Friday, March 30, 2007

Narcissistic Personality Disorder

“We hold these Truths to be self-evident, that all Men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the Pursuit of Happiness.” These words from the Declaration of Independence are among the most famous and inspirational in the history of ideas.

Note that these rights do not include the Right to Happiness. The Founding Fathers were intelligent enough to know that it was beyond their power, and also believed that it is not the business of government to guarantee outcomes. Government was committed to do nothing to stand in the way of the pursuit of happiness (income taxes notwithstanding) but was not about to make happiness a right.

Oh, how things have changed! Today, there are folks who think that the government needs to guarantee the right to health care, the right to housing and the right to income equality. I know that I’m a little bummed that I make less than Kobe Bryant and Barbara Boxer, but then I can’t out-jump Kobe, or out-think Barb… Scratch that! I have no idea why she’s not impoverished.


Our friend Dennis Prager has been talking about “Compassion and the Decline of America.” He tells about the 13-year-old son of his friend and the baseball game where the score was changed. His son's team was winning 24-7 as the game entered the last inning, but the scoreboard read 0-0. In order to ensure that the boys losing by a lopsided score would not feel too bad, the score was changed.

Throughout liberal America, compassion is trumping all other values: truth, fairness, wisdom and building character. One pities the boys on the losing team, but not for the typical PC reasons. “They learned that they do not have to deal with disappointment in life. Instead, someone in authority will take care of them. They learned that their feelings, not objective standards, are what society deems most important.”

This reliance on the state for personal problems -- health care, housing and income equality, winning and losing -- the worldview of the Left -- is formed early in life.
Prager notes that compassion is a morally and socially destructive guideline when making public policy.

Mike Medved, another good friend, notes that the “Essence of Liberalism” is embracing life's losers. The left sees society divided between the privileged and the powerless, the favored and the unfortunate, victors and victims.

“While the right wants to reward beneficial choices and discourage destructive directions, the left seeks to eliminate or reduce the impact of the disadvantages that result from bad decisions. In place of the conservative emphasis on accountability, the left proffers a gospel of indiscriminate compassion.”

Actually, indiscriminate is not quite right. “Enlightened lefties long to embrace and exalt the homeless, single mothers, people of color, homosexuals, feminists, convicted criminals, atheists, immigrants and many more – even Islamo-Nazi terrorists. America is simply too prosperous and too powerful to win liberal sympathy.”

In his book The Liberal Mind: The Psychological Causes of Political Madness," Lyle H. Rossiter, M.D., describes the liberal psyche.

“In his determination to control the world, the liberal constantly defends himself against the most basic of human fears: being alone and helpless in a dangerous, indifferent world, the nightmare of the abandoned, terrified child. Persons plagued with such fears easily conclude that it is in their greatest interest to dominate others, and to set about achieving that goal through the manipulation of government power.”

This leads to the “liberal principle of coercive collectivism in which the citizen's choices will be influenced by ideals of entitlement, welfare dependency, state regulation and moral relativism.” The liberal, Rossiter adds, is “not called to maturity but is instead invited to begin a second childhood. Like the child at play, he is given, or at least promised, ultimate economic, social and political security without having to assume responsibility for himself.”

In an insightful column called “The Pathology of Liberalism,” Joan Swirsky explains that “at the core of liberal thinking is the same kind of pathology that characterizes other mental disorders, i.e., a glitch in the brain that produces feelings and behavior over which liberals have no control.”

“Liberals, like children, live in a world of utopian dreaminess, believing that if everyone would just be nice to each other - let's talk, let's chat - all the noisy death threats and pesky suicide bombings would go away, and all those grumpy grownups in the current administration would see the light.”

“And when thwarted they do what children do when they're mad. They call names. Who but a snobby and vacuous little brat would badmouth the president on foreign soil while our troops were in harm's way as liberal Senator John Kerry did, as did liberal former presidents Jimmy Carter and Bill Clinton.”

Much worse, they've aligned themselves with America's mortal enemies. According to Vasko Kohlmayer in World Defense Review, “the affection in which liberals are held by our foes is neither unjustified nor surprising. They have more than earned it by systematically subverting this country's war effort while simultaneously proffering assistance to those who have pledged to destroy us.”

It is a long suffered illness. “Almost all of the current Dem leadership was actively involved in the Vietnam protest effort. Bill and Hilary Clinton, John Kerry, Ted Kennedy, Howard Dean, Chuck Schumer, Dick Durbin and Nancy Pelosi were all personally engaged in the anti-war movement. And when at last it bore its disastrous fruit, they gloated and danced in the streets. Exhilarated and jubilant, they deemed America's disgrace their finest hour. In their skewed world, America's defeat came to represent their personal triumph.”

Joan Swirsky advises, the next time you're listening to a liberal, observe the symptoms: the anger, pessimism, negativity, name-calling, gratuitous insults, the desire to present an image of goodness, the transparent attempt to be liked, and the eagerness to placate our enemies, the better to avoid a fight so that those enemies will like us.

“Ask yourself: Do I want a child to be the President of the United States and the Commander in Chief in a time of war?”

I ask myself, Do I want liberals making any decisions that determine the direction of our country? NOPE!

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Tuesday, March 27, 2007

Banish the Bling

“A culture of failure taints black America” wrote Juan Williams of National Public Radio. (Washington Post, 8/21/06) Williams noted there is a “sinister obstacle facing African American young people today: a culture steeped in bitterness and nihilism, a culture that is a virtual blueprint for failure.”

In response to my post “Parsing the Achievement Gap” (3/23/07) blogging buddy Mahndisa commented about the “mass popularization of NEGATIVE rap and NEGATIVE rock and roll, plebian, gut bucket, baby mamma having, concubining, drug selling and doing foolishness that is glorified, rather than condemned as in previous generations.”

