tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-110207512024-03-13T14:10:20.877-04:00CountersignatureMeandering attempts to take control of total flow.cshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14117846384130187926noreply@blogger.comBlogger1002125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-11020751.post-40388285536252249432016-04-24T20:46:00.002-04:002016-04-24T20:46:47.402-04:00Hello, World.I spent nearly the entire day outside. It was gorgeous. Not a cloud in the sky. I have this garden that needs a good deal of work since I neglected it beginning around July of last year. Maybe late June. Anyway, the neglect included not really cutting back the weeds in the paths between beds because my line trimmer broke.<br />
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The thing is just a complete mess.<br />
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I was out there fixing part of the fence I need to keep the deer and the groundhogs and the rabbits out. Last year the groundhog dug under my fence so many times I simply gave up. He ate all my beans and lettuce and ate the stems of the snap peas. This year I'm going to fix his wagon, though. I'm putting up two layers of fence and I'm burying the fence in dirt liberally spiked with crushed red pepper and cinnamon.<br />
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I was also trying to get a few of the beds in order. They were so overgrown with weeds and dead stuff from last fall that I'm trying to get my Mantis back from a neighbor who borrowed it two years ago.<br />
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Perhaps some of you have read gardening books or looked at pictures in magazines about gardens. Gardens in magazines and books tend to look nice and settled. They have orderly, well-kept paths running among the beds, and the beds all look rather precise. I have not managed such a garden, although I'd like to. My garden is on sloping ground that probably falls a foot and a half from the top side to the bottom side. Given that I don't have a fortune for landscaping, for my paths around the beds I've made do with the flatter rocks I dug up when preparing the beds and several flat rocks that were left over from a construction project. They work well when I have my line trimmer to knock the grass and other things that grow between the cracks back, but as I mentioned my trimmer broke last summer and the rocks are now buried under tall dead grass.<br />
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Writing this post, I realize I need to get a new trimmer.CShttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05845990796123779860noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-11020751.post-20432785211217626262014-01-16T09:59:00.002-05:002014-01-16T09:59:28.319-05:00Hello, Again.I've been struggling for a good long time on whether or not I cared to blog anymore. Odd as it may seem this blog sitting on a server somewhere, written from anywhere, read - if at all - from anywhere, represents a very personal connection to a very specific place. And I'm not in that place anymore. I haven't been for over five years.<br />
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That place, of course, is the District of Columbia. I love DC. Most of the best things in my life happened in the District. I met my wife in DC. I bought my first house in DC. Our children were born in DC. I got my PhD in DC. I saw the most amazing shows in DC.<br />
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I take the city seriously, even if the city at times decided it wasn't serious ("reformer" Michelle Rhee, anyone?).<br />
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It is with a large measure of guilt that I abandoned the city, because I didn't want to leave. Nothing about the battles with DCPS, the ANC, or dirtbag developers drove me from this city. However, my wife got a job elsewhere and we decided even before that offer that if either of us received a tenure track offer we would go wherever that was, within reason (English professorships are not handed out like corporate swag on Adams-Morgan Day).<br />
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From that moment in August 2008, I've had a tough time connecting with this blog. I tried for a while. I was in denial for a while, writing as if I still lived in the District. However, the energy of daily life that was sustaining this blog -- the little encounters on the street, the buzz of political conversation in cafeterias and coffee shops -- wasn't there.<br />
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And so I come to the point that if I continue blogging, I don't think it will be on this blog.<br />
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This blog is always and ever the District for me, and I miss it so so much.CShttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05845990796123779860noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-11020751.post-37393662032054965372013-05-15T01:05:00.000-04:002013-05-15T01:05:10.541-04:00Reading Newspaper Comments on the Internet Can Turn You into an ElitistYou would think that one the internet would do would be separate the knuckle draggers from the somewhat more evolved. After all, one has to be literate and moderately coordinated to type words into a browser. However, a simple perusal of the comments section of the <a href="http://www.washingtonpost.com/" target="_blank">Washington Post</a> articles will disabuse you of that notion rather quickly.<br />
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Racism, long vanquished in many quarters to private homes and (homogenous) neighborhood bars, is in full throat in the comments section. It's one thing to have to explain to your integrated co-workers and other parents at your kids' school events and extracurricular activities why you keep a dog-eared copy of <i>The Turner Diaries</i> in your car and a photo of Hitler in your wallet, let alone your swastika tattoo; it's quite another to copy and paste blog posts from Stormfront on some public news forum under an assumed name (hey, I'm not dogging assumed names...I'm just suggesting that it's a bit more comfy being a racist when no one can call you out in person).<br />
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Of course, it isn't only racism. If only it were that simple. Conspiracy kooks of the first order hang out on these sites. Look, anything can be true when the burden of proof is that someone saw a youtube video showing how to knock down a building using magnesium shavings filed from a bicycle frame.<br />
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You people are morons.<br />
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And I'm sick of it.<br />
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I'm sick of having to explain the difference between registration and confiscation, and how slippery slope arguments are logical fallacies. <br />
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I'm sick of having to demonstrate that you can't compare a Watergate scandal that took two years to develop to impeachment level, with clear paw prints leading straight to the Oval Office, to last week's news, especially when it doesn't lead anywhere <i>yet</i>, and maybe never will. In other words, talk of impeachment is rather premature. Yes, I'm looking at you, <a href="http://www.rawstory.com/rs/2013/05/12/george-will-floats-impeachment-after-irs-targets-tea-party-groups/" target="_blank">George Will</a>.<br />
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And I'm damn sick of people posting links to nutcase sites and claiming they "prove" anything other than that the person who posted the link is information illiterate. I spend a good chunk of my time trying to teach students the difference between scholarly sources and junk sources. If you have a link to a site purporting to have the inside scoop on Benghazi, and the site you've linked also has a story about how the moon landing was a hoax and crap about Hitler actually being a leftist, then you've failed the information literacy test.<br />
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And while I'm at it, let me talk to my besties on facebook. You may think it's clever to share pictures that match images of Obama with Nixon and claim Nixon was impeached for using the IRS for political ends, but then again you probably think the Civil War was actually a battle over states rights.<br />
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And seriously, stop posting twenty picture-slogans in a row. It's damn tedious.CShttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05845990796123779860noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-11020751.post-56568940675575724122013-05-13T12:39:00.003-04:002013-05-13T12:39:55.270-04:00And now for a new journey into the unexpected.Somewhere along the lines of fifteen years ago and perhaps more, perhaps 18 years ago, I was approached at my old university about the possibilities of doing an online course.<br />
