Politics: January 2004 Archive Page

[L]et's face facts, she could do your $70,000-a-year job for the wages of a Taco Bell counter jockey - she won't lose any sleep over your plight. When I ask what her advice is for a beleaguered American programmer afraid of being pulled under by the global tide that she represents, Jairam takes the high road, neither dismissing the concern nor offering soothing happy talk. Instead, she recites a portion of the 2,000-year-old epic poem and Hindu holy book the Bhagavad Gita: "Do what you're supposed to do. And don't worry about the fruits. They'll come on their own." | This is a story about the global economy. It's about two countries and one profession - and how weirdly upside down the future has begun to look from opposite sides of the globe. It's about code and the people who write it. But it's also about free markets, new politics, and ancient wisdom - which means it's ultimately about faith. --Daniel H. Pink --The New Face of the Silicon Age (Wired Magazine)

Wired is the idealistic champion of Silicon Valley culture. While the quality of the writing is always top-notch, one rarely finds in the pages of Wired any serious criticism of technology -- and certainly none of the Slashdot "the government is taking control of your lives, datum by datum" variety. Pink writes himself into the story a bit more than I would prefer, but I do appreciate the way he paints himself as the devil's advocate on both sides. I feel a lot of pain for the very good CS majors who are now graduating into a world that is very different than it was in 1999 (or so) when they entered college with a career path in mind.

Still, something lurking in the darker parts of my English major soul remembers the sneers of the "toolies" who, even before they got their diploma, bragged of their $50,000 job offers.

The Africans and Irish and Poles and Italians and Norwegians and everyone else -- including the Indians -- who came to America in search of a better place took the less desirable jobs. This led to inevitable conflict with the working class Americans, but after a generation or two, the newcomers turned into what Archie Bunker might call "regular Americans" who were themselves threatened by the next wave of immigrants. This has been an ongoing part of American history. Just look at the names on America's olympic rosters or the faces of people wearing American military uniforms.

But now, the jobs in question are highly desirable positions, and -- more shocking to America's future -- people don't even have to leave their home country to do it!

I was surprised and pleased to see Wired publishing a lenthy, literary, and insightful examination of the American reaction to this particular side-effect of the new global economy. The U.S. auto industry lost business to Japan in the 80s, which caused a wave of "buy American" protectionism; and in return, Japan became a tremendous consumer of American culture. If I were truly interested in economics, I would of course have listened to the e-school toolies and ditched my English major; but upon reflection, Wired Magazine publishing an article with a sympathetic angle on global outsourcing shouldn't be any real surprise. Because, from the look of things, Wired Magazine has read the writing on the wall, and expects to sell a lot of subscriptions in India.

"I always say that while I can't vote, I can damn sure make a difference," he said. "It doesn't feel odd, it shouldn't feel odd, because all Americans should be doing this. We as a country need to be more involved, especially our youth." --Stephen Yellin --Teen Blogger Heads Online (Wired)

I'm being called away, but I wanted to blog this before I forget it. I immediately thought of Ender's Game, an Orson Scott Card novel that features two teenage supporting characters (siblings of the hero) who affect global politics by participating in online discussion groups.

"Not only are we going to New Hampshire ..., we're going to South Carolina and Oklahoma and Arizona and North Dakota and New Mexico, and we're going to California and Texas and New York! And we're going to South Dakota and Oregon and Washington and Michigan. And then we're going to Washington, D.C. to take back the White House, Yeeeeeaaaaaah!" --Dean Goes Nuts: Howard Dean's 2004 Iowa Caucus Concession Speech Remixes

Howard Dean's supporters mobilized on the Internet, and so have those who find pleasure in mocking the exuberant cry he uttered while rallying his troops during his Iowa concession speech.

Because I don't watch TV news, and I only listen to the radio during my 15-minute commute, I didn't hear the speech. While I had come across opinions that Dean's concession speech was a bit wild, I didn't take them seriously. My opinion has changed.

This website includes dozens of audio remixes. Fortunately there's not much activity on my floor on Fridays, but I closed the door anyway. I'm listening to "Dean's Going to Kokomo" right now, and I can hardy type from laughing so hard. Next up on my playlist is "Magical Dean Space Out."

At the turn of the century a Maryland Quaker, Lizzie Magie, was trying to develop a game that would illustrate the inequities of capitalism and promote a popular "single tax" movement led by Henry George. A century ago this month she received a patent for The Land lord's Game; the illustration in the US Patent Gazette is eerily similar to Monopoly. | The Landlord's Game became a Quaker pastime; over the years little improvements and local details were added by players. Eventually it became known as Monopoly, and a version that used the streets of Atlantic City, New Jersey (still used in the US version of Monopoly) was shown to a man named Charles Darrow in 1931. He sold the rights to Parker Brothers games in 1936. The Quakers' 30-year-old instructive little anti-capitalism game became, in other hands, the opposite. --Tim Dowling --I rolled a two - and got a ghetto stash  (Guardian)

Some background supplied on the history of "Monopoly," as part of the reaction to the export of "Ghettopoly" to Britain.

