High Cost of Law School

A Mad Tea Party says "older" law students should look for information at NonTradLaw.com, which I did, because, I guess I'm "older" or something. It's appears to be a great site for the law school student/applicant who really would like to make him/herself more anxious by reading stories about other students' and applicants' anxiety. Of course, it's not all about anxiety-inducement; the links page points to the U of Richmond Pre-Law Handbook, which really does look like it contains a lot of sound advice for those applying or thinking about it. (Why didn't I find this last summer when I was still in the maybe phase?)

Anyway, NonTradLaw looks valuable primarily for its discussion boards, which feature tales of people getting notification of their acceptance to GULC through the back door. (I was denied access, so I'm either out out out or still on the "deferred" list. Whatever.) A little more digging leads to a post entitled Why is law school so expensive? The answer, according to libertarian George C. Leef, is that the ABA has created a cartel that artificially inflates the cost of a legal education. Leef writes:

Thanks to connivance between state legislatures and the American Bar Association, law school costs much more than it needs to. If we allowed a free market in legal education, the cost of preparing for a legal career would fall dramatically.

Leef makes a good case that the ABA's accreditation requirements, combined with states' bar requirements, forces law schools to spend more money on facilities and teachers than they might otherwise. However, his argument that the solution is a "free market" in which adjuncts and part-timers replace tenured faculty is not so convincing. I'm all for reducing the cost of law school, but the abuses of adjunct labor in academia—especially in the Humanities—are well known. Replacing tenured faculty with adjuncts comes at its own high costs.

Much of the rest of Leef's argument is that ABA-required 3-year law programs are a waste—lawyers learn little in law school and so should spend only one or two years there before going out for real "on the job" training. This certainly sounds good, since much of legal education seems to emphasize the importance of summer internships and clinical work while students are in school. However, is the time spent in class really so meaningless? Do we really want future lawyers to have even less familiarity with legal history and theory?

Leef's argument was occasioned by a Nov. 2002 report from Equal Justice Works: From Paper Chase to Money Chase: Law School Debt Diverts Road to Public Service. For anyone who's considered public interest/public service legal careers, the report's overall conclusion is not surprising:

Faced with staggering law school debt, many law school graduates must forgo the call to public service despite their interest and commitment to such a career. Public interest and government employers will increasingly lose in their efforts to recruit and retain talented and dedicated attorneys. With educational debt payments averaging close to $1,000 a month (approximately one-half of a typical public interest lawyer's salary), a graduate's ability to pay other necessary bills such as rent, utilities, gas, and food too often become very difficult, if not impossible.

However, the report contains good details about the situation that might persuade more schools to offer LRAPs, or perhaps even to take up some of Leef's criticisms in an attempt to reduce the cost of law school. Since I doubt we'll see tuition rates drop seriously any time soon (regardless of any changes made to accreditation or state bar requirements), the Equal Justice Works recommendations for improving and expanding LRAPs are probably the best hope the public has for ensuring it continues to be adequately represented. Of course, it's not surprising that the ABA and American Association of Law Schools would support reforms like these, since, as Leef rightly argues, both organizations certainly benefit from the high cost of law school.

What a mess. How ironic that a profession supposedly dedicated to equality and justice (hah!) suffers so much from those very ills. Can anyone tell me again why I want to go into this profession?

Posted 04:03 PM | Comments (1) | law school

Hydrogen and SOTU II

James Ridgeway's recap of the SOTU address includes a dismissal of what sounded like a good program to encourage Detroit to get hydrogen-fueled cars on the market. Ridgway writes:

aniel Becker, director of the Sierra Club's Global Warming and Energy Program, had this to say about the present plan for government funding of the supposedly magic hydrogen fuel-cell car:

The program "funnels millions to Detroit without requiring that they produce a single fuel-cell vehicle for the public to purchase. The auto industry is using the promise of future fuel cells as a shield against using existing technology to dramatically cut our oil dependence, and pollution, today. This technology is sitting on the shelf while Detroit dithers. Honda and Toyota are producing hybrid vehicles today, the big three are not.

"The biggest single step we can take to curb global warming and cut our dependence on oil is to make our cars and light trucks go farther on a gallon of gas," Becker continued. "If the vehicles on the road today averaged 40 miles per gallon, we would save over 3 million barrels of oil a day, more than we currently import from the Persian Gulf."

So, ok, but if the hydrogen proposal is a big screen for a corporate giveaway, was there anything even remotely laudable (or believable) in Bush's big speech?

The Institute for Public Accuracy has compiled a lengthy deconstruction of Bush's speech which suggests that the answer to that question is "not really." The IPA asked a number of experts in different fields to give their opinions of many of Bush's claims, and those experts question or completely debunk nearly everything Bush said. As for the plan to help victims of HIV/AIDS, Raj Patel , policy analyst at Food First/Institute for Food and Development Policy, and a visiting fellow at the University of California at Berkeley, claims that it is basically another corporate giveaway—this time to the pharmaceutical industry:

“This policy is disingenuous to its core. Under existing World Trade Organization legislation, countries can already ‘compulsorily license’ drugs, waiving the patent protection of pharmaceutical companies in the interests of public health. It is, in fact, U.S. sponsored legislation at the World Trade Organization that prevents those countries in the third world which lack the production capacities to produce generic retroviral drugs from importing them from other countries . This compassion for the third world doesn’t pan out either. In December, the United States was alone among members of the World Trade Organization in its opposition to an expanded list of diseases which waives reimportation rules . What looks like a moment of heartfelt generosity on the part of the Bush regime is, in fact, a hard-nosed recognition that pharmaceutical companies around the world aren’t winning the PR battle to justify their monopolies. To put it more simply, this is a $15 billion subsidy to the U.S. pharmaceutical industry, in lieu of political battles lost at the WTO by U.S. negotiators. It remains to be seen quite how much of this new-found largesse will go to the Global Fund to Fight AIDS, TB and Malaria, which last year was on the verge of bankruptcy .”

The IPA's analysis of Bush's SOTU address contains many terrific links to back up its analysis, and is definitely worth a look (and perhaps a bookmark for future reference, since we'll probably be hearing much more about many of these issues in the coming months).