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Online education was in its infancy, at least at major universities (I'm not saying there weren't early adopters, only that there weren't many). Options were extremely limited -- no videos, very little ready-made content from publishers, and a fairly basic chat functionality.<br />
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I said no.<br />
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The technology was too primitive, and I wasn't sure how to bring a real course to students with such tools. In fact, it was more or less a correspondence course that exchanged email (and file upload and storage) for snail mail.<br />
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Things change. I am responsible for helping people teach online as well as being an online teacher myself these days, and of course the tools have changed significantly. Courses are very full featured and can be very rigorous (although just as in traditional classrooms, rigor is not always offered nor sought out). I am still not sure online education is a substitute for traditional education (caveat: studies do show that objective measurements of content learning is comparable in online and traditional classes, but I'm not talking about objective measurements...I'm talking about the co-curricular aspects of a course and college itself), but I am not going to deny that it has opened up possibilities for non-traditional students that were hard to imagine in the years prior to online.<br />
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All this as prelude to the fact that for the first time ever I will be attempting to teach a composition course online. I know I'm not the first to teach composition online, but it will be my first time, and therefore, I'm busy with pacing, assignment sequence, and the wonderful logistics of getting students to peer review using the horrible tools Blackboard provides.<br />
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I will most likely be posting updates as time goes on this summer.CShttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05845990796123779860noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-11020751.post-8815220898599565022013-05-10T12:58:00.000-04:002013-05-10T12:58:09.098-04:00MOOCs and Their Discontents, Part 1: Financial Winners and LosersAnyone who deals with higher education has heard of MOOCs -- pronounced exactly like the ethnic slur, but spelled differently -- and the controversy surrounding their emergence, dissemination, and utilization. The Massive Open Online Course promises at this point to give access to education previously untouchable by the unwashed masses: lectures from Harvard and MIT, for example. Moreover, they promise not only to give access to these courses, but also to provide some form of "credit" for completing the course. Credit is not in scare quotes to undermine the legitimacy of the courses, but rather to indicate that "credit" can mean anything from a printable certificate, to a badge, to actual college credit hours depending on university and course.<br />
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It's this last part that has some faculty and administrators nervous. For instance, why should Student A pay $1500 for a 3 credit course in Western Civ from their local college when they can transfer in the credits from passing their free MOOC course in Western Civ? For faculty, the danger is that with fewer courses to teach, fewer faculty members are needed. For administrators, it amounts to roughly the same thing: fewer courses means fewer tuition dollars rolling in. While many administrators delight in the idea of destroying faculty power and reducing the labor costs associated with faculty, the sane ones understand that one can't really burn the village to save it: the administrators only have jobs because of the surplus value they've extracted from faculty labor.<br />
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So who benefits from MOOCs?<br />
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The first answer would seem to be students. After all, if you can get for free what used to cost you $1500 (and we can extrapolate beyond my one example to let's say, the maximum credits an institution would allow a student to transfer in, we'll pretend it's 30 credits...that's a savings of $15000), then it seems like you benefit. Furthermore, you could argue that perhaps the student is getting <i>better</i> instruction from a MOOC from Harvard than they would be getting from their local college or university. I'll let that point go for now, though: the issue of MOOC quality is another post altogether.<br />
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The second answer, I would argue, would be the big name brand universities that produce the MOOCs. Harvard and MIT, along with a few other well-respected universities, are nationally known names that can attract participants (or at least enrollees) in their MOOCs based on name recognition alone. Even the slightly curious might sign up for a Harvard MOOC in <a href="http://www.extension.harvard.edu/open-learning-initiative/ancient-greek-civilization" target="_blank">The Heroic and Anti-Heroic in Ancient Greek Civilization</a>. The university gets free publicity and good will -- not an entirely bad thing when some segments of society love to hate you -- and perhaps revenue down the road through selling course materials, advertising, and other peripheral products. I would argue, though, that the MOOC revolution will stand or fall based upon its ability to make money.<br />
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The losers here seem to be nearly every other college and university. It's hard to see how they make any money accepting transfer credit from MOOCs. Now it's easy to say that they don't make any money now off transfer credits, regardless of where the student took the credit, and that's true. However, it's also true that currently most students are paying for those credits somewhere, and if MOOCs become more accepted for transfer credits, fewer students will be paying community colleges, state schools, and even the small liberal arts colleges for those credits, which means that collectively those schools will lose out on a substantial amount of revenue. More importantly, those students who spend four years at an institution, in other words those students who were taking all or nearly all of their undergraduate credits from your institution, may decide that summertime is better spent getting six free MOOC credits than six paid credits from your summer offerings.<br />
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Small schools can't even get in the game in the same way as the big players, although some will try, I'm sure. However, unlike traditional online courses (it feels odd writing "traditional" and "online" together like that), which many small schools have shown are viable forms of outreach for them, these MOOCs do not generate revenue: they are IT resource intensive for a small school and would to a large extent cannibalize the pay-for-credit offerings those schools have already put online. <br />
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It's this dynamic, free courses for students and the consequent squeeze-out of the small schools by the big names, that sets the stage for the questions that follow: the pedagogy and the ideology of the MOOC. MOOCs threaten fundamental structural changes in higher education in the way that online education never did: online education has been quickly subsumed into the traditional structure of colleges and universities, either as separate "world campuses" or as another delivery method in the existing continuing education structure. Sure, online education has given rise to diploma mills like the University of Phoenix and Capella, but even that phenomenon isn't new -- it's just easier to get access to, and with student loans as a lucrative revenue stream, it's not going away anytime soon. The MOOC threatens to do away with revenue altogether -- it doesn't just divvy it up differently. As such, it strikes at the core of the current university model.<br />
<br />CShttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05845990796123779860noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-11020751.post-83938712206688947222013-04-29T22:47:00.000-04:002013-04-29T22:47:27.711-04:00Twentieth Century Southern Literature...so many choices but not so many weeks.I'm putting together a syllabus for 20th Century Southern Literature. I've never been immersed in a heavily concentrated bath of southern angst, depression, and morbid obsession with family honor, but I've read my share of William Faulkner and Flannery O'Connor, so I think I have a decent basis on that end of the spectrum.<br />
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Since I'm not allowed to make the course 100% Faulkner, I've been tossing the following around in my head:<br />