One of the things on my list of "things I remember from my youth that I wish I could find again" was a science-fiction story in which a group of customs officials (I think) are testing products being imported to Earth. One of the products is a suspicious war toy with little robot soldiers that keep disappearing; but that toy turns out to be a distraction -- the real threat is a board game that teaches children to make business decisions that will result in some offworld faction taking over the economy of the solar system. (The customs officials only glanced at the rules, and didn't notice that you get points for losing your empire.) I found this via Crooked Timber.

"The Clark Bar Association"? That name is sure to draw snickers when crunch time arrives. Clark will face mounds of mockery, which may prove to be the kiss of death for his candidacy and, if he's the nominee, ensure the re-election of the jolly rancher now in the White House. If Clark is smart, he'll make sure that whatever staffer thought of this doesn't see another payday. Such a decision could be a lifesaver for the campaign. --James Taranto --Best of the Web Today (Opinion Journal)

For this nutty little essay mocking Wesley Clark's adoption of the Clark candy bar as a campaign tool, Opinion Journal earns a sweet spot on my tootsie blog roll. (Note to self regarding possible career as comedy writer: keep day job.)

After some good-natured ribbing about his taste in clothing, General Wesley Clark, the Democratic Presidential candidate, has decided to donate his much-famed argyle sweater to charity. --General Wesley Clark's Argyle Sweater (EBay)

I found myself doing a little superior dance, because I just happen to have a read a blog entry about the history of sweaters on the linguistically fascinating flaschenpost, and I am therefore critically equipped to understand the cultural significance of Wesley Clark's Sweater and its presence on E-bay.

I didn't realize that what the English call a "jumper" is the same thing I call a "sweater". To me, a jumper is a long sleeveless dress worn over a shirt; the jumper is typically of a rugged material like denim, and is thus suitable as a play outfit for little girls.

While blogging's earliest advocates operate on the "information wants to be free" principle, many businesses would shudder at the very thought. | "Information is power" is a more likely mantra in many organisations. Whenever you hear those three words, you're hearing the signal of the kind of closed information culture where there's also a heads-down, bunker mentality utterly unsuited to the openness required for a convincing weblog, be it an external PR effort, or knowledge-sharing internal one. --Neil McIntosh --Why blogs could be bad for business (Guardian)

A few months ago, I was at a fancy on-campus dinner event. The university president, JoAnne Boyle, was working her way through the crowd, laying on the charm. I was part of a little group of people who were treated to a funny story about a well-known donor who called with some crotchety advice about one of the big topics on campus. When we all finished laughing at the punch line, I asked for the donor's first name again, because I hadn't caught it, and someone kidded me, "So, is this for your blog?" We all chuckled, but JoAnne's face turned white, and she quickly went off to charm someone else.

A little while later, as she was giving an impromptu welcome speech, she noticed who I was sitting with, and said, "The reporter who's the bane of my existence is sitting next to the faculty member who's the bane of my existence!"

Everyone turned around to see me recovering from what was almost a spit-take.

I don't think of my own blog in terms of power... goodness gracious, I'm just trying to teach a few things and enjoy doing what I do. I noticed that Alexa, a website ranking service, has placed jerz.setonhill.edu above www.setonhill.edu, and has recently replaced the screen capture of Seton Hill's home page with a screen capture from my own curricular home page. (My curricular website gets 57% of the traffic to the *.setonhill.edu domain, and the main site gets 29%, at least according to however Alexa measures it. The blogs.setonhill.edu subdomain gets 12%, by the way, which is up from 8% the last time I checked.)

I don't really know what any of this means, but, like businesses, universities also operate with a rigid power structure; administrators know things that faculty members don't need to know; tenured faculty members know things that their nontenured colleagues don't need to know.

Since I know that some of my students read my blog, I've found myself screening my blogging, since I don't want my blog to give away the "big twist" I want to throw into my lecture. And one day last term when I was very sick, a student blogged about how mentally befuddled I was. That student wrote sympathetically, but what if she hadn't?

Many of the students who started blogging for me last semester will be blogging for me again in different classes this term. I've learned a few things about instructional blogging... for one thing, I need to get the students reading each other's blogs more. We spent perhaps too much time counting the number of comments each blog entry generated, and not enough time getting students to link to each other's conversations. I'll be introducing three classes to blogging this week, and I plan to move pretty quickly from the basic "show me that you can post a link" to writing thickly-linked texts, with well-chosen links that not only demonstrate the student is keeping up with other blogs, but that gives readers a map to good reading online. We'll see what happens.

