Addressing Political Captive Audiences

Oregon--Clatsop County in particular--has become a place of strange penumbras and emanations.

Imagine a place where an employer couldn't require certain things of his employee. Especially, religious belief.

Or, rather, anything, including religious belief.

Nope. Not yet.

Christian belief.

Let's think this out.

I'm a Christian. I have a small business that makes widgets. I make all the widgets the market demands, and at the current level of demand I make a fairly good living. I could stop there.

That is, after all, the dream of Obama.

But I wish to help others in addition to myself. I have a Christian belief. I believe in the admonition of the Church and seek out others who may need my assistance. I teach them to "fish." (That is, "fish" is a metaphor. Metaphor is a difficult word for some, so look it up on the intertubes.)

I have a cottage industry. Cottage industries are cool, because the word "cottage" is cool. Next time I start a company, I'm going to call it "Cottage Industries, LLC." And gain the support and succor of important people, like Obama.

But, I have a cottage industry. I'm working alone, suffering the ebb and flow of the market for my widgets, labouring hour after hour to create and produce the best possible widget that I may.

Through dint of industry and effort, the demand of my widgets exceeds my ability to produce the widgets demanded by my customers. The edict carries forward, that since I am not a reliable source of widgets, others--my customers--are looking for a source of widgets (while not as good as mine) that are available in sufficient supply and of consistent quality to make their availability a greater value than that of the greater quality value of my production of widgets. That is, you can make the best widgets in the world, but if they aren't available in great enough quantity, the widget you make really has no value. A hard lesson in the real world. But, let us remember, never make the good the enemy of the perfect.

What has actually occurred, though, is that I have been challenged to produce more of my widgets. If I am able to produce more of my widgets, with the quality of the widgets I produce secure, I am assured greater sales. Several things become apparent to me.

One, I must invest more into my production capacity.

Two, if I am unable to increase the production capacity of my current process without increasing the amount of labour I'm able to provide, I must hire additional labour.

Three, if I am going to continue to produce a product of the same impeccable quality that I have been producing, I'm going to have to ensure that I am able to control both the quality of inputs and the quality of product.

And I, as the owner of this business, believe that adherence to Faith in Christ is the reason for my success.

The State of Oregon has outlawed the reason for my success.

The State of Oregon has placed my faith in Christ on the same level as pornography.

The State of Oregon has decided, and upon the judgement of Judge Mosman stated, that there is no apparent harm from banning discussion of religion or politics in the workplace.

Oregon has some weirdness to it. It's okay for pornography to exist. It's a case of free speech. But talk about the consequences of unionization or the benefits of religion, and it's a crime.

Pretty cool, huh?

Oh, and some rilly, rilly smart guys from Yale put this together. See, it's only "partisan" if you disagree with teh Elite. Simply wanting to help a guy, who promises to apply his Christian beliefs to the product you're making, isn't sufficient.

If you have a heartfelt belief in yourself and your product, and wish to help others, you may wish to help those with whom you share beliefs. And many, if not most, religious people find ways to support those who share their religious views. In my opinion, most small companies are formed this way; finding people who share your beliefs, coming together in common cause. The state has never before had the right to discern which beliefs were copacetic. The First Amendment of the Constitution forbad such action.

And now we're finding out that in Oregon, we do things differently.

Oregon Porn Deux: Volokh's Conspiracy

In an earlier post, I noticed that the decision of a court was wrongly decided.

Law is as much an application of what has come before as is any intelligent field of endeavour. The application of the law has been much noted throughout our history. It is not a child without a father.

U.S. District Court Judge Michael Mossman has totally neglected established constitutional law in his decision in

ASSOCIATED OREGON INDUSTRIES and CHAMBER OF COMMERCE OF THE UNITED STATES OF AMERICA
v.
BRAD AVAKIAN, Commissioner of the Oregon Bureau of Labor and Industries, and LABORERS' INTERNATIONAL UNION OF NORTH AMERICA, LOCAL NO. 296

When I wrote on this decision on May 10th, the decision wasn't available online. It is instructive to read "DISCUSSION". (.pdf)

"The court's "role is neither to issue advisory opinions nor to declare rights in hypothetical cases, but to adjudicate live cases or controversies consistent with the powers granted the judiciary in Article III of the Constitution." Thomas v. Anchorage Equal Rights Comm'n, 220 F.3d 1134, 1138 (9th Cir. 2000)."

