Reaction to the Randleman Story

There are, as of this moment, 46 comments on the Express website regarding the Randleman story.

I am pretty sure that's some kind of record. By a factor of ten, probably.

If you plan on reading them, put your waders on. It's pretty rough - and those are the ones that have been approved.

I wanted to note part of one comment here (sorry, can't link directly):

And just because you live across the street from someone does not mean you know anything! How many of us truley [sic] could say that we know our neighbors in such a detail to where you could pin point if they were having an inappropriate relationship with someone?!

I would like to know under what circumstances it's acceptable for a School Resource Officer to have high school students over to their house on multiple occasions and/or late at night. Frankly, I'm not sure there are any - especially when no one else is being told about it.

[High School Journalism] An Update On Students Editing Newspapers

Remember when I posted on an old USA Today story that covered a new Oregon law that eliminated prior restraint for collegiate and high school newspapers?

I excerpted this bit:

Opponents of the bill, such as the Oregon School Boards Association, said that students aren't capable of responsibly editing a newspaper.

Ouch, right?

Well, a few days ago I got an email from Shannon Priem, the Communication Services Director for the Oregon School Boards Association. She had this to say (posted with permission):

The blurb from the USA Today July 11 story you quoted from was the "conclusion" of Tracey Loew, the reporter -- not OSBA. She wrote, "Opponents of the bill, such as the Oregon School Boards Association, said that students aren't capable of responsibly editing a newspaper."

I'm sorry, but we didn't say that. If we did, I'd like to know who -- because as the communications director for OSBA, that "position" wouldn't have cleared my desk. This statement is simply her assumption . . . and one not based on facts. We would never claim "students aren't capable" of anything.

That's a pretty solid refutation, and quite the indictment of the story - if Priem is right, Loew did something more than a little sketchy by journalistic standards.

Of course, it is possible that someone from the OSBA did say that, but it's unlikely given the construction of the relevant sentence in the original story.

Still Amazed at How the Awesomeness of Apophenia; Or, the "Get Into College or Die" Crowd Strikes Again

This was great.

Specifically, this passage:

What Pew's data shows is that online participation correlates with offline participation. They are not able to show causality (and they do not try to claim that they can), but such a correlation still contradicts the ever-present myth that online activities cause a decline in offline activities. Of course, don't misread this correlation in the opposite direction either. In other words, you cannot say that if you get a group of teens involved online, they will also get involved offline. Meshing these findings with my own qualitative observations, I have a sneaking suspicion that what Pew's data is pointing to is that the hyper-motivated and/or overly scheduled teens from middle/upper class communities are extremely engaged offline and use online technologies to socialize with their friends in the interstitial times and that this cohort's content creation is primarily to support friendships rather than create for creation sake. This also makes sense because teens who have more free time tend to have less restrictions and tend to prefer offline encounters with friends to online ones. [emphasis added]

LTE on Williams' Column

[Sometimes I capitalize post titles and sometimes I don't. I wonder why.]

Anyway, there is a letter to the editor in the DH responding to Ben Williams' Young Voices column.

An excerpt from the letter:

In closing, I must summarize that at least one student has been able to overcome the lack of leadership within our school structure and has been able to rise above the leadership of our school system. Mr. Williams, I commend you and will be voting for you when you run for school board, or who knows, one day come back as our superintendent.

Let's just say that I think Mr. Gestrin's letter is unintentionally funny. It actually makes me wonder if he knows the student in question.

LHS student's 'Young Voices' column

I debated whether or not I wanted to post on this for a few reasons. While I've decided to, I'm keeping it short:

I'm glad that Mr. Williams, as a student, wrote the column he did. I hope it gets the issue more attention, since most of the voices speaking so far have little or no ties to the school or school district.

I wish more students would speak up as to how they feel about what's going on.

TAP's Courtney Martin on the absence of youth activism

She says it's all gone to college campuses and that there is a downside:

Today's youth activism is largely enacted within the gated fortresses of higher learning. Students are overwhelmingly and often motivated by applying to law school or resumé-building. (How do you think they got into these undergraduate institutions in the first place?) They funnel their outrage into weekly club meetings and awareness campaigns that look good on paper -- activities that convey to future employers and institutions that they are socially involved and aware but not at odds with the system. Students seem to join sanctioned, existing clubs, rather than launch their own radical actions, without much resistance or critical questioning. Perhaps they've been socialized to accept the status quo, but even more, I believe they simply don't have the time or energy to start innovative revolutions from scratch because they are so busy taking standardized tests and building their resumés with internships and assistantships.