The entrenched business culture may not adopt blogging beyond the basic public relations and customer service approach. But a university's function is to educate -- to pass on skills and knowledge, by giving students the intellectual tools, in a microcosm of the society that awaits them after they graduate. Progressive educational philosophy emphasizes empowering the student. A weblog forces students to come into contact with that outside world a little earlier, which can be a burden. But with that responsibility comes power.

I'd rather the university president not think of me as the bane of her existence because of my blog, but at the same time, it's nice to be noticed.

Several university students said Thursday that they fabricated survey results factored into in a judge's decision to move Scott Peterson's capital murder trial out of Modesto.... [T]hey made up every answer on all the surveys they submitted because they found it difficult to gather legitimate data.

They did it, they said, because they were short on time and money. They were required to participate in the survey for 20 percent of their grade and were given no money for dozens of lengthy long-distance phone calls, they said. --Stapley and Cote --Allegations arise in Peterson trial survey (Modesto Bee)

I'm blogging this as another in a long series of reasons why my students shouldn't trust the results of every survey they encounter. The poll, a student project due last month, has not been identified as having been published in a peer-reviewed journal. Instead, it was submitted to the court by the professor who assigned the poll. The lawyers who objected to its legitimacy had sufficient reason to be suspicious.

Stephen Schoenthaler received an "outstanding professor" award from California State University, Stanislaus in 2002. According to that press release (praising "research as well as teaching accomplishments"), the U.S. Congress had recently appropriated half a million dollars for a large-scale test of his research supporting a link between crime and diet.

Schoenthaler announced the poll assignment two days before Thanksgiving break, which obviously ticked off some of the students; maybe they were even further annoyed when they saw him in the media, taking credit for their work. Schoenthaler doesn't seem to have a curricular web page, so I wasn't able to find the syllabus or a response from Schoenthaler (other than his telling the Bee reporter he was shocked).

According to this article, Schoenthaler "has said he hoped to provide a public service and perhaps save taxpayer money." That's a very noble goal, but requiring his own students to pay for it? Not so noble. Still, these are apparently senior criminal justice students; they should know that two wrongs don't make a right.

In a statement released yesterday, the CSU-Stanislaus president wrote, “This is a very serious matter. We have immediately initiated an inquiry to examine these allegations according to our policies and procedures. We will conduct an extensive review to compile the information necessary to determine exactly what happened and the appropriate course of action. Scientific misconduct and academic dishonesty are serious breaches of professional ethics and research standards that are not tolerated at this university.”

Today, 30 years into feminism, we have models who look not just weak and unsophisticated, but also dumb and victimized. Academic feminists haven't complained because the models are supposedly playing a subversive role and subversion is inherently politically correct. Moreover, many of the young photographers are female. But now we?ve moved into ?fashion vérité? and the models still look stupid. Is this how women in fashion see themselves? --Karen Lehrman --The Decline of Fashion Photography (Slate)

I don't find the subject of fashion photography terribly gripping, but I did enjoy the form of this essay, and found this particular query worth making.

They're the ones who keep the puerile shows on TV, who appear as regular recipients of the Darwin Awards, who raise our insurance rates by doing dumb things, who generally make life much more miserable for all of us than it ought to be. Sad to say, they comprise a substantial minority -- perhaps even a majority -- of the populace. --Neal Starkman --The S factor explains Bush's popularity (Seattle PI)

Note to self: If ever writing an opinion column calling much or most of the world "stupid," avoid destroying own credibility by misusing the word "comprise." The whole comprises the parts; the parts compose the whole.

There are far better ways to organize an attack on Bush's policies, the legitimacy of his presidency, and even his personal fitness for the job. But Starkman's essay is instead a painfully obvious example of the ad hominem fallacy. Calling people stupid because they do not share your worldview does not demonstrate the ability to think critically.

Starkman has, of course, succeeded in stirring up the "Bush is stupid" meme; that will probably help Dean's campaign.

From Orwell's 1984

'There is a word in Newspeak,' said Syme, 'I don't know whether you know it: duckspeak, to quack like a duck. It is one of those interesting words that have two contradictory meanings. Applied to an opponent, it is abuse, applied to someone you agree with, it is praise.'

