A while ago (March, actually) I wrote a piece entitled "Poor Down, Middle Class to Go," in which I went on about bankruptcy legislation aimed at letting big business screw the middle classes.
Well, they're at it again. A few weeks ago, congressional Republicans (it's strange... there's almost no need to use terms like "conservatives," "liberals," or anything else since the thuggery of the Republican leadership combined with the fear-mongering of the Democratic leadership has given us an era of party-line voting the likes of which have never been seen) were hard pressed to explain why they thought tax breaks for the wealthy (link updated 12/14) were good for the economy mere days after they shoved through a load of slashes to government services for the poor with the explanation that the government just didn't have enough money to afford them, what with the deficit and all. Apparently, the deficit is not so bad that we can't forego a lot of the payments the government would have gotten from the super-rich, however. I guess that when times are tough, the government figures the poor can fend for themselves, while the rich need the government to bail them out. I guess that's an attitude that explains the Katrina aftermath...
But I digress. I really wanted to write about the proposed elimination of the deduction of interest paid on a mortgage from taxable income. This is aimed squarely at the middle classes. The extremely poor don't have a mortgage on a home that they own, instead they're paying rent (which is not even deductible currently). The super rich can afford to buy a home for cash without taking out a mortgage (or shift money around so that they end up borrowing money in some other way that is deductible), so it doesn't apply to them. It applies to people who are able to save enough to put a down-payment on a home but not buy it outright, and depend on a bank or other lending institution to pay the rest of it with a loan on which they collect interest for the next 15, 20, or 30 years. It makes sense that this money should be deductible since the homeowner doesn't get anything for it. The money that goes toward paying off the principal owed on the loan actually does buy them part of their house, and therefore it's reasonable to tax them on it. The interest, however, merely bought them the opportunity to have what only the really rich could afford in this day and age without mortgage loans: a house of their own.
So, from the proposal of a flat tax (which sounds fair... but isn't... but that's another post) to this proposal eliminating the deduction of mortgage interest, the powers that be want to rewrite the tax code to eliminate the deductions that apply to the most people while preserving the loopholes that allow the super-rich to get richer. Isn't this what our ancestors came to this country to get away from?
- "Doctor, question that's always bothered me and a lot of people: Mayflower, combined with Philadelphia - a no-brainer, right? Cause this is where the Mayflower landed. Not so. It turns out Columbus actually set foot somewhere down in the West Indies. Little known fact."
Wednesday, November 30, 2005
Wednesday, November 16, 2005
The Impossible Dream
So, I was just looking at my school's API report for last year. If you don't know what an API report is, I envy you. Let me ruin you now: API stands for "Academic Performance Index." It's an average of the scores on a statewide standardized test for all of the students in your school. The way a student gets a score is not based on how many questions they got right... not directly, anyway. What happens is that all students are ranked based on the number of questions they got right. The bottom 20% of students get a score of "200." The next 20% get a score of "400," and so on. This divides the students into five groups of 20% each. These groups are called quintiles. Everyone in the quintile gets the same score, no matter what the range of the quintile is. It's entirely possible for a student in the bottom quintile to have answered 85% of the questions correctly if the test was really easy, or for a student in the top quintile to have answered only 20% of the questions correctly if the test was very difficult.
So, our school had an API of 575 last year, up from 528 the year before. We gained 47 points, which is pretty impressive when you consider that the goal the state set for us was just 14 points. We also surpassed our targets in all of the key demographics, which for our school were black, latino, and socio-economically disadvantaged students.
What does an API of 575 mean? Well since individual students can only get scores of 200, 400, 600, 800, or 1000, it means that we probably had most kids in the 3rd quintile, with a few in the second quintile. That makes us statistically average, since a student right in the middle of the state would score 600. (for statisticians reading this: I know this is confusing the meaning of "mean" and "median," but the whole system's screwed up anyway, so give me a break!)
This is good news, isn't it? I mean, if you're average, you're not... below average. You're not above average, either, but come on! Isn't it enough to ask of a significantly poor, minority, urban school that they do as well as the average students in the state? It seems so to me.
But not to the California Department of Education and the state government in Sacramento. If you read the legend below the initial score report, it says that an "A" "means the school scored at or above the statewide performance target of 800 in 2004."
Did you get that? The statewide performance target is 800. Do you remember what 800 means? It doesn't mean that you got 80% of the questions right. It means that you were among the top 40% of students in the state. No matter how many questions you got right. Or wrong.
So, the "performance target" that the state is setting up is for every school to be in the top 40%. If you're not a mathematician, let me say that another way: ... no, I won't. Because you don't have to be a mathematician to figure out that it's IMPOSSIBLE for every school to be in the top 40%! Do you know how many schools were in the top 40% last year? 40%. The year before that? 40%. Let me do a little prognosticating and tell you that I will bet 100 million dollars that next year, 40% of the schools will be in the top 40%!
I can just picture the geniuses at the department of ed. scratching their heads and saying, "gee, student performance went way up this year, but there's still the same number of schools meeting the statewide performance target of 800. How is that possible?" or, "Wow, this year we forgot to mail out the test books and every student just randomly guessed, and we STILL had exactly the same number of schools meeting the statewide performance target of 800! How did they do it?"
There's nothing better for a bureaucracy than making it's reason for existing a goal that is by definition impossible to achieve. The standardized testing racket will continue to be given millions of your tax dollars to give you the same meaningless statistics year after year: Once again, 40% of the schools in the state met their performance target and - surprise! - they're the schools that are predominantly white and asian non-socio-economically disadvantaged students with university educated parents. The other 60% of the schools "failed."
We are doomed to have 50% of our students perform below average year after year. Not doomed by fate or market forces or social and cultural disadvantages. Doomed by the nature of numbers and the definitions we don't understand. This is not a doom we should fear, it is a reality that we should dismiss as inherent to math and nothing to worry about. Being below average isn't a bad thing, it's inevitable that half of any given group are below average by definition! Half of the geniuses in the world are "below-average" geniuses!
Anyway, I look forward to a future where all of our children are above average, human flatulence is found to be a low-cost source of simian organisms, and the number one cause of airline crashes is mid-flight porcine collision. It's an impossible future, but when your governor is a time-traveling killer robot, no dream is too big, or too stupid to throw millions of tax dollars at... especially if its money that could have been used to actually educate children.
- "'You'll be on the run with no friends! You'll live in constant danger of betrayal!' 'I live that way now!'"
So, our school had an API of 575 last year, up from 528 the year before. We gained 47 points, which is pretty impressive when you consider that the goal the state set for us was just 14 points. We also surpassed our targets in all of the key demographics, which for our school were black, latino, and socio-economically disadvantaged students.
What does an API of 575 mean? Well since individual students can only get scores of 200, 400, 600, 800, or 1000, it means that we probably had most kids in the 3rd quintile, with a few in the second quintile. That makes us statistically average, since a student right in the middle of the state would score 600. (for statisticians reading this: I know this is confusing the meaning of "mean" and "median," but the whole system's screwed up anyway, so give me a break!)
This is good news, isn't it? I mean, if you're average, you're not... below average. You're not above average, either, but come on! Isn't it enough to ask of a significantly poor, minority, urban school that they do as well as the average students in the state? It seems so to me.
But not to the California Department of Education and the state government in Sacramento. If you read the legend below the initial score report, it says that an "A" "means the school scored at or above the statewide performance target of 800 in 2004."
Did you get that? The statewide performance target is 800. Do you remember what 800 means? It doesn't mean that you got 80% of the questions right. It means that you were among the top 40% of students in the state. No matter how many questions you got right. Or wrong.
So, the "performance target" that the state is setting up is for every school to be in the top 40%. If you're not a mathematician, let me say that another way: ... no, I won't. Because you don't have to be a mathematician to figure out that it's IMPOSSIBLE for every school to be in the top 40%! Do you know how many schools were in the top 40% last year? 40%. The year before that? 40%. Let me do a little prognosticating and tell you that I will bet 100 million dollars that next year, 40% of the schools will be in the top 40%!
I can just picture the geniuses at the department of ed. scratching their heads and saying, "gee, student performance went way up this year, but there's still the same number of schools meeting the statewide performance target of 800. How is that possible?" or, "Wow, this year we forgot to mail out the test books and every student just randomly guessed, and we STILL had exactly the same number of schools meeting the statewide performance target of 800! How did they do it?"
There's nothing better for a bureaucracy than making it's reason for existing a goal that is by definition impossible to achieve. The standardized testing racket will continue to be given millions of your tax dollars to give you the same meaningless statistics year after year: Once again, 40% of the schools in the state met their performance target and - surprise! - they're the schools that are predominantly white and asian non-socio-economically disadvantaged students with university educated parents. The other 60% of the schools "failed."