Judge Mosman has it wrong. Dead w-r-o-n-g.

Judge Mosman has introduced a child of law without a father.

The father is here.

Name One Evil the Government Has Ended

Please.

Comments are welcome, below.

Of Course, I Blame Bush

HDT

It is not a man's duty, as a matter of course, to devote himself to the eradication of any, even the most enormous wrong; he may still properly have other concerns to engage him; but it is his duty, at least, to wash his hands of it, and, if he gives it no thought longer, not to give it practically his support. If I devote myself to other pursuits and contemplations, I must first see, at least, that I do not pursue them sitting upon another man's shoulders. I must get off him first, that he may pursue his contemplations too. See what gross inconsistency is tolerated. I have heard some of my townsmen say, "I should like to have them order me out to help put down an insurrection of the slaves, or to march to Mexico; — see if I would go"; and yet these very men have each, directly by their allegiance, and so indirectly, at least, by their money, furnished a substitute. The soldier is applauded who refuses to serve in an unjust war by those who do not refuse to sustain the unjust government which makes the war; is applauded by those whose own act and authority he disregards and sets at naught; as if the state were penitent to that degree that it hired one to scourge it while it sinned, but not to that degree that it left off sinning for a moment. Thus, under the name of Order and Civil Government, we are all made at last to pay homage to and support our own meanness. After the first blush of sin comes its indifference; and from immoral it becomes, as it were, unmoral, and not quite unnecessary to that life which we have made.

Binding Prometheus

Monarch of Gods and Dæmons, and all Spirits
But One, who throng those bright and rolling worlds
Which Thou and I alone of living things
Behold with sleepless eyes! regard this Earth
Made multitudinous with thy slaves, whom thou
Requitest for knee-worship, prayer, and praise,
And toil, and hecatombs of broken hearts,
With fear and self-contempt and barren hope.
Whilst me, who am thy foe, eyeless in hate,
Hast thou made reign and triumph, to thy scorn,
O'er mine own misery and thy vain revenge.
Three thousand years of sleep-unsheltered hours,
And moments aye divided by keen pangs
Till they seemed years, torture and solitude,
Scorn and despair, — these are mine empire: —
More glorious far than that which thou surveyest
From thine unenvied throne, O Mighty God!
Almighty, had I deigned to share the shame
Of thine ill tyranny, and hung not here
Nailed to this wall of eagle-baffling mountain,
Black, wintry, dead, unmeasured; without herb,
Insect, or beast, or shape or sound of life.
Ah me! alas, pain, pain ever, for ever!

A couple of articles have kept me from writing recently. One is from a professor at University of Washington, whose work I admire. The other is from the editor for my alma mater’s alumni association newsletter. Both are disturbing articles, both unintentionally.

The professor from the U of W is a man by the name of Cliff Mass. I have a link to his website on this page. If you want to learn something about the weather, you’d do well to visit this man’s website from time to time. What drew me to his place originally was a reference I’d found about the way math was being taught, and was being talked about being taught in the school districts of northern Washington. If you’ve read deeply in this place, you know how much I rely upon apodictic argument. There is knowledge, and that the basis of knowledge is the discovery of those things which we know to be true, which allows us to develop, or infer, thought through a process that is perhaps best defined as stochastic, and is one of the mainstays of actualizing one’s own human potential.

This post is an admission of intellectual weakness. It would be much preferred to assert complete knowledge of all things, and to relegate the matter of inference to lesser mortals. This weakness of mine—which from time to time I assert as intellectual honesty—requires me to admit that there are a great many things that I assert as being appropriate for action at certain times as being more a guess at what is appropriate, than as a reflection of prior belief in which I knew what actions were to be appropriate, as a result of my complete knowledge of all things. There are values that I believe in, and values which I have attempted to hand down to my sons. The most important of these beliefs is my reliance upon tolerance of views that differ with mine. Since I do not have the omniscient prerogative, I labour under the stochastic assumptions which we all must labour, and I think it is important for us to allow as to how our particular views or beliefs might be, from time to time, wrong.

