Great News For Equality.
Proposition Eight has been overturned. I will have more once I read the decision, and I am deathly afraid of what the dogmatically conservative Roberts Court will do, but this is a good day nonetheless. The state cannot treat people differently unless there is a very good reason to do so. “We like tradition” is not a good reason – -it is the same reason given for Jim Crow and Catholics Need Not Apply. Nor is “the people voted”. Democratic process cannot deny fundamental rights to people or the system is not really democratic. There is no reason beyond fear or hatred of homosexuals for this discriminatory measure.
I Miss Sane Democrats
This is nowhere near as bad out the outright bigotry of the GOP on this matter, but this is pathetic:
I asked Chuck Schumer’s office for his position on the Islamic center this morning. All his spokesman would say is that he “not opposed” to the plan. Asked for Schumer’s views of the opposition, and asked if he actively supports the right of the center’s builders to put it two blocks from Ground Zero, Schumer’s spokesman declined to elaborate and said Schumer was declining an interview.
Schumer is also refusing to answer direct questions from reporters about this topic. This isn’t good enough.
That’s not all. As I noted here yesterday, Dem Rep. Anthony Weiner, who’s been widely hailed as a hero on the left for his supposed willingness to engage the opposition, is also refusing to say word boo about his position on the Islamic center.
Weiner wants to be mayor of New York. Last I checked, that city is home to a few Muslims, all of whom would become his constituents. Yet he can’t bring himself to stand up for their right to worship two blocks from Ground Zero. The guy he wants to replace, Michael Bloomberg, had the guts to do this very eloquently yesterday. Where’s Weiner?
Other members of Congress, such as Jerrold Nadler, have stood up and done the right thing, vocally condemning the opposition for what it is. Yes, Nadler’s district includes Ground Zero. But again, Weiner wants to represent the whole city, and Schumer already represents the whole state.
When the man said “All that is necessary for the triumph of evil is that good men do nothing” this is what he was fucking taking about*
*Yes, I realize Burke probably never actually said this.
Tennessee!
Makes me proud once again!
Judd first made me aware of that guy, and if there weren’t an important and competitive Democratic congressional primary race this cycle, I’d totally vote in the GOP primary for Mr. Dot Com to be their candidate for governor.
A Sane Republican
I miss this Republican Party, I really do:
“In the mid-1650s, the small Jewish community living in lower Manhattan petitioned Dutch governor Peter Stuyvesant for the right to build a synagogue, and they were turned down. In 1657, when Stuyvesant also prohibited Quakers from holding meetings, a group of non-Quakers in Queens signed the Flushing Remonstrance, a petition in defense of the right of Quakers and others to freely practice their religion. It was perhaps the first formal political petition for religious freedom in the American colonies, and the organizer was thrown in jail and then banished from New Amsterdam.
“In the 1700s, even as religious freedom took hold in America, Catholics in New York were effectively prohibited from practicing their religion, and priests could be arrested. Largely as a result, the first Catholic parish in New York City was not established until the 1780s, St. Peter’s on Barclay Street, which still stands just one block north of the World Trade Center site, and one block south of the proposed mosque and community center.
…
“Let us not forget that Muslims were among those murdered on 9/11, and that our Muslim neighbors grieved with us as New Yorkers and as Americans. We would betray our values and play into our enemies’ hands if we were to treat Muslims differently than anyone else. In fact, to cave to popular sentiment would be to hand a victory to the terrorists, and we should not stand for that.
“For that reason, I believe that this is an important test of the separation of church and state as we may see in our lifetimes, as important a test. And it is critically important that we get it right.
“On Sept. 11, 2001, thousands of first responders heroically rushed to the scene and saved tens of thousands of lives. More than 400 of those first responders did not make it out alive. In rushing into those burning buildings, not one of them asked, ‘What God do you pray to?’ (Bloomberg’s voice cracks here a little as he gets choked up.) ‘What beliefs do you hold?’
People often accuse me of being nothing more than a blind partisan with eyes closed to the faults of the Democratic Party. That is not true, but the GOP has, unfortunately, left me with no choice. The contents of Bloomberg’s speech should be unremarkable. Just a handful of years ago, this was the default position among even the most rabid GOPers, largely because their hero, W, refused to wade into the festering swamp of anti-Mulsim bigotry. But now, the GOP wallows in it, seeing fear mongering about the so called Muslim menace for temporary political gain.
