A Minor Musing About Mobility And Education

The Madville Times posts a Bryan Aukerman guest column.  Aukerman writes,

I’m a young teacher in the state who looks at this horribly misinformed Governor and his plan (which has already proven to be a failure to promote student success in other states) and say in all seriousness that I am likely to move out of South Dakota if it passes. I do not want to work in a toxic work environment where the Governor creates an incentive for me to look at my coworkers as competition.

I don't know Mr, Aukerman; Cory vouches for him and that's good enough for me.  I hope Mr. Aukerman is able to make the move and find a satisfying place to work, but the odds seem to be against most people.

A New York Times Magazine article contends,

The U.S. has always been a remarkably itinerant country, but new data from the Census Bureau indicate that mobility has reached its lowest level in recorded history. Sure, some people are stuck in homes valued at less than their mortgages, but many young people — who don’t own homes and don’t yet have families — are staying put, too. This suggests, among other things, that people aren’t packing up for new economic opportunities the way they used to. Rather than dividing the country into the 1 percenters versus everyone else, the split in our economy is really between two other classes: the mobile and immobile.

The article goes on to point out that the split is also between the knowledgeable and the ignorant; the split between what one knows and who one knows also continues.

Until now, a B.A. in any subject was a near-guarantee of at least middle-class wages. But today, a quarter of college graduates make less than the typical worker without a bachelor’s degree. David Autor, a prominent labor economist at M.I.T., recently told me that a college degree alone is no longer a guarantor of a good job. While graduates from top universities are still likely to get a good job no matter what their major is, he said, graduates from less-exalted schools are going to be judged on what they know. To compete for jobs on a national level, they should be armed with the skills that emerging industries need, whether technical (computer science) or not.

Those without such specialized skills — like poetry, or even history, majors — are already competing with their neighbors for the same sorts of mediocre, poorer-paying local jobs like low-level management or big-box retail sales. And with the low-skilled labor market atomized into thousands of microeconomies, immobile workers are less able to demand better wages or conditions or to acquire valuable skills.

Young teachers like Mr. Aukerman face a different problem.  In another New York Times article, Michael Winetrip writes,

Even if you think the Obama administration’s signature education program, Race to the Top, will not help a single child in America learn more, you have to admire its bureaucratic magnificence.

First, it has had a major effect — reaching into most public schools in America — while costing the Obama administration next to nothing.

The Education Department will spend about $5 billion on the program, and even if you’re thinking, hey, I could use $5 billion, consider this: New York won the largest federal grant, $700 million over the next four years. In that time, roughly $230 billion will be spent on public education in the state. By adding just one-third of one percent to state coffers, the feds get to implement their version of education reform.

That includes rating teachers and principals by their students’ scores on state tests; using those ratings to dismiss teachers with low scores and to pay bonuses to high scorers; and reducing local control of education.

Second, the secretary of education, Arne Duncan, and his education scientists do not have to do the dirty work. For teachers in subject areas and grades that do not have state tests (music, art, technology, kindergarten through third grade) or do not have enough state tests to measure growth (every high school subject), it is the state’s responsibility to create a system of alternative ratings.

The whole article is worth reading, but the introduction makes it very clear that teachers who seek a better environment elsewhere may be moving from the proverbial frying pan into the proverbial fire.

I am reminded once again that many people seem to be using Orwell as a blueprint rather than a warning.  It seems clear that Daugaard and others want all workers everywhere to emulate Boxer from Animal Farm:  Repeat the mantra "I will work harder" or "[The Boss] is always right." and when you're used up we'll kindly send you to the knacker's.

Thune Votes To Rip The Constitution, But Only A Little

Conor Friedersdorf reminds readers that Americans are allowing their elected officials to usurp citizens' constitutional rights.

Is it lawful for the president to order any American held indefinitely as a terrorist, without formal charges, evidence presented in open court, a trial by jury, or a standard of "guilty beyond a reasonable doubt"? The U.S. Senate had a chance Wednesday to assert that no, a president does not possess that power -- that the United States Constitution guarantees due process. . . . 

The U.S. Senate refused to affirm that American citizens arrested in the United States shouldn't be subject to indefinite military detention on the president's order. Senator Feinstein's amendment to that effect went down in defeat with 55 historic votes against it. 

Unsurprisingly, Senator John Thune refused to stand up for Americans' freedom.  Apparently, he believes that he has to destroy the Constitution in order to save it.  It's unknown if he would have voted differently if the decision had affected a corporation instead of a flesh and blood citizen.