The need to act, the need to lead, the need to make decisions in the face of crises, all of these needs are real and of relative importance to society as our role, as individual players within that society, is elevated. Those of us who choose to live at the lowest level of importance to society may have the least amount of worry about the correctness of their stochastic criticism of the world’s problems that lay around them. The most apathetic of us may have the greatest amount of grievance, but given this indifference, those who seek to make no real solution for their own problems are forgiven that indifference by the modern popular culture when the indifference of the elite matches or exceeds the indifference of the indifferent. But, does simply having a grievance create a claim against others. No. I am not indifferent, how ever widely regarded indifference may be valued today. Which we learn if we read the classics.

In the matter of Professor Mass’s website, the disturbing aspect of his web space was not so much that he violated, or violates, the dicta I maintain are important for rigorous, critical thinking, on its face. Rather, it is that he allows his space to be populated by the type of thinking, evidenced by comments there, which are encouraged by the lack of responsibility from him to those who hold such opinions.

“I agree wholeheartedly that global warming is merely one symptom of a much larger problem--too many humans. And yes, I include myself as part of the problem.”

“And special thanks for mentioning the (mostly) taboo subject of human overpopulation as a major causative factor.”

“Why would we as a race want to continue to blindly (and at a frantic pace) consume the resources that are necessary for the survival of our race?”

“When I was growing up in the 60's there was a lot more discussion of Zero Population Growth.”

“Since it seems clear that an economy that depends on continual growth will result in the eventual destruction of most the world's natural ecosystems, the continued pursuit of that growth is not rational but just something that was selected for in humans and now will cause our demise.”

“The climate debate changes if you say "What is the outlook for human beings for the next million years?”

“PI cartoonist David Horsey had a great "Gaia Speaks" cartoon last year, suggesting that Mother Gai is about to banish us from the planet for our environmental sins, and as Cliff and other commenters are saying, it's not just our "carbon footprint" and global warming, but many other factors based on overpopulation, plastics in the ocean, sound pollution of our wilderness areas, coal mines stripping summits off of Appalachian peaks (and killing many underground, as last week...)”

“The people you mention did nothing to even make a dent in the rate of population increase let alone cause a reduction.”

“The next step is to undermine the authority of people who have done the work to have an informed opinion as being too "ivory tower" and throwing around accusations of elitism.”

Far be it from me to ever accuse anyone in the academy as falling under the shadow of accusation of elitism. Professor Mass’s problem isn’t a sincere view that things are changing in the world. He simply attempts to assert causation to things outside of his control, hence admonishes the rest of us to create control over things that are changing in the world. If only that shoe could fit. Or, if we were to have a shoe, to find a foot that fits the shoe we’re holding in our hand.

“Mankind needs to adapt so that we can live with our planet in the long haul...and we are not doing it.”

This should be a chilling message to anyone who cares about seeing things the way they are instead of as how they see fit to see.

Adaptation. Given the academy, it is silly to think, almost blasphemous to think that after spending millions if not billions of dollars on academic research we should find that much of what we spent those dollars on were, a priori, ridiculous expenditures. We are paying academics money to solve problems that are unsolvable. His statement, “Mankind needs to adapt so that we can live with our planet in the long haul...and we are not doing it” is highly revealing. In the brief span of time that humans have populated the Earth, I can’t think of a single thing other than adapting to the planet that exists. Perhaps in the world of the elite there is a Promethean man that can bring fire to the rest of us. I always viewed the role of Prometheus in literature to be more a paean to those who seek to escape the domination of the elite, rather than as a recipe for servitude to an elite. There is a great deal in the modern lexicon about the need for us to become “stake-holders” rather than citizen, part of a community, rather than exist solely for our own, human, individualism. It would be interesting for us to get a take on Prometheus’s reaction for his time spent on the rocks.

