Recently in society

Can you guess what America's "greenest city" is, according to an article in the October 2008 issue of Fast Company magazine? Hint: it's not San Francisco or Portland or Seattle.

Give up? It's Grand Rapids, Michigan, the city where I live. According to the article, "Grand Rapids leads the nation in the number of LEED-certified buildings per capita. In 2005, Mayor George Heartwell pledged that more than 20% of the city's power would come from renewable sources by 2008; it hit that target a year early… And here, in the heart of the Rust Belt, manufacturers are leading the greenification charge. Office-furniture heavyweights Herman Miller and Steelcase both have LEED-certified buildings in the area, as do industrial firms such as Cascade Engineering. " It's nice to see that Grand Rapids is doing so well in this area, and it's gratifying to read something positive about this place from a national publication.

Forget McCain and Obama. A new presidential candidate has burst onto the scene. Watch the video to find out who this mystery candidate is:

Learn more.

Peter Hessler has a fascinating article about American distance runners in The New Yorker this month. "Running to Beijing" focuses on Ryan Hall, a marathoner from California, but the part I enjoyed the most was this description of American marathons:

Marathoning may be the only sport in which sponsors target the losers, and the losers pay for the winners. That's how the running boom played out for the Kenyans and the Ethiopians: it created a lot of slow, rich American marathoners willing to pay big money to get beat.

Oh, the irony.

The article also mentions Dathan Ritzenhein, who ran for Rockford High School just down the street from Grand Rapids. I had the pleasure of watching him run as a high school student and demolish the competition. Both Ritzenhein and Hall will be running for the USA in the men's marathon this Sunday.

On a personal note, I ran my first marathon back in 2000. Then, out of sheer stubbornness, I ran two more in 2001. The third and final one, the Philadelphia Marathon, was my best. I crossed the finish line somewhere around 3 hours and 30 minutes. In other words, I was a slow, rich American willing to pay big money to get beat. If the race had been 19 miles, however, I would have done a lot better. Up to that point, I was averaging 7:15 per mile. Then I fell apart.

Last month I started running again after six and a half years off (during which karate was my main source of exercise). Now I can't run four miles at any better than 8:30 pace. Such is the toll of aging. Still, it's more than a little heartening to see swimmers and marathoners who are in their late 30s and early 40s.

I was really excited to hear on NPR today that Barack Obama's campaign has decided to deal with slanderous accusations head on. They've put together a new site, Fight the Smears, that calls these accusations what they are: lies.

For example, the site responds to the smear that "Barack Obama Won't Say The Pledge of Allegiance/Won't Put His Hand Over His Heart" this way:

LIE: Barack Obama won't say the pledge

LIE: Barack Obama won't put his hand over this heart during the pledge of allegiance

TRUTH: View video of Barack leading The Pledge of Allegiance in the United States Senate.

It's about time a candidate confronted such fear mongering. Check out the site to see more rumors dispelled, including those about his faith and his wife.

The Chicago-based web-application company 37signals just announced in a blog post that they are conducting a set of Workplace Experiments in an attempt to make their company "one of the best places in the world to work, learn, and generally be happy." So far they've implemented three new policies:

1. Four-day work week: after a summer of Monday-through-Thursday work, they realized that they were getting roughly the same amount of work done as they had when they were working five days a week. So why not enjoy three-day weekends?
2. Funding employees' passions: If people want to pursue a hobby or interest or whatever, 37signals will help them for it, as long as they blog about what they've learned.
3. Discretionary spending accounts: All employees are getting a credit card so they can buy books or software or attend a conference without having to ask first.

They are a small company, with only 10 employees. They've been hugely successful over the past few years, and their small size is intentional. They've repeatedly spurned offers of corporate buyouts and huge sums of venture capital. Their main tenet is keeping things simple -- from the software they produce to the way they run their company. Their outspoken, rebellious attitudes have garnered them a huge devoted following as well as quite a few critics.

I'm wondering what my friends and family — and others who happen to read this blog — think about what 37signals is trying to do. Are they being too idealistic? Are they on to something big here? Are their "workplace experiments" applicable to other companies, or is there something unique about 37signals that lets them get away with this? Is this kind of thing a luxury that very few companies can afford, or is it something that companies can't afford not to do if they want to be successful to the extent that 37signals has been?

By the way, my last few entries haven't generated any comments, so I'm not even sure if anyone is reading this anymore. I know my writing has been sparse lately. I'm hoping to post a bit more frequently now, since I've freed up a little time for myself.

Update

Turns out my self-pity about not receiving comments was premature. A recent surge in "comment spam" forced me to tighten the moderation controls, which resulted in a few perfectly legitimate comments being labeled as "junk." I've restored those comments and changed the controls again to what I hope is a better level.

Also, Kevin mentioned the problem of customer service in a comment below. I failed to mention this in my post, but the 37signals folks have a customer service rep who has not yet shifted to the four-day work week. They're looking to hire another rep so the two can stagger their on-call days. You can read more about this situation from the current customer service rep herself.

A little over a week ago the city of Grand Rapids awoke to find a man dangling from a pole projected beyond the corner of a downtown building. Some people called the police, some called the fire department, and some just shook their heads and kept moving right along.

It turns out that the man was Sigmund Freud. Well, not the real Sigmund Freud, but a sculpture created in the likeness of Freud. Apparently, it's some sort of public art installation that has been making the rounds of cities throughout the country — only this time someone forgot to notify the authorities ahead of time.

Although Freud still had his bird's-eye view this morning, I don't know how long he'll remain suspended there, so I thought I'd better take a picture of him before it's too late.

Coincidentally, I'm working on a freelance project now, building a web site for a group of psychoanalysts. I'd love to know what they would have to say about this work of art.

A feature article in New York Magazine a little over a month ago asked this troubling question: "Can a Lack of Sleep Set Back Your Child's Cognitive Abilities?" It's obviously a rhetorical question, but the recent research is terrifying nonetheless. Apparently, kids are getting on average one hour less sleep each night than kids did 30 years ago. In the article Po Bronson notes, "Because children’s brains are a work-in-progress until the age of 21, and because much of that work is done while a child is asleep, this lost hour appears to have an exponential impact on children that it simply doesn’t have on adults."

What does that impact look like? Here are a few of the revelations from the article:

1. "The performance gap caused by an hour's difference in sleep was bigger than the normal gap between a fourth-grader and a sixth-grader."
2. "Sleep disorders can impair children's I.Q.'s as much as lead exposure."
3. A school district in Lexington, Kentucky, "moved its start time an hour later. After the time change, teenage car accidents in Lexington were down 16 percent. The rest of the state showed a 9 percent rise."
4. "sleep-deprived people fail to recall pleasant memories yet recall gloomy memories just fine."
5. "Five years ago, already aware of an association between sleep apnea and diabetes, Dr. Eve Van Cauter at the University of Chicago discovered a 'neuroendocrine cascade' that links [lack of] sleep to obesity."

Abandon All Hope?

With the mounting evidence that we, and especially our kids, need more sleep, we're confronted with the challenge to undo years of lifestyle choice and habit. Fortunately, Ashley Merryman, in an accompanying article, suggests a number of ways to get our kids to sleep more. I was pleasantly surprised as I read it, because it goes beyond the clichés and superficial fixes to offer some really useful advice.

Not So Fast

Just when I was getting used to having one more thing to be anxious about, I came across an article in the New York Times last week: The Sleep-Industrial Complex. While not addressing children directly, it casts doubt on some of the recent claims about our need for sleep. The article blames drug companies and mattress salespeople for contributing to our lack of sleep. In their efforts to sell solutions to sleep problems, they're making people more anxious about their sleep, which in turn makes people less likely to overcome their sleep problems without the aid of drugs (or a new mattress?). Ah, the vicious cycle.

The one thing that can help us sleep well at night, according to the article, is a change of attitude. Apparently, behavioral-cognitive therapy really works here. The less we're worried about our sleep, the better our sleep will be. Sounds like a truism to me.

Free Advice

Now that I've read these articles on sleep, I feel fully qualified to give everyone expert advice. Ever the altruist, I offer my surefire strategy for optimum well-being in three easy steps (and it's completely free!):

1. Being awake is for fools. Try to sleep as much as humanly possible. Eight hours a night is a good start, but 18 is better.
2. Remove all connections with the outside world. Any semblance of a social life will only interfere with your main objective, blissful slumber
3. Stop worrying, or you'll ruin your life! Now! Quit perseverating on how little sleep you're getting! Thinking about it is only making it worse! Relax. Your sleep problems are your own fault. RELAX!

Sweet dreams.

I read in a magazine some time ago that a ridiculous percentage of the food we put in our bodies is corn. Food manufacturers put corn in almost everything, and, of course, most farmers use corn to feed the animals that we eat. And why not? Corn is cheap and ubiquitous, at least here in the United States. It's also subsidized by the government, which perhaps keeps it cheap and ubiquitous.