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1. William Faulkner, <i>Light in August</i> OR <i>Absalom, Absalom!</i><br />
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<li><i>Light in August</i> is more accessible than <i>Absalom, Absalom!</i>, but I get such enjoyment out of the latter book that it might make the blank stares worth it. On the other hand, Reverend Hightower's habits and commentary is absolutely priceless.</li>
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2. Zora Neale Hurston, <i>Their Eyes Were Watching God</i><br />
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<li>Contemporaneous with Faulkner and an interesting counterpoint to his world, this text is so beautifully written I'd like to include it on most all my syllabi. I have better luck with this work than with <i>Jonah's Gourd Vine</i>.<i> </i></li>
</ul>
3. Flannery O'Connor, <i>Everything That Rises Must Converge</i><br />
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<li>I like throwing in a collection of short stories, because that allows me to get more mileage out of the textbook -- we can work on O'Connor over a few classes.<i> </i></li>
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4. Tennessee Williams, <i>A Streetcar Named Desire</i><br />
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<li>You can't really have a Southern Lit class without some Tennessee Williams, and I also find that students don't encounter plays very often (unless they're reading Shakespeare or studying the Restoration Era).</li>
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5. Walker Percy, <i>The Moviegoer</i><br />
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<li>Much like Faulkner and Hurston provide a good contrast, so too do Percy and Williams. The New Orleans of Williams simply oozes sex, whereas Percy's maintains restraint. </li>
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6. Cormac McCarthy, <i>Blood Meridian</i><br />
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<li>Outside of Chuck Palahniuk, no contemporary writer does bizarre so compellingly as McCarthy, but that's about all the two writers have in common.</li>
</ul>
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The list isn't complete, but these are the definite starters. I'm looking for a few more books to fill out the schedule, and I'm looking hardest right now at Alice Walker, contemplating Robert Penn Warren, and putting some outside money on John Kennedy Toole (just to keep up the New Orleans theme, which, by the way, is also another argument for <i>Absalom, Absalom!</i>). Hell, maybe I'll do both of those Faulkner novels.CShttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05845990796123779860noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-11020751.post-23952416736231001562013-04-24T15:57:00.004-04:002013-04-24T15:57:53.647-04:00Novels You Shouldn't Teach in Introductory Literature Courses, Vol 1: Melville's The Confidence-ManA little while ago I decided I would mix things up and get away from the tried and true <i>Benito Cereno</i> in my American literature survey. <i>Benito Cereno</i> is an eminently teachable text, with its 3rd person limited omniscient narrator keeping us interested in Amasa Delano's perceptions, fooling us with Delano's own excuses. Students can sink their teeth into the desperation of slavery and the transfer of power from a declining to a rising empire. It's a relatively short read, too.<br />
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However, it's also heavily anthologized and therefore one tends to see heavily repetitive essays that can be traced to such centers of scholarly learning as sparknotes and shmoop. Besides, I have never been interested in teaching the same collection of texts semester after semester.<br />
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So I decided that I would go for <i>The Confidence-Man</i>, a novel I read in graduate school and really enjoyed, probably for the very reasons that make it so unfit for an introductory undergraduate literature course.<br />
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By the time he wrote <i>The Confidence-Man</i> (1857), Melville was a bit pissed at the publishing industry and America in general. Despite early success with his novels of the South Pacific, Melville saw both popular and critical appreciation for his work decline as he produced the works that would become the cornerstone of his posthumous revival and reputation. <i>Moby-Dick</i> (1851) for instance, such a totemic novel that it has become synonymous with The Great American Novel and shorthand for massively serious literate society, was all but dismissed by Melville's contemporary critics. <br />
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<i>The Confidence-Man</i> was Melville's last novel and critics received it much as one might receive a flaming pile of dog shit on your front porch. Of course, in a sense, that's exactly what it was, because Melville was providing them with an acerbic and decidedly mean-spirited prank, published precisely on April 1, 1857. It's a fantastic novel that skewers American consumer culture, lampoons provincial attitudes, and questions all manner of trust or confidence, while at the same time it ignores the "beginning, middle, and end" of traditional plots, fails to have any identifiable central characters, and undercuts coherent narrative every chance it gets. It's a terrible novel to teach to undergraduates encountering college-level literature for the first time.<br />
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In a nutshell, the novel follows a riverboat along the Mississippi during the course of a single day. Passengers come and go at each stop and it's unclear if one or several confidence men are working the boat in the narrative...we as readers are never let in definitively on the identity of the con artist(s) touching the marks. It lends itself to rich readings in a few post-structural veins (performative identity, to name one), but it does not give the novice reader much to hang his or her hat on: no compelling characters to follow, no plot to unwind (the mystery of the confidence man/men is never really presented as a mystery and in any case there's never a resolution as to the motives or identity of the confidence man or men), and nothing to follow more than conversations among passengers. To make matters worse, Melville sprinkles numerous references to contemporary political, economic, and cultural events throughout, putting those who haven't had a good dose of Emerson, for instance, at a severe disadvantage (and I mean a good dose...not a poem or an essay, but an extended exposure).<br />
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I dearly love this novel, but I am seriously considering the less imposing <i>Typee</i> or the intimidatingly iconic, but much more teachable, <i>Moby-Dick</i> for the next go-round.CShttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05845990796123779860noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-11020751.post-83676940773266095402013-04-23T23:00:00.001-04:002013-04-23T23:03:32.737-04:00Hello, Old Friend, Once Again.I have taken a break, more or less, from blogging over the past few years. Sure, I had some spurts of energy where I blogged for a month or two on a fairly regular basis, but nothing sustained beyond that...I couldn't even get terribly fired up for the general election last fall.<br />
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(Look, Mitt, it really wasn't your fault. You were a complete bonehead and your pandering did set me off, so you did your part, but I couldn't hold up my end of the bargain. I simply didn't care, given that the best you could muster in the polls was a dead cat bounce.)<br />
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Do you know I posted all of five times in 2012? Five times. <br />
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Life's been busy. I have a garden to tend. I have classes to teach. I have kids to shepherd around. I tend to regard blogging the same way I regard going to the gym...you have to make a commitment and once you've decided you're too tired or busy to hit the machines one day, well, you might as well tear up the gym membership, because next thing you know you've paid for three months simply to say you're a member.<br />
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It's spring. Let's give it another chance.CShttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05845990796123779860noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-11020751.post-17623733356674106362012-06-21T11:28:00.002-04:002012-06-21T11:28:42.736-04:00Save your powder.The smoke still hasn't cleared from the latest showdown over the Fast and the Furious issue. Congressman Issa, <a href="http://www.newyorker.com/reporting/2011/01/24/110124fa_fact_lizza?currentPage=all" target="_blank">who's no stranger to illegal activity</a>, who from the outset vowed to investigate the Obama Administration even before any wrongdoing had been suspected, is making as much hay as he can out of a failed idiotic Department of Justice attempt to snare violent criminals. The program began under the Bush Administration, but it was Obama's AG, Eric Holder, who presided over the program when it all went south. Thousands of guns went missing, and even though they were supposed to go missing, they were supposed to be tracked...whoops. I suppose one should read all directions before starting.<br />