I agree with this.

I think a lot of what makes this column on the mark is the absence of risk-taking on the part of "youth."

This, of course, includes myself.

The corollary to that is that the risks are seem, relatively, much higher. Getting a 'good' job with a record is much harder - even if that record is simply a record of radical activism. As well, the legal risks are generally much higher, and with the explosion of local police using police-state tactics, the literal, physical risks are much higher. Finally, I think the assumption that there is either a government-provided social safety net or a safety net of people willing to help a person out is gone. Certainly the social safety itself has been shredded these last two decades.

On the other hand, Martin seems to conflate 'real' or 'radical' activism with 'highly visible and disruptive' activism. They aren't always the same thing, and even though there is a certain value in simply disrupting an unjust system in order to draw attention to it (see also MLK, Rosa Parks, sit-ins, etc), sometimes it's better to fly under the radar.

Remember, for every protest you've seen - from the civil rights era through the current debacle in Iraq - there has been a tremendous, tremendous amount of organizing done behind the scenes. A good protest or march is the expression the members' sentiments as well as the amount of work that's been done - it's not always and end unto itself.

h/t JAO.

Another Story on Oregon Native Mascots

From a friend in Forest Grove:

Athletic Director Wymon Smith is Shoshone Indian.

Assistant Principal Jim Smith’s heritage is linked to the Algonquin, Chippewa and Assiniboine tribes.

Each administrator is proud of his ancestry, and both want to keep the Braves as Banks High School’s mascot.

...

“There’s nothing wrong with Chiefs, Warriors, Indians or Braves,” insisted Jim Smith. “It’s not about names. It’s about how people treat each other. I’m totally in support of keeping things the way they are.”

That's a common argument against changing the mascots: "I'm Native and I say it's OK!"

I have to wonder what the lives of the two men mentioned in the article are like. Are they often visually identified by others as Native American? Were they raised in a traditional fashion, or, frankly, as white people?

In any case, I don't think the "I'm Native and OK with it" argument is a good one. The strongest argument against Native mascots, as far as I can see, is that such mascots maim the dignity of Native people. End of story.

The student body president pulls out another time-tested argument:

“If it were offensive or if it had discriminatory undertones, I’d find it logical,” he said. “But we’re not making (Native Americans) look bad in any way.”

Why does he get to decide? I've been over this what seems like a million times in the last month or so - members of the oppressing class do not get to decide what counts as oppressive or not. At the very least, that's fixing the match. It's also extremely marginalizing.

See also this comment from an '89 Banks High School graduate named Jeremy Larsen (Hey! A local paper that has comments! Imagine that!):

School mascots are about pride, unity and belief in our kids' belief in school and community nothing more. [Italics added]

That same comment has been made quite a bit in the context of the appearance of black facepaint at OSU. It's just as wrong in the one place as the other.

Again, why do people that look and/or sound awfully white always seem to get to determine the parameters of what counts as racist or offensive (or at all)?

It's much harder to acknowledge someone else's pain at some cost to oneself than it is to simply write others' pain off as illegitimate, I know. But it's incredibly important for white folks to do nonetheless.

Good LTE in the GT

...Ms. Novak basically defends the continued use of these mascots simply because the majority of people feel that there is no problem. For example, she mentions that 15 high school students “identified” as Native American said that they had no problem with Native American nicknames. However, it could be that these students were not willing to confront the entire school of white peers on something very controversial.

The above quote is from a CHS high school student, in a letter printed in the Gazette-Times.

She recognizes the effect of peer pressure and how it's related to the mascot issue.

Good for her.

Lebanon School Board Meeting, Part One - Outing the Anonymous Blogger

Preface: Two nice young gentleman recently informed me that my blog posts are too long. I'm going to go ahead and break what is probably my only principle regarding blogging - don't listen to anyone else, no matter how good their advice - and try something new. Normally, when the LCSD School Board has a meeting, I write a monster post that details everything. This time, I'm going to try and shorten things up, instead dividing the content into several shorter posts. The Lebanon Community School District School Board met on Monday, November 5th, and I would like to relay some of what happened at the meeting in series of blog posts.

Topics that will be covered in the next several blog posts: The board's processes, the appointment of interim staff to cover positions, the Sand Ridge Charter School report, a report on the various Title programs funded by the district that the state mandates be received in the next two weeks, and a few other odds and ends.

