Magic bullets are for werewolves, not education reform

My mom passed along a recent piece by Malcolm Gladwell on education reform in The New Yorker. At the very least, the article does a good job of provoking thought and discussion, even if (especially if) one disagrees with him.

Gladwell is right about the problem of selecting teachers when there are no reliable predictors of quality, but the comparison to financial services is a bit misleading. "What does it say about a society that it devotes more care and patience to the selection of those who handle its money than of those who handle its children?" is the wrong question to be asking. If it were just a question of spending as much money on teaching candidates as we do on financial advisers, then it would have been solved already. Because teaching has so much more social significance than how we manage our money, there are different political pressures that would come into play.

Imagine what would happen to a financial services firm if their shareholders had a bunch of other priorities above making money. There are lots of self-described "single-issue" voters, and I have yet to hear anyone present a way insulate a teacher selection process like the one Gladwell suggests from the pressures of taxpayers who would reject, say, all teachers who believe in evolution or anyone who opposes gay marriage. Even post-Obama, there are lot of people who would be rejected by most voters based solely on who they are, and it would be a disaster if teachers were subject to the same sort of social/political litmus tests.

That said, the status quo is not working, and the system does need reform. The trouble is that the issue is far too complex to be solved by any idea that is simple enough to be summed up in an Op-Ed piece. I understand the temptation to throw out the existing dysfunctional system and start over based on a new model, but as satisfying as that might be, those sort of revolutionary changes always create more problems than they solve. Precisely because education is so important, it will take careful, incremental changes, and the first step is for everyone to understand that there is no magic bullet.

Inauguration Day

I had the extreme good fortune to get a ticket to the presidential inauguration ceremony from my congressional representative, and I traveled to Washington DC for a week to attend the historic event. The following is my attempt to record as thoroughly as possible my Inauguration Day experience.

My Aunt Laura works for the National Park Service, and I stayed with her while I was there. All of the National Capitol Region employees (and park rangers from other regions who were brought in to help out) were doing much of the work for the inauguration, and because of the bridge and road closures, everyone had to come in and spend the night at the NCR headquarters (near the Jefferson Memorial). Most of them had to spend the night on cots in a giant tennis bubble, but those who had offices spent the night there.

Because we knew that the Metro would be strained beyond capacity from the moment it opened at 4:00 am on the 20th, I came in with Aunt Laura and we both spent the night on Red Cross cots in her office. We got MREs, which I wanted to eat primarily for the novelty factor, and the new kind of MREs have really cool self-heating chemical packs. They also distributed sweet Red Cross blankets that we got to keep because it was easier for them to give them away than deal with disinfecting them, so I've got a pretty awesome souvenir.

I got up at 5:30 in the morning to get ready for the inauguration, and on my way to take a shower I walked in my pyjamas through a group of rangers in the middle of a briefing in the lobby. I had a shock (though it shouldn't have been surprising) because the shower in the building had no hot water. Even though my shower was just a few moments of splashing ice-cold water on my face and armpits, I still ended up running a little bit behind.

It was very cold, so I bundled up in boots, two pairs of warm socks, two pairs of jeans, a t-shirt, a long-sleeve thermal layer, a sweater, and my jacket. I wanted my Obama shirt to be visible, and luckily it was large enough that I could pull it on over my layers and then put my buttons on it. I capped off by wrapping my neck and lower face in the thick wool scarf that Laura had lent me and doing a fold and loop with my other scarf to hold it in place, then I wore my LSU hat with Laura's big wool hat on top of it. The advantage of spending the night there was that I only had to cross a bridge and I was basically right on the Mall, so I had planned on leaving at 6:30, but I ended up missing that by a few minutes.

When I walked across the bridge there was a solid stream of buses inching along beside me. I was by myself until I reached L'Enfant Promenade, but I quickly was absorbed into major crowds when I reached Independence Avenue (the south side of the Mall). At times I had to fight a tide of people who were heading towards the entrances to the non-ticketed areas to make my way toward the silver gate entrance on 3rd.

As it turned out, I was far too optimistic about where the end of the line would be, and around 4th I realized that the people standing on the side of the street for the last few blocks were the line. There were two girls who realized the same thing at almost the same time, so we walked together as we walked all the way back to 7th. I'm not actually sure if that was the end of the line, but at that point it got muddled by the flows of people, so we picked an unoccupied spot and planted ourselves in it.