A new documentary, King Corn, takes a look at this crop and the industry surrounding it. If the trailer is any guide, it has the same feel as Fast Food Nation and Supersize Me. Check it out:

As much as I disagree with almost everything George W. Bush has done during his presidency, I can wholeheartedly support this proclamation from our Commander in Chief:

NOW, THEREFORE, I, GEORGE W. BUSH, President of the United States of America, do hereby proclaim October 9, 2007, as Leif Erikson Day. I call upon all Americans to observe this day with appropriate ceremonies, activities, and programs to honor our rich Nordic-American heritage.

Read that carefully now. He said he wants all Americans to observe this day. So, don your Viking hats and cook up some lutefisk. Visit a nearby IKEA. Dance around the Maypole. Watch an old episode of "The Muppets," featuring the Swedish Chef. Send your favorite Swedish American a thank-you note, along with a small monetary gift. There are plenty of ways to observe this day!

The Congress deserves some credit, too. They approved a resolution authorizing Bush to "commemorate the enduring legacy of a brave explorer and honor the significant contributions of Nordic Americans who continue to enrich our culture and our way of life."

You might be asking yourself, "Sure, these Norsemen interrupted their busy schedule of pillaging other European countries in order to sail to the North American continent over 1,000 years ago, but what have they done for us lately?" The White House press release provides a heartwarming answer: "Today, Nordic Americans help strengthen our country, and their determination and optimism make America a more hopeful land. Our Nation continues to benefit from strong ties with Denmark, Finland, Iceland, Norway, and Sweden, and we are grateful for their continued friendship." Ah, a more hopeful land. Isn't that sweet?

Read the press release.

The New York Times has finally figured out that it's in their best interest to make their newspaper articles available to the public. As of a week or two ago, they're no longer charging a fee for their "premium" content. Now anyone can read columnists such as Paul Krugman online without having to subscribe.

They've opened up their archive, too. Jason Kottke put together a nice little list of some Gems from the archive of the New York Times, including a front-page report of the San Francisco earthquake of 1906 and a report on the confirmation of Einstein's theory of gravity in 1919. Enjoy!

Every once in a while I get an email from the Swedish American Heritage Council. Or is it the American Swedish Heritage Council? Or the Swedish American Historical Society? Anyway, as much as I hate to admit it (at least, to my mom), I typically hit the delete button when one of these messages shows up in my inbox. A couple weeks ago, however, when I received the latest installment, I was immediately drawn to these paragraphs about vacation time in Sweden:

The individual Swedish worker enjoys benefits, by law or by union contract, that include five weeks of paid holiday, paid time off for illness or child-care, 16 months of paid parental leave, regulated working hours, overtime compensation and pension benefits.

Vacations and holidays are covered by legislation. All employees in Sweden are entitled to a minimum five-week paid annual leave, after the first year of employment. Normally, vacations are taken so employees can have four consecutive weeks off. Traditionally, vacations have been taken in July, which means that many companies all but close down operations in that month. However, in recent years, because of the much stronger international business environment, full operations continue through the summer, while employees take vacations at other times of year.

Vacation time can be accumulated up to one week per year for a five-year period. This means an employee could be entitled to a maximum of ten weeks vacation. Sweden also has twelve public holidays per year.

All I can say is, it must be nice.

It's been over two months since I started writing this entry, so rather than prolong the agony any further, I'm just going to post it somewhat unfinished and hope that it prompts further discussion via the comments.

Back in May I heard a snippet of a Talk of the Nation episode featuring Josh Waitzkin, and I was really impressed. If you're not familiar with the name, he's the kid that the movie Searching for Bobby Fischer was based on. He ended up becoming an international chess master before ditching competitive chess and taking up Tai chi chuan. When his instructor encouraged him to try a competitive form of Tai chi, called Push Hands, he did so — and eventually became the world champion. Here is an interview with him from YouTube. He seems like an extraordinary guy who still manages to keep his head on straight. Pretty cool.

Two things that particularly interested me were Waitzkin's concept of the beginner's mind and his assertion that people need to risk losing, to invest in loss, to let go of the ego's need to be great at something at every moment.

I remember as a writing instructor trying to break down my students' writing, to force them to examine it and even allow it to be worse for a while before it got better. The ones who were willing to do that seemed to be the ones who made the greatest strides. The students who were heavily invested in the idea that they were great writers already invariably stagnated.

I also remember as a young violinist (between the ages of 5 and 13) being told repeatedly by my instructors to keep my left wrist straight. It was painful for me to do so, and my playing suffered when I couldn't rest it in its "natural" position, bent back, with the palm of my hand touching the violin's neck. I didn't want to risk sounding worse. And I certainly didn't want to experience the discomfort. So, instead of allowing myself to temporarily regress in order to ultimately take my violin playing to new heights, I stayed at a comfortable plateau. Sure, I improved over the years, but not nearly as much as I would have if I had been willing to suspend my short-term ego needs for long-term benefit. I doubt I would have continued playing the violin after the age of 13, even if I had approached such trials differently. There were simply too many other competing interests at the time. Still, it makes me wonder.

As an adult, I feel like I've been able to let go a little bit of the need to be good at something from day one, but only with some things. With photography, for example, I started taking pictures in earnest about eight years ago, and from the start I was determined to let myself be bad at it for as long as it took to learn to be something other than bad at it. Sometimes I have to beat back the notion that this is about as good as I'm going to get—not that I think there is nothing left for me to learn, but that I'm not capable of learning what's left. But as I find time to take more pictures again, I'm hoping to keep Josh Waitzkin's advice in mind.

This is turning into too much navel-gazing, so I'm going to stop now. But I'm really curious about others' experiences, and I'd love to hear about them in the comments, if anyone would be willing to share. What do people do to maintain this "beginner's mind"? How do people keep allowing themselves to take risks while their proficiency increases? What have been your successes and failures in this area? How can we teach our kids to be curious and adventurous and willing to make mistakes?

There's nothing more comforting to the sick than having a diagnosis, a name that we can attach to what ails us. It's especially heartening to be able to identify by name an illness that plagues a very large number of Americans.

The Dunning-Kruger effect, while not exactly an illness, is especially pernicious in that those who have it are blissfully unaware, while others around them are made to suffer. According to the entry in Wikipedia, the Dunning-Kruger effect is "the phenomenon whereby people who have little knowledge systematically think that they know more than others who have much more knowledge."

Millions of people have witnessed a corollary phenomenon, one that I like to call the American Idol Effect, in which people who have little or no singing ability systematically think that they are destined for musical stardom. But here is the thing I don't quite understand: What is it that makes millions of people want to watch these hopelessly un-self-aware people embarrass themselves on national television? Is it our fascination with the grotesque, or is something else at play?

If you're interested in the research, you can download the original article, Unskilled and Unaware of It (500KB PDF), written by Justin Kruger and David Dunning and published by the Journal of Personality and Social Psychology. Actually, the article's abstract suggests that the Dunning-Kruger Effect applies to more than knowledge (as the Wikipedia article claims):

People tend to hold overly favorable views of their abilities in many social and intellectual domains. The authors suggest that this overestimation occurs, in part, because people who are unskilled in these domains suffer a dual burden: Not only do these people reach erroneous conclusions and make unfortunate choices, but their incompetence robs them of the metacognitive ability to realize it. Across 4 studies, the authors found that participants scoring in the bottom quartile on tests of humor, grammar, and logic grossly overestimated their test performance and ability. Although their test scores put them in the 12th percentile, they estimated themselves to be in the 62nd. Several analyses linked this miscalibration to deficits in metacognitive skill, or the capacity to distinguish accuracy from error. Paradoxically, improving the skills of participants, and thus increasing their metacognitive competence, helped them recognize the limitations of their abilities.

(emphasis added)

It's a funny thing, this human nature.

My friend Melissa has twin girls who attend the British School in Washington D.C., so when the Queen of England came to town, she paid the school a little visit. According to Melissa, "a court fool was hired to accompany Her Majesty to the event that day":

The older I get, the more people I know who are battling cancer. So, whenever I see something hopeful related to the disease, my interest is immediately piqued.

The excellent blog LifeHacker.com just posted an article about a free online version of The Survivor's Handbook: Eating Right for Cancer Survival:

Like the print version ($14.95), the PDF-formatted e-book was written by renowned clinical researcher Dr. Neal Barnard. It provides "important insights into food's role in cancer prevention and cancer survival" and includes over 100 recipes; menu-planning and restaurant-eating guides; and information on immune-boosting foods.

How very cool of the Cancer Project to give the book away!

Two great web pages, one educational and one merely instructional, show what miraculous things can be done to the human face with some Photoshop work and perhaps a little professionally applied makeup.

The Ponderance blog shows the excellent Dove Real Beauty video (via YouTube), in which a rather unassuming woman is transformed into a billboard model: Ponderance: Real Beauty Vs Photoshop (or: An Important Video for Young People).

The Photoshop Lab presents a quick tutorial on how to instantly add years to someone's face, using Salma Hayek as an example: Aging People.