So, on to the content!

I'll get to the most relevant one first: While the board had plenty of passionate and emotional discussion regarding the now-Level-4 complaint that Kim Fandiño filed with the district alleging cyberbullying on the part of blogger Lebanon Truth, in the end, the board did not act on the agenda item presented to them. That's the short version. The long version is as follows:

The agenda item that I was really there for was the one regarding the appeal of the cyberbullying complaint to the school board by Kim Fandiño (hereafter KF). As an anonymous blogger who has been known to write about the Lebanon Community School District, I was very curious about the inclusion of this item on the agenda and the potential consequences for my own blogging. All the talk was about how KF was essentially requesting that the board subpoena Google, the company that owns Blogger, the blogging software used by this blogger and Lebanon Truth, to reveal the identity of Lebanon Truth. (Side note: All it takes to get a blogger account is an email address...meaning that revealing someone's identity requires tracing an IP address or similar detective work. Real names are not required - a point that I think none of the pro-subpoena folks know, as they seemed to think it would be as simple as asking Google for a name.)

I have this sinking feeling this post alone, even excluding the preface, is going to be over the prescribed limit given to me by the two gentlemen - hereafter known as Punk #1 and Punk #2 (in no particular order) for blog posts. Screw it.

Rick Alexander started the discussion by immediately motioning to have the board hear KF's complaint.

Tom McHill, a Lebanon attorney and former board member, immediately stood up from the chair he'd been slouching in for the past three hours (the cyberbullying issue was basically the last thing on the agenda) and said that he represented the blogger. He then stated that he was there to defend the blogger's right to free speech.

I did not see that coming, though I should have. It is a brilliant move by LT - I think it caught many people by surprise, and it showed the folks on the board who wanted to out LT that it was going to involve some real work. I'd call it a preemptive strike, though I really hate that term.

Chris Fisher then asked how this issue moved the district forward, and how this was related to educating children, which was actually a comment I found insulting. Workplace safety is completely relevant to educating children, and a violation of that was a central part of KF's complaint, as far as I could see. While I don't think Chris meant it that way, it sure came across as trivializing the obvious emotional pain KF has gone through over this.

Ensuing was a short discussion regarding the various levels of complaint. I learned that a 'level one complaint' involves talking to the person one is complaining about directly, which is a challenge in the case of an anonymous blogger - though not impossible, as LT has an email address posted on their blog. This was something much overlooked in the discussion: the assumption that a resolution to the issue necessarily involved outing LT.

Rick Alexander asked if identifying LT removed their free speech. It was a leading question and he obviously thinks it doesn't. However, I think it does, as it would likely provide an avenue for attack on the part of LT's detractors that would surely serve to silence LT. Furthermore, it's irrelevant to the issue at hand; if I heard Mr. McHill right (and I may not have) protected free speech gets some Constitutional protections as well.

Rick then asked how one enforces a cyberbullying policy, his answer being that it requires outing the anonymous. However, this is a theoretical question masked as something relevant, as the district's legal counsel had ruled that the material presented in the complaint did not constitute cyberbullying by the district's standard. Rick was again trying to lead people on.

Josh Wineteer really only said one thing during the whole debate, but he said it over and over and over: That the board had to choose between preserving Kim's rights and outing LT, and that if the board chose not to out LT they should remove the cyberbullying policy entirely. This assumes, again, that what happened was cyberbullying. Josh is free to believe that, but I'll take the opinion of the Linn County DA and the LCSD's legal counsel over his any day.

Chris Fisher pointed out, as he does often, that this would cost money that, in his words, should be used on kids. This is also a bit disingenuous, as providing a safe environment for teachers is part of creating a good learning environment for kids. Josh called him on it - correctly - pointing out that there were lots of school board policies that take cash away from kids.

At this point, the whole thing struck me as a witchhunt (not for the first time, but the proceedings had become so farcical that it was impossible to not think in those terms). Wineteer and Alexander were asking the same questions over and over and over, questions that were designed to imply that outing LT was necessary and good, even though the reasons against it had been given in spades: It was against the legal advice of the district's counsel and the district office had found it to be a civil matter, irrelevant to both criminal prosecution and violation of district policy.

Chris Fisher asked if the Board had the authority to subpoena Google, and Tom McHill said "no" in no uncertain terms.