One of the girls was wearing a bright red OU Sooners hat (which made it easier to keep track of her in the crowds), but it turned out that she was a college student from Nebraska. Her friend was a student in Richmond, and they had spent the weekend together there before coming up by commuter rail early that morning. We were joined in line by a friendly older couple from the DC suburbs. The girl with the Sooners hat didn't stay in line very long before she went off to find one of the thousands porta-potties that lined the Mall, but she didn't make it back before the gates opened.

The line ended up not meaning as much because there was a space in between the gate that they opened at 8:00 and the actual security screening area. There was such a rush to fill up that space in front of the security bottleneck that the line devolved into a bit of scramble to move forward. A handful of people actually tried to run and weave their way forward through the crowd, but the bulk of the former line moved forward at a brisk walk, and the only people who got passed were those unwilling or unable to keep pace.

I stayed with the older couple and the girl from Richmond until we reached the first bottleneck in front of security. The girl left at that point to try to reconnect with her friend because she had both of their tickets. We moved forward slowly in the crush toward the security screening area.

The police had 3rd blocked off as buffer between the two parts of the silver section, and the security checkpoints fed into the west section (further from the Capitol). They were preventing a headlong rush that would crush people into the Capitol reflecting pool by only allowing small groups to cross 3rd at regular intervals. I got across pretty quickly, and I positioned myself a little bit to the right of center. They had the area right in front of the pool blocked off while they got people settled in the handicapped section, and when they opened that final fence I was able to position myself in a great spot. I was just a couple feet back from the railing with only one person in front of me, and the spot I was in allowed me to see a jumbotron as well as glimpse the distant speck of the podium through some tree branches.

My immediate neighbors were several younger black women from South Carolina, Alabama, and Georgia. A few of them were vocal about placing a high value on "respecting the office," which mostly seemed to mean that they disapproved of booing George W. Bush. They did not represent the majority of the crowd, and when his face showed up on the big screen he was jeered by a rousing chorus of "Na na na na, hey hey, goodbye!" They clearly were prepared for the crowd to have a negative response to Bush, and they quickly drowned out the chant by cranking up on the volume of the music. I expected that Palin would also provoke a significant response from the crowd, but they once again stage-managed things to avoid it. As the governors were being shown coming out of the Capitol building, the camera panned away before Palin came to the front of the line, so the crowd never got a chance to boo her. Interestingly, John McCain did not get jeered or booed at all as far as I could hear, and the only other person besides Bush to get booed was Joe Lieberman.

The excitement continued to build as we watched Obama's girls come in, and the air was thick with enthusiasm by the time he reached the podium. The miscue during the swearing in was barely noticeable in the crowd, and it was only later when I watched clips that I understood why people who'd only watched it on TV were making such a big deal about it. The cheer that surged through the crowd when he completed the oath of office was not the loudest I've ever heard, but unlike cheers at sporting events or concerts, it was all about personal emotion rather than making noise for its own sake. There were tears of joy on almost every face around me, and although I did not come close to crying, that has more to do with the fact that only certain very specific kinds of emotional distress get me cry. My primary emotion was excitement, with my whole body feeling highly charged in spite of the cold.

President Obama's speech was fantastic, and one of the most incredible moments of the whole day came when everyone went silent as he began to speak. All morning there was a constant happy murmur from all of the people packed in together, and not only did the Mall go completely silent, but all of the little movements of people brushing against each other in the crowd ended too. The feeling generated by two million people suddenly becoming completely still and silent is like nothing I have ever experienced before. It was like the abstract notions of importance, gravity, and historical significance were suddenly transformed into something visceral and powerfully tangible.

The content of his speech was no less powerful, and there were a few things that particularly stood out for me as I was experiencing it live. On Monday afternoon, I had talked with my friend Ben about the sad shape of the country and the inevitability of America's decline from the position of superpower, and Obama grabbed hold of me right from the start when he declared that the end of America's greatness is not inevitable. Normally I would not be moved by such a declaration from a politician, but he lifted it above the usual rhetoric of American exceptionalism by making it clear that the nation's problems would not solve themselves and that America's continued greatness depends on a lot of hard work from everyone. I also took heart in the fact that he included nonbelievers in with the Christians and Muslims, Jews and Hindus. I was tempted to cheer at that point, but that line did not go over as well with the rest of the crowd, and I hesitated and lost my chance. His declaration of support for science and education was a welcome poke (among others) at the outgoing president seated a few feet away from him, and I'm looking forward to having a president who doesn't treat academia like a punching bag. Last but not least, I was inspired by his call for a spirit of service among all Americans to work toward solving our problems and achieving our goals together.