Thune apparently agrees with Senator Lindsey Graham who claims,

"It has been the law of the United States for decades that an American citizen on our soil who collaborates with the enemy has committed an act of war and will be held under the law of war, not domestic criminal law," he said. "In World War II it was perfectly proper to hold an American citizen as an enemy combatant who helped the Nazis. But we believe, somehow, in 2011, that is no longer fair. That would be wrong. My God, what are we doing in 2011? Do you not think al-Qaeda is trying to recruit people here at home? Is the homeland the battlefield? You better believe it is the battlefield."

As Friedersdorf notes,

That quote is important, for Graham is saying that as long as terrorists are trying to recruit  on American soil, our homeland is a battlefield. That means a perpetual state of war. Here are the senators who refuse to affirm that American citizens retain the right to due process during this war that is supposedly being waged everywhere on earth and that has no foreseeable end in sight.

Like Orwell's Big Brother, Thune and Graham seems to believe that "War is Peace"

I would hope that there would be some public outcry.  Freidersdorf notes,

The Republicans listed ought to be condemned by "constitutional conservatives." Those are the Tea-Party-affiliated voters who, according to Yuval Levin of National Review, are "focused on restraining government" through "a system of checks to prevent sudden large mistakes while enabling gradual changes supported by a broad and longstanding consensus." These conservatives, Levin says, insist on "constitutional forms that compel self-restraint and enable self-correction" out of "the humble desire for forms that might prevent large mistakes." They are "focused on recovering the U.S. Constitution, and especially its limits on government power," because in the view of the Framers, "there is no omniscience; there is only imperfect humanity." We therefore need "checks on all of our various excesses, and a system that forces us to think through important decisions as best we can." If a bloc of voters with those attitudes in fact exists, they've now got a list of senators to challenge in the next primaries they face.

I share his dismay that "As yet, there is no hint that there will be such a rebellion."


Oh well, I am sure that  Thune and other Republicans will vote to fully fund the Department of Fear.  If the Department of Fear is insufficient, I'm sure someone will be able to create a Ministry of Truth.

Orwell In The News And Blogosphere

I must have missed the memo that one of my favorite 20th Century authors has reached 21st Century prophet status.  Maybe the memo just declared November is national Orwell month.

First I read this Dr. Newquist post that reminds readers

A fundamental premise of Orwell's work is that the meaning of words is determined by their accrued history,  Accumulated human experience is stored in the language.  An emphasis in Orwell's work is that language used honestly, accurately, and skillfully is requisite to a healthy political climate.

Given the Republican debates, this reminder is certainly useful.

Then I stumbled upon this Conor Friedersdorf piece that uses" Shooting an Elephant" to analyze the pepper spraying of a  University of California Occupy Wall Street protester.


Then there's this ABA Journal article that reports that Orwell earned mention in legal arguments in the case of United States v. Jones.

George Orwell’s novel 1984 and its Big Brother society got several mentions as Supreme Court justices considered Tuesday whether police can use a GPS device to track suspects without getting a warrant. . . .

Justice Stephen G. Breyer told Dreeben that if the government wins the case, “then there is nothing to prevent the police or the government from monitoring 24 hours a day the public movement of every citizen of the United States.” Breyer added that it “sounds like 1984.”

Finally, the BBC reports,

Though perhaps more famous for novels like 1984 and Animal Farm, Orwell was also a superb essayist and journalist.

In an article written for the London Evening Standard in 1946, he produced a detailed description of his ideal watering-hole, The Moon Under Water, which "is only two minutes from a bus stop, but it is on a side-street, and drunks and rowdies never seem to find their way there, even on Saturday nights".

 JD Weatherspoons, a British pub chain is trying to use Orwell's criteria to create a perfect pub.  I'm not an expert in British pubs but I do like one criterion.

Jethro Scotcher-Littlechild, believes he has found the ideal formula. "The quality of the ale's got to be right, I think good food and we like people to be talking in the bar. We don't have any music," he says

"The art of conversation's what you need in a good British pub."

Orwell would have concurred with the ban on music. "In the Moon Under Water it is always quiet enough to talk," he wrote. "The house possesses neither a radio nor a piano, and even on Christmas Eve and such occasions the singing that happens is of a decorous kind."