Rick then proceeded to act as if he'd not heard a single word said to this point and pointed out that the district is required to promptly investigate and take seriously any credible evidence or allegation of cyberbullying. He claimed that not voting to try and out LT was a violation of that policy, but I think he is full of crap; the District obviously took it seriously enough to let legal counsel look at it as well as have the Linn DA (and reportedly the Lebanon PD) check it out. Once it was decided that it did not violate policy, it was dropped. That's taking it seriously and finding it wanting; instead, I think Rick and Josh (and probably Debi, though I am less sure) equate 'taking it seriously' with doing what they want, which is to open an investigation on the assumption there is something to find. (And, of course, to out LT, which I've always thought was one of the real points of the complaint in the first place.)

Sherrie Sprenger, who constantly looked like she wanted to kill someone, reminded the board several times during the discussion that they had received clear & confidential legal advice from legal counsel, and that choosing to accept said advice basically meant dropping the matter. She also repeated her concerns about once again making the district liable for a potentially illegal action. Instead, she proposed talking to legal counsel directly at the earliest opportunity to clear up what the board's options were.

Jim Robinson interjected hinself into the discussion at this point, noting that it was impossible to actually follow up on complaint procedures without knowing the identity of the blogger, since established complaint procedures required giving the person being complained about notice of the complaint. This, I think, was pretty disingenuous on his part, since the district could at least attempt to contact LT at their provided email address and see what happened. It is also transparent bullshit, or at best a stupid suggestion, since it relies on the assumption that outing LT is necessary to get to the desired outcome, which is something to be proven (personally, I don't think it is necessary). It was not Robinson's finest moment of the night.

At this point I want to insert an aside and note that Sprenger and Robinson, who have both constant targets, were pretty obviously pissed and fed up with what they consider all the bullshit. Neither of them would give an inch, instead offering the most conservative interpretation of LCSD policy possible, which often meant summarily dismissing the concerns of others. This is, if nothing else, bad politics - it has been suggested to me that both Sprenger and Robinson should give their opponents enough rope to hang themselves (my words).

Hm. While I agree that Sprenger and Robinson's actions are somewhat counterproductive, I will say that they are wholly understandable, for two reasons. One, that both of them are exhausted of acting professional in the face of such amateur and unprofessional crap. Two - and this is the big one - I am beginning to think that given the board's recent history, both Sprenger and Robinson legitimately fear that Debi, Josh, and Rick, if given any rope, will manage to hang the district along with themselves. They'll do it through simply ignoring any laws or legal advice they don't like and acting from what appears to me as the gut. I have not considered this option until now, but at the moment I'm finding it pretty frightening. Now back to your regularly scheduled account.

Josh just kept saying that the board 'had' to ditch the policy if it didn't investigate the complaint in this case.

Here, KF got permission to address the board from Sprenger. KF made an impassioned plea to let the board hear the complaint directly, a plea that would be turned down multiple times before the end of the meeting. I think - though I could not see Kim's face - that she was wound up very tight with emotion almost the whole time, which is pretty understandable.

Sprenger then asked for a motion. Debi Shimmin pointed out while appearing to cry that she thought the content of the posts definitely rose to the level of cyberbullying (I should note that LT has talked about Shimmin in the past in less than glowing terms).

Shimmin also claimed that not following up was a denial of KF's rights to due process, and said that the spirit of the complaint was legitimate even if the technical details were not. I found that incredibly unconvincing, as I interpreted it as saying that a school board should judge the case based not on legal interpretations but on how they felt. Um, no?

Interjection: Yes, the debate really went on this long. I am trying to capture it in detail since I know no newspaper will cover it so thoroughly, and besides, I like having a written record of who said what and when (even if it is a rough record).

Josh Wineteer actually suggested that the person behind LT might have become anonymous specifically to violate board policy, which was a suggestion so far out of left field I'm still confused as to what he was thinking.

Tom McHill, LT's attorney, pointed out that if LT is a school district employee, trying to punish LT would bring up a whole host of procedural problems related to how employees are handled (I suspect this is something that the district's legal counsel also said).

Jim Robinson chose this moment to remind the board and audience that civil court was an option he'd suggested to KF as an alternative to criminal court since her complaint was found not to show any violation of the district's cyberbullying policy. Robinson also pointed out that he, Shimmin, and Fandiño had all been attacked and that despite that, the three were all legal amateurs and should seek legal counsel instead of presume to know best.

