School Daze(d) And Confused

Let me first add my voice to the chorus condemning University of Miami President Donna Shalala and her totally wimp-out response to the brawl between the Hurricanes football players and the players from Florida International University during their game last week. Florida International suspended 14 players indefinitely; Miami gave one player an indefinite suspension and one-game suspensions to 12 more (if memory serves). Shalala tried to justify this by claiming she didn't want to throw Miami's student-athletes "under the bus." Bull. She didn't want to lose the money the University would lose if they weren't in a bowl game.

She caims that Miami's policy regarding such incidents is "zero tolerance." Really? That's news to not only me, but just about everyone else on the planet. Miami has a long tradition of recruiting and playing thugs . . . ask any University of Nebraska fan about the Hurricane teams of the mid-80s if you don't believe me.

I used to think better of Shalala, but I am entirely appalled by her reaction here. What's worse, she didn't want to view the films of the brawl because she didn't want "the facts of the incident" to affect her judgment. Say wha'? The facts of the incident should form the very basis of her judgment.


Just one more example of how having lots of fancy degrees and national-governmental-level experience doesn't make someone smart. I'll bet the GOP is glad to learn they don't have a monopoly on stupidity, despite the fact of Dubya's existence.

While we're talking college football . . . will someone please explain to me why no one in Lincoln is calling for Bill Callahan's head right now? He installs the West Coast (passing-oriented) offense, and the Huskers proceed to stink for two years. This week, the weather gets bad in Lincoln and he--gasp--goes back to a running game. [Well, d'uh!--Ed.] But then, when Nebraska has an upset of Texas all but locked up, he calls for a passing play on a critical third down, the receiver fumbles the ball, and Texas gets enough field position (and has enough time on the clock) to kick a game-winning field goal. What a fiasco! The pundits at ESPN all thought the Huskers were going to lose, however, so the fact that they played the defending national champs "close" means the Huskers are respectible again. Right. I repeat: what a fiasco!

[Sometimes a good loss is better than a bad win--witness Tom Osborne going for 2 and losing the Orange Bowl and thus the national championship to Florida State in the mid-1990s. That was a good loss, because the attempt to win demonstrated Osborne's desire to either win or lose the national championship, not back into a piece of it by tying the game. But Callahan? Despite his Irish ancestry, he doesn't get it. He played too conservatively against USC, and lost. He played unnecessarily aggressively against Texas at the end of the game . . . and lost.--Ed.]

Still on the subject of college football--Joe Montana is not dead, but Brady Quinn must be channeling him at Notre Dame. Did you see the end of the Irish's game against UCLA yesterday? Talk about "wak(ing) up the echoes!" So now I can't get the Notre Dame fight song out of my head. It could be worse. It could be raining. Oh. It is raining. Maybe even snowing. But who cares? God's in his heaven (the Golden Dome) and all's right with the world.

I have to ask, however, if the Huskers were so dead-set on getting a former NFL coach, why didn't they get Charlie Weis instead of Bill Callahan?

* * * * * * * * * *

On to more academic pursuits. Critics everywhere of late bemoan the loss of teaching children the skill of cursive writing. On one hand, I concur. The traditionalist in me thinks that handwriting can be truly expressive (as can be no other form of writing), and that the discipline needed to master the skill is worth having. Nonetheless, the world is changing . . . and long has been, though the pace of change has increased. We no longer collectively mourn the loss of teaching Greek and Latin in our pre-college schools. Their mastery is an option open to those who wish to pursue such skills, and indeed, is required of certain university-level pursuits and career tracks . . . but their lack of mastery by John Q. Public is not tragic.

So, let it be, people. Even those of us who know how to produce cursive script are no longer writing as beautifully or even as neatly as we once did. I've been unable to decipher my own scrawls on occasion. And as I can no longer write faster than I can type (thanks to my computer), I choose to mourn neither the loss of my own nor anyone else's cursive writing skills.

This does not mean that I think everything should be 100% easy and fun for students, however. Two ostensibly unrelated news items reported earlier this week show why. According to the Associated Press, a study from the Brookings Institution's Brown Center on Education Policy shows that "nations with the best math scores have the least happy, least-confident math students."