Mahndisa is a black educator who fights against the culture of failure every day. She concludes: “I am sick and tired of seeing people who choose a life of ignorance because they are trying to be black.”


Williams talks of generational poverty caused by the fact that nearly 70% of black children (and 50% of Hispanic children) are born to single women today. “Their search for identity and a sense of direction is undermined by the twisted popular culture that focuses on the “bling-bling” of fast money associated with rap artists, drug dealers and the idea that women are at their best when flaunting their sexuality and having babies.”


Bob Herbert in the New York Times (“The Danger Zone”) talks about the extreme joblessness of young black men — “joblessness that is coursing through communities and being passed from one generation to another, like a deadly virus” — that is a direct consequence of dropping out of school. For high school dropouts, the jobless rate is 29% for whites, 19% for Hispanics and 67% for black men.

Herbert’s solution is “Education, Education, Education.” For black males, employment rates rise from 33% among high school dropouts to 57% among high school graduates to 86% among four-year college graduates (just 2% below the white rate).

Herbert believes that not working “breeds all manner of antisocial behavior, including violent crime” and that there are so few black marriages because “there are so many black men who are financially incapable of supporting a family.” This is disturbing. Here is an educated, black columnist for the New York Times who thinks that lack of a job causes crime. It is, again, a question of cause and effect, chicken and egg.

Kay Hymowitz (“Marriage and Caste,” City Journal) notes that America’s chief source of inequality is the Marriage Gap. As of 1960, the percentage of high school dropout women who were single mothers barely hit 1%. That all changed in the decades following the 1960s when women with lower educational levels “decided that marriage and children were two entirely unconnected life experiences.” Such behavior is irrational as marriage improves the economic situation of low-income women, even if their husbands are only deliverymen or janitors.

Barry, another friend and blog reader, has pegged the root cause of the increasing illegitimacy among poor people. The Great Society welfare programs made it economically advantageous to be a poor mother with out-of-wedlock children and no job. It allowed males to skip out of all family obligations. Now we have a third generation on the way whose culture is tied to a welfare state mentality and the accompanying victimization complex of their hypocritical leaders.

Jesse the Jackson wrote today that young African-American boys are in crisis… but “we can't simply load the blame on the schools.” Is this a new JJ? But then he reverted to huckster form. In the crucial early years, “they are shackled…. with no systematic program to ensure prenatal care, health care, day care, parental education.” JJ’s solution is mo gub’ment to take care of the kids while the moms … do what the moms do.

“We've got too many babies raising babies,” said Jackson, “who don't have the resources or the knowledge of how to take care of their children.” Right on!

Mahndisa punctuated the issue: “All of my Black ancestors would roll over in their graves if they knew folk were acting like this!”

The bloody crime is that the poor in America were better off fifty years ago because they had better values that included being married to your children’s mother and supporting your family, no matter what it took.



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Sunday, March 25, 2007

California Dreamin'

On March 13, several of the Palos Verdes Library District (PVLD) staff, trustees and volunteers attended a workshop on the “Future of Libraries: Perceptions and Realities” at the Burbank Library, Buena Vista Branch. Joan Frye Williams and George Needham gave a lively and informative presentation on the changes in the library, alternating between George’s data and Joan’s stories.

At the 10,000 foot level, the trends in public libraries include self service, dis-aggregation and collaboration. Information was once expensive and scarce, but now the library value proposition has been “turned on it’s ear” because information is everywhere, it's cheap and “time is money.”

The question today is, What is the new Library brand? The stat’s reveal some of the trends. Today, 65% of library users borrow print books, 63% use our reference books, 54% get assistance on research and 38% use the library internet services. Libraries do a good job providing these services, but we could do better. To the question, Which fits my lifestyle perfectly?, search engines got the top score (54%) with libraries coming in second at 18% followed by bookstores at 15%. Furthermore, 31% of patrons report that their library usage has gone down, compared to 25% that have gone up.

Part of the cause for the decline in usage relates to the internet. When asked, Which sources of information would you rate favorably?, respondents gave the top score (88%) to search engines, followed by libraries (79%), bookstores (77%) and library web sites (46%). This ranking is partly due to familiarity, as 55% reported being familiar with search engines, compared to libraries (46%) and library web sites (15%).

When asked, Where do you begin searching for information?, the divergence becomes marked, with 84% saying search engines compared to only 1% who begin at the library web site. As for usage, 71% have used Google while only 21% have used their library web site. Furthermore, 70% of users find no difference in trustworthiness between search engine sourced information and library information, and search engines are still in their infancy.


George concluded, “the information war is over, and we lost.”

Thus, there is a need to evolve the library brand. The question is, What is the library’s primary role? Today 85% of patrons see the library as a place to learn. That increases across the age brackets from 69% of 14-17 year olds to 94% of 65+ year olds. Voluntary learning seems to be the transformative trend in library usage. It could be part of our new brand.

Joan stressed that libraries are an option for busy people, and what we can do to make that option more attractive. She emphasized a warm welcome, clean and comfortable surroundings, natural light, community rooms and to be a source of pride. Still today, too many people come to the library “expecting to get into trouble.” Fasting and vows of silence are not welcoming. We need to treat patrons like guests in our house.

We also need to de-mystify the library experience. Too many of our tools are un-necessarily complex, as is our nomenclature. And we need to evolve from just answering questions to solving problems for our patrons. Our highest value adds are service and ideas, not information. As community specialists, we need to show that we care more about people than about information. The library should become the “idea laboratory.”

There is a wide range of opportunities on the library web sites. Blogs are a growth opportunity. How about a PTA blog? A new parents blog? Users group blogs? Links from YouTube and Wikipedia to pvld.org? What is Technorati saying about PVLD and the Annex? In a year or two more money will be donated online than by check. We need to build our online donations and create relationships with our donors.