We are doomed to have 50% of our students perform below average year after year. Not doomed by fate or market forces or social and cultural disadvantages. Doomed by the nature of numbers and the definitions we don't understand. This is not a doom we should fear, it is a reality that we should dismiss as inherent to math and nothing to worry about. Being below average isn't a bad thing, it's inevitable that half of any given group are below average by definition! Half of the geniuses in the world are "below-average" geniuses!
Anyway, I look forward to a future where all of our children are above average, human flatulence is found to be a low-cost source of simian organisms, and the number one cause of airline crashes is mid-flight porcine collision. It's an impossible future, but when your governor is a time-traveling killer robot, no dream is too big, or too stupid to throw millions of tax dollars at... especially if its money that could have been used to actually educate children.
- "'You'll be on the run with no friends! You'll live in constant danger of betrayal!' 'I live that way now!'"
Tuesday, November 01, 2005
To strike or not to strike...
I just had a really helpful conversation with my colleagues in the math department here at Mission High School. We talked about why we became teachers, and why we teach at Mission. I'll share my story, and suffice it to say that there was significant overlap in key areas among the department.
I knew I wanted to teach at MHS before I even knew what MHS was. When I moved to San Francisco, I wanted to teach at the high school where the Latino immigrants went. If you teach in LA, that description fits a lot of schools, but in SF, Mission High School is the place to be.
I grew up in a family of teachers: my mom and her three sisters were all elementary school teachers working with Latino immigrant kids in the LA area. My uncle is an actor and writer, but his biggest gig up to that point ("that point" being the year I graduated from college) had been as part of the ensemble cast of "Square One Television," a PBS show that did sketch comedy about math... so we can count him as a teacher, too. My mom's family had immigrated to the US from Mexico when she was 7 years old, and I knew from my own family's history that immigrant children face a monstrous barrier to education in the fact that they don't speak or understand English. A child immersed in English can become conversant in a year or two, and functionally literate in five to seven years if they are just thrown into the same classes as the other students that speak English as a native language. The price they pay, however, is all of the content in their other classes while they're learning English. Around the time I was finishing college, it was clear that the general population of California was trying very hard to believe that immigrant students did not need (or perhaps, did not deserve) additional support while they learned English. There were propositions trying to do away with bilingual education as well as trying to make sure that undocumented immigrants (whose work is vital to the functioning of our economy... but that's for another blog entry) were denied access to services like emergency medical services that are paid for by public money.
I knew that there were kids who needed more help than society was willing to provide, more help than their families had the resources to find, and I knew that those were the kids that I wanted to teach.
So now I do teach those kids. I teach math to students who have been in the US for less than 2 years (4 semesters). I get new students almost weekly from all over the world, and they all come into my room with one thing in common: they don't understand English.
Now back to the title of this entry: to strike or not to strike? Our union has been deliberating with our district for three years over our contract. We've been working without a contract for over two years. The most immediate bone of contention as we lead up to the possibility of a strike is over COLA (Cost Of Living Allowance) money from the state. The way it is now, we've gone five years without a cost of living increase, although the cost of living (especially in San Francisco) has certainly gone up in that time. For years, we've been hearing that its because there just isn't money; not from the state, not from the feds, not in increased tax revenue, nowhere. We learned recently, however, that money had been released by the state to our district to cover a COLA of 15%! Great news, right? Well, in negotiations, the district offered our union a COLA of 2%, and not retroactive. If the state had just given us some long overdue money into the general budget and it had gone to cover other vital expenses, that would be one thing. The problem is, the state released this money specifically to cover a COLA. So where did it go? Nobody knows.
For the diehard unionists, this is the rallying call to a strike. It serves as proof-positive of the district's corruption, incompetence, intractability, mean-spiritedness or some combination of all of these. On the one hand, I agree. On the other hand, I don't necessarily follow the logic that leads inexorably to a strike. First of all, I see a strike as the labor-relations equivalent to war: you don't go to war until all diplomatic options have been thoroughly exhausted. A strike is the ultimate action... there is no next step after a strike.
Second of all, I am aware of the ways that the position of teacher is different than say, a hotel worker or airline mechanic or factory worker. Those people produce a product or provide a service that directly lead to their employers turning a profit. The pressure on their employers is economic: without workers productivity goes down which drives down profit. The public-relations hit is a secondary pressure, but it's not the primary pressure. For teachers, we don't contribute to a profit-bearing product. Our employers only spend money, they don't make any, and they spend the same amount on education regardless of how effective we are as educators. The only pressure on our employer is public relations, and since our employers are politicians, that PR pressure only affects them at the level of possibly costing them votes in the future.
The problem is that shifting more money to education would get them votes in the future, if the public were accurately informed about it. The political machine, however, is funded and powered by interests outside of education with enormous bankrolls who spend countless dollars to bombard the public with messages of dubious authenticity and almost no relevance to the issues at hand. These messages serve to accomplish one goal: get the guy elected whose gonna make sure I pay as little as possible and get back as much as I can. Not too many of these power brokers are educators. We're busy with, well, with education.
So we have unions to do that work for us. But the reason we need unions to do it is because it's work that runs antithetical to the ethos of the teaching profession. It's a Catch-22 situation: it's work that teachers don't want to do (and for some, the work they got into teaching to avoid). If it's not done, however, the powers that be will continue to whittle away at the teaching profession to the point that even those who care nothing for money will have to leave their students to find jobs that pay them enough to provide food, clothing and shelter for their families.
So I ask again: To strike or not to strike? Is a strike morally permissible? Is it politically expedient? Does it have a chance of accomplishing what it's meant to? Does it matter? Is it standing with the marginalized professionals against the government machine, or is it standing with calculating careerists against helpless students? Or are we spending our time and energy fighting the wrong enemy? Who has the money... the district? Is the district spending billions on unwinnable wars instead of on education? Is the district finding new ways every day to give tax breaks to millionaires while decreasing tax-breaks for the middle classes? Is the district shifting money away from local governments by requiring them to spend millions on "special elections" to get around the elected legislature and try to snow the public with slickly packaged initiatives that blame and punish teachers for the failures in education and give excuses to try and fix the problem by making it harder to become and remain a teacher?
I think that every teacher in California should strike together. Our struggle is not with the SFUSD, it's with Sacramento. All of the teachers in America should strike together. We should be addressing these problems to those who have created them. These are strikes that I would gladly join in.
But should the teachers of the SFUSD strike? And if they do, should I join them? Should I cross picket lines with my students and teach them?
What do you think? I'd be interested to hear from you.
"Anyone? Something -D -O -O economics? Voodoo economics."
I knew I wanted to teach at MHS before I even knew what MHS was. When I moved to San Francisco, I wanted to teach at the high school where the Latino immigrants went. If you teach in LA, that description fits a lot of schools, but in SF, Mission High School is the place to be.
I grew up in a family of teachers: my mom and her three sisters were all elementary school teachers working with Latino immigrant kids in the LA area. My uncle is an actor and writer, but his biggest gig up to that point ("that point" being the year I graduated from college) had been as part of the ensemble cast of "Square One Television," a PBS show that did sketch comedy about math... so we can count him as a teacher, too. My mom's family had immigrated to the US from Mexico when she was 7 years old, and I knew from my own family's history that immigrant children face a monstrous barrier to education in the fact that they don't speak or understand English. A child immersed in English can become conversant in a year or two, and functionally literate in five to seven years if they are just thrown into the same classes as the other students that speak English as a native language. The price they pay, however, is all of the content in their other classes while they're learning English. Around the time I was finishing college, it was clear that the general population of California was trying very hard to believe that immigrant students did not need (or perhaps, did not deserve) additional support while they learned English. There were propositions trying to do away with bilingual education as well as trying to make sure that undocumented immigrants (whose work is vital to the functioning of our economy... but that's for another blog entry) were denied access to services like emergency medical services that are paid for by public money.
I knew that there were kids who needed more help than society was willing to provide, more help than their families had the resources to find, and I knew that those were the kids that I wanted to teach.
So now I do teach those kids. I teach math to students who have been in the US for less than 2 years (4 semesters). I get new students almost weekly from all over the world, and they all come into my room with one thing in common: they don't understand English.