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As a result, Mexican cartels ended up with many of the guns, a border agent was killed, and who knows how many Mexicans have lost their lives at the wrong end of one of the DoJ guns. I'm of the opinion that the cartels will be killing with or without DoJ guns, but there's no reason to make it any easier for them.<br />
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Of course the right wing nutsphere believes the true intent of the program -- begun under Bush, mind you (which by the way is not meant to "blame Bush," but rather to skewer the assumptions of the gun nuts) -- was to devise an excuse for taking away Americans' guns. It's a straw these nutjobs need to cling to, since the Obama Administration has taken absolutely no action to restrict gun ownership Of course, remembering that these gun nuts are the same people who advocate for "cop-killer" bullets, even the mention of the word "gun" sends them skittering off to a gun shop to restock before big bad Obama shuts all the gun sellers down. If I were a gun shop owner, I would be pouring all my political contributions into Obama's coffers, praying for a re-election so the NRA can keep scaring the bejeesus out of the rubes.<br />
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Anyway, Issa's fishing expedition has yielded at least some squirming on the part of Holder and Obama, who seriously should be taken to task for running their executive branch like a watered-down version of the Bush Imperial Presidency. Yesterday, Obama had to invoke executive privilege in what I can only see as a strategic move, since the DoJ has already turned over 7K+ pages of documents. In other words, it's all politicking, and while the initial reaction from the right wing was elation because "executive privilege must mean he's complicit and hiding something," what they'll probably find out is that much like Bush/Cheney's six -- that's right, six -- and Clinton's 14 -- yes, 14 -- uses of executive privilege, this use -- Obama's first if you're keeping score -- likely won't have any long-lasting effects.<br />
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What's different, though, is that Issa immediately went forward with a panel vote holding Holder in contempt. That's essentially like going all in before the first card has been flipped. Maybe he has a hunch. Maybe he thinks, where there's smoke, there's fire (<a href="http://mediamatters.org/research/201101110034" target="_blank">a situation he is intimately familiar with</a>), and he's going to catch Holder and Obama plotting the takeover of the country via Mexican drug cartels and a secret drug to turn Christians into Muslims and take away our guns.<br />
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Sadly for the right, the episode reveals more about incompetence and poor planning than it does about conspiracy. Incompetence is never good, though, but the problem for the right is that Obama is quickly spinning his practical blunder into a political trap for the Republicans in Congress, who even before this latest episode could be painted as having little interest in helping the country and all too much interest in "seeing this President fail" (Limbaugh, who gives most of them their base) and "making Obama a one-term President" (Senator McConnell, who must have the dumbest constituents in the world, because not one word of his makes any sense). Obama will play these fools like the ill-tuned instruments they are.<br />
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And in the end, Fast and Furious won't mean a thing legally, because the American voters will see the choice in the fall as between a moderate Democrat (please, right wing, stop acting like Obama has done anything Leftist...you show your ignorance) and an out of touch son of privilege in Romney. The campaign stops and speeches will overshadow any Congressional hearing (unless Issa's long shot comes through and Obama actually does have a smoking gun sitting in the top right drawer of his desk in the Oval Office), and if you've been paying attention comparing Obama and Romney on the campaign trail is like comparing Humphrey Bogart to Adam Sandler. And guess what: Mitt ain't playing Bogey.CShttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05845990796123779860noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-11020751.post-24052419932230786942012-03-14T09:43:00.001-04:002012-03-14T09:43:20.056-04:00Once again, it's been a while.I might try another crack at keeping this blog going. I have many good memories of the years past when I began writing in order to avoid writing things I was supposed to write.<br />
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It's a good season. Politics are going to be front and center for the next 8 months, and we have a ridiculous Republican field that will all but assure Barack Obama (or as their base likes to say, Barack Hussein Obama) remains President until 2016. What can we do to work on Obama so that the second term doesn't turn out like the first?<br />
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Don't get me wrong: Obama was a far better choice than McCain, and his administration has accomplished some good things, including the watered-down health care law. Only fools thought he was the Messiah (although that seems to be the dominant trope among disgruntled conservatives, who seem to think that everyone who voted for Obama did so because they thought he walked on water), and I for one take him to be pretty much what gets elected on the Democratic side these days: moderate corporate-friendly candidates. It's a sad state of affairs when Obama can be branded "anti-business" because he wants businesses to conduct affairs honestly and not sell products (financial or otherwise) to the public under false pretenses.<br />
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Guantanamo is still open. We still think propping up a corrupt puppet regime in Afghanistan is worthwhile (not an easy one there: we certainly don't need it to return to the failed state of twenty years ago or the Taliban nutcase state it was ten years ago). Obama, like Bush, seems to think that more surveillance, including Obama's authorization of drones in U.S. airspace, is the answer to some hideous question. <br />
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In other words, there's work to do.<br />
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Of the Republican hopefuls, Mitt Romney is the only one who isn't completely nuts. American Taliban Rick Santorum may play well in states that rank in the bottom for education, but most Americans aren't interested in ecclesiastic government. Newt Gingrich...well, what can you say about Newt that can't be summed up in the term "batshit crazy"? Speaking of which, Ron Paul, the man who nearly always comes in last but whose supporters think he's being ignored by the news media, is still out there, howling at the moon and spinning stories out of Hollywood conspiracy movies. Talk to Ron Paul supporters for a while and you will understand the psychology of both serial killers and despots. They are utterly convinced that they are correct about everything and the only reason more people (or "sheeple" as they like to say) don't know it is because of massive conspiracies by the government, the media, and establishment parties (and if you scratch hard enough...Jews).<br />
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Romney will eventually be the nominee, Obama will eventually be reelected, and what will actually matter the most is what happens in Congress.<br />
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Good luck.CShttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05845990796123779860noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-11020751.post-42148128604841338832012-01-11T02:11:00.001-05:002012-01-11T02:11:16.730-05:00Dispatches from the asylumAs expected, New Hampshire went solidly for Romney, with two libertarians placing and showing. The race's social conservatives didn't fare to well (although if you count Ron Paul's racism as social conservatism, you could say that certain types of social conservatism are still acceptable to the New Hampshire electorate). The tenor of the race will change considerably when the candidates head into traditionally backwards South Carolina, where clear thought is generally seen as anti-American, and who better to know anti-American than the state that started a war with America.<br />
