brainrow

No Child Left

Newsweek columnist Anna Quindlen on our misdirected obsession with testing:

And what does this metastasizing testing, for every subject, at every level, at every time of the year, do to kids? It has to mean that students absorb the message that learning is a joyless succession of hoops through which they must jump, rather than a way of understanding and mastering the world. Every question has one right answer; the measure of a person is a number. Being insightful, or creative, or, heaven forfend, counterintuitive counts for nothing. This is: (a) benighted; (b) ridiculous; (c) sad; (d) all of the above.

You know the answer.

Of course it is important to know that all students have learned to read, that everyone can manage multiplication. But constant testing will no more address the problems with our education system than constantly putting an overweight person on the scale will cure obesity. Proponents trumpet the end to social promotion. They are less outspoken about what comes next, about what provisions are to be made for a student who is held back twice and then drops out of school. The bureaucrats who have built their programs on test results seem to have lost sight of any overarching point of education. Who cares if the light comes on in their eyes if the numbers are good?

2005 06 12

Books
Politics

Undying Hate

The New York Times Book Review on the unending hatred for Bill Clinton:

Millions of Americans despise Bill Clinton. They have done so since he became a presence in national politics in the early 1990’s, and they continue to do so today, more than four years after his retirement from public office.

The passion of the Clinton haters is a phenomenon without equal in recent American politics. It is not based on any specific policies that Clinton promoted or implemented during his years in office. It is almost entirely personal. In its persistence and intensity, it goes far beyond anything that comparable numbers of people have felt about Jimmy Carter, Ronald Reagan or either of the presidents Bush. It surpasses even the liberals’ longstanding detestation of Richard Nixon. The only political obsession comparable to it in the past century is the hatred that a significant minority of Americans felt for Franklin Delano Roosevelt.

In this respect the phenomenon is all the more puzzling. Roosevelt made enormous and sometimes reckless changes in the American government and economy, and when his critics loathed him for it, he loathed them back. “They are unanimous in their hate for me” he said of them in his 1936 re-election campaign, “and I welcome their hatred.” Clinton, on the other hand, was a centrist who undertook no dramatic transformations of society or government and, what was more, showed himself to be an instinctive conciliator who believed in compromise almost to a fault.

Viewed in historical perspective, Clinton-hatred is not easy to explain. Certainly the Monica Lewinsky affair does not explain it. The people who detested the president after that dalliance became public were essentially the same ones who had detested him in 1992. They merely grew louder.

There is, of course, a simpler argument that some Clinton haters use to explain the persistence of their passion. They say that he was, to put it bluntly, a very bad president — immature, self-absorbed, indecisive in domestic affairs and disastrously weak when it came to representing America in the affairs of the world.

It is this argument that John F. Harris utterly demolishes in “The Survivor: Bill Clinton in the White House,” his thorough, readable and scrupulously honest account of the Clinton years. Harris, who was The Washington Post’s White House correspondent from 1995 through 2000, is no Clinton apologist. His portraits of the decision-making process he witnessed reveal a president who indeed lacked discipline in his daily routine; examined and re-examined policy choices endlessly, to the frustration of his advisers; and was fearful about the use of military force abroad, even in behalf of the most defensible causes.

But over the course of 500 pages, Harris also documents the history of a president who, however frustrating he may have been in style and method, usually made the right choices in the end — even when he felt that he was hurting himself politically. The 1993 spending cuts and tax increases, over which he agonized for months, ultimately reduced the federal deficit, reassured financial markets and set in motion the prosperity that marked the second half of the decade. The 1996 Welfare Reform Act, which Clinton signed against the advice of his closest Democratic allies, turned out to be the most successful domestic policy initiative of the 1990’s.

2005 06 12

Movies
Politics

Talking Down

I was talking up the latest Star Wars movie, Revenge of the Sith, a few weeks ago, before I’d seen the movie.

Well, I finally saw the movie, a week and a half ago.

So, uh… just forget I said anything, okay?

2005 06 10

Vanishing Middle Class

New York Times columnist Paul Krugman on the vanishing middle class:

let me just point out that middle-class America didn’t emerge by accident. It was created by what has been called the Great Compression of incomes that took place during World War II, and sustained for a generation by social norms that favored equality, strong labor unions and progressive taxation. Since the 1970’s, all of those sustaining forces have lost their power.

Since 1980 in particular, U.S. government policies have consistently favored the wealthy at the expense of working families – and under the current administration, that favoritism has become extreme and relentless. From tax cuts that favor the rich to bankruptcy “reform” that punishes the unlucky, almost every domestic policy seems intended to accelerate our march back to the robber baron era.