It was at this moment that Rick Alexander blurted out - and I am sure this was unintentional on his part - the words "why don't we go criminal?" This, despite the fact that it had been explained multiple times including moments before that the district had no standing to bring a criminal charge...and that the Linn County DA and Lebanon Police Department had both decided that the complaint did not rise to the level of a criminal case.

I am thoroughly convinced Rick does not listen, but instead just beats his head against the wall until it ejects another half-baked statement he thinks will help him pursue his goal. He has no place on the school board, as he cannot act like a reasonable adult.

After a bit of back and forth, KF was recognized. She noted that under existing district policy, she had a right to a hearing by the second meeting after filing a complaint. The 11-5-07 meeting was the second meeting, and she wanted her hearing. Sprenger agreed that it was possible to give her one, and that Sprenger would facilitate it, but she also noted that she really disliked the procedure.

At this point the debate was really heated, with KF nearing tears (and Sprenger, I think). Wineteer AGAIN claimed that the board had to make a choice between outing LT and violating KF's rights.

After a few more comments, Rick Alexander made a motion to hear, on the spot, Kim's complaint. I believe Josh seconded it, but Sherrie, finally exerting some serious pressure, decided not to entertain the motion as is her right as board chair (OMFG, what would this circus look like if Rick or Josh or Debbie or even Chris was chair?). The crowd - myself included - was shocked, as was the board. Sprenger was obviously tired, and came right out and said that the board could overturn her denial to hear the motion if they wanted to, but she was not going to allow it.

Sprenger gave the following reasons for denying the motion: It went against direct legal counsel, it exposed the district to legal liability, it was out of order, and 'I'm just trying to keep the district out of legal trouble.' I think she's essentially correct, though feel free to quibble.

KF immediately asked how telling her story made the district legally liable. I think it was a great question, and the only answer I ever saw was that given earlier by Robinson - that doing so without giving the blogger a chance to respond to the complaint would violate the blogger's (if they are a district employee) rights. I think it's a relatively weak answer.

Sprenger got really upset here, letting her long-simmering anger come to the surface. She pointed out both that she believes LT's blog does not help bring about unity or community, and also that she would not be party to the school board once again going down a road that resulted in backtracking from legal liability. Rick Alexander, in his all-time finest moment, interrupted her to say with surprise "We did?"

I wanted to throttle him, since it was obvious that Sprenger was referring to Robinson's suspension, which was initiated by Rick. That means one of two things: Alexander is so stupid he never realized what he'd done the first time around, or two, that Alexander is such a dick he threw that in there as a jab. I'm betting the former, which does not make him look good. If the latter, it's a great bit of comedy, but an incredibly mean and divisive statement.

Wineteer addressed the crowd and claimed that a legitimate concern was being stifled by the school board and that the public should know; this was the closest, by far, that he'd come to sounding like KF's lapdog all night. Sprenger interrupted and snapped at the board to either override her denial of the motion or let it die, practically claiming that the rest of the board did not have the gumption (her word) to do so.

Sprenger won that incredibly tense showdown that lasted all of 10 seconds. After that, the crowd deflated and several people got up to leave. The meeting was over in less than 30 seconds, the room strangely quiet despite the tension.

Yeah.

I am damn glad to see that Sprenger won that fight (though of course it may not be over), and I'm sure LT is at least somewhat relieved as well - it's that much less in legal fees they'd have to worry about if nothing else.

I'm also incredibly fascinated that no one was willing to buck Sprenger and make a motion to override her. She flat-out won a battle of wills, three to one. Hatred for her is only going to go up, but I think she did the right thing, especially when it comes to following board procedure, legal advice, and her own personal legal liability.

Meanwhile, the three clowns - and on this count Debi really did join Rick and Josh, I suspect because she's never been a public figure or had her decisions criticized like this before - showed just how little they understand public governance or what it means to act in anything resembling a professional manner.

It was a long night - this whole debate started some time after 10 p.m., and it was obvious the board, who had been meeting since 5:30, was exhausted.

More to follow; if you made it this far, this post is over 3000 words.

Jezebel

...is the name of blog a friend of mine has turned me on to. At first, I was pretty skeptical - it reminded me of Wonkette but with more celebrities. It also reminded me of the biblical character and the resulting stereotype.

However, once I read enough, it penetrated into my tiny brain that the folks behind Jezebel (who I have been assuming are mostly or all women) are pretty critically feminist.

I like that.

They are also incredibly snarky, which I can't help but laugh at.

