Category: Rants

THE INNOCENCE OF A CHILD

Posted on | by Ed | 27 Comments on THE INNOCENCE OF A CHILD

On my last visit I noticed that my 8 year-old nephew had done an "If I was President, I would…" assignment that was proudly pinned to the wall as one commonly does with a child's school work.
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It was as excellent as I would expect from him, starting with a guarantee of solar powered jet packs for everyone (CAVEAT: Except for Bad Guys) before noting that "taxes should be cut 75% and everyone should get everything they want."

Adults love this kind of thing. There is something inherently amusing, perhaps even heartwarming depending on how much one likes children, about watching kids respond to things they don't completely understand with their imaginations. It's the reason people always ask small kids how old they think Daddy is. Knowing full well that they lack this information and probably do not grasp the concept of age very well, we nonetheless laugh heartily when the child says "Daddy is seven" or, alternatively, "Daddy is 200.
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"

There is quite a bit of this going on when a teacher gives second-graders an assignment such as this one. Kids don't understand politics and we know their responses will lie somewhere among cute, funny, and incomprehensible. It is very easy, therefore, to read my nephew's response and chuckle. "Ha ha! Kids say the darndest things." Unfortunately, this is usually the exact same response that voting adults give to similar, albeit more specific questions. Minus the jet packs. Adults rarely bring up that part.

The fundamental problem with our government's balance sheet, which as we all know is deeply in the red, is that decision-makers respond to electoral incentives, which in turn means that they are responsive to constituent preferences (although the degree to and conditions under which they are responsive is hotly debated in political science). And constituent preferences make absolutely no sense collectively.
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Everyone wants more stuff from the government, lower taxes, and a balanced budget.
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Come to think of it, throw in a damn jet pack while we're at it. If we're making shit up, we might as well go hog wild.

The following data are from a handful of recent polls. Note that they are not all from the same poll, but each is based on a nationwide random sample:

  • "Do you think Congress has done enough to help create jobs, or don't you think so?" (CNN/Opinion Research Feb 12-15)
    14% Has done enough
    84% Don't think so
  • "Do you approve or disapprove of the way Barack Obama is handling the budget deficit?" (USA Today/Gallup March 26-28)
    37% Approve
    61% Disapprove
  • "Which of the following comes closer to your view of the budget deficit? The government should run a deficit if necessary when the country is in a recession and is at war. OR, The government should balance the budget even when the country is in a recession and is at war." (Bloomberg Nov. 2009)
    30% Run a deficit
    67% Balance the budget
  • Making the expiring Bush tax cuts permanent (CNN/Opinion Research Apr. 9-11)
    60% Favor
    33% Oppose

    • So, there you have it. Welcome to your new job as President, kid. "Create jobs" somehow (without spending money), keep cutting everyone's taxes, and balance the budget while you're at it. Oh, by the way, don't touch any entitlement programs. This collection of preference is nowhere near as eloquent, colorful, or amusing as the policies expressed by my 8 year-old nephew yet they manage to communicate the same idea. The only difference is that adults have a lot of rationalizations that purport to make this possible; for example, we can cut taxes and balance the budget by "cutting spending", usually on something like "earmarks" or "welfare" or some other $100 million chunk that means absolutely nothing in the yawning chasm of a multi-trillion dollar deficit. And some people express wonder that we keep borrowing, year after year.

    Pardon me for being subjective, but this is a lot less cute when eligible voters do it. I prefer the apple-cheeked eight year-old version. It allows me to plausibly claim that he will mature, something that the average American will not do in adulthood and probably skipped in adolescence.

    ONLINE EDUCATION IS THE FUTURE, OR: ANOTHER REASON THE FUTURE WILL SUCK

    Posted on | by Ed | 57 Comments on ONLINE EDUCATION IS THE FUTURE, OR: ANOTHER REASON THE FUTURE WILL SUCK

    Over time I have come to believe that there are only two facts that are inviolate in the context of discussing social, political, or economic issues. First, the preface "Now, I'm not a racist, but…" invariably indicates that an individual is about to say something staggeringly racist. Second, when free market enthusiasts attempt to sell an idea with the promise that it will "democratize" something – bringing broader access to a previously exclusive good, service, or market – two things are about to happen. A small group of people are going to get obscenely wealthy, and they are likely to do so as a direct result of a much larger and less exclusive group of people getting bent over and unceremoniously screwed. I'm tempted to paraphrase Hermann Goring's quote about culture ("When I hear the word culture, I reach for my Browning") but in reality I do nothing so aggressive when the siren song of democratization is sounded. Instead I try to figure out who is about to be ground up in the wheels of techno-libertarian "progress." In the case of the shining promise of online (ahem, "non-traditional") classes democratizing higher education, the mill grist happens to be me, people like me, and the students we teach.

