The Viral News 2000

Scientist to Teacher in Record Time!

2011-12-24T15:12:00.002-05:00

This is the caption on a new local billboard, clearly trying to lure capable technical people into the struggling teaching field. It’s advertising an accelerated program that will cut down the obstacles usually put in place to keep people from getting a state teaching certificate. Also, presumably, this advertising is funded by the US local or state Department of Education with the idea it will solve the problem of not enough capable people willing to teach science and math in the public schools.

This sounds like a wonderful solution—we’ll just invite scientist to come in and they’ll take care of things. But will it work? There are some definite problems with the idea. As usual, it’s a program planned by bureaucrats without much idea of conditions in the classroom, or why scientists don’t seem to have much interest in working as public school teachers.

First, there’s quite a difference in pay between scientific or technical occupations and teaching. A grant for this program funds part time work that pays a pittance during the qualifying period. True, the current high rate of unemployment means there might be a body of unemployed engineers, mathematicians and scientists out there, so maybe some of them will take the offer. Then what?

Scientists and mathematicians are generally task-oriented, rather than people-oriented. This means they have plenty of skills at solving technical problems, but they don’t necessarily have people skills, especially the kind they’ll need in the classroom. There are schools where the students are attentive and well-behaved, with a good background and a real interest in getting a good education, but it’s unlikely there’s a teaching position open at that school. The teaching jobs that are hard to fill are those where students are poorly behaved, failing, often absent, suffering from psychological, emotional or learning disabilities and hostile to anyone suggesting they should work harder so they can graduate. All these problems are expected to be handled by the teacher. It’s not a school administrator’s job to deal with it.

Besides these problems, there’s increasing pressure on teachers to improve student test scores. In order to “improve” teacher qualifications for this, state Departments of Education have imposed onerous requirements, set up bonus programs and resorted to micromanaging what the teachers present. In some cases, teachers are expected to read from an approved script so that all students receive the same approved instruction.

So, what the program is offering is a low paid, difficult job that's supposed to be what? Rewarding because the teacher gets to work with children? A better solution for the lack of science and math teachers is to realize that the demands on teachers are unrealistic, and to improve teaching conditions. A local physics teacher recently quit in the second week of school. “I don’t have to put up with this,” she said. She packed her things and left the students sitting there.

Reversing the Income Flow

2011-10-19T21:32:00.001-04:00

It wasn’t that much of a concern to ordinary people some thirty years ago when President Reagan cut taxes on the rich and made his speeches on TV about how “Supply Side Economics” would benefit everybody. After all, ordinary people have other concerns, like dealing with their own household budgets. But now the results are in. We’ve gotten to a position where ordinary people can feel the effects.

Just installing a structural bias in government policy apparently wasn’t enough, and recent greed has exposed the process of how the rich have been looting the US tax funds. Not only were billions of dollars unaccounted for in the Iraq War, but billions went to a small group of companies that caused a world-wide economic crisis and then cried to be bailed-out.

We failed to pay attention to history, or at least to insist that it not be repeated. The recent near-depression isn’t the first crash tied to “trickle-down" economics. Economist John Kenneth Galbraith attributed the Panic of 1896 to the same kind of economic policies. So we didn’t pay attention, and now there is rampant unemployment, “Occupy Wall Street” protests in the streets and a “Poverty Tour” making the rounds. These are calls to reverse the income flow which has carried all that money to the top 10%, and more specifically to the top 1% of the wealthiest in the US.

Proposals for raising taxes on the wealthy have provoked complaints about socialism and “forcibly seizing” wealth from the rich to give to the poor. The truth is that going too far in either the direction of unregulated capitalism or stagnating socialism is bad for the country—we need the middle road. However, the excesses of the last thirty years need to be undone. We need to raise taxes on the wealthy, and institute polices that use the taxpayer’s money for neglected infrastructure and research and development. We need policies that regulate companies that make sure they behave responsibly and don’t take all the profit while transferring all the costs of their business to the taxpayers.

This has all been proposed, but so far it’s been blocked. That means we need to look at breaking the hold that the rich have on our politics. Campaign reform, anyone?