And we need to listen better to our customers. They want convenience and abbundance; more workstations, fewer OPACS (only 9% of library users ever use the OPAC in LAPL); browse-worthy collections with face-forward books; story-time classes, emphasizing learning; new things (art, music and ballet in the library); online payment of fines (call them “extended-user fees”); Net-Flix style circulation (offer to send out held books); record and podcast programs; better support the school district (eg. stock reference textbooks); provide simplified wayfinding and virtual tours. In general, we need to partner with the community to learn what they want, to be customer-focused and then judge our performance on results not transactions.


After the presentation, six local librarians talked about some initiatives their institutions were taking. From George Needham’s web site:


David Campbell from PVLD talked about a
staff training opportunity the library had launched. The training consists of 10 exercises, including starting a blog, posting a photo album to Flickr, and create an RSS feed. Everyone who completes the training gets an MP3 player and is entered into a drawing for a digital camera, an iPod or a Wii.

Nanette Schneir of the Santa Monica Public Library demonstrated the
Vocera communication system her library uses. The Vocera Communications Badge allows staff to range throughout the building while still being able to handle reference calls or back up the desk. The reference librarians at Santa Monica were please with the change.

Karen Schatz described the new Help Desk that replaced the old reference desk at the Oxnard Public Library. It's staffed by trained (but not-MLS) employees, it's placed in a very visible, highly strategic location, and it allows the reference librarians to provide more quality and quantity time with customers who really need help.

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Friday, March 23, 2007

Parsing the Achievement Gap

My initial reaction to the California education report (Getting Down to Facts?, 3/18/07) was decidedly negative. The newspaper accounts emphasized the CA education performance (dismal) and the projected financial needs (astounding). Like the other scribes, I was dismayed. Over the last few days I took the opportunity to look more closely at the massive 1700 page report and now I’m really depressed.

The summary lays out the dismal statistics. The 2005 National Assessment of Education Progress ranked California 44th in eighth grade math, 48th in reading and 50th in science (ahead of only Mississippi) in comparison to the 49 other states and the District of Columbia. Some suggest that California’s position simply reflects the large minority populations in the state. However in math scores, for example, California ranked only 36th for both white students and for children of college graduates relative to their peers in other states. We are proud of the fact that Palos Verdes high school students rank in the top 3% in CA, but how well do they perform relative to districts with comparable demographics in New York or Wisconsin?

Some “Getting Down to Facts” conclusions: Solely directing more money into the current system will not dramatically improve student achievement. Simply introducing more new categorical programs will not produce the desired achievement gains. Our system is not making the most efficient use of its current resources. State policies do not let administrators make the best use of the pool of potential teachers nor adequately support current teachers. And something must be done about the excessive difficulty in dismissing weak teachers.


It takes 1700 pages to explain these obvious issues while making not one concrete proposal to fix the broken system. That will take another year and another million bucks. I have a suggestion: Just fix it! The teacher issues tread on the third rail of union contracts, but all it takes is political will, starting with the Gov and the legislature, to make the needed changes.


And make those changes before spending another extra dollar (or billion dollars) on the system. The relationship between spending and performance is so unclear that the various studies projected costs ranging from a few extra billion dollars to over a trillion dollars. For example, take a district that is spending $8000 per student and has an API of 750. Using the cost function estimates, a fifty-point increase in API (to 800) would require an increase of only $181 per pupil. Using the production function estimates, the same fifty-point increase in API would require an increase of $11,600 per pupil, that is, 64 times as much. And “total estimated costs from the California production function are $1.5 trillion.” Such disparate estimates resemble those coming from the global warming computer.

As a great counter-example, consider the liberal Kansas City judge who ordered that the failing local school district be given whatever amount of money was necessary to succeed. The spending per student skyrocketed to the neighborhood of $40,000. Everything was first class. The result: Grades dropped even lower and the drop-out rate increased.

The most discouraging thing is the realization that five years after “No Child Left Behind,” the major CA accomplishment is the establishment of world class standards and a system of assessment and accountability for schools and students. The problems that existed in 2000 have barely budged.

Parsing the Achievement Gap by Paul Barton synthesizes a large body of research that identifies those factors associated with educational attainment. The picture is daunting because it is clear that educational achievement is associated with home, school, and societal factors, almost all having their roots in socioeconomic forces affecting the country.

Parsing lists 14 correlates of elementary and secondary school achievement, six related to schools and eight related to families.

School correlates are (1) rigor of the curriculum, (2) teacher preparation, (3) teacher experience and attendance, (4) class size, (5) technology-assisted instruction and (6) school safety.

Family correlates are (7) weight at birth, (8) exposure to environmental hazards such as lead, (9) hunger and nutrition, (10) reading to young children, (11) the amount of TV watching, (12) parent availability, (13) student mobility (how frequently children change schools) and (14) parent participation.

Data show that whites (62% of the student population) take 66% of the AP classes while blacks (17%) take 4% of the AP courses. The percent of 8th grade math teachers lacking certification is 13% in non-poor schools but 22% in poor schools. The percent of teachers with class sizes above 24 kids is 22% in low-minority schools but 31% in high-minority schools. Low minority classrooms come 94% equipped with computers compared to 77% of high minority classrooms. The percent of students reporting gangs in school is 16% in predominantly white schools but 29% in black schools.

The teacher issues can be easily solved by assignment and extra pay. Only the unions stand in the way. The AP courses and gangs in schools are related to families.

The percent of babies born with low weights is white 7%, black 13% and Hispanic 7%. Lead poisoning is more likely in black homes (22% contain lead based paint) compared to white homes (6%). Only 2% of white children are regularly hungry compared to 7% of black children. The percent of third grade children who have already switched schools 3 times is 13% among whites but 27% among blacks. Over 75% of white children live with two parents compared to 38% of black children. The percent of children who are read to daily is 64% of white kids compared to 48% of black kids. On the other hand 42% of black kids watch 6 or more hours of TV daily compared to 13% of white kids.