    When I first read DIY U, with its "Are you shitting me? Jesus, you're serious, aren't you?" subtitle Edupunks, Edupreneurs, and the Coming Transformation of Higher Education, I knew nothing of author Anya Kamenetz but I was willing to put my life savings on her being affiliated with either Cato or Fast Company. Sure enough she turned out to be a Fast Company Imagineer or whatever they call their practitioners of this brand of sycophantic free market leg humping:

    The promise of free or marginal-cost open-source content, techno-hybridization, unbundling of educational functions, and learner-centered educational experiences and paths is too powerful to ignore.

    That is an actual quote. Is it not self-evident that once we are all learning from "open-source content" (like Wikipedia!) the educational experience will be improved? This kind of bluster is par for the course for the magazine that spent the nineties promising us that the unregulated market would bring us to economic nirvana. Life was going to be one long technogasm laden with "innovation" and unfettered prosperity for all; we would all be wealthy once The Internets let every Tom, Dick, and Harry buy mutual funds. But I digress.

    Being at the bottom of the academic hierarchy offers me unfair perspective on the changes that are sweeping higher education, and the reader will of course note that I bring some bitterness to the conversation given that most of these democratizations involve me getting paid $1000 per course for 16 weeks of work without benefits or any commitment beyond semester-to-semester temp labor. Would that this transition in academia from stable, albeit not particularly highly paid, tenured employment to the just-in-time Labor Ready model that is replacing real faculty with adjuncts/part timers be forced upon us without the patronizing mantra about how this is all for the good of the students.

    Online courses are, for lack of a better term, shit. No one who has taken or taught one can claim in earnest to have learned more than they do in traditional courses. Few could honestly claim that they learned anything at all. When the author of DIY U describes a model of students "cobbling" together a self-guided degree consisting of "course materials readily available online," I cannot convince myself that the Yale-educated author believes that even as she is paid handsomely to type it. Perhaps 1/10 of a percent of undergraduates are mature and motivated enough to effectively direct their own course of study. What Kamenetz describes feels more like replacing the 12-course tasting menu at El Bulli with a trip to Old Country Buffet and calling it a wash. The idea that anything meeting her description would qualify as an education is prima facie ridiculous and requires no further discussion.

    The real benefit, though, is that it will let more people go to college because everything will be cheaper. The adjuncting wave of the early 1990s was supposed to make education cheaper. It didn't. Now online courses are supposed to be making education cheaper (price being conflated with accessibility in this line of argument). Despite spreading like wildfire in the last decade – from dedicated online schools like University of Phoenix to the best (and worst) brick-and-mortar schools – the price of higher education only increases. So who benefits from replacing tenured faculty with adjuncts if not the students? If students aren't getting cheaper or better education from online courses, why are colleges so eager to establish them?

    The answer, as anyone on this side of the looking glass knows, is that it's cheaper – for the university. Adjuncts are cheap, desperate temp labor who don't complain. Online courses have essentially no overhead and are taught in the vast majority of cases by – you guessed it – adjuncts or graduate students who, if they finish the long trek toward a Ph.D., can look forward to taking a paycut to hop on the adjunct treadmill. These changes are not in the interest of students. Nobody sincerely believes that. They do not make education cheaper or better because that is not their intent. The goal is simply to make education more profitable. Universities like that. State legislatures (when the schools in question are public) like it even more.

    Online education or the kind of choose-your-own-adventure college experience described in this book has a place. This role has been filled historically by community colleges, the primary clientele of which has always been adults who need work-related training. If, as a result of creeping credentialism, some low-level county government bureaucrat or State Trooper needs a 3-credit course in such-and-such to qualify for the next step up on the pay scale, then online classes are clearly a good option. They make sense because no one cares what is or is not learned in this instance. Passing the course is merely a means to a very specific end in the career path.

