There was a nice op-ed in the NY Times the other day by Gail Collins who for my money is the best the NY Times has. She talked about the Democratic Party's attempts at unity and noted that overriding everything is the desire to win: "They want a winner, and most of them are prepared to forgive quite a lot of inconsistency in order to get one."
Count me in. Personally, I can't stand Barack Obama. It doesn't matter. I'll make phone calls for him. I'll vote for him. I won't give the lying s.o.b. a dime of money because he already has fat cats and glazed-eyed acolytes doing that to the tune of 300 million dollars and counting. My money is going to the efforts to create a bigger Democratic majority in both the Senate and the House. But I'll do anything else for Obama even though I think he's a con artist and a swelled-headed jerk.
Did I say I don't like Obama? In terms of personality, I do prefer McCain marginally. And in terms of policy Obama is an empty vessel. As he has noted, people tend to see in him whatever they want to see. Obama's gift is that of being a mirror. But when I look at him, I see someone who wants to be a president far more than he knows what to do as president. In that way, he is akin to the elder George Bush.
I didn't always feel this way about Obama. But as the campaign wore on, I just started to develop a visceral dislike every time he opened his mouth. He is lousy with facts. He employs demagoguery on a frequent basis. And his acolytes give me the creeps.
Over the couple of weeks, he has managed to fall further in my esteem. First he abandoned public financing. Watch the video clip on his web site (if it's still there) explaining this flip flop; the guy is absolutely unctuous. No one should buy a used car from Obama. Then he decried a decision by the Supreme Court saying that the death penalty should not be applied to rapists of children (apparently the current conservative Supreme Court isn't blood thirsty enough for him). Finally, the other day he gave the thumbs up to the Supreme Court's decision repealing handgun legislation in Washington DC.
Tell me exactly, what is progressive about Obama? For Obama, the death penalty is a good thing. For Obama, handgun restrictions in urban areas are bad. This is progressive? Tell me exactly, what does Obama stand for except political convenience?
But even though Obama is a phony, slick s.o.b., I want him to win. Because the alternative would be worse.
In a lot of ways, I feel like Republicans I talked to in 2000 who were supporting Bush. They didn't like his politics. They didn't like his lack of experience. They didn't like his lack of intelligence. But after eight years of someone they hated, Clinton, they just wanted to win. Bush was their man simply because he was electable. Details didn't matter.
With Obama, there is no doubt that, unlike Bush, he has intelligence. But he has no significant experience. He has no track record of working with people on the other side of the aisle with what little time he has spent in the Senate. His politics are amorphous. But after eight years of complete incompetence with Bush, I just want to win. Obama is my man simply because he is electable.
Details don't matter for me right now. But they will come January when Obama takes office. My fear is that like Bush, we'll get another lousy presidency. Like Bush, Obama loves to be told just how great he is. He does not at all respond well to criticism. Like Bush, Obama is good about staying on message and runs a tight ship. There will be the appearance of competency and professionalism with the Obama presidency. But whether that translates into actually doing a good job is questionable.
I want to win. I'm holding my nose right now and supporting this guy. Come January, all I'll be able to do is cross my fingers that he'll do a decent job.
Monday, June 30, 2008
Friday, June 27, 2008
Tales From The Old Country and Beyond, Part 14
The Warrior
At my mother's funeral, there was an unexpected visitor. He was the Chasidic rabbi of an Orthodox shul, one that we attended until I was 13. We had left in a big huff over some perceived slight and joined another one where my father a few years later would feel slighted yet again. Anyway, I hadn't seen this rabbi in years. Before the ceremony when people were milling around, he came up to me and said only one thing, "Your mother was a warrior."
That's an odd thing to say to someone at a funeral, I think. But that rabbi was never one for social graces, and he hit the nail right on the head. Over a patina of warmth, my mother had a fierceness inside her. She would not be beaten by anything. I don't think that's behavior that can be learned. It was a characteristic that she likely had all of her life.
In September 1939, my mother's life changed irrevocably with the onset of WWII. Her world of privilege ended. The family fled to Russia where her father was immediately arrested and sent to a gulag in Siberia. My grandfather's family followed. My mother gave confused descriptions of this journey and life in Siberia. But regardless of the details, it was clear that they nearly starved and froze to death.
My mother, uncle, grandmother and great grandmother lived in a kind of Siberian shantytown on the edge of the Bering Strait. These families, their husbands and fathers in prison nearby, were mostly Jewish. The children all spoke Yiddish as they played. It was a language my mother never knew and she was taunted by other children, who simply didn't believe her claims that she was a Jewish girl. It was here that she learned to speak Yiddish and it's why she didn't speak Yiddish with the characteristic pailishe accent from the region of her hometown.
She also learned Russian in school and quickly excelled. Apparently, schooling in the USSR was a serious business even during war in a remote outpost in Siberia. She was such a good student and spoke Russian so well that there was talk by her teachers of sending her to Moscow after the war. She was a little Russian girl now.
The climate was harsh. There were few provisions. My mother often talked about fears of being eaten by wolves, of her constant hunger and cold. The mosquitoes in the summer would bite through the thickest of fabric. In school, her teacher told them about the geography of the region and about the Bering Strait with Alaska just a short distance away. Her teacher said that sometimes the Bering Strait froze over completely. She noticed the look in my mother's eyes as she said this. After class, she talked to her. "Don't think you can walk across little girl. You'll be eaten by bears if you try." My mother would sometimes joke about this in her adulthood. "I could have come to America a lot earlier if I had tried. Maybe I should have."
The single most important thought in her family's mind was simply survival. They were often short of wood for cooking fuel and heat. Her mother would send her to steal wood from government facilities in the middle of the night; if she had ever been caught it's likely that her mother would have been shot.
She would wander in the forest for food, berries and whatever she could find. She talked once about finding some rooty plant she'd never seen before and out of desperation bringing home the roots to cook. Luckily the roots weren't poisonous and she would go back into the forest to harvest more. Her family lived off the roots of this plant for weeks that summer. People would ask where she found these roots and she wouldn't say, protecting her source of food.
My mother's family lived in Siberia for two years. In 1941, Stalin liberated Polish citizens in the USSR and my grandfather was conscripted into the Russian army and sent to a ammunition factory to supervise German prisoner of war laborers. My grandmother and her children wandered through the USSR and eventually settled in the relative safety of the Tatarski Republic. It was here that my mother continued her schooling through the war years. These, too, were harsh times with little food. But in comparison to Siberia, she was living in luxury. That said, my grandmother contracted cholera there, nearly died, and according to my great uncle, not only lost her teeth and hair, but a bit of her mind.
I think about my grandmother during that time, trying to keep her family, including her aunt/mother-in-law and her infant son alive. Could she have done so without the help of my mother? I don't think so. My mother was only 12 or so, but she always possessed what seemed to be infinite reserves of will.
As an adult, she would often say to people, "Don't forget, I lived through war as a child. I can live through anything." Sometimes she would say this with a smile and a laugh. But other times, when she felt threatened, she would use it as a taunt. It was her version of trash talking. She was tough, undoubtedly the toughest and fiercest person I've ever known. And she never hesitated to tell someone just whom they were dealing with.
At my mother's funeral, there was an unexpected visitor. He was the Chasidic rabbi of an Orthodox shul, one that we attended until I was 13. We had left in a big huff over some perceived slight and joined another one where my father a few years later would feel slighted yet again. Anyway, I hadn't seen this rabbi in years. Before the ceremony when people were milling around, he came up to me and said only one thing, "Your mother was a warrior."
That's an odd thing to say to someone at a funeral, I think. But that rabbi was never one for social graces, and he hit the nail right on the head. Over a patina of warmth, my mother had a fierceness inside her. She would not be beaten by anything. I don't think that's behavior that can be learned. It was a characteristic that she likely had all of her life.
In September 1939, my mother's life changed irrevocably with the onset of WWII. Her world of privilege ended. The family fled to Russia where her father was immediately arrested and sent to a gulag in Siberia. My grandfather's family followed. My mother gave confused descriptions of this journey and life in Siberia. But regardless of the details, it was clear that they nearly starved and froze to death.
My mother, uncle, grandmother and great grandmother lived in a kind of Siberian shantytown on the edge of the Bering Strait. These families, their husbands and fathers in prison nearby, were mostly Jewish. The children all spoke Yiddish as they played. It was a language my mother never knew and she was taunted by other children, who simply didn't believe her claims that she was a Jewish girl. It was here that she learned to speak Yiddish and it's why she didn't speak Yiddish with the characteristic pailishe accent from the region of her hometown.
She also learned Russian in school and quickly excelled. Apparently, schooling in the USSR was a serious business even during war in a remote outpost in Siberia. She was such a good student and spoke Russian so well that there was talk by her teachers of sending her to Moscow after the war. She was a little Russian girl now.
The climate was harsh. There were few provisions. My mother often talked about fears of being eaten by wolves, of her constant hunger and cold. The mosquitoes in the summer would bite through the thickest of fabric. In school, her teacher told them about the geography of the region and about the Bering Strait with Alaska just a short distance away. Her teacher said that sometimes the Bering Strait froze over completely. She noticed the look in my mother's eyes as she said this. After class, she talked to her. "Don't think you can walk across little girl. You'll be eaten by bears if you try." My mother would sometimes joke about this in her adulthood. "I could have come to America a lot earlier if I had tried. Maybe I should have."
The single most important thought in her family's mind was simply survival. They were often short of wood for cooking fuel and heat. Her mother would send her to steal wood from government facilities in the middle of the night; if she had ever been caught it's likely that her mother would have been shot.
She would wander in the forest for food, berries and whatever she could find. She talked once about finding some rooty plant she'd never seen before and out of desperation bringing home the roots to cook. Luckily the roots weren't poisonous and she would go back into the forest to harvest more. Her family lived off the roots of this plant for weeks that summer. People would ask where she found these roots and she wouldn't say, protecting her source of food.
My mother's family lived in Siberia for two years. In 1941, Stalin liberated Polish citizens in the USSR and my grandfather was conscripted into the Russian army and sent to a ammunition factory to supervise German prisoner of war laborers. My grandmother and her children wandered through the USSR and eventually settled in the relative safety of the Tatarski Republic. It was here that my mother continued her schooling through the war years. These, too, were harsh times with little food. But in comparison to Siberia, she was living in luxury. That said, my grandmother contracted cholera there, nearly died, and according to my great uncle, not only lost her teeth and hair, but a bit of her mind.
I think about my grandmother during that time, trying to keep her family, including her aunt/mother-in-law and her infant son alive. Could she have done so without the help of my mother? I don't think so. My mother was only 12 or so, but she always possessed what seemed to be infinite reserves of will.
As an adult, she would often say to people, "Don't forget, I lived through war as a child. I can live through anything." Sometimes she would say this with a smile and a laugh. But other times, when she felt threatened, she would use it as a taunt. It was her version of trash talking. She was tough, undoubtedly the toughest and fiercest person I've ever known. And she never hesitated to tell someone just whom they were dealing with.
Wednesday, June 25, 2008
The Birth of My Blues
I don't know how but when I was twelve, I got hold of an album featuring Elmore James. He had a booming voice, a brute force saxophone player in his band, and played a sloppy but effective slide guitar. That was the first time I'd listened to the blues. I wore out the record. I was hooked. After that time, I more or less gave up rock and roll forever.
As the song goes, the blues had a baby and they named it rock and roll. That birth was over fifty years ago, and what's interesting to me is that you can hardly hear the blues in rock anymore. Rock singers tend to sound twee and precious nowadays. Whatever hint of a black sound left rock over twenty years ago. It's all lilly white now except for retro bands like the Stones or Aerosmith.
But for me, the blues still thrill. I don't think much of Elmore James anymore, but that's probably because I never saw him live. Howlin' Wolf was a sloppy musician too, but my oh my he was a physical force of nature live. He had a menacing look and it seemed that at any moment he'd lose it, launch into the crowd and snap someone's neck in two. I can't listen to 60s rock worth a damn without getting bored, but when I hear something by Muddy Waters in the background, I pause. Just the other day, I was in some store and BB King came on playing The Thrill is Gone. It was a damn good song forty years ago. It's still a damn good song.
Since that time when I was twelve, I've moved back in time to less electric and rootsy sounds. I'll hardly ever put on something by Howlin' Wolf or Skip James, but I'm still moved by the blues. Instead, I'm listening to people like Thelonious Monk and Sonny Rolllins. It's not just 40s and 50s stuff. Go to any jazz club, and it's usually the case that the musicians will stick at least one blues number in the set. The blues had a baby and they named it bebop. Bebop had a baby and they named it modal jazz. So it goes. Virtually every jazz musician of today still honors jazz's blues heritage.
The blues are my touchstone. I think it's not ridiculous to say that before I heard the blues, I was simply a singer. After I heard the blues, I became a musician. I learned how to play with rhythm while singing, often staying just a little behind the beat for dramatic effect. I'd listen to Billie Holiday sing the blues and fall into a trance, trying to mimic her impeccable timing. I also picked up my first instrument at that time, a harmonica that I played for hours in the school yard (driving everyone within 30 feet of me nuts) and on the way to and from school.
Why does such a rigid and simple form still resonate with me, someone who gets so easily bored? I can't explain it really. It's not a far step from the Hasidic melodies I sang as a kid to the blues. Maybe that's it. But I also think that there is something so inherently appealing to the human mind about this form. There's something about breaking things down into 12 or 16 bars. There's something about the transition from one chord to the next at just the right time. It's like a designer drug for the ear or at least my ear. Nothing can possibly be better. That was true forty years ago. it's still true today.
As the song goes, the blues had a baby and they named it rock and roll. That birth was over fifty years ago, and what's interesting to me is that you can hardly hear the blues in rock anymore. Rock singers tend to sound twee and precious nowadays. Whatever hint of a black sound left rock over twenty years ago. It's all lilly white now except for retro bands like the Stones or Aerosmith.
But for me, the blues still thrill. I don't think much of Elmore James anymore, but that's probably because I never saw him live. Howlin' Wolf was a sloppy musician too, but my oh my he was a physical force of nature live. He had a menacing look and it seemed that at any moment he'd lose it, launch into the crowd and snap someone's neck in two. I can't listen to 60s rock worth a damn without getting bored, but when I hear something by Muddy Waters in the background, I pause. Just the other day, I was in some store and BB King came on playing The Thrill is Gone. It was a damn good song forty years ago. It's still a damn good song.
Since that time when I was twelve, I've moved back in time to less electric and rootsy sounds. I'll hardly ever put on something by Howlin' Wolf or Skip James, but I'm still moved by the blues. Instead, I'm listening to people like Thelonious Monk and Sonny Rolllins. It's not just 40s and 50s stuff. Go to any jazz club, and it's usually the case that the musicians will stick at least one blues number in the set. The blues had a baby and they named it bebop. Bebop had a baby and they named it modal jazz. So it goes. Virtually every jazz musician of today still honors jazz's blues heritage.
The blues are my touchstone. I think it's not ridiculous to say that before I heard the blues, I was simply a singer. After I heard the blues, I became a musician. I learned how to play with rhythm while singing, often staying just a little behind the beat for dramatic effect. I'd listen to Billie Holiday sing the blues and fall into a trance, trying to mimic her impeccable timing. I also picked up my first instrument at that time, a harmonica that I played for hours in the school yard (driving everyone within 30 feet of me nuts) and on the way to and from school.
Why does such a rigid and simple form still resonate with me, someone who gets so easily bored? I can't explain it really. It's not a far step from the Hasidic melodies I sang as a kid to the blues. Maybe that's it. But I also think that there is something so inherently appealing to the human mind about this form. There's something about breaking things down into 12 or 16 bars. There's something about the transition from one chord to the next at just the right time. It's like a designer drug for the ear or at least my ear. Nothing can possibly be better. That was true forty years ago. it's still true today.
Tuesday, June 24, 2008
Stu's Rules For Lunch
I consider lunch to be the most inconsequential meal of the day. Breakfast is a desperate time to get some fuel back in your system after a mini-fast. Dinner is when you eat the best quality, well prepared food and you can reflect on the day with some wine. Lunch is all about conversation, really. The food is incidental. In the old days, it was socially acceptable to have a drink or two with lunch; now you're labeled an alcoholic if you do. And lately I've been eating mostly alone for lunch; often I skip lunch altogether.
But sometimes my stomach growls at midday, telling me that I may think lunch is inconsequential but my body thinks otherwise. What to eat? In my neck of the woods, about 80 percent of all restaurants are taquerias of some sort. I've tried most of them both good and bad. There are certain definite patterns that have emerged as to what constitutes a good taqueria. By now, I know what to look for. And to help those that read this blog, here are are my rules.
1) Taqueria must have a 27" tube TV with a telenovela on or some cheesy Mexican talk show with a buxomly, loud 40 something woman wearing a too small dress. Univision soccer with the guy who screams "gooooooallll" is an iffy proposition. American soap operas are a definite no-no as is HDTV. At my local taqueria last week, my waitress asked if she could change the channel to Judge Judy in the middle of my eating. If I didn't already know her and like her, my answer would have been a resounding no.
2) Fresh chips free with a chunky tomato/cilantro/onion salsa or some avocado dip are another necessity. I may not eat them, but just like I need to live in a city with a good symphony orchestra regardless as to whether I attend, the chips and decent salsa or dip need to be there.
3) Water is available in a huge canteen with a flip or push button spout and some clear plastic glasses like your best friend's mom used to give you with your milk and cookies.
4) Formica table tops and chrome plated chairs are a must. No wood chairs or tables; this isn't supposed to be classy, you know. Paper napkins in a holder at the table also, please.
5) A menu overhead in front of the cash register with photos of the plates available. That way you can just point if you've lost your voice or your Spanish is incomprehensible.
6) The waitress just brings you your food. You pay in advance and you pay up front.
7) The menu must have at least two kinds of soup available. No soup means greasy everything.
8) You need to be able to get dishes with two out of three available: tongue, tripe, or goat. If all three are available, you've hit taqueria heaven.
9) Minimal English spoken. The cashier looks at you funny if you try to speak English to her. She strongly prefers your Pidgin Spanish and smiles broadly when you butcher her native tongue.
10) The crowd consists predominantly of Mexicans and is so small even during lunch that you wonder how on Earth these people are making a living.
There they are. Ten simple rules to a decent Mexican lunch from Uncle Stuey. Ignore these rules and you eat at your own peril.
But sometimes my stomach growls at midday, telling me that I may think lunch is inconsequential but my body thinks otherwise. What to eat? In my neck of the woods, about 80 percent of all restaurants are taquerias of some sort. I've tried most of them both good and bad. There are certain definite patterns that have emerged as to what constitutes a good taqueria. By now, I know what to look for. And to help those that read this blog, here are are my rules.
1) Taqueria must have a 27" tube TV with a telenovela on or some cheesy Mexican talk show with a buxomly, loud 40 something woman wearing a too small dress. Univision soccer with the guy who screams "gooooooallll" is an iffy proposition. American soap operas are a definite no-no as is HDTV. At my local taqueria last week, my waitress asked if she could change the channel to Judge Judy in the middle of my eating. If I didn't already know her and like her, my answer would have been a resounding no.
2) Fresh chips free with a chunky tomato/cilantro/onion salsa or some avocado dip are another necessity. I may not eat them, but just like I need to live in a city with a good symphony orchestra regardless as to whether I attend, the chips and decent salsa or dip need to be there.
3) Water is available in a huge canteen with a flip or push button spout and some clear plastic glasses like your best friend's mom used to give you with your milk and cookies.
4) Formica table tops and chrome plated chairs are a must. No wood chairs or tables; this isn't supposed to be classy, you know. Paper napkins in a holder at the table also, please.
5) A menu overhead in front of the cash register with photos of the plates available. That way you can just point if you've lost your voice or your Spanish is incomprehensible.
6) The waitress just brings you your food. You pay in advance and you pay up front.
7) The menu must have at least two kinds of soup available. No soup means greasy everything.
8) You need to be able to get dishes with two out of three available: tongue, tripe, or goat. If all three are available, you've hit taqueria heaven.
9) Minimal English spoken. The cashier looks at you funny if you try to speak English to her. She strongly prefers your Pidgin Spanish and smiles broadly when you butcher her native tongue.
10) The crowd consists predominantly of Mexicans and is so small even during lunch that you wonder how on Earth these people are making a living.
There they are. Ten simple rules to a decent Mexican lunch from Uncle Stuey. Ignore these rules and you eat at your own peril.
Monday, June 23, 2008
The Reign of Error
My local bookstore's hot seller isn't anything literary. It's a little keychain with a countdown clock for the end of the Bush presidency. This week it has a companion piece available, a parody of the children's classic Goodnight Moon called Goodnight Bush. Virtually everyone can't wait to see George W. Bush leave. It has been a true reign of error in every way imaginable. George W. Bush will be leaving a mess that it will take decades, if not more, to fix.
I don't want to get too depressed here by listing a litany of his mistakes. But it's worth examining just how we got into this mess. The American public elected someone most everyone knew was dim-witted with no real experience governing. They did it not once, but twice.
They elected him because they liked him as a person better than the opponent. Politics were not the deciding factor. It was all about personality. If I try to put a positive spin on this, the American public just might feel that a presidential choice isn't really all that important. There are so many checks and balances in our system that our leader is more symbolic than substantive. Since presidents don't much matter - the country seems to more or less run by itself - why not elect someone on the basis of likability?
I would have actually agreed with this assessment eight years ago. Over the time of my life, we've had a wide variety of presidents from the conservative to the liberal, from the smart to the dumb, and the country has more or less done fine. Presidents haven't mattered all that much. Part of the reason is that the American difference between "liberal" and "conservative" isn't all that great. The presidents of my lifetime have all been decidedly pro-corporate and give crumbs to the little guy kind of people.
But somehow, George W. Bush changed all that. He really did. He showed that presidents do matter. They really do. And when they are bad they can really, really screw things up beyond belief. Whether the ability of George W. Bush to completely f*ck up this country reflects some new rules of the game or reflects his extraordinary incompetence I don't know.
What I do know is that we won't change. We'll keep on electing people because we like them, because we want to have a beer with them, because we want them over for dinner. Their intelligence doesn't matter. Their experience doesn't matter. What's scary to me it that there is certainly another George W. Bush waiting around the corner, some dumb ass rich kid with an Ivy League education, and with an idle past who decides out of the blue that he wants to be president. Will we elect him? If he's more likable than the opposition you bet we will.
I don't want to get too depressed here by listing a litany of his mistakes. But it's worth examining just how we got into this mess. The American public elected someone most everyone knew was dim-witted with no real experience governing. They did it not once, but twice.
They elected him because they liked him as a person better than the opponent. Politics were not the deciding factor. It was all about personality. If I try to put a positive spin on this, the American public just might feel that a presidential choice isn't really all that important. There are so many checks and balances in our system that our leader is more symbolic than substantive. Since presidents don't much matter - the country seems to more or less run by itself - why not elect someone on the basis of likability?
I would have actually agreed with this assessment eight years ago. Over the time of my life, we've had a wide variety of presidents from the conservative to the liberal, from the smart to the dumb, and the country has more or less done fine. Presidents haven't mattered all that much. Part of the reason is that the American difference between "liberal" and "conservative" isn't all that great. The presidents of my lifetime have all been decidedly pro-corporate and give crumbs to the little guy kind of people.
But somehow, George W. Bush changed all that. He really did. He showed that presidents do matter. They really do. And when they are bad they can really, really screw things up beyond belief. Whether the ability of George W. Bush to completely f*ck up this country reflects some new rules of the game or reflects his extraordinary incompetence I don't know.
What I do know is that we won't change. We'll keep on electing people because we like them, because we want to have a beer with them, because we want them over for dinner. Their intelligence doesn't matter. Their experience doesn't matter. What's scary to me it that there is certainly another George W. Bush waiting around the corner, some dumb ass rich kid with an Ivy League education, and with an idle past who decides out of the blue that he wants to be president. Will we elect him? If he's more likable than the opposition you bet we will.
Friday, June 20, 2008
Tales From The Old Country And Beyond Part 13
For the Love of Chocolate
A few weeks ago I was picking Rainier cherries from a huge cardboard box at this funky produce market that I like. Hardly any Americans are customers. Instead it's mostly Russian and Chinese immigrants elbowing each other in this tiny place. There was a girl about nine years old also picking cherries. She had pale skin with freckles, high cheekbones, and long brown wavy hair with a reddish tint. I looked at her and thought, this is exactly how my mother must have looked when she was a kid.
Then I heard the girl's mother telling her to hurry up in Hebrew, and I thought Bingo. Another one of the tribe.
As I've noted before, my mother looked nothing like the rest of her family. If she covered her hair in a scarf, she could easily pass for a Christian in Poland, albeit not someone of Polish heritage. When I was a kid, I noticed how different my mother was in terms of build - tall and strong - and features. I thought she was adopted. I doubt that was the actual case although my grandparents did have a hard time conceiving.
My mother was not one to look back with regret or much nostalgia. She was almost always in the moment, but one time she said to me, "I'm still mad they took away my childhood. It was a wonderful life. And they stole it from me."
WWII started when my mom was ten. Her whole world and enviable childhood vanished overnight.
She lived in a large home near the central part of town. She was a popular girl with the wealthy crowd of gentile and Jewish children. Tomaszów Lubelski was the county seat in a very rural part of Poland, not far from the Ukrainian border. It was the kind of place where scholars would come to visit and give speeches to crowds craving intellectual nourishment. For example, I was doing some research on Kafka for a story and read about one such lecturer - a Kafka translator among other things - running into Kafka's lover in Tomaszów Lubelski. What she was doing there is anyone's guess.
My mother wore her long reddish hair in braids. Every Friday, she would undo those braids and like everyone else, douse her scalp in kerosene to keep away lice. Over the years, her hair darkened and the red disappeared, but she never turned gray. My hair, by the way, is doing the same thing as my mother's, turning darker and darker, the red now completely gone.
My mother's home was filled with high quality hand made furniture. Sabbath meals were lavish affairs of the best quality food. She wanted for nothing except for one thing. As a child, she had a constant craving for chocolate. It was a craving that would never leave her. As an adult, she would almost always carry a huge bar of Cadbury milk chocolate in her purse. It would last about a week. She'd break off two or three finger-tip sized chunks every day. As a child, she had no such liberty. Her craving for chocolate would sometimes get her into trouble.
One Friday, my mother was craving chocolate terribly. She asked her mother for some money to buy some. Her mother said no. So she hatched an alternative plan to satisfy her craving. That Friday, as per usual, my grandmother gave her some money to buy a Sabbath chicken. They always bought their chicken plucked. It cost a few grozhen more, but they could easily afford this convenience. Plus, there was a certain status associated with paying this extra money.
My mother came up with a plan. How hard could it be to pluck a chicken? She'd seen poorer children do it all of the time right outside the market. Certainly, she could do it as well. She'd buy the chicken unplucked, save a few grozhen, pluck it her herself, and use the extra money to buy some chocolate.
Which is exactly what she did. The chocolate tasted so good, somehow better than when her mother bought it for her. There was only one problem. She had labored arduously to pluck her chicken. What other children did with ease, she had no experience doing. And her lack of experience showed. The chicken skin was badly bruised. A few stray feathers still hung on the bird.
When my mother came home, her mother asked what on earth happened to the chicken. She lied and said that was just how the butcher at the market plucked it. My grandmother knew that this was not the case. No butcher could possibly pluck a chicken this badly. Finally the truth came out.
When my grandfather came home for Sabbath dinner, he beat his cherished only daughter severely. He was actually proud of her being clever enough to figure out how to buy chocolate on her own. But the lying about it, that was another story. It could not be tolerated. She never tried to pluck a chicken again.
For the Love of Chocolate
A few weeks ago I was picking Rainier cherries from a huge cardboard box at this funky produce market that I like. Hardly any Americans are customers. Instead it's mostly Russian and Chinese immigrants elbowing each other in this tiny place. There was a girl about nine years old also picking cherries. She had pale skin with freckles, high cheekbones, and long brown wavy hair with a reddish tint. I looked at her and thought, this is exactly how my mother must have looked when she was a kid.
Then I heard the girl's mother telling her to hurry up in Hebrew, and I thought Bingo. Another one of the tribe.
As I've noted before, my mother looked nothing like the rest of her family. If she covered her hair in a scarf, she could easily pass for a Christian in Poland, albeit not someone of Polish heritage. When I was a kid, I noticed how different my mother was in terms of build - tall and strong - and features. I thought she was adopted. I doubt that was the actual case although my grandparents did have a hard time conceiving.
My mother was not one to look back with regret or much nostalgia. She was almost always in the moment, but one time she said to me, "I'm still mad they took away my childhood. It was a wonderful life. And they stole it from me."
WWII started when my mom was ten. Her whole world and enviable childhood vanished overnight.
She lived in a large home near the central part of town. She was a popular girl with the wealthy crowd of gentile and Jewish children. Tomaszów Lubelski was the county seat in a very rural part of Poland, not far from the Ukrainian border. It was the kind of place where scholars would come to visit and give speeches to crowds craving intellectual nourishment. For example, I was doing some research on Kafka for a story and read about one such lecturer - a Kafka translator among other things - running into Kafka's lover in Tomaszów Lubelski. What she was doing there is anyone's guess.
My mother wore her long reddish hair in braids. Every Friday, she would undo those braids and like everyone else, douse her scalp in kerosene to keep away lice. Over the years, her hair darkened and the red disappeared, but she never turned gray. My hair, by the way, is doing the same thing as my mother's, turning darker and darker, the red now completely gone.
My mother's home was filled with high quality hand made furniture. Sabbath meals were lavish affairs of the best quality food. She wanted for nothing except for one thing. As a child, she had a constant craving for chocolate. It was a craving that would never leave her. As an adult, she would almost always carry a huge bar of Cadbury milk chocolate in her purse. It would last about a week. She'd break off two or three finger-tip sized chunks every day. As a child, she had no such liberty. Her craving for chocolate would sometimes get her into trouble.
One Friday, my mother was craving chocolate terribly. She asked her mother for some money to buy some. Her mother said no. So she hatched an alternative plan to satisfy her craving. That Friday, as per usual, my grandmother gave her some money to buy a Sabbath chicken. They always bought their chicken plucked. It cost a few grozhen more, but they could easily afford this convenience. Plus, there was a certain status associated with paying this extra money.
My mother came up with a plan. How hard could it be to pluck a chicken? She'd seen poorer children do it all of the time right outside the market. Certainly, she could do it as well. She'd buy the chicken unplucked, save a few grozhen, pluck it her herself, and use the extra money to buy some chocolate.
Which is exactly what she did. The chocolate tasted so good, somehow better than when her mother bought it for her. There was only one problem. She had labored arduously to pluck her chicken. What other children did with ease, she had no experience doing. And her lack of experience showed. The chicken skin was badly bruised. A few stray feathers still hung on the bird.
When my mother came home, her mother asked what on earth happened to the chicken. She lied and said that was just how the butcher at the market plucked it. My grandmother knew that this was not the case. No butcher could possibly pluck a chicken this badly. Finally the truth came out.
When my grandfather came home for Sabbath dinner, he beat his cherished only daughter severely. He was actually proud of her being clever enough to figure out how to buy chocolate on her own. But the lying about it, that was another story. It could not be tolerated. She never tried to pluck a chicken again.
Thursday, June 19, 2008
Manufacturing Interest
Since about March, this year's election has been one big snooze. The Republican nominee had already been decided in February. After week upon week of losses and then the loss of the possibility of re-votes in Michigan and Florida in mid-March, Clinton had no chance of winning. Once the Reverend Wright escapade blew over and it was clear that support for Obama could weather minor scandals, even the outcome of the November election was clear: McCain would be too burdened by negative views of the current Republican administration and lack of hard-line conservative support to win.
There has been nothing to change this narrative over the intervening couple of months. But from a news standpoint, saying such things is a bit of suicide. If you sell the same story every day, no one will read or watch.
As a result, I truly believe that the press has been guilty of ginning up interest in this election. In April and through a bit of May, the press went on and on about Clinton winning working class states. It was the equivalent of a sports announcer getting excited about a 10 point run in a basketball game in the fourth quarter when the team scoring is hopelessly behind. You don't want someone to change the channel so you pretend that the game is still in doubt.
The press stopped being in pretend mode about the Democratic elections after the North Carolina and Indiana primaries. Clinton won Indiana just like she won other working class states. But they dropped the "working class hero" story and rather ham-handedly went to a new narrative: "Clinton is finished. Why is she still hanging on?"
Now that everything has been settled on the Democratic side, more stories to gin up interest keep appearing. They don't make much sense. Today, I saw an article about the possibility that McCain won't win his home state. This is true silliness. Unless he somehow has to drop out between now and November, McCain will win his home state. I am willing to bet anyone 10,000 dollars that this will happen. I doubt I'll get any takers on this offer.
Here's another bit of silliness. The other day there was an article about the Obama camp thinking that it can win the election without winning Ohio. This won't happen either. I must be in a betting mood because I'm also willing to bet anyone 10,000 dollars that should Obama win, Ohio will be in his electoral vote column come November. As a matter of fact, I'm willing to bet that regardless of who wins, Ohio will be in the win column of the next president of the US.
Enough about bets. The fact is that this is an election with a highly likely outcome. In response, the press has to come up with something that people can read or watch. They have space and time to fill. Expect more silly articles until November. And what about Iraq? The press knows the public is bored with that story and still gets Iran and Iraq mixed up. Apparently, a fake political horse race is more interesting than a lost war. Expect the Iraq War articles to remain hidden on page twelve of the newspaper.
Since about March, this year's election has been one big snooze. The Republican nominee had already been decided in February. After week upon week of losses and then the loss of the possibility of re-votes in Michigan and Florida in mid-March, Clinton had no chance of winning. Once the Reverend Wright escapade blew over and it was clear that support for Obama could weather minor scandals, even the outcome of the November election was clear: McCain would be too burdened by negative views of the current Republican administration and lack of hard-line conservative support to win.
There has been nothing to change this narrative over the intervening couple of months. But from a news standpoint, saying such things is a bit of suicide. If you sell the same story every day, no one will read or watch.
As a result, I truly believe that the press has been guilty of ginning up interest in this election. In April and through a bit of May, the press went on and on about Clinton winning working class states. It was the equivalent of a sports announcer getting excited about a 10 point run in a basketball game in the fourth quarter when the team scoring is hopelessly behind. You don't want someone to change the channel so you pretend that the game is still in doubt.
The press stopped being in pretend mode about the Democratic elections after the North Carolina and Indiana primaries. Clinton won Indiana just like she won other working class states. But they dropped the "working class hero" story and rather ham-handedly went to a new narrative: "Clinton is finished. Why is she still hanging on?"
Now that everything has been settled on the Democratic side, more stories to gin up interest keep appearing. They don't make much sense. Today, I saw an article about the possibility that McCain won't win his home state. This is true silliness. Unless he somehow has to drop out between now and November, McCain will win his home state. I am willing to bet anyone 10,000 dollars that this will happen. I doubt I'll get any takers on this offer.
Here's another bit of silliness. The other day there was an article about the Obama camp thinking that it can win the election without winning Ohio. This won't happen either. I must be in a betting mood because I'm also willing to bet anyone 10,000 dollars that should Obama win, Ohio will be in his electoral vote column come November. As a matter of fact, I'm willing to bet that regardless of who wins, Ohio will be in the win column of the next president of the US.
Enough about bets. The fact is that this is an election with a highly likely outcome. In response, the press has to come up with something that people can read or watch. They have space and time to fill. Expect more silly articles until November. And what about Iraq? The press knows the public is bored with that story and still gets Iran and Iraq mixed up. Apparently, a fake political horse race is more interesting than a lost war. Expect the Iraq War articles to remain hidden on page twelve of the newspaper.
Wednesday, June 18, 2008
Those Gatekeepers Really Do Know What They Are Doing
I write this blog five days a week. I'm not trying to change the world by it. It's simply a digital diary for me and for those who know me to read. I make it public not because I aim to be a famous blogger, whatever that means, but because I find that for whatever reason, it helps give me the discipline to write something, anything, that's on my mind to the tune of about five thousand words a week.
I like looking back at what I've written warts and all. It's also good to just do something where you think about as fast as you type and see what happens. When I write fiction, I agonize over every damn sentence. This is a good antidote to that approach. And I think I'm still getting better at this type of writing with every week. After a couple of years worth of blogging, I can write 1000 words in 45 minutes with ease.
That all said, this is a blog. This is not professional writing on my part. And unless you, dear reader, are a relative, friend or a friend of a friend, my advice is to assume that the value of these words is the same as my revenue from writing them. Zero.
I say this because I don't value blogs as a source of information. I read a couple of them from friends and relatives, but only because I care about them as people. I want to know what they are thinking about and check up and see if they are still sane.
But when I want real information about the world around me, I have no wish to read a blog. Please. The information from blogs is horrible. It's not vetted. It's not edited. It's unintelligent. The same can be said about those web sites that report on politics. The Huffington Post, Drudge Report, et al. are all horrible. I don't read them.
There has been a lot of hype about the value of Web 2.0. Most of it has not been merited. Wikipedia is maybe the greatest example of the value of the interactive web. It's a decent source of information about Madonna, but as a source of scholarship? No. Give me an encyclopedia from a professional source, please.
I'm all for professionals in writing. I'm all for professionals in music. I'm all for professionals in movies. Amateurs may possess professional talent, but I'd rather wait until they actually get enough recognition to be paid for their work. And I'm not going to randomly search the web trying to find interesting material. Please. I don't have time. I view Web 2.0 like I view those guys in the South I used to see with megaphones and speakers running around town spouting about Jesus. It's just noise.
We still have gatekeepers and filters out there making sure that the good stuff gets recognized. In the cacophony of Web 2.0, they are beleaguered and often ignored. But I still cherish those gatekeepers and filters. The traditional professional media is still the place where a reader or listener or viewer has a decent chance of finding something worth spending time contemplating. If anything, Web 2.0 has shown me just how important those gatekeepers are. I've seen the alternative. It's awful. Those gatekeepers really do know what they are doing.
I write this blog five days a week. I'm not trying to change the world by it. It's simply a digital diary for me and for those who know me to read. I make it public not because I aim to be a famous blogger, whatever that means, but because I find that for whatever reason, it helps give me the discipline to write something, anything, that's on my mind to the tune of about five thousand words a week.
I like looking back at what I've written warts and all. It's also good to just do something where you think about as fast as you type and see what happens. When I write fiction, I agonize over every damn sentence. This is a good antidote to that approach. And I think I'm still getting better at this type of writing with every week. After a couple of years worth of blogging, I can write 1000 words in 45 minutes with ease.
That all said, this is a blog. This is not professional writing on my part. And unless you, dear reader, are a relative, friend or a friend of a friend, my advice is to assume that the value of these words is the same as my revenue from writing them. Zero.
I say this because I don't value blogs as a source of information. I read a couple of them from friends and relatives, but only because I care about them as people. I want to know what they are thinking about and check up and see if they are still sane.
But when I want real information about the world around me, I have no wish to read a blog. Please. The information from blogs is horrible. It's not vetted. It's not edited. It's unintelligent. The same can be said about those web sites that report on politics. The Huffington Post, Drudge Report, et al. are all horrible. I don't read them.
There has been a lot of hype about the value of Web 2.0. Most of it has not been merited. Wikipedia is maybe the greatest example of the value of the interactive web. It's a decent source of information about Madonna, but as a source of scholarship? No. Give me an encyclopedia from a professional source, please.
I'm all for professionals in writing. I'm all for professionals in music. I'm all for professionals in movies. Amateurs may possess professional talent, but I'd rather wait until they actually get enough recognition to be paid for their work. And I'm not going to randomly search the web trying to find interesting material. Please. I don't have time. I view Web 2.0 like I view those guys in the South I used to see with megaphones and speakers running around town spouting about Jesus. It's just noise.
We still have gatekeepers and filters out there making sure that the good stuff gets recognized. In the cacophony of Web 2.0, they are beleaguered and often ignored. But I still cherish those gatekeepers and filters. The traditional professional media is still the place where a reader or listener or viewer has a decent chance of finding something worth spending time contemplating. If anything, Web 2.0 has shown me just how important those gatekeepers are. I've seen the alternative. It's awful. Those gatekeepers really do know what they are doing.
Tuesday, June 17, 2008
That Strange Dichotomy in Higher Ed, Part 4
It's interesting to me that while the public barely notices graduate level education at universities, and university leaders spend an incredible amount of time assuring the public about the importance of undergraduate teaching, graduate level education is the primary reason for the existence of any university, rhetoric be damned. It's where professors make an effort to teach well if they make any effort to teach at all. It's why professors spend ungodly hours writing proposals to fund students and keep student-based research going. It's why positions of authority involving undergraduates are given to those the university doesn't respect very much, often people without advanced degrees or who have failed to get tenure as professors. Almost all of the energy and true talent are focused on graduate level education and its associated research programs.
Undergraduate education receives second billing. If you want to be generous, the educational approach for undergraduates can be summed up as "do no harm." Keep the workload light. Provide great exercise facilities, decent housing and decent food. Allow for a good party atmosphere and all will be fine. Overriding all of these concerns is that undergraduate students should be safe; we want to make sure that after four years, they leave with all limbs intact.
If you want to be less generous, you can say that we place most of our undergraduates in warm storage for four years. Several million able bodied young adults barely go through the motions of education and spend most of their time awake partying and socializing for four years before they take a real job.
To me, this is a waste of precious human resources and money. But I know I'm in the minority on this issue. It should be a scandal that we do so little with 18-22 year olds in this country. Instead it seems to be a cause for celebration. The public and politicians give a little wink-wink about just how easy and insignificant undergraduate education is, and then somehow tear up when it comes to the graduation of their children. I don't understand it. They shouldn't be proud. Most of their children haven't achieved much of anything in the way of intellectual growth; many of their children have actually regressed emotionally because we have treated them like infants.* There shouldn't be tears of joy and pride, but tears of sadness. Plus parents have been taken to the cleaners by institutions that have provided so little learning for so much money.
I'm just making a wild guess that undergraduate education is dreadful because we want it to be so. Perhaps the fact the we put our 18-22 year olds in the warm storage called college reflects a societal need. Maybe it's an unsaid collective wisdom that people of a certain wealth and age need a little down time before they go on to the grind of nine to five jobs.
But I don't think so. I happen to think that if an 18 year old doesn't really want to learn, we shouldn't send him off to college no matter what his SAT score and where he went to high school. They should get a job. And if they are smart and ambitious, they shouldn't have to deal with a glass ceiling in the workforce simply because they don't have a college degree.
Far too many people go to college than should. My guess is that about half of those currently attending have no business being there. They have no interest in learning. They are just taking up space. There is no doubt that society suffers because of this wasted resource.
Imagine a college filled with people who truly wanted to be there for learning. Imagine the wasted space mostly eliminated. We could do a wonderful job educating under that scenario. Serious students would get a serious education. I can't think of a single negative outcome from such a change except for the fact that the higher education industry would have to dramatically shrink. We would be providing quality instead of quantity. My belief is that this country would benefit from such a change. But I also believe it's a change that hardly anyone wants.
And that wraps up my answer (long winded and rambling I know) to the question why undergraduate education is dreadful and graduate level education is outstanding.
*This past weekend I saw a Stanford student with a t-shirt that said, "I'm a college student. I can do whatever I want." Hah, hah, hah. That someone would joyfully advertise that he was an irresponsible, spoiled brat is beyond my understanding.
It's interesting to me that while the public barely notices graduate level education at universities, and university leaders spend an incredible amount of time assuring the public about the importance of undergraduate teaching, graduate level education is the primary reason for the existence of any university, rhetoric be damned. It's where professors make an effort to teach well if they make any effort to teach at all. It's why professors spend ungodly hours writing proposals to fund students and keep student-based research going. It's why positions of authority involving undergraduates are given to those the university doesn't respect very much, often people without advanced degrees or who have failed to get tenure as professors. Almost all of the energy and true talent are focused on graduate level education and its associated research programs.
Undergraduate education receives second billing. If you want to be generous, the educational approach for undergraduates can be summed up as "do no harm." Keep the workload light. Provide great exercise facilities, decent housing and decent food. Allow for a good party atmosphere and all will be fine. Overriding all of these concerns is that undergraduate students should be safe; we want to make sure that after four years, they leave with all limbs intact.
If you want to be less generous, you can say that we place most of our undergraduates in warm storage for four years. Several million able bodied young adults barely go through the motions of education and spend most of their time awake partying and socializing for four years before they take a real job.
To me, this is a waste of precious human resources and money. But I know I'm in the minority on this issue. It should be a scandal that we do so little with 18-22 year olds in this country. Instead it seems to be a cause for celebration. The public and politicians give a little wink-wink about just how easy and insignificant undergraduate education is, and then somehow tear up when it comes to the graduation of their children. I don't understand it. They shouldn't be proud. Most of their children haven't achieved much of anything in the way of intellectual growth; many of their children have actually regressed emotionally because we have treated them like infants.* There shouldn't be tears of joy and pride, but tears of sadness. Plus parents have been taken to the cleaners by institutions that have provided so little learning for so much money.
I'm just making a wild guess that undergraduate education is dreadful because we want it to be so. Perhaps the fact the we put our 18-22 year olds in the warm storage called college reflects a societal need. Maybe it's an unsaid collective wisdom that people of a certain wealth and age need a little down time before they go on to the grind of nine to five jobs.
But I don't think so. I happen to think that if an 18 year old doesn't really want to learn, we shouldn't send him off to college no matter what his SAT score and where he went to high school. They should get a job. And if they are smart and ambitious, they shouldn't have to deal with a glass ceiling in the workforce simply because they don't have a college degree.
Far too many people go to college than should. My guess is that about half of those currently attending have no business being there. They have no interest in learning. They are just taking up space. There is no doubt that society suffers because of this wasted resource.
Imagine a college filled with people who truly wanted to be there for learning. Imagine the wasted space mostly eliminated. We could do a wonderful job educating under that scenario. Serious students would get a serious education. I can't think of a single negative outcome from such a change except for the fact that the higher education industry would have to dramatically shrink. We would be providing quality instead of quantity. My belief is that this country would benefit from such a change. But I also believe it's a change that hardly anyone wants.
And that wraps up my answer (long winded and rambling I know) to the question why undergraduate education is dreadful and graduate level education is outstanding.
*This past weekend I saw a Stanford student with a t-shirt that said, "I'm a college student. I can do whatever I want." Hah, hah, hah. That someone would joyfully advertise that he was an irresponsible, spoiled brat is beyond my understanding.
Monday, June 16, 2008
That Strange Dichotomy in Higher Ed, Part 3
It's Worth The Wait
If you teach undergraduates, you'll probably experience this nasty event early on in the semester of some of your classes. A decent student will raise his or her hand and ask an interesting question. In response, the room will get instantly hostile. You can feel it in the air. No one says anything, but the looks on the faces of the students tell the entire story. They are angry that someone has tried to elevate the intellectual level of the class.
A couple of students will try to stare down that student. They want to ensure it never happens again. The student usually gets the message. He will ask no questions for the rest of the semester.
Every time I saw this happen, I wanted to say to that kid, "I was once like you. Just wait until you get to graduate school. You can actually learn something."
You can ask questions in a graduate school class and other students will get excited about them. Your questions may lead to more questions by other students. Now we're talking. We have a real class with real students. People are engaged. They come with an intellectual bent and a thirst for learning.
We live in a profoundly anti-intellectual country. That anti-intellectual ethos is present in almost every educational setting. It is certainly present in undergraduate education.
But graduate school bucks that trend. Less than 10 percent of all undergraduates go on to graduate study. They tend to go because they want to be there. No it isn't perfect. Not all of the students are particularly smart or gifted. Not all of them have the creative skills or the sitzfleisch necessary to do research well. But by god, nearly all of them are trying. I'll take a class of not so smart people who make the effort over a class of very smart students that don't care or work any day of the week. And many of those students who are trying are very smart indeed.
Let me give you some personal history to explain just why I view graduate school so positively. I grew up in Milwaukee. I was a very bright kid and I was bored as a gourd in elementary school. My teachers understood this and would let me go into classes a grade or two above me to get books to read. Giving me that little liberty helped a great deal.
While I was a definite egghead, strangely I was very popular in my working class neighborhood. There was a certain pride that someone on the block excelled at school. I'd help people with their homework. Other kids were appreciative. America is anti-intellectual, but my neighborhood - where only one parent had ever gone to college and many hadn't finished high school - wasn't anti-intellectual, at least when it concerned me. It probably didn't hurt that I was one badass football player.
In Milwaukee, there was one school for the entire city for brainiac kids. It began in the fifth grade and that's where I went for a year. I was in heaven. I looked forward to going to school every day.
My parents decided to move to the suburbs when I was in sixth grade. It was a matter of pride with them that they could afford to move out of their working class neighborhood. They convinced themselves that the schools in the suburbs were superior. They weren't.
I was six months ahead of the students in my suburban school. Again I was bored as a gourd. Again, I excelled. But this time, my egghead ways were not viewed positively by my classmates. I was ridiculed and shunned. It was not a pretty sight.
In response, I decided drastic actions were necessary. I'd pretend I was dumber than I was. My grades dropped. It worked. Suddenly I had a bunch of friends. My mother asked me why her formerly perfect student of a son was getting B pluses and I told her outright what I was doing. She cried on the spot right in front of me.
I kept pretending I was dumber than I was all through high school. I took a lot of drugs like a lot of high school kids do to stay numb. I hardly attended classes. You received two demerits for every class you skipped. By my junior year, I had over 600 demerits. Supposedly eight demerits were enough to get you on probation, fourteen were enough to get you suspended.
In my junior year, the assistant principal called me into his office. "Stuart, you have 618 demerits and an A minus average. What are we going to do with you?" I suggested that they let me graduate early. And that's what they did.
I was hoping and expecting that I could shed my "act dumber than I am" persona in college. Nope. It was the same deal. If you were too smart and too intense, you were a pariah. I stayed in my shell as a result. I was fairly convinced that I would have to act dumber than I was in public for the rest of my life.
That all changed in graduate school. I wasn't expecting this change to take place actually. I started out acting like a dim-wit, wiseacre as per usual. But I noticed that my classmates were different than any I had seen before. They actually wanted to learn. They could care less if someone thought they were geeks. Hell, they were prideful about their geekiness.
Suddenly, a light went on. I didn't have to act dumb anymore. I was around people like me, brainiacs or at least wannabe brainiacs. This was my element. For the first time since fifth grade I was happy to be at school.
I had spent over a decade acting like an idiot in a classroom setting for the purpose of self preservation. I admit I was a bit rusty when it came to academics. But after a semester or so, I got the hang of using my brain in school. Not only did I get the hang of it, I excelled. I was in heaven again.
My best friends of today come from my time in graduate school. These are my kindred spirits. After twenty years, I can still talk to them about anything under the sun. They offer good advice and counsel and I hope I offer the same to them.
If you have an intellectual bent, it's unlikely that high school will be much fun. It may be possible if you are lucky enough to find a nourishing niche that college will have some redeeming value. But it's graduate school that will almost certainly be the ticket. It's worth the wait. It really is.
I'll try to wrap this up next time.
It's Worth The Wait
If you teach undergraduates, you'll probably experience this nasty event early on in the semester of some of your classes. A decent student will raise his or her hand and ask an interesting question. In response, the room will get instantly hostile. You can feel it in the air. No one says anything, but the looks on the faces of the students tell the entire story. They are angry that someone has tried to elevate the intellectual level of the class.
A couple of students will try to stare down that student. They want to ensure it never happens again. The student usually gets the message. He will ask no questions for the rest of the semester.
Every time I saw this happen, I wanted to say to that kid, "I was once like you. Just wait until you get to graduate school. You can actually learn something."
You can ask questions in a graduate school class and other students will get excited about them. Your questions may lead to more questions by other students. Now we're talking. We have a real class with real students. People are engaged. They come with an intellectual bent and a thirst for learning.
We live in a profoundly anti-intellectual country. That anti-intellectual ethos is present in almost every educational setting. It is certainly present in undergraduate education.
But graduate school bucks that trend. Less than 10 percent of all undergraduates go on to graduate study. They tend to go because they want to be there. No it isn't perfect. Not all of the students are particularly smart or gifted. Not all of them have the creative skills or the sitzfleisch necessary to do research well. But by god, nearly all of them are trying. I'll take a class of not so smart people who make the effort over a class of very smart students that don't care or work any day of the week. And many of those students who are trying are very smart indeed.
Let me give you some personal history to explain just why I view graduate school so positively. I grew up in Milwaukee. I was a very bright kid and I was bored as a gourd in elementary school. My teachers understood this and would let me go into classes a grade or two above me to get books to read. Giving me that little liberty helped a great deal.
While I was a definite egghead, strangely I was very popular in my working class neighborhood. There was a certain pride that someone on the block excelled at school. I'd help people with their homework. Other kids were appreciative. America is anti-intellectual, but my neighborhood - where only one parent had ever gone to college and many hadn't finished high school - wasn't anti-intellectual, at least when it concerned me. It probably didn't hurt that I was one badass football player.
In Milwaukee, there was one school for the entire city for brainiac kids. It began in the fifth grade and that's where I went for a year. I was in heaven. I looked forward to going to school every day.
My parents decided to move to the suburbs when I was in sixth grade. It was a matter of pride with them that they could afford to move out of their working class neighborhood. They convinced themselves that the schools in the suburbs were superior. They weren't.
I was six months ahead of the students in my suburban school. Again I was bored as a gourd. Again, I excelled. But this time, my egghead ways were not viewed positively by my classmates. I was ridiculed and shunned. It was not a pretty sight.
In response, I decided drastic actions were necessary. I'd pretend I was dumber than I was. My grades dropped. It worked. Suddenly I had a bunch of friends. My mother asked me why her formerly perfect student of a son was getting B pluses and I told her outright what I was doing. She cried on the spot right in front of me.
I kept pretending I was dumber than I was all through high school. I took a lot of drugs like a lot of high school kids do to stay numb. I hardly attended classes. You received two demerits for every class you skipped. By my junior year, I had over 600 demerits. Supposedly eight demerits were enough to get you on probation, fourteen were enough to get you suspended.
In my junior year, the assistant principal called me into his office. "Stuart, you have 618 demerits and an A minus average. What are we going to do with you?" I suggested that they let me graduate early. And that's what they did.
I was hoping and expecting that I could shed my "act dumber than I am" persona in college. Nope. It was the same deal. If you were too smart and too intense, you were a pariah. I stayed in my shell as a result. I was fairly convinced that I would have to act dumber than I was in public for the rest of my life.
That all changed in graduate school. I wasn't expecting this change to take place actually. I started out acting like a dim-wit, wiseacre as per usual. But I noticed that my classmates were different than any I had seen before. They actually wanted to learn. They could care less if someone thought they were geeks. Hell, they were prideful about their geekiness.
Suddenly, a light went on. I didn't have to act dumb anymore. I was around people like me, brainiacs or at least wannabe brainiacs. This was my element. For the first time since fifth grade I was happy to be at school.
I had spent over a decade acting like an idiot in a classroom setting for the purpose of self preservation. I admit I was a bit rusty when it came to academics. But after a semester or so, I got the hang of using my brain in school. Not only did I get the hang of it, I excelled. I was in heaven again.
My best friends of today come from my time in graduate school. These are my kindred spirits. After twenty years, I can still talk to them about anything under the sun. They offer good advice and counsel and I hope I offer the same to them.
If you have an intellectual bent, it's unlikely that high school will be much fun. It may be possible if you are lucky enough to find a nourishing niche that college will have some redeeming value. But it's graduate school that will almost certainly be the ticket. It's worth the wait. It really is.
I'll try to wrap this up next time.
Friday, June 13, 2008
Tales From the Old Country and Beyond, Part 12
Someone To Talk To
When I lived in Chapel Hill, I had a Polish neighbor, a physicist who taught at UNC. We didn't interact much, but usually when we talked he would ask, "So when is your mother coming again?" He loved talking to my mother.
According to him, my mother spoke an incredibly refined Polish. Her use of words and her grammar were out of the era of Dukes and Duchesses. "It's like talking to royalty," he said. This wasn't hard for me to believe. One of the more frequent names mentioned in my family in everyday conversation was the "Graf Pototski," the Duke Pototski, a legendary Polish nobleman who converted to Judaism. My parents, while born in the 20th century, were very much wed to the 19th century in terms of lifestyle, awareness of history, and attitudes.
My neighbor would talk to my mother just to hear her speak formal Polish, a style of speaking in Poland that had disappeared after WWII. He wasn't the first person that did this. When I was a little kid, a Polish fruit vendor - a man of some erudition back in Poland - would stop by our house to do the same thing.
Needless to say there was no trace of a Yiddish accent in my mother's Polish. It was pure. There was a simple reason for that. My mother didn't learn Yiddish until she was in Siberia during WWII. Polish was her mother tongue. She grew up the daughter of a wealthy merchant in a town of a few tens of thousand people, Tomaszów Lubelski. They spoke Polish in the home and she was educated in the best private school in her town. She was an excellent student.
While my Polish neighbor liked to talk to my mother for nostalgic reasons, a lot of people simply liked to talk to her no matter what language she spoke. My mother had "it" whatever "it" is, a warmth of spirit and an undeniable life force. People just liked being around her. She was a kind of Jewish Oprah.
She had opinions and she wasn't shy about spouting them. She once said to me, "Once you get over 40, you won't give a damn about what other people think about you. It's a relief." She was right. Of course she was right. I don't possess her warmth, but I have a lot of her in me. She knew that.
There was a certain type of person that she attracted when I was growing up and continued to attract when I had long left home. In today's parlance it would be called a soccer mom: someone in her 30s, usually gentile, with a couple of kids, and a husband who was doing pretty well financially in his own business.
Women like this looked at my mom as a kind of oracle. Maybe she served as a kind of surrogate mother to them. They would come to our house, be served coffee and homemade cake and tell my mother every intimate detail of their lives. You could see the relief on their faces when they came as if my mother and our house were an oasis in a desert. They would nibble on cake, sip their coffee and unload all of their emotional burdens.
For these women, my mother was a proud example of what a woman could do. You could raise a family, be financially aware and if need be independent, have a devoted and loving husband, and not at all be shy about letting your true personality show through. She was like a guru for soccer moms. I don't quite understand why to this day. But throughout her life there would be always be one or two women of this type in her life who both admired her and were devoted to her.
My mother possessed a boundless optimism. No problem was so big that it couldn't be solved. These soccer moms didn't just unload; they also sought advice. Most of my mother's advice was about husbands. I couldn't help but eavesdrop on these conversations when she offered her opinions and solutions to these women's problems.
Embedded in my mother's view about dealing with husbands was that women were actually the leaders in a marriage, but they had to pretend they weren't. The wives were superior. They were stronger emotionally. They understood human emotions better. They were even smarter. The goal of a wife was to somehow not show this to be the case, but work behind the scenes to empower their husbands.
In a nutshell, the message she preached was that a wife needed to be the life coach of the husband, a positive force who kept him well fed, and emotionally strong. Where did she develop these ideas? I don't know. They were partly of their time including the idea that a woman was superior but had to be quiet about it. But welded onto this fifties kind of model was also the idea that a woman, should never, ever be a rug. Sometimes you had to administer tough love to your spouse.
She practiced what she preached. It's certainly how she interacted with my father. I'll talk about what I know of her childhood next time. Eventually, I'll get to her marriage with my father. She was, as I've noted before, a terrible storyteller. Her narratives would usually get all jumbled up and have no arc. Somehow I need to untangle them here.
Someone To Talk To
When I lived in Chapel Hill, I had a Polish neighbor, a physicist who taught at UNC. We didn't interact much, but usually when we talked he would ask, "So when is your mother coming again?" He loved talking to my mother.
According to him, my mother spoke an incredibly refined Polish. Her use of words and her grammar were out of the era of Dukes and Duchesses. "It's like talking to royalty," he said. This wasn't hard for me to believe. One of the more frequent names mentioned in my family in everyday conversation was the "Graf Pototski," the Duke Pototski, a legendary Polish nobleman who converted to Judaism. My parents, while born in the 20th century, were very much wed to the 19th century in terms of lifestyle, awareness of history, and attitudes.
My neighbor would talk to my mother just to hear her speak formal Polish, a style of speaking in Poland that had disappeared after WWII. He wasn't the first person that did this. When I was a little kid, a Polish fruit vendor - a man of some erudition back in Poland - would stop by our house to do the same thing.
Needless to say there was no trace of a Yiddish accent in my mother's Polish. It was pure. There was a simple reason for that. My mother didn't learn Yiddish until she was in Siberia during WWII. Polish was her mother tongue. She grew up the daughter of a wealthy merchant in a town of a few tens of thousand people, Tomaszów Lubelski. They spoke Polish in the home and she was educated in the best private school in her town. She was an excellent student.
While my Polish neighbor liked to talk to my mother for nostalgic reasons, a lot of people simply liked to talk to her no matter what language she spoke. My mother had "it" whatever "it" is, a warmth of spirit and an undeniable life force. People just liked being around her. She was a kind of Jewish Oprah.
She had opinions and she wasn't shy about spouting them. She once said to me, "Once you get over 40, you won't give a damn about what other people think about you. It's a relief." She was right. Of course she was right. I don't possess her warmth, but I have a lot of her in me. She knew that.
There was a certain type of person that she attracted when I was growing up and continued to attract when I had long left home. In today's parlance it would be called a soccer mom: someone in her 30s, usually gentile, with a couple of kids, and a husband who was doing pretty well financially in his own business.
Women like this looked at my mom as a kind of oracle. Maybe she served as a kind of surrogate mother to them. They would come to our house, be served coffee and homemade cake and tell my mother every intimate detail of their lives. You could see the relief on their faces when they came as if my mother and our house were an oasis in a desert. They would nibble on cake, sip their coffee and unload all of their emotional burdens.
For these women, my mother was a proud example of what a woman could do. You could raise a family, be financially aware and if need be independent, have a devoted and loving husband, and not at all be shy about letting your true personality show through. She was like a guru for soccer moms. I don't quite understand why to this day. But throughout her life there would be always be one or two women of this type in her life who both admired her and were devoted to her.
My mother possessed a boundless optimism. No problem was so big that it couldn't be solved. These soccer moms didn't just unload; they also sought advice. Most of my mother's advice was about husbands. I couldn't help but eavesdrop on these conversations when she offered her opinions and solutions to these women's problems.
Embedded in my mother's view about dealing with husbands was that women were actually the leaders in a marriage, but they had to pretend they weren't. The wives were superior. They were stronger emotionally. They understood human emotions better. They were even smarter. The goal of a wife was to somehow not show this to be the case, but work behind the scenes to empower their husbands.
In a nutshell, the message she preached was that a wife needed to be the life coach of the husband, a positive force who kept him well fed, and emotionally strong. Where did she develop these ideas? I don't know. They were partly of their time including the idea that a woman was superior but had to be quiet about it. But welded onto this fifties kind of model was also the idea that a woman, should never, ever be a rug. Sometimes you had to administer tough love to your spouse.
She practiced what she preached. It's certainly how she interacted with my father. I'll talk about what I know of her childhood next time. Eventually, I'll get to her marriage with my father. She was, as I've noted before, a terrible storyteller. Her narratives would usually get all jumbled up and have no arc. Somehow I need to untangle them here.
Thursday, June 12, 2008
That Strange Dichotomy in Higher Ed, Part 2: Why It's So Dreadful
If you're intellectually inclined like me, undergraduate education is a dreadful thing. The problem is one of wasted space. In a typical classroom only about 10 to 20 percent of the students have any real intellectual drive. Another 10 to 15 percent are simply committed to doing a good job in anything they do. The rest are there just to get a degree or because their parents say they have to be there or because they don't know what else to do with their time.
All of those non-interested students foul up the machine called education. They just slow everything down. The energy level is low. You can feel life being sucked out of the room by the presence of so many people who shouldn't be there.
We get all excited in this country about everyone having access to a college degree. But the fact is that far too many people go to college. They don't really want to be there from a learning standpoint. Society expects them to be there if they have aspirations to be part of America's upper middle class and higher. So they go through the motions. In truth, we should have alternatives to college and let smart and ambitious 18 year olds enter the legitimate paying part of the workforce. But we don't.
In an environment where two thirds or more of the class doesn't really want to be there at all, teaching can be a dreadful thing. And it usually is. I know that for a fact. I've seen it from both sides. I've seen those weary and worn out looks on the part of my professors and had my own gut wrenching experiences teaching. I provided tiny quantities of knowledge and needed to push so hard to get students to take what I had to offer. Yuck.
Most professors, faced with a vast sea of indifferent students, simply give up. Like the students they go through the motions. Someone else I read coined the dynamic between students and professors as a "non-aggression pact." In essence, your typical college class has an unwritten agreement: I won't bother you with hard work if you won't bother me.
For the university professor, this is often a good deal. First off, they hardly spend any time teaching undergraduates so how painful can this sacrifice be? Second, it frees them to focus on their research and their graduate students. What does a college professor without an avenue to graduate students and research do? I have no idea.
No doubt about it, undergraduate education is dreadful in this country. Yet somehow the rhetoric about what a college degree means is very lofty. I don't quite get this disconnect between the image of college and the reality. College has become some kind of right of passage. It's not about education that's for sure.
It's more about symbolism than anything else. People often go through an elaborate ceremony in choosing their college, making annual pilgrimages to schools in the search for the "right one." Once they get there, all of the rhetoric about learning and intellectual growth seems to be forgotten until graduation day where it's resurrected. The focus is on parties and friends.
At its best, college today is like a good summer camp. Symbolically, graduation is kind of like a Bar Mitzvah for gentiles (and a second Bar/Bat Mitzvah for Jews). It's a passage into adulthood. And like many Bnai Mitzvot of today, the lofty language of the ceremony of graduation is incredibly hollow.
But what if you don't want to go to summer camp as an 18 year old? What if you really want to learn? The answer today is that there's always graduate school. You just have to wait an extra four years to get what you deserve as a serious undergraduate.
Graduate school is a whole different kind of beast. From a professor's standpoint, it's a pleasure being in a room teaching people who want to be there. From a student's standpoint, it's wonderful to finally be in a classroom without all of that wasted space of indifferent students.
It looks like this will be a three part series. I'll end this here for now and pick it up again on Monday.
If you're intellectually inclined like me, undergraduate education is a dreadful thing. The problem is one of wasted space. In a typical classroom only about 10 to 20 percent of the students have any real intellectual drive. Another 10 to 15 percent are simply committed to doing a good job in anything they do. The rest are there just to get a degree or because their parents say they have to be there or because they don't know what else to do with their time.
All of those non-interested students foul up the machine called education. They just slow everything down. The energy level is low. You can feel life being sucked out of the room by the presence of so many people who shouldn't be there.
We get all excited in this country about everyone having access to a college degree. But the fact is that far too many people go to college. They don't really want to be there from a learning standpoint. Society expects them to be there if they have aspirations to be part of America's upper middle class and higher. So they go through the motions. In truth, we should have alternatives to college and let smart and ambitious 18 year olds enter the legitimate paying part of the workforce. But we don't.
In an environment where two thirds or more of the class doesn't really want to be there at all, teaching can be a dreadful thing. And it usually is. I know that for a fact. I've seen it from both sides. I've seen those weary and worn out looks on the part of my professors and had my own gut wrenching experiences teaching. I provided tiny quantities of knowledge and needed to push so hard to get students to take what I had to offer. Yuck.
Most professors, faced with a vast sea of indifferent students, simply give up. Like the students they go through the motions. Someone else I read coined the dynamic between students and professors as a "non-aggression pact." In essence, your typical college class has an unwritten agreement: I won't bother you with hard work if you won't bother me.
For the university professor, this is often a good deal. First off, they hardly spend any time teaching undergraduates so how painful can this sacrifice be? Second, it frees them to focus on their research and their graduate students. What does a college professor without an avenue to graduate students and research do? I have no idea.
No doubt about it, undergraduate education is dreadful in this country. Yet somehow the rhetoric about what a college degree means is very lofty. I don't quite get this disconnect between the image of college and the reality. College has become some kind of right of passage. It's not about education that's for sure.
It's more about symbolism than anything else. People often go through an elaborate ceremony in choosing their college, making annual pilgrimages to schools in the search for the "right one." Once they get there, all of the rhetoric about learning and intellectual growth seems to be forgotten until graduation day where it's resurrected. The focus is on parties and friends.
At its best, college today is like a good summer camp. Symbolically, graduation is kind of like a Bar Mitzvah for gentiles (and a second Bar/Bat Mitzvah for Jews). It's a passage into adulthood. And like many Bnai Mitzvot of today, the lofty language of the ceremony of graduation is incredibly hollow.
But what if you don't want to go to summer camp as an 18 year old? What if you really want to learn? The answer today is that there's always graduate school. You just have to wait an extra four years to get what you deserve as a serious undergraduate.
Graduate school is a whole different kind of beast. From a professor's standpoint, it's a pleasure being in a room teaching people who want to be there. From a student's standpoint, it's wonderful to finally be in a classroom without all of that wasted space of indifferent students.
It looks like this will be a three part series. I'll end this here for now and pick it up again on Monday.
Wednesday, June 11, 2008
That Strange Dichotomy in Higher Ed, Part I: From Miserable to Dreadful
A while back I made a statement that undergraduate education in the US is dreadful while graduate education is outstanding. Like all blanket statements, there are exceptions. But this "rule" holds up very well across the country. Someone asked me to explain this a bit. I'd like to start off with some personal observations. And maybe I won't get beyond those. This is a blog after all.
I am not at all nostalgic about my own undergraduate education. It wasn't any great shakes. I was an undergraduate at a big state school in the 1970s. The class sizes were huge and the tuition was tiny, about 600 dollars a year. You got what you paid for. The quality of instruction was on the whole miserable. I doubt if it would have been much better at a private school, but I can't be both the subject and control.
I was an intellectually inclined kid at a time when the buzz word was "access." That buzz word meant that I was part of a massive slug of students, many of whom had no intellectual interests, but saw a college education as the ticket to a better life. It was a union card of sorts. It still is.
People trudged through classes on their way to getting their degrees. The classes I liked - the tough ones with high workloads and often imperious professors - everyone else seemed to hate. Those types of classes were far and few between by the way. The usual fare was light workloads and nice guys as professors (there were hardly any female professors so gals were unusual) or more typically, professors who had little or no interest in teaching undergraduates.
Other students didn't seem to mind these "going through the motions" wane classes. I did. As for the nice, entertaining and low expectations professors, the other students loved this approach. I hated it.
I knew I was getting a lousy education as an undergraduate. For the most part, the classes were so lousy and lightweight that I would often not attend except for the exams. Instead, what I did was, when I wasn't getting high and partying, head to the library and learn on my own. The undergraduate library had these great chairs overlooking a lake. The shelves near those chairs were filled with poetry books and the University of Chicago's Great Books series.
I read. A lot. I learned by myself. A lot. That's how I learn best anyhow. Put me in a structured learning setting and I usually get twitchy and impatient because people are going too slow. Plus the library is a great place to pick up women. It was the best of both worlds.
Overall, my formal undergraduate education was hit and miss. My informal one, thanks to a great library with a beautiful view, was quite good. There are those that would argue that nothing much has changed since that time. I know better.
As mediocre as my formal undergraduate education was back then, it's worse now. Students simply aren't studying. Work loads are even lighter. At a typical university nowadays undergraduates spend less than one half as much time studying outside of class as I did (twenty hours a week versus less than ten).
The lightweight course of my undergraduate days - where the expectation was that you spent about five hours a week studying - would now be a heavyweight thing. The heavyweight courses of my time are almost extinct. If you try to teach material at the same pace and workload I experienced, you will find an irate and weary classroom. I saw that anger for the first few years I taught. Then I cut the workload down by half and slowed the pace down by 30 percent; everyone was happy except me.
The bottom line is that from the 1970s until now, undergraduate education has gone from miserable to dreadful. The gap in quality between undergraduate and graduate education has widened over that time as well. I'll talk about that next post.
A while back I made a statement that undergraduate education in the US is dreadful while graduate education is outstanding. Like all blanket statements, there are exceptions. But this "rule" holds up very well across the country. Someone asked me to explain this a bit. I'd like to start off with some personal observations. And maybe I won't get beyond those. This is a blog after all.
I am not at all nostalgic about my own undergraduate education. It wasn't any great shakes. I was an undergraduate at a big state school in the 1970s. The class sizes were huge and the tuition was tiny, about 600 dollars a year. You got what you paid for. The quality of instruction was on the whole miserable. I doubt if it would have been much better at a private school, but I can't be both the subject and control.
I was an intellectually inclined kid at a time when the buzz word was "access." That buzz word meant that I was part of a massive slug of students, many of whom had no intellectual interests, but saw a college education as the ticket to a better life. It was a union card of sorts. It still is.
People trudged through classes on their way to getting their degrees. The classes I liked - the tough ones with high workloads and often imperious professors - everyone else seemed to hate. Those types of classes were far and few between by the way. The usual fare was light workloads and nice guys as professors (there were hardly any female professors so gals were unusual) or more typically, professors who had little or no interest in teaching undergraduates.
Other students didn't seem to mind these "going through the motions" wane classes. I did. As for the nice, entertaining and low expectations professors, the other students loved this approach. I hated it.
I knew I was getting a lousy education as an undergraduate. For the most part, the classes were so lousy and lightweight that I would often not attend except for the exams. Instead, what I did was, when I wasn't getting high and partying, head to the library and learn on my own. The undergraduate library had these great chairs overlooking a lake. The shelves near those chairs were filled with poetry books and the University of Chicago's Great Books series.
I read. A lot. I learned by myself. A lot. That's how I learn best anyhow. Put me in a structured learning setting and I usually get twitchy and impatient because people are going too slow. Plus the library is a great place to pick up women. It was the best of both worlds.
Overall, my formal undergraduate education was hit and miss. My informal one, thanks to a great library with a beautiful view, was quite good. There are those that would argue that nothing much has changed since that time. I know better.
As mediocre as my formal undergraduate education was back then, it's worse now. Students simply aren't studying. Work loads are even lighter. At a typical university nowadays undergraduates spend less than one half as much time studying outside of class as I did (twenty hours a week versus less than ten).
The lightweight course of my undergraduate days - where the expectation was that you spent about five hours a week studying - would now be a heavyweight thing. The heavyweight courses of my time are almost extinct. If you try to teach material at the same pace and workload I experienced, you will find an irate and weary classroom. I saw that anger for the first few years I taught. Then I cut the workload down by half and slowed the pace down by 30 percent; everyone was happy except me.
The bottom line is that from the 1970s until now, undergraduate education has gone from miserable to dreadful. The gap in quality between undergraduate and graduate education has widened over that time as well. I'll talk about that next post.
Tuesday, June 10, 2008
My Obama Bumper Sticker
Now that the primaries are over I feel OK about saying good bye to my girl Hillary. I actually took off my Clinton bumper sticker a long time ago, after the Obama campaign successfully killed the revotes in Michigan and Florida. I felt Clinton's chances immediately went to zero back then. I stopped working for her campaign as well. It would have been too depressing.
Still, I held back on outright support of Obama. Part of it was due to loyalty. But part of it is that I don't like the guy, just plain don't. When he does his rock star thing in basketball arenas and people chant "yes we can" it gives me the creeps. I was talking to a German woman about this problem of mine with Obama's rock star image. "It reminds you of Hitler, doesn't it?" I was so surprised she said this. But it's true. I nodded. "Me too," she said.
I'm not saying that Obama is a fascist. That would be ridiculous. It's just my view that charisma is a very dangerous thing in politics. I have no use for it. I'm actually heartened that Obama's charismatic appeal cuts through such a narrow swath of the American public. Unlike Kennedy or Reagan, Obama's charisma doesn't seem to work for the common guy or gal on the street. It's a latte set/youth type of charisma. It certainly doesn't work for me.
Then there is the issue of phoniness. I don't have a problem with phony politicians. It comes with the territory. But I have always had a problem with phony politicians (and people in general) who try to cover up their phoniness with holier than thou, self-righteous rhetoric. There's just something in me that goes nuts when I have to deal with people like that. It's a certain button in me that if you push, anger comes out. Obama pushes that button constantly.
Obama and I are a personality mismatch. He's smart, but is a bit of a lazy thinker. He has the mindset of a minister not a politician. But...I'm a Democrat and there is no way in hell I want to see McCain win. Eight years of a Republican administration have been ruinous. We don't need another four.
So I'm sucking it up. The other day I went into a Obama campaign office. They wanted a buck for a bumper sticker. My first thought was "The guy has oceans of money and he wants a buck for me to advertise for him?" But then I settled down and became somewhat human again. What the hell is a dollar after all? I gave them a buck. I put the sticker on my car.
Will I actually volunteer for the Obama campaign? See the paragraph above the last one for why I likely will. But I'm not ready yet. When I walked into that Obama office I did not feel good. I looked around and felt like I was surrounded by Moonies. These are not my kind of people in the least, I thought. Yuck. The wimp factor, the glaze-eyed factor, both seemed huge. Was I actually seeing this or imprinting? Probably a little of both.
Regardless, I'm not going back to that office. But sometime down the road, there is no doubt that I'll make some phone calls for the Obama campaign from the privacy of my own home. I will suck it up.
Monday, June 09, 2008
Why Big Brown Lost
I like going to the race track every now and then. Car racing doesn't do a thing for me - too much in the way of fumes and noise - but there is something about a horse running as fast as it can that appeals. Yes I know they shoot the horses up with all kinds of crap and breed them so that they are too fragile. I'd rather they didn't. But I still like going to the track.
I don't claim any expertise with regard to horse racing, but those horses are beautiful to watch even when they are just walking around the paddocks. They look regal.
While I tend to do slightly below average in my race picks, I've had my moments. The only time I bet on a horse in the Kentucky Derby it was a winner, a 13 to 1 long shot. Why did I bet on that horse? It was gorgeous, a filly with a great name, Genuine Risk. How could you not bet on a horse named Genuine Risk?
And that gets me to this year's Triple Crown threat. I know exactly why it lost the Belmont Stakes last Saturday even though there wasn't a single decent challenger in the field. It wasn't the length of the race. It wasn't the heat. It wasn't a bad hoof. No, it's far more simple than that. It's all about the name. Big Brown. What the hell kind of name is that for a race horse?
Big Brown is something that a five year old kid would come up with, kind of like naming your pet fish Fishy or your hamster Furry. It shows a complete lack of imagination on the part of the owners. In comparison, let's look at the history of Triple Crown winners:
1919 Sir Barton
1930 Gallant Fox
1935 Omaha
1937 War Admiral
1941 Whirlaway
1943 Count Fleet
1946 Assault
1948 Citation
1973 Secretariat
1977 Seattle Slew
1978 Affirmed
There's not a Big Black, Little Bay, Medium-Sized Grey or equivalent on the list. Big Brown. Give me a break. It just doesn't stack up.
Now I know what you're thinking. If names are so important, how come a horse with such a pedestrian name won the Derby and the Preakness? And the answer is that of course, Big Brown is a great horse. It defied the Name Gods (relatives of the Letter Gods who determine whether you win or lose in Scrabble) twice, that's how great a horse Big Brown is.
But there is no way Big Brown was going to win that critical third part of the Crown. No Name God worth his salt would allow it. Had there been a betting window to go short on Big Brown in the Belmont, I would have ponied up (couldn't resist the pun, sorry) a lot of cash.
But I was nowhere near the Belmont. Instead I watched the race on the TV. I saw Big Brown in great position with five furlongs to go. And then nothing. As the jockey remarked after, "I had no horse."
The Name Gods had another horse in mind for the Belmont. It had only won once in seven starts. The only time it faced Big Brown before it lost by 23 lengths. But the Triple Crown was at stake this time. Which is the better name, Da'Tara or Big Brown? That's a no brainer.
The moral of this story is that you can pay 2.5 million for a horse, but without a proper name, you're hosed. The name is the thing after all.
I like going to the race track every now and then. Car racing doesn't do a thing for me - too much in the way of fumes and noise - but there is something about a horse running as fast as it can that appeals. Yes I know they shoot the horses up with all kinds of crap and breed them so that they are too fragile. I'd rather they didn't. But I still like going to the track.
I don't claim any expertise with regard to horse racing, but those horses are beautiful to watch even when they are just walking around the paddocks. They look regal.
While I tend to do slightly below average in my race picks, I've had my moments. The only time I bet on a horse in the Kentucky Derby it was a winner, a 13 to 1 long shot. Why did I bet on that horse? It was gorgeous, a filly with a great name, Genuine Risk. How could you not bet on a horse named Genuine Risk?
And that gets me to this year's Triple Crown threat. I know exactly why it lost the Belmont Stakes last Saturday even though there wasn't a single decent challenger in the field. It wasn't the length of the race. It wasn't the heat. It wasn't a bad hoof. No, it's far more simple than that. It's all about the name. Big Brown. What the hell kind of name is that for a race horse?
Big Brown is something that a five year old kid would come up with, kind of like naming your pet fish Fishy or your hamster Furry. It shows a complete lack of imagination on the part of the owners. In comparison, let's look at the history of Triple Crown winners:
1919 Sir Barton
1930 Gallant Fox
1935 Omaha
1937 War Admiral
1941 Whirlaway
1943 Count Fleet
1946 Assault
1948 Citation
1973 Secretariat
1977 Seattle Slew
1978 Affirmed
There's not a Big Black, Little Bay, Medium-Sized Grey or equivalent on the list. Big Brown. Give me a break. It just doesn't stack up.
Now I know what you're thinking. If names are so important, how come a horse with such a pedestrian name won the Derby and the Preakness? And the answer is that of course, Big Brown is a great horse. It defied the Name Gods (relatives of the Letter Gods who determine whether you win or lose in Scrabble) twice, that's how great a horse Big Brown is.
But there is no way Big Brown was going to win that critical third part of the Crown. No Name God worth his salt would allow it. Had there been a betting window to go short on Big Brown in the Belmont, I would have ponied up (couldn't resist the pun, sorry) a lot of cash.
But I was nowhere near the Belmont. Instead I watched the race on the TV. I saw Big Brown in great position with five furlongs to go. And then nothing. As the jockey remarked after, "I had no horse."
The Name Gods had another horse in mind for the Belmont. It had only won once in seven starts. The only time it faced Big Brown before it lost by 23 lengths. But the Triple Crown was at stake this time. Which is the better name, Da'Tara or Big Brown? That's a no brainer.
The moral of this story is that you can pay 2.5 million for a horse, but without a proper name, you're hosed. The name is the thing after all.
Friday, June 06, 2008
Tales From the Old Country and Beyond Part 11
Stray Tales
Before I talk about my mother - which is going to take me a few posts - I thought I'd include some stray tales of my family from before the time of my parents. Yes, I'm procrastinating by doing this. It's actually very emotional for me to write about my parents. I need a break.
Story number one involves how my father's aunt and uncle - the parents of the gay cousin of my father I mentioned in a previous post - got the money to come to America in the 1920s. According to my father, his aunt had a dry goods store in Ludmir. In the front window was a beautiful silver samovar. A lot of people admired it. The locals knew it was faulty; it leaked. But occasionally, a wealthy visitor would see it in the window and purchase it. The customer would come back eventually to demand a refund. My great aunt would say, "Well I don't have the money now, but when I do, I'll happily repay you."
Then she'd put out the samovar in the window and do this trick over again. After a year or so of selling this samovar repeatedly without refunding anyone, her family took off for America with the cash.
Now this story obviously has, like the samovar in question, a lot of holes in it. To what extent my father made this up or borrowed from some Yiddish story that I've never read, I don't know. I simply state it without verification.
Story number two involves my mother's side of the family. First some background. Dogs hate me. They always have. Dogs that have no history of attacking anyone - the kindest canines the world has ever known - somehow are driven to fits of rage by my mere presence. By the time I was nine, everyone in my family had accepted this fact. My mother said I was like her great uncle, a devout man.
Dogs hated him too. One winter night my great uncle was walking past the town cemetery and a dog attacked him. He was well covered with clothing, and the dog yanked on my great uncle's long coat with his teeth. My great uncle tried to pull away, but the dog was relentless. My great uncle became so agitated that he had a heart attack and died right in front of the town cemetery.
Now that is quite the convenient spot to die I know. I try not to wear long coats as a result. I hope that I avoid the same fate.
OK, next week it's on to my mother. I promise.
By the way there was a show on PBS last night, A Yiddish World Remembered. I recorded it using my PVR (the first time I've ever done that!). It looks like I have a good digital copy of the show (I seem to know what I'm doing), but I haven't watched it yet.
Thursday, June 05, 2008
Country Girl Singers and Trees
Somewhere around 1992 I heard about a singer when I was visiting San Diego. She was developing a buzz and was playing that night. I decided to see what the buzz was about. What I saw was a zaftig girl with bad teeth, a warm voice, barely passable guitar playing, not very good songs (except for one decent one co-written with her boyfriend) and somehow an audience that was in rapture.
I didn't get it. I still don't. That one pretty good song co-written by her boyfriend was the hit single on her first album. I still hear it on the radio and in fast food joints. The artist's name was Jewel. She lost a lot of weight between the night I saw her and her first record deal and she's sold something on the order of 20 million records.
It's rare for a pop music career to last for more than an album or two. Jewel has done well for longer than most. But after a dozen years, her album sales have stiffed. In a last ditch effort to recreate herself into something sellable beyond the nostalgia driven crowds of Branson and Las Vegas, she put out a country CD this week. I doubt it will work, but obviously I've been wrong about Jewel before. Her first single has been hanging around in the top 20 on the charts, which is where the singles of a lot of thirtysomething country singing females tend to end up.
You don't have to listen to the album to know Jewel has gone country. All you have to do is look at the photos accompanying the release. Like all good country girl singers, Jewel is standing next to a tree in one of them.
I swear every country girl singer over the last thirty years has a photo like this that has been in her publicity campaign somewhere along the line. The girl looks fresh faced and innocent. The tree looks, well...like a tree. Usually the girl is right up against the trunk. Sometimes she's leaning against it. Sometimes her hands are delicately placed on the circumference.
You could read all kinds of symbolism into the country girl and the tree tableau. If you have a dirty mind,...ok, we won't go there. I think it's meant to convey that the singer is a nature girl, unadorned and unpretentious. Country music often reflects rural sensibilities and there seems to be an assumption in these photos that trees only grow in rural habitats.
I don't know the origins of this country girl and tree thing. There's a painting from Winslow Homer from the 1890s that uses the same theme. Maybe it comes from that. Or maybe it goes back to Eve and the Tree of Knowledge, but that would cast these photos in a more sinister light than I think is their intent.
Enough of trees and country girl singers. What about the new CD from the new tree leaner Jewel? I listened to it. Snooze. But I say that about 98 percent of all CDs I hear, some of which go on to sell millions. Who knows? Maybe that will happen with this one.
Somewhere around 1992 I heard about a singer when I was visiting San Diego. She was developing a buzz and was playing that night. I decided to see what the buzz was about. What I saw was a zaftig girl with bad teeth, a warm voice, barely passable guitar playing, not very good songs (except for one decent one co-written with her boyfriend) and somehow an audience that was in rapture.
I didn't get it. I still don't. That one pretty good song co-written by her boyfriend was the hit single on her first album. I still hear it on the radio and in fast food joints. The artist's name was Jewel. She lost a lot of weight between the night I saw her and her first record deal and she's sold something on the order of 20 million records.
It's rare for a pop music career to last for more than an album or two. Jewel has done well for longer than most. But after a dozen years, her album sales have stiffed. In a last ditch effort to recreate herself into something sellable beyond the nostalgia driven crowds of Branson and Las Vegas, she put out a country CD this week. I doubt it will work, but obviously I've been wrong about Jewel before. Her first single has been hanging around in the top 20 on the charts, which is where the singles of a lot of thirtysomething country singing females tend to end up.
You don't have to listen to the album to know Jewel has gone country. All you have to do is look at the photos accompanying the release. Like all good country girl singers, Jewel is standing next to a tree in one of them.
I swear every country girl singer over the last thirty years has a photo like this that has been in her publicity campaign somewhere along the line. The girl looks fresh faced and innocent. The tree looks, well...like a tree. Usually the girl is right up against the trunk. Sometimes she's leaning against it. Sometimes her hands are delicately placed on the circumference.
You could read all kinds of symbolism into the country girl and the tree tableau. If you have a dirty mind,...ok, we won't go there. I think it's meant to convey that the singer is a nature girl, unadorned and unpretentious. Country music often reflects rural sensibilities and there seems to be an assumption in these photos that trees only grow in rural habitats.
I don't know the origins of this country girl and tree thing. There's a painting from Winslow Homer from the 1890s that uses the same theme. Maybe it comes from that. Or maybe it goes back to Eve and the Tree of Knowledge, but that would cast these photos in a more sinister light than I think is their intent.
Enough of trees and country girl singers. What about the new CD from the new tree leaner Jewel? I listened to it. Snooze. But I say that about 98 percent of all CDs I hear, some of which go on to sell millions. Who knows? Maybe that will happen with this one.
Wednesday, June 04, 2008
Politics and Fairness
Praise the lord, the primary elections are over! They went on for way too long and it doesn't have to be this way. It all should be shortened down to a month. Forget about those silly things called caucuses. A day or a dollar spent campaigning in either Iowa or New Hampshire - two states with tiny populations that should have been annexed to Illinois and Massachusetts, respectively, long ago - is already a day and a dollar too much. The process should be scrapped and rethought. But it won't likely be anytime soon. Sigh.
Now that the dust has settled what do we have? It looks like the Democrats have a nominee. And of course we have the familiar arguments of "fairness." As far as I can tell, complaining about fairness in politics is just being a sore loser. Politics are not about fairness. They are about winning.
Hillary Clinton and Obama have both used the "fairness" word. Both have been very cynical in using it. Clinton wanted to pretend that a botched election that should have been written off as null and void, the Michigan primary, was the real deal. Obama worked hard to make sure that there would be no new primary elections in either Michigan or Florida because he knew he would lose both states; in my book, that's called deliberately standing in the way of democracy, which hardly can be called fair. It is, however, a winning strategy.
And that's what this election is all about, winning. It's politics. Politics and fairness are oxymorons.
Oddly, in some ways, this election has been fair. Both candidates have about the same number of popular votes and the same number of delegates. The difference between the popular vote and the delegate counts is in the realm of noise. I may not like the Democratic Party's nominating process, but in the end the results have been, well...fairly fair.
That said, the whole process is horribly flawed. The candidates are weary. On camera, both look so tired that a good wind would blow them over. The populace is already sick of them. The amount of money that has been spent is obscene. This may be a "fair" way to elect a candidate, but it is ridiculous.
There is one piece of good news. Despite some ineptitude in the election process, it looks like the Democrats will have a candidate that will win this year. There is another piece of good news. As a result of the Democratic Party's decisions on Michigan and Florida, it's unlikely that any state will break the rules of the party in 2012.
Just to remind you, Florida had a well run election, albeit on a date selected without the Democratic Party's approval. Michigan had the wrong date and a flawed ballot. Yet they were both treated the same by the Democratic Party. If I were Florida, I'd scream out, "That isn't fair!" Tell it to the Marines.
My guess is that the 2008 results will be close enough that the Republicans will challenge the "fairness" of the election. In 2000 and 2004 it was the Democrats who cynically used the high road of fairness as an excuse to complain. In 2008, it will likely be the Republican's turn. In anticipation of a messy, but victorious 2008 election for the Democrats, I'll give some advice to the Republicans. It's the same advice Justice Scalia has repeatedly given about the 2000 election: get over it.
They might as well get over it in advance. It will save them some heartache. Mark my words, the Democrats will win unfair and unsquare. It's the way elections are won throughout the world.
Praise the lord, the primary elections are over! They went on for way too long and it doesn't have to be this way. It all should be shortened down to a month. Forget about those silly things called caucuses. A day or a dollar spent campaigning in either Iowa or New Hampshire - two states with tiny populations that should have been annexed to Illinois and Massachusetts, respectively, long ago - is already a day and a dollar too much. The process should be scrapped and rethought. But it won't likely be anytime soon. Sigh.
Now that the dust has settled what do we have? It looks like the Democrats have a nominee. And of course we have the familiar arguments of "fairness." As far as I can tell, complaining about fairness in politics is just being a sore loser. Politics are not about fairness. They are about winning.
Hillary Clinton and Obama have both used the "fairness" word. Both have been very cynical in using it. Clinton wanted to pretend that a botched election that should have been written off as null and void, the Michigan primary, was the real deal. Obama worked hard to make sure that there would be no new primary elections in either Michigan or Florida because he knew he would lose both states; in my book, that's called deliberately standing in the way of democracy, which hardly can be called fair. It is, however, a winning strategy.
And that's what this election is all about, winning. It's politics. Politics and fairness are oxymorons.
Oddly, in some ways, this election has been fair. Both candidates have about the same number of popular votes and the same number of delegates. The difference between the popular vote and the delegate counts is in the realm of noise. I may not like the Democratic Party's nominating process, but in the end the results have been, well...fairly fair.
That said, the whole process is horribly flawed. The candidates are weary. On camera, both look so tired that a good wind would blow them over. The populace is already sick of them. The amount of money that has been spent is obscene. This may be a "fair" way to elect a candidate, but it is ridiculous.
There is one piece of good news. Despite some ineptitude in the election process, it looks like the Democrats will have a candidate that will win this year. There is another piece of good news. As a result of the Democratic Party's decisions on Michigan and Florida, it's unlikely that any state will break the rules of the party in 2012.
Just to remind you, Florida had a well run election, albeit on a date selected without the Democratic Party's approval. Michigan had the wrong date and a flawed ballot. Yet they were both treated the same by the Democratic Party. If I were Florida, I'd scream out, "That isn't fair!" Tell it to the Marines.
My guess is that the 2008 results will be close enough that the Republicans will challenge the "fairness" of the election. In 2000 and 2004 it was the Democrats who cynically used the high road of fairness as an excuse to complain. In 2008, it will likely be the Republican's turn. In anticipation of a messy, but victorious 2008 election for the Democrats, I'll give some advice to the Republicans. It's the same advice Justice Scalia has repeatedly given about the 2000 election: get over it.
They might as well get over it in advance. It will save them some heartache. Mark my words, the Democrats will win unfair and unsquare. It's the way elections are won throughout the world.
Tuesday, June 03, 2008
It Isn't Enough Just To Win
Oh, I know people who read this blog don't like my baseball postings. But, it is my digital diary, not anything I'm trying to generate an audience over. So you can skip the stuff below if you want and read one of my top five postings for May in terms of hits:
May Top Five
1) Stories From the Old Country and Beyond, Part 6
2) What Happened in Ludmir During the War
3) Joe DiMaggio's Hitting Streak Revisited
4) Twisted in Translation (this one shows up month after month; apparently I'm one of the web's foremost experts on the origin of the word shiksa)
5) Ah Those Singing Actors and Actresses
Now onto a subject I love, baseball.
I've gone to a few Oakland As games this year already. Attendance has been ridiculously light. That's somewhat good news for me - I can easily find free parking - but bad news for the As of course. And it makes the ball games less exciting, although Oakland fans have never been terribly aware and intense even when they have shown up. They come for the food. They come for the sunshine and to see friends. The game is almost superfluous.
The funny thing is that the fans aren't there even though the As are winning and playing very high quality ball. This is probably the most fundamentally sound As team I've seen in a while. They play decent defense. They can bunt. They can scratch out a run. So why aren't the fans coming?
And I think the answer is that the As are being constructed not for the fans, but for winning games. There's a difference between the two. You can win a lot of games with a lineup full of fundamentally sound hitters who work the count, get a lot of walks, bat .260, and hit a lot of line drives in the gap. You can win a lot of games with Greg Maddux near-clones who hit the spots, don't strike out too many, but get people to hit a lot of ground balls. That's called good baseball. But for fans, it's boring.
The fans want to see some guy who can hit at least 30 home runs a year. They want to see someone who can hit .300. They don't care about on base percentages. They want to see someone strike out 15 batters in a game. They don't care about earned run averages. They want some excitement, some action. And the As aren't delivering the obvious.
The As are quietly winning by playing smart baseball. Smart baseball doesn't sell tickets. It doesn't help that in an effort to keep salaries down and fill holes in the lineup, the As traded three fan favorites in the off season. It's hard to root for a team when the roster changes dramatically from year to year.
It isn't enough just to win. Baseball is entertainment after all. And that means you need players who have style and charisma. You need a star or two and need to hold onto them for at least a few years to have loyal fans. The As don't do that. Every player is a replaceable part in the machine. It may be the case that even losing with style is more attractive than winning quietly. I remember growing up in Milwaukee watching the Braves; and losing with style is a lot of what they did. The city loved them.
I happen to like what the As have done over the off season. I like teams that win quietly. But I know I'm definitely in the minority.
Oh, I know people who read this blog don't like my baseball postings. But, it is my digital diary, not anything I'm trying to generate an audience over. So you can skip the stuff below if you want and read one of my top five postings for May in terms of hits:
May Top Five
1) Stories From the Old Country and Beyond, Part 6
2) What Happened in Ludmir During the War
3) Joe DiMaggio's Hitting Streak Revisited
4) Twisted in Translation (this one shows up month after month; apparently I'm one of the web's foremost experts on the origin of the word shiksa)
5) Ah Those Singing Actors and Actresses
Now onto a subject I love, baseball.
I've gone to a few Oakland As games this year already. Attendance has been ridiculously light. That's somewhat good news for me - I can easily find free parking - but bad news for the As of course. And it makes the ball games less exciting, although Oakland fans have never been terribly aware and intense even when they have shown up. They come for the food. They come for the sunshine and to see friends. The game is almost superfluous.
The funny thing is that the fans aren't there even though the As are winning and playing very high quality ball. This is probably the most fundamentally sound As team I've seen in a while. They play decent defense. They can bunt. They can scratch out a run. So why aren't the fans coming?
And I think the answer is that the As are being constructed not for the fans, but for winning games. There's a difference between the two. You can win a lot of games with a lineup full of fundamentally sound hitters who work the count, get a lot of walks, bat .260, and hit a lot of line drives in the gap. You can win a lot of games with Greg Maddux near-clones who hit the spots, don't strike out too many, but get people to hit a lot of ground balls. That's called good baseball. But for fans, it's boring.
The fans want to see some guy who can hit at least 30 home runs a year. They want to see someone who can hit .300. They don't care about on base percentages. They want to see someone strike out 15 batters in a game. They don't care about earned run averages. They want some excitement, some action. And the As aren't delivering the obvious.
The As are quietly winning by playing smart baseball. Smart baseball doesn't sell tickets. It doesn't help that in an effort to keep salaries down and fill holes in the lineup, the As traded three fan favorites in the off season. It's hard to root for a team when the roster changes dramatically from year to year.
It isn't enough just to win. Baseball is entertainment after all. And that means you need players who have style and charisma. You need a star or two and need to hold onto them for at least a few years to have loyal fans. The As don't do that. Every player is a replaceable part in the machine. It may be the case that even losing with style is more attractive than winning quietly. I remember growing up in Milwaukee watching the Braves; and losing with style is a lot of what they did. The city loved them.
I happen to like what the As have done over the off season. I like teams that win quietly. But I know I'm definitely in the minority.
Monday, June 02, 2008
Waiting A Year Or Two
I'm a typical guy in that I love electronic gizmos. My price point is usually about 80 bucks. Anything below that magic number and I can easily convince myself that the object I'm thinking about buying will dramatically improve my life and mood. Anything above that number and I think twice. Why that price point? I have no idea.
In the last couple of months, I've bought two gizmos. One is a little device that records TV programs onto a secure digital card in mpeg4 format. It fit a need and was right at that magic number of 80 bucks. For the last few years, I've wanted to transfer my old home video tapes of the family into a digital format. Plus, lately I've wanted to transfer Seinfeld reruns and PBS specials onto my iPod Touch (a gizmo that I thought long and hard about because it was well above that magic 80 dollar price point) for viewing when I'm bored and on a plane.
This thing is pure geekville. The instructions are opaque. The menu on the TV screen looks like a primitive version of PacMan. But secure digital cards are incredibly cheap nowadays (eight bucks for 2 GB) and the thing does exactly what they say it does. So now I have what is known in the world of geekdom as a PVR.
Now this technology has been out for at least a couple of years. And that's another thing I've noticed about me. I hardly ever buy the latest, greatest gizmo. I'm almost always a year or two behind the times (the iPod Touch being an exception). And while I think I buy way too many things that plug into a wall for the sake of plugging them into a wall (one of my great cheap thrills is to use my paper shredder; there's just something about watching the paper disappear that I just love!), I think that this idea of waiting for a year or two is a decent rule to follow.
For instance, the other gizmo I bought over the last couple of months was a cell phone. My old one was four years old with a broken antenna and one button that would work only if you blew on it right before hand. It was time for a change. That old one did only one thing, dialed. I didn't really want or need the latest phone with the latest features that I would never figure out how to use, so I decided to upgrade and buy something that represented the peak of technology in 2006.
I bought a two year old top of the line Motorola. It can take pictures and videos; cool, but my camera does a lot better job so I'll never use it. However it does have bluetooth and California is mandating hands free cell phone use in cars this July. I don't talk and drive as a rule; still sometimes I convince myself that it can't be avoided. Now I'll be able to do that and be legal. Of course, I'll have one of those bluetooth things in my ear that will make me look like I'm a refugee from a Star Trek convention, circa 1974. I swear I'll never be seen using that thing outside of my car; it looks ridiculous.
Bluetooth has been around for a few years so yet again, I'm well behind the technological curve. That's just fine with me.
I should probably follow this wait a year or two rule with entertainment as well. What has been hyped as a classic or the work of genius sometimes looks like pure junk with the hindsight of a couple of years. Had I followed the wait rule, I would have happily avoided a lot of stinker movies including Blair Witch and Titanic. I would have happily avoided a few stinky books as well, some of which I've reviewed on this blog and elsewhere.
I'm a typical guy in that I love electronic gizmos. My price point is usually about 80 bucks. Anything below that magic number and I can easily convince myself that the object I'm thinking about buying will dramatically improve my life and mood. Anything above that number and I think twice. Why that price point? I have no idea.
In the last couple of months, I've bought two gizmos. One is a little device that records TV programs onto a secure digital card in mpeg4 format. It fit a need and was right at that magic number of 80 bucks. For the last few years, I've wanted to transfer my old home video tapes of the family into a digital format. Plus, lately I've wanted to transfer Seinfeld reruns and PBS specials onto my iPod Touch (a gizmo that I thought long and hard about because it was well above that magic 80 dollar price point) for viewing when I'm bored and on a plane.
This thing is pure geekville. The instructions are opaque. The menu on the TV screen looks like a primitive version of PacMan. But secure digital cards are incredibly cheap nowadays (eight bucks for 2 GB) and the thing does exactly what they say it does. So now I have what is known in the world of geekdom as a PVR.
Now this technology has been out for at least a couple of years. And that's another thing I've noticed about me. I hardly ever buy the latest, greatest gizmo. I'm almost always a year or two behind the times (the iPod Touch being an exception). And while I think I buy way too many things that plug into a wall for the sake of plugging them into a wall (one of my great cheap thrills is to use my paper shredder; there's just something about watching the paper disappear that I just love!), I think that this idea of waiting for a year or two is a decent rule to follow.
For instance, the other gizmo I bought over the last couple of months was a cell phone. My old one was four years old with a broken antenna and one button that would work only if you blew on it right before hand. It was time for a change. That old one did only one thing, dialed. I didn't really want or need the latest phone with the latest features that I would never figure out how to use, so I decided to upgrade and buy something that represented the peak of technology in 2006.
I bought a two year old top of the line Motorola. It can take pictures and videos; cool, but my camera does a lot better job so I'll never use it. However it does have bluetooth and California is mandating hands free cell phone use in cars this July. I don't talk and drive as a rule; still sometimes I convince myself that it can't be avoided. Now I'll be able to do that and be legal. Of course, I'll have one of those bluetooth things in my ear that will make me look like I'm a refugee from a Star Trek convention, circa 1974. I swear I'll never be seen using that thing outside of my car; it looks ridiculous.
Bluetooth has been around for a few years so yet again, I'm well behind the technological curve. That's just fine with me.
I should probably follow this wait a year or two rule with entertainment as well. What has been hyped as a classic or the work of genius sometimes looks like pure junk with the hindsight of a couple of years. Had I followed the wait rule, I would have happily avoided a lot of stinker movies including Blair Witch and Titanic. I would have happily avoided a few stinky books as well, some of which I've reviewed on this blog and elsewhere.
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