Wisdom, Fools, And Cliches: Quotations, Photo, And Minor Musing

Alan Jacobs quotes George Orwell,

In our time it is broadly true that political writing is bad writing. Where it is not true, it will generally be found that the writer is some kind of rebel, expressing his private opinions and not a “party line.” Orthodoxy, of whatever color, seems to demand a lifeless, imitative style. The political dialects to be found in pamphlets, leading articles, manifestoes, White papers and the speeches of undersecretaries do, of course, vary from party to party, but they are all alike in that one almost never finds in them a fresh, vivid, homemade turn of speech. When one watches some tired hack on the platform mechanically repeating the familiar phrases — bestial atrocities, iron heel, bloodstained tyranny, free peoples of the world, stand shoulder to shoulder — one often has a curious feeling that one is not watching a live human being but some kind of dummy: a feeling which suddenly becomes stronger at moments when the light catches the speaker’s spectacles and turns them into blank discs which seem to have no eyes behind them. And this is not altogether fanciful. A speaker who uses that kind of phraseology has gone some distance toward turning himself into a machine. The appropriate noises are coming out of his larynx, but his brain is not involved as it would be if he were choosing his words for himself. If the speech he is making is one that he is accustomed to make over and over again, he may be almost unconscious of what he is saying, as one is when one utters the responses in church. And this reduced state of consciousness, if not indispensable, is at any rate favorable to political conformity.

In short, political cliches and hacks have existed for a long time.  It's odd that they haven't updated their catch phrases much since 1946, but changing eliminating buzz words would demand original thought.

Of course, some may wish to become walking cliches.  David Frum posts this slide of Rick Perry.

Given the nature of political cliches, I'm certain the base is now solidified.

Metaphors

Nearly everyone acknowledges that language is powerful.  We may underestimate its power however.  A post at Psychology Today illustrates the effects of metaphors on people's perceptions

. . . . First, the researchers asked 482 students to read one of two reports about crime in the City of Addison. Later, they had to suggest solutions for the problem. In the first report, crime was described as a "wild beast preying on the city" and "lurking in neighborhoods".

After reading these words, 75% of the students put forward solutions that involved enforcement or punishment, such as building more jails or even calling in the military for help. Only 25% suggested social reforms such as fixing the economy, improving education or providing better health care. The second report was exactly the same, except it described crime as a "virus infecting the city" and "plaguing" communities. After reading this version, only 56% opted for great law enforcement, while 44% suggested social reforms.

The most frightening part of the study is that no one seems respondent's didn't know they were being manipulated.

Interestingly, very few of the participants realized how affected they were by the differing crime metaphors. When Thibodeau and Boroditsky asked the participants to identify which parts of the text had most influenced their decisions, the vast majority pointed to the crime statistics, not the language. Only 3%  identified the metaphors as culprits. The researchers confirmed their results with more experiments that used the same reports without the vivid words. Even though they described crime as a beast or virus only once, they found the same trend as before.

Political consultants have intuitively and skillfully used metaphors since Mark Hanna, and English teachers have bored students to tears about metaphors.  Now the government seems to be getting into the act.

A small research arm of the U.S. government's intelligence establishment wants to understand how speakers of Farsi, Russian, English, and Spanish see the world by building software that automatically evaluates their use of metaphors.

 The program is billed as a counter-terrorism effort.

All this to say: The Metaphor Program may represent a nine-figure investment by the government in understanding how people use language. But that's because metaphor studies aren't light or frilly and IARPA isn't afraid of taking on unusual sounding projects if they think they might help intelligence analysts sort through and decode the tremendous amounts of data pouring into their minds.

On the bright side, I get to use this article so show that studying metaphors is "practical."  On the other hand, I have this nagging worry about the government using part of that "nine-figure investment" to create super propaganda.  Orwell's warnings should never be far from one's mind with news like this.

(HT Big Boy Blogger Andrew Sullivan for links to original posts)

The Emporer Wears Stylish Clothes amd Uses A Blackberry but . . . .

I'm going to begin a post by agreeing with Pat Buchanan.  Actually, I'm going to agree only with the title of his book A Republic Not An Empire.  I haven't read it, so I won't say anything about the substance.  If Buchanan is contending that the United States does not have a king and its officials should not act as if they're emperors, I agree.  Unfortunately, President Obama and Secretary of State Clinton are acting as if they lead an empire instead of a republic.

Talking Points Memo (TPM) breaks the story  here.  Glenn Greenwald gives his take here. Andrew Sullivan adds his voice here.  The story is Hillary Clinton's assertion that the Obama administration is not committed to follow the provisions of The War Powers Act. According to TPM

"They are not committed to following the important part of the War Powers Act," he told TPM in a phone interview. "She said they are certainly willing to send reports [to us] and if they issue a press release, they'll send that to us too."