If Math Scores Are Rising, Why Do We Need to Import High Tech Workers?

2011-10-19T12:00:00.001-04:00

In the last few years, US schools and teachers are under increasing pressure to raise scores in reading, writing and math. Supposedly this focus on test scores is to make the US high school graduates more competitive in the world jobs marketplace. So, is it working?

Studies show that US test scores are rising, and unemployment is rampant. High tech manufacturing firms are complaining about not having qualified applicants and requesting to hire from overseas. US high school graduates with good math scores are working as cashiers at Walmart. Hmmm, maybe there’s something wrong with the education plan.

Well, there are a couple of things going on. First and foremost, it’s cheaper to hire from overseas. There are logistical problems to moving manufacturing plants to say, Asia, where the labor is cheap, so the latest trend is for companies to build their plant in the US--but then they have to deal with the high cost of labor. This problem can easily be overcome by importing labor that is willing to work for lower wages. Immigrants are willing to bear the high cost of specific technical education in order to hold a job in the US, where monetary exchange rates make their wages seem high.

And next, there’s currently little opportunity for US students with good test scores or even a college degree to find experience or specific technical education to qualify them for the available job openings. Those technical job postings are specific, asking for things like experience with a particular software release, and with the clear expectation that the new employee can start work right now at a high rate of productivity and with no on-the-job training. By insisting on these qualifications, companies ensure that their job openings remain open.

What’s wrong with the education plan is that it isn’t comprehensive enough--it doesn't provide the opportunities. A national focus on reading, writing and math doesn’t do any good unless there is a means to get talented students into the available job positions. Solutions? Tax or other incentives for companies to hire, and if necessary, train US graduates for their job openings. Technical schools that develop relationships with companies to train workers for specific needs. Opportunity for US graduates. Really, without the expectation of good jobs, why should kids bother with all that homework? Social media is much more fun.

Twilight: How Does a Story Shape Reality?

2011-07-29T17:41:00.002-04:00

You have to have noticed The Twilight Saga, regardless of whether you’re a fan. It’s been a phenomenon, with the four books topping best seller lists and the first two movies making over a billion dollars in revenue. Because of the global economy, it isn’t unusual for stories that speak to a large number of people to sell like this in world-wide release. If the story elements resonate, then books and films are embraced by millions of people. However, because of the huge response to stories like this, it becomes important to look at how they affect the structure of our reality.

There are two kinds of reality perceptible to the average person, that is: a personal consciousness and what is popularly called the collective consciousness. Everyone is aware of their own personal consciousness, what they think and feel and the sum of their experiences. However, the collective consciousness is something that comes to us by way of human society. It includes the shared beliefs and attitudes that unify a cultural group. There’s also a cultural “unconsciousness” proposed by Carl Jung, which is an inherited grasp of archetypes that allow us to decode and absorb cultural information.

In other words, elements from the collective culture infiltrate and inform the personal consciousness when they’re attached to archetypes. Twilight is built with archetypes: the innocent maiden, the handsome hero who saves her, the challenge of another suitor and the maiden’s choice. Besides this storyline, the suitors both offer a possible danger to the woman. The first is a vampire: the beautiful but cold creature whose soul is in jeopardy, and who wants to suck out her lifeblood. The second is the werewolf, the fevered man-animal barely under control who could kill in a second of anger.

That’s the structure of the story, but then what are the cultural elements that are attached and transferred along with it? Protagonist Bella moves to live with her father and go to high school in a small town in the American Northwest. After meeting the irresistible vampire Edward, she lies to friends and family about what she’s doing and where she’s going; she abandons her other friends; she allows Edward to spend the night in her bedroom without her father’s knowledge. After Edward tries to leave her, she engages in risky behaviors to hurt herself in order to convince him to pay attention to her. Edward and his family are rich, drive fast, sporty cars and live in a local mansion. Bella refuses to believe that Edward loves her as she is. She wants to be a vampire, too, so she can be beautiful and strong and perfect, so Edward will love her, and she pursues this goal throughout the story.