The best and the brightest seem to be the least happy because they feel real pressure to excel, as opposed to current US policy, which misguidedly posits that students will have high self-esteem and succeed if they are praised no matter how poorly they actually do. I think the US kids know that at some level they are being fed a load of bull, but they are kids. Most of them don't have the self-discipline to try harder than adults expect. So when adults expect nothing, kids, being kids, do nothing. We need to rethink this notion that "if it's not fun, the kids won't learn." Just the opposite seems to be true, based on the study.

This reminds me of the old canard about how kids say they want more freedom and trust, but act stupid when they are given same. Despite what they say, kids want and NEED limits, rules, structure, and order. Deep down, they appreciate those who give them same.

Let's go back to teaching math in a way that makes us all miserable. We'll get better substantive results.

The other article, also reported by the AP, shows that some skills already wrongfully banished from our schools are still useful and should be retruned to prominence. According to an article published Thursday in Nature, scientists are finding that nasty, antibiotic-resistant bacteria can be conquered by artificial anti-microbial peptides that are created following the rules of GRAMMAR, of all things. The scientists discovered that the peptides which beat the bugs followed consistent patterns of construction and organization of their amino acid building blocks. Those patterns of construction and organization reminded all of the scientists involved of grammar--the placement of the subject, object, verb, and other modifiers affects meaning, thus effectiveness. [Computer techie-types could really stand to learn this.--Ed.]

I must confess that I learned more about English grammar from studying foreign languages than I did from studying English grammar directly. I'd not have been able to adapt what I leared from studying French and German, however, to my studies of English if I'd not already have had the English grammar lessons to give me the vocabulary to make sense of what studying French and German taught me. So let's go back to making 8th graders even more miserable by teaching them some grammar . . . but let's make sure their teachers get comprehensive training first!

There Are None So Blind As Those Who Will Not See

Faithful Republicans who are truly outraged by the conduct of former US Representative Mark Foley (motto: "I'm gay; I'm a drunk; I want sex with teenage boys") nonetheless are straining to find ways to preserve their illusion of belonging to the party of moral superiority.

In countless TV and radio news reports I've seen and heard on the subject, those interviewed are starting to lockstep to the refrain of "He was just one person; everyone in the party is outraged by his behavior and we will not put up with it."

Note that they are (conveniently) forgetting--if they ever cared to know--that the real scandal is not as much about what Foley said and wanted to do as it is about how the GOP powers-that-be turned a blind eye to Foley's "indiscretions" for as much as 5 years. This is not and never has been about the behavior of one sick individual. It's about getting and keeping power at the expense of what you claim to value above everything else.

Give it up, people! You know as well as I do that you just want to preserve the Republican majority in Congress, and you will strain and grasp at anything that allows you to keep doing it while maintaining the self-delusion that you are somehow better than those nasty, immoral Democrats (and the occasional aberrant GOP bad apple).

Reality check: no one group has a lock on virtue. Far better that you admit to yourselves that you prefer the GOP's stand on issues like NOT raising the minimum wage, NOT keeping the government neutral regarding expression of religious faith, NOT ensuring that everyone eligible to vote has easy access to the polls, NOT protecting the health of our vulnerable women and children, NOT making the government accountable for the mess in Iraq, and so on . . .

Give up the hypocrisy of claiming that you support the GOP because you and it are the defenders of "family values." If you look at the effects of the laws the GOP passes to implement its values, you must see that the GOP's basic philosophy is in fact "it's every man for himself." Well, I've been in a family where that was the prevailing attitude, and the only result was to promote sefishness, ruthlessness, and the overall "screw you--I've got mine" attitude that represents too much of what the GOP these days does, no matter what it says it believes in.

As reprehensible as I find most of what the GOP does these days, I can live with members of the GOP who are honest about it. This desperation amongst the party faithful to befog their real motives with a "holier than thou" attitude serves no one well. It merely perpetuates the error of injecting what should be matters of personal belief into the bloodstream of the body politic . . . which was never designed to withstand that poison.