The school system is nearly helpless in addressing these family issues. And these are the issues that drive achievement far more that the school issues. The family issues can only be solved by changing black and poor culture and that has to be done by those communities themselves. We definitely need more Bill Cosby’s.

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Sunday, March 18, 2007

Getting Down to Facts

Well, we can all rest a lot easier. The root cause of the gross failure of the California education system has been discerned, and the solution is at hand.

A year ago Governor Arnold S. appointed a blue-ribbon commission to take a comprehensive look at the education system. Democrats and Republicans alike say a wholesale transformation of the public schools is essential. “Our system is broken, and only major fundamental change can fix it,” said Chairman Ted Mitchell of the Gov's education committee.

The commission’s findings are being offered as a blueprint for fixing CA schools. In 1700 pages of light reading, "Getting Down to Facts" has all the answers, boiled down to the 3-Rs for education: revenue and revenue and mo revenue.

Just to get an idea of the financial ballpark, let’s look at the baseline. Today CA spends $43 Billion on K-12 education or $11,600 per year on each of its 3.7 million students. Yet California’s education problems are massive, with students ranking 48th out of 50 states in both reading and math.

Something must be done! Drum roll please: According to the report, $1.5 Trillion more each year will be needed to make all California students academically proficient. That’s $1.5 Trillion or $1,500 Billion for all you kids who flunked 5th grade math. That tidy sum works out to a bit over $400,000 per pupil per year. Thus education funding would increase from 50% of the state budget to 95%, each and every year.

Perhaps that figure is a bit inflated says report co-author Jennifer Imazeki, an assistant professor of economics at San Diego State. Her calculation was not a serious proposal for funding but rather an exercise to demonstrate how broken things are. “The relationship between money and performance is weak and noisy in California” she said. I’ll bet she is right!

After the laughter died down, economist Jon Sonstelie of the Public Policy Institute of California reported on a different approach. He interviewed 567 teachers, principals and superintendents and put them in charge of a hypothetical school budget that was, hypothetically, 50 percent higher than in real life. Without raising salaries, interviewees had to decide how to spend the extra loot so as to best maximize achievement. They lowered class size, added administrators, hired a lot more support staff and increased collaboration among teachers. All nice to-do’s.

Sonstelie’s conclusion: School spending would have to grow by $17 Billion for even half of the schools to hover in the 800-point range of the Academic Performance Index, the CA goal. The new spending would be just $16,200 per pupil per year, a bargain compared to $400 grand.

But notice how this result was obtained. Sonstelie conducted interviews, asking school officials how they would spend more money, and to guess how much of an effect it would have. Spend 40% more money to improve 50% of the test scores, based on gut feel, with data pulled out of you know where.

Such studies should be interpreted as political documents not as scientific studies, according to Stanford University’s Eric Hanushek. “The important question for assessing costing out studies is whether they can describe policies and resources that will reliably lead to the new, higher achievement levels. None can.”

Hanushek, who is a “Getting Down to Facts” contributor, examined every scientific study available on the effects of spending and educational outcomes, 163 in all, and found that “dramatic increases in resources have not led to improvement in performance of our students.” One wonders why he was not banished from the commission.

Fortunately there were a few good ideas in the report. More than anything else — even increased funds or more teachers — principals said they needed greater power to fire ineffective teachers. With typical insight, the head of the California Teachers Assn. criticized the focus on ineffective teachers. “Frankly, firing one or two teachers isn't what this is about,” said Barbara Kerr. “It's about big-picture reform. I'm sure if you ask teachers what they want, they would say to get rid of bad administrators. Let's get over this part.”

Hey, here’s an idea: How about if we fire all the bad ones, and ruthlessly reduce bureaucracy (“RRB”) everywhere.

But as with all discussions of education reform in California, the liberals always have the last word. “We already know what needs to be done, and now we have the research and data to back it up,” said Soledad Padilla of the grass-roots group California ACORN. We need money, mo money, really humongous money, and you taxpayers had better give it to us.

Meanwhile, more money is already starting to flow to schools in need as a result of the $2.9 Billion settlement between Gov. Arnold and the California Teachers Assn. Although the money belonged equally to all schools, the parties to the lawsuit opted for a plan that targeted one third of the 20 percent of worst performing schools (not the bottom 6.7%, but that’s another story). LA Unified school board member David Tokofsky called the infusion significant: “This is not permanent money, and this is not a very well thought-out program, but it is being driven by all of our feelings that we can wait no longer,” said Tokofsky.

In lower education, feelings trump everything else.

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Wednesday, March 14, 2007

Global Warming Boils Over

From Bulgarian brothels to Australian cockroaches, with a pinch of Johnny Edwards thrown in for sweetening, the global warming hysteria brew is boiling over.

You heard it right. Brothel owners in Bulgaria are blaming global warming for staff shortages. Petra Nestorova claims her best girls are working in ski resorts because the lack of snow has forced tourists to seek other pleasures. “We have hired students, but they are temps and nothing like our elite girls.”

Down Under, global warming is being blamed for a changing of the guard among Sydney's cockroach population. The most common roach-species was the German cockroach until it disappeared about seven years ago, now replaced by the Australian house cockroach, methana marginalus, which likes warmer climates.

Then in a hissy-fit on national television, Johnny Edwards exclaimed: “This is an emergency. It's a frightening thing. It'll make world war look like heaven.”

And if all that is not bizarre enough, PETA has warned Al Gore about the most “Inconvenient Truth”: According to UN, animals raised for food generate more Greenhouse Gases than all cars and trucks combined. PETA sent a letter to Al explaining that the best way to fight global warming is to go vegetarian and offering him a faux “fried chicken” introduction to meat-free meals. Researchers have determined that switching to a vegan diet is more effective in countering global warming than switching from a standard American car to a Toyota Prius.