Now back to the title of this entry: to strike or not to strike? Our union has been deliberating with our district for three years over our contract. We've been working without a contract for over two years. The most immediate bone of contention as we lead up to the possibility of a strike is over COLA (Cost Of Living Allowance) money from the state. The way it is now, we've gone five years without a cost of living increase, although the cost of living (especially in San Francisco) has certainly gone up in that time. For years, we've been hearing that its because there just isn't money; not from the state, not from the feds, not in increased tax revenue, nowhere. We learned recently, however, that money had been released by the state to our district to cover a COLA of 15%! Great news, right? Well, in negotiations, the district offered our union a COLA of 2%, and not retroactive. If the state had just given us some long overdue money into the general budget and it had gone to cover other vital expenses, that would be one thing. The problem is, the state released this money specifically to cover a COLA. So where did it go? Nobody knows.
For the diehard unionists, this is the rallying call to a strike. It serves as proof-positive of the district's corruption, incompetence, intractability, mean-spiritedness or some combination of all of these. On the one hand, I agree. On the other hand, I don't necessarily follow the logic that leads inexorably to a strike. First of all, I see a strike as the labor-relations equivalent to war: you don't go to war until all diplomatic options have been thoroughly exhausted. A strike is the ultimate action... there is no next step after a strike.
Second of all, I am aware of the ways that the position of teacher is different than say, a hotel worker or airline mechanic or factory worker. Those people produce a product or provide a service that directly lead to their employers turning a profit. The pressure on their employers is economic: without workers productivity goes down which drives down profit. The public-relations hit is a secondary pressure, but it's not the primary pressure. For teachers, we don't contribute to a profit-bearing product. Our employers only spend money, they don't make any, and they spend the same amount on education regardless of how effective we are as educators. The only pressure on our employer is public relations, and since our employers are politicians, that PR pressure only affects them at the level of possibly costing them votes in the future.
The problem is that shifting more money to education would get them votes in the future, if the public were accurately informed about it. The political machine, however, is funded and powered by interests outside of education with enormous bankrolls who spend countless dollars to bombard the public with messages of dubious authenticity and almost no relevance to the issues at hand. These messages serve to accomplish one goal: get the guy elected whose gonna make sure I pay as little as possible and get back as much as I can. Not too many of these power brokers are educators. We're busy with, well, with education.
So we have unions to do that work for us. But the reason we need unions to do it is because it's work that runs antithetical to the ethos of the teaching profession. It's a Catch-22 situation: it's work that teachers don't want to do (and for some, the work they got into teaching to avoid). If it's not done, however, the powers that be will continue to whittle away at the teaching profession to the point that even those who care nothing for money will have to leave their students to find jobs that pay them enough to provide food, clothing and shelter for their families.
So I ask again: To strike or not to strike? Is a strike morally permissible? Is it politically expedient? Does it have a chance of accomplishing what it's meant to? Does it matter? Is it standing with the marginalized professionals against the government machine, or is it standing with calculating careerists against helpless students? Or are we spending our time and energy fighting the wrong enemy? Who has the money... the district? Is the district spending billions on unwinnable wars instead of on education? Is the district finding new ways every day to give tax breaks to millionaires while decreasing tax-breaks for the middle classes? Is the district shifting money away from local governments by requiring them to spend millions on "special elections" to get around the elected legislature and try to snow the public with slickly packaged initiatives that blame and punish teachers for the failures in education and give excuses to try and fix the problem by making it harder to become and remain a teacher?
I think that every teacher in California should strike together. Our struggle is not with the SFUSD, it's with Sacramento. All of the teachers in America should strike together. We should be addressing these problems to those who have created them. These are strikes that I would gladly join in.
But should the teachers of the SFUSD strike? And if they do, should I join them? Should I cross picket lines with my students and teach them?
What do you think? I'd be interested to hear from you.
"Anyone? Something -D -O -O economics? Voodoo economics."
Thursday, September 08, 2005
I'd like to resign, please... where's my check?
So, our superintendent resigned. For those of you who don't know what that means, it means she won't be working for our school district anymore. I thought it might be confusing, since she's going to get $375,000... for NOT working. I knew this kind of thing happened for CEOs of major corporations, but I thought people didn't get into education for the money. I suppose it's nice... sort of... to find out that you can get rich in the field...
Anyway, in reading the above article, I saw that she's getting paid more for NOT working anymore than she would have been paid for working another year. Fifty percent more, as a matter of fact.
So, I'd like to resign. I only make 16% of what the superintendent makes, so I'll settle for 16% of her severance package. That's about 60,000 dollars. That should be enough for me to take a couple of years off of work to spend time with my daughter, and then I'll go and look for another job... unless they'll hire me back at my old one. Then maybe every ten years or so I can resign again for a break.
I wonder how long Ackerman will take off before she starts looking for another job. Unless she finds it necessary to maintain a much more lavish lifestyle than the one I'm perfectly content in, she'll be able to take about 10 years off before she needs to worry about looking for work again. Actually, since she's still receiving her full salary for this year, she'll probably be okay for the next 15 years. Then she'll have to work again, I guess. But don't worry about her. If it gets too hard, she can always resign.
- "We're rich! Richer than astronauts!"
Anyway, in reading the above article, I saw that she's getting paid more for NOT working anymore than she would have been paid for working another year. Fifty percent more, as a matter of fact.
So, I'd like to resign. I only make 16% of what the superintendent makes, so I'll settle for 16% of her severance package. That's about 60,000 dollars. That should be enough for me to take a couple of years off of work to spend time with my daughter, and then I'll go and look for another job... unless they'll hire me back at my old one. Then maybe every ten years or so I can resign again for a break.
I wonder how long Ackerman will take off before she starts looking for another job. Unless she finds it necessary to maintain a much more lavish lifestyle than the one I'm perfectly content in, she'll be able to take about 10 years off before she needs to worry about looking for work again. Actually, since she's still receiving her full salary for this year, she'll probably be okay for the next 15 years. Then she'll have to work again, I guess. But don't worry about her. If it gets too hard, she can always resign.
- "We're rich! Richer than astronauts!"
Friday, June 03, 2005
On the gravity of doorways (a fluff piece)
As indicated by the title, this is a fluffy piece of ranting, and you should not read it if you have any remotely productive activity you could be using this time for.
I warned you.
Last night at church, I had to pass through 3 doorways to exit the building. At each doorway, I was impeded by people having a conversation while standing in the doorway. After letting me by, they continued their conversation in the doorway. I assume that they were interrupted roughly one time per person in attendance. Between the doorways, there were very wide hallways, yet none of this space was deemed suitable for the doorway conversation.
What's the deal? Elementary physics would lead us to believe that hallways would be the least likely place for people to congregate if it is only the force of gravity that draws them to the spot. The gravitational force exerted by the walls in the hallway are several orders of magnitude greater than that of the gaseous air which fills the space within the doorframe.
Obviously it is a sociological phenomenon. I'm sure that someone schooled in this field could give you a very detailed analysis filled with jargon and impressive sounding references. I'm going to just refer to the sociological forces at work by one word: selfishness. (I did toy with using "thoughtlessness," "rudeness," and "annoyingness," but I settled on "selfishness.")
Why do people talk in doorways? There are a few different cases I'd like to point out, but they all have similar root causes (in my opinion, that is).
CASE 1: One going in, the other coming out.
CASE 2: Both leaving, but to divergent destinations.
CASE 3: One staying in the room and the other leaving.
CASE 4: One staying in the room and the other just passing by.
In all of these cases, exiting the doorway would move one of the participants farther away from their final destination, and would actually constitute negative progress. Keep in mind that this is primarily a spatial and not a temporal set back. The very act of having the conversation is increasing the time that it would take to get to wherever they're going. What it's not increasing is the distance they have to travel to get there. Moving out of the doorway, however, would increase the distance one of the participants would have to travel, even if it's only by a few feet. In almost every case, this would only apply to one of the participants, since the path they take together to leave the doorway will most likely be along a trajectory that one or the other of them would have taken after the conversation, anyway.
Apparently, we can move about within a room or space without feeling like we're getting farther away from our goal. Actually exiting to a space further away from our destination, however, is too inconvenient. The doorway allows the conversation to occurr without either participant having to decide that talking to this person is actually more important than making progress toward their destination.
That's the first reason I call it "selfishness." We are willing to talk to someone as long as it doesn't mean that we are going to have to lose a meter or so of the progress we've already made.
The second reason I call it "selfishness" is that the fact that the entrance or exit of any other person not directly involved in the conversation is apparently not taken into consideration when deciding where to have this conversation.
All of this happens at a subconcious level. We find ourselves stopped in a doorway without being aware of any process of thinking that led to that decision. It doesn't seem like a big deal, but it's the kind of thing I think about when I see episodes of Star Trek and we find out that in the future there is no war on earth and everyone lives at peace with one another. "How are we gonna get there if we can't even move out of the doorway for people?" I think to myself as I chuckle at the naivete of the writers who have bought the idea that it is in our nature to be thoughtful of others.