Shane! Come Back, Shane!

A/K/A Arsinio, come back Arsinio!

Talk about things that make you go hmmm . . .

Everyone in the business community seems to be really up in arms about the Hewlett-Packard "pretexting" scandal. In case you hadn't heard, the Board of Directors was very upset about leaks of confidential Board business to the Wall Street Journal and other news outlets. So the Board authorized a plan to find the leaker(s) by getting the phone records of everyone who was suspected of leaking. [Please resist the temptation to call up a visual image of people leaking. Thank you.--Ed.] "Pretexting" comes in because the investigators pretended to be the very parties they were investigating in order to get the information they wanted.

And yet the business community in general seems to have no problem with Dubya's warrantless wiretapping program.

Weird.

I guess it's simply a matter of who is perceived to be in the cross-hairs of the investigation. ("Leakers" = "Bad." "Terrorists" = "Bad." "Simple businesspeople doing business" = "Good.") Which doesn't make it right, in either case. But for the sake of what makes America "America," I am more worried about warrantless wiretaps than big business shenanigans. Governmental abuse of power is much more frightening to me than business irregularities. Courts can deal with those who commit business irregularities . . . but when the government itself bends its power in an unchecked way against the individual, we are living in a totalitarian state, not the USA.

My country, where art thee?

So What Should Be The Guiding Principle For Life?

You've got your Golden Rule: Do unto others as you would have them do unto you.

You've got your Rule of Thelema: Do what thou wilt shall be the whole of the Law.

You've got your Prime Directive: Do not reveal anything to any alien civilization that will upset its natural evolution--no references to space, no revelations of higher technologies--no interference in its own advancement at its own pace.

You've got your Metalaw: Do unto others as they would have you do unto them.

(I am sure there are other such guiding principles, but 4 is a large enough number with which to deal in one sitting.)

I'll come back to the Golden Rule in a moment. I've already explained my objections to the Rule of Thelema (see "Son Of Misuse Of Logic"). The Prime Directive seems more honored in its breach than in its keeping, if you believe what you see on Star Trek in any of its incarnations, that is. Despite what Trekkers will tell you, Star Trek has not yet become reality. [We could fervently wish that it were reality, but that is after all a wish. Doesn't make it so, alas.--Ed.] The Prime Directive seems to be an offshoot of the Golden Rule, anyway, so I'll say no more about it here.

Metalaw, created in the mid-1950s by Washington D.C. attorney A.G. Haley (and promoted by other forward-thinking jurists), was a thoughtful response to the question of what would we, Earth-born human beings, do upon our first contact with alien civilizations. It seemed like the time to ask and answer that question, as our first successful forays into space were then becoming increasingly plausible. In that regard, it's an intellectual grandparent to the Prime Directive.

On its surface, Metalaw is intriguing. On its surface it is appealing. On its surface it is also dangerously seductive. I did some research into it in the late 70s and was impressed with it. But it wasn't until I started this whole "Misuse of Logic" theme I've been writing about lately that I realized Metalaw's fundamental problem.

Treating aliens as they want to be treated is a recipe for disaster if they want us to treat them as our conquerors. Anyone remember the Twilight Zone episode To Serve Man? (Yes, I intended the connection by using the word "recipe" in the preceeding sentence.) If we treat the aliens the way they want us to treat them, and they want us to treat them like we are their food supply, we've just engineered our own destruction. ("Not that we aren't really just a bunch of cows anyway," she remarked dryly.) Remember: "It's a cookbook!"

So that leads us back to the Golden Rule. I can find no logical reason to abandon it as the most simple and elegant guiding principle for living a fulfilling life. It's a question of enlightened self-interest. The best way to be treated well is to treat others well. I keep thinking of the wise mother who had one child cut the last two pieces of cake and who had the other child take first choice as to which piece s/he'd get. You can bet the cutter would strive mightily to make those two pieces as even as possible. In its very simplicity lies its elegance.