UPDATE: See also An Annotated Overview of the Foreign Policy Segments of President George W. Bush's State of the Union Address by Stephen Zunes.

Posted 06:27 PM | general politics

That Hydrogen Thing

I hope to say more later about Bush's State of the Union address, but for now I wanted to highlight one of the best things I thought he had to say: He "Proposed spending $1.2 billion over an unspecified period to speed the development of hydrogen-powered, zero-emission fuel cell vehicles." Like much of what Bush said last night, this vague statement could mean nothing more than "I want to give detroit $1.2 billion because they gave me a lot of money to get elected." However, I'm trying to be positive here and I hope that this proposal really will speed hydrogen power technology along.

According to Jeremy Rifkin, hydrogen power has great potential to improve our world by giving us nearly limitless and very inexpensive power. But how would that work? Here's how Rifkin explains it:

Hydrogen must be extracted from natural sources. Today, nearly half the hydrogen produced in the world is derived from natural gas via a steam-reforming process. The natural gas reacts with steam in a catalytic converter. The process strips away the hydrogen atoms, leaving carbon dioxide as the byproduct.

There is, however, another way to produce hydrogen without using fossil fuels in the process. Renewable sources of energy--wind, photovoltaic, hydro, geothermal and biomass--can be harnessed to produce electricity. The electricity, in turn, can be used, in a process called electrolysis, to split water into hydrogen and oxygen. The hydrogen can then be stored and used, when needed, in a fuel cell to generate electricity for power, heat and light.

Why generate electricity twice, first to produce electricity for the process of electrolysis and then to produce power, heat and light by way of a fuel cell? The reason is that electricity doesn't store. So, if the sun isn't shining or the wind isn't blowing or the water isn't flowing, electricity can't be generated and economic activity grinds to a halt. Hydrogen provides a way to store renewable sources of energy and insure an ongoing and continuous supply of power.

Sounds good, doesn't it? Plus it provides a good strategy for countering the overwhelming sense of despair that descends when I think about just about everything else Little Ceasar said last night. Did you see how juvenile and smugly self-satisfied he was as he bragged about the "terrorists" U.S. forces have killed in the last year? What the hell kind of example is that to set for our country and the world!? Oh, but wait, he wants to increase spending to fight HIV and AIDS, especially in Africa. Yeah, that's good.

Must … stay … focused … on the … positives …

Posted 08:15 AM | general politics

Mondo Washington

James Ridgeway's Village Voice column, Mondo Washington is a stellar weekly (and sometimes more frequent) unspinning of stories that the mainstream press cover only in mainstream ways, i.e., by giving us only the "official" story rather than what that official story is attempting to hide. The latest installment is no exception, covering several little gems, including the current plan to fire more missiles on Baghdad than were used in the entirety of Gulf War I.

"There will not be a safe place in Baghdad," one Pentagon official told CBS. There are 4 million civilians in Baghdad, of whom 2 million are children.

The Pentagon likes A-Day because it supposedly concentrates on the psychological destruction of the enemy's will to fight, rather than on the physical destruction of his military forces. They won't admit it, but this is another horrible policy shift. This is what Hitler did to London in World War II. What Bush proposes is not collateral damage, but a level of civilian destruction not seen since the Second World War, with tens of thousands of intended civilian casualties.

Ridgeway also covers the frightening fact that the Bush Administration seems to have fewer qualms than any previous administration about using nuclear weapons. William Arkin provided some good detail on this in the LA Times a couple of days ago. After detailing the many ways in which the Administration has moved nukes out of their "special" place as weapons that were really too awful to use, and onto the shelf with conventional weapons, Arkin concludes:

What worries many senior officials in the armed forces is not that the United States has a vast array of weapons or contingency plans for using them. The danger is that nuclear weapons -- locked away in a Pandora's box for more than half a century -- are being taken out of that lockbox and put on the shelf with everything else. While Pentagon leaders insist that does not mean they take nuclear weapons lightly, critics fear that removing the firewall and adding nuclear weapons to the normal option ladder makes their use more likely -- especially under a policy of preemption that says Washington alone will decide when to strike.

To make such a doctrine encompass nuclear weapons is to embrace a view that, sooner or later, will spread beyond the moral capitals of Washington and London to New Delhi and Islamabad, to Pyongyang and Baghdad, Beijing, Tel Aviv and to every nuclear nation of the future.

If that happens, the world will have become infinitely more dangerous than it was two years ago, when George W. Bush took the presidential oath of office.

No kidding. But, as Ridgeway reminds us:

As [Bush] told Bob Woodward in Bush at War , the president sees no reason to explain his actions: "I'm the commander—see, I don't need to explain—I do not need to explain why I say things. That's the interesting thing about being the president. Maybe somebody needs to explain to me why they say something, but I don't feel like I owe anybody an explanation."

Gee, that's right, Mr. President: Why would you possibly need to explain any of your statements or actions to the American people? You're not a public servant or anything, are you? You don't serve at the behest of millions of voters, do you? Shall we take this as an admission that Bush thinks of himself as an appointed President (thanks to the Supreme Court), rather than an elected one?

Come to think of it, why even bother with a State of the Union address tonight? It's not like Bush has any responsibility to tell any of us anything, right? *grrrr*

Posted 02:24 PM | general politics

We're Waaaiiiting!

As I wait to hear if any law school is going to let me in, I've got to say it's not a lot of fun watching JCA go through a similar apply-and-hope-and-wait process trying to line up a good job for the summer after her first year as a law student. Is this what every spring is going to be like for the next three or four years (until I get a "real" legal job)? Probably. But then, a lot of law is probably like that—aren't you always filing papers of some kind, then waiting to see what people (i.e.: judges, juries, other lawyers) think of them? If so, I guess I should just get used to it. And anyway, here's where a desire to do something outside the mainstream of law might come in handy—perhaps when it comes time to look for jobs, I'll like the sound of the kinds of things that other people dread, which would, maybe, increase my chances of actually getting those jobs. Maybe.