    Over time, though, universities noted the profit margins inherent to this kind of business model. What was good for community colleges could be good for Big Ten U. or Private East Coast College. Like adjuncting, online courses have become a pandemic, especially at poorly funded, lower tier public institutions (Eastern State U., etc). Online courses are moneymakers, and thus of great interest to institutions that are chronically short on money. The proliferation of "Online MBA programs" you see on billboards and TV commercials represents nothing more than financially strapped and savvy institutions reacting logically by combining a highly profitable program in which no real learning takes place anyway – unless one counts Jack Welch books and management platitudes as learning, which I do not – with the lowest-cost delivery method. If anything colleges do can be described as profit-maximizing, this is it.

    These changes are coming, and higher education in a decade or two will probably look quite similar to what Kamenetz and her supporters envision. I have neither doubts nor illusions about this. But I insist that we call it what it is. It is a lot of highfalutin language being thrown around by administrators to justify cutting costs – and not the costs to students. It is the replacement of tenured faculty with a permanent Ph.D.-holding underclass barely cracking the poverty line and undeserving of pesky expenses like benefits or offices. It is a way for state legislatures to continually slash higher education funding while rationalizing it as a good, or at least value-neutral, deed. It is a way to make changes that promise short term rewards to a group of decision-makers who will be long gone before the true costs – cohort after cohort of "college graduates" with even fewer useful skills and less useful knowledge than the already substandard ones churned out today – become painfully clear. It is a way, like everything else the think-tank conservatives and market acolytes sell to the public as a means of reducing costs or democratizing something, to make it more profitable. Not better, not cheaper, and not more accessible. Only a mind that conflates "better" and "more profitable" can continue to promise the former with a straight face.

    (Read about the spread of adjuncting, including a copious literature review and arguments for and against, in this paper, appropriately entitled "Does Cheaper Mean Better?").

    ATROPHY

    Posted on | by Ed | 16 Comments on ATROPHY

    I had a rare and perhaps unprecedented experience on Monday morning at the tail end of a three-day visit to see my sister's family (including two nephews and a niece). I taught a two year old to describe The Scorpions' legendary hit "Rock You Like a Hurricane" as "epic butt rock."

    Oh wait. I do crap like that all the time.

    What I do not often do is watch any of The Today Show. You know, the Matt Lauer thing. They presented an investigative exposé on an issue that I must admit had not previously been salient to me: retailers re-selling underwear that has been returned (potentially used) by customers. While this seems pretty vile, it is not exactly America's most pressing problem – although I should try telling that to someone who gets crabs and enough yeast to open a Pinkberry from a pre-worn thong.

    What struck me about this footage is not the shock value or relevance of the subject but the fact that a fluff factory like The Today Show actually did some pretty good investigative journalism here. They discussed, documented, confronted, and reported. If the lightweights on a morning show can do it, surely the hard news folks at the networks are capable of doing so as well.

    It is often tempting to blame the lack of useful journalism among the mainstream media on a lack of brainpower or the failure of journalism schools to teach useful skills. But the problem is simply a lack of interest in doing real investigative reporting on political or economic issues. They'll do exposés on dirty thongs and answer the tough questions like "What is the best value in shampoos for normal to dry hair?" but they take a pass on the heavy lifting. An investigation of Victoria's Secret retail practices could easily be an investigation of the Dickensian third world sweatboxes at which their products are made. But it isn't. In-depth reports on toy fads or ridiculous moral panics (Rainbow parties! Back-masked Judas Priest lyrics! The piggy flu!) could easily be reports about the Air Force's reprehensible practice of using automated drones to hunt and kill Pakistani terrorists civilians. But it isn't.

    I'm not sure which is more pathetic: a media that lacks the ability to do its job or one that lacks the interest. Yet ultimately viewers of The Today Show and anything else on TV bear responsibility. Hard news is inversely related to ratings, so we are locked in a downward spiral of more garbage fueling the desire to see more garbage.