You got a better idea? Let's hear it. And your reasons for supporting same. For now, I choose to strive to live by the Golden Rule. Kindness is almost never wrong--the only time it's an obvious error is when one shows kindness to one who will do nothing but take advantage of that to one's own detriment. [In the larger scheme of things, kindness may be the better course even then. I'm just not that saintly all the time.--Ed.]

What A Couple Of Hypocritical Pigs

Both Matt Drudge and Bill O'Reilly (who is an embarrassment to people of Irish descent everywhere), self-proclaimed paragons of decency and champions of family values, are trying to blame the congressional pages for the sins of now-disgraced (and now former) US Representative Mark Foley, R-Fla. Foley is the adult here. He's the one who sent raunchy emails to the pages (all boys). He's the one responsible for his actions. Blaming children--who did nothing to lead Foley on, BTW--is just plain disgusting. Drudge and O'Reilly care more about their politics and their chosen party's hold on power than they care about protecting the most vulnerable among us.

At least some conservatives have enough principles to call for further investigation and even to call for House Speaker Dennis Hastert to resign. Facts are coming to light which suggest that the GOP Powers-That-Be in the House knew a lot more about Foley's sick desires than they were--and are--letting on. They, too, apparently were willing to put political expediency ahead of the safety of children. I am glad to know that at least some in the GOP are decrying this whole sordid mess.

This should not be a question of politics at all. It's a simple matter of "right" and "wrong." Messing sexually with children, in any form, even just emails, is WRONG, period. Anyone caught doing such things, and anyone aiding and abetting such behavior, should suffer maximum consequences. And Drudge and O'Reilly ought to be ashamed of themselves.

Hey, I can dream, can't I?

Martha Stewart May Actually Be Onto Something Here

I think I spit my breakfast cereal though my nose when I heard that Martha Stewart wants to have rapper Eminem as a guest on her show. She says her audience likes his music. [I'll bet they can't make out the lyrics.--Ed.]

But she may be onto something. If the word gets out on the street that the Martha Stewarts of the world like rap, even gangsta rap, that "music" is going to become totally emasculated and irrelevant.

What a great way to get rid of a blight on our culture!

But then again, one must wonder what would come along to take its place . . . and one would have to fear that whatever it was, it would be even worse.

So, what's better: the devil you know, or the devil you don't know?

Son Of Misuse Of Logic--Post Mortem

Jim O'Gara was sentenced for two--count 'em, two--years in prison for his crimes. Allowing for time served, he'll be getting out later this month.

I'd say that that was a total travesty of justice, except he did get more than the federal sentencing guidelines indicated for the crimes he committed and the circumstances under which he committed them. The judge thought O'Gara was still a substantial danger to others (he had, after all, continued to dupe people out of "front money" even while under indictment for the frauds for which he finaly was convicted). But that's not enough.

Which leads me back to a thought I've expressed before: several things are wrong with our justice system. My first example is that people convicted of committing crimes while drunk tend to get lesser sentences because they were in a state of diminished mental responsibility due to being drunk at the time they committed those crimes. However, logic suggests that they rather should be held to a higher standard unless they can prove that someone put a gun to their heads and forced them to drink themselves drunk.

If someone voluntarily drinks to a state of drunkenness, and that someone is of legal age, that someone is aware of what drinking will do to one's "self." Therefore, one started on the path to one's crimes of one's own free will. Instead of reducing one's culpability, then, one's culpability should be increased.

By the same token, O'Gara got two years for a spree of frauds that netted him, according to the final newspaper story in the Sunday World-Herald, of over $ 3 million. Some of O'Gara's crimes had been committed so long before that they could not be counted as "points against" him under the sentencing guidelines. I would argue that they should in fact count more, because they indicate just how entrenched and on-going O'Gara's criminal behavior is.

What's worse is that someone else, who fraudulently obtained a credit card under another's name, and who charged about $ 1,500 worth of electronics and music on that card, got a sentence twice as long. That person's other crimes were included as "points against" because they were more recent in time and place.

And a woman who merely accompanied a drug dealer on a sale of meth got 10 years when she got busted at the scene. And the only reason she got off that lightly is that she cooperated with the authorities and gave them a ton of other information that allowed them to arrest several other criminals.