There’s no doubt that author Stephanie Myers has her finger on the pulse of young women. Because of the success of this story, it’s clear that it resonates with this segment of the population. However, Bella is a poor role model to serve for the cultural consciousness. She’s treating others badly and looking for a quick fix to her insecurities: the magical vampire’s bite that can make her immediately perfect. Where’s the part about Bella accepting herself, following the rules and setting goals for personal improvement? Where’s the part where she becomes strong and successful through her own hard work? Where is the part about responsibility? That might be better cultural information to pass along.

Dr. Laura, how do you correctly use the N-word?

2010-08-22T22:01:00.003-04:00

Recently Dr. Laura Schlessinger had a meltdown over use of the N-word on her nationally syndicated radio talk show. After some of her sponsors quit and she was forced into an apology, John King tried to get up a discussion about use of the word on CNN without much participation. There was some confused talk about First Amendment rights and double standards, but no one seemed really sure what to say. Before the story completely dies, here's a question about it: How "black" do you have to be to use the word without getting slammed?

It's clear that if you're "black," saying the N-word in the United States is completely okay, but if you're "white" it's not. This is something Dr. Laura pointed out on her show. You can hear the word uncensored from black performers on HBO and characters in black-produced films, indicating that this is completely politically correct. But if a “white” person uses the word, there are immediate demands for apology and for the person to be fired from their job. Clearly for anyone other than a black person to use the word is a serious error, and even unrelated but similar sounding words can cause someone to lose their position. In January 15, 1999, David Howard, a white aide to Anthony A. Williams, the black mayor of Washington, D.C., used the word "niggardly" (meaning stingy) in reference to a budget and was forced to resign.

Presumably one could go by appearance. However, studies have shown that appearance isn't really a good indicator of African genes. In the fifties, for example, one of five "white" Americans was found to have African ancestry. So, what criteria do you need to meet in order to be politically correct in using the N-word? Is there some measure of skin color? Of African genes or ancestry? Is dark skin enough, or does one have to have recognizably African features? Is President Obama black enough, for example? Shouldn't blacks politely inquire of someone's racial background before making a judgment that use of the N-word is racist? Or is “black” in the United States just a socio-political group that uses the N-word to set themselves off from the rest of America?

True Confessions: Tiger Woods and the Media Blitz

2010-02-24T00:01:00.002-05:00

Tiger Woods has re-emerged from his secret rehab hide-away, looking miserable and giving us another apology for his behavior, this one with some face time, instead of just a press release in absentia. Of course there was a media buzz starting a day before when the news spot was scheduled. There was a female presenter telling us ahead of time that this is unlikely to satisfy all the women out there who are angry with Tiger for his philandering, thus reminding women that they should be angry.

Admittedly, Woods is a celebrity and thus fair game for news, but this comes across more like something else. And are fans really that angry with Woods, or is it the media? Woods has always had that squeaky clean image, but is it really a surprise to fans that he has a different private life behind it? Is that much of his fan base women? Why is their opinion important?

Maybe golf fans are more disappointed than the general public, but most people seem to be reacting more to the poor press than to the news of Tiger’s character failings. There was no move by the companies behind Woods endorsement deals until the press sought them out and suggested they end the deals. All of which leads to the question of why the press has behaved this way. After all, it looks like Tiger Woods may be the victim of domestic abuse. Regardless of his attempts to keep the details private, the State of Florida went on to investigate the incident in which it looks as if his wife Elin may have assaulted him in the presence of their children. If this were a female golfer who was assaulted by her spouse, would the press reaction have been the same?

It almost looks like this is an attempt by someone to teach Woods a lesson. It’s unclear what the lesson is about—arrogance, maybe? Not enough deference to the media? Well, it does look like he’s been humbled. He’s going through the prescribed motions that have become standard for rehabilitating an image. However, it looks like he’s being pushed through this by the PGA. It almost looks like Tiger would rather quit golf and have his privacy.

Karl Marx, Barack Obama and Free Public Health Care

2010-02-17T19:45:00.001-05:00

Here’s an interesting quote from then Texas State Representative Debbie Riddle in 2003, who was addressing the Border Affairs Committee, “Where did this idea come from that everybody deserves free education?” she said. “Free medical care? Free whatever? It comes from Moscow. From Russia. It comes straight out of the pit of hell. And it's cleverly disguised as having a tender heart, [but] it's ripping the heart out of this country.”