Digital manipulation of phototographs has gotten a lot of attention since the exposure of a faked picture of a Beruit bombing with enhanced smoke. Of course, photographers were altering pictures well before the digital revolution. But the ease of Photoshop and other such tools has made the process much more prevalent.

What should be considered out of bounds when it comes to altering photographic images? Are there some things that photojournalists can ethically change? And what about other types of photographers? Is it unethical for model photographers to "enhance" their representations of women? Is it ridiculous to assume that there is any such thing as objectivity when it comes to photography? Is it wrong of me to reduce wrinkles and whiten teeth before printing photos that I take of others?

These aren't merely rhetorical questions. I'm genuinely curious to hear what people think. So, please, if you have any thoughts about this, leave a comment.

When my former student (and current friend) Nicole Tieri sent out an email message a few days ago describing her concerns about a new documentary airing next month, I thought that her thoughts deserved wider circulation. Here is what she had to say:

Greetings!
To those I see daily and to those who have forgotten what my voice sounds like, I offer up the same hearty hello. I hope this missive finds you happy and in good health. Despite the occasional case of indigestion and the loathsome moles I've recently had removed, life is pretty darn good.

I write, then, out of concern (though I am not so sure that's the best word) for THIN, the documentary set to air on Nov. 14th on HBO. In my inability to stay away from such titles, I have been immersing myself in the details of the production. Documentarian Laura Greenfield, author of one of my favorite books of pictures entitled Girl Culture, was granted unprecedented access to film for 10 weeks at the Florida chapter of Renfrew Center for Anorexia and Bulimia. Following the gritty day-to-day life that is an inpatient E.D. program, she captures every bone, every weight, every breakdown of the patients. I know, I really do know, that this film has the ability to slash through the glamorous portrayal of eating disorders often spilling from the pages of magazines. I know that a boy, girl, man, or woman struggling with the disorders could be inspired to get well outside of the walls of treatment, even if it is simply to avoid the inpatient experience (indeed, I shuddered at the memory and the humiliation of peeing into a cc "hat" under the watchful eye of a nurse practitioner, of supervised showers, of the self-loathing and tears accompanying so many meals, and the hell of the all-too-early wake-up calls for daily weights and vitals—not to mention the bitter tirade your mind subjected you to if that scale inched its way even an ounce upward).

But my hesitation regarding this film is thinly veiled (pun not intended), and I am worried. Worried that those in recovery might view this film, see the images and—as was my first response—feel like a big fat failure for the life we have carved out for ourselves as skin covers bone and health tips the scales in its favor. While many of us do not desire to return to the half life we were once living (or barely living), this documentary reminds me that I still find skeletally thin appealing, still find the fuzzy cocoon of illness appealing to me in a whacked-out way. Also, I feel like this will serve as a gross inspirational film for those in the depths of the disorder; seeing a bonier and sicker version of yourself makes you want to get that sick, that far gone. I am quite a few years removed from this phase of my disorder, yet admittedly I began wanting to lose a few pounds. I'm able to acknowledge this and cope without spiraling into a relapse, but some sufferers are not, especially those whose recovery is chronicled in the film (I would have smashed the camera on more than one occasion if I had been filmed during the weight-gain phase of my recovery!). I wonder then, does the potential of helping some outweigh the risk of sacrificing others?

Thanks for indulging me. Want to see for yourself? Check out the video clips on the right side of the screen on this page.

Best,
Nicole

I've been reading a novel, Doctor Glas, written by Hjalmar Söderberg in 1905. So far it has been enjoyable in a depressing sort of way, but not nearly as provocative as the book jacket blurb claims. One paragraph, though, especially captured my attention:

We want to be loved; failing that, admired; failing that, feared; failing that, hated and despised. At all costs we want to stir up some sort of feeling in others. Our soul abhors a vacuum. At all costs it longs for contact.

Nowhere did I see this cascade of desires acted out more passionately, more brutally, than in the classroom during my years of teaching.

It came as a great surprise to me that our president, who we all know is a fearless commander in chief, dynamic leader of the free world, and public speaker extraordinaire, also happens to be a remarkable poet. Apparently I'm one of the last people to be clued in to this, since W's poem has been floating around the internet since 2002, but just in case you haven't seen it yet either, I am reprinting, for your reading pleasure, this poem derived completely from actual W quotes:

The story goes that the poem was originally stitched together and published by Washington Post columnist Richard Thompson. If you find it hard to believe that Bush could be so talented, I urge you to visit the entry at the Urban Legends website and read through the fact-checking report.

As with much good poetry, this verse is best when read aloud. So give your friend or grandmother a call and have some high-brow fun!

During my seven years of teaching, one of the things that particularly distressed me was the suspicion that some of my students were cheating. This gut feeling often accompanied my paper grading and was especially severe when the assignment was a "research" paper.

Grading papers was already the least favorite of all of my responsibilities as a teacher. It took a disproportionate amount of time, and it wasn't confined to the classroom or to the workday, so I often spent much of my evenings and weekends either hunched over a desk scrawling indecipherable comments on students' essays or curled up in a ball under a desk feeling guilty about not doing the work that I knew I eventually would have to do anyway. But the worst part about grading was that it forced me to acknowledge that I was largely a failure as a writing instructor as I witnessed the same assualts on the English language and crimes against logic on paper after paper after paper.

Adding to my misery were the two or three papers in almost every stack that looked as if they were partially or entirely plagiarized. Each suspected plagiarism added two hours or more to my typical 30 minutes of grading time, which might not seem like a lot, but factor in 25 or 50 or 75 students and the task starts to look interminable.

Anyway, I'm really not writing this in the hope of getting some kind of ex post facto pity from my friends. Really! I was just reminded of this dark moment of my life (the grading, not teaching in general) the other day when I read a blog post called How to Cheat Good, by Alex Halavais, a professor at SUNY Buffalo. (via Boing Boing)

Professor Halavais's emotional reaction to cheating was uncannily similar to mine:

Rationally or not, what particularly irks me is that it is disrespectful: of me, of their fellow students, of the university, of the institution of learning, and of themselves. And—did I mention—of me? It is particularly irksome when their cheating implies (reminds?) that I am a fool.

That's right. Their cheating implies that teachers are fools because most students who cheat are too lazy to do it well. To help rectify that problem, Halavais provides a lengthy list of recommendations for plagiarists. Here are a few of my favorites:

• You Google, I Google: How do you think I check suspicious work? … I am pretty good with that Google thingy. And changing two words won't send me off the trail. So copy from something a bit more obscure. Or—and this is really tricky—try making up your own stuff.
• Use the word "rediculous.": This almost magical word will cause any instructor to instantaneously turn off all internal plagiarism detection.
• Borrow from someone who writes as badly as you do: Don't do what one of my graduate students did, and steal a text on Korean feminism from someone who wrote slightly better English than he did. I’ll notice the slightly better writing, even before I notice that you have expressed no interest in or knowledge of feminist perspectives in the past.
• Edit > Paste Special > Unformatted Text: When I am reading a document in black, Times New Roman, 12pt, and it suddenly changes to blue, Helvetica, 10pt (yes, really), I’m going to guess that something odd may be going on. This seems to happen in about 1% of student work turned in, and periodically makes me feel like becoming a hermit.

Read more of his tips for cheaters, as well as many more suggestions from commenters.

Every time I go back to my hometown of Philadelphia (actually Willow Grove, but who's counting?) for a visit, I have to readjust to the cultural differences between the east-coast city and my current place of residence, Grand Rapids, Michigan. During the first couple days of my visit, a typical conversation might go like this:

Diana [to her husband]:

YO, JACK! IT'S YOUR MOM ON THE PHONE AGAIN!

Me:

So, don't you get along with your in-laws?

Diana:

YEAH! WHY?

Me:

"Yeah," meaning you do get along? Or, "yeah," meaning you don't?

Diana:

YEAH, WE GET ALONG GOOD! WHY?

Me:

Um, no reason. It just sounded like you were mad about her calling.

Diana:

WHAT? WHAT ARE YOU TALKING ABOUT?

Me:

Well, you were yelling at the top of your lungs.

Diana:

OH! YOU'RE SO FUNNY.

Soon enough, though, I'm back in the groove, shouting and hollering at my family and friends as if I'd never moved away. Visitors to the city of brotherly love often mistake Philadelphians as rude or belligerent. And when I return to Grand Rapids from my visits, with my vocal volume raised a few decibels, I sometimes wonder if people are thinking the same of me.

That's why I was thrilled when I came across this t-shirt from the Feed Store at Mule Design Studio. It's the perfect way to put others at ease and let them know that I'm really not itching for a fight. In fact, maybe the shirt should be required apparel for anyone traveling from Philly to more genteel cities.

The Boston Globe reported on Sunday that throughout his presidency, George W. Bush has determined that hundreds of laws simply don't apply to him.