The White House would forge ahead with military action in Libya even if Congress passed a resolution constraining the mission, Secretary of State Hillary Clinton said during a classified briefing to House members Wednesday afternoon.  [emphasis mine]

Let's place the blame where it belongs:  Obama, the Congress, and us.

Andrew Sullivan makes the point that Obama is at fault better than I can here.  Greenwald's analysis is tremendous as well. 

Matt Yglesias points out out congressional failures,

Members of congress will complain about this, but they won’t really do anything about it, nor will next year’s defense appropriation bill (or the one after that or the one after that or …) contain any effort to constrain presidential warmaking power. That’s because members of congress want to be kept in the dark, they want to be able to complain if things go poorly without taking ownership of the situation. And I think in adopting that attitude, members of congress demonstrate a rare bit of good sense. The level of uncertainty surrounding these activities is huge. There are unbounded downside risks all over the place. But instead of knowledge of those facts leading to greater hesitation about the profligate use of force, it just leads to a congressional flight from responsibility.  [emphasis mine]

The blame for us citizens can be summed up by Shakespeare who in Julius Ceaser has Cassius tell Brutus "The fault, dear Brutus, is not in our stars, But in ourselves, that we are underlings."  More recently and locally, a rather honest admission at South Dakota War College illustrates how many people behaved during the Bush years and how many responded to Obama's escalation in Afghanistan.

Daniel Larison at The American Conservative sums up the situation quite well.

Do we actually value self-government, the rule of law, separation of powers, checks and balances, and constitutional republicanism, or are we content to let all of those things be trashed on the whim of a relative handful of people for the sake of ideology and good intentions? Do we believe that the President must act within the law, or do we believe he is above it? Will we resist “angelic Caesarism” (as Rieff put it) or fall in line like the passive subjects the administration expects us to be?

The United States is in danger of permantly ceding too much power to the President.  In fact, recent Presidents may have accomplished a peaceful usurpion of congressional power already.  If that's the case we will indeed be waging perpetual war for perpetual peace.  Once that irony is accepted, Orwell's Ministry of Truth will not be far behind.

The Face(s) of Disillusionment

I'm not sure who produced this series that showed Bush morphing into Obama in 2009.  They probably had a good reason:  they could do it.

Now that Guantomo is to remain open in indefinitely, and President is winking at torture, the United States is going to attack a Muslim country without a declaration of war or "broad consultation with Congress," it seems to me that the orginal order was backwards.  The series should look like this.

Once again Orwell is being used as a road map instead of a warning.  He didn't want a Democrat who spoke eloquently about restoring hope and honor to turn into an imperialist concerned with projecting power when he closed Animal Farm with

Twelve voices were shouting in anger, and they were all alike.  No question, now, what had happened to the faces of the pigs.  The creatures ouside looked from pig to man, and from man to pig, and from pig to man again; but already it was impossible to say which was which.

I don't think Orwell knew how to prevent power from destroying a grand ideal.  Apparently no one in America does either.

Ignoring Orwell and Madison

Via big boy blogger Andrew Sullivan, this post provides more proof that English teachers have failed when they teach Orwell.  The Obama administration and the FBI want to avoid the messy court system and just force ISPs to turn over customer records without a court order.

The original Washington Post article states that the FBI wants to use "national security letters . . . which can be issued by an FBI field office on its own authority, [and] require the recipient to provide the requested information and to keep the request secret."  The article quotes Stewart A. Baker, a former senior Bush administration Homeland Security official,  who says "the proposed change would broaden the bureau's authority. "It'll be faster and easier to get the data," said Baker, who practices national security and surveillance law"

Well let's do it then! Who can question the idea that the government should have things easier?  After all isn't the problem that government is too bloated and inefficient?  The most logical solution is to make it easier for government to invade privacy.

On the other hand, a wise man once told me that following the course of least resistance is what makes rivers and men crooked.  James Madison, an even wiser man, asked a great question in Federalist 51:  "But what is government itself, but the greatest of all reflections on human nature?"  Madison concludes, "In framing a government which is to be administered by men over men, the great difficulty lies in this: you must first enable the government to control the governed; and in the next place oblige it to control itself"

Given that the legislation purpose is to make life "easier" for the government and given that looking for ease is a problem that may lead to corruption, wouldn't it be better to make it more difficult for "the greatest" and most powerful reflection of human nature to spy on its citizens?

However, if we Americans are going to forget  basic folk wisdom about men and rivers and Madison's more intellectual musings, we'll probably not raise a fuss about this assault on liberty.