Different people in the crowded reacted more strongly to different parts of the speech, but overall the feeling was extremely positive, and the surge of emotion at the end of his address was such that one woman near me actually fainted. I suspect that fatigue and cold were probably major contributing factors, but it was clearly his stirring conclusion that was the trigger. All of the surges of emotion before that moment were dwarfed by the flood of joy and relief that overwhelmed me at that moment. Usually a state of shock is caused by something traumatic, but I was stunned with happiness as I listened to the inaugural poem and closing prayer.

As the shock wore off, I was sad to see how quickly the mood turned more selfish in the aftermath. The police didn't even waste their time trying to prevent people from jumping the barriers and sliding all over the frozen reflecting pool (the sun had been shining on it all morning, and several times it cracked and people would scurry for the sides, but I was disappointed that there was no karmic justice in the form of people actually falling through). There was lots of pushing and rudeness as people tried to set up their ideal photos. It seemed vaguely like a disaster movie when I got through the crowds around the reflecting pool and saw the huge quantity of newspapers and other trash being blown all over by the wind amidst the mass exodus of people from the Mall.

It was surreal to be walking with huge crowds of people in the middle of the eight lanes of Independence Avenue. I saw the massive bottlenecks as hundreds of thousands of people tried to crowd into the Metro, and I was really glad to be able to avoid it. The walk back to Laura's office was a remarkably easy, and the people selling food and Obama stuff to the exiting hordes on L'Enfant Promenade were doing huge business at impressively high prices ($25 for a cheap t-shirt, postcards 2 for $5, knit caps $30, etc.).

When I got back to Laura's office, she was dying to get away, and they hadn't really needed her to work the phones anyway, so we were able leave at 3:00. They had done such a good job of keeping cars out of the city that we had wide open roads as we made our way to her boyfriend's house on the Virginia side of the Potomac. Laura's place is in the Maryland suburbs on the opposite side of the city and doesn't have TV, so we picked up a bunch of Yuengling (yay!) on our way and then settled in to watch the parade and relax after a superlative day.

Money Troubles in America: Is there anything left that we can claim to be good at?

The NYT has a fascinating and thoughtful Op-Ed piece about the financial crisis. The main thing I take away from it is that the cliche of thinking about the big picture has been absent from our financial system for so long that now we're in such a mess that the first steps toward a solution all fall into the category of "stop doing really stupid stuff."

Thus far I have not been directly effected by the financial crisis, and I actually spent several hundred dollars in the last week to build myself a new computer. For an impoverished grad student with no prospect of ever making a lot of money, my financial situation is actually fairly secure, but that doesn't mean that I'm not still frightened of what might happen if Obama is not able to fix what is clearly a deeply dysfunctional financial system.

Accomplishments and objectives

A year ago I posted a list of things I had done in 2007 and things I hoped to accomplish in 2008. There's not much point in recording such things if you don't go back and compare them to what did happen, so here's my review of 2008 and forecast for 2009. To start, this is the list from that entry a year ago, with successful accomplishments in green, failed accomplishments in red, and black being partial or incomplete:

Things I would like to accomplish in 2008:

1. Break out of my patterns of procrastination.
   
2. Be more proactive about dating.
3. Make more of an effort to write new poems, without getting away from the good revision work that I've been doing.
4. Find out why my brother gets under my skin and learn to be at peace with him.
5. Commit the time to write an academic paper that represents my very best work.
6. Make more connections among the department's faculty and graduate students.
7. Restore the university's chapter of Sigma Tau Delta to viability with undergraduate leadership.
8. Find ways to travel without screwing up my budget (my upcoming trip to NYC will be a good start).
9. Learn more about teaching methods, effective classroom skills, and good pedagogy so that I'm more prepared to teach college-level courses.
10. Embrace the fantastic path I'm on without closing myself off to unexpected opportunities.

I've also done a lot of cool things in the last year that weren't a part of that list.

Things I accomplished in 2008

• Visited New York City for the first time, and I had an absolutely fantastic time.
  