Man as Prometheus is an interesting model. Members of the academy seeing in their mirrors something approaching Promethean are, I’m afraid, a much too common occurrence. I, in my brief time at what was and is known as a mere “cow college,” was subjected to too many members of the academy who saw their time spent with their students as pearls of wisdom being cast to their needy apostles. (And needy apostles who were too often simple sycophants.) It is difficult to come between a mother’s teat and her brood. There are members of the academy who view themselves as Promethean in their lives, their struggles, and their enemies. It is not too much to suggest that an academic might be able to find a way to avoid the suggested terrors of climate change. Many of the errors of the academy exist from a certain hubris, that begins with the idea of having special training and erudition that leads to solving “great problems.” The academy aspires to solve and resolve great problems. Especially, when the starting point of the argument is that “Mankind needs to adapt so that we can live with our planet in the long haul...and we are not doing it.” (Cliff Mass.) A statement of a great problem and only the academy is in position, through merit and training, to tackle the eminent threats posed by great problems.

Thanks, Perfesser. The simple thousands of years spent in nomadic existence, building cities and towns, then nations, were clearly wasted. Our lack of adaptability is expressed clearly with shortened life spans, lack of polio vaccines and cell phones.

Technology and productivity have allowed us, in the United States, to achieve the highest standard of living ever experienced in history. The naysayers, which have lived with us always, have recently introduced into the modern day lexicon, the word “sustainability.” A word that didn’t exist forty years ago. We had sustainable. Even non-sustainable. But “sustainability”? Nope. And no one wanted sustainability as a capstone to modern economic effort. I can think of hundreds of technologies, products, services which haven’t been sustained over the course of the last hundred years. Same is true if we only think back forty or fifty years. More, if you’re dealing in highly technical fields where stupid is discovered more quickly.

Why we would ever want to adopt sustainability as a policy goal of a government is way beyond me. I’m just not that smart to know what technologies we will want to have in ten years, let alone an hundred. And calcifying our economic system to defend technologies and products of today, in order to insure their sustainability in the future, seems too much a fool’s errand. Relying upon yesterday’s snapshot of the economy for determining the size, shape and capacity of our economy fifty years hence is as ridiculous as relying upon yesterday’s weather radar pictures for determining the climate fifty years from now. And yet, that is simply what the elite are attempting to do.

This is why I believe the academy should be doing a better job than that which they seem to be doing today.

What is the role of the academy?

I believe the role of the academy is to impart the basics of the core of belief of the sciences of that school; that the role of the individual schools within the academy is to provide a basic model of that school that allows its graduates to move into the world of business and the arts with a sound grounding in the fundamentals of that school’s basic tenants. Unfortunately, I believe that the academy in too many instances is working at cross purpose to itself. But I didn’t come across Professor Mass’s website because of the general failure of the academy. Just one college of the academy; the worst collision in the academy is that which is exemplified by the College of Education.




This is the answer sheet from Professor Mass’s Earth and Space Sciences 102.

This is what led me to Professor Mass’s website and allowed me to become a fan of his work. Students coming to the university were unprepared for acceptance to that university. Those teachers that the academy has been spewing for decades are unable—or simply incompetent—at providing prepared students for the university experience. The academy which provides us our K-12 teachers has failed. Our K-12 schools have and are continuing to fail. There is no excuse for a high school graduate not being able to score a perfect result on this exam. Our public schools have become the repository of mediocrity. And Professor Mass’s criticism of the academy for failing its principle client, the public schools, is exacerbated by the K-12 practitioners’ insistence upon providing more grotesquery in the form of poor math books for its students.

How is it that stupidity is created within the academy “…with thy slaves, whom thou Requitest for knee-worship, prayer, and praise, And toil, and hecatombs of broken hearts, With fear and self-contempt and barren hope”?

I believe it is the assumption and coronation of normative values as the goal of the process, rather than rely upon the objective value of knowledge, inference and testing. In the first case, we see the poor. We see being poor as being not as good (or at least as not well off) as being rich, and therefore the policies that we follow under normative rules must work to give to the poor those things that differentiate them from the rich. By eliminating the differences in wealth, we have solved the problem of poorness. If only we had seen with such cool precision the elegance implicit with socialism! The problem, of course, is that of Richard the Third’s nail. It might be that a nail was the cause of poor Richard’s demise. Or, it could be that there were other conditions afoot that led to the fall of the Plantagenets. That the loss of a nail was not, in itself, sufficient to cause the fall of the House of Plantagenet.

