have seen one of the great criminal enterprises of our time--planned and executed by our leaders at the cost of thousands of solidier's lives, and hundreds of thousands of Iraqis.

Here's Juan Cole's excerpt from the speech. His comments can be found [].

. . . major combat operations in Iraq have ended. In the battle of Iraq, the United States and our allies have prevailed. . .

And now our coalition is engaged in securing and reconstructing that country. . .

In this battle, we have fought for the cause of liberty and for the peace of the world. . .

Because of you our nation is more secure. . . [Note that he is trying to attribute to the poor enlisted men his policies.] . . .

In the images of fallen statues we have witnessed the arrival of a new era. . . [The statue was pulled down by the US military and the whole thing was staged before a tiny Iraqi crowd, the small size of which media close-ups disguised.] . . .

In defeating Nazi Germany and Imperial Japan, Allied forces destroyed entire cities, while enemy leaders who started the conflict were safe until the final days. Military power was used to end a regime by breaking a nation. Today we have the greater power to free a nation by breaking a dangerous and aggressive regime. With new tactics and precision weapons, we can achieve military objectives without directing violence against civilians. . . [The US has probably directly killed about 200,000 Iraqis and destroyed the city of Fallujah as well as damaging and repeatedly bombing others. Bush's fascist attempt to reconfigure warfare as a humanitarian gesture is the biggest lie of all] . . .

Men and women in every culture need liberty like they need food and water and air. [Foreign military occupation is not generally considered 'liberty' by most people.] . . .

We've begun the search for hidden chemical and biological weapons, and already know of hundreds of sites that will be investigated. [The sites were being investigated before the war, and nothing was being found, so Bush pulled out the inspectors and went to war. Nothing ever was found.] . . .

Our coalition will stay until our work is done and then we will leave and we will leave behind a free Iraq. [When will that be exactly?] . . .

In the battle of Afghanistan, we destroyed the Taliban . . . [ Maybe not so much; this 'mission accomplished' passage has not been sufficiently criticized] . . .

The liberation of Iraq is a crucial advance in the campaign against terror. We have removed an ally of Al Qaida and cut off a source of terrorist funding. [There was no operational connection between Iraq and al-Qaeda. None. And the US occupation of Iraq gave al-Qaeda a new lease on life ] . . .

We are committed to freedom in Afghanistan, Iraq and in a peaceful Palestine. . . [90% of the world fell down laughing at that point in the speech; only gullible, self-righteous Americans could even think about taking this snow job seriously] . . .

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