Anyway, this latest chapter in JCA's law school odyssey attracted this comment from Sue, who appears to be in the same boat as me right now—just wishin', and hopin', and thinkin', plannin', dreamin', and prayin' ... that we get into law school. Good luck, Sue! Perhaps we should start some sort of blog-ring of our own—the lawyers and law students have their "blawgs," so maybe we should call ours "p-blawgs," for "pre-law-blogs"? Yeah, I'll get right on that. ;-)

(But seriously, if there's anyone else out there like Sue and myself who is currently waiting to hear from law schools and blogging about it, I'd love to hear from you. And good luck to you, too!)

Posted 10:08 AM | Comments (2) | life generally

LOTR Luddism?

Here's a morsel for the casual LOTR fans out there. I know there are countless Lord of the Rings fans, and I know from a few of my friends that a lot of you have spent obscene amounts of time amassing almost unfathomable amounts of information about Tolkien, Middle Earth, hobbits, etc. If you have read the Silmarillion, this probably won't be news to you so please don't flame my ignorance, but... For those of you who, like me, read the books years ago and have been enjoying the movies in a pretty casual way—as in, so casual you're never really sure when the films depart from the books and your ignorance doesn't really bother you—you might enjoy The Engineer Guy's short discussion of the role of technology in the books. Now why would a trilogy that demonizes technology and celebrates the simple agrarian life have so much appeal in a world of smart bombs and modern bureaucratic systems of surveillance and control (hello TIA)? Hmm... I wonder. (Note: The TIA program has a new logo. What a shame! The logo was the best part of the whole concept! Oh well. You can still see the old one here.)

Posted 09:39 AM | ai movies

Smilies

Just because it's there: Japanese Emoticons and the Dubya Bot. Oh, and Whitehouse.org has an Onion-esque scoop on that whole Michigan/affirmative action case.

Posted 12:03 PM | life generally

Grow Public Domain, Grow

I hope for most of you this is old news, but: Fresh from the Supreme Court's decision against his side in Eldred v. Ashcroft, Lawrence Lessig has introduced a new strategy for accomplishing the vital task of moving more creative works into the public domain. The Eric Eldred Act FAQ explains everything very clearly:

Fifty years after a copyrighted work was published, a copyright owner would have to pay a tiny tax. That tax could be as low as $1. If the copyright owner does not pay that tax for three years in a row, then the copyright would be forfeited to the public domain. If the tax is paid, then the form would require the listing of a copyright agent--a person charged with receiving requests about that copyright. The Copyright Office would then make the listing of taxes paid, and copyright agents, available free of charge on their website.

This is necessary because:

We estimate that of all the work copyrighted between 1923 and 1942 (the first twenty years affected by the Sonny Bono Act), only 2% has any continuing commercial value. If a work has no commercial value, then there would be little reason for the copyright owner to pay the tax. That work would therefore quickly pass into the public domain. If the proposal were adopted as outlined, then within three years, over 90% of the copyrighted between 1923 and 1952 would be in the public domain. This would be massive increase of material into the public domain, through a mechanism that would create a cheap and useable record of the material that remains under copyright.

As a teacher, my mind boggles at how great it would be if 98% of work copyrighted between 1923 and 1942 were in the public domain. It would also be good for the economy. Here's how: Right now, teachers can't afford the time or money it would take to track down permissions to use many copyrighted works, but many of those works are out of print so they can't ask their students to buy them either. The solution for many teachers is to simply steal these works instead by photocopying them and giving them to their students. If these works were in the public domain, they could be made available online for free, or someone like the Dover Press could create Dover Thrift Editions (or something similar) of them, and then teachers could have their students buy them, meaning the Eldred Act would create profit where there now is none. More important, it could make accessible thousands of texts (music, poetry, fiction, etc.) that are now out of print.

The Eldred Act is a great idea. Check the FAQ for information about how you can help get it passed.

Posted 08:59 AM | general politics

Shame Utility Vehicles

Thanks to VC for pointing me to his wife's essay, "California Confession: Driving on the Axles of Evil". It's a wonderfully written and candid discussion of how intelligent people rationalize buying these vehicles—boy do I understand that; I've always sort of wanted one but could never afford or really justify it. Anyway, the essay also raises an important point: Thousands of these vehicles are already on the road, so even though they're very dangerous (to their drivers and occupants, to other drivers, to the environment), it's not like we can just melt them all down into doorstops. Whatever problems attend SUVs, those problems will be with us for a long time, and they will probably get worse before they get better. (For example, as the vehicles age, they're likely to get even less efficient and create more pollution than ever.)

Meanwhile, Breaching the Web links to Greg Easterbrook's extensive review of Keith Bradsher's book, High and Mighty: SUVs—The World's Most Dangerous Vehicles and How They Got that Way. It details the federal regulatory machinations that encouraged the growth of the SUV market, as well as the many problems with SUVs—the way they're built, the way they're marketed, the way they're driven, etc. Near the end, Easterbrook asks a serious and disturbing question:

What does it say about the United States that there are now millions of people who want to drive an anti-social automobile? Huge numbers of Americans will pay thousands of dollars extra for vehicles that visually declare, "I have serious psychological problems." (Though maybe we are better off having this declared.) The antagonistic environment of the modern road is linked, of course, to the more general psychological predicament usually called stress. We are all stressed for time or money or achievement or sex, or at least we all view ourselves as being thus stressed; and the road is experienced as both an obstacle to the things that we are in such a hurry to fail to get and an arena for the cathartic release from this strain.

I'd argue that the "antagonist environment of the modern road" is linked to a lot more than just "stress." What about all those advertising campaigns that tell potential SUV drivers that the whole point of driving their vehicles is that they can intimidate and dominate everybody else?

Anyway, Easterbrook's review is great reading—especially if you're not planning to read Bradsher's book but you'd still like to understand why it's so provocative.

UPDATE: SUV Tax Break as Much as $75,000:

President Bush's economic stimulus plan could triple the size of a little-known tax loophole that could mean from $25,000 to $75,000 in tax writeoffs for small business owners — including doctors, lawyers and financial advisers — when buying an SUV for business purposes, the Detroit News reported.

Posted 08:20 AM | Comments (1) | general politics

Peace on Earth

By all accounts, yesterday's protests against war and for peaceful solutions to global problems were a great success. As Michelle Goldberg writes in Salon:

The broad-based antiwar movement many have awaited is here.