This same sort of subconscious selfishness can be seen all over the place. At my school, it's impossible to get up or down the stairs since dozens of students are sitting on them to eat their lunches. I often remark to them that someone ought to build some stairs so that people stop walking up and down their cafeteria benches. They usually don't get it... but to be fair, they're usually not paying attention, either.
Another place you'll see this is at the store, whether it's Safeway, Costco, or Home Depot. Usually there is space for two carts to pass each other in an aisle. Occassionaly, however, there is only space for one cart because of some freestanding display or someone else's cart parked while they peruse the wares. Have you ever noticed that if the rest of the aisle is completely empty, people are drawn to park their carts right next to the other obstruction, rendering the entire aisle impassable? Does that bug you? It bugs me, too.
I do have hope for the future, however, because I've never seen anyone stand in the doorway on Star Trek.
- "The good of the many outweighs the good of the few... or the one."
I warned you.
Last night at church, I had to pass through 3 doorways to exit the building. At each doorway, I was impeded by people having a conversation while standing in the doorway. After letting me by, they continued their conversation in the doorway. I assume that they were interrupted roughly one time per person in attendance. Between the doorways, there were very wide hallways, yet none of this space was deemed suitable for the doorway conversation.
What's the deal? Elementary physics would lead us to believe that hallways would be the least likely place for people to congregate if it is only the force of gravity that draws them to the spot. The gravitational force exerted by the walls in the hallway are several orders of magnitude greater than that of the gaseous air which fills the space within the doorframe.
Obviously it is a sociological phenomenon. I'm sure that someone schooled in this field could give you a very detailed analysis filled with jargon and impressive sounding references. I'm going to just refer to the sociological forces at work by one word: selfishness. (I did toy with using "thoughtlessness," "rudeness," and "annoyingness," but I settled on "selfishness.")
Why do people talk in doorways? There are a few different cases I'd like to point out, but they all have similar root causes (in my opinion, that is).
CASE 1: One going in, the other coming out.
CASE 2: Both leaving, but to divergent destinations.
CASE 3: One staying in the room and the other leaving.
CASE 4: One staying in the room and the other just passing by.
In all of these cases, exiting the doorway would move one of the participants farther away from their final destination, and would actually constitute negative progress. Keep in mind that this is primarily a spatial and not a temporal set back. The very act of having the conversation is increasing the time that it would take to get to wherever they're going. What it's not increasing is the distance they have to travel to get there. Moving out of the doorway, however, would increase the distance one of the participants would have to travel, even if it's only by a few feet. In almost every case, this would only apply to one of the participants, since the path they take together to leave the doorway will most likely be along a trajectory that one or the other of them would have taken after the conversation, anyway.
Apparently, we can move about within a room or space without feeling like we're getting farther away from our goal. Actually exiting to a space further away from our destination, however, is too inconvenient. The doorway allows the conversation to occurr without either participant having to decide that talking to this person is actually more important than making progress toward their destination.
That's the first reason I call it "selfishness." We are willing to talk to someone as long as it doesn't mean that we are going to have to lose a meter or so of the progress we've already made.
The second reason I call it "selfishness" is that the fact that the entrance or exit of any other person not directly involved in the conversation is apparently not taken into consideration when deciding where to have this conversation.
All of this happens at a subconcious level. We find ourselves stopped in a doorway without being aware of any process of thinking that led to that decision. It doesn't seem like a big deal, but it's the kind of thing I think about when I see episodes of Star Trek and we find out that in the future there is no war on earth and everyone lives at peace with one another. "How are we gonna get there if we can't even move out of the doorway for people?" I think to myself as I chuckle at the naivete of the writers who have bought the idea that it is in our nature to be thoughtful of others.
This same sort of subconscious selfishness can be seen all over the place. At my school, it's impossible to get up or down the stairs since dozens of students are sitting on them to eat their lunches. I often remark to them that someone ought to build some stairs so that people stop walking up and down their cafeteria benches. They usually don't get it... but to be fair, they're usually not paying attention, either.
Another place you'll see this is at the store, whether it's Safeway, Costco, or Home Depot. Usually there is space for two carts to pass each other in an aisle. Occassionaly, however, there is only space for one cart because of some freestanding display or someone else's cart parked while they peruse the wares. Have you ever noticed that if the rest of the aisle is completely empty, people are drawn to park their carts right next to the other obstruction, rendering the entire aisle impassable? Does that bug you? It bugs me, too.
I do have hope for the future, however, because I've never seen anyone stand in the doorway on Star Trek.
- "The good of the many outweighs the good of the few... or the one."
Friday, May 20, 2005
Whither Florida?
Apparently, Arnold is on a fund-raising tour for a possible "special election" (everyone gets a medal, just for participating!). Not surprising, politics take money.
What is surprising is where he's fundraising: Florida. There's something wrong about that... it would be like Bush going to Mexico City to try and raise money to defeat the filibuster. Isn't Arnold the governor of California? If he can't get money from Californians to support his pet initiatives, shouldn't that be a pretty big red flag? Is there something about the issues that will come up in this "very-special" election (Is Blossom pregnant? Is Alex on Speed? Is Ross finally going to kiss Rachel?) that makes Floridians want to shell out the cash to see them passed more than Californians? Should we be concerned that our governor seems to be backing issues that Floridians are more interested in supporting than Californians?
It would be different if Arnold was a Senator. Senators are elected to a national office and are responsible for legislation that applies equally to every citizen in every state of the union. Governors, however, are the chief executives of their states, and don't have any sort of authority anywhere else. Arnold is not beholden to the Floridians for anything, he was elected by Californians to serve Californians. If some Floridians who contributed a lot to these special campaigns think it might be a good idea for Utah to get more oranges from them than from us, however... what's a governor to do?
Do your job, Arnold. If California doesn't want something, let it drop. Remember, we're your employers now, and if you're not working in our best interest, you won't be back.
-"It's not a tumor!"
What is surprising is where he's fundraising: Florida. There's something wrong about that... it would be like Bush going to Mexico City to try and raise money to defeat the filibuster. Isn't Arnold the governor of California? If he can't get money from Californians to support his pet initiatives, shouldn't that be a pretty big red flag? Is there something about the issues that will come up in this "very-special" election (Is Blossom pregnant? Is Alex on Speed? Is Ross finally going to kiss Rachel?) that makes Floridians want to shell out the cash to see them passed more than Californians? Should we be concerned that our governor seems to be backing issues that Floridians are more interested in supporting than Californians?
It would be different if Arnold was a Senator. Senators are elected to a national office and are responsible for legislation that applies equally to every citizen in every state of the union. Governors, however, are the chief executives of their states, and don't have any sort of authority anywhere else. Arnold is not beholden to the Floridians for anything, he was elected by Californians to serve Californians. If some Floridians who contributed a lot to these special campaigns think it might be a good idea for Utah to get more oranges from them than from us, however... what's a governor to do?
Do your job, Arnold. If California doesn't want something, let it drop. Remember, we're your employers now, and if you're not working in our best interest, you won't be back.
-"It's not a tumor!"
Tuesday, May 17, 2005
It's my ball!
So, the Republicans won the White House and control of both houses of Congress... and still can't get their way? What does a political party have to do to make everything always go the way they want it to?
The Republican majority in the Senate is contemplating making an historic change in the way that the Senate does business. As it is right now, a vote on giving consent on a federal judicial nomination from the President can be held up by the time-honored tradition of the filibuster. In order to stop a filibuster, a "super-majority" of 60 (out of 100) Senators must vote to stop it and force the vote. The proposal (called the "nuclear option") is to change the rules so that a simple majority (51 out of 100, or 50 plus the tie-breaking vote of the Vice President) can stop a filibuster. This would be very convenient, since the Republicans currently hold 55 seats in the Senate, which is more than 50, but less than 60.
The argument against the Democrats use of the filibuster is that using it to prevent an "up-or-down" vote on a judicial nominee is unprecedented and is not in accordance with the customs and traditions of the US Senate.
While this is not strictly true(CNN.com says "Democrats point to Supreme Court Justice Abe Fortas, who was blocked from becoming chief justice in what the Senate historian's Web site calls 'the first filibuster in Senate history on a Supreme Court nomination.' The attempt to force a vote on his nomination drew fewer than 50 votes. They also say at least two of Clinton's lower court judicial nominees were filibustered for years by Republicans, although they were ultimately confirmed."), there is some truth behind it. In the past, nominees have been stopped using other "customs and traditions" of the Senate. The vacant seats that Bush has named nominees for are only vacant now because Clinton nominees couldn't get confirmed for them when he was President. These nominations were not stopped by filibusters. Rather, they were killed in the Senate judiciary committee and never even came up for votes on the Senate floor. That's right, the Senate Judiciary committee has the power to prevent an "up-or-down" vote on a judicial nominee. There are eighteen Senators on the Judiciary committee. Eighteen. A majority of this group would be ten. Ten is less than forty-one. A lot less. Thirty-one less. Why is that important?