The fact that Bloomberg’s speech is newsworthy shows just how far down the GOP has fallen. They have gone insane and they leave me with no choice but to vote against them under all circumstances. How can I conceive of supporting people who attack decent people for what they are, not what they do? How can anyone?
Oh, That Liberal Media
So the very liberal Washington Post had a glowing portrait of Paul Ryan, praising him to the sky:
Wash. Post misleadingly reported that CBO “has estimated” the plan “would cut the budget deficit in half by 2020.” An August 2 PostPolitics piece reported:”The Congressional Budget Office has estimated that Rep. Paul Ryan’s plan would cut the budget deficit in half by 2020. Democrats say voters would not back his reductions in Medicare and Social Security.”
…
Unlike most politicians of either party, [Ryan] doesn’t speak generically about reducing spending, but he does acknowledge the very real cuts in popular programs that will be required to bring down the debt.
[...]
He is a loyal Republican, but he is also perhaps the GOP’s leading intellectual in Congress and occasionally seems to forget that he is a politician himself.
[...]
Ryan, who represents his home town of Janesville, a small city in southern Wisconsin, does not fit the picture of a typical congressman. He is cerebral and slips easily into academic jargon; he grew up with plans to be an economist.
Unfortunately, as media Matters points out, Ryan’s entire budget is based on a deliberate lie:
CBO assumed this wonderful outcome would occur only if the revenue portion of Ryan’s plan generated 19 percent of GDP in taxes. And there is not the slightest evidence that would happen. Even though Ryan’s plan has a detailed tax component, his staff asked CBO to ignore it. Rather than estimate the true revenue effects of the Ryan plan, CBO simply assumed, as the lawmaker requested, that it would generate revenues of 19 percent of GDP.
[...]
Ryan would: turn the current exclusion for employer-sponsored health insurance into a refundable credit; allow people to choose to pay either under the current income tax system or a two-rate, broad-based alternative; replace the corporate income tax with a business consumption tax, and exclude from tax dividends, capital gains, interest, and estates.
We don’t have any idea what this plan would do to revenues, but in some ways it resembles former GOP presidential candidate Fred Thompson’s campaign plan. TPC figured that scheme would reduce tax revenues by between $6 trillion and $8 trillion over 10 years. Unless Ryan can achieve unrealistically large cuts in spending as well, this is not exactly a roadmap to solvency in my book.
There is no mention of this deception in the Washington Post profile. They simply took Ryan’s spin at face value and falsely portrayed him as a bold budget deficit fighter, perhaps that only man with a real plan in Washington to deal with the deficit at all. They talked about him in terms designed to make him look honest, decent, and unlike every other politician in Washington. His campaign manager couldn’t have been happier if he had written the article himself.
But at the heart of that praise is a deception. Ryan deliberately lied about what his plan would do in order to make it look much better than it actually is. And that budget plan is at the heart of the fawning profile. The Post could have chosen to expose the lie at the heart of Ryan’s plan, but they aren’t interested in printing the truth. They prefer the story that Ryan presents, both because it confirms to their view of the world and because they know it will make conservatives happy.
How can a democracy survive when the press has no interest in the truth?
Context Matters
This is a nice reminder that context matters:
You might remember this post three years ago in which I laughed at a woman on a Segway pushing a baby stroller for being lazy. Well, I’m a giant asshole, and I want to apologize to Melissa Hofstetter. I’m sorry Melissa.
It’d be easy to extrapolate the cause of the events to lay blame on it being standard internet behavior, general anonymous jerkitude, and looking for a cheap laugh instead of actually looking into a subject and finding out what really happened. But no—this one’s all on me. Apologies Melissa.
Here’s the story: Melissa is a 15-year cancer survivor who lost her left leg to the illness. She started using the Segway as an assistive device because it’s both maneuverable and because she has difficulty walking, especially on hilly areas. It also allows her to be in the standing position and look people in the eyes during conversations, and be mobile in ways that wheelchairs are not.
The photo came to be when she was visiting her family in Seattle a few years back, helping take care of her grandniece while her grandnieces parents were busy. Someone—no idea who—took a photo of this and put it on the internet. It spread quickly, as unique images are apt to do. Here’s a better photo of her taken at about the same time, with the same cute little girl.