This picture taken by one of the marchers in DC gives a good look at the size of the protest—people as far as the eye can see, or as the Washington Post said:

Organizers of the demonstration, the activist coalition International ANSWER (Act Now to Stop War and End Racism), said the protest was larger than one they sponsored in Washington in October. District police officials suggested then that about 100,000 attended, and although some organizers agreed, they have since put the number closer to 200,000. This time, they said, the turnout was 500,000. Police Chief Charles H. Ramsey would not provide an estimate but said it was bigger than October's. "It's one of the biggest ones we've had, certainly in recent times," he said.

...

Regardless of the exact number, the crowd yesterday on the Mall was the largest antiwar demonstration here since the Vietnam era. For the 11 a.m. rally, much of four long blocks of the Mall was packed, shoulder-to-shoulder in many sections from Third to Seventh streets SW between Madison and Jefferson drives. The first marchers stepped off about 1:30 p.m., and when many had begun reaching the Navy Yard more than two dozen blocks away about an hour later, others were still leaving the rally site.

In addition, the estimated number of people in San Francisco was 50,000, there were local protests of various sizes in towns and cities throughout the country (my local protest had about 60 people in attendance, in a community of about 100,000; there were 20,000 in Portland, OR), and people in cities around the world also called for a peaceful resolution to the Iraqi situation. The U.S. protests were backed by recent polls showing that American support for a war against Iraq is fairly weak and wavering.

(Aside: When I was in D.C. on October 26th last year for the first ANSWER protest, I watched two or three helicopters circling above us almost all day long. I looked forward to getting home and seeing lots of aerial photographs of the event, since only photos from the air would show its true size and allow anyone to make an accurate estimate of the number of attendees. Of course, I have yet to see an aerial photograph of either protest (October's or last weekend's). Why do you think that is?)

Meanwhile, NPR's All Things Considered yesterday (scroll down to "Military Disconnect" link for RealAudio file) reported on research showing that the greatest support for war in America comes from people who feel zero connection to the military—people who don't have family in the armed forces or relatives who are veterans. According to Duke University researchers Peter Feaver and Christopher Gelpi, the likelihood that the U.S. will use military force is also inversely proportional to the percentage of military veterans in the executive and legislative branches of federal government. While findings like this may not be surprising, they remain the most stark and barbaric example of the dire consequences of our country's increasing obsession with the cult of individuality.

The problem of people only caring about themselves or those in their immediate circles of family/friends shows up in nearly every issue of our society—from health care, to education, to welfare and all other social services, to environmental protections and other corporate regulations. At its most crass, the attitude of the cult of individualism is: "I don't give a shit what happens to anyone else so long as things are ok for me; in fact, I don't even care if having things good for me makes them worse for anyone else. My only value and priority is ME (and maybe me family and friends)." So now that our military is completely volunteer and also comprises only a small percentage of the population, it's easier than ever to get a majority to support the use of force. Our rabid selfishness not only encourages us to simply avert our gaze as people die from lack of health care, but now it also enables us to basically sentence hundreds if not thousands of people to their deaths—either through our overt support of war or through our silent acceptance of it.

Bleak as those facts are, they are also why the growing peace movement is so great: It offers hope that an ethic of interdependence can still thrive in our selfish and individualistic society. People who march for peace are people who recognize that there are real and inescapable connections between the pilots in the bombers or the troops on the ground and the people they bomb or otherwise attack. The people who march for peace are people who refuse to accept that the "blowback" and "collateral damage" that inevitably attend violence and force are necessary evils that we just have to learn to live with. The people who march for peace are people who understand that we must recognize our dependence upon and responsibility to each other if we want to live ethically and to advance as a people.

Although nearly everyone agrees that Saddam Hussein is a corrupt and malevolent dictator, and that the people of Iraq deserve better, that doesn't mean we all have to agree that a military invasion of Iraq is the best way to improve current conditions in the world.

(UPDATE: Someone did take aerial photos of the SanFran protest. Impressive.)

Posted 12:02 PM | general politics

Default Affirmative Action?

I keep seeing bits about this whole affirmative action debate that I feel compelled to post; however, my reason for these posts is not that I want to defend affirmative action so much as I'd like to promote debate and discussion and critical thinking about the issues of social inequality and injustice that are woven into affirmative action. With that in mind, take a look at the beginning of this article about the rise of G. W. Bush [link via BuzzFlash]:

Two weeks before he was to graduate from Yale, George Walker Bush stepped into the offices of the Texas Air National Guard at Ellington Field outside Houston and announced that he wanted to sign up for pilot training.

It was May 27, 1968, at the height of the Vietnam War. Bush was 12 days away from losing his student deferment from the draft at a time when Americans were dying in combat at the rate of 350 a week. The unit Bush wanted to join offered him the chance to fulfill his military commitment at a base in Texas. It was seen as an escape route from Vietnam by many men his age, and usually had a long waiting list.

Bush had scored only 25 percent on a "pilot aptitude" test, the lowest acceptable grade. But his father was then a congressman from Houston, and the commanders of the Texas Guard clearly had an appreciation of politics.

Bush was sworn in as an airman the same day he applied. His commander, Col. Walter B. "Buck" Staudt, was apparently so pleased to have a VIP's son in his unit that he later staged a special ceremony so he could have his picture taken administering the oath, instead of the captain who actually had sworn Bush in. Later, when Bush was commissioned a second lieutenant by another subordinate, Staudt again staged a special ceremony for the cameras, this time with Bush's father the congressman – a supporter of the Vietnam War – standing proudly in the background.

That certainly makes it sound like Bush received some preferential treatment in his appointment to the Texas Guard; however, that preferencial treatment was not based on his race, but on his economic and social class. The article goes on to provide many more details about the story sketched above, but at every turn it's clear that Bush family connections and Bush's own cultural knowledge helped ensure that he always had the best options to choose from. So if this is the kind of system that poor and minority applicants are working with when they apply to things like universities or jobs, do affirmative action programs make any more sense?

In more on the connection between economic class and race in education, a recent study from the Civil Rights Project at Harvard University found that:

Patterns of segregation by race are strongly linked to segregation by poverty, and poverty concentrations are strongly linked to unequal opportunities and outcomes. Since public schools are the institution intended to create a common preparation for citizens in an increasingly multiracial society, this inequality can have serious consequences. Given that the largest school districts in this country (enrollment greater than 25,000) service one-third of all school-age children, it is important to understand at a district level the ways in which school segregation, race, and poverty are intersecting and how they impact these students' lives. In our analysis we focus on two important components, race and segregation.