President Bush has quietly claimed the authority to disobey more than 750 laws enacted since he took office, asserting that he has the power to set aside any statute passed by Congress when it conflicts with his interpretation of the Constitution.

Among the laws Bush said he can ignore are military rules and regulations, affirmative-action provisions, requirements that Congress be told about immigration services problems, ''whistle-blower" protections for nuclear regulatory officials, and safeguards against political interference in federally funded research.

Legal scholars say the scope and aggression of Bush's assertions that he can bypass laws represent a concerted effort to expand his power at the expense of Congress, upsetting the balance between the branches of government.

It must be good to be the king.

Read the full story: Bush challenges hundreds of laws

Sometimes I get confused and dizzy like I'm going to fall off a precipice even though I'm sitting on the sofa in my living room when I think about the endless choices I have for all manner of consumer goods and all I want, all I really, really want, is for some movie star or television sitcom character to tell me what to buy. That's why I was thrilled when a friend of mine at work today showed me an article on the Wired News website that reported an 84 percent rise in product placements on TV this year. It's been terribly hard to know what I should think about shaving cream, for example, ever since I stupidly bought TiVo a couple years ago and started skipping the commercials. Now I don't have to worry anymore about which perfume to buy for my wife. Well, I never worried about it before, either, but that was because I had no idea that Wal-Mart had its own perfume line. I know, I know—how naïve. But thanks to All My Children we can all stay up to date on the latest trends in affordable, magnificent scents! Also, I no longer have to feel guilty about robbing those poor corporations of their advertising dollars. Instead, I can count on my TV programs portraying real situations with the real products that they want me to enjoy. No more Brand X coming between me and my willing suspension of disbelief! From now on, it's totally immersive consumer verisimilitude.

Unfortunately, this liberation from the shackles of indecision has not gone unchallenged. Some uppity script writers are waging a war on product placement, not unlike the war on Christmas, with a website called productinvasion.com. These people actually believe that they— not the ones who are footing the bill—should get to decide the plots of the TV shows that they're writing. Now that's downright un-American.

Read the Wired News article: TV Writers Must Sell, Sell, Sell

A friend of mine just forwarded an article to me from the CNN website. It's about a history and English teacher in Vermont who was recently called on the carpet for giving a "liberal" vocabulary quiz. Here's one example, in which the students had to circle the correct word in parentheses: "I wish Bush would be (coherent, eschewed) for once during a speech, but there are theories that his everyday diction charms the below-average mind, hence insuring him Republican votes." Yeah, maybe that one went a little too far.

It reminds me of my time as a liberal English teacher in Hudsonville, Michigan. It was the year 2000, and the presidential race was really heating up. My students kept pestering me, asking who I was going to vote for (yes, I recognize the irony of this grammatically incorrect sentence). Finally, after weeks of whining—"please, oh please, tell us who you're voting for"—I relented and said that I was still trying to choose between Ralph Nader and Al Gore.

Not too long after my confession, I was vilified by a few parents and verbally accosted by some of my fellow teachers. The principal pulled me into his office and, to his great credit, assured me that I was "safe" and welcome at the school and wouldn't be run out of town. But as I walked out of the office, he told me to make sure I was teaching English and not "personal politics."

My situation was quite a bit different from the Vermont teacher's, as far as I can tell. I didn't openly deride George W. Bush or suggest that Republicans are idiots. I was merely answering a question about who I thought should become the next president. But because my perspective was different from that of just about every other faculty member or administrator, I was somehow guilty of not just "supporting a baby killer," as one student put it, but also trying to corrupt the youth with my left-wing propaganda. It didn't matter that other teachers openly expressed their support of Bush's candidacy because nobody saw anything personal about their views. They were simply spreading the truth, telling it like it is.

I really did love a lot of things about teaching out there for six years, and I got to know some truly wonderful people—faculty, students, and parents—but I'll never forget that bewildering and infuriating pre-election period in the fall of 2000, especially if friends keep sending me articles like the one about the teacher in Vermont.

Read the article: "Teacher accused of giving 'liberal' quiz"

By the way, isn't the "liberal professor" one of the favorite bugaboos of the right wing?

This photographic account of New Orleans before, during, and after Hurricane Katrina swept through is quite staggering and more informative than most of what has appeared in the mainstream media. It takes some time to get through the whole slideshow, which was put together by a Nicaraguan man living in New Orleans at the time of the hurricane, but it's well worth it to get a sense of the devestation. Each picture is accompanied by the photographer's description.

Update: The link has been returning an error intermittently for the past couple days because a lot of blogs and other sites have been linking to the same site, and it's being bombarded by traffic. The photo essay is hugely popular for good reason, so if you get the "Album Not Found" error, try again in an hour or two.

Update 2:Well, the link that I was so eager to share appears to be dead. I've tried a few times this week to access the photo essay, but the Kodak Gallery keeps returning an error page. Sorry about that. For those of you who haven't been completed saturated by Katrina news and images, this photo essay at csmonitor.com is quite good.

The other day I read an interesting entry on JD Lasica's weblog Darknet in which Lasica describes his attempt to put together a home movie "just for showing off to family or friends." The problems he faced were not technical, but legal, as he wanted to splice into his project a few seconds of video from a handful of movies. He could have simply inserted the clips without any fuss, and nobody who cared would have been the wiser, but Lasica, who wrote a book about the "personal media revolution," decided to play the game according to the rules of the media oligopoly. He sent formal requests to the seven major studios that own the movies.

Now, who in their right mind would have a problem with someone wanting to use a few seconds of film footage for a home movie? Apparently the movie studios would. Here is how things shook out:

Granted, Lasica was baiting these companies. But, really, isn't it ridiculous that, as Lasica notes, "Hollywood studios demand that we ask for permission to borrow from their works – and then they deny our requests as a matter of course"? Only one of these studios, Columbi TriStar, had the good sense and decency to acknowledge fair use. The others don't look arrogant or overly protective as much as frightened—scared of the effect that all this new personal technology will continue to have on their bottom line.

Read JD Lasica's full weblog entry with all the gory details: When the studios won't give permission.

I've never been all that wild and crazy about Steve Martin's Saturday Night Live years. But the essays he has written for The New Yorker's "Shouts & Murmurs" section over the past few years are some of the funniest I've ever read. The other day when I was searching for one of those articles, I came across the website The Compleat Steve, which has an enormous collection of writing by and about Steve Martin, including transcripts of speeches and the Academy Awards show that he hosted a couple years ago. It's hard to believe that the site isn't infringing on a copyright somewhere, so maybe you should check it out soon, before the owner gets a "C and D" letter from somebody's attorney.

Here is an excerpt from one of my favorite essays, "Side Effects," which sounds frighteningly similar to actual drug ads that run on Lifetime, CBS, and other channels for the aged:

DOSAGE: take two tablets every six hours for joint pain.

SIDE EFFECTS: This drug may cause joint pain, nausea, head-ache, or shortness of breath. You may also experience muscle aches, rapid heartbeat, and ringing in the ears. If you feel faint, call your doctor. Do not consume alcohol while taking this pill; likewise, avoid red meat, shellfish, and vegetables. O.K. foods: flounder. Under no circumstances eat yak.… You may find yourself becoming lost or vague; this would be a good time to write a screenplay. Do not pilot a plane, unless you are among the ten per cent of users who experience "spontaneous test-pilot knowledge." If your hair begins to smell like burning tires, move away from any buildings or populated areas, and apply tincture of iodine to the head until you no longer hear what could be taken for a "countdown." May cause stigmata in Mexicans.

The site's owner also maintains a blog, Sharing Steve Martin, where he posts Steve Martin news and recent additions to Martin's oeuvre. (Incidentally, I think oeuvre is one of those words that could get me beaten up if I said it in the wrong place.)

Soon after characterizing Calvin as a conservative (i.e. right-wing) evangelical Christian college, Washington Post columnist Dan Froomkin seems to have been convinced otherwise (scroll down to "The Calvin College Rebellion"):

On closer inspection, it turns out that Calvin College is not the bastion of the Christian Right it appeared to be. In fact, judging from my e-mail, it's a veritable hotbed of those other Christian values — the ones that oppose war, work for social justice, and don't think much of the president at all.

More recently, The Washington Times ("College ad to protest Bush visit") and The Detroit Free Press ("Bush visit brings controversy") reported on an ad to appear in Friday's Grand Rapids Press, criticizing Bush administration policies. The ad will bear the names of 1/3 of Calvin's faculty, as well as students and alumni of the college.

The (post-dated) May 23 issue of Newsweek has a "Periscope" article about what led up to Bush's "invitation" to speak at Calin, in case you haven't heard yet what went down.

James Stewart discusses Bush's commencement address in light of Jim Wallis's recent visit to Calvin, and he points to a temporarily free version of an article in the Chronicle of Higher Education: "President Bush to Face Widespread Faculty Dissent When He Speaks at Evangelical College on Saturday."

I imagine we'll be seeing a lot more in the press over the next few days. Stay tuned. And, if you would be so kind, please post a comment here when you find something interesting online about the event.