And that’s not the end of the troubles for Uncle Al. In his documentary, the former Veep calls on Americans to conserve energy by reducing electricity consumption at home. But the Tennessee Center for Policy Research has found that Gore deserves a gold statue for hypocrisy. Gore’s mansion consumes more than 20 times the electricity of the average American home. The reaction from the Gore camp is instructive. Spokesperson Kalee Kreider told ABC News: “I think what you're seeing here is the last gasp of the global warming skeptics.” The Gores are rich, and rich people are not going to let their belief in global warming crimp their lifestyles.

Yet, there is some hope for sanity. Except amongst the silly people, the tide seems to be turning.

Claude Allegre, one of France's most celebrated scientists (and a leading socialist) has recanted his views on global warming. Allegre is a scientist of the first order, the architect of isotope geodynamics and renowned for his research on the geochemical evolution of the Earth. To his surprise, Allegre found that the many climate models and studies failed dismally in establishing a man-made cause of catastrophic global warming. Meanwhile, increasing evidence indicates that most of the warming comes of natural phenomena. Allegre now sees global warming as over-hyped and an environmental concern of second rank.

In England, a television documentary aired last week condemned man-made global warming as a myth that has become “the biggest scam of modern times.” The program titled “The Great Global Warming Scandal” dismisses claims that high levels of greenhouse gases generated by human activity causes climate change. “Solar activity is far more likely to be the culprit.”

The program featured an impressive collection of experts including professors in climatology, oceanography, meteorology, biogeography and paleoclimatology. The truth is that global warming “is a multibillion-dollar worldwide industry, created by fanatically anti-industrial environmentalists, supported by scientists peddling scare stories to chase funding, and propped up by compliant politicians and the media.”

Martin Durkin, the program’s producer said, “I think this is a turning point, and in five years the idea that the greenhouse effect is the main reason behind global warming will be seen as total bunk.” Paul Reiter of Paris' Pasteur Institute calls the U.N. report a “sham” because, he says, it included the names of scientists -- including his own -- who disagreed with the report and who resigned from the panel. Some sued to get their names removed.

Environmentalism is a religion that is based more on political ambitions than science, the president of the Czech Republic warned. President Vaclav Klaus, said that environmentalists who clamor for policy change to combat global warming “only pretend” to be promoting environmental protection, and are actually being driven by a political agenda. “Environmentalism should belong in the social sciences,” much like the idea of communism or other “-isms” such as feminism, Klaus said, adding that “environmentalism is a religion” that seeks to “reorganize the world order as well as social behavior and value systems worldwide.”

Even the New York Times is starting to see the light. In a piece called “From a Rapt Audience, a Call to Cool the Hype,” William Broad declared that Hollywood has a thing for Al Gore and his three-alarm film on global warming, “An Inconvenient Truth.” But his scientific audience is uneasy, many claiming that some of Mr. Gore’s central points are exaggerated and erroneous. They are alarmed, some say, at what they call his alarmism.

Kevin Vranes, a climatologist at the University of Colorado, said he sensed a growing backlash against exaggeration.

Gore claims that “our civilization has never experienced any environmental shift remotely similar to this” threatened change. But a report by the National Academies contradicts Gore’s portrayal of recent temperatures as the highest in the past millennium. Instead, the report said, current highs appear to be the highest since only 1600, the tail end of a temperature rise known as the medieval warm period, long before the industrial revolution.

Don Easterbrook, an emeritus professor of geology, hotly disputed Gore’s nonsense. Easterbrook showed the crowded session at a recent Geological Society convention a slide that showed temperature trends for the past 15,000 years. It highlighted 10 large swings, including the medieval warm period. These shifts, he said, were up to “20 times greater than the warming in the past century.”

In January, Paul Reiter, director of the insects and infectious diseases unit of the Pasteur Institute in Paris, faulted Gore for his portrayal of global warming as spreading malaria. “For 12 years, my colleagues and I have protested against the unsubstantiated claims,” Dr. Reiter wrote in The International Herald Tribune. “We have done the studies and challenged the alarmists, but they continue to ignore the facts.”

Some scientists have sacrificed their integrity for politics. In Science magazine Richard Kerr warned that “Climate modelers have been ‘cheating’ for so long it’s almost become respectable.”

And some in the movement are becoming downright hostile. The debate on global warming has been hijacked by a powerful alliance of politicians, scientists and environmentalists who have stifled all questioning about the true environmental impact of carbon dioxide emissions. Some scientists who question mankind's impact on climate change have even received death threats.

Timothy Ball, a former climatology professor at the University of Winnipeg in Canada, has received five death threats by email since raising concerns about the degree to which man was affecting climate change.

“Western governments have pumped billions of dollars into careers and institutes and they feel threatened,” said the professor. “I can tolerate being called a sceptic because all scientists should be sceptics, but then they started calling us deniers, with all the connotations of the Holocaust. That is an obscenity. It has got really nasty and personal.”

Myles Allen, from Oxford University, agreed. “The Green movement has hijacked the issue of climate change. It is ludicrous to suggest the only way to deal with the problem is to start micro managing everyone, which is what environmentalists seem to want to do.”

Even thought FDR wasn't my favorite president, his famous quote, “We have nothing to fear but fear itself,” should help us realize what these wackos are doing to the public.

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Friday, March 09, 2007

Who Needs Marriage!!

If we are to believe a pair of articles in the Washington Post, only upper crust women still live by the old adage -- first comes love, then marriage, then the baby carriage.

“As marriage with children becomes an exception rather than the norm, it is also becoming the self-selected province of the college-educated and the affluent” wrote Blaine Harden in his Post article (“Numbers Drop for the Married with Children,” 3/4/07). Meanwhile, the working class and the poor “increasingly steer away from marriage, while living together and bearing children out of wedlock.” I have a vision of masses of low income women who steer away from marriage in order to have babies on their own.