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You have to wonder how Ron Paul's flavor of politics will play in South Carolina. On the one hand, he hates the government that he's served in for about half his life, so that's a plus. On the other hand, he's a staunch isolationist who doesn't believe in crusading American Empire, which won't play well with those who think we're in a clash of civilizations.<br />
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A few months ago, Rick Perry may have done well in South Carolina, but his campaign is such a painful thing to watch that even his base surely must have weighed their options and realized that Santorum is actually a more coherent candidate. You know you're in trouble when you make Rick Santorum seem like the better candidate.<br />
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Speaking of Santorum, I think it's good that he and the others stay in the race as long as possible, bruising Romney and letting the general public see the wackiness that passes for Republican thought. It's a narrow rainbow, but it's very vibrant, from <a href="http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2012/01/05/rick-santorum-homosexuality-man-on-dog_n_1187103.html">Santorum's musings on "man on dog" sex</a> to <a href="http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/therootdc/post/ron-pauls-view-on-institutional-racism-surprises-gop-at-the-new-hampshire-debate/2012/01/10/gIQAlEAdoP_blog.html">Ron Paul's cloud cuckoo land dreaming</a>.CShttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05845990796123779860noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-11020751.post-34504580350227966192012-01-04T01:25:00.000-05:002012-01-04T01:25:13.598-05:002012. Can you smell it yet?I am so absolutely delighted in the opening of Primary Season with the wacky Iowa Caucuses. Iowa is the heartland, which is more a concept than a reality, since Iowa is more cornfield than courthouse, whose demographics hardly reflect the United States. Yet Iowa occupies all the pre-game maneuvering of the party out of power, as candidate after candidate traipses through as many crossroads towns as he or she can in order to folksy it up in diners, hotels, and auditoriums. At the end of the election season, in November's general election, Iowa will give its victor a scant 6 electoral votes out of the necessary 270. To paraphrase Mark Twain, Iowa maintains its political importance in our nation due to a fiction of law and custom. <br />
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In 2008, Iowa voters enthused over Mike Huckabee, whose main charm seemed to be that he was a Christian, which in American politics is hardly a shocker, even if many holier than thou professing Christians like to believe they're an oppressed minority. So Huckabee left Iowa voters enthused that the 44th President of the United States could possibly be a Christian, unlike the 42 others before him (Grover Cleveland, as the only President to server two non-consecutive terms, gets counted twice). Republican primary voters -- primary voters of political parties being the standard-bearers of the party's ideology -- have been clamoring for a return to what they call basic American values since a bunch of race traitors in Washington signed the Civil Rights Act in 1964. Iowans are good people, but we are talking about Republican primary voters here, so we're naturally talking of people who have a natural distrust of reason and a basic belief that we are all one America and if your vision of America is different than theirs, then you are at best a fool and at worst a treasonous dog.<br />
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In 2012, Iowa's Republicans seem to have handed the winner's cup to both Rick Santorum and Mitt Romney, with Ron Paul finishing a very close third. It would have been interesting to see what would have happened had Paul and Santorum not split the nutcase vote, or Michele Bachmann not claimed the better portion of the raging nutcase vote. Romney, the only candidate in the Republican field who resembles an earth creature, managed to use Iowa as a platform to look Presidential, rarely descending into the fray generated by his competitors. The big surprise is Santorum, a truly clueless oaf whose charisma kept him in the race. In fact, if you could combine Romney's relative moderation with Santorum's fervent yet personable approach, the Republicans would probably have a clear frontrunner and a viable challenger to Obama. Santorum, as co-winner of the Iowa Caucuses, gives his campaign a huge boost, but now he must leave homogenous Iowa behind for the meaner streets of a slightly less homogenous New Hampshire, where social conservatism doesn't play as strong a role among primary voters.<br />
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If one thing is clear after tonight's vote it's that no viable Republican candidate has connected with the voters, because Santorum is as unelectable as Paul and his strong showing -- along with Paul's -- might keep the campaign offices going in the other states, but will be nothing but a godsend to Barack Obama. Rick Santorum -- a candidate so dogmatic that Pennsylvania voters unceremoniously dumped him by 18 percentage points in favor of Bob Casey, Jr. (himself a true marvel for his ability to walk and talk without appearing to have a frontal lobe) -- may be a homophobe, an intolerant zealot, and a punchline to a Google search, but Iowa has propelled him to the front page and validated his campaign.<br />
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Iowa does love Santorum. CShttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05845990796123779860noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-11020751.post-36241217619689732732011-11-10T12:02:00.001-05:002011-11-10T12:02:20.192-05:00The uncanny.This Saturday Penn State takes the field for the first time since 1949 without Paterno as a member of the coaching staff. The trustees made the right decision in removing him immediately from the team. However, for any Penn Stater under 50, the sight of a Paterno-less sideline (or press box recently...Jay doesn't count) will be a melancholy curiosity.<br />
<br />
I grew up in the heart of Penn State country and remember the epic battles between Pitt's Jackie Sherrill and Penn State's Paterno. Between Alabama's Bear Bryant and Penn State's Joe Paterno. Between Notre Dame's Faust (sorry) and Penn State's Paterno. Since those coaches were at their respective schools, Pitt has had 7 coaches (not counting interim or hired but never coached), Alabama has had 7 coaches (again, not counting hired but never coached), and Notre Dame has had 5 coaches (again, not counting hired but never coached).<br />
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It's going to be a very odd experience.CShttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05845990796123779860noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-11020751.post-38321216349081885682011-11-08T14:35:00.000-05:002011-11-08T14:35:01.214-05:00Sad.Busy dealing with the Penn State scandal right now.<br />
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Eight victims in the indictment and a possible ninth coming forward. There will be more. What a horrific experience for them. <br />
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Absolutely devastated. It's going to be a clean sweep in the football program, and one hell of a sad way for Joe Paterno to go, but there's no arguing he bears moral responsibility for not seeing that his longtime coach -- although retired when Paterno allegedly first heard of the issue -- face criminal charges sooner. Absolutely inexcusable.<br />
<br />
There's no way you can do any less knowing the leadership allowed a predator to continue his abuse for at least a decade after knowing what he was up to.<br />
<br />
<a href="http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/hard-hits/post/jerry-sandusky-news-shocking-to-this-former-player/2011/11/07/gIQAO7oVvM_blog.html">LaVar Arrington has said it most clearly</a> in terms of the shock, dismay, and anger many PSU alums must feel.CShttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05845990796123779860noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-11020751.post-25505950673529642442011-10-29T23:57:00.004-04:002011-10-29T23:57:40.890-04:00Recapping college football gameday.I went 7-3 on my predictions. I'm particularly proud of picking the Georgia Tech upset of Clemson, although I got dogged on a few of my Big 10 picks...Michigan State must have sent the squad that played Notre Dame to play Nebraska, because they got skunked in Lincoln. It was a solid performance by the Huskers. In an incredible back and forth finish, Ohio State got the better of Wisconsin. I'm not sure what's happened to Wisconsin, who now seem to have lost their way.<br />
<br />