It is the lack of sufficiency of the normative argument that underscores most of what attempts to pass itself off as “education” when heavily laden with criterion larded with normative values.

Must we re-distribute wealth in order to effect the goal of ending poverty? The current regime says, yes. The problem I have with the solution is that the solution must not work, and that its lack of effect is the first noticeable characteristic of wealth re-distribution, and yet staring into the face of the reality of wealth re-distribution’s failure is not sufficient for the normative advocate to take a step back, and re-think the causative factors in determining someone’s wealth. How much wealth must be re-distributed before the differences in wealth are ameliorated? How often must we redress the differences in wealth before the normative agenda is achieved? How long must one be the recipient of wealth re-distribution before this redress of difference takes effect upon the wealth producing potential or capacity of the much vaunted recipient?

Or, does the normative philosopher simply create a permanent underclass?

If home-ownership were a key to developing wealth and self-esteem, how does the recent collapse in sub-prime mortgages support the efforts of the normative values holder to achieve success in the stated goal of freeing these members of the underclass from the degradations of living in a home rented from someone else? If receiving welfare payments frees the recipient from the negative impacts of poverty, where is the concomitant increase in that former poor person’s ability to work or create wealth? If the purpose of this wealth re-distribution is to free the recipient from the chains of poverty, where is the evidence that the nation is wealthier as a result of this re-distribution, rather than poorer? Freed from the chains of poverty, where is the creative impulse unleashed from the oppression of the tyrant?

To suffer woes which Hope thinks infinite;
To forgive wrongs darker than death or night;
To defy Power, which seems omnipotent;
To love, and bear; to hope till Hope creates
From its own wreck the thing it contemplates;
Neither to change, nor falter, nor repent;
This, like thy glory, Titan, is to be
Good, great and joyous, beautiful and free;
This is alone Life, Joy, Empire, and Victory.

It is simply misdirection. We have confused doing good with sound policies for a nation’s economy. We have replaced the obligation of providing a level playing field for economic activity with a leveling of the playing field for economic results. These may seem, at first blush, to be same in terms of outcomes. But they are not. It is not the equal distribution of the bread that creates the bread.

Once upon a time, a little red hen lived in a small cottage. She
worked hard to keep her family fed. One day, when the little red hen
was out walking with her friends, the goose, the cat, and the pig, she
found a few grains of wheat.

“Who will help me plant this wheat?” asked the little red hen.

“Not I,” said the goose, “I’d rather swim in the pond.”

“Not I,” said the cat, “I’d rather sleep on the hay.”

“Not I,” said the pig, “I’d rather lie in the mud.”

“Then I’ll do it myself,” said the little red hen. And she did.

Time went by and the wheat grew, but so did the weeds.

“Who will help me pull the weeds?” asked the little red hen.

“Not I,” said the goose, “I’d rather swim in the pond.”

“Not I,” said the cat, “I’d rather sleep on the hay.”

“Not I,” said the pig, “I’d rather lie in the mud.”

“Then I’ll do it myself”, said the little red hen. And she did.

All summer the wheat grew taller and taller. It turned from brown
to golden amber. And, at last, it was time to harvest the wheat.

“Who will help me harvest the wheat?” asked the little red hen.

“Not I,” said the goose, “I’d rather swim in the pond.”

“Not I,” said the cat, “I’d rather sleep on the hay.”

“Not I,” said the pig, “I’d rather lie in the mud.”

“Then I’ll do it myself,” said the little red hen. And she did.

At last, the wheat was harvested and put into a large sack, ready
to be taken to the mill to be ground into flour.

“Who will help me take the wheat to the mill?” asked the little
red hen.

“Not I,” said the goose, “I’d rather swim in the pond.”

“Not I,” said the cat, “I’d rather sleep on the hay.”