Isabel V. Sawhill, an expert at the Brookings Institution, concludes: “The culture is shifting, and marriage has almost become a luxury item, one that only the well educated and well paid are interested in.” One has to wonder why the poor are uninterested in marriage.

Sociologists call the tendency of educated, affluent people to unite in marriage “assortative mating.” A corollary to the theory applies to uneducated, poor people who also tend to unite, but in hookups and pregnancies, forgoing marriage.

What accounts for this increasing divergence? Harden blames “the rise of a class-based marriage gap to the erosion since 1970 of the broad-based economic prosperity that followed World War II.” Harden seems to believe that economic prosperity peaked just after WWII, demonstrating a gross ignorance of basic macro-economics.

Harden concedes that “marriage raises the earnings of men and motivates them to work more hours… and reduces by two-thirds the likelihood that a family will live in poverty.” I can tell you that babies born into loving families motivate the father’s working/earning gene at least as much as the marriage itself. Unfortunately, marriage and childbearing seem to be “de-coupled” among many black people with about three-quarters of first births coming before marriage (which usually never happens) compared to a third among white women.

In his Post op-ed (“Family Value Chutzpah,” 3/7/7) Harold Myerson notes that “the Ozzie and Harriet family still rolls along within the upper-middle class but has become much harder to find in working-class America, where cohabitation without marriage has increasingly become the norm.” Myerson blames conservative policies that have “condemned American workers to lives of economic insecurity and as their level of economic security declines, so does their entry into marriage.”

Let’s parse that conclusion: Conservative policies lead to economic insecurity which leads to children born out of wedlock. Myerson believes, apparently, that times are tougher now than during the Great Depression when illegitimate births were rare.

Here is an alternate perspective. Liberal theories and policies (feminism, welfare, entitlement and irresponsibility) lead to babies born to single mothers leading to economic insecurity and poverty.

Look at the evidence.

“In 1960 just about everyone, from a Smith grad living in New Canaan to a high school dropout in Appalachia, first tied the knot and only then delivered the bouncing bundle of joy,” wrote Kay Hymowitz in the City Journal (“Marriage and Caste”). Far less than 1% of high school graduate women had children without being married, while the rate among high school dropouts hit barely 1%. How things changed, as the affluence of Americans bloomed. By 2000 the out-of-wedlock birth rate among college graduates increased to 4% while the rate soared to about 15% among mothers with less than a high school education.

Furthermore, when college educated women get married they tend to stay married. As of 2000 only about 10% of mothers with college degrees were living without husbands compared to 36% of mothers without college degrees. Overall the situation is dire with fully 33% of children born to single mothers in 2004, amounting to 1.5 million children, the highest number ever. The vast majority of those children are going home to dysfunctional homes.

Hymowitz maintains that “the marriage gap results in a yawning social divide.” Among upper-middle-class families (those making more than $75,000 yearly) 92% of the children are living with both parents. Among the poor (earning less than $15,000) only 20% of the kids live with both parents. The consequences for children are severe: “Children in single-parent families are getting less of just about everything that we know helps to lead to successful adulthood.” The odious result for these poor people is “entrenched, multigenerational poverty.”

Hymowitz explains the upper class dynamic as “The Mission: the careful nurturing of their children’s cognitive, emotional, and social development, which, if all goes according to plan, will lead to the honor roll and a spot on the high school debate team, which will in turn lead to a good college, then perhaps a graduate or professional degree, which will all lead eventually to a fulfilling career, a big house in a posh suburb, and a sense of meaningful accomplishment.” They sound like Palos Verdes moms to me.

The pregnant question is this: Why don’t their low-income sisters “still believe in marriage as an institution for raising children?” Who needs marriage?

Unfortunately the women who are going without husbands are precisely the ones who need them the most. Hymowitz concludes: “When Americans made marriage optional, low-income women lost a culture that told them the truth about what was best for their children.”

What can be done about this burgeoning crisis? As with all serious problems the first step is to acknowledge it exists. This problem needs to be discussed, not swept under the rug. We need more Bill Cosby’s.

The next step is to search out the root cause. Does poverty lead to children living without their fathers or do children living without their fathers lead to poverty? Liberals (Harden, Myerson, Clinton, Obama) need to start telling the truth.

Finally, the educational system and social institutions, the media and government need to work hard to deprogram the lower income groups from their destructive practices. Bearing children out of marriage needs to be regarded as a tragedy, as it was before 1960. The Murphy Brown example should be held in contempt. Men fathering children, but not being their fathers, must be stigmatized, as it was before 1960. Family values make a difference.

This all brings me back to my most serious criticism of the report from the New Commission on the Skills of the American Workforce. (“Critiques of the Education Report,” 3/5/07). You can’t be serious about reforming education when you completely ignore the most critical issue, the breakup of the nuclear family, particularly among the poor. As Kay Hymowitz succinctly put it: “Marriage may not be a panacea. But it is a sine qua non.”

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Monday, March 05, 2007

Critiques of the Education Report

Since the release of the report from the New Commission on the Skills of the American Workforce, the response from the Educational Establishment has ranged from measured to hostile. “Tough Choices or Tough Times” was written by a group of distinguished educators including former Secretaries of Education Rod Paige (Bush admin.) and Richard Riley (Clinton admin.); Joel Klein, chancellor of the New York City public schools and Tom Payzant, retired head of the Boston school district; plus prominent political and business leaders.

California Superintendent of Public Instruction Jack O’Connell issued a reasoned response: “The commission makes several provocative and far-reaching recommendations. We must be willing to rethink the way we deliver education services if our state and nation are to survive, let alone thrive, in this rapidly changing, technology-driven world. While change to a system as large and complex as public education is difficult to achieve, flexibility and agility are now imperatives.”

The Arizona State University School of Education issued a thoughtful response:
“The report is not recommended reading for bedtime, if you're hoping for a good night's sleep.” Their assessment is fair: “This new report is no jargon-laden bureaucratic screed, but a plainspoken and urgent proposal for a top-to-bottom reworking of the American education system unlike any we've undertaken since the dawn of the Industrial Age. And it is not for the faint of heart.”