I'm speechless.

(official announcement)

Felix Salmon added an interesting comment to my recent entry, a review of Freakonomics by Steven Levitt and Stephen Dubner. I thought I'd respond to it here, rather than in another commment. Here's what he wrote:

The one thing the publishers have clearly done well is send out this book to any and every blogger out there -- normally with predictably gushing results. I was not as impressed, however. Am I really the only person out there who thinks this particular emperor has very few clothes?

Actually, he's not the only one criticizing the book and its authors. A very persistent Steve Sailer has been making the blog rounds (though he missed mine), commenting on those gushing reviews and arguing that he has already "demolished" at least one of Levitt's claims—that legalized abortion eventually led to reduced crime. And "lkspence" at the Vision Circle blog writes that "Freakonomics Misses the Mark."

I have to agree with Mr. Salmon that someone in the PR department of HarperCollins has been doing a great job of generating buzz. Freakonomics has been #2 on the amazon.com best-seller list all week, second only to the new Harry Potter book, which people are pre-ordering like mad. Freakonomics got a glowing write-up in the Wall Street Journal. NPR's Scott Simon interviewed Steven Levitt last Saturday. Slate.com re-printed two excerpts of the book.

And then there were the blogs.

It appears that the authors' publishing representative did a google search on Steven Levitt's name and contacted the bloggers that turned up in the search results—at least those bloggers who had written something positive about him. I'm pretty sure that's what happened in my case. The very first entry I wrote for my blog was effusively titled "The Economist Steven Levitt and Other Heroes." The rep emailed me, mentioned that she had read the entry, and asked if I'd like a galley, or advance copy, of the new book to review or discuss on my website. Felix Salmon appears to have received his copy of the book the same way, as he mentions in his critique that he had previously said some nice things about Steven Levitt. This practice of handing out review copies is so commonplace, though, that it seems hardly worth mentioning.

About the "predictably gushing" reviews from bloggers, I admit that I praised the book highly. But I also appraised the book honestly—from my layperson's perspective—and I still think that the book deserves the glowing reviews that it's getting.

To be sure, there are a few things I didn't like about the book. The chapters are a little disjointed, without a thematic thread running through the book's entirety. But the authors acknowledge this characteristic of the book in their introduction, so I didn't feel the need to reiterate it in the review. I took the book for what they said it was, and loved it.

My other disappointment with Freakonomics was that the examples of economic sleuthing can't really be applied to other situations by somebody like me—someone, in other words, who doesn't have access to the same piles of data and, more importantly, someone without the brilliant mind of Levitt. However, the book never purports to be a how-to manual on exploring the hidden side of everything. Instead, it pretty clearly advertises itself as a look at how a "rogue economist explores the hidden side of everything." I didn't bring up my disappointment in the review, because it doesn't seem fair to criticize it for not being something that it never claims to be, any more than it would be fair to criticize a biography of a chef for not teaching me how to cook.

Felix Salmon shouldn't feel all alone, even if I don't agree with his assessment.

A Rogue Economist Explores the Hidden Side of Everything

by Steven D. Levitt and Stephen J. Dubner

It's not too often that I read the introduction, preface, or acknowledgements of a book. Rarer still are the times that I find these introductory materials as finely written and intriguing as the book itself. In fact, the only book in the last few years in which the introductory materials were even remotely interesting was Yann Martel's Life of Pi. Until, that is, I read the Explanatory Note of Freakonomics. It took only the first few paragraphs to hook me. After that, my only concern was that the main part of the book would be a letdown.

As it turns out, I had no need to worry.

Freakonomics is much more entertaining, engaging, illuminating, and provocative than any book about economics has a right to be. Co-written by journalist Stephen Dubner and economist Steven Levitt, the book has a terrific blend of narrative development and hard-hitting data. Each chapter focuses on an intriguing societal question or problem and applies economic analysis to it. While chapter titles such as "How Is the Ku Klux Klan Like a Group of Real-Estate Agents?" and "Where Have All the Criminals Gone?" will no doubt enflame some readers' emotions, the cool calculations and sound reasoning within each chapter will do much to fan those flames.

In fact, I would bet that a lot of readers, like me, will end up convinced of a number of things despite themselves. Take, for example, the chapter on the dwindling crime rate during the 1990s. Levitt begins by examining the most common explanations—many of which, by the way, came from the same people who all along had been predicting a crime surge during that time. A quick search on the LexisNexis database for articles published between 1991 and 2001 brought up this chart of the "phalanx of hypotheses to explain the drop in crime":

Levitt then deals with each explanation one by one, providing plenty for both liberal and conservative to chafe at. Going against liberals, he discredits the theories of tougher gun control, concealed-weapons laws, gun buybacks, and the strong economy (a Democrat was in the White House), while demonstrating that increased reliance on prisons had some effect. Going against conservatives, he pokes holes in the theories of increased use of capital punishment, right-to-carry laws, and innovative policing strategies. What did account for the drop then? Well, as I mentioned, increased reliance on prisons contributed (about 10%). Also, changes in crack and other drug markets (15%), though Levitt is quick to point out that "crack was responsible for far more than 15 percent of the crime increase of the 1980s. In other words, the net effect of crack is still being felt in the form of violent crime."

So, we have accounted for some of the crime drop, but surely there was another factor. Yes, it's true, but that other factor was never mentioned during the 1990s and the first couple years of the new century. According to Steven Levitt, the single greatest contributing cause of the decline in the crime rate—brace yourself—was the Roe vs. Wade decision, way back in 1973.

Now, that explanation is sure to rankle both liberals and conservatives. Indeed, Levitt received quite a bit of hate mail over this analysis—from conservatives claiming that he was championing what they consider murder (abortion), and from liberals concerned that he was touting some form of eugenics.

But as Levitt carefully constructs his rational case, it's clear (to me, at least) that he doesn't have any hidden agenda. In the "crime drop" chapter as well as the others, it seems at times as if he is disappointed with the results of his research, a little disillusioned by the truth that he has uncovered.

The rest of the book is just as full of surprises as the crime drop chapter, albeit perhaps a little less inflammatory. Freakonomics is a fantastic book that is sure to get a lot of people discussing some very important issues. Let's just hope that there can be true dialogue instead of the polarized shoutfests that all too often dumb down arguments and reduce books to silly soundbites.

Update: Read my follow-up article, More on Freakonomics.

More about FREAKONOMICS and its Authors

• FREAKONOMICS: A Rogue Economist Explores the Hidden Side of Everything - the book's page at amazon.com. Until today, amazon was advertising that it would be available May 1, but now it looks like they're selling it. Buy it now!
• The Economist of Odd Questions: Inside the Astonishingly Curious Mind of Steven D. Levitt - written by Stephen J. Dubner. This is the article that totally blew me away when I read it a couple years ago in The New York Times Magazine, now available online at Stephen Dubner's personal website. It's also the article that led to my very first blog entry in which I gushingly referred to Steven Levitt as my hero.
• NPR: Freakonomics: Musings of a Rogue Economist - Scott Simon reports on the book in the April 9 Weekend Edition Saturday.
• kottke.org - Jason Kottke interviews Steven D. Levitt
• Toward a Unified Theory of Black America - a recent article in the New York Times Magazine

A Couple Related Works

As the reviews start pouring in, we'll see many comparisons between this book and Malcolm Gladwell's works, The Tipping Point: How Little Things Can Make a Big Difference and Blink : The Power of Thinking Without Thinking. In fact, Gladwell praises Dubner and Levitt's book, warning readers to "Prepare to be dazzled." But I think Freakonomics is closer in spirit to Barry Glassner's The Culture of Fear: Why Americans Are Afraid of the Wrong Things in that both cover a broad range of issues while debunking some of our most cherished misconceptions. Still, Freakonomics seems more rigorously argued, especially if you take the time to read the book's End Notes.

A "street artist" called Banksy decided to do a little guerilla marketing last week by hanging his paintings in a few rather conspicuous locations.

The Wooster Collective website has some great photos of Banksy's art installations, along with this explanation:

The images above — exclusive to the Wooster site and provided by Banksy — are of Banksy installing four pieces in New York's most prestigious museums — The Brooklyn Museum, The Metropolitan Museum of Art, The Museum of Modern Art, and the Museum of Natural History.

Dressed as a British pensioner, over the last few days Banksy entered each of the galleries and attached one of his own works, complete with authorative name plaque and explanation.

He says — "This historic occasion has less to do with finally being embraced by the fine art establishment and is more about the judicious use of a fake beard and some high strength glue." Banksy continues — "They're good enough to be in there, so I don't see why I should wait"

Staff at the New York Met discovered and removed their new aquisition early Sunday morning while Banksy's discount soup can print took pride of place in the MoMA for over three days before being torn down.

As of now, the other two pieces currently remain firmly in place...

Hilarious. See the photos here. For more on Banksy, visit his website.