Ms. Riddle was talking particularly about services to illegal immigrants, but this is a widely applicable quote. The interesting point here is that she thinks socialism was born in Communist Russia. Is the U.S. already so far from the origins of socialism that we don’t remember where it comes from? Do we really not know why is it that we’re offering free public education? Social Security? A welfare safety net? It’s not because the Bolsheviks thought we should.

First, this is a moral choice--presumably where the “tender heart” part comes in--but a certain self-interest in public health and safety play a part, as well. There are services the U.S. citizens will pay for because they don’t want to see the ugly things happen in our community that happen in third world countries. U.S. citizens don’t like the vision of U.S. streets overrun with homeless, uneducated children. They want to have a workforce that can read, write and do basic arithmetic. They want the less fortunate elderly to have a reasonable pension to cover their basic needs. Finally, they want a certain level of public health to control epidemics that would threaten all of us. Think H1N1.

Besides this moral choice, there’s a less obvious cause to engage in public assistance that has somehow gotten buried under our prosperity. Karl Marx wasn’t the only socialist thinker that the terrible working conditions of the Industrial Revolution produced--he was just the scariest. Marx wasn’t Russian, by the way; he was German, and he did have some flaws in his economic theories that caused the Communists to fail in the construction of their socialist utopia. However, Marx did make some extremely acute observations about a widening gap between the rich and the poor, and about how this leads to revolution.

This means that the more fortunate are obliged to take at least basic care of the less fortunate, or else we can go back to the days of those ugly revolutions that the French and the Bolsheviks carried out so they could redistribute the wealth of the aristocrats. Just because the Communist systems of dictatorship and central planning have failed doesn’t mean that revolution can’t still happen when conditions get miserable enough for the poor. It’s just not a good idea to think “It’s not my problem,” because on a lesser scale, there’s just an increase in crime statistics.

This is not to say that the country should offer everything free. It’s already been established in years of the welfare system that too many social services are a disincentive to work. A bad entitlement policy destroys families and erodes the work ethic. Huge taxes drive the wealthy offshore to run their businesses and their investments. Ms. Riddle’s general notion that any system of national entitlements needs to be limited was right, but let’s stick to basic needs, please. Plus, it wouldn’t hurt to get some of the fraud out of Medicare before there’s any discussion of a broader free public health system.

But those are general comments. About illegal immigrants: if they’re here and we’re depending on them as part of a low wage labor force, then we need to provide minimal services for them, the same as we would for any other U.S. residents. The low wages that illegal immigrants accept allow U.S. businesses to make higher profits and private employers to save more money. Thus, it’s a cop-out to claim that illegal immigrants are not contributing anything to the U.S. economy. What’s happening is that the businesses and private employers, by paying low wages, are transferring social costs to the taxpayers. Let’s put this into perspective, please.

Why the Tragedy at the 2010 Winter Olympic Games?

2010-02-17T19:25:00.001-05:00

The 2010 Winter Olympics opened in Vancouver under emotional circumstances. Earlier in the day 21-year-old Nodar Kumaritashvili of Georgia crashed and died during a practice run on the Whistler luge track. The track was immediately closed for an investigation, leaving the women's teams, scheduled for Saturday morning practice, waiting in limbo. The Georgian team considered withdrawing from the games, but in the end decided to attend the opening ceremonies and dedicate their performances to Kumaritashvili.

There had been complaints about the track from teams and competitors leading up to the accident. Other athletes had crashed with less lethal results, and reported that the track was too fast, and that small movements on the luge could lead to major steering errors and loss of control. The track was built to provide opportunities to set speed records, but also to push the competitors to their limits. Kumaritashvili was a young athlete, possibly less experienced than some of the competitors, and he made some small, fatal mistake.