Penn State won ugly over Illinois. Neither team seemed particularly interested in winning that game, with Penn State turning the ball over 3 times and Illinois giving it up 4 times. The anemic Penn State offense could not capitalize on those turnovers or a blocked punt that gave Penn State the ball deep in Illinois territory. Then, after nearly four quarters of impotence, Penn State's offense put together an 80 yard drive for the game winner. Hard to believe, really.<br />
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I thought Ole Miss would beat Auburn, because even though Ole Miss isn't exactly good, Auburn isn't exactly as good as their ranking would indicate.<br />
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In a bizarre result in a game I didn't even bother noting, Iowa State beat up on Texas Tech, the team that took out Oklahoma last weekend. I mean, Iowa State was 3-4 heading into that game, with their only decent win coming in overtime against Iowa. Since starting the season 3-0, Iowa State had lost four straight to Texas, Baylor, Missouri, and Texas A&M. And none of those games were even close. So their decisive 41-7 thrashing of Texas Tech was fairly surprising.<br />
<br />
Getting back to the Big 10, Penn State is the only team undefeated in league play, and in their division, the Leaders, the next closest teams are Wisconsin and Ohio State, both at 2-2 in league play, and both on Penn State's schedule. Penn State's three remaining games are all big challenges: Nebraska, @Ohio State, and @Wisconsin.<br />
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It looks to be an interesting end to the season.CShttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05845990796123779860noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-11020751.post-9830837387924779172011-10-29T07:54:00.000-04:002011-10-29T07:54:00.227-04:00It only gets better...David Stern has announced that NBA games are now cancelled through the end of November.<br />
<br />
Sure we've endured floods, hurricanes, bizarre snowstorms, and Fox News, but this news makes up for all of that. <br />
<br />
Now there's something to give thanks for this Thanksgiving!CShttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05845990796123779860noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-11020751.post-63169576895306285512011-10-28T22:45:00.002-04:002011-10-28T22:45:52.700-04:00College football preview for this Halloween weekend.Let's take a quick look at the Big 10 matchups this weekend.<br />
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The marquee matchup is probably #11 Michigan State v. #14 Nebraska. After Michigan State's win over Wisconsin last week, they may be in for a let down in Lincoln. However, I think Michigan State wins this one.<br />
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Purdue is at #18 Michigan. I don't know, but Purdue has been surging. I still think that in an offensive shootout, Michigan wins. Especially at the Big House.<br />
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#15 Wisconsin at Ohio State. Ohio State has been struggling. Wisconsin looked unbeatable (at least in the Big 10) until last week. Ohio State's most impressive victory was a 17-7 victory over a flagging Illinois. I think Wisconsin routs Ohio State in the Horseshoe.<br />
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Illinois at #19 Penn State. Illinois had a great season going, but have lost their last two games. Their season is collapsing, and I think Penn State will put another dent in their bowl status.<br />
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In less, exciting games, Iowa v. Minnesota...Minnesota is so unbelievably bad that Iowa will appear to have a well-oiled offense. Look for Minnesota to have incredible difficulty scoring. Iowa in a rout.<br />
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Likewise, Northwestern at Indiana should see a bit more of a high scoring affair by both sides, but Northwestern will outscore Indiana comfortably.<br />
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That does it for the Big 10.<br />
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#9 Oklahoma at #8 Kansas State should be one of the best games of the weekend. I'm thinking Oklahoma rebounds from last week's loss to Texas Tech and hands K-State a real whooping.<br />
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Other than that, the only game of any real interest might be #5 Clemson v. Georgia Tech. G-Tech at home has a chance of toppling Clemson, and I think they'll do it.<br />
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Navy has owned Notre Dame recently, but I think this year Notre Dame clamps down on a team that has yet to win any significant games (Delaware and Western Kentucky are Navy's two wins).<br />
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I also see Ole Miss taking down #23 Auburn. <br />
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I'd like to improve on my record from last week, which shouldn't be too hard.<br />
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<br />CShttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05845990796123779860noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-11020751.post-13281720475046195342011-10-27T10:30:00.000-04:002011-10-27T10:30:52.611-04:00Still no excuses.I'm sure the right-wing readers of the <i>Washington Post</i> -- and there are a surprising many of them, judging from the racist comments on the article discussion boards -- will be wailing about <a href="http://www.washingtonpost.com/sports/redskins/black-fans-have-grown-to-love-the-redskins/2011/10/26/gIQA8q7EKM_story.html?hpid=z2">today's article</a> about Black fans embracing the nearly local NFL franchise, the Laurel Redskins.<br />
<br />
The <i>Post</i> leads by noting the team's racist past, being the last NFL franchise to accept Black players, which essentially means they were forced to integrate because they could no longer afford to exclude a growing pool of skilled players from consideration, and also because the federal government threatened to ban George Preston Marshall's racist ass from using D.C. stadium. Theirs was no crisis of consciousness.<br />
<br />
Missing of course in the <i>Post</i>'s celebration of Black fans coming to love the franchise that excluded them the longest is the fact that the Redskins today maintain the most racist name in professional sports (although the Cleveland Indian's Indian mascot and emblem is easily a far more racist graphic).<br />
<br />
Seriously. The Redskins.<br />
<br />
Why not the Darkies?CShttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05845990796123779860noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-11020751.post-45429250241440884612011-10-24T02:41:00.002-04:002011-10-24T02:41:30.317-04:00On grading.I am wading through student assignments, trying to finalize grades for a half-semester course I've been teaching. It's not my favorite thing in the world, but it's necessary, since apparently students expect grades back for the work they've submitted and the university demands it.<br />
<br />
Who knew?<br />
<br />
I have moved over the years toward rubrics, in part to keep my sanity, but also in part because they give students a fairly clear overview of the areas of emphasis for the paper. No rubric, I've decided, is perfect, but a good rubric can speed the grading process while allowing for reliable grades. Trust me, looking at thirty papers on the same topic without a rubric can be a deadly experience.<br />
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I think many teachers dread grading because the nature of one assignment given to the entire class lends itself to repetitive papers, many of which are close to unreadable. I offer as a perverse proof of this thesis the fact that when you do happen upon a well-constructed paper that has a clear argument and uses direct specific support that actually relates to the argument, you are so overjoyed that you want to tell your colleagues and close family members about it.<br />
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Not too many teachers get into the profession because they love grading or love the idea of being able to assess individuals and control their futures via the power of the letter grade. I know I initially got into the profession through a love of my subject and a desire to talk about it with other people, both colleagues and students.<br />
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Grading is the price we pay to get to do stand in front of a class and ask them what they thought e.e. cummings was up to when he wrote "next to of course god america i."CShttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05845990796123779860noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-11020751.post-90247730898516651052011-10-23T11:18:00.001-04:002011-10-23T11:18:17.481-04:00As predictions go...My NCAA football predictions yesterday were less than stellar. Let's see what I predicted:<br />
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1. PSU v. Northwestern. I weaseled around this game and didn't make a prediction. PSU won.<br />