Anyway, this post is both an endorsement of my new favorite blog and an excuse to post something I read this morning that struck me as being exactly right. This is an excerpt from a suppose IM conversation between two contributors:

YOUNGJEZZY: I'd like to see a study on how the percentage of people who identify as pro-life dwindles after high school. To me, in a lot of ways, being pro-life is just another way of being a "good kid." The reason they get so crazy about it is because it's seriously the only political issue anyone in high school feels directly affected by.

HOTELLOBBYIST: I mean, I think everyone (Code Pink ladies excepted) is more radical in their youth than they are later in life.

Holy crap, does that describe the folks I went to HS with. It was (assumed) common knowledge that lots of the folks in the STARS (Students Today Aren't Ready for Sex, which was a codephrase for abstinence-only) program were having sex. And drinking, but that's another post...

Though I have to say I don't think HS students feel really strongly about abortions because they are affected by it, but because they've been programmed to feel really strongly about it. At least in my experience.

In any case, good on Jezebel for pointing out the - again! - class nature of HS abortion/abstinence debates: "Good" (read: middle class or higher) kids don't have sex. Only poor (read: slutty) women have kids while in school.

Do I even need to say that I've met HS students with kids, and some of them have their shit together far more than their student leader counterparts? No? Good.

Questions are Important, Dammit

Update: It's post number 300...whatever that means.

If there's one thing that frustrates me about my current job (Ha! There's definitely more than one!), it's the students' unwillingness or inability to ask questions of the material.

I get that they don't bother because they don't care or don't think the material is relevant, I do. But I'm a hopeless romantic when it comes to the intellectual life, and it slays me a bit every time when students fail to get excited by the awesome and interesting material they are being exposed to, especially when it's so obvious that the poem or story in question has something to tell them about how to navigate their lives. I'm also die-hard about interrogating the hell out of pop culture, just to be clear I am a) that boring and b) not talking just about Teh Classics.

That said, I really liked this Q & A from Rate Your Students. I doubt the students I work with could really utilize the method, at least not without some practice, but you never know:

Q: How in God's name do you get your students to stop writing book reports and start writing actual papers with actual theses?

...

A2: I build my literature classes around the idea of asking questions. We begin the semester with a challenging poem -- usually something fairly modern that they wouldn't have seen before -- and instead of my telling them anything about it, I simply instruct them to read it and make a list of questions. They pair up, see which questions they can answer, and ask more questions. With their lists of questions, we can talk about the 3 basic types of questions about literature (as I define them): Questions that could be answered by knowing more background information -- about culture, history, writer's biography, etc.; Questions that could probably be answered by reading more closely, more carefully, or (in the case of a longer text) further; Questions that could probably only be answered by analyzing or interpreting the text. We discuss some major branches of literary theory, but primarily in the context of what questions each theory asks about literature (How do socioeconomic issues shape the characters' interactions? What is significant about George taking on the typically feminine role of caring for the baby?). This sets the stage for what I tell my students all semester: scholars -- your professors, the people writing your texts and journal articles -- don't know all the answers. Scholars know which questions to ask. The class is then built around the students asking -- and struggling to answer -- questions. We are discussion-based from the beginning, and the discussions come directly from the students' questions (I only put forth my own questions if I think they are critical to understanding the text, and no one in the class has gotten there. I'm always surprised by how rarely this happens.) I make it clear that the "Questions that could be answered by reading more closely, carefully, or further" are questions that students should attempt to answer before coming to class. Once it becomes clear that if they bring those questions to class, I am not going to answer them, the students usually buckle down and get to work. When it comes time for the papers, I ask the students to write several questions about course texts. They work in groups and with me to evaluate the questions -- are they likely to have a complex answer? Is there likely to be an answer at all? When the student has a good, solid question, I explain that the paper should answer that question, and show the reader how the student came to the answer. The thesis to the paper is the answer to the question. Since students are comfortable with asking questions, with struggling to answer questions on their own, and with accepting that there may be multiple plausible interpretations of a text, most of them do relatively well. Even the worst papers I see are more complex than book reports.

Dispatches from Another Planet

From the Gazette-Times, a letter that...well, look:

The amazing amount of drinking and partying any time of day or night, mid-week or week-end, is a health danger to the students, a destructive force in the lives of their neighbors, and a safety risk to all involved. Lives are being destroyed by alcoholism, but at any time we could see a similar tragedy to the one in North Carolina.