• Kept up my quasi-regular correspondence of hand-written letters with a dear friend.
• Was an alternate delegate to the country convention for Barack Obama. I didn't get a chance to participate, but it was a great cherry on top of the very inspiring caucus process.
• My awesome trip to Germany and the Czech Republic.
• Developed a topic for my masters thesis that I'm genuinely excited about.
• Applied to PhD programs.
• Made significant quantities of fruits and veggies a regular part of my diet.
  

I feel pretty good about where I stand right now, so major, life-changing resolutions don't feel particularly neccessary. Of course, the next stage in my life will be shaped considerably by which PhD programs I get into, if any, but for now I just need to concentrate on reaching a positive finish to my masters program and writing a thesis I can be proud of.

Goals and Resolutions for 2009

1. Write my thesis and defend it in time to participate in the June graduation ceremony.
2. Build a new computer from scratch.
3. Take another big trip. (California?)
4. Buy a more adult set of clothing.
5. Go on a date.
6. Maintain my level of political awareness and engagement.
7. Change my own oil.
8. Write the play I've been thinking about.
9. Keep in touch with people in Denver after I move away.
10. Get better about procrastination.
    

Injustice forgotten is injustice committed

President-elect Obama has said that he will close down the prison camp at Guantanamo Bay.

That is a great thing, but it is not enough. All Americans should feel ashamed of the horrific things that have been done in our name, and we must make sure that what happened at Guantanamo is preserved as a lesson for future generations.

Please check out Remember Guantanamo.

Guantanamo: We must learn the truth and remember it always

Barack Obama has declared that he will close down the detainee facilities at Guantanamo Bay, but that long-overdue act will mean very little if we never find out what occurred there or if we are allowed to forget.

The place and the records must be preserved so that future generations may be reminded of a time when America strayed from its ideals. Justice demands that we cry out, "Never again!" We owe it to our children to preserve what we would prefer to deny, so that the lessons of the past will never be forgotten.

Our next president has asked us to all take part in the work of changing this country for the better. He has invited everyone to share their input here: http://www.change.gov/yourvision

I just sent him the following message, and I would encourage everyone who feels the same way to add your voices.

Dear President-Elect Obama,

Everything about the situation at Guantanamo Bay makes it one of the most shameful things in American history, and I do not doubt that you will restore justice and human rights to our nation by ending that disgrace. What I would ask is that when you close the down the prison camp at Guantanamo you do not let it be erased from our history. End the unlawful detention of the men held there, reaffirm the rule of law by giving them due process and fair trials, and close down that legal black hole, but do not bulldoze the prisons, do not allow the records of what happened there to be destroyed, and give the American people a chance to the know the truth about what was done in our name.

Although it is painful, the world benefits from being forced to remember such tragedies and constantly declare "Never again." It was only through the hard work of the survivors of the Nazi concentration camps that those sites were persevered to be memorials. Although its location makes it unlikely that schoolchildren will ever be able to walk those grounds and learn first-hand the lessons of one of the dark moments of American history, it is your responsibility to preserve as much as possible and allow the American people to know the truth of what happened there, no matter how much we would prefer to deny our sins.

This country is in great need of change, but it will be a great injustice if the restoration of this nation's dignity involves denial of the errors that made that change necessary.

Thank you

Yes We Can... Be Inspired

As I mentioned in an earlier entry, I have been working on Lord Byron's poem "Darkness" for one of my grad school courses, and it has been on my mind so much that I've internalized it to a degree. Over the last few days I have occasionally found myself reshaping Byron's apocalyptic vision into a vision of Obama-inspired hope, and then I decided to just go ahead and actually write something. I drew heavily on Byron's poem and composed this re-imagining of "Darkness":