    CREDIBILITY

    Posted on | by Ed | 42 Comments on CREDIBILITY

    I can't honestly say that I highly recommend devoting 50 minutes of your life to watching the new Frontline ("The Vaccine War") because it won't be telling you anything you do not already know – namely that people who turn to Jenny McCarthy for medical advice are collectively dumber than a bag of hammers or an Arizona State freshman. It is not informative so much as it is entertaining in the trainwreck sense. You watch for the same reason you might watch boxing superstar Manny Pacquiao fight an uncoordinated 12 year old. It's not so much "I wonder who will win?
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    " as "I can't miss what promises to be the ass-beating of a lifetime."

    You will not find a better example of shitty logic – pure, unadulterated, and frequent – than the arguments made by this random collection of quacks, discredited fringe medical professionals, middle aged dads who look like militiamen, and idiot housewives. If you're familiar with the "movement" you're aware of the fact that the arguments boil down to:

    1. "My child got vaccinated and then developed (autism/paralysis/narcolepsy/scabies/enlarged earlobes/whatever)." If one thing happens after another, the first was causal.

    2. "Many doctors have questioned the safety of vaccines and support the vaccine-autism link." This is the saddest form of Appeal to Authority. It's more like "Appeal to Some Bus Driver with a Blog about Autism."

    3. "There is no evidence that vaccines do not cause autism." Argument from Ignorance. Extreme ignorance in this case.

    4. "There hasn't been a case of polio in the U.S. since 1979, so why are we still vaccinating kids against polio?" I shit you not, this is an actual quote. Watch the episode.

    Their arguments are so stupid, in short, that I don't think it would be interesting to refute them. These are self-refuting arguments. I realize that there is a lot of room for honest disagreement and subjectivity in this world – although this is a recent development for me – but there is still a place for good ol' fashioned objectivity too. If you subscribe to any of these theories, you are retarded. Period. No "but" or "unless" forthcoming.

    That said, the aspect of this that bothers me the most is the skepticism of the medical profession combined with complete, unquestioning trust in a bunch of crap one finds on Google searches. I understand the first part of that.

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    I really do. It is a very good idea to be skeptical of medical advice, at least up to a point. The second part of the equation baffles me, though. "I really don't believe anything doctors say" transcends mere paranoia and becomes truly baffling when paired with "But I totally believe Jenny McCarthy and these three moms with a Geocities page!" Who does that? Who thinks that makes sense? In my mind, skepticism so well-developed that it encompasses people with medical degrees should also include clueless, uneducated celebrity morons and the select group of people who can throw a website on the internet.

    What drives this kind of skepticism about medical science paired with unshakable faith in quackery and internet strangers talking directly out of their own asses? This is not a rhetorical question. I honestly do not get it. My best guess is that it is some kind of affinity based on similar characteristics – moms being more likely to trust other moms, nitwits being attracted to the arguments of other nitwits, uneducated people feeling kinship with other uneducated people in an alliance against the fancy book learnin' folk.

    Perhaps this is just a subset of the population that has always existed – people who combine immature cynicism with total gullibility and absence of the ability to discern credibility from a source.

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    These are the people who fall for Nigerian email scams; buy "collector's items" on the Home Shopping Network; jump on every diet/health fad no matter how ridiculous; believe that ridiculous home remedies can cure fatal diseases; watch Touched by an Angel and think it is based on a true story. A century ago these people were being suckered into buying patent medicines off the backs of wagons. Today they cruise the internet buying equally ridiculous empty promises from whoever happens to be the best salesman. That's what this is all about, no? Salesmanship. Jim Carrey,Jenn y McCarthy, and all of these internet hucksters have it. And of course a bunch of doctors at Johns Hopkins don't. So jumping on this bandwagon makes perfect sense as long as salesmanship and credibility conflate in your worldview.
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    Good luck with that.

    WOODSTOCK '10

    Posted on | by Ed | 26 Comments on WOODSTOCK '10

    Calling your event "the Woodstock of" anything is not a good idea unless you're absolutely positive that about 200,000 people are going to show up. It is never smart to raise expectations with promises of a new Woodstock – hundreds of thousands of people engaging in bacchanalian festivities of epic proportions – and then have 47 yahoos show up. If only I had written this post a week ago and emailed it to Mr. Craig Halverson of Griswold, Iowa. I could have saved him the humiliation sure to result from his recent decision to promote "the Woodstock of tea parties" later this year.