Ignorance Is Strength and Torture Is Not Torture

I missed this story while fulfilling other commitments, but it has caused me a bit of consternation.  Apparently I have been making a grievous error as an English teacher; I have spent my entire career telling students to read Orwell's 1984 as a warning; I should have been telling them to read it as a road map.  

The New York Times will no longer use the term "torture" to describe torture such as waterboarding.  The NYT "acknowledged that political circumstances did play a role in the paper's usage calls."  Because "defenders of the practice (including senior officials of the Bush administration) insisted that it did not constitute torture” the venerable, allegedly liberal newspaper declined to tak[e] sides in a political dispute."

Big boy blogger Andrew Sullivan  covered the story here and here far better than I can.  Like Sullivan, I am amazed.

What we have here is an admission that the NYT did change its own established position to accommodate the Cheneyite right. So their journalism is dictated by whatever any government says. In any dispute, their view is not: what is true? But: how can we preserve our access to the political right and not lose pro-torture readers? If you want a locus classicus for why the legacy media has collapsed, look no further. (emphasis in original)

Sullivan covers the major implications of the NYT's acquiescence to the government, but I do want to add an aside about what this event says about education.  In short, we've failed.  Anyone who has sat through a high school English class should be able to see that the phrase "harsh interrogation techniques" is an effort to obfuscate.  Anyone who has sat through a high school government class should know that American citizens need to stand up to government power and that Americans have been able to accomplish much good when they have opposed government overstretch.  In short, anyone with a high school diploma should be able to see that the so-called Patriot Act is a far greater threat to liberty than the health care law.

One of the results of NCLB is that most of the recent graduates won't know what "obfuscate" means.  They have had their reading list trimmed to include only works that will help them be proclaimed as proficient on their NCLB mandated tests, so they probably won't know that Orwell believed that using language to limit expression was a terrible idea.  Many probably won't understand the attempted humor if I allege that Orwell thought limiting vocabulary is worse than terrible; he would think it is "double un-good."

The longer I live with NCLB and Obama's continuance of the most pernicious elements of the law, the more I'm seeing that its major effect, whether intended or not,  is limiting students' thought and their ability to express ideas.  I don't want to channel Glen Beck and his paranoid reading of American history, but as time passes I'm beginning to have a nagging suspicion that limiting citizens' thought and expression is NCLB's intended goal.  If that's the case, then everyone needs to read and understand Orwell to read between the lines of not only government newspeak but also NewYorkTimesSpeak. 

Some Observations about Technology and the Web

I've been fascinated by David Gerlenter's observations about the Internet and it's impact.

I love this assertion:

"The Internet is no topic like cellphones or videogame platforms or artificial intelligence; it's a topic like education. It's that big. Therefore beware: to become a teacher, master some topic you can teach; don't go to Education School and master nothing. To work on the Internet, master some part of the Internet: engineering, software, computer science, communication theory; economics or business; literature or design. Don't go to Internet School and master nothing. There are brilliant, admirable people at Internet institutes. But if these institutes have the same effect on the Internet that education schools have had on education, they will be a disaster."

I can't agree more that effective teachers need to know their subject matter before they teach. I also can't agree more that education schools have been a disaster for education.

The most fascinating part, however, was the assertion that the question "if this is the information age, what do our children know that our parents didn't?" has a specific answer. According to Gelernter, The answer is 'now.' They know about now." He continues, "Nowness is one of the most important cultural phenomena of the modern age"

I see nothing to argue with in these points; I am, however, frightened by them. If he is correct, then knowledge of the past and preparation for the future cease to be important. Equally important, reflection is nearly impossible if one is currently in the moment.

Gelernter, however, is optimistic: ". . . the Internet could be the most powerful device ever invented for understanding the past, and the texture of time. Once we understand the inherent bias in an instrument, we can correct it. The Internet has a large bias in favor of now. Using lifestreams (which arrange information in time instead of space), historians can assemble, argue about and gradually refine timelines of historical fact. Such timelines are not history, but they are the raw material of history. They will be bitterly debated and disputed — but it will be easy to compare two different versions (and the evidence that supports them) side-by-side. Images, videos and text will accumulate around such streams. Eventually they will become shared cultural monuments in the Cybersphere."

I'm not so sure. It seems to me that lack of knowledge of the past makes it possible to use Orwell as a blueprint not a warning. If there is no real knowledge of anything but "now," then the evidence can be massaged in a way that makes the debate and the evidence used to support each side position suspect. It will be theater not fact.