Light Returns

I had a dream, which was not all a dream.
Eight years of darkness ended, and the stars
That had been mere pinprick spots of Hope,
Brightened, and grew, and the icy prospects
Of our country were thawed by Change in the air;
Morn came and the people brought about a new day,
And men remembered their passions and their dreams
Of this their country; and all hearts
Were warmed into a hopeful prayer for Change:
And they did live that change--and the desks,
The offices of the powerful—the homes,
The many homes at risk of being lost,
Were turned into beacons; cities were inspired,
And men who had gathered to cast their votes
Looked once more into each other's face;
Happy were those who'd felt eight years
Of fear invoked to trample down their rights:
A glowing Hope was all the world contained;
Jobs were still in danger—and hour by hour
They fell and faded--and the banking firms
Extinguished with a crash—but there was Hope.
The brows of men by the growing light
Wore the marks of their troubles, as they worked
To make the country whole again; they'd not lie down
And hide their eyes and weep; and some did rest
A moment to see what they had done, and smiled;
And others hurried to and fro, and backed
Their words with deeds, and looked out
With resolute Hope on the wounded land,
The pall of the past eight years; and then again
With passion cast them back into the work
For healthcare and a living wage: the right-wing shrieked,
And, terrified, did flutter on the ground,
And spout their useless hate; the red states
Came together with the blue; and they united
And twined themselves to form one country,
No longer hopeless—they were America again.
And the war, which had done so much ill,
Was finally brought to an end;—the mistake was bought
With blood, and each sat and remembered
The brave who had been thus misled into gloom;
All earth was but one thought—and that was Hope,
Immediate and in the future; and the pang
Of the past fed their drive for Change—men
Would work to end the tragedy in which
The meager for the rich were devoured,
The country had assailed its people, all were wronged,
And none could trust that secrecy which kept
The press and anyone with questions at bay,
Till they gave up, and thus their actions had
Disdained all laws; himself sought no consensus,
But with a vicious and perpetual drive,
And a will to unchecked power, spurning Congress
Which answered not with censure—he was done.
The crowd was angered by degrees; but two
Republicans did present themselves,
And they were desperate: they met beside
The boardrooms and ill-used altar-places
Where had been heaped a mass of fear
For their usage; they raked up hatred,
And angrily flung their most divisive words at those
Who wanted change, and their feeble breath
Blew for a little life, and made a flame
Which was a mockery; then the people lifted up
Their eyes as it grew lighter, and beheld
That Hope was real—saw, and turned away—
Even of their savage attacks they lost,
Unknowing that the people were tired of hearing men
Who called each other Fiend. The world was energized,
The populous and the powerful would unite,
Thoughtful, careful, truthful, purposeful, hopeful—
A land of Hope—the Change we needed.
The radio, TV, and papers all were still,
And for a moment all was silent thought;
The sun rose over the White House,
And a new government took shape: as it changed
The country's reputation surged—
Guantanamo was closed; the soldiers were brought home,
The mission they should have been on was achieved;
The country had security and civil rights,
And the economy recovered; Obama led the Change
They needed—Hope restored America.

Hope is real

When Barack Obama announced his candidacy, my first thought was, "He would make a great president. What a shame that the system is stacked against him."

When he won the Iowa caucuses, I was overjoyed and filled with enthusiasm, thinking that politics and dreams might not be irreconcilable.

After the New Hampshire primary, I felt the status quo reasserting itself, and my spark of hope was almost extinguished by the cynicism that I had learned from seeing politics work as a machine for crushing dreams for my entire adult life.

I kept that spark of hope alive, and on Super Tuesday I caucused for Obama. The sight of dozens of Obama supporters filling that room was the fuel that brought that gave that spark a chance to take hold. I volunteered and was selected to be one of the alternate delegates for Obama to the county convention.

I left for my trip to Europe in August full of pride and confidence that Change was on its way.

I returned shortly after the RNC to discover that the selection of Sarah Palin had incomprehensibly shift the polls toward McCain. The ghosts of the last two elections came back to haunt me, and I felt a gnawing fear that our democracy would once again disappoint me.

I resolved to resist my pessimism and trust that the American people would eventually see through the illusion of Sarah Palin as a legitimate candidate.

As Election Day drew near, I felt a fear of the TV election coverage that had its roots in the traumatic memories of two previous November evenings. The thought of watching states turn colors on a computer generated map made my stomach clench. The two states where I have lived (Colorado and Indiana) were both states that I had only ever seen turn red on those maps. Although victory could be achieved without either, the memories of watching the networks call them for Bush made me sick with dread.

There was no nightmare, and my hope was vindicated. I embraced the best friend with whom I had discussed every twist and turn of the campaign, lifting him up when he grew fearful and drawing on his passion when my own hope grew faint. I even shed a couple of tears of joy and relief while I watched Obama address that crowd that seemed to stretch forever.

Smiles keep coming to my face unbidden, goosebumps of excitement rise on my arms without warning, and my heart feels warm. This is what it feels like when a dream comes true, and I hope that we can make this feeling last forever.

Philly fans put their booing skills to good use

Well done Flyers fans. The sport of hockey has enough problems without being tainted by a parasite like her.