The main argument put forth by the Republican majority is that an "up-or-down" vote on a judicial nominee should not be able to be blocked by a minority (forty-one) of Senators. Yet Clinton's nominations for these posts were blocked by the Judiciary committee, themselves a minority of eighteen, with a majority vote in that body consisting of ten votes. Where was the outrage when "up-or-down" votes were blocked on Clinton's nominees by this much smaller number of Senators?
It should be obvious that the real source of outrage on the part of the Republican majority is not a zealous desire to protect the customs and traditions of the venerable and august body that is the US Senate. Nor is it even for the preservation of "majority rule", since they were perfectly content to allow the fate of Clinton's nominees rest in the hands of a much smaller minority than the minority of forty-one that can maintain a filibuster.
Here's the real issue: The Republicans finally have control of the white house and both houses of congress. It stands to reason that they can do anything they want... but they can't. And it's driving them crazy! Sorry, guys, but that's the way it works, and there's good reason for it.
The US government is composed of three branches that constitute a system of "checks and balances." The whole reason that the Constitution gives the Senate the role of advising and consenting to the President's nominations is the prevent any one person (or small group of persons) from taking over the whole course of the government against the will and wishes of the mainstream of American citizens. Likewise, the Presidential veto is a check against the Senate, requiring that if the President isn't in agreement with a piece of legislation, a "super-majority" (2/3 in this case) of Senators need to agree to overrule him.
Why these "super-majorities?" Well, in a two-party system like ours, at any given time, it is almost certain that one party or other will hold a simple majority (except in those rare cases where it is exactly split 50/50). This would give whichever party happened to have a slim majority authority to implement the most radical programs and agendas, and in the cases where the President is of the same party as the majority, to appoint the most radical and "activist" judges to the federal bench. The requirement of a super-majority is a safeguard against this, since it almost always requires that programs, agendas and judges have a broad enough appeal for at least some members of both parties need to approve of them for them to be implemented, passed or confirmed.
But the gambit the Republicans are pursuing is very dangerous. They're proposing changing the rules so that a simple majority can push almost any judicial nomination through, and it sets a compelling precedent for not eliminating the requirement for super-majorities on other nominations. Bush won the White House with less than a "super-majority" of votes in 2000 (He didn't even have a simple majority of popular votes, but that doesn't mean that more than half of Americans voted against him. Less than half of Americans voted at all!). The 2004 vote was not a landslide by any means, either. The last 5 years have been filled with some of the most bitter partisan political fighting we've seen in a long time, with both sides taking stands that seem to have less to do with the merits of the issues and more on being against what "they" are supporting. A future where a simple-majority has carte-blanche to push through whatever they want to will continue to cater to the extremes at both ends of the political spectrum over and against the wishes and best interest of the vast majority of centrist America.
I can think of two compelling arguments against changing the rules of the Senate. The first is the specter of a Republican President and a Republican controlled congress pushing through the most radical right-wing agenda without any means to "check" or "balance" them. The second argument is the specter of a Democratic President and a Democratic controlled congress pushing through the most radical left-wing agenda without any means to "check" or "balance" them. Getting rid of "super-majority" clauses makes both of these scary options likely future realities. We're better off with government being limited to what action can get at least some bi-partisan support. It's possible that we'll end up with a few very good programs and ideas being stopped. It's highly probably that we'll avoid a whole lot of bad programs and ideas being pushed through, also. My fear of the damage our government (controlled by either party) could inflict if given almost unlimited power far outweighs any regrets over the loss of some small handful of good that could have been affected which failed to gain bi-partisan support.
The Republican leadership is not just setting themselves up to be able to push through their agenda. They're setting our country up to be a violent see-saw of extremism, going left to right so haphazardly as to tear our nation apart.
If it's all the same to you, I'd prefer to keep the filibuster.
- "Dad used to say the only causes worth fighting for were the lost causes."
The Republican majority in the Senate is contemplating making an historic change in the way that the Senate does business. As it is right now, a vote on giving consent on a federal judicial nomination from the President can be held up by the time-honored tradition of the filibuster. In order to stop a filibuster, a "super-majority" of 60 (out of 100) Senators must vote to stop it and force the vote. The proposal (called the "nuclear option") is to change the rules so that a simple majority (51 out of 100, or 50 plus the tie-breaking vote of the Vice President) can stop a filibuster. This would be very convenient, since the Republicans currently hold 55 seats in the Senate, which is more than 50, but less than 60.
The argument against the Democrats use of the filibuster is that using it to prevent an "up-or-down" vote on a judicial nominee is unprecedented and is not in accordance with the customs and traditions of the US Senate.
While this is not strictly true(CNN.com says "Democrats point to Supreme Court Justice Abe Fortas, who was blocked from becoming chief justice in what the Senate historian's Web site calls 'the first filibuster in Senate history on a Supreme Court nomination.' The attempt to force a vote on his nomination drew fewer than 50 votes. They also say at least two of Clinton's lower court judicial nominees were filibustered for years by Republicans, although they were ultimately confirmed."), there is some truth behind it. In the past, nominees have been stopped using other "customs and traditions" of the Senate. The vacant seats that Bush has named nominees for are only vacant now because Clinton nominees couldn't get confirmed for them when he was President. These nominations were not stopped by filibusters. Rather, they were killed in the Senate judiciary committee and never even came up for votes on the Senate floor. That's right, the Senate Judiciary committee has the power to prevent an "up-or-down" vote on a judicial nominee. There are eighteen Senators on the Judiciary committee. Eighteen. A majority of this group would be ten. Ten is less than forty-one. A lot less. Thirty-one less. Why is that important?
The main argument put forth by the Republican majority is that an "up-or-down" vote on a judicial nominee should not be able to be blocked by a minority (forty-one) of Senators. Yet Clinton's nominations for these posts were blocked by the Judiciary committee, themselves a minority of eighteen, with a majority vote in that body consisting of ten votes. Where was the outrage when "up-or-down" votes were blocked on Clinton's nominees by this much smaller number of Senators?
It should be obvious that the real source of outrage on the part of the Republican majority is not a zealous desire to protect the customs and traditions of the venerable and august body that is the US Senate. Nor is it even for the preservation of "majority rule", since they were perfectly content to allow the fate of Clinton's nominees rest in the hands of a much smaller minority than the minority of forty-one that can maintain a filibuster.
Here's the real issue: The Republicans finally have control of the white house and both houses of congress. It stands to reason that they can do anything they want... but they can't. And it's driving them crazy! Sorry, guys, but that's the way it works, and there's good reason for it.
The US government is composed of three branches that constitute a system of "checks and balances." The whole reason that the Constitution gives the Senate the role of advising and consenting to the President's nominations is the prevent any one person (or small group of persons) from taking over the whole course of the government against the will and wishes of the mainstream of American citizens. Likewise, the Presidential veto is a check against the Senate, requiring that if the President isn't in agreement with a piece of legislation, a "super-majority" (2/3 in this case) of Senators need to agree to overrule him.
Why these "super-majorities?" Well, in a two-party system like ours, at any given time, it is almost certain that one party or other will hold a simple majority (except in those rare cases where it is exactly split 50/50). This would give whichever party happened to have a slim majority authority to implement the most radical programs and agendas, and in the cases where the President is of the same party as the majority, to appoint the most radical and "activist" judges to the federal bench. The requirement of a super-majority is a safeguard against this, since it almost always requires that programs, agendas and judges have a broad enough appeal for at least some members of both parties need to approve of them for them to be implemented, passed or confirmed.
But the gambit the Republicans are pursuing is very dangerous. They're proposing changing the rules so that a simple majority can push almost any judicial nomination through, and it sets a compelling precedent for not eliminating the requirement for super-majorities on other nominations. Bush won the White House with less than a "super-majority" of votes in 2000 (He didn't even have a simple majority of popular votes, but that doesn't mean that more than half of Americans voted against him. Less than half of Americans voted at all!). The 2004 vote was not a landslide by any means, either. The last 5 years have been filled with some of the most bitter partisan political fighting we've seen in a long time, with both sides taking stands that seem to have less to do with the merits of the issues and more on being against what "they" are supporting. A future where a simple-majority has carte-blanche to push through whatever they want to will continue to cater to the extremes at both ends of the political spectrum over and against the wishes and best interest of the vast majority of centrist America.