    On 9/11, to be exact (Subtle…and classy!). In Onawa, Iowa. Population 3000, birthplace of the Eskimo Pie (we prefer Inuit, by the way), and rival claimant of "the world's widest Main Street" with Plains, Kansas. So there will definitely be enough space for Maggie Gallagher, which is good news. The event will have a "take back the country theme." Should we just start raising Ed's Travel Fund now?

    The event promises "prominent conservative speakers" – I guess he hasn't heard about Palin's six figure demands to give a 20 minute speech she wrote on the limo ride over to the venue – and "bands perform(ing) patriotic music." I sure as hell hope Lee Greenwood doesn't already have a gig on 9/11. But who are we kidding…Lee Greenwood has to have a gig on 9/11.

    Should we just start raising Ed's Travel Fund now?

    I'm betting that:

  • The most prominent speaker at this trainwreck will be Orly Taitz or Randy Weaver
  • The musical entertainment is either Prussian Blue or those guys who had 5 minutes of notoriety in 2003 for the "I'm in Love With Ann Coulter" and "Bush was Right" songs, the latter straight out of the Third Reich songbook. Or both.
  • The most Woodstock-like occurrence during this event will be a group recitation of the Pledge of Allegiance…or a humorous mishap involving six hits of Purple Microdot on blotter paper made from Chick Tracts and Debbie Schussel unsteadily lurching down the World's Widest Main Street (disputed) while having a hallucinated conversation with Father Coughlin.
  • The printed literature, both books and pamphlets, available at this event will make the literature selection at a Waco, TX gun show look like a peer-reviewed American Government textbook.
  • There are more people there to point at and mock the attendees than there are actual attendees.

    • As best I can tell, there is only one way for me to address these and many other open questions.

    GOOD OL' FASHIONED MODERATE REPUBLICANS

    Posted on | by Ed | 31 Comments on GOOD OL' FASHIONED MODERATE REPUBLICANS

    Ah, Maine: the land of Susan Collins, Olympia Snowe, and the dying breed of moderate-to-liberal New England GOPers. Surely it must be the last bastion of sanity in the Republican Party. I would have bet money on this, but I have to admit that I'm not terribly knowledgeable about the political environment on the ground in a state that might as well be New Brunswick (Note to vacationers: Skip Bar Harbor and go straight to the Bay of Fundy. Bar Harbor sucks.) Turns out that my image of quaint New England Republicans with pleasant JFK-like accents badly needs updating.

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    The state GOP has been conquered by TeaTards. The newly ratified party platform of the Maine GOP is a simply amazing read. It's a coarse mixture of Ron Paul buzzwords, chat topics from the Free Republic forums, neo-Bircherite nonsense, tinfoil-hatted conspiracy theories, and phrases most recently heard from the mouths of your local militiamen.

    As I am always careful to emphasize in the classroom, party platforms are essentially meaningless. They're not even remotely binding to any candidate and at best they have a bit of symbolic value. But that symbolic value is important here. This document indicates that the apparatus of the GOP, at least in this single state, has become one with the lunatic fringe. This is literally a laundry list of Glenn Beck's pet projects over the past year: ACORN, the Fairness Doctrine, "card check", cap-and-trade, the favored interpretation of the 10th Amendment among people who have no idea what the 10th Amendment means, and a thick coating of Patriot/Militiaman jargon. You have to see the whole thing for yourself, but some of the highlights include:

    1. The downright bizarre, such as repealing the Law of the Sea Treaty and the UN Treaty on the Rights of the Child. If you are ever confused about whether or not you belong to a fringe group and/or are a lunatic, do this simple test: ask yourself "Do I have a strong and negative opinion about something called the Law of the Sea Treaty?" If yes, seek counseling. (If you haven't guessed, this is a pet issue for brainwashing homeschooling advocates.)

    2. Whole sections that sound like Ron Paul masturbating, including "Return to the principles of Austrian Economics" – as if any of these assheads have ever read an economics textbook in their lives – and "Pass and implement Fed bill #1207 (Introduced by Ron Paul), to Audit the Federal Reserve, as the first step in Ending the Fed." Good luck with that.

    3. Efforts to win the hearts and minds of working voters, like "Clarify that healthcare is not a right. It is a service." and "Reassert the principle that 'Freedom of Religion' does not mean 'freedom from religion'." Don't forget to "eliminate the Department of Education." Then kick back and watch the votes roll in.