…

Reversing the rise in inequality and economic insecurity won’t be easy: the middle-class society we have lost emerged only after the country was shaken by depression and war. But we can make a start by calling attention to the politicians who systematically make things worse in catering to their contributors. Never mind that straw man, the politics of envy. Let’s try to do something about the politics of greed.

2005 06 09

Patriots Want Accountability

On the Al Franken show, Newsweek columnist Jonathan Alter discussed Congress’ unwillingness to investigate anything that’s gone amiss in this administration. Franken mentioned the Republican Congress’ lack of interest in the disappearance of $8.8 billion in Iraq reconstruction funds. Alter contrasted the current situation with an earlier one:

Alter: During World War II… a shooting war every day with thousands of people being killed, a senator from Missouri named Harry Truman — who was seen at the time as a machine hack — he held hearings.

He was a Democrat. Nobody from the Roosevelt Administration said, “No, you can’t hold hearings about war profiteering.”

Franken: Democratic House, Democratic Senate, Democratic White House — they hold hearings.

Alter: Because smart people in government know that those hearings can actually help them do their jobs more competently. Ferret out wrongdoing. If you’re really patriotic, you want accountability, because you want to improve performance.

2005 06 09

Funnies
Politics

The System Worked, Once

If Watergate taught us anything, it’s that the system works.

Newsweek’s Jonathan Alter imagines how Watergate would play out today:

Those of us who hoped it would end differently knew we were in trouble when former Nixon media adviser Roger Ailes banned the word “Watergate” from Fox News’s coverage and went with the logo “Assault on the Presidency” instead. By that time, the American people figured both sides were just spinning, and a tie always goes to the incumbent.

…

Just as in the Valerie Plame case, the Justice Department subpoenaed Woodward and Bernstein to testify before the grand jury about their sources. When they declined, they were jailed for 18 months on contempt charges.

Cartoonist Tom Tomorrow does the Time Warp, and Ward Sutton looks at Woodward and Bernstein, the Next Generation.

Well, heck. I’m just about positive this system used to work.

2005 06 09

They Don’t Work for Us

The fix is in, methinks:

A Justice Department decision to seek $10 billion for a stop-smoking program in its suit against the country’s leading tobacco companies, instead of the $130 billion suggested by one of its expert witnesses, set off a firestorm on Wednesday.

Several Democratic lawmakers with a longtime interest in smoking and health issues attacked the department for what they said was a politically motivated decision, as did public health groups.

Judge Gladys Kessler of Federal District Court, who is presiding in the trial here against the companies, took note of the sudden change, telling the court on Wednesday, “Perhaps it suggests that additional influences have been brought to bear on what the government’s case is.”

The states-rights administration that fought tirelessly to ban state-sanctioned medical marijuana has a different perspective on tobacco. They caved on the Microsoft antitrust case, too.

One thing you can say for sure about the Bush Administration: they sure ain’t working for us.

2005 06 08

Dooooomed! Okay, I’m Done

Since Monday, when Apple announced it will switch the CPUs in their Macintosh computers from the current PowerPCs to Intel Pentium-type chips, I have wandered the highways and byways of the internet, sharing my view that the move dooms the Macintosh, and explaining why I think so.

Late last night, I suddenly realized I was trying to convince people to join me in my gloomy assessment. And I realized that nothing good would come of that effort.

Only time will tell whether my prediction is correct. It’s entirely possible that I’ll be proven wrong. If so, what am I doing now but annoying people?

Even if time shows I’m right, what good will come of my prediction? Certainly I’m not going to persuade Apple to reverse course.

I also realized that I’ve been blurring together two separate predictions:

That Apple sales will suffer severely, and
That Apple will join Microsoft in extending DRM Everywhere, and taking control out of the hands of the computer owner.

I’m more worried about the second prediction. I surely hope I’m wrong about that. I love my Macintosh. But if Apple switches to a locked-down computing experience, I will go rough it with the Linux hippies in the Land of the Free.

And that’s all I have to say about that.

2005 06 07

Handwriting on the Wall

I’m not the only person who sees Monday’s announcement as the end of the Macintosh. Via Backup Brain, here’s Jerry Kindall:

Mark my words: within five years, there will be no Macintosh. There will probably be no Apple. Bill Gates will have his last little sliver of marketshare. He’s sitting in his office in Redmond, not ten miles from where I am right now, cackling with glee. Apple’s only hope is to get out of the computer business entirely, and that’s too speculative to hang their entire company on. The Macintosh today has been declared end-of-life and the userbase is being transitioned to Windows. I wouldn’t be surprised to see many small Mac developers decide to jump to Windows development today.