And, unfortunately, context seems to be something that we don’t do as a culture anymore. We have a political press where a lie reported as easily as the truth, where one lne at a speech can be turned into a 30 second attack ad and run on every channel, no matter how disingenuous. And where a disabled women could be mocked for three years based on one photo taken out of context.
Good on the reporter for apologizing, especially since almost no one would have remembered the original post form three years ago. But it is a shame that we have devolved to such a point in our culture where the first reaction of most people to the picture was not to say, “I wonder why she is doing that” but rather to judge her and mock her based on those erroneous judgements.
Let Us ….
Creation has continued apace. Fish, birds, bees, animals, the sun, the moon and the stars have all been created. And, as before, after reach creation God pauses and admires His handiwork, just like the uncertain artist I imagined him in the previous installment. But then comes a rather jarring line:
Then God said: “Let us make man in our image, after our likeness. Let them have dominion over the fish of the sea, the birds of the air, and the cattle, and over all the wild animals and all the creatures that crawl on the ground.”
27
God created man in his image; in the divine image he created him; male and female he created them.
Let us make man in our image? To paraphrase a great comedian: what’s this “us” shit, white boy? For all of Genesis, God was singlualr, all alone in the universe and in his majesty. But when it comes time to create his ultimate creation*, suddenly He has an audience (or perhaps a work crew). And, the as quick as the plural arrived, it is gone. The very next line, God is back to His solitary Self. It makes no sense.
The New American Bible site ignores this sudden increase in numbers entirely, saying only that
Man is here presented as the climax of God’s creative activity; he resembles God primarily because of the dominion God gives him over the rest of creation.
Outside of references to the Trinity, I cannot find an even semi-plausible explanation for the us of the plural. And the Trinity reference is only semi-plausible. Where were the Son and the Hold Ghost before this point and why did They hang around for only one verse? Again, it makes no sense.
This verse only makes sense as a mistake. While the Bible may or may not have been inspired by God, it was certainly put together by the hand of man. And lines like this are a reminder that fact. Somewhere in the recess of our past, a creation story that had more than one creator was used as the template for at least part of Genesis. And this verse, like a literary dinosaur bone, stands in mute testament to the forgotten stories that influenced the most influential book in the Western world.
Though the cynic in me does note that unlike after all of the other creation points, the Bible does not pause to take note of God admiring His handiwork.
Kevin is Not a Brewers Fan
He does, however, hate the Cubs, so this will make him smile. My favorite part: the 26 hits the Milwaukee Brewers hung on the Cubs tied a Cubs franchise record for most hits allowed. The other time? 1957, when the Milwaukee Braves did it.
Yeah, I know, we’ll probably never score again, and yeah, I know, both teams are too far from contention to see it with a telescope, but c’mon, I’ve got to have something to cheer/gloat about.
By the way, side note to Kevin T. Keith: Your 2012 first baseman five hits, five RBI, and scored twice tonight.
Failing to Educate The Poor
This is disturbing:
Mr. McNealy, the fiery co-founder and former chief executive of Sun Microsystems, shuns basic math textbooks as bloated monstrosities: their price keeps rising while the core information inside of them stays the same.
“Ten plus 10 has been 20 for a long time,” Mr. McNealy says.
Early this year, Oracle, the database software maker, acquired Sun for $7.4 billion, leaving Mr. McNealy without a job. He has since decided to aim his energy and some money at Curriki, an online hub for free textbooks and other course material that he spearheaded six years ago.
“We are spending $8 billion to $15 billion per year on textbooks” in the United States, Mr. McNealy says. “It seems to me we could put that all online for free.”
I am the furthest thing form a Luddite imaginable. I make my living in IT. I switched majors from pre-law to engineering because I loved the engineering classes my school forced me to take. I owe the existence of my career to the fact that I figured out a way to make a job easier via computers. But this kind of technology triumphalism really bothers me.
Not every child has ready access to high speed internet access. 39% of americans don;t have access to high speed internet. There is no state that has 100% of its schools connected to the internet. What McNeely is proposing is being proposed from a place of unbelievable privilege, a place where it is inconceivable that students would need a paper book or would not have the technology to access his online textbooks. It is a vision unsuitable for all but the most privileged amongst us. And since McNeely is attempting to make money, you can be sure that he wont cry at night for the children he has left behind.