Response from the teacher’s unions could be described as tentative at best. NEA President Reg Weaver called “Tough Choices or Tough Times” a “provocative report” adding that “NEA has long championed the concept of high school reform, and we agree that we need to provide students with the tools and resources they will need to succeed in a global society.” Weaver was glad that “fully funding pre-K is among the list of suggestions from the commission.”

However, he cautioned against “drastic changes that could potentially disenfranchise poorer communities and eliminate community voices in the reform conversation.” He disagreed with the Commission’s recommendation to dramatically increase teacher pay while bringing benefits packages into line with the private sector. “Our nation’s teachers deserve to be well compensated now,” said Weaver, “and they deserve the safety and security of retirement plans that will not leave them destitute in their later years.”

It is business as usual for the union chief: Have your cake and eat it too. Weaver concludes: “In the end, we all must get down to the work of reforming our public schools, one step at a time.” And he has the tried-and-true solution: “We know the source of the problem: too few resources, not enough textbooks, outdated technology, and a lack of qualified and certified teachers.” More money is all we need.

A more hostile response comes from Diane Ravitch, an icon in educational circles. In her address to the American Association of Colleges for Teacher Education, Ravitch agreed with the report that “today we really do face a situation that can justly be called a crisis.” Does the crisis consist of the horrific dropout rates among some minorities, the declining test scores and the fact that so many high school grads need remedial help when they enter college? No, not a bit of that, it’s because “Never have I felt more certain that public education itself hangs in the balance.” The continued existence of the public school system is the focus of her crisis.

Ravitch mocks the report’s assertion that (in her words) “our teachers are not coming from the right strata of society.” Thus, paraphrasing the report again, we must “seek to recruit the best and the brightest with salaries ranging from $45,000 and to $110,000.” That actually makes her “blood boil.” Her suggestion: “Set the top salary at the median of the income earned by members of the commission. My guess is that it would be about $300,000.”

Actually, the report recommends that teachers be recruited from the top third of college students, not necessarily from the Ivy Leagues. A starting salary and range in line with engineering grads does not seem out of line. Her argument is rather specious for such an esteemed educator.

Racitch worries about what she calls the “super-high stakes” test at the end of tenth grade recommended by the report. She contends that “this eminent group of leaders feels that we have not done a good enough job of sorting kids into winners and losers and preventing the less prepared from going to good colleges.” Losers? Those who go to trade schools or community colleges she calls losers.

Most of all Ravitch decries the “complete privatization of American public education.” She claims to have “read it. I read it again. Then I read it again. I still could not believe it.” It appears that Ravitch is in need of remedial reading herself. The report reads that the role of school boards would be to approve performance contracts with these managers and monitor their performance. It seems not to have registered with her that the top bosses are the publicly elected school boards. The private firms that run the schools work for the school boards.

Ravitch asks, “What secret do private organizations have that has not been shared with the nation’s educators? What is the logical connection between privatization and quality education?” It appears that she also has not heard about the benefits of competition, the free enterprise system, and the American way.

In a piece called “For Whom the Bell Curves: America's Education Dilemma,” eminent economist Arnold Kling wrote:

“The best sign of a vibrant education sector would be more institutional failure. With sufficient competition and innovation, we would see colleges and universities fold or merge at the same rate as ordinary businesses. We would see schools shut down because parents send their children elsewhere. We would see large layoffs in some school systems, with hiring taking place among successful start-ups.”

Ravitch does not believe in competition: “Public schools are not a private good. They are not like shoes or soap or cars, where we shop around to find the best thing at the lowest price.” She’d shop around for the best lawyer she can get for the lowest price, but teachers, oh no, they are a “public good.”

I believe the report contains many excellent proposals and some that are wrong-headed. (See my post “Tough Choices or Tough Times,” 2/27/07.) However, I saved my most severe criticism for the end. Neither the report, nor any of the critiques that I have seen, mention the single most critical issue.

David Brooks writes in the New York Times (3/1/07): “Family relationships matter more than anything else. Schools filled with students who can’t control their impulses, who can’t focus their attention, will not succeed.”

Being a “NYT conservative,” Brooks believes that government needs to do something about family relationships such as “providing young mothers the sort of cajoling and practical wisdom that in other times would have been delivered by grandmothers and elders.” Here is an argument for another time, but the need is obvious.

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Friday, March 02, 2007

John Has Landed


Our son John has just returned from his adventure in SE Asia. His mom is relieved. All the exotic places John visited (Malaysia, Thailand, Kuala Lampur, Sri Lanka, India and Burma) can be viewed at his travel blog. The pictures are incredible and John’s commentary is fascinating (He’s my son!) His second last stop was India where he hired a nice fellow named Bhojraj to be his guide. In the picture above John is treating Bhojraj to his very first pizza. For my family and friends, here are a few excerpts from John’s blog about India.

My original plan was to focus on Southeast Asia and save India for another trip, but my interest in working with children led me to change plans. When researching my trip, I was lucky to connect with a woman named Ann McLaughlin and her organization NGOabroad.
Their tagline is “Custom-Fit International Service” and they were extremely helpful in connecting me with people and organizations in SE Asia.
Ann's number one recommendation for me was the Mitraniketan school in the Kerala area of Southern India. Visit Mitraniketan Website The Kerala area is tropical, with beautiful beaches and lush farmland. The school was founded 50 years ago by a man named Viswanathan, and he is still the Director of the organization today. I had all my meals at his home.

Mitraniketan promotes rural development through education programs for children and young adults. The school focuses on children from the lowest rungs of their society. Most of the children live in non-permanent homes in the jungle, and for many they are the first generation to be educated. Around 400 of these children live at Mitraniketan, and their room and board, education, and even some clothes and supplies are provided by the school.