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2. Wisconsin v. Michigan State. I picked Wisconsin. I picked a solid Wisconsin win. I was wrong. Michigan State was in control most of the game, with Wisconsin mounting a late comeback and nearly getting to overtime. Michigan State's win raises the question, how in the hell did this team lose to Notre Dame?<br />
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3. Speaking of which, I thought Notre Dame would win by two touchdowns over USC. Again, I was wrong. USC won by two touchdowns. I probably should have noted that Syracuse beat #15 West Virginia on Friday, but I didn't actually pay attention to that and seriously undervalued USC's victory over Syracuse. Still, I would have picked ND to beat USC even with that information.<br />
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4. Auburn v. USC. I predicted a major kill by the LSU Tigers, and I at least got that one right.<br />
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5. Texas Tech v. Oklahoma. I thought the Oklahoma offense would keep pace with Texas Tech and the Oklahoma defense would clamp down on the Texas Tech offense. Wrong on both counts, at least until midway through the third quarter, where the Oklahoma defense finally showed a little resistance.<br />
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6. I thought Stanford would stomp Washington, and they did.<br />
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7. I picked FSU to beat Maryland, even though I wish they wouldn't. FSU beat Maryland.<br />
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So I went 3-3, but I'm really puzzling over the games I missed, not so much because I missed them as because it's very difficult to figure these teams out. Notre Dame had looked to be putting together a decent season from the shambles of their first two games, and Oklahoma looked like a machine. As for Michigan State, they're utterly unpredictable, but Wisconsin had been steadily steamrolling opponents.<br />
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In a really bizarre turn, Illinois looks to be in freefall, following up last week's loss to Ohio State with a loss yesterday to Purdue. I can only hope that freefall continues next weekend in Happy Valley, where the Nittany Lions play host to the Illini. <br />
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Penn State and Michigan State are the only two Big 10 teams unbeaten in league play, but I like MSU's victories (Wisconsin, Michigan, Ohio State) more than Penn State's (Indiana, Iowa, Purdue, Northwestern).<br />
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Penn State has a tough final four games: Illinois, Nebraska, @Ohio State, and @Wisconsin.<br />
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I'm predicting a 9-3 regular season.CShttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05845990796123779860noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-11020751.post-8490121476237465862011-10-22T06:48:00.000-04:002011-10-22T06:48:00.766-04:00And now a post about NCAA football.Today looks to be an interesting day in college football.<br />
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In the most important game of the day, Penn State travels to Northwestern in only their third road game of the season. They've beaten Temple and Indiana on the road, but both wins were lackluster performances that resulted in very close games (14-10 and 16-10 respectively) against some very weak opponents (I'll grant that Temple is having a good year at 5-2, but it's still Temple...and Indiana, well, they're 1-6).<br />
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Northwestern is not having a good year at 2-4, but their offense puts up some numbers, whereas Penn State's doesn't. Penn State's defense will have to be on its best behavior, since Penn State's offense is unable to put up numbers against even weak defenses such as Indiana (95th in the nation in defense).<br />
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Penn State has a very good chance of losing four of its next five games. It also has a realistic chance of winning four of its next five games, though, with the one exception being Wisconsin. However, if they drop the game to Northwestern, their odds of winning any of the remaining games goes way down, because of the remaining teams, the weakest is Ohio State, and despite the Buckeyes' woes this year, PSU has a bad habit of crumbling against even mediocre teams from Columbus.<br />
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Also playing this weekend:<br />
<br />
In the Big 10, the only marquee matchup, aside from PSU, is the Wisconsin v. Michigan State game. It'll be played in East Lansing, which I think is really the Spartans' only hope. You have to remember that Michigan State lost to Notre Dame. Big time, 31-13. I don't know if all the MSU players were smoking crack the night before the game, or simply thought the game was later in the day, but somehow they lost to a Notre Dame team that hasn't beaten any other team with a winning record. I predict a dominating Wisconsin performance. Wiscy is the class of the Big 10 this year, the only team that I would say is really ready for a New Years Day bowl.<br />
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In the SEC, Auburn v. LSU could be interesting, but it would be much more interesting if it were being held at Auburn. Auburn was convincingly stomped by Arkansas, and they haven't been impressive in any win. The only hope for Auburn is that LSU is looking past them to Alabama. I predict a major pounding by the Tigers. The LSU Tigers, that is. <br />
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In the Big 12, or what's left of it, Oklahoma v. Texas Tech is the only interesting game, but it's being played in Norman, and Oklahoma is simply a better team. Texas Tech has hung tough against ranked opponents, but it's lost to them, and it's also allowed crappy teams like Kansas and Nevada to hang around, so I'm again predicting a monster stomping by the Sooners.<br />
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In the PAC-10, Washington is at Stanford. Stanford has encountered absolutely no resistance in its 2011 campaign thus far, but then again it hasn't played a single good team (their victims sport a combined 15-25 record), with none of them having a winning record. Washington at least has a winning record at 5-1, their one loss coming to a very respectable Nebraska team. However, Washington can't point to any respectable victories, and I'm going with Stanford in a comfortable blowout.<br />
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In other games, I'd love to see Maryland beat Florida State. I don't think it will happen though, even if Maryland pulls out all stops and wears even more unimaginably hideous uniforms than in previous games this year.<br />
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The USC v. Notre Dame game, which in many years has major bowl implications, is really an afterthought this year. Neither team is ranked, and USC's seemingly impressive 5-1 record is built upon punching bags such as Minnesota (1-5) and Arizona (2-5). Their most impressive win came against Syracuse, whose 4-2 record will most likely be 5-7 by season's end. As for Notre Dame, I've already noted their convincing win against Michigan State and the fact that MSU was the only opponent they've beaten who has a winning record. However, the two teams they've lost to, Michigan and South Florida, are better than any team that USC has beaten. Or even played for that matter. I'm handing this game to Notre Dame, probably by two touchdowns.<br />
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<br />CShttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05845990796123779860noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-11020751.post-26619779955759037342011-10-21T20:00:00.000-04:002011-10-21T20:00:00.886-04:00Still not missing you at all...I love the NBA lockout.<br />
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If any sport could disappear from the American landscape, the one that would do the most good simply to go away would be professional basketball.<br />
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Remember, I'm talking sports here. While it would certainly do our nation a favor to dispense with such activities as auto racing, professional wrestling, MMA, etc., we're talking about sports now.<br />
<br />
The NBA is still deadlocked between greedy-ass owners and pampered athletes, with neither side having any sort of justification for the outrageous sums of money they command. Of course, that fact alone doesn't set them apart from any other professional league. What sets the NBA apart from other leagues is the amount of damage the league does to the sport it supposedly plays.<br />
<br />