(hat tip: kottke.org)

With the recently opened Digital Gallery, the New York Public Library has given internet users access to approximately 275 thousand images—from drawings to maps, early photographs to illustrated manuscripts. It's a lot of fun to browse through it, but you might want to make sure you have plenty of time before jumping in; it's easy to get lost in the stacks.

I had planned to show a thumbnail of a few of the images from the site, but after looking at the main Frequently Asked Questions page, I was a little confused about whether or not I was allowed:

The low-resolution images available on the website are suitable for immediate printing or downloading to provide good-quality reference copies for a wide range of educational, creative, and research purposes. High-resolution images are available for licensing for personal use and for professional reproduction through Photographic Services & Permissions

Here it looks like we can show the low-res versions at no cost. After all, what would be the harm, especially if the images link back to the NYPL site? A New York Times article appears to confirm this reading of the policy: You can collect 'em, enlarge 'em, download 'em, print 'em and hang 'em on your wall at home. All are free, unless, of course, you plan to make money on them yourself. (Permission is required.) Now, though, I'm getting a little uncomfortable. Exactly when is permission required? Only when I "plan to make money on them?" The little permission caveat could apply to the whole sentence, or just to the last part of it. Also, although the article says you can "hang 'em on your wall," it says nothing about hanging 'em on your website. If only the NYPL's Frequently Asked Questions page would explicitly list the "wide range of educational, creative, and research purposes." Hmm.

I dug around some more in the Photographic Services & Permissions section until I found this statement in another FAQ page:

NYPL provides free and open access to its Digital Gallery and images may be freely downloaded for personal, research and study purposes only. However, as the physical rights holder of this material most of which is in the public domain for copyright purposes, the Library charges a usage fee if images are to be used in any nonprofit or commercial publication, broadcast, web site, exhibition, promotional material, etc. The usage fee is not a copyright fee. You are free to obtain a copy of these images from a source other than NYPL. Usage fees help ensure that the Library is able to continue to acquire, preserve and provide access to the accumulated knowledge of the world. [emphasis is mine]

Now it seems to be saying that we can look at the images and download them to our computers, even print them and display them in the privacy of our own homes, but we can't let anyone else see them without first getting permission and paying a fee. I wonder if they mean "nonprofit" in the strict sense of the word. Do the fee and the need for permission apply to personal websites, too? It kind of looks that way, and I'd rather not risk legal retribution.

So that's why there are no images along with this entry. It's too bad the library didn't use a licensing structure through the Creative Commons.

Lawrence Lessig, hero of the digital frontier and leading advocate of free culture everywhere, was featured in this week's episode of The West Wing. He himself wasn't on the show, but was played by the mad scientist from Back to the Future (Christopher Lloyd). Lessig teaches Constitutional law at Stanford University and chairs the Creative Commons project. In his blog Lessig explains how he wound up on the show, in his typical humble fashion:

The story is based (loosely) upon a true story. I was involved in the drafting of one early version of the Georgian constitution. But the story ended up in the West Wing because I told the story to my students in Constitutional Law at Harvard, and a current writer for the West Wing was in that class.

And so is "fame" made: My story is on the West Wing because I was at Harvard — not because the brilliance of my intervention had been noted and reviewed, but because I was teaching talented kids who would prove to be important.
[read the full entry]

How do I know that his "humble fashion" is "typical"? I read his amazing book, Free Culture, in which he spends a chapter meticulously dissecting the mistakes he made in the Eldred v. Ashcroft case before the Supreme Court.

The book makes a compelling case for fixing the copyright laws in this country, laws that have crippled culture and stymied innovation. Lessig summarizes one of the many problems with the way that Congress has recently handled copyrights:

Our constitutional system requires limits on copyright as a way to assure that copyright holders do not too heavily influence the development and distribution of our culture. Yet…we have set up a system that assures that copyright terms will be repeatedly extended, and extended, and extended.

Indeed, that is what has happened, especially over the last 40 years or so.

A century ago, copyrights lasted for only 14 years, with an option to extend them for additional 14. Now, copyrights last for roughly 110 years. No registration is necessary, no licensing, no extensions. If you create a work, it is by default copyrighted for that long.

So, if I wanted to use your work, maybe by making a cheesy TV show based on your novel, I would need your permission and would have to pay you a fee to do so. For the next 100 years! You know, it kind of makes sense when we think about protecting Mickey Mouse, but the problem arises from the millions of works that have vanished from public consciousness. We can't touch those either! We can't, for example, digitize the reels and reels of film that will soon decay from old age. It will all be irretrievably lost.

Why can't we just ask permission of the copyright holders, pay them their fee (if they request one), and get on with it? Because it's almost impossible to know who and where the copyright holders are. Remember, copyrights don't have to be registered. Couldn't we just use the old, abandoned work and hope the copyright holder will be gracious if he or she notices? Not unless we want to risk being sued, branded as a "thief," and fined an enormous sum of money.

Okay, I can see this entry is getting far too long already, so I'll stop now, even though it's got me all fired up. Besides, you should be reading the book, not my feeble summary of it.

Oh my. Condi "Machiavelli" Rice made it through the first round of confirmation hearings, as expected. Here's one reponse to a question about Iraq that upset me a bit, as quoted by CNN,

"I know enough about history to stand back and recognize that you judge decisions not in the moment, but how it all adds up," [Rice] said. "It's how Iraq turns out that ultimately matters."

Maybe I'm just cynical, but this looks like a fancy way of saying that the ends justify the means. Still, even by that twisted standard, can we really say that the invasion of Iraq was a good idea?

Here is a major resource for information related to the earthquake and tsunami: The South-East Asia Earthquake and Tsunami Blog. Let's pray, donate, and do whatever else we can to help those who are suffering in the wake of the devestation.

I was reminded of Bush's shameless, duplicitous statement in the second presidential debate, You might say I'm a good steward of the land, when I read yesterday's New York Times article about the administration's overhaul of environmental regulations:

The Bush administration issued broad new rules Wednesday overhauling the guidelines for managing the nation's 155 national forests and making it easier for regional forest managers to decide whether to allow logging, drilling or off-road vehicles.

The long-awaited rules relax longstanding provisions on environmental reviews and the protection of wildlife on 191 million acres of national forest and grasslands. They also cut back on requirements for public participation in forest planning decisions.
[read the full article]

You might also say that Bush is a big fat liar. But that wouldn't be polite.

Merry Christmas everyone.

A few days ago the Eschaton blog posted an entry about CBS and NBC refusing to run an ad from the United Church of Christ. Apparently, it was considered too controversial by the two networks. The ad, which you can view at stillspeaking.com, shows burly bouncers turning people away from a church. Then these words appear on the screen: Jesus didn't turn people away. Neither do we. A voiceover concludes:

No matter who you are, or where you are on life's journey, you're welcome here.

A press release published by the United Church of Christ reveals the rationale behind the CBS response:

"Because this commercial touches on the exclusion of gay couples and other minority groups by other individuals and organizations," reads an explanation from CBS, "and the fact the Executive Branch has recently proposed a Constitutional Amendment to define marriage as a union between a man and a woman, this spot is unacceptable for broadcast on the [CBS and UPN] networks."

FAIR.org (Fairness & Accuracy in Reporting) picked up the story and ran an Action Alert asking people to contact CBS and NBC and urge them to reverse the absurd policy that deems a church's acceptance of all people to be 'too controversial' to air.

So, what do you think about this ad? Is it too controversial for the American public? Should major networks refuse to air it? Or is the policy absurd?

In a Washington Post article, executive editor Leonard Downie Jr. (don't ask if he's related to Morton or Robert; I don't know) describes the policies in place at his newspaper to separate the editorial staff from the news staff and to maintain as much objectivity as possible. It's an excellent reminder of the standards that most mainstream news organizations apply to their reporting, even when it comes to political campaigns:

Of course, journalists are people, too, and cannot be expected to completely cleanse their professional minds of human emotions, especially when covering highly charged campaigns or controversial issues. Yet we ask Post reporters and editors to come as close as possible to doing just that.

As I have said and written before, I no longer exercise my right to vote. As the final decision-maker on news coverage in The Post, I refuse to decide, even privately, which candidate should be president or a member of the city council or what policies should be set for health care or taxes. I want my mind to remain open to all sides and possibilities as I supervise our coverage.
[Read the full article]

Granted, bias inevitably can creep in from time to time, no matter how hard the news outlet tries to keep it at bay. And we shouldn't just blindly trust what we read in the paper. But I think there's a real danger in throwing up our hands and saying, "all media are biased, so why bother to trust anyone?" Blind distrust seems as bad to me as blind trust.

How do we know, then, who is right when different news sources, or different political candidates, make contradictory claims? I'm not sure, beyond looking for holes in logic, gathering information from a variety of sources, and keeping an eye out for traditional "propaganda" techniques, such as unnamed sources and faulty appeals to emotion.