Over the years, there has been a constant push for records in sports competitions, for higher speeds and more sensational tricks. The official track speed record for the luge is currently 153.98 kilometers per hour, or 95.68 miles per hour, and the Canadian course was built in the expectation that athletes would improve on that record. However, this kind of speed leaves no room for small mistakes, and with no margin for error, then it puts the athlete’s lives in danger. Competitors at the games also complained that the policy of limiting their practice time in favor of Canadian athletes increased the risk. Others questioned the design that placed the unpadded canopy supports too close to the track.

“To what extent are we just little lemmings that they just throw down a track and we’re crash-test dummies?” said Australia’s Hannah Campbell-Pegg. “I mean, this is our lives.” Maybe it’s time to temper the expectation for new records with better considerations for safety.

Darwin’s Dogs: A Darwin Biography for Dog Lovers (Book Review)

2010-02-11T11:34:00.000-05:00

Emma Townshend’s first book presents something of a different biography of Charles Darwin. Instead of the usual scientific focus and discussion on the fine points of his theory of evolution, she provides us with a warmer, more domestic picture of the interactions of English folk and their dogs during the Victorian era. Ms. Townshend is an established writer of gardening columns and articles, maintaining a blog for the Independent on Sunday, and presumably this book is written for the gardeners and animal lovers that make up her current audience. In that light, Townshend clearly accomplishes her goal of warming up the origins of evolutionary theory for the ordinary reader. However, because of a certain sentimental tone, it leaves something to be desired as a history of science text.

The book starts with a pastoral photo of the Charles Darwin family (including dogs and children), clearly establishing a family orientation, and once underway, it's very readable. Townshend has done her research, including excerpts from the Darwin family letters as they corresponded back and forth over the years, using this as the structure to build the biography. She covers the important events of Darwin’s life, the death of his mother, his father’s concerns that he seemed unable to find a suitable profession. “To my deep mortification,” Darwin is quoted, “my father once said to me, ’You care for nothing but shooting, dogs, and rat-catching, and you will be a disgrace to yourself and all your family’.” His father took care of this problem by providing him with an independent income, allowing Charles to follow his passions as a naturalist, and plenty of time to think about the subjects of selective breeding and the evolution of species.

The book is very sweet, but there is a serious point hidden in there. Townshend makes an excellent case for Darwin's experience with domestic animals contributing more to the development of his theory of evolution than his exotic voyage on the Beagle did. Although Darwin brought back an array of samples from the Beagle’s visit to the Galapagos, for example, he had to find some way to make the connection between selective breeding (by whatever means) and the natural occurrence of different species. Darwin interactions with local farmers and dog breeders involved in selective breeding programs at the time provided this connection. Another interesting point: although Darwin developed his theory as a young man, it took years for him to develop the courage and clout to feel he could publish it as serious challenge to established theory.

Ms. Townshend has degrees in history and history of science from Cambridge, Imperial College and London’s City University, and her postgraduate thesis provided the research about Darwin’s interactions with plant and animal breeders which appears in this book. Because of her background, one would have expected the book to be more science-oriented and academic. It’s recommended for an audience that enjoys animals and horticulture, but not so much for readers who want footnotes and heady scientific debate.

Ms. Townshend teaches courses on history of science in the U.K. She also appears regularly on radio and TV and writes for Kew Magazine, Independent on Sunday and the Times’ arts pages.

Darwin's Dogs: How Darwin's Pets Helped Form a World-changing Theory of Evolution, by Emma Townshend. (Paperback - Oct 27, 2009). Francis Lincoln, Limited, London, 140 pages. ISBN/UPC: 9780711230651, £8.99, $14.95.

The “Sex Offender” Campaign: Is the NFL Being Scammed?

2010-01-31T21:37:00.001-05:00

This year the trouble started early. Normally the NFL and the Super Bowl sponsors get to hear gripes and snipes about half-time after the show. Maybe there was some kind of wardrobe malfunction, or maybe the band wasn’t very exciting, but considering what all could go wrong, half-time is generally a masterpiece of planning and execution that keeps the audience on the sofa and up for the second half. The show needs a solid, big-name act to carry it off, and this year’s choice for the slot was the classic hard-rock band The Who.