The system is broken. Not in its conception, but in its execution. Given how little our legislators want to spend on it, however, it doesn't seem that much will ever change. God help us all!

The Queen City Dealt Us A Joker This Time

I've been watching ESPN's presentation of baseball's "Hometown Heroes." Sponsored by DHL, this 3-part series recapped the votes of more than 15 million baseball fans for the single greatest player from each of the 30 major league teams. Of course, the ballots were limited to 5 players per team before the voting even began. In some cases, this was unnecessary. I mean, really, who is going to be the Chicago Cubs' "Hometown Hero" except for Mr. Cub himself, Ernie Banks?

In some cases, however, it was downright necessary. I know perfectly well that Babe Ruth must get the nod (and indeed, does) as the Yankees' "Hometown Hero," but consider the sheer number of great players on the Yankees throughout the franchise's history. No one would win. The votes would have been split among so many players that none of them would have received a plurality, let alone a majority, of the votes cast. [I am no Yankee fan; I'm a National League girl. But facts are facts, and the Yankees, player for player, probably have had more truly outstanding players than any other franchise in baseball history. That's why the Yankees have won all those championships, and why the rest of us, especially Dodger fans, hate the Yankees so. That, and George Steinbrenner's mere existence.--Ed.]

The interesting thing is how much the players for the various teams were cited by the fans for their contributions to their communities off the diamond, as well as on it. As one fan said, the players who are the best are "doing things the right way on and off the field (emphasis added)." Virtually all of the players chosen as "Hometown Heroes" were chosen by the fans as much for their involvement in their communities--even after they retired from playing the game--as for their prowess as players.

Consider Pittsburgh's "Hometown Hero," Roberto Clemente. He lost his life transporting food, water, blankets, and clothing to the victims of an earthquake in Central America. Or Ted Williams, "Hometown Hero" for the Boston Red Sox. He gave up over 4 of the most prime years of his baseball career to serve in the US Marines in both WW II and Korea (where he flew with John Glenn, in case you didn't know). Or Ken Griffey, Jr., the Seattle Mariners' "Hometown Hero," who spent long lengths of time (often on the days of critical games) giving his time, energy, and attention to "Make A Wish" Foundation kids. And who then went out and played great baseball.

Not to mention Jackie Robinson, "Hometown Hero" for the Brooklyn/Los Angeles Dodgers, who gave the greatest gift of all to our entire nation by holding his temper and maintaining incredible dignity in the face of truly execrable treatment by morons who didn't like his breaking the color line in the majors.

But Cincinnati voted for Pete Rose!?!?!?! An admitted gambler and liar who bet on baseball while playing AND managing a major league team. A man who has been banned from baseball for life and who, despite his feats on the field, will never be voted into the Hall of Fame in Cooperstown. "What a role model he is," she said, sarcasm dripping from every pore.

Cincinnatians had many other choices that would have been much more positive: Johnny Bench and Joe Morgan, just to name two. Heck, Ken Griffey, Jr., now that he's back in his real hometown. Or Ken Griffey, Sr., for that matter (who played in Cincinnati himself, which is the reason Junior is from Cincinnati in the first place). Indeed, just about anyone on the great Big Red Machine teams of the mid-70s . . . except for Pete Rose.

Nearly everyone on the list of 30 is already in the Hall of Fame, or will be, once eligible (a few of them are still playing, so their beginning eligibility is more than 5 years away). Now Cincinnati has a strong image as a blue-collar, working class kind of town, and I will admit that Pete Rose is the dictionary definition of "work ethic." He says it himself: he didn't have the most talent, but he worked harder than anyone and wanted success more than anyone. Being from the same sort of blue-collar background myself, I admire that kind of drive. But I do NOT appreciate how in anyone's mind that that can eclipse Rose's bad behavior off the field. He knew better. He wouldn't have lied about it for so long if he honestly hadn't known better. Rose simply does not belong in the "Hometown Heroes" company to which Cincinnatians have voted him. Talk about giving your city a baseball black eye!

Maybe I should have titled this post "One Of These Things Is Not Like The Others, One Of These Things Is Not The Same."