One very interesting take on this is an article in the current issue of the Columbia Journalism Review, "Blinded by Science: How 'Balanced' Coverage Lets the Scientific Fringe Hijack Reality." In the article Chris Mooney contends that "balanced" news coverage is often unfair, especially in science reporting, because it gives equal time or weight to fringe theories as it does to mainstream theories that have been tested and published in peer-reviewed scientific journals.

Without a doubt, the topic on which scientists have most vehemently decried both the media and the Bush administration is global warming. While some scientific uncertainty remains in the climate field, the most rigorous peer-reviewed assessments — produced roughly every five years by the United Nations' Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) — have cemented a consensus view that human greenhouse gas emissions are probably (i.e., the conclusion has a fairly high degree of scientific certainty) helping to fuel the greenhouse effect and explain the observed planetary warming of the past fifty years. Yet the Bush administration has consistently sought to undermine this position by hyping lingering uncertainties and seeking to revise government scientific reports. It has also relied upon energy interests and a small cadre of dissenting scientists (some of whom are funded, in part, by industry) in formulating climate policy.
[Read the full article]

As I learned from a recent Frontline report, The Persuaders, which aired on PBS and is now available online at pbs.org, one of the main forces behind Republican attempts to shift public attitudes toward global warming, now known to Republicans as "climate change," is Frank Luntz, who appears to be the wizard behind Karl Rove's curtain. Little known outside elite political circles, Luntz tests and retests words and phrases on focus groups to get a sense of which ones will resonate with the greatest number of people. He packages these phrases into "words that work" talking points and sells them to Republican politicians. It's a scary thing to see his focus-grouped statements coming out of the mouths of members of congress and members of the Bush administration. Check out luntzspeak.com for lots of examples of this guy's insidious spin.

Sure, this information is a little dated already, and we're all trying to move on (no pun intended) and put the election behind us, but for what it's worth, here are a few links to articles that try to make sense of the Republican victory:

Money and Politics: It's all about money.

Kerry Advisers Point Fingers at Iraq and Social Issues - from the New York Times

Simple but Effective: Why you keep losing to this idiot - an editorial from slate.com that doesn't try to hide its bias

Living Poor, Voting Rich

To appeal to middle America, Democratic leaders don't need to carry guns to church services and shoot grizzlies on the way. But a starting point would be to shed their inhibitions about talking about faith, and to work more with religious groups.

Why They Won

In nearly every election since [1968], liberalism has been vilified as a flag-burning, treason-coddling, upper-class affectation. This year voters claimed to rank "values" as a more important issue than the economy and even the war in Iraq.
 And yet, Democrats still have no coherent framework for confronting this chronic complaint, much less understanding it. Instead, they "triangulate," they accommodate, they declare themselves converts to the Republican religion of the market, they sign off on Nafta and welfare reform, they try to be more hawkish than the Republican militarists. And they lose. And they lose again. Meanwhile, out in Red America, the right-wing populist revolt continues apace, its fury at the "liberal elite" undiminished by the Democrats' conciliatory gestures or the passage of time.

Why We Lost

Throughout the campaign, voters told reporters and pollsters that they wanted a change, but didn't "know what John Kerry stands for." Our response was to churn out more speeches outlining the details of policies that Senator Kerry would then deliver in front of a backdrop that said something like "Rx to Stronger Health Care." Of course, it turned out that Americans weren't very interested in Mr. Kerry's campaign promises - perhaps because they no longer believe politicians will follow through on their commitments. They wanted to know instead how he saw the world. And we never told them.

Why are so many conservative Republicans feeling disenchanted with the current Bush administration? Why are some so frustrated that they're planning to abandon their party in the upcoming election? Read what they themselves have to say:

• John Eisenhower: Why I will vote for John Kerry for President
• FoxNews: Eisenhower's son voting for Kerry
• Republican Switchers
• What Prominent Republicans Are Saying
• The Conservative Case for Voting Democratic

I don't usually encourage conformity, but this time I'll make an exception.

Never mind what we're told about avoiding religion and politics at the dinner table; we've been getting plenty of both from the press these past few weeks, often in the same article.

Ron Suskind's (very long) article in the October 17 New York Times Magazine dissects Bush's religiosity:

The disdainful smirks and grimaces that many viewers were surprised to see in the first presidential debate are familiar expressions to those in the administration or in Congress who have simply asked the president to explain his positions. Since 9/11, those requests have grown scarce; Bush's intolerance of doubters has, if anything, increased, and few dare to question him now. A writ of infallibility — a premise beneath the powerful Bushian certainty that has, in many ways, moved mountains — is not just for public consumption: it has guided the inner life of the White House. As Whitman told me on the day in May 2003 that she announced her resignation as administrator of the Environmental Protection Agency: "In meetings, I'd ask if there were any facts to support our case. And for that, I was accused of disloyalty!"
[Read Without a Doubt]

An article in The Revealer, "Our Magical President," analyzes the Suskind article and concludes that Bush is more closely aligned with New Age religions than he is with fundamentalist Christianity (Thanks to Bill Harris for pointing me to this one):

Believing, it seems, is more important to the President than the substance of his belief. Jesus Christ's particular teachings — well, those are good, too. But what really matters is that if you believe you can do something, you can.

What Suskind misses, and what Bush's more orthodox Christian supporters seem to dodge, is that this is not Christian doctrine by any definition. It is, in fact, a key element of the broad, heterodox movement known as New Age religion.
[Read Our Magical President]

Tom Beaudoin, a Christian theologian writing in the Washington Post, wishes Bush and Kerry would stop talking about their faith:

I think the Democratic presidential nominee, as well as the Republican, ought to keep religious talk out of the campaign. Voters for whom religious faith makes a difference can have good reason to distrust candidates' talk about their faith. When candidates talk thus they diminish the dignity of faith itself by reducing it to a pious confession of conviction, humility or concern, a mere uttering of earnest words. A thick respect for the mystery of God, for the inability of God to be domesticated to one program or party — a respect that should be proper to the Christian faith of our presidential candidates — cannot be honored by such faith-talk in an election season.
[Read Talk that Diminishes Faith]

In a New York Times editorial that focuses mostly on the issue of abortion, Archbishop of Denver Charles J. Chaput writes:

Democracy depends on people of conviction expressing their views, confidently and without embarrassment. This give-and-take is an American tradition, and religious believers play a vital role in it. We don't serve our country — in fact we weaken it intellectually — if we downplay our principles or fail to speak forcefully out of some misguided sense of good manners.
[Read Faith and Patriotism]

Our poor neighbors have had seven Kerry-Edwards signs stolen out of their front yard so far. They're not giving up, though. This morning when I walked the kids by their house, they had two new signs proudly planted. They also had this somewhat incoherent sign posted front and center.

Apparently the thefts around the corner are not isolated incidents. Just the other night, a vigilant neighbor caught four students from nearby Cornerstone University with a couple dozen Kerry signs in the back of an SUV. And the Kerry-Edwards headquarters here in Grand Rapids says they've received complaints from more than 2,000 people who claim that their signs have been stolen.

My question is: Why wouldn't Republicans resort to sign stealing? After all, it accurately reflects the "ends justify the means" mentality that the Bush administration has been modeling these past four years.

I have an abundance of links to various articles and sites that I must share with you, my dear readers, who are gracious enough to read this silly web thingy of mine:

• "Rules of Engagement" by Christopher Buckley in the New Yorker. A parody of the presidential debate rules.
• "How to Lose the War on Terror: A CIA bin Laden Expert's Lament" from, of all places, The American Conservative. That's right, even some conservatives are willing to look at the evidence of this administration's big screwup.
• "Kerry Will Restore American Dignity," an editorial in the Lone Star Iconoclast. The newspaper of George W. Bush's adopted hometown, Crawford, Texas, is endorsing John Kerry in the upcoming presidential election. The editorial is a withering indictment of Bush's record.
• FundRace 2004 Neighbor Search: Here's one pretty creepy result of our right to access public information. Just type in an address and zip code, and you'll get a list of all the people at that address and in the surrounding area who have donated to a political campaign. You'll find out whom they supported and how much they gave. Does anyone else out there find this unsettling? Or do you think it's cool? Or both?
• "Dear Mike, Iraq sucks" from Guardian Unlimited, the online version of the liberal British newspaper. "After the release of Fahrenheit 9/11, Michael Moore received a flood of letters and emails from disillusioned and angry American soldiers serving in Iraq. Here, in an exclusive extract from his new book, we print a selection."
• "Capital Punishment and Homicide: Sociological Realities and Econometric Illusions" by Ted Goertzel in the Skeptical Inquirer: Addresses the nagging question of what to do when opposing sides present conflicting evidence on a controversial issue.

Happy reading!

In a New York Times Op-Ed, Stanley Fish discusses his writing class's analysis of recent speeches given by Bush and Kerry. Guess whose message has more rhetorical force?