I can think of two compelling arguments against changing the rules of the Senate. The first is the specter of a Republican President and a Republican controlled congress pushing through the most radical right-wing agenda without any means to "check" or "balance" them. The second argument is the specter of a Democratic President and a Democratic controlled congress pushing through the most radical left-wing agenda without any means to "check" or "balance" them. Getting rid of "super-majority" clauses makes both of these scary options likely future realities. We're better off with government being limited to what action can get at least some bi-partisan support. It's possible that we'll end up with a few very good programs and ideas being stopped. It's highly probably that we'll avoid a whole lot of bad programs and ideas being pushed through, also. My fear of the damage our government (controlled by either party) could inflict if given almost unlimited power far outweighs any regrets over the loss of some small handful of good that could have been affected which failed to gain bi-partisan support.
The Republican leadership is not just setting themselves up to be able to push through their agenda. They're setting our country up to be a violent see-saw of extremism, going left to right so haphazardly as to tear our nation apart.
If it's all the same to you, I'd prefer to keep the filibuster.
- "Dad used to say the only causes worth fighting for were the lost causes."
Those racist Mexicans!
In the above linked CNN.com article, Mexican President Vicente Fox refuses to apologize for his comment that Mexicans take jobs in the US that "even blacks" won't do.
He maintains that his comments were taken out of context and misinterpreted and he won't apologize. He did express his regret at any hurt feelings caused by his remarks to Al Sharpton and Jesse Jackson.
So, in what different ways could his comments have been interpreted?
- He could have meant that blacks are actually lazier than Mexicans, so stop perpetuating those stereotypes of lazy Mexicans and replace them with stereotypes of lazy blacks!
- He could have meant that Al Sharpton and Jesse Jackson were personally unwilling to do those jobs, and that is why he chose to express his regrets to those two individuals.
- He could have made his remarks thinking that not many blacks vote in Mexico, so they were okay to slam.
- He could have been addressing the concerns that illegal immigrants take jobs away from "real Americans" by assuring us that they were really only taking jobs away from blacks, who everybody knows don't count as "real Americans," so don't be so uptight.
- He could have been saying that as natural-born citizens (for the most part), Blacks have access to social services that illegal immigrants don't, so they don't have to take jobs paying far less than minimum wage and live in abject poverty like some Mexicans do.
- He could have meant that the restaurant and hotel industries (along with American produce, although those Chilean grapes are very tasty!) would collapse without the backbreaking labor below minimum wage performed primarily by Mexicans and other Latinos to support these industries, and that illegals and semi-legals are desperate enough to actually do this work, while US citizens (of whom some are black) have not gotten desperate enough to do them... yet.
- He could have meant that he was just trying to emulate American-style politics after all the rhetoric he'd heard from politicians like our governor who praise citizens who take it upon themselves to use dogs and guns to keep our nation free of cheap labor from south of the border. Being Mexican himself, he couldn't really make the Mexicans the scapegoats for all of our woes, so he thought he'd try the second most popular gambit of American politicians and blame it on black criminals and welfare queens.
So many possible interpretations, which is the one he meant? I like what Cardinal Norberto Rivera Carrera, the archbishop of Mexico City, said about the controversy: "The declaration had nothing to do with racism. It is a reality in the United States that anyone can prove."
Is it true? If it is, should someone be persecuted for saying something that's true but an "uncomfortable" truth? Politicians are able to get away with a lot of rhetoric, but they know that if something was actually done to crack down on illegal immigration, our economy would take a huge hit and we'd soon be falling over ourselves to come up with some sort of "guest worker" program that would let us continue to use these people for cheap labor without having to provide the whole range of social services to them that legal residents are entitled to. No matter what they say, most politicians don't want to close the borders. They're smart enough to know that our ability to enjoy the standard of living that we do is contingent upon a cheap labor pool to keep the system going.
Next time, Vicente, try blaming the El Salvadoreans. I doubt you'd make too many enemies in Washington that way.
- "Do you have anything besides Mexican food?"
He maintains that his comments were taken out of context and misinterpreted and he won't apologize. He did express his regret at any hurt feelings caused by his remarks to Al Sharpton and Jesse Jackson.
So, in what different ways could his comments have been interpreted?
- He could have meant that blacks are actually lazier than Mexicans, so stop perpetuating those stereotypes of lazy Mexicans and replace them with stereotypes of lazy blacks!
- He could have meant that Al Sharpton and Jesse Jackson were personally unwilling to do those jobs, and that is why he chose to express his regrets to those two individuals.
- He could have made his remarks thinking that not many blacks vote in Mexico, so they were okay to slam.
- He could have been addressing the concerns that illegal immigrants take jobs away from "real Americans" by assuring us that they were really only taking jobs away from blacks, who everybody knows don't count as "real Americans," so don't be so uptight.
- He could have been saying that as natural-born citizens (for the most part), Blacks have access to social services that illegal immigrants don't, so they don't have to take jobs paying far less than minimum wage and live in abject poverty like some Mexicans do.
- He could have meant that the restaurant and hotel industries (along with American produce, although those Chilean grapes are very tasty!) would collapse without the backbreaking labor below minimum wage performed primarily by Mexicans and other Latinos to support these industries, and that illegals and semi-legals are desperate enough to actually do this work, while US citizens (of whom some are black) have not gotten desperate enough to do them... yet.
- He could have meant that he was just trying to emulate American-style politics after all the rhetoric he'd heard from politicians like our governor who praise citizens who take it upon themselves to use dogs and guns to keep our nation free of cheap labor from south of the border. Being Mexican himself, he couldn't really make the Mexicans the scapegoats for all of our woes, so he thought he'd try the second most popular gambit of American politicians and blame it on black criminals and welfare queens.
So many possible interpretations, which is the one he meant? I like what Cardinal Norberto Rivera Carrera, the archbishop of Mexico City, said about the controversy: "The declaration had nothing to do with racism. It is a reality in the United States that anyone can prove."
Is it true? If it is, should someone be persecuted for saying something that's true but an "uncomfortable" truth? Politicians are able to get away with a lot of rhetoric, but they know that if something was actually done to crack down on illegal immigration, our economy would take a huge hit and we'd soon be falling over ourselves to come up with some sort of "guest worker" program that would let us continue to use these people for cheap labor without having to provide the whole range of social services to them that legal residents are entitled to. No matter what they say, most politicians don't want to close the borders. They're smart enough to know that our ability to enjoy the standard of living that we do is contingent upon a cheap labor pool to keep the system going.
Next time, Vicente, try blaming the El Salvadoreans. I doubt you'd make too many enemies in Washington that way.
- "Do you have anything besides Mexican food?"
Friday, May 13, 2005
Harry Potter works for Satan
I was browsing about the Internet the other day, and I came a across a site (I will not link to it, since I fear it will only do damage to the Kingdom of God for others to read it) that purported to be about the business of God by exposing all of the ways that Satan was trying to claim the souls of America's youth. The top contenders were Dungeons and Dragons ("Was this posted in the 80's?" I thought to myself), Pokemon, Teletubbies and Harry Potter. Especially Harry Potter.
First off, I don't want to imply that the authors of this site are not really Christians. I have no problem believing that they are. I do want to imply, however, that they are very misguided in interpreting the risks to our youth that this culture holds.
I remember when The Empire Strikes Back came out in 1980. Many Christians (my parents among them) debated whether or not their children should be allowed to see it. They had heard of this "Yoda" figure who brought in a lot of "New Age" philosophy that could entice their children to the occult. "Ghostbusters" was an easier call, it was clearly making light of supernatural forces and playing with fire: my brother and I did not see it. And did you know that Papa Smurf was a sorcerer?
More recently, I've heard the same issues raised about Harry Potter. Christians that I know and respect have raised the question of whether or not it is unwise to allow our children (or ourselves, for that matter) to be entertained by a tale that features heroes that use supernatural powers as they fight against their enemies. Is it a doorway to the Occult for our youth?
Well, let me first say that I have since seen The Empire Strikes Back (I actually did get to see it in 1980... thanks, Mom and Dad!), Ghostbusters (and Ghostbusters II, which I wish I hadn't for reasons having nothing to do with the Occult), and have read and enjoyed all five Harry Potter books (and seen the movies) and am eagerly awaiting the next one. This post is not, however, primarily about why I think that's okay. It's about whether or not this supposed threat is actually the biggest danger posed by our culture against the minds and souls of our children, and whether or not our efforts might not be better directed elsewhere.