The researchers concluded that:

since 1986, in almost every district examined, black and Latino students have become more racially segregated from whites in their schools. The literature suggests that minority schools are highly correlated with high-poverty schools and these schools are also associated with low parental involvement, lack of resources, less experienced and credentialed teachers, and higher teacher turnover—all of which combine to exacerbate educational inequality for minority students. Desegregation puts minority students in schools with better opportunities and higher achieving peer groups.

The growing national support for "school choice" (via vouchers and charter schools, for example) will only exacerbate these trends, which in turn exacerbate the problems with trying to base university admissions solely on academic "merit" (grades, test scores, etc.) as Bush seems to be advocating. I say "seems" to be advocating, because it's pretty hard to tell where Bush actually stands on affirmative action—his speech last week said one thing, his brief in the Michigan case said another, and now his support for greater minority school funding complicates the issue further. Is Bush just trying to please all the people all the time? It seems he's not really pleasing Colin Powell and Condoleeza Rice (unless their dissent is another tactic calculated by Karl Rove or someone else to try to mollify potential voters who didn't like Bush's position last week?). Anyway, lots of food for thought.

Posted 10:26 AM | general politics

More on Michigan

He hadn't updated in a while last time I checked, so I missed the fact that gTexts has been serving up some good commentary and discussion about the Michigan admissions case for a couple of days. To catch up, start here. That's a great post, but in my favorite bit, g talks about the question of a kind of affirmative action for students whose parents or other ancestors attended a school, aka "legacy" students (like G.W. Bush). Many on the Right argue that this is a completely different and perfectly legitimate practice. G says:

I think this is unfair -- People who mention legacies aren't making a constitutional point but are offering a reminder of how screwed up our priorities are. Given all the advantages many children whose parents attended elite colleges already have (good schools, expensive test-prep courses, vocabulary-enhancing dinnertime conversation), it seems strange that we're fine with giving them an additional preference on top of that, but we have a national freak-out session if minorities who generally have a disadvantaged starting point get a similar opportunity. While legacy preferences are obviously not worse than minority preferences from a constitutional standpoint, they are worse in terms of things like, say, fairness, a decent society, or equality of educational opportunity.

This raises a question that I'm guessing others have already discussed somewhere, but if the point of Bush's participation in the Michigan case is supposedly to promote "diversity," is it possible that the notion of "diversity" has become something of screen to hide the increasing absence of the kinds of things g points to -- fairness, a decent society, or equality of educational opportunity? In other words, does Bush's support for this rather vague term, "diversity," actually mask his complete lack of concern for the kind of social justice the term tends to convey to many of his listeners?

Posted 01:11 PM | general politics

Letter to Rosemary

Rosemary,

Thanks for your comment on my blog. I read your story and I'm sorry to hear about the trouble you had getting in to U of M. I'm sure you know a lot more about the specifics of U of M than I do, and you're right -- there are many high schools in our country where the top 10% of the graduating class will not be middle class and wealthy (or white). Therefore, Bush's "Texas 10 Percent Plan" would definitely make for a certain amount of diversity in college admissions. However, looking at the big picture (even just in a state like Michigan), I doubt there are enough of these schools to ensure that minority enrollment at our nation's most prestigious universities is even close to proportionate with the minority population of the country. In fact, there's plenty of evidence to this effect -- see, for example, this article from the Detroit Free Press which discusses the effects of Bush's and other plans that attempt to achieve diversity w/out regard to race.

As for whether Michigan's admissions policy is exclusionary, well, you're right -- it absolutely is. By definition, Michigan (and any other school) has to exclude the majority of people who apply; therefore, perhaps admissions policies should more appropriately be called "exclusions policies." And yes, unfortunately, you were one of the many excluded from U of M. Were you excluded because you're of European descent? Perhaps. However, there could have been any number of other reasons. I know that one thing admissions committees usually consider is age and maturity -- not because they have prejudice against people who are too young, but simply because they know they're not doing anyone any good if they admit someone who is not emotionally and psychologically mature enough to handle the pressures of college. Since you graduated from H.S. early, it seems possible that the admissions committee decided not to admit you because they thought you'd be more successful in school if you waited a year? It also seems very possible that some of those "less academically qualified" minorities you knew who were admitted had been through different life experiences that suggested to the admissions committee that they were better prepared for challenges they'd face at the university. I assume by "less academically qualified" you mean by this that they had lower GPAs or test scores? Or are you also considering honor societies and club memberships? What about work experience? What about the neighborhood they grew up in? What about participation in volunteer and civic activities? What about that whole "overcoming adversity" thing? Which do you think is the most qualified 18-year-old: The straight-A student who has grown up in a relatively stable family and home (someone with "all the trimmings"), or the B or C student who ended up in jail by the time he/she was 14 and then turned his/her life around in the final years of high school and wrote a great essay showing how committed he/she is to success in college? From where I sit, there's no easy answer to that question, but I'm sure it's one admissions committees have to face more often than you think.

Finally, I wonder if the divide on this issue comes down to how we view ourselves and each other. If an admissions committee thinks your success in high school was the result of your individual merit and effort, they're going to try to reward you for that and admit you. OTOH, if the committee thinks your success was the result of your individual merit and effort combined with your circumstances in life (parents, friends, home life, etc.), then that committee is going to look beyond your numbers for other reasons to admit you. People who take the Bush position on this issue want to believe -- and they want you and me to believe -- that we're all inviolate individuals, that we, alone, are responsible for our actions and our fate in life, and that all other factors are irrelevant. This fantasy makes them feel better when they see homeless people on the street and experience a momentary pang of conscience that asks, "Why am I so wealthy while he is so poor?" If they can answer with "Because I'm just a better person than he is," then they can keep walking and feel no guilt. This myth of the individual is much simpler than trying to account for all the factors and people who have helped us get where we are (good or bad) in life. People against affirmative action want life to be clean and simple (like Rupert who comments on your blog that he "just want[s] a simple answer"). Too bad life isn't simple, as your own experience so clearly shows. The bright side might just be that you learned a lot more from being rejected at U of M (and from the course your life took from that point) than you might have learned had you been admitted. I hope so.