Update: I replaced the video with a different one with better sound.

I get to choose "my friends," and I pick "that one."

The media loves soundbites, and the three debates so far have not provided them with much of a fix, which is why I expect that we'll be hearing a lot of "that one" references in the coming weeks. It's silly because that is far from the most uncivil thing that John McCain has said about Obama, but expecting rationality to apply to American politics is a sure-fire path to disappointment. The media is already disillusioned by the shift from the reporter-friendly, independent-minded McCain of 2000 to the new disciple of Rovian political manipulation and media-bashing, and the many headlines and other mentions of the "that one" moment make it clear that the media is not going to resist the allure of a lovely soundbite just because it is unfair to 2008 McCain.

In an otherwise boring debate, that brief cringe-worthy moment will be the only thing that is remembered. John McCain has established the soundbite that will cling to him as he struggles over the next four weeks to overcome the growing support for Obama, and the words that will be ringing in his ears as his campaign goes down in defeat will be "that one."

Of course, it doesn't help that the record that John McCain is constantly crowing about shows that he does not support breasts:


I think the whole McCain campaign's problem is summed up pretty well by this picture that my Aunt Laura sent me:






















Who needs a thousand words when you've got trains?

Sarah Palin Saves her Career

The debate last night was every bit as meaningless as I thought it would be from the moment that I found out that the joke of a debate format would allow Palin to spout canned responses for 90 seconds without ever being forced to deal with a follow-up question. Her strategy is presented very clearly in this flow chart from Aden Nak (via Boing Boing):


















It's a shame for Joe Biden that this debate was framed by recent events in such a way that it was all about Palin, as the only way that his performance would be noticed was if he had put his foot in his mouth or had gotten Palin to self-destruct (which the format made almost impossible). Joe Biden presented himself very well to those who didn't know him, and more importantly he showed the people, myself included, who thought we knew him, that he's not just a good vice-presidential pick, he's outstanding.

Biden gets a win for presenting himself to the nation and showing us how lucky we are to have had him as a public servant for the last few decades. Palin gets a win for salvaging her collapsing image by exceeding the subterraneanly low expectations for her, thus avoiding becoming a national joke and a shoo-in scapegoat for a McCain loss. The loser in this debate was John McCain, who got ripped to shreds by Biden and who gains very little from Palin stopping the bleeding about her disastrous interviews because his campaign still has a sucking chest would in the form of his inescapable connection to the Republican policies that have led us into an inexcusable war and a spiraling economic crisis.

The World is a Mess, and I Just Need to Flee It

I have been watching clips of Sarah Palin's interview with Katie Couric (very dangerous if you're already feeling depressed about humanity), but this is the most messed up thing I've seen today.

I may never uncross my legs, but thank goodness for Sarah Silverman:

The Great Schlep from The Great Schlep on Vimeo.

Letterman smells what McCain is cooking, and it ain't good

Unlike the Palin Hail Mary, it doesn't look like the latest McCain gamble is going to pay off. How much of his once-stellar reputation will be left by Election Day?

From Jess:

jaredm: claudia: cajunboy:

Not sure how this got leaked to YouTube almost three hours before the broadcast, but here’s Letterman ripping into McCain for canceling an appearance on his show tonight. The best part comes at about the seven minute mark when Dave gets wind of the fact that McCain is actually down the street being interviewed by Katie Couric and they cut in live as McCain is having his makeup done.

(via spiegelman)

Obama does well in the clouds

Since I started playing around with Goodreads, I've been exploring the odd aesthetics of tag clouds (aka word clouds), and I'm still debating whether I want to add one to this site.

This morning I came across an interesting meta-data experiment conducted by the Washington Post in which they generated word clouds based on the two presidential candidate's campaign blogs. The one on the left if Obama's and McCain's is on the right.

If you've got sharp eyes, you may actually be able to find the "McCain" tag.

Introverts and separations

The realization that my summer is rapidly drawing to a close has resulted in a lot of aimless wandering through the goody-filled halls of the Internet, and today I came across an old article from The Atlantic that does a better job of expressing what it means to be an introvert than anything else I've ever read on the subject. Now if only there were a way to make extroverts realize how true it is...