Update, 08 Jan: In "Just Another Leftist Loon," James E. McWilliams writes about the ad hominem attacks generated by his "moderately anti-Bush" op-ed. He recognizes that he sounds like a cloistered scholar surprised and stung by his first encounter with the great unwashed audience he hopes to educate with his brilliance; but since his reflection is published in The Chronicle of Higher Education, that stance is understandable -- now he's hoping to educate his fellow academics that you need a thick skin if you want to bring your discourse into the public arena.

I wonder if McWilliams is familiar with the skin-thickening online rhetorical practices such as fisking, flaming, trolling, etc. -- if he were, I doubt he'd have been so surprised by what showed up in his e-mail.

Notwithstanding all his efforts, the only semblance of a revolt of the poor is the antimodern Islamic tide, which from the Marxist point of view floats in a medieval dream. With us he seemed pathetically hungry for some kind of human contact. Brilliant as he is, spirited and resourceful as his people are, his endless rule seemed like some powerful vine wrapping its roots around the country and while defending it from the elements choking its natural growth. And his own as well. Ideology aside, he apparently maintains the illusions that structured his political successes even if they never had very much truth in them; to this day, as one example, he speaks of Gorbachev's dissolution of the Soviet Union as unnecessary, "a mistake." --Arthur Miller --A Visit with Castro (The Nation)

The American playwright reflects on his recent visit with the Cuban dictator.

The Drake equation cannot be tested and therefore SETI is not science. SETI is unquestionably a religion. Faith is defined as the firm belief in something for which there is no proof. The belief that the Koran is the word of God is a matter of faith. The belief that God created the universe in seven days is a matter of faith. The belief that there are other life forms in the universe is a matter of faith. There is not a single shred of evidence for any other life forms, and in forty years of searching, none has been discovered. There is absolutely no evidentiary reason to maintain this belief. SETI is a religion. --Michael Crichton --Aliens Cause Global Warming (Crichton Official Website)

SETI is the "Search for Extra-Terrestrial Intelligence" project. A screen-saver popular among uber-geeks actually gives your computer calculations to do in order to help out the whole SETI program. The "Drake equation" is a way of figuring out, out of all the stars where planets might exist, where those planets might support intelligent life, where those life forms might attempt to communicate with outsiders, and where those signals might actually have been broadcast at precisely the time necessary for us to be able to receive them now. I have a vivid memory of Carl Sagan introducing this equation in the classic PBS series "Cosmos." (See a few of my thoughts on religion and Sagan's novel "Contact".)

Since we have no meaningful way to supply numbers for most or all of these variables, Crichton calls this guesswork "prejudice."

From time to time I blog about how the news media accepts unquestioningly the "fact" that global warming is caused by human activity, and I confess to feeling a bit smug each time I see a "mistaken" story.

But I've got to be honest with myself. I hate the smell of cigarette smoke, and rejoice in every law that makes it easier for me to breathe fresh air. Crichton gives an interesting account of how the EPA used "junk science" to "prove" that second-hand smoke causes cancer. And it's really easy for me to want to pat the anti-smoking activists on the back for their cleverness.

If the pro-smokers are so tobacco-addled that they can't see how yucky their habit is, and if it will take a little bit of scientific hocus-pocus to reduce the effect their nasty habit has on my nose, then bravo! If it's true that the science that supports smoking bans is no better than the science that supports global warming doomsday scenarios, then I'm employing a double standard, calling junk science duckspeak (George Orwell's term for an utterance which, when spoken by a supporter, is true and just and good, but when spoken by an opponent, is false and wrong and bad.) (And, of course, all this presumes that what Crichton and others call junk science really is junk. Since I'm not a scientist, I have to accept -- on faith -- the word of experts. I've been following the global warming/population bomb meme complex for long enough that I can see where journalists are oversimplifying or selectively reporting in order to reinforce a particular bias; I am not as informed about smoking issues (nor, to be honest, do I plan to investigate, since I'm personally in favor of the current anti-smoking trend).

An older link, popular now thanks to the skeptics at Arts & Letters Daily.

This paper addresses the evolution of metaphors for the Internet and shows how they have constrained and determined the development of cyberlaw. | Within the law, metaphors mold the framework of discourse, determining the scope of appropriate questions about and answers to various social and legal problems. Courts and commentators employ metaphors as heuristics to generate hypotheses about the application of law to novel, unexplored domains. Metaphors structure the way lawyers conceptualize legal events, as they infiltrate, consciously and unconsciously, legal discourse.... Three metaphors in particular will be examined: the information superhighway, cyberspace, and the Internet as "real" space. --Cohen and Blavin --Gore, Gibson, and Goldsmith: The Evolution of Internet Metaphors in Law and Commentary  (Harvard Journal of Law and Technology)

Looks like a good find, via Clancy on Kairosnews. The actual article is, unfortunately, a PDF document, so I'm blogging it until I can get to the office in a few days.