Mitraniketan also started their People's College ten years ago, which provides a one-year residential program for the most disadvantaged segment of Indian society to build life and vocational skills. Development of personality and leadership are emphasized in addition to fields such as agriculture science and computers.

Everyone at Mitraniketan was excited to have visitors, and someone from America was unusual. Most people spoke some English, even the little kids, and they were very interested in me and my life. The first day at the daily morning assembly with the students, about 400 children sang Indian songs, discussed a life lesson, and had announcements. It turns out Mr. John from San Francisco was the main announcement, so I was asked to stand up, introduce myself, and talk about my travels. I asked the kids if they knew the Terminator (some of the older ones did), and said he was the Governor of my state. My short speech was translated into the local language Malayalam.

After the assembly dozens of children came over to say hello and practice their English. I started taking pictures and the children all loved seeing their images on the screen. Then I would make videos and they went bananas! I was able to spend time with the pre-schoolers right though the People's College and was regularly a guest of honor in classes and events.

One night a group of older nursing students had a performance that the whole school attended. During the initial announcements (in Malayalam) I heard bla bla bla, Mr. John from San Francisco, bla bla bla. Much to my surprise I was led down behind the stage and the kids organizing the event were telling me the name of their program and pointing at the microphone. I asked what they wanted me to do, and they said “Oh, just make a felicitation.” Oh, ok... What is a felicitation? It turns out a felicitation is to offer congratulations, so I got up in front of a few hundred young people to talk about the tremendous work the nursing students were doing.

One afternoon the school principal took me to the closest town, Trivandrum. Walking down the street I was stopped by a couple of guys who wanted to talk. On hearing I am from America, one tells me about his friend's uncle who lives in Ohio. Excellent. They recommend a tandoori restaurant for dinner and say to stop back when I am done.

I found Zam Zam and it was packed downstairs, upstairs and next door. I end up sitting at a table with a two young guys. We try to talk, and are able to communicate the basics. I am from America, they work construction, etc. Then they are saying “Sidem Sidem”?? OH, yes Saddam! I signal my comprehension by making a gesture like holding a noose above my neck since this is a few days after his hanging. Immediately I realize my potential faux pas. I ask if they are Hindu. “No, we are Muslim.” I know the answer to the next question but I ask anyway if they are Shiite or Sunni... “We are Sunni.” They are still smiling, but for a minute I wonder if I am next in the Tandoori oven.

The time at Mitraniketan was really special.


My last stop with Bhojraj was Agra, home to the Taj Mahal. I had high expectations, but they were all exceeded when I arrived. The white marble mausoleum was built by Emperor Shah Jahan in 1653 as a memorial for his wife, who died giving birth to their fourteenth child.

After Agra, Bhojraj dropped me off in Delhi, the capital city of India. My neighbor and friend in San Francisco, Shabeena (aka Bean), introduced me to her parents via email last year when I was planning my trip. Bean's parents, Lata and Yogan Vadehra, live in a nice suburb of Delhi. Lata is a former teacher who still tutors children most days and Yogan is a retired 3-star general in the Indian Army.

India was quite a trip. The people were very interested in me, and I was approached all the time to chat. Here is a sampling of some of the more unusual comments.


Girl working in an Internet cafe: “My friend thinks you have a beautiful nose.”

Guy playing soccer with me: “You have a very close likeness to your President Bush.” (The only Americans many people there know are President Bush and Bill Clinton.)

Tour guide pointing to a hotel: “It is very nice. Last year, your Princess Clinton stayed there with her boyfriend.”

Male waiter at a restaurant: “You are very handsome.” I laugh nervously, and he says: “No, Really.” (I am sure this guy was straight. It seemed like having white skin and blue eyes are very desirable traits here.)

Young Muslim guy at Internet cafe in Jaisalmer near Pakistan: “You should tell people you are from Slovenia.” He sees my look of confusion and explains: “Everyone in India hates Americans.” I ask why, and he says: “We all hate Israel, so we all hate America.”

I asked Bhojraj about the Muslim guy's comments since they seemed to be completely contrary to all my experiences in India. Bhojraj said that many young Muslims in India have a “congested” mind, so they are not able to think clearly. Then he told me a story:

Bhojraj grew up in a Muslim neighborhood in Jaipur, and his family was one of the only Hindu households there. When he was 19 and living with his parents, siblings and wife in the same family home, there was an event about 600 miles away that upset Muslims. A large group of Muslims in Bhojraj's neighborhood rioted, and they stormed into his home. He thought they were going to kill his family, but they were able to escape alive. Their house was destroyed, along with all their possessions, and they have never been back.Bhojraj told the story to make the point that, in his mind, there is no logic behind actions like this. His family had lived for over twenty years in that area with many Muslim friends and neighbors. That these same people would destroy his family home because of an event that occurred halfway across the country was just sad and confusing to him.

Bhojhraj felt that the Musim community leaders take every opportunity to foment distrust and anger in their people. Every legitimate gripe, and many others, are fit into an adversarial worldview where someone else is always to blame. And the focus of this blame is typically Hindus and the predominantly Hindu government in India, which is perceived to be supported by America and “the West.” This mentality leads many Muslims in India to feel they are under attack and need to fight back, and this response tends to be a self-fulfilling prophesy.

The issue of Muslim anger is extremely complex, and after reading many books on the subject, I still don't understand much. I thought the exchange I had though, and Bhojraj's response, were interesting enough to share. If you are interested in this topic, I just read two good books this month that I can recommend: The Crisis: The President, the Prophet, and the Shah-1979 and the Coming of Militant Islam by David Harris and The Looming Tower: Al-Qaeda and the Road to 9/11 by Lawrence Wright.

John’s last stop was Burma (aka Myanmar) and it was his favorite country. Check out his travel web site for the latest pictures and commentary.

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