I've also been following the horrified responses to recently upheld law in South Dakota that forces doctors to read a scripted statement (which was written by the legislature and has an only tangential relationship to science and reality). Even before you get to the free speech problems and the garbage science it is based on, the statement has a serious problem with basic logical coherence. As pointed out in the Human Nature blog on Slate, if a fetus is "a whole, separate, unique, living human being" then nobody needs to worry about getting an abortion, which the state defines as "the use of any means to intentionally terminate the pregnancy of a woman known to be pregnant with knowledge that the termination with those means will, with reasonable likelihood, cause the death of the fetus." If the fetus is already whole and separate, then who could think that there's a reasonable likelihood that removing it from the womb would cause its death?

Learning from movies

This afternoon I went to see WALL-E, and I was quite pleased that it managed to live up to the elevated expectations that I had as result of all the good reviews and positive word of mouth. To make a movie about a trash robot, and to do it without any dialogue for 90% of the movie is an unimaginably bold move for a Hollywood film of any sort, but Pixar has proven their brilliance once again by crafting a touching and thoughtful film that is a stellar example craftsmanship in cinema.

It's not giving anything away to say that it has a surprisingly subversive message about how our wasteful consumer culture is destroying both the planet and the human race. The movie makes its point seamlessly, without any blunt didacticism, and it's hard to imagine a more compelling way to communicate concepts of conservation and good stewardship of the Earth. Unfortunately, the power of the film's impact on me made it that much more depressing to see that it did not penetrate the minds of my fellow movie patrons, who engaged in the typical movie theater behavior of leaving all of their scattered trash behind for someone else to clean up. If a film like WALL-E couldn't get people to change their behavior, it leaves me with little hope that we'll be able to achieve a happy ending of our own.

Speaking more than one language? How un-American!

In an especially idiotic expression of xenophobia, a school-board member in Louisiana objected to the use of a few sentences of Vietnamese directed towards their parents by the co-valedictorians in their graduation speech. He has also put forward a policy proposal to forbid the use of any language other than English in graduation speeches.

That sort of foolishness is appalling no matter where it comes from, but it's especially ridiculous when it comes from a part of the country that was originally settled by French-speakers. But wait, there's more! Not only does the location have French roots, but the school-board member in question has that decidedly non-English last name of Pitre (for extra bonus fun, look up what that translates to in English).

There is one possible bright side to such a policy, as it would save audiences from any more commencement addresses peppered with little bits of Latin. Anyway, who would ever want to graduate Magna Cum Laude when you could graduate Mega Super Awesome instead?

Coronation to Yes We Can in 517 seconds

Slate has a great video summing up the entire Democratic primary in just eight minutes. It says a lot about how much happened since last fall that even going at warp speed it takes them that long to get through it all.

Snuffing out other people's candles to make yours look brighter

Finals are still going on, so I'll keep this to some quick links. A larger post on the long-awaited conclusion of the Democratic primary contest is forthcoming.

ESPN.com has some news that Tiger Woods is apparently unaware of how boring his sport is to watch on television, so he's dissing hockey.

There's an interesting piece in Slate about how Eugene McCarthy's stubborn unwillingness to reconcile with the Kennedy supporters weakened the party in the months after RFK's assassination. In addition to the obvious political interest, there's also a fascinating bit about how McCarthy insulted the state of Indiana (which supported Kennedy) because they hadn't produced a poet to rival his friend Robert Lowell. It's amazing how much things have changed since 1968.

To finish, the Onion has an especially funny piece poking fun at John Grisham.

Stop playing cards and start talking about our problems

Over the last few days, I've been catching up on the some of the things I wanted to write about during finals, and one of the topics on my list was to examine the state of the race for the Democratic nomination. In particular, I wanted to post my belated responses to the results of the Wyoming caucuses and Mississippi primaries, and I figured I would wait for the the next big development in the race to talk about the long march to Pennsylvania and Obama's steadily growing lead in the delegate count.

The inflammatory sermons of Obama's pastor have been the main political topic of the last few days, and I figured that as the scandal du jour played itself out, it would give me a chance to write about the unhealthy dynamic that has developed between the two campaigns wherein supporters on one side or the other periodically say something they shouldn't, followed by a quick dismissal and a round of distancing (or rejecting and denouncing).

What I didn't count on was Obama delivering a brilliant speech on race in America that throws those political games out the window.


Like many people, I have often believed that the United States would always have racial tension, that it was an issue that might be improved but never wholly eliminated. I still don't believe that the dream of a truly colorblind America will happen in my lifetime, but after watching Obama exceed my expectations once again, I now have hope that it is possible.