when the log rolls over September 30, 2008
Posted by KC in life, politics.add a comment
I don’t claim to know much about economics, but I know enough to understand that doing nothing about the current economic crisis would be a huge mistake. I know that people are pissed at Wall Street. I’m pissed, too. But I’m appalled by those who seem to think the best course of action is just to let banks and investors twist in the wind. These statements made by Mitchell Bard on the Huffington Post are typical:
…a big part of me just wishes that Wall Street is left to solve (or not) its own mess. Yeah, I know that people would be hurt, and I would hardly be happy with that. But, again, maybe we would be better off in the long run, with a better understanding of the importance of governing the right way.
There has to be consequences for actions. Without them, a society can’t function. If Congress manages to overcome today’s setback and pass a Wall Street bailout this week, those who have profited from advocating a system that was always destined to implode will, in the end, pay no price for their actions.
Yes, we’d love to hold those fat cats responsible for the reckless way they’ve gambled with our economy, but this idea that “people would be hurt” is a gross understatement. It’s not just bankers and investors who’ll be hurt — it’s everyone. Like it our not, there’s not a clear way to punish Wall Street without punishing ourselves (or our pensions, or 401ks, or whatever).
If, through negligence, your neighbor allowed his house to catch fire, would you stand idly by while it burned to the ground? After all, it’s his own damn fault, right? But what if his house was so close to yours that you were certain that the fire would spread to your own house? Wouldn’t you help him put out the flames then? Wall Street is perhaps closer than you think.
Or, as this dumb campfire story from my youth says, “when the log rolls over, we’ll all be dead.”
Today, Barack Obama made the rather gutsy move of encouraging everyone to support the economic rescue plan that’s having trouble making it through Congress. Maybe we should listen to him. I don’t know if the “bailout” is the best of all possible solutions, but the consequences of doing nothing are simply too terrible to contemplate.
grout expectations September 25, 2008
Posted by KC in life, writing.add a comment
Ever since I moved back to California, I’ve noticed this weird form of public restroom graffiti which involves inscribing puns based on the word “grout” into the grout around tiles. It looks like this:
In case it’s hard to read, from the top clockwise they say “who let the dogs grout,” “the grout gatsby,” and “grout at the devil.” (Unfortunately, I didn’t get the full one on the left, since I wasn’t all that comfortable standing in a public bathroom trying to compose the perfect shot.) The puns depend largely on either substituting “grout” for “great,” as in “grout expectations” or “grout balls of fire,” or substituting “grout” for a rhyme word, such as “for crying grout loud” or “what you talkin’ grout, willis?”
What’s fascinating about this — and I imagine this is the whole point — is the literal inscription of a pun onto the material from which the pun derives. But I also sort of appreciate the pure goofiness of it, the implied rejection of more acerbic or vulgar forms of restroom graffiti.
I’ve seen this only in campus men’s restrooms here in California, so I wonder if this is a regional thing. Or only a men’s room thing. Or only a college campus thing. Or some combination of those. Does this happen elsewhere?
you, sir, are no professor x September 24, 2008
Posted by KC in education, teaching.3 comments
It’s been out for a while now, but I was just recently pointed to a piece in the Atlantic, titled “In the Basement of the Ivory Tower,” in which an adjunct college instructor complains at length, under the pseudonym of “Professor X,” about how “unfit for college” his students are. No, really:
For I, who teach these low-level, must-pass, no-multiple-choice-test classes, am the one who ultimately delivers the news to those unfit for college: that they lack the most-basic skills and have no sense of the volume of work required; that they are in some cases barely literate; that they are so bereft of schemata, so dispossessed of contexts in which to place newly acquired knowledge, that every bit of information simply raises more questions. They are not ready for high school, some of them, much less for college.
I think this perspective is so vile and loathsome, so indicative of a total misunderstanding of the educational enterprise, that it hardly needs comment. However, I got to thinking about this author’s choice of pseudonym.
Professor Charles Xavier.
Art by Aaron Lopresti
You see, this Professor X is all about the “non-traditional” students – in this case, mutants. Perhaps the Atlantic’s “Professor X” also thinks of himself as working with mutants. Here’s how he describes one of his favorite ways of talking about students:
I don’t have cause to use much educational jargon, but deficits has often come in handy. It conveys the seriousness of the situation, the student’s jaw-dropping lack of ability, without being judgmental.
First he’s dismissive about “educational jargon,” and then turns around and uses a term — “deficit” — that no self-respecting educator has used in decades. In what universe is labeling a student as deficient not judgmental? I’d expect the real Professor X (yes, I realize he’s a fictional character, but bear with me) to speak in terms of what his students have, rather than what they lack. I peg the Atlantic’s “Professor X” as more of a Magneto type.
If you don’t believe in the inherent educability of everyone, then perhaps teaching isn’t the best profession for you. I think “Professor X” probably deserves the students he complains about, but his students certainly don’t deserve him.