    4. Pure, unadulterated paranoia that sounds as if written by the Montana Freemen with a quick revision or two by Terry Nichols. "Repeal and prohibit any participation in efforts to create a one world government." "Restore 'Constitutional law' as the basis for the Judiciary." (It sounds so legit when 'Constitutional law' is in quotes.

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    ) "Oppose any and all treaties with the UN or any other organization or country which surrenders US sovereignty.
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    " And of course, "investigate collusion between government and industry in the global warming myth, and prosecute any illegal collusion." I had no idea that anti-regulation "industry" was participating in "collusion" to propagate the myth of climate change.

    Like many people who are far removed from it, I am fascinated by the extreme right. I mean, just read their manifestos and their "tax protester" legal logic. To do so is to stare in wonder at the people who can not only imagine this shit but also believe it. Sure, most of it is just buzzwords (say "Sovereign" and "natural rights" a lot and you're golden on the militia lecture circuit) from people who lack the intellectual firepower to understand the comics let alone the Constitution. But upon closer examination it really is quite amazing the web of delusions they have managed to create. They are like a thousand Tolkiens, each with an entire fantasy universe inside their heads.

    Fortunately one needn't dig quite as deep to find this kind of material anymore. As Maine and the Teabagging movement in general have proven, this kind of incoherent babble from America's future Federal courthouse bombers is becoming quite mainstream.

    GENERATION NEGOTIATION

    Posted on | by Ed | 54 Comments on GENERATION NEGOTIATION

    I am totally unqualified to pass judgment on specific acts of parenting. If I ever have kids, I'll probably be feeding them margaritas to get them to stop crying or something equally abhorrent that I would currently criticize with great indignation. So I try not to wag my finger at parents, excepting the most flagrant abuses of the "I tattooed my 2nd grader" variety. That said, I am not hesitant to criticize parenting fads, the kinds of things that saturate the non-fiction bestseller list and are more likely than not to come out of the mouths of a Dr. Phil or a Joy Behar.

    When social commentators paint the current generation of college students – do they still call them "millennials"? – they focus on the Special Snowflake phenomenon, that overpowering sense of entitlement that is the product of well intentioned but empty-headed emphasis on self-esteem building. Self-esteem is a good thing. So is having a grasp on one's own abilities and accomplishments that is at least partially grounded in reality. But this the generation of "everyone gets a medal" and "everyone's a winner." Gawker recently published an email from a would-be intern to a potential "employer" (to the extent that interning is employment) that sets the Special Snowflake problem in high relief. I am important, I am special, I am fantastic, I am desirable. That's what these kids have been told for 20 years before we graduate them into a grist mill of unemployment, unpaid internships, and $10/hr office work with no benefits.

    Enough has been said about that, though. The parenting fad of the 90s that causes educators more grief than any other is the idea that children should always be given choices. Don't give them rules or orders (That's so 1950s!). Give them options and let them learn about making choices and dealing with consequences. So Billy didn't have a bedtime, Billy negotiated his bedtime.
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    Susie's mom didn't turn off the TV, she said "You can either watch another 15 minutes of TV or (whatever), but not both." Let them choose, the talking heads of the day hypothesized, rather than making them feel like they are always being ordered around.

    That's great except for the fact that nothing in the real world actually works this way. I notice this problem acutely in two situations.

    First – and it's not surprising that I mention this immediately after the spring semester when final grades are handed out – today's college students believe that receiving a grade is a multistage process of which the grade they earned is merely a starting point for negotiations. In the short time (six years?) I've been doing this, this is the single most irritating part of the job. I tell them, I am not Monty Hall and this is not Let's Make a Deal. Unfortunately they were born in 1989 so that means nothing to them. Grade negotiation isn't new, I assume, but I have to think it's getting worse. In the past three days I have received numerous emails to the effect of, "I know I failed your class but I really need a C to graduate. What can I do?" You can't do anything, Shooter. If you need a C to graduate then I guess you're fucked.

    Every student launches into the Negotiating Bedtime mode in these situations. They offer to do extra work (which will be as slipshod as their previous efforts, of course). They offer to re-take exams. They simply try to negotiate upward based on dubious logic of some sort – "This is why I deserve a higher grade" or similar nonsense. I have been offered large sums of money to change grades. I have been offered sexual favors for the same. I've been threatened (Not the scary kind – the sad, self-important kind on display in the Gawker link). Some of these kids, for as much as they suck at formal education, would be dynamite as used car salesmen.