I remember Jerry from BBS days, when we were both using the Apple II family of computers. We’ve both been around for a while. We’ve both seen handwriting on walls.

2005 06 06

Comments (1)

R. I. P. Macintosh

I wish Steve Jobs had bit the bullet today, and announced in plain English that Apple Computer is dropping out of the computer business.

That’s not what he said, but I’m convinced that’s what happened today. Normally, I would add that I hope I’ll be proven wrong. This time, I’m not so sure that success in Apple’s transition to monopolist Intel’s CPUs would be preferable to the end of the company’s computer line.

The point of the microcomputer revolution that started in the 1970s was that ordinary people could have complete control of computer power that had previously been available only to governments and big corporations. Once that revolution was well entrenched, Microsoft and other software vendors started trying to take that control back, with things like product activation, active updates and “digital rights management” (DRM) everywhere. Apple has always been an oasis from these anti-customer efforts. However, one apparent reason for Apple’s move to Intel now is that Intel is building DRM capabilities into their CPUs, helping ensure that, although you may have paid for the computer, someone else will control what you can do with it.

In the past year or so, Macintosh sales seemed to be inching up. Now, sales of existing Macs are going to crater. The new machines won’t ship until about the time that Microsoft’s continually-postponed Longhorn operating system does. The first Macintels will ship in about a year. The entire line won’t be converted for two and a half years. During that time, nobody will want to buy machines that Apple has already abandoned. Promises of continuing support for Macs based on PowerPC chips aren’t worth the hot air they’re comprised of.

Whether Steve Jobs said it or not, Apple Computer ceased to be a computer company today.

Time to investigate Linux.

2005 06 06

Assimilated

1984:

A picture named hello-mac.jpg

2005:

A picture named goodbye-mac.jpg

Well, it was nice while it lasted.

2005 06 05

Rich Get Richer and the Richest Get Richest-er

The core belief of the Bush Administration is not about spreading democracy throughout the world. It’s not about saving Social Security, fighting terrorism, banning abortion or outlawing gay marriage. It’s certainly not about leaving no child behind.

The core belief of the Bush Administration is this: the rich in this country sure do have it rough, and poor people get all the breaks.

So we get “tort reform,” carefully tailored to protect corporations with vast resources from lawsuits by people with few resources. We get bankruptcy law “reforms” that strip ordinary people of their hope for a second chance while preserving special protections in bankruptcy law for the very rich. We get tax laws that favor millionaires over working folks, and favor billionaires over millionaires.

The New York Times says the Richest Are Leaving Even the Rich Far Behind:

The people at the top of America’s money pyramid have so prospered in recent years that they have pulled far ahead of the rest of the population, an analysis of tax records and other government data by The New York Times shows. They have even left behind people making hundreds of thousands of dollars a year.

Call them the hyper-rich.

They are not just a few Croesus-like rarities. Draw a line under the top 0.1 percent of income earners – the top one-thousandth. Above that line are about 145,000 taxpayers, each with at least $1.6 million in income and often much more.

The average income for the top 0.1 percent was $3 million in 2002, the latest year for which averages are available. That number is two and a half times the $1.2 million, adjusted for inflation, that group reported in 1980. No other income group rose nearly as fast.

The share of the nation’s income earned by those in this uppermost category has more than doubled since 1980, to 7.4 percent in 2002. The share of income earned by the rest of the top 10 percent rose far less, and the share earned by the bottom 90 percent fell.

Next, examine the net worth of American households. The group with homes, investments and other assets worth more than $10 million comprised 338,400 households in 2001, the last year for which data are available. The number has grown more than 400 percent since 1980, after adjusting for inflation, while the total number of households has grown only 27 percent.

The Bush administration tax cuts stand to widen the gap between the hyper-rich and the rest of America. The merely rich, making hundreds of thousands of dollars a year, will shoulder a disproportionate share of the tax burden.

President Bush said during the third election debate last October that most of the tax cuts went to low- and middle-income Americans. In fact, most – 53 percent – will go to people with incomes in the top 10 percent over the first 15 years of the cuts, which began in 2001 and would have to be reauthorized in 2010. And more than 15 percent will go just to the top 0.1 percent, those 145,000 taxpayers.

The Times article is part of a series called “Class Matters.”

2005 06 04

Politics
Science