Mcneely’s plan will have some very real benefits for a lot of schools. I am not trying to argue otherwise and I sincerely hope he or someone with a similar vision succeeds. Schools can use all the help they can get. Americans hate to pay to educate their children, so anything that lowers that cost is good, even if it doesn’t benefit all children. But far, far too much of the discussion around education and technology doesn’t even pretend to address the needs of the disadvantaged. The New York Times article doesn’t spend so much as one line on the fact that most of our neediest students and schools wont have the needed technology to take advantage of plans like McNeely. This salient fact goes unremarked because the people involved and the writer find it unremarkable. Throwing away children — whether through vouchers, or charter schools, or hihg stakes testing — is apparently so common in our educational debate that it is not even worth mentioning.
Via Yglesias
The End of American Greatness, Education Division
The Death and Life of the Great American School System byDiane Ravtich is a very difficult book to finish. Not because the book is poorly written — it is not. Not because the subject matter is not interesting — anyone who has a child or an interest of the future of the country should be interested in this subject. And not because the book is shoddy in its research — quite the opposite. The book is hard to finish because it the story it tells is so infuriating. Testing and choice are destroying public education and Ravtich lays out just how much damage that is doing to children.
Ravtich comes to her conclusions form the opposite side of the ideological spectrum as the traditional, leftist critique. She started out a firm believer in the notions of choice and testing. She was a member in good standing with the right wing think thank industry and her beat was education choice. Unlike most think thank jockeys, however, Ravtich was serious about education reform and,more importantly for our story, an honest researcher. As the results of school choice and testing movements became clear in the data, Ravtich did probably the hardest thing possible for a public intellectual to do: she admitted she was wrong and changed sides.
This book is not the story of that journey, though it does act as a weak framing device. The book is primarily concerned with marshaling her argument, and it does a very goof job of doing so. Ravtich contends that the testing movement and school choice has: destroyed local schools, which diminish neighborhoods; leads to no real gains in student achievement; encourages public schools to short change the students who need help the most; allows charters to claims success when all they have done is skim off the best performing students; forced public schools to concentrate on teaching how to take math and reading test at the expense of real teaching; and that the people who are leading this movement are either ideologically blinded or have no accountability.
This last is one of the most infuriating aspects of the story. Time and time again, Ravtich mentions names that had failed to deliver on their lofty promises and had in fact made things worse being rewarded someplace else before the evidence became clear. It is disgusting to watch these MBA-culture fools destroy the lives of teachers and students to no good end only to be hailed as reformers and saviors and richly rewarded for their failures.
If that were all, that would be more than enough. But there is much more. Ravtich is a careful researcher and a fair one. She has no problem admitting when a particular school model seems to work for some students — she is, actually, a believer in the notion of charter schools — such as KIPP. But when the evidence shows that charter schools cherry pick students, or when they show that gaisn are fleeting, or when they show that charters have not improved public schools as they were meant to, Ravtich makes that plain.
Similarly, Ravtich is a believer in teacher accountability and she has no trouble highlighting and supporting those accountability programs that have been shown to work. But when the data shows that high stakes tests are not effective measure of teacher or student performance, or when the data shows that there are better ways than the current tests, or when the data shows that the current tests warp teacher incentives to the point of harming students, Ravtich makes that plain.
That patter repeats itself throughout the book. Ravtich is not interested in grinding a partisan axe. She is interested in what she has always been interested in: helping schools teach children. When the evidence demonstrates that something works, she is effusive in praise and demanding in her assertions that it be adopted everywhere appropriate. But when something has failed, Ravtich spares it and the people who continue to support it in the face of those failures none of her wrath. And it is wrath well deserved. Our students are demonstrably not being helped by these fads and neither she nor I have any patience for the people who get rich off these programs or use them to grind their favorite partisan axe.
If you are a supporter of high stakes testing and school choice, you need to read this book. If you primarily interested in helping children, this book will change your mind about your chosen methods. If you have children or care about education in this country — which you should — then this book will explain to you that politicians and foundation heads mean when they say “charter school” and “accountability” and the damage the programs behind those buzzwords are doing to our children.
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