    Second, they want to negotiate their post-graduation lives when they have no leverage beyond their conviction that they are special. A student recently told me about getting into Elite Law School X but being unhappy with their offer in terms of financial aid. He described the scenario to me in a way that suggested he imagined himself like Lebron James on the free agent market – he'd state his demands and watch a bidding war for his services ensue. As gently as possible I explained that Elite U.

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    doesn't give a rat's ass about him and if he doesn't take their offer they have 10,000 other applicants with nearly identical qualifications who will. Students also talk regularly about "job offers", as in, "I'll wait to see what kind of offers I get before I blah blah blah." They don't grasp how little they are worth in times like these. Most of them, talented or bright as they may be, will be unemployed or marginally employed for a few years at minimum. Doctors, nurses, and pharmacists can make demands. Social science majors can't. This does not occur to them.

    We're quick to point out how counterproductive it has been to fill generations of kids with the idea that they are special, important, and entitled to success and happiness. We recognize that their self-image departs radically from the current reality.

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    Maybe with time we will come to a similar recognition of how useless it has been to teach them to negotiate and to couch everything in the language of choices. This is every bit as impractical given the noticeable absence of choices and leverage to negotiate in the job markets of the new millennium.

    GETTING IT GREEK

    Posted on | by Ed | 28 Comments on GETTING IT GREEK

    Three-term GOP Senator Robert Bennett of Utah was defeated in a pre-primary state party caucus on Saturday, a defeat being blamed on anti-incumbent sentiment and Bennett's "liberalism" – Utah Republican Mormons being the liberal firebrands they are. In particular, the state's small but vocal contingent of TeaTards was irate over Bennett's vote for TARP:

    "I don't think it's a matter of conservative. I think it's a matter of fiscal or financial responsibility, what the Tea Party people are about and the vote for TARP and the vote for the bailout was, in our opinion, pretty fiscally irresponsible and that's what's raised the ire of most people," David Kirkham, a Tea Party activist, told CNN in an interview.

    These are bedrock TeaTard talking points. "Fiscal responsibility" mandates an all-encompassing hatred of the stimulus package, TARP, and all other financial crisis-related spending over the past two years. But surely they are happy about the chance to (finally) live in a stimulus-free world, as FY2010 is rapidly coming to a close and there are no existing or foreseeable plans to renew the massive distribution of Federal funds at the state and local levels. In a world in which cuts to the military budget are being discussed openly, you can bet the house (in the unlikely event that you still own it) on Congress rejecting any follow-up stimulus proposal.

    We are all getting used to the fact that our respective states – especially, but not limited to, places like California, Illinois, Georgia, Virginia, and Michigan – had a pretty miserable time with their budgets in FY2010. Now, as we approach the 7/1/2010 start of the stimulus-free fiscal year, we will soon be looking back on 2009 as the good ol' days. Take a look at this summary list of proposed austerity measures being considered in state capitols around the country. We've all watched the financial disaster in Greece unfold with an unusually high level of interest here in the States. Rarely do we concern ourselves with the domestic politics of foreign countries. But we have been entranced by Greece's meltdown, probably because we know without saying it that the same thing will happen here before long. And it will be sooner than many of us imagine at the state level.

    Next year's state and local budgets are going to see the kind of triage solution applied in Greece – 10, 15, or 20 percent across-the-board cuts. Other states will reject that tactic and make Tough Choicestm, meaning they will focus all of the damage on things used by the unwashed masses – public education, transit, Medicare, CHIP, and a grab-bag of other programs that aren't useful to suburbanites and thus politically expendable.

    To steal a phrase from George W., our reaction to this impending budgetary armaggeddon is "uniquely American." The Greeks rioted; we applaud. They demanded fewer cuts; we demand more. They understand the relationship between social spending and their standard of living; we don't. They realize how much worse things are about to get; we seem to think that recovery might be around the corner.