“Not I,” said the pig, “I’d rather lie in the mud.”

“Then I’ll do it myself,” said the little red hen. And she did.

The next day came and the little red hen was hungry.

“Who will help me bake this flour into bread?” asked the little
red hen.

“Not I,” said the goose, “I’d rather swim in the pond.”

“Not I,” said the cat, “I’d rather sleep on the hay.”

“Not I,” said the pig, “I’d rather lie in the mud.”

“Then I’ll do it myself,” said the little red hen. And she did.

At last, the bread was baked and the little red hen called to her
friends once more.

“Who will help me eat this bread?” asked the little red hen.

“I will,” said the goose.

“I will,” said the cat.

“I will,” said the pig.

“Oh, no you won’t!” said the little red hen. “I found the wheat, I
planted it, I weeded it, and when it was time to harvest it, I did
that too. I took it to the mill to be ground into flour and at last, I
baked it into bread.

“Now,” said the little red hen, “I’m going to eat it with my
family.” And she did.

I will admit to all and any applicable forms of exclusion, recidivism or hate-speech by including the story of the Little Red Hen. The Little Red Hen fails to exhibit the proper respect for our President’s observation that “when you spread the wealth around, it’s good for everybody.” So why be disturbed when he condemns poor Little Red Hen?

It is therefore truly unsurprising that, at a time when attendance at college or a university is being promoted as a right, that at least one university finds itself in a simple conundrum. Being accepted to attend university isn’t the same as being able to succeed at university. How does the university take advantage of the millions of dollars being created by the federal government to provide education opportunities to millions, if you’re stuck on the empirical evidence that the majority of freshman attendees fail to make it to graduation?

Oregon State University has a plan. They are working to make sure that every attendee at university gets a piece of the pie. How to do it? By changing the very nature of the academy.



LIZA [much troubled] I want a little kindness. I know I'm a common ignorant girl, and you a book-learned gentleman; but I'm not dirt under your feet. What I done [correcting herself] what I did was not for the dresses and the taxis: I did it because we were pleasant together and I come-came-to care for you; not to want you to make love to me, and not forgetting the difference between us, but more friendly like. (George Bernard Shaw, Pygmalion, 1913.)

How little to ask. A university that treats its students “more friendly like.” Attend, and you get a piece of the pie. Spread it around, it’s good for everybody.

But whatever you do, don’t look to the universities or the K-12 schools for their failures to prepare teachers and students for the task of having prepared high school graduates to attend university successfully.

“Another problem is that many teachers are ill-prepared by colleges of education to teach math. Many elementary schools teachers have weak math knowledge and large numbers of middle school and high school math teachers do not have degrees in math or technical subjects. And of course the ill-founded reform and discovery math approaches are pushed into their heads. Now these weak teachers could function marginally if they had good textbooks and curriculum, but they don't. And the curriculum and books are so poor that students can't take them home to learn the material on their own or enjoy the assistance of their parents. It would be hard to design a worse system.” (Cliff Mass, “How Good Are UW Students in Math?” Cliff Mass Weather Blog.)

So, what does a formerly respected cow college do in the face of increasing freshman application, and declining freshman ability to succeed? What would you do? How would you respond?

In what is possibly the worst example of altruism, the leadership at Oregon State University has decided that receiving a diploma is a greater good than receiving an education. We are altruistic in our redistribution of wealth, although when we redistribute we have neither goal nor goalpost against which we can measure the results of our altruism. We simply define a craven class and as long as that class exists, we must be committed to transferring our wealth to that class. It’s only fair. Everyone gets a piece of the pie.

From the Oregon Stater, page 2.

“I got a little fired up working on this issue’s cover story about OSU’s efforts to improve student success, helping more freshmen make it all the way through to their diplomas.”

“Susie Brubaker-Cole, who as associate provost for academic success and engagement is leading the quest to help more OSU students succeed and reach their dreams, left me encouraged that the university is attacking the problem with more resolve than ever.

“But I remain troubled by one of the sentiments I encountered along the way. I heard it in different forms from several people, including alumni whose lives were made better by an Oregon State education. Summed up, it goes like this: ‘Isn’t that part of what college is supposed to do, weed out the ones who don’t belong? I made it through; why can’t they?’

“Well, one answer is: Although it’s actually harder than ever to get into Oregon State, more students are arriving ill-prepared for college work at a time when the university’s teaching resources are stretched to the breaking point. That’s not OSU’s fault, but it’s OSU’s problem once the students are here.”

“I was very much an academic weed when I enrolled at Oregon State as a pre-med student, if one accepts the textbook definition of “weed” as something that sprouts where it shouldn’t.

“I had no business being a doctor, which was painfully obvious as soon as I encountered college-level work in the sciences, not to mention calculus, which I still believe is not actually math, but a collection of unfathomable and evil spells signified by strange symbols.”

“Instead they kept repotting me and moving me from one academic greenhouse to another, until they found a major where I bloomed, and I left Corvallis with great passion and a fine education for a vocation that turned out to be my life’s work.

“So let’s can the talk about weeding out people.”

Wow.

There’s more in the article about Susie Brubaker-Cole. But, by all means, let’s quit talking about the academy as a filter. How awful that one isn’t able to achieve ones own, special commencement ceremony. How sad, after spending thousands upon thousands of dollars, simply to find that one didn’t have what one was assured one had, simply by leaving the K-12 public school system. Preparation for the academy.

Solution? Further dilution of the academy. My first reaction to reading this was, okay, Bozo, did you even finish your first chem class? I’m thinking, not. It’s obvious that you didn’t get past trig. Or, if you did, you were one of those guys who thought a C was a ticket to ride.

I’m not going to spend any time talking about grade inflation. If you’re an educated reader, you know already that the academy has decided that the letter grade C is about as low as any student should earn. (Using the Lake Wobegon theorem.)

What value does acceptance to the academy offer, if the value of any degree conferred by the academy is diluted with the kind of “academic weed greenhouse” promoted by the writer above? Does the recipient of a university degree reflect any individual merit, if the goal of the academy is to produce diplomas, instead of scholars?

I’ve written before of my leaving the School of Education when it became apparent that that school was graduating English teachers who couldn’t tell you who their favourite English writer was: math teachers, who couldn’t explain differential equations; science teachers who passed their chemistry classes with C’s.

We’re now witnessing the transformation of the academy into a generalized diploma mill. Because great amounts of money are at stake. Any economist would tell you that the key to markets is to place value on demand, and value on supply. Since public policy has decreed that anyone and everyone should have access to a college degree, the problem of who is suited to the rigour and demands of achieving such a degree has been identified as an objectionable barrier to the public policy goal. (Much like the ability to pay a mortgage payment was deemed inconsequential in the process of determining who should receive a mortgage.)

We aren’t doing any of these demi-academics any favours. We are, instead, further legitimizing mediocrity. Receiving a diploma will become equivalent to receiving citizenship. Just cross the border, and bingo!

Not much of a way to run an academy. But, it does assure an adequate supply of dilettanti acolytes. And when the great normative thinker passes by a mirror, he will able to see his own reflection as it is produced in his work product; almost Promethean.

Under Paul Riser, the goal of the university was to become one of the top engineering and science universities in the nation. Today’s goal? Diploma mill. This from a university that is a land-grand, sea-grant, space-grant and sun-grant institution.

“Socially progressive, effective technological and enterprise solutions occur in a context of social justice, supportive communities, and outlets for creativity and expression. By building a diverse community rich and varied in its talents, OSU seeks to attain excellence and to enrich the human spirit in fields ranging from bioengineering to the visual and performing arts, while capitalizing on its world-class engineering and science programs and its distinctive programs in education for entrepreneurship to responsibly address society's most challenging problems.”

Seeks, with both hands.

A great leap forward.

Lessons From Badfinger

You've got to hand it to our Governor.

Undaunted by huge deficits tracking into the unknown future, "Governor Ted Kulongoski today announced a new Working Agreement with Mitsubishi Motors North America that will continue and build upon the partnership established last year to work with the state toward the development of an electric vehicle charging network and to promote the use of zero-emission vehicles." From the Governor's office :

“Oregon’s goal is to transform the way we fuel our transportation system,” Governor Kulongoski said. “With the continued assistance from our private sector partners, including forward-thinking automakers like Mitsubishi Motors, we can create a reliable charging infrastructure and bring zero-emission vehicles to market for Oregon consumers.”

The Working Agreement renews the Memorandum of Understanding the State of Oregon signed with Mitsubishi in April 2009. The April 2009 partnership with Oregon was Mitsubishi’s first in the United States.

The renewed Working Agreement means that Mitsubishi will continue to be a partner in efforts related to an electric vehicle charging network, including testing along the I-5 corridor, and will support public education efforts to ensure the successful adoption of electric vehicles. The agreement also stipulates that the state and Mitsubishi will take under consideration a price agreement that would allow public vehicle fleets to purchase the i-MiEV at a negotiated cost.

“The partnership with the State of Oregon, and the fleet deployment of i-MiEV’s will help address the infrastructural challenges involved with the successful consumer adoption of EVs,” said Shinichi Kurihara, President and CEO of Mitsubishi Motors North America.

Members of the 2010 Governor’s Business Mission to Asia met with executives from Mitsubishi and test drove the i-MiEV electric vehicle while in Okazaki, Japan.

The i-MiEV went on sale in Japan in July of 2009. The company hopes to have the vehicle ready for purchase in the United States next year in target markets, including Oregon.

Encouraging the use of electric vehicles has been part of Governor Kulongoski’s climate change and transportation agendas during his administration. Under his leadership, the state’s work with the private sector to develop a plan for a network of electric vehicle charging stations has attracted the attention of several car manufactures. In addition to Mitsubishi, those companies include Nissan, Toyota, and BYD.

“Oregon is the premier location in North American for this next generation of vehicles to enter the marketplace,” the Governor continued. “As a people we embrace new technology, innovation and want to create a sustainable future for our state – and we will embrace this new model of transportation and demonstrate to the rest of the nation that moving in this direction is a realistic goal.”

Oregon was also named one of five test markets by the Electric Transportation Engineering Corporation (eTec) that has received nearly $100 million in federal funds to study electric vehicle usage. The project will deploy charging stations and analyze the use of the stations and vehicles to guide widespread adoption throughout the country.

The deployment includes 1,000 public charging stations in Oregon which will be able to be used by any electric vehicle on the market, assisting in the widespread adoption of electric vehicles. Deployment is scheduled to begin later this year.

For a copy of the Working Agreement, click here. (.pdf)



If you want it
Here it is
Come and get it
Make your mind up fast

If you want it
Anytime i can give it
But you better hurry
'cos it may not last

Did i hear you say
That there must be a catch?
Will you walk away
From a fool and his money

If you want it
Here it is
Come and get it
But you better hurry
'cos it's going fast

If you want it
Here it is
Come and get it
Make your mind up fast

If you want it
Anytime i can give it
But you'd better hurry
'cos it may not last

Did i hear you say
That there must be a catch
Will you walk away
From a fool and his money?

Sonny if you want it
Here it is
Come and get it
But you'd better hurry
'cos it's going fast
You'd better hurry
'cos it's going fast

Fool and his money

Sonny if you want it
Here it is
Come and get it
But you'd better hurry
'cos it's going fast
You'd better hurry
'cos it's going fast
You'd better hurry
'cos it's going fast

Taking One For The Team

Not living in the People Magazine world, I have little knowledge of the day-to-day activities of such things as what is going on with the "reality" shows on MTV. I put the Miss USA Pageant on the same type of list. Sure, when my cousin was Miss Teenage Idaho I was all about the pageant. But pageants qua pageantry simply doesn't toggle my on switch.

There have been notable exceptions. The last time I checked, it involved a young lady with the name of Prejean. It seems that another young woman has been "Prejeaned."


If you have any interest in who won the contest, you can zip over to Debbie Schlussel's place and read up.

Isn't it great to find out that a pageant that proclaims itself representative of the best of America's young women makes such wonderfully tolerant and politically correct choices?

Thanks to First Things for the vid.