Right after this was announced on Thanksgiving Day, the NFL started to get letters from what was represented as child protection “groups” complaining that Pete Townshend was a “sex offender” and that he shouldn’t be allowed to play. The “groups” exchanged letters with NFL Commissioner Roger Goodell, and then posted copies of the exchange on to CBS executives, the mayor of Miami, the governor of Florida, and to the media.

All this gives the NFL and the Super Bowl a real black eye, as it looks like they didn’t check this out up front, or that they’re not in favor of protecting America’s children--but what’s really going on here? It turns out that Townshend was given a police warning for researching child pornography for an anti-porn essay (no charges, no conviction), and Evin Daly, the guy that’s really pushing this “sex offender” campaign is registered at Associated Content, an Internet content site to get paid for articles that use his content. Also, he’s got a website funded by a South Florida foundation in his wife’s name, where she, or maybe both of them, might draw a salary from the donations. We can’t tell because the foundation’s records don’t seem to be available online.

So what if this guy is just harassing the NFL to promote himself? What if he’s just doing it so he can make money from his articles, and from donations to his wife’s foundation? Should the NFL stand for this?

References:
http://www.associatedcontent.com/user/187999/evin_daly.html
http://edition.cnn.com/2003/WORLD/europe/05/07/uk.townshend/index.html

Celebrity Abuse: Greed and “Sex Offender” Claims Take Over the Internet

2010-01-30T23:06:00.000-05:00

You may have noticed the headlines about Pete Townshend in the two months leading up to the Super Bowl. Those words “sex offender” were printed in front of his name all over the Internet, in a bunch of newspapers, and on major television networks. The headlines were followed by lurid descriptions of what Townshend must have done to be on the U.K sex offender register, and certainly many readers must have reacted with horror. Every click on one of those headlines generated just that many more articles. The grand finale was when Child Abuse Watch sent out a post card to homes and schools around the Super Bowl stadium, and of course that card was widely published on the Internet, too, including Townshend’s picture, just in case any Miami residents wanted to attack him on the street.

If you happened to be under a rock and somehow missed all this, Pete Townshend is the lead guitarist and principal songwriter of the English rock band The Who, contracted to play the Super Bowl half-time show in February 2010. Townshend has always been known as a passionate intellectual, and apparently got into trouble with research for an anti-child pornography campaign back in the early oughties. He was investigated by the police and warned after they found nothing illegal in his possession, but because of the warning, he ended up on the U.K.’s sex offender register for five years. Also, because there were never any charges and no conviction, Townshend apologized abjectly and was presumed innocent, continuing his music career without any serious speed-bumps.

Fast-forward to 2008. The Child Abuse Watch of Palm Beach, Florida, took note that Townshend and his cohort Roger Daltrey of The Who were the first rock band nominated for the Kennedy Center Honors for their charitable contributions in the wake of 9/11. Child Abuse Watch is a website run by Evin Daly and funded by the Laura Daly Foundation, an organization in his wife’s name to collect donations for children’s causes. Daly attempted to challenge the Kennedy Center Honors, without any success and with very little press coverage.

However, when The Who were announced as the Super Bowl band on Thanksgiving of 2009, Daly was much better organized to complain. According to the articles, his and another organization tried to block Townshend’s immigration visa, tried to get him registered as a sex offender in Florida, tried to convince the NFL and the Super Bowl sponsors that Townshend should be banned. All of this hit the press in a big way, too—a much bigger campaign than the Kennedy Honors deal. As the NFL and The Who stonewalled, Daly only worked harder, and the press picked up the headlines and ran with them. We might think that Daly is dedicated and really believes in what he’s doing--except it turns out he’s registered with an Internet content provider and is paid for putting out articles on his own campaign. Every one of the headlines that comes from his content gives him a paycheck.

So now it looks like he could be harassing Townshend, the NFL and the Super Bowl sponsors purely to profit from his articles on his own campaign. Could this be a new low in tabloid journalism: using the cause of child sexual abuse for personal gain? It reflects very poorly on the Laura Daly Foundation, too, making me wonder how much of the donations go to pay the Daly’s salaries. Following the money trail is always so interesting.

References:
http://www.associatedcontent.com/user/187999/evin_daly.html