President Bush, the students pointed out, begins with a perfect topic sentence...that nicely sets up a first paragraph describing how conditions in Afghanistan, Iraq, Libya, Pakistan and Saudi Arabia four years ago aided terrorists. This is followed by a paragraph explaining how the administration's policies have produced a turnaround in each country.... The paragraph's conclusion is concise, brisk and earned: "We have led, many have joined, and America and the world are safer."

Senator Kerry, my students observed with a mix of solemnity and glee, has violated two cardinal rules of exposition: don't presume your audience has information you haven't provided, and always pay attention to the expectations of your listeners.

If you can't explain an idea or a policy plainly in one or two sentences, it's not yours; and if it's not yours, no one you speak to will be persuaded of it, or even know what it is, or (and this is the real point) know what you are.

Read the full article: "The Candidates, Seen From the Classroom."

Peddling Fear in the Bible Belt

Anyone who reads the Bible must be a stupid idiot, right? That's obviously what the Republican Party thinks. Otherwise, they wouldn't think that Christians will fall for the fear-mongering claim that liberals want to ban the Bible: "Republicans Admit Mailing Campaign Literature Saying Liberals Will Ban the Bible"? Right. And if you believe that liberals will ban the Bible, you should also know that Osama bin Laden is voting for Kerry.

Republicans for Humility

Thankfully, not all Republicans are such offensive, insulting, shameless hucksters. In fact, some see right through Bush's swagger, and are calling on him to act like the decent Christian man he claims to be: Republicans for Humility.

Bush in Fantasy Land

There seems to be a growing chorus of voices in Editorial Land practically pleading with Bush to leave his Fantasy Land and stop pretending that everything in Iraq is going just fine:

• "Bush Upbeat as Iraq Burns" by Bob Herbert in The New York Times
• "Let's Get Real" by Paul Krugman, also in The New York Times
• "Match Iraq Policy to Reality" by Jessica Mathews in the Washington Post

Finally, someone in the mainstream (i.e. conservative) media came out and stated the obvious: Bush has done his fair share of flip flopping. Four years ago the Republicans pinned the same flip-flop label on Gore, so I was a little surprised that they would try it again with Kerry, and even more surprised that it seems to have stuck.

The Associated Press article, published by USA Today, notes: "President Bush has his own history of changing his position, from reversals on steel tariffs and "nation-building" to reasons for invading Iraq." It goes on to list at least 10 positions that Bush has changed—from tariffs to trade and from Homeland Security to Osama bin Laden.

Read the full article, "Both Sides Often Switch Positions."

Do I think that such evidence will change people's minds about either Bush or Kerry? Not a chance. Liberals will wave articles like this one in the air like battle flags while conservatives avert their eyes, in search of evidence to support their own views.

Update: In the September 24 edition of The Washington Post, John F. Harris writes "Despite Bush Flip-Flops, Kerry Gets Label".

An article published today in Slate.com catalogs the carefully scripted public statements by Bush supporters suggesting that Bush's presidency is the direct result of God's intervention. The final three paragraphs are absolutely brilliant:

...it's hard to recall another instance of a presidential campaign so confidently promulgating the idea that its candidate had divine endorsement. The potentially dangerous implication is that since God put George W. Bush in the White House, opposing him is opposing Him. A person could get smited for that.

Of course, it's always possible God did put George W. Bush in the White House. But if He did, it doesn't theologically follow that He wants him to have a second term. Even those who believe that God controls world events usually concede it is hard for humans to divine the intent of the Divine.

After all, in the Bible, God is described as doing things for all sorts of inexplicable reasons—sometimes as a reward to the people, and sometimes as a punishment.

Read the full article, "Heaven Sent," by Steven Waldman.

In an article I read about the Republican National Convention, the writer noted that while Saddam Hussein's name came up over a dozen times, none of the speakers mentioned Osama bin Laden. Now, I have no idea why they wouldn't even mention the guy's name, but I just might have figured out why we haven't captured him yet:

• The Bush administration is too busy fighting the real terrorist threat—John Kerry. And,
• Osama bin Laden is actually hiding in Iraq—right next to the Weapons of Mass Destruction.

Anyone out there have any other ideas about why Osama is still on the lam?
While I'm on the political harangue, here are a couple links to funny, fake political ads:

• The Bush campaign's TV commercial if he was running against Jesus
• Pleasure Boat Captains for Truth

It appears that conventional wisdom, at least of the Republican sort, doesn't hold up well to scrutiny. Two articles in Slate.com do a particularly nice job of exposing the lies, half-truths, deceptions, and misdirections that speakers at the Republican National Convention tried to pass on to the American public:

• Lies, Damned Lies, and Convention Speeches by Fred Kaplan
• Imperial President by William Saletan

Here is a (rather lengthy) passage from Saletan's article, which includes a quote from psuedo-democrat Zell Miller's speech:

If the convention speeches are any guide, Republicans have run out of excuses for blowing the economy, blowing the surplus, and blowing our military resources and moral capital in the wrong country. So they're going after the patriotism of their opponents. Here's what the convention keynoter, Miller, said tonight about Democrats and those who criticize the way President Bush has launched and conducted the Iraq war:

   "While young Americans are dying in the sands of Iraq and the mountains of Afghanistan, our nation is being torn apart and made weaker because of the Democrats' manic obsession to bring down our commander in chief.
   "Motivated more by partisan politics than by national security, today's Democratic leaders see America as an occupier, not a liberator.
   "In [Democratic leaders'] warped way of thinking, America is the problem, not the solution. They don't believe there is any real danger in the world except that which America brings upon itself.
   "Kerry would let Paris decide when America needs defending. I want Bush to decide."

Every one of these charges is demonstrably false. When Bush addressed Congress after 9/11, Democrats embraced and applauded him. In the Afghan war, they gave him everything he asked for. Most Democratic senators, including John Kerry and John Edwards, voted to give him the authority to use force in Iraq. During and after the war, they praised Iraq's liberation. Kerry has never said that any other country should decide when the United States is entitled to defend itself.

But the important thing isn't the falsity of the charges, which Republicans continue to repeat despite press reports debunking them. The important thing is that the GOP is trying to quash criticism of the president simply because it's criticism of the president. The election is becoming a referendum on democracy. [emphasis added]

Fred Kaplan's article is no less instructive—or disheartening. Referring to the charge that Kerry voted to curtail funding of all sorts of weapons, Kaplan notes:

...it's not just that Cheney and those around him are lying; it's not even just that they know they're lying; it's that they know—or at least Cheney knows—that the same lie could be said about him. That's what makes it a damned lie.

Kaplan then directly quotes Cheney's own complaint, during his tenure as Bush Sr.'s secretary of defense, that Congress wasn't cutting weapons programs enough.

I could go on and on, quoting these articles and fuming, but my blood pressure is too high already, so I'll just leave you to read them in their entirety (they're linked above) or check out these others:

• Heads in the Sand, a New York Times Op-Ed by Bob Herbert
• Feel the Hate, another New York Times Op-Ed, this one by Paul Krugman
• The GOP's Dirty Z-Bomb, by Washington Post columnist E.J. Dionne, Jr.
• GOP Prism Distorts Some Kerry Positions, by Glenn Kessler and Dan Morgan, in the Washington Post

Here are a few links to political humor/activism, in case you haven't seen them already:

• Will Ferrel's White House West: A George W. Bush spoof ad
• This Land Is Your Land: A bipartisan parody by Jibjab.com
• Bush in 30 Seconds: The top entries in a contest to capture the essence of George W. Bush's administration in 30 seconds

You may or may not find this George W. Bush quote funny, depending on your ability to laugh in the face of idiocy:

Our enemies are innovative and resourceful, and so are we. They never stop thinking about new ways to harm our country and our people, and neither do we. (Washington D.C., Aug. 5, 2004)
— from Slate.com's Bushism of the Day

A friend of mine lent me a book a couple months ago called Violence, which I just picked up this past weekend and started to read. Only 25 or so pages into it, I can already say it is the most intensely disturbing book I have ever read. And for all the right reasons. Author James Gilligan, a prison psychiatrist, writes about the hell of prison life and the "deadness" of the inmates. One passage struck me in particular as a powerful antidote to some of the rhetoric that I used to hear from friends at one of my former jobs:

The state of despair of these violent men does not result simply from their being imprisoned (although that frequently exacerbates it). Many have made suicide attempts before they were jailed, others attempt or complete suicide after their release, and a certain percentage of murderers never enter prison because they kill themslves before they are even arrested or convicted. Also, more inmates are killed by other inmates than were ever killed by the State. In other words, no group is more strongly and widely in favor of capital punishment than are the murderers and other prison inmates. They will even impose it on themselves and each other when the State fails to do so, which is why I feel I am living in "cloud-cuckoo-land" when I hear people suggesting that capital punishment will deter murder and induce more "reverence for life." The men I know already feel so spiritually dead that they long for physical death as well.

This morning my pastor, Jack Roeda, told an anecdote about some graffiti he saw in a bathroom stall. Someone had written:

God is a crutch.

Underneath it, someone else had written:

Yes, and humanity has a broken leg—and then some.

How true.