The American church has of late (like, the last 25 years or so) been intent on labeling "evil" and fighting to keep it out of our lives, an endeavor that I think is worthwhile in principle, but too often handled poorly when it comes to execution. A lot of that has been in the political arena, with our nation's enemies being labeled "evil empires" or part of an "axis of evil," but that's not what this post is about. Another source of evil has been in the realm of personal morality, which has been highlighted in a few hot-button issues like abortion, euthenasia and homosexuality. I'm not writing about that either. I'm writing about the evil that we perceive to be the direct work of Satan and his demons. These rather overt manifestations of evil include Satanists, witchcraft, "New Age" style spiritualism, and good old fashioned demon possession.
I think that these concerns are actually valid, because I believe that the devil and demons are real, and that they actually want to separate us from God and his people (if you don't believe in them, then the rest of this post will sound like lunatic fringe raving. Feel free to continue reading, however, as most lunatics tend to be more entertaining than threatening!). I don't agree, however, that the overt manifestations of witchcraft and the occult are the primary dangers our kids face. If you've read The Screwtape Letters by C.S. Lewis, you might anticipate where I'm going with this. If not, keep reading.
We have to remember that the main objective of these fallen beings is to separate us from God, not to garner our direct worship and service as witches or Satanists. In The Screwtape Letters, Lewis invents an older demon mentoring his younger subordinate on the most effective ways to accomplish this goal. Not surprisingly, it is a lot easier to distract someone from God with something seemingly innocuous and even "good" than it is to convert them to cat-sacrificing, robe-wearing Druids.
As I read Harry Potter, I'm less concerned that kids will take away from it a desire to master the art of magic and wield power over their enemies with a wand and a pseudo-latin phrase. I think that most kids recognize this as fantasy, and are probably less convinced of the reality of the supernatural than many Christians are. The things that do concern me are far more subtle. Harry and his friends operate under the classic American (ironic, since the author is British) cultural mantra: "believe in yourself and you can do anything." When things get tough for Potter and his gang, they find that the adults and authority around them are unable to help them, and they have to rely on themselves to save the day. And, guess what, they do! They're always able to muster up whatever strength of will is necessary to strike down evil, and the message we receive is that you already have everything you need inside you, you just have to believe. This is the same message our kids hear from Disney (and Dreamworks, even in Biblical-themed films!), from Saturday morning cartoons, from after-school specials, and even in parent-teacher conferences at school (not to mention some preachers on TV). It is a sin against our national faith-in-self to acknowledge ourselves as needy in any way, and a far greater sin to teach our children that they are in fact limited and unable to even understand what they ought to want for their future, let alone achieve it by mere human effort.
The forces of American culture that are the biggest danger for our children are not those that would turn them away from God and toward Satan. Rather, they are the forces that would turn them away from God and in on themselves (Of course, this is what Satan does, too; look at how he tempted Eve). Satan doesn't need to make people witches, he just has to let them become "good Americans" and he doesn't have to work all that hard to make it happen, since it's what we start doing to our kids even before they're born.
The Gospel of Jesus Christ is good news because we are desperately needy. It's not for nothing that Jesus said the rich would have an easier time getting a camel through a needle's eye than getting into heaven. It's not that they're evil, they're just insulated by their wealth from seeing themselves as needy in any way. Our children are being raised to surround themselves with resources to prevent them ever having to trust anyone but themselves for their well-being. Unfortunately, that includes God.
How are we doing this? Well, how do we make decisions about our children's education? Do they need to get into a good pre-school so they'll do well in kindergarten and (at least in San Francisco) get into the right middle schools and high schools to get into the right college to get the right job to never have to worry about anything? Have we taught them not to worry about tomorrow because God will care for them, or have we taught them to worry about the big test tomorrow because your future depends on it? What would it be like if we went into parent teacher conferences and were less concerned about their slipping grades in math than in how well they treated their peers during recess? What if we didn't ask about GATE placement or honors classes as much as about their generosity and kindness? What message are we sending our kids when we talk about their education? I have the feeling that most of them get the idea that the most important thing they can do before going to bed is to finish a report for school on the Middle East, not pray for the people living there.
How about subtler messages? Every commercial we see on TV tells us that we deserve ________. Our children get the message every day that simply wanting something equals being entitled to it. If things don't go the way we want them to, we feel like something is wrong and somebody needs to fix it (or get sued). This attitude is a luxury of the rich, and is not shared by the vast majority of the world's population. A culture that feels it's entitled to have everything go it's way is incapable of gratitude. But without gratitude, how can we embrace the gospel? Entitlement denies grace, and grace is the heart of the gospel.
Perhaps the subtlest message comes from the psychoanalyzing of our culture. We've discovered that just about everything we do wrong is the result of some wrong committed against us in the past, and we're hard pressed to accept responsibility for any of our actions. We're tremendously fragile beings, and we can't help but act out what with the ways we were scarred and manipulated all of our lives. We are the victims of our childhoods, and our life is not about the consequences of our choices being played out, it is about being swept away by the choices made by others which for which we bear no responsibility. How can we embrace the Gospel as good news if the sin that needs to be forgiven is wholly the sin of other people? God's love is meaningless if we are not needy and desperate sinners, and that's exactly what our culture is telling us we are not.
We don't need to be afraid of Harry Potter and the Smurfs turning our kids into witches and warlocks nearly as much as we need to be afraid of our culture turning them into good Americans. The gospel knows nothing of independence, only utter dependence on God and interdependence among his church, and freedom in the Gospel is found in becoming slaves to Christ and one another. The self-reliant individual that is the archetypal American is found nowhere in the Bible; there is only a new people given a new identity and called to live life together. The greatest danger to our children is to grow up learning from everyone around them that the culture of America and the counter-culture of the church are compatible, because they're not. America will not make our kids Satan-worshippers, but it will make them self-worshippers, and both roads lead to the same end.
-"Oh, ho ho! You sly dog! You caught me monologuing!"
First off, I don't want to imply that the authors of this site are not really Christians. I have no problem believing that they are. I do want to imply, however, that they are very misguided in interpreting the risks to our youth that this culture holds.
I remember when The Empire Strikes Back came out in 1980. Many Christians (my parents among them) debated whether or not their children should be allowed to see it. They had heard of this "Yoda" figure who brought in a lot of "New Age" philosophy that could entice their children to the occult. "Ghostbusters" was an easier call, it was clearly making light of supernatural forces and playing with fire: my brother and I did not see it. And did you know that Papa Smurf was a sorcerer?
More recently, I've heard the same issues raised about Harry Potter. Christians that I know and respect have raised the question of whether or not it is unwise to allow our children (or ourselves, for that matter) to be entertained by a tale that features heroes that use supernatural powers as they fight against their enemies. Is it a doorway to the Occult for our youth?
Well, let me first say that I have since seen The Empire Strikes Back (I actually did get to see it in 1980... thanks, Mom and Dad!), Ghostbusters (and Ghostbusters II, which I wish I hadn't for reasons having nothing to do with the Occult), and have read and enjoyed all five Harry Potter books (and seen the movies) and am eagerly awaiting the next one. This post is not, however, primarily about why I think that's okay. It's about whether or not this supposed threat is actually the biggest danger posed by our culture against the minds and souls of our children, and whether or not our efforts might not be better directed elsewhere.
The American church has of late (like, the last 25 years or so) been intent on labeling "evil" and fighting to keep it out of our lives, an endeavor that I think is worthwhile in principle, but too often handled poorly when it comes to execution. A lot of that has been in the political arena, with our nation's enemies being labeled "evil empires" or part of an "axis of evil," but that's not what this post is about. Another source of evil has been in the realm of personal morality, which has been highlighted in a few hot-button issues like abortion, euthenasia and homosexuality. I'm not writing about that either. I'm writing about the evil that we perceive to be the direct work of Satan and his demons. These rather overt manifestations of evil include Satanists, witchcraft, "New Age" style spiritualism, and good old fashioned demon possession.
I think that these concerns are actually valid, because I believe that the devil and demons are real, and that they actually want to separate us from God and his people (if you don't believe in them, then the rest of this post will sound like lunatic fringe raving. Feel free to continue reading, however, as most lunatics tend to be more entertaining than threatening!). I don't agree, however, that the overt manifestations of witchcraft and the occult are the primary dangers our kids face. If you've read The Screwtape Letters by C.S. Lewis, you might anticipate where I'm going with this. If not, keep reading.