Basketball is a beautiful game when played in high school and college. However, in the NBA, the game has been diluted in the interests of "watchability" to the extent that it is substantially different than its feeder system games. In the NFL, the game becomes harder -- two feet must be in bounds on a catch, rather than one, for instance -- but in the NBA it becomes easier: walking is redefined to allow more steps (2) and then is rarely enforced.<br />
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The NBA court should be, if not longer, then wider than NCAA courts. Already the NBA game resembles a pick up game in converted church basement or school cafeteria, with the players too big for the court.<br />
<br />
However, the major problem with the NBA is the awful effect it has upon its viewers, who seem compelled to leave their sofas and migrate to gyms once the season rolls around. Note to all of you: watching the NBA doesn't make you a better player. You don't jump higher, shoot straighter, or play better defense. All the NBA does is teach you bad habits.<br />
<br />
Grabbing my shirt is not defense.<br />
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Sticking your elbows out like you're an old electronic football lineman is not good defense.<br />
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Turning the ball over while you dribble is, believe it or not, a violation.<br />
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While deliberately attempting to draw a charge is bad form in a pickup game, that doesn't give you the right to drive to the basket as if no one is in your way.<br />
<br />
----<br />
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I can only hope the NBA stays off the air.CShttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05845990796123779860noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-11020751.post-8645476826716643242011-10-21T08:37:00.001-04:002011-10-21T08:37:42.414-04:00Storytime.The Republican Party certainly has no monopoly on scoundrels and liars, but it's always nice to be reminded that they do seem to have the most shameless scoundrels and liars. Now Marco Rubio's family story of his parents fleeing Cuba in the wake of Castro's liberation of the island from decades of U.S.-backed business friendly dicatatorship (alas, only to see it founder into a state with about as much freedom of expression, if a more equitable distribution of income, than the one it replaced) turns out to be a big fat lie.<br />
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Apparently, <a href="http://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/marco-rubios-compelling-family-story-embellishes-facts-documents-show/2011/10/20/gIQAaVHD1L_story.html?hpid=z2">Rubio's parents have immigration papers from 2.5 years before Castro's takeover</a> of Cuba. <br />
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Not terribly concerned about having been caught in a lie, Rubio retreated into the "family lore" and "I didn't carry around their passports" weaseling that's so familiar to anyone who follows political liars. In other words, he built pathos for his campaign and solidarity with his community around a story he simply made up. The defense that perhaps his parents didn't remember correctly would appear incredibly unconvincing to all but the most stalwart ignoramus. We aren't talking about what day you dropped off your dry cleaning here; we're talking about perhaps the single most important event in Cuba's 20th century history coupled with a relatively major decision to leave the land of your birth for another country. To put it in perspective, I may not remember whether I bought a pair of shoes before or after September 11, 2001, but I can sure as hell tell you where I was living.<br />
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He took advantage of the Cuban exile community's trust in his origin story and duped them into thinking he, too, was a product of forced exile, rather than choice. Hell, Castro wasn't even in Cuba when Rubio's parents bid farewell to the island that he cynically claims they were forced to leave.<br />
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An even uglier side to this story appears to be the cropping up of yet more "birther" bullshit from those who want to make hay of the fact that Rubio's parents weren't officially U.S. citizens when Marco Rubio was born. So what? He was born in the U.S. and that's good enough to make him a citizen. Rubio may be an opportunistic liar, but he's one of ours still.CShttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05845990796123779860noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-11020751.post-55265661247453583992011-10-18T10:18:00.000-04:002011-10-18T10:18:15.757-04:00The Washington Post: If you don't get it, sometimes you write for it.Anne Applebaum has <a href="http://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/what-the-occupy-protests-tell-us-about-the-limits-of-democracy/2011/10/17/gIQAay5YsL_story.html?hpid=z2">a piece in today's Post</a> that goes a long way toward highlighting the real problem of the supposed "liberal media": they stop at corporate liberalism and think that they represent the limits of rational thinking.<br />
<br />
In her critique of the protests, which utilizes the now dominant trope of mainstream media both right and center (there is no left mainstream media) that the protesters "don't have a program/don't know what they want," Applebaum believes the protesters, by exercising their rights under our democracy, are in fact undermining democracy. It's a profoundly conservative argument that usually comes from knee-jerk reactionaries and those who think that anyone who protests inequality in America should "see what it's like in [name your third world dictatorship]," as though those are models we really aspire to.<br />
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It's essentially a lack of vision. Applebaum cannot see around her belief in theoretical democracy to understand the critique is leveled at a gamed system, a democracy that unfortunately has come to resemble more and more, as V.I. Lenin put it a century ago, a "political shell for capitalism" (<i>State and Revolution</i> 14). Applebaum actually -- and in proof of what many a deconstructionist might argue -- admits what she can't admit, recognizing in the Occupy movement a coherent message that the process is broken: "national democracy cannot command the allegiance of a billion-dollar
global hedge fund, with its headquarters in a tax haven and its
employees scattered around the world," she writes, but she simply can't sustain the critique, because that would call into question all the "economic and spiritual benefits" of globalization (I assume she alludes to her ability to purchase cheaply the products of child/slave/prison labor and her ability to take those products with her to a spiritual retreat in some ancient ruins).<br />
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Unable to think beyond the boundaries of our corporatized democracy, Applebaum retreats, after throwing a gratuitous dig at the Occupy movement's claims of solidarity with and affinity to Arab Spring, into a laughable conclusion:<br />
<blockquote>
“Global” activists, if they are not careful, will accelerate that
decline. Protesters in London shout,“We need to have a process!” Well,
they already have a process: It’s called the British political system.
And if they don’t figure out how to use it, they’ll simply weaken it
further. </blockquote>
One could have said as much about the American colonists. They also "already had a process," it it also was called the "British political system." The fact of a process's existence isn't the point. Serial killers "have a process." The issue is whether the process works.<br />
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<span style="font-size: x-small;">Lenin, V.I. <i>State and Revolution</i>.1917. New York: International Publishers, 1932. Lenin does a fairly good job of describing our current situation: "A democratic republic is the best possible political shell for capitalism, and therefore, once capital has gained control [...] of this very best shell, it establishes its power so securely, so firmly that <i>no</i> change, either of persons, or institutions, or parties in the bourgeois republic can shake it" (14).</span><br />
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<br />CShttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05845990796123779860noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-11020751.post-35886353590293150652011-10-11T07:07:00.001-04:002011-10-11T07:07:34.868-04:00No harm, no foul.The cancelation of the first two weeks of the NBA season is great news, because it will keep armchair athletes off the courts for at least that long. You can always tell when the NBA starts up by the sudden influx of no-talent ballers, looking like little caricatures of their NBA counterparts, wearing replica jerseys and sporting two inch verticals.<br /><br />Let's save basketball by canceling the rest if the season as well.cshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14117846384130187926noreply@blogger.com0