    WINDOW DRESSING

    Posted on | by Ed | 40 Comments on WINDOW DRESSING

    OK, I'll join the rest of the internet in offering two cents about People magazine's decision to put Gabourey Sidibe on its annual "Most Beautiful People" list. Let me attempt to explain what I think is so stupid about this without sounding as vicious and ugly as Debbie Schussel. Just to get everyone on the same page, this is the actress in question, star of (by all accounts) the unbelievably sappy Oscar bait Precious:

    Rather than approaching this from the predictable (and already well-worn) "She is fat and ugly, and hence not beautiful" angle, I find this bothersome simply because People does not actually think she is beautiful either. They are using her to show the rest of us what progressive views they have on beauty standards.
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    We are supposed to break into applause and say, "Way to go, People! Fatties can be beautiful too!" And we are also supposed to pay attention to a stupid annual list that we would otherwise ignore. So far, People is 2-for-2.

    The problem is that if People really considered her "beautiful" their list of the 100 most beautiful people would not consist of Sidibe and 99 people who look like the 100 most beautiful people list always looks. The rest of the women on the list are the usual size-three-and-under suspects: Halle Berry, Zoe Saldana, Julia Roberts, Scarlett Johansson, Jennifer Aniston, Sofia Vergara, and numerous other stick figures.
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    If People has such an open mind about beauty, why isn't the list a nice mix of people of different sizes and appearance? Why is it 50 supermodels and Sidibe? And how much would anyone care to bet that next year the list is back to being fatty-free?
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    People is trying to establish some progressive street cred with a "most beautiful people" list, something that is inherently shallow and stupid. The depressing thing is that in a world in which KFC can be lauded for social consciousness by offering pink buckets of fried chicken, this will probably work.

    ASIDE FROM THAT, HOW WAS THE PLAY, MRS. LINCOLN?

    Posted on | by Ed | 17 Comments on ASIDE FROM THAT, HOW WAS THE PLAY, MRS. LINCOLN?

    Bill Kristol, defrocked New York Times columnist and mainstream media outcast who is still good enough for Murdoch, sayeth the following on something called Special Report with Bret Baier last week:

    Look the data’s pretty clear in general that the offshore drilling of oil has become incredibly quite safe, not perfectly safe, but compared to other ways of getting energy, quite safe compared to the mining of coal for example, and very environmentally clean, except when there is a disaster like this spill, but Exxon Valdez was much bigger.

    Read that five or six times. Those of you who do not jam knives into both eyes after the third reading should rejoin us for the next paragraph.

    When the spill first happened I noted to anyone within earshot that the "drill, baby, drill" mouthbreathers were amusingly silent.

    I should have known better. That silence was actually golden and I would soon be yearning for it.
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    And now I am. Kristol's breathtakingly stupid comment actually manages to make a slogan as asinine as "drill, baby, drill" sound like Olivier delivering the St. Crispin's Day speech from Henry V. Kristol, as usual, led the way for the right wing punditry. His comment was like the opening ceremony of the Special Olympics. Soon we would have:

  • Rush Limbaugh "noting the coincidence" of the event happening on Earth Day, thus establishing damning circumstantial evidence that "environmental wackos" blew up the rig in an act of terrorism. No follow-up word on whether the second rig that capsized on Saturday was also Ed Begley Jr.'s fault.
  • Eric "The Admiral" Bolling, who may in fact be the least intelligent Fox News contributor (akin to being the most closeted Focus on the Family staffer) helpfully suggested that our strategy moving forward should be "Drill here, drill now … drill, baby, drill." Look how well the monkey learned the catchphrase! That kind of classical conditioning could give Pavlov wood from beyond the grave.
  • The highly-paid speechwriter who writes Sarah Palin's Facebook updates enlightened us with a magnum opus entitled "Domestic Drilling: Why We Can Still Believe." Don't worry, she did learn something from her personal experience with the Exxon Valdez disaster…namely that, ya know, shit happens! We must be strong enough to accept the occasional environmental Hindenburg.
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    Bonus point: comparing offshore drilling to the moon landing, which is to say dangerous, expensive, ultimately pointless, and a government-funded gangbang for contractors who live off the Federal teat.

  • The very appropriately named David Asman of Fox Business Channel (which, to remind you, has as many daily viewers as the website at which you are staring) helpfully notes that environmentalists need to "shut up" and that the "solution" (to…the spill?) is to "drill more." With incisive commentary like that, he won't be down in the minor leagues for long!

    • First, God made idiots. That was for practice. When He was convinced that He achieved perfection, He made Fox News contributors.