We have to remember that the main objective of these fallen beings is to separate us from God, not to garner our direct worship and service as witches or Satanists. In The Screwtape Letters, Lewis invents an older demon mentoring his younger subordinate on the most effective ways to accomplish this goal. Not surprisingly, it is a lot easier to distract someone from God with something seemingly innocuous and even "good" than it is to convert them to cat-sacrificing, robe-wearing Druids.
As I read Harry Potter, I'm less concerned that kids will take away from it a desire to master the art of magic and wield power over their enemies with a wand and a pseudo-latin phrase. I think that most kids recognize this as fantasy, and are probably less convinced of the reality of the supernatural than many Christians are. The things that do concern me are far more subtle. Harry and his friends operate under the classic American (ironic, since the author is British) cultural mantra: "believe in yourself and you can do anything." When things get tough for Potter and his gang, they find that the adults and authority around them are unable to help them, and they have to rely on themselves to save the day. And, guess what, they do! They're always able to muster up whatever strength of will is necessary to strike down evil, and the message we receive is that you already have everything you need inside you, you just have to believe. This is the same message our kids hear from Disney (and Dreamworks, even in Biblical-themed films!), from Saturday morning cartoons, from after-school specials, and even in parent-teacher conferences at school (not to mention some preachers on TV). It is a sin against our national faith-in-self to acknowledge ourselves as needy in any way, and a far greater sin to teach our children that they are in fact limited and unable to even understand what they ought to want for their future, let alone achieve it by mere human effort.
The forces of American culture that are the biggest danger for our children are not those that would turn them away from God and toward Satan. Rather, they are the forces that would turn them away from God and in on themselves (Of course, this is what Satan does, too; look at how he tempted Eve). Satan doesn't need to make people witches, he just has to let them become "good Americans" and he doesn't have to work all that hard to make it happen, since it's what we start doing to our kids even before they're born.
The Gospel of Jesus Christ is good news because we are desperately needy. It's not for nothing that Jesus said the rich would have an easier time getting a camel through a needle's eye than getting into heaven. It's not that they're evil, they're just insulated by their wealth from seeing themselves as needy in any way. Our children are being raised to surround themselves with resources to prevent them ever having to trust anyone but themselves for their well-being. Unfortunately, that includes God.
How are we doing this? Well, how do we make decisions about our children's education? Do they need to get into a good pre-school so they'll do well in kindergarten and (at least in San Francisco) get into the right middle schools and high schools to get into the right college to get the right job to never have to worry about anything? Have we taught them not to worry about tomorrow because God will care for them, or have we taught them to worry about the big test tomorrow because your future depends on it? What would it be like if we went into parent teacher conferences and were less concerned about their slipping grades in math than in how well they treated their peers during recess? What if we didn't ask about GATE placement or honors classes as much as about their generosity and kindness? What message are we sending our kids when we talk about their education? I have the feeling that most of them get the idea that the most important thing they can do before going to bed is to finish a report for school on the Middle East, not pray for the people living there.
How about subtler messages? Every commercial we see on TV tells us that we deserve ________. Our children get the message every day that simply wanting something equals being entitled to it. If things don't go the way we want them to, we feel like something is wrong and somebody needs to fix it (or get sued). This attitude is a luxury of the rich, and is not shared by the vast majority of the world's population. A culture that feels it's entitled to have everything go it's way is incapable of gratitude. But without gratitude, how can we embrace the gospel? Entitlement denies grace, and grace is the heart of the gospel.
Perhaps the subtlest message comes from the psychoanalyzing of our culture. We've discovered that just about everything we do wrong is the result of some wrong committed against us in the past, and we're hard pressed to accept responsibility for any of our actions. We're tremendously fragile beings, and we can't help but act out what with the ways we were scarred and manipulated all of our lives. We are the victims of our childhoods, and our life is not about the consequences of our choices being played out, it is about being swept away by the choices made by others which for which we bear no responsibility. How can we embrace the Gospel as good news if the sin that needs to be forgiven is wholly the sin of other people? God's love is meaningless if we are not needy and desperate sinners, and that's exactly what our culture is telling us we are not.
We don't need to be afraid of Harry Potter and the Smurfs turning our kids into witches and warlocks nearly as much as we need to be afraid of our culture turning them into good Americans. The gospel knows nothing of independence, only utter dependence on God and interdependence among his church, and freedom in the Gospel is found in becoming slaves to Christ and one another. The self-reliant individual that is the archetypal American is found nowhere in the Bible; there is only a new people given a new identity and called to live life together. The greatest danger to our children is to grow up learning from everyone around them that the culture of America and the counter-culture of the church are compatible, because they're not. America will not make our kids Satan-worshippers, but it will make them self-worshippers, and both roads lead to the same end.
-"Oh, ho ho! You sly dog! You caught me monologuing!"
Wednesday, May 11, 2005
You know what this country needs?
(This blog has been retroactively posted from the future: October 17, 2008 to be precise.)
We need some way to pool our resources to pay for the things that just about everyone needs to use or have handy, but nobody (well, practically nobody, Mr. Gates) can afford to build on their own. You know, like roads, fire stations, traffic lights, schools, etc. And what about things that are in the public interest, but no individual person is powerful enough to fight for alone, like truth in advertising, and predatory business practices, and affordable health care? Wouldn't it be great if instead of each person having to build their own personal roads from home to work and to any restaurant they happen to like, we could all chip-in and do it together?
Of course, it would take a lot of time to get this stuff done, and most of us don't have that much vacation time from work. I guess that some of us could just quit our jobs and focus on doing this stuff, and the rest of us could chip-in a little more money so those guys can buy food, clothing and shelter for their familes. I mean, they're doing this for us, after all. It only seems right that they shouldn't have to starve or live in abject poverty because they're building roads that everyone gets to use, and ready to fight fires at anyone's homes, not just their own, or teaching all of our kids so that we can go to work during the day instead of staying at home to teach them ourselves.
And then I guess we'll have to chip-in a little bit more to create the infrastructure to organize all of these projects, and some people will have to spend all of their time just working on logistics and paperwork. I guess it's worth it and we can chip-in a little bit more to cover their living expenses, too.
Wouldn't it be easier if there was already a big infrastructure in place that we could use, instead of having to invent a new one? Wait a minute...
Don't we already chip-in a bunch of our money every paycheck to pay for bombs and missiles and soldiers to kill people in other parts of the world? What if some of that money got used to pay for stuff we need over here? I mean, they're talking about cutting taxes, (even though we keep spending more and more money on destructo-products), what if we all just kept paying in the same amount we are now (or even the same amount we did 10 years ago... Oh, wait, I still do. So who's getting all these tax cuts I keep hearing about?), and we could pay for all of that other stuff?
Just an idea.
- "Have you met them? The poor? Oh, they're marvelous people... of course they don't have two pennies to rub together, but that's because they're poor!"
We need some way to pool our resources to pay for the things that just about everyone needs to use or have handy, but nobody (well, practically nobody, Mr. Gates) can afford to build on their own. You know, like roads, fire stations, traffic lights, schools, etc. And what about things that are in the public interest, but no individual person is powerful enough to fight for alone, like truth in advertising, and predatory business practices, and affordable health care? Wouldn't it be great if instead of each person having to build their own personal roads from home to work and to any restaurant they happen to like, we could all chip-in and do it together?
Of course, it would take a lot of time to get this stuff done, and most of us don't have that much vacation time from work. I guess that some of us could just quit our jobs and focus on doing this stuff, and the rest of us could chip-in a little more money so those guys can buy food, clothing and shelter for their familes. I mean, they're doing this for us, after all. It only seems right that they shouldn't have to starve or live in abject poverty because they're building roads that everyone gets to use, and ready to fight fires at anyone's homes, not just their own, or teaching all of our kids so that we can go to work during the day instead of staying at home to teach them ourselves.
And then I guess we'll have to chip-in a little bit more to create the infrastructure to organize all of these projects, and some people will have to spend all of their time just working on logistics and paperwork. I guess it's worth it and we can chip-in a little bit more to cover their living expenses, too.
Wouldn't it be easier if there was already a big infrastructure in place that we could use, instead of having to invent a new one? Wait a minute...
Don't we already chip-in a bunch of our money every paycheck to pay for bombs and missiles and soldiers to kill people in other parts of the world? What if some of that money got used to pay for stuff we need over here? I mean, they're talking about cutting taxes, (even though we keep spending more and more money on destructo-products), what if we all just kept paying in the same amount we are now (or even the same amount we did 10 years ago... Oh, wait, I still do. So who's getting all these tax cuts I keep hearing about?), and we could pay for all of that other stuff?
Just an idea.
- "Have you met them? The poor? Oh, they're marvelous people... of course they don't have two pennies to rub together, but that's because they're poor!"
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