Two things must be done immediately: The City Council should adopt an ordinance forbidding more than two adults from different families in any single-family dwelling. Second, OSU must require that all undergraduates live on campus until their senior year.

Forbidding more than two adults from different families from living together? That's just insulting - there are plenty of students for whom such luxurious conditions are simply not an option. And, of course, many of the new apartment buildings going up in Corvallis are those crazy five-bedroom townhouses that rent for well over $2000; I would like to see Mr. Weiss explain how two STUDENTS are supposed to afford that. The same goes for the dozens or hundreds of older houses with three, four, and five (or more) bedrooms that have been converted into student housing.

And requiring all undergrads to live on campus for at least three years? Please:

1. OSU does not have anywhere near the capacity to do this. Maybe when the Leg allocates enough money to triple (or more) the number of dorm rooms available, then it might be logistically possible. But...

2. It takes away freedom and agency from legal adults. If Mr. Weiss wants people to be treated like children until they are 21 or 22, then he should just say so - and be prepared to be mocked and ridiculed extensively, because that suggestion is just plain stupid.

3. Can you imagine what would happen if college students were allowed to move off-campus only upon turning 21? I think the drinking problem, such as it is now, would get much, much worse.

While this guy's concern is obviously genuine, his suggestions are - and I think this is an accurate choice of words - fucking idiotic. He just doesn't get at anything even remotely resembling a cause for the problems to which he alludes.

The Kids Aren't Alright

Thomas Friedman today, in a New York Times column that's certainly making the rounds, talks about what he thinks is the tendency of kids today to be disengaged from politics.

Let me add a caveat in here at the beginning: I think Thomas Friedman is a complete and total idiot. From his being a huge Iraq War supporter to his unabashed adoration of globalization, he and I are almost never on the same page.

But that's not why I think he's an idiot. I think he's an idiot because he has this annoying tendency to use non-representative examples to support shallow, poorly-researched and often-wrong points. And I think he's a myopic narcissist. Worse than me, even.

Anyway. Back to the column at hand. Friedman is blathering today about what he calls Generation Q, the Quiet Generation. This is his label for today's students and youth, and he bequeathes it because he doesn't see students making their presence felt in the political realm. How has Tommy learned about this new generation? He's visited three colleges in the south. Wow. I'm impressed - it's almost like he's using an anecdote as the basis for a generalization about a whole generation. Sigh.

Friedman:

[C]ollege students today are not only going abroad to study in record numbers, but they are also going abroad to build homes for the poor in El Salvador in record numbers or volunteering at AIDS clinics in record numbers. Not only has terrorism not deterred them from traveling, they are rolling up their sleeves and diving in deeper than ever.

OK. Let's get the terrorism thing out of the way as soon as possible. Many - and I suspect it's actually most - folks around college-age don't see terrorism as a big threat to our daily lives, or as a deterrent from doing what we think needs to be done or want to do. Certainly we didn't buy into the 9/11 hype near as much as Friedman did (it only changed everything because the 'adults' shit themselves with fear and/or joy and then went about changing everything), but he is apparently unable to realize that other folks might not hold the same view of the world he does. In other words, I don't see a fear of terrorism as a significantly motivating factor in the behavioral choices of the group Friedman is talking about. There's no evidence for it.

Friedman then goes on to show how amazed he is that us young people are not hopping mad about the state of the country:

But Generation Q may be too quiet, too online, for its own good, and for the country’s own good. When I think of the huge budget deficit, Social Security deficit and ecological deficit that our generation is leaving this generation, if they are not spitting mad, well, then they’re just not paying attention. And we’ll just keep piling it on them.

This is an interesting point, and I think there is some truth to it. Stephen Colbert certainly touches on it in this clip, and I agree that online activism is not substitute for organizing in the real world... and yet, somehow, Tom Friedman has zero credibility to be telling me this. Maybe it's because of crap like this. Or maybe it's because Tom Friedman spent years arguing that the Iraq War was necessary and just before doing an about-face and never really admitting his own role in hyping the war. I know that hearing such garbage from the pundit class - of which he is practically a charter member - over and over and over without nary a representative from the anti-war coalition on my television and radio from 2002 to this day certainly helped me disengage from traditional politics; if my point of view is never represented, why should I try and engage with the organization or medium that can't ever seem to get it right?

This is Friedman's solution:

America needs a jolt of the idealism, activism and outrage (it must be in there) of Generation Q. That’s what twentysomethings are for — to light a fire under the country. But they can’t e-mail it in, and an online petition or a mouse click for carbon neutrality won’t cut it. They have to get organized in a way that will force politicians to pay attention rather than just patronize them.

Um, Tom? You might have done more to kill that possibility than almost any single other person on the face of the planet (with the possible exception of the other amateur sociologist on the NYT opinion page, David Brooks). And besides that, there's the whole systemic repression thing - you know, how capitalism teaches kids from a young age that standing up and throwing one's lot in on the side of justice is silly when you could just be shopping? You know, that same capitalism that you spend a large portion of your time promoting? Didn't think so.

Not only that, but Friedman? FUCK YOU for suggesting "that's what twentysomethings are for" - to light a fire under the rest of the country. Thanks for using a brush so broad that it manages to assign one role to an entire generation of highly diverse people. That's not insulting or anything, nor could it ever remove our agency. And you wonder why we're not engaged? Seriously?

So, then, why is it that so many young folks are avoiding mainstream politics and traditional approaches? Maybe we've realized they don't work when the only two major parties are beholden to corporations and not constituents - or maybe it's that avenues of meaningful expression, public spaces, autonomy, and political power have been systematically removed from the reach of adolescents and young adults (well, from everybody, actually, but especially from people under 25).

Incidentally, I just finished Donna Gaines' book Teenage Wasteland today, and while it was written in the early 1990s about the so-called burnouts and burnout culture, Gaines makes a similar point: that alternative cultures develop because people, especially youth, don't see a place for themselves in the mainstream. Said youth feel marginalized, ignored, and insulted by adults who expect them to be good workers but don't want to allow for their creative expression. Even though this book 15 years old, I think her central assertion is relevant today - the main difference being that the advent of the Internet is now providing the space for kids and adolescents to express themselves (with all the attendant consequences and limitations) as opposed to the parking lot of the local 7-11. In both cases, however, 'adults' (and I am indeed conflating parents and people in charge) serve to push folks to the margins in search of meaning and autonomy.

This column by Friedman displays a very shallow level of analysis, like pretty much all of the rest of his work. I wish someone on the Times editorial board would notice.



Other folks have opinions too...let's excerpt/steal some of them.

Brian Beutler weighs in on the column:

It's easy to pin the sedateness of American youth on the absence of a draft, but I really don't think that has a whole lot to do with it. It seems to me that in the past 40 years, the incentives young people had to protest have been all but erased. The consequences of an arrest are much larger, the value placed on scholastic and professional achievement much higher, and the costs of delay much greater now than they were in 1968. It's my view that this is all the fault--indeed the master plan!--of conservative people. I'm just not sure I can explain why, and if I could, I'd write a book about it.

Ezra Klein points the finger at the media:

The other reason kids don't protest anymore is that they don't think protesting works. And they don't think it works because when they hold massive protests, the media doesn't give their argument a fair hearing, but instead mocks and marginalizes them, and picks out the most extreme participants in order to discredit the whole. On all this, the kids are right. But even I never thought that folks like Tom Friedman -- who was complicit, if not causal, in the media atmosphere that ignored the Iraq War protests -- would then lambaste them for laziness, or cowardice.

From my friend C (in an email, so no link):

This time, he calls us too quiet for our own good. Well, perhaps if the corporate media machine that he sits at the controls of actually covered some of the heroic protests, acts, and optimistic endeavors that this generation is engaged in, we would have a voice and platform. So, Mr. Friedman, instead of wasting your column's space by chiding us for being too quiet, how about you get your researchers off their lazy asses and spend some time profiling people who are taking on the greediest generation. It looks like you just couldn't get the story together. How about people protesting the Jena 6, or the Middlebury students organizing Step it UP! with Bill McKibben. Fuck you.

Making a Statement

Apparently 50 high school students, all part of the Presidential Scholars program (whatever that is), presented Bush with a signed letter the other day asking the President to place a ban on torture and human rights violations.

I don't know whether to laugh or cry. Laugh, because the idea that Bush would listen to these folks is ridiculous on its face, or cry because they had the guts to do it - guts that are in very short supply these days.

My, um, favorite part:

"The president enjoyed a visit with the students, accepted the letter and upon reading it let the student know that the United States does not torture and that we value human rights," deputy press secretary Dana Perino said.

I love/hate how Bush always just repeats his lines like he's the smartest one in the room, or that what he says goes because of his status. I associate that trait with, well, a massive lack of awareness about the world. Hm.