Posted 10:10 AM | general politics

Progress—Finally!

Finally all five schools I've applied to have requested my file from LSDAS. The waiting game continues, but at least this is a sign that the application process is moving along...

Posted 11:56 AM | law school

Conspiracy, Death Penalty

After the attacks of September 11, 2001, there was a lot of talk about "connecting the dots" and there were a lot of questions about why the CIA, FBA, NSA, etc. hadn't been able to make the connections. Well, who needs a bunch of bloated and insidious government agencies to connect the dots when you can do it yourself? Check out Alternet's Top 10 Conspiracy Theories of 2002 for dot-connecting extraordinaire.

In other news, Mark Fiore has some reassuring news for those who are dismayed that the death penalty is under attack after Illinois Governor George Ryan commuted the death sentences of everyone on death row in his state: Execution by AmeriCo—Alive and Well!. I tried to say about the same thing the other day (scroll down to the 5th paragraph), but the beauty of cartoons is often their concise eloquence.

Posted 11:48 AM | Comments (1) | general politics

Imaginary Relations

Perhaps it's all the talk of various tax/stimulus proposals, but articles about economic and social class in America seem to be popping up all over. First there was The Triumph of Hope Over Self-Interest in which David Brooks argued that political movements based on class issues will never be successful in America because everyone so deeply believes he/she either is middle class or will be soon. Brooks contends that this is true because Americans are just so damned hopeful and optimistic—they prefer to believe anything is possible rather than accept some negative idea that they're going to be stuck shoveling crap their whole lives. What Brooks fails to address there is how people become so "optimistic" in the first place, and how they maintain that "optimism" in the face of ugly reality. Then answer to those questions is simple: Hollywood (and the media more generally) is a great teacher and reinforcer.

To help explain how this works, check out Scenes from the Class Struggle on Fox, in which Carina Chocano takes on "Joe Millionaire," Fox's little ditty wherein a $19k/year construction worker pretends to be worth $50 million while 20 women vie for his affections. She's right—the show would be ten times better if it featured the truly rich; only then would the show be able to emphasize the social inequalities and injustices created by class difference. But that's surely something Fox would never want to do since one of TV's major functions in our society is to reinforce the dream and myth that we can all be rich someday, or at least middle class.

Even better is Caryn James' Upward Mobility and Downright Lies, which takes on movies like "Maid in Manhattan" and "Sweet Home Alabama" to make the same point: Hollywood narratives repeatedly argue that upward social mobility is an easy, everyday occurrence in America. However:

that persistent idea ignores the realities of today's economy and research about social mobility. The aristocratic politician Ralph Fiennes plays in "Maid in Manhattan" precisely fits the profile described by the Princeton economist Alan B. Krueger in a November article in The New York Times, which said that new studies show it takes an average of five or six generations to change a family's economic position, and that wealth tends to linger in families. Such inherited wealth helps create political dynasties like that of the Bushes and of the Fiennes character — an assemblyman, a senator's son running for his father's seat, and not the kind of guy likely to take up with a maid. As Mr. Krueger added in an interview, "Recent trends in income distribution have made upward mobility less likely" than it was even 20 years ago.

And such research isn't brand new. As Kevin Phillips says in "Wealth and Democracy: A Political History of the American Rich," published last year, the increasing gap between the median American family income and the richest 1 percent has been "a point of national discussion for over a decade." By the turn of the 21st century, he writes, the United States "had also become the West's citadel of inherited wealth."

"Aristocracy," he adds, "was a cultural and economic fact."

The people who are perhaps most resistant to this message are those few who really have moved upward—the nouveau riche—and boy do they get mad when anyone questions their social position. [link via Slactivist] The kind of militant self-absorption shown in such rants is perhaps the extreme form of what's motivating the current Bush position on affirmative action—both arguments are founded on the idea that people should earn what they have in life, rather than having it given to them. I mean, that's what Bush did, right? But the logic behind those arguments is that we should live in a fair, just, and equal world—if one person has to work for what he/she has, others should also have to work for what they have—and this is exactly the point: People who argue for real tax relief for poorer Americans or for affirmative action programs are not asking for handouts and free rides, they're also asking for a more equal and just world. The difference is that the social conservatives believe they got wherever they are on their own, while progressives recognize that we are interdependent, social animals who don't live in our own personal vacuums.

Posted 10:09 AM | general politics

Failure of Courts

Larry Lessig's candid meditations on the recent Supreme Court decision against the public domain in Eldred v. Ashcroft offer a fascinating look into the mind of a Constitutional lawyer of international repute. Lessig is understandably disappointed in the Court's decision, and it seems he's doing some soul-searching to reassess how he feels about the law, the courts, and the principles that have motivated him thus far:

But as I read these opinions, I realize the hardest part for me is elsewhere. I have spent more than a decade of my life teaching constitutional law—and teaching it in a particularly unfashionable way. As any of my students will attest, my aim is always to say that we should try to understand what the court does in a consistently principled way. We should learn to read what the court does, not as the actions of politicians, but as people who are applying the law as principle, in as principled a manner as they can. There are exceptions, no doubt. And especially in times of crisis, one must expect mistakes. But as OJ’s trial is not a measure of the jury system, Bush v. Gore is not a measure of the Supreme Court. It is the ordinary case one needs to explain. And explain it as a matter of principle.

I’m not sure how to do that here. I don’t see what the argument is that would show why it is the Court’s role to police Congress’s power to protect states, but not to protect the public domain. I don’t see the argument, and none of the five made it. Nor have any of the advocates on the other side identified what that principle is.

As someone who plans to start law school in the fall (if someone would just let me in ferchrissake!) and who has read Lessig's The Future of Ideas, it's a little difficult to watch Lessig's disillusionment. He talks about being naive, but could anyone really think the law was a matter of principle and not, at the same time, a matter of politics? Do Constitutional lawyers really teach (and believe) that the Supreme Court somehow functions on a higher plane than the rest of the world, a plane where there is always a valid and just reason for all decision/actions? I suppose something like that is necessary if people are going to accept that the Court's decisions are pretty much the last word on the contentious issues in our society, but it seems pretty clearly to be another in the many fantasies that compose our national self-narrative (i.e.: "Everyone has an equal chance to succeed in America!" "America is always working for greater peace, justice and democracy in the world! "The Supreme Court makes decisions on principle, not politics.")

The comments to Lessig's post help put it into context. Since the individual comments don't have permalinks, I'll post a bit from my favorite here: After reminding us that we live in a country in which the President can declare a "Sanctity of Life Day" despite Roe v. Wade, a country in which citizens can become "enemy combatants" and lose virtually all of their rights simply on the government's say-so, and a country whose President was installed by this very Supreme Court, this poster connects the dots:

All along, you’ve treated Copyright as an issue separate from encroaching fascism. But it isn’t: fascism is the union of state and corporate interests.

And that’s the real message of this decision: corporate interests won out over a perfectly valid and good constitutional argument, and this is perfectly in keeping with the times we live in.

Prof., it’s time to come off of the fence: the problem is political, not legal, and it goes far further than just copyright.

This battle is lost. You could turn around and say “well, that was the war, and we lost, and it’s over until the next copyright case”. And that would be ok, valid as far as it goes.

Or you could say “That was the battle, and we lost because the Supreme Court no longer serves the interestes of the people, but has been corruped as have most other branches of our government: by corporate interests and big money. And so, for justice to ve served, we must continue the battle against those interests, until our democracy is restored“.

You’re good enough to make a difference. Rest a while, and then get to work.

Think about that for a minute: "Fascism is the union of state and corporate interests." Does that seem like the world you live in? Why is Bush pushing "tort reform"? Is it to help corporations, or citizens? Why does Bush refuse to participate in the Kyoto Protocol on global warming? Does that help corporations, or citizens? Why have Republicans pushed "deregulation" of nearly everything for years? Does deregulation help corporations, or citizens? Hmmm...

On the question of faith in the legal system, see also the recent case of Bush v. Kucinich, or another case decided by Bush-appointed Federal Judge John Bates in which Bates rejected the General Accounting Office's attempt to subpoena the records of Vice President Dick Cheney's energy task force. Bates appears to be saying that there's almost no way to use the legal system to hold the executive branch accountable for its actions. Imperial presidency, anyone?

But, of course, there's always a vocal contingent in support of the good old American way. According to Jeff Jarvis, the Eldred side in Eldred v. Ashcroft was the "communist" side. I wonder if people like Jarvis have ever considered that an enormous amount of the technology they use to produce their web content is available to them only because it was released to the public domain. Right.

UPDATE: Do you Want to Believe?

Posted 09:05 AM | law school

Educational Economies

Yesterday President Bush said the University of Michigan's admissions system is an unfair and unconstitutional "quota system." Meanwhile:

At a White House briefing, White House spokesman Ari Fleischer highlighted a program Bush spearheaded as governor of Texas.

Bush opposed racial preferences at state universities, opting instead for a program he calls "affirmative access," under which the top 10 percent of all high school students are eligible for admission.

Ok, so we have the Bush Administration's position—get rid of race as a factor in college admissions and replace it with merit. Sounds good, doesn't it? And that's the trouble—like nearly all of Bush's policies, it sounds good, but in practice it's just not that simple.

Let's grant that quota systems are bad, and that there has never been an affirmative action program without flaws. Let's also put aside for the moment the fact that Michigan's admissions system is not, in fact, a quota system, and that it is not in any way exclusionary toward anyone. Let's say that we buy Bush's argument and give automatic entry to the top 10 percent of all high school students in Michigan. Who do you think that 10 percent is going to be? Well, let's look at what kinds of things help students make it to the top 10 percent of their class. Things that probably help students perform well are having parents who went to college, having perhaps one parent who doesn't work and has time (and a car) to take the kids to extra-curricular activities and to help and encourage them with their homework. It also probably helps to have parents who can pay for those extracurricular activities, and have the time and resources to seek out the best ones. I'm sure it also helps to live in a stable household in a safe and comfortable neighborhood so you can focus on learning and developing practical (socially acceptable) skills instead of worrying about your safety all the time. What all this means is that the top 10 percent of any school class is going be comprised primarily of middle-class and wealthy students. Money is closely correlated with "success" in our culture. So Bush might be right that considering race in admissions is not necessary, but privileging "merit" will only increase the gaps between the haves and the have-nots in this country; it may or may not increase racial and ethnic diversity, but it certainly will make higher education more economically homogenous (which would be just fine for Bush and Co.).

Underlying Bush's position here and on so many issues is one of the central myths that conservatives (or more precisely, neoconservatives) like Bush want to believe—and they want us to believe—namely, that we live in a friction-free world governed by "natural" laws (e.g., the "law" of supply and demand) which allow us to make clear and simple connections between cause and effect, action and reaction. For neoconservatives, if you work hard in school (and you're "smart"), you'll naturally (as if by natural law) rise to the top of your class. There are no complicating factors in his equation—factors like race or economic inequalities. No, for neocons it's simply, "work hard, reap your rewards." And while we all know this isn't true, we all want to believe it is because we'd all like to live in such a simple world. Too bad we don't and can't.

Here's where the Bush stand on Michigan's admissions policies [1] connects with his position on the economy: To make college admissions more fair we should not privilege race, but poverty. But, of course, we couldn't do that, because that would be "class warfare," and as we all know, poverty is always only a temporary rest stop on the highways of American life, all of which lead to fame, fortune, and magnificent success. It's not true, but people want to believe it so badly that they'll simply ignore overwhelming evidence to the contrary. For example, no one really believes Bush became President through hard work or intelligence—at least not through these qualities alone. His birth into a wealthy and well-connected family also had an enormous effect on the course of his life. Yet, instead of taking Bush himself as proof that the Horatio Alger, protestant work ethic, anyone can succeed in America narrative is 99 percent fiction, Americans seem to pretend that somehow Bush as an exception to the rule. "Oh yeah, Bush got where he is 'cause his daddy was rich, but still, anyone can succeed in America." Conservative author David Brooks recently explained exactly how this works (although for him it's a good thing). Unfortunately, in many ways, Brooks' analysis sounds all too accurate. Where he's wrong is that Americans aren't suffering from false consciousness. After explaining that "Americans admire the rich," Brooks contradicts himself when he writes:

Nor are Americans suffering from false consciousness. You go to a town where the factories have closed and people who once earned $14 an hour now work for $8 an hour. They've taken their hits. But odds are you will find their faith in hard work and self-reliance undiminished, and their suspicion of Washington unchanged.

The contradiction is that Brooks is arguing that Americans are not suffering from false consciousness, yet he admits they maintain their faith in "hard work and self-reliance," despite the fact that their experience proves to them over and over that these great values will not bring them success in this country—especially as "free trade" moves more and more jobs overseas or forces American workers to accept lower wages, while Bush proposes to allow the richest 1 percent of Americans to keep even more of their vast wealth. The definition of false consciousness is believing X in the face of overwhelming evidence for Y, so how can Brooks claim that the average American consciousness isn't a false one? (See also the letters responding to Brooks' piece.)

Regardless, Brooks is correct that Americans don't like to be reminded that they're not rich, or that they might never get rich thanks to structural inequalities (like education or tax policies). This is why Bush can keep a straight face when he proposes a tax plan that overwhelmingly and unashamedly favors the rich; he knows that as long as he can keep his smirk in check, he can tell Americans that giving money to rich people is good for poor people, and that cutting the government's income while increasing its expenses (primarily for the military) is also good for the country. It doesn't make sense, it flies in the face of their own experience, but they want to believe it's true, so the administration might just get away with it. The logic of this plan relies on more of those "natural" laws that neocons love so much. This time it's that if you give a rich person a dollar, he/she will invest it. While this may be true, again, the way this works is not that simple. Since we don't live in a friction-free world, wealthy Americans who save tax money may invest it, but that investment is not necessarily going to benefit average Americans because, in a global economy, there's no telling where an invested dollar might go. On the other hand, if you allow poorer people to keep more of their money, they'll almost certainly spend it places where it will help local economies and conditions—places like grocery stores. But in presenting plans like this, Bush relies on the the American public's desire to live in a simple world, and it's much simpler just to accept the President's arguments than it is to dig out the reality that they obscure.

More than 90 years ago Antonio Gramsci wrote:

What comes to pass does so not so much because a few people want it to happen, as because the mass of citizens abdicate their responsibility and let things be.

Bush's "success" as President proves Gramsci correct.

Footnote:
[1] And it's not just Michigan's admissions policy—Bush's entire educational agenda is founded on this myth that if you simply work hard you'll succeed, regardless of other factors. His support for charter schools and voucher programs is based on the same logic, a sort of social darwinism that continuously blames the victims as it steadily widens the gap between rich and poor, have and have-not. The kinds of "choices" that these programs allow students and parents to make are only available to those with the resources to make them (the wealthy). So vouchers and charter schools allow wealthy students to aggregate with other wealthy students, allowing their parents to pool their resources to make superschools, while poorer students are left to fend for themselves in the "bad" schools that will now have fewer resources than ever. Oh, but if you work hard, you can do anything in America.

Posted 02:26 PM | Comments (1) | general politics

Free Books

Check out Down and Out in the Magic Kingdom, a new sci-fi novel by first-time novelist Cory Doctorow. Under one of the new licenses from Creative Commons, the complete book is available to download absolutely free in a variety of forms. You can even print a copy for yourself, if you so desire. Of course, you can also buy a copy of the real thing—an actual, dead-tree, bound book. It's an interesting and refreshing experiment, especially in light of the Supreme Court's awful decision yesterday against the public domain. Copyfight has just about all the news that's fit to click regarding the decision. [link via Scripting News, which also links today to more inside scoop from Lessig on the decision.]

Instead of getting all morbid and ranting about what a huge step backward this is for freedom and creativity and American culture, I'll just ask: Is Cory Doctorow related in anyway to E.L. Doctorow of Ragtime fame?

Posted 12:47 PM | ai books

SUVs and SOBs II

The first installment of SUVs and SOBs talked about Keith Bradsher's new book, High and Mighty: SUVs, which debunks the myths of SUVs as safe vehicles (for their drivers or anyone else), and argues that driving SUVs is immoral on multiple levels—primarily because SUVs pose such a threat to drivers in other vehicles and because they consume so many resources. It turns out that Bradsher's book couldn't have come out at a better time. First, and most recently, you've probably heard about the "SUVs support terrorism" ad campaign being led by Arianna Huffington, and also about the tv stations refusing to run them. Call it a more aggressive take on last November's "What Would Jesus Drive?" campaign; both are attempts to get people to think about the effects their massive consumption of resources might have on the world around them. Of course, as Bradsher's book shows, such campaigns will largely fall on deaf ears if they try to reach SUV drivers, since, on average, SUV drivers are very antisocial people. That's why the Huffington campaign seems so great to me—it makes an argument that's sensational enough to get people who don't drive SUVs to question those who do. With enough of that kind of thing, even antisocial SUV drivers might find the disapproval associated w/driving their vehicles too much to take. If the campaign seems far-fetched, don't forget that the U.S. government produced similar propaganda during WWII. (My favorite slogan: "Should brave men die so you can drive?")

Meanwhile, did you know that our tax code offers huge incentives to Detroit to continue making SUVs, and to buyers to continue buying them? It's true. First, a tax loophole exempts "light trucks" from a tax automakers pay on high-pollution vehicles they sell. (Note: The information I found on this is from 2000, so this may have been changed since then.)

Second, another tax loophole gives tax rebates to buyers of the largest SUVs. Apparently only "small business owners" qualify for this rebate, but there are enough of them to translate into a lot more SUVs on the roads. Plus, since the tax advantage is so great—as much as $25,000, which might make a $50k SUV downright affordable—that lots of small business owners who have no use for an SUV are choosing to buy one anyway, just because it's such a good deal for them. I understand that this tax break was meant to help small business owners afford the equipment necessary for the work they do, but the unintended consequences here are too serious to ignore.

Posted 11:39 AM | Comments (1) | general politics

What War?

This may sound random, but I'm hoping someone can help me out here. I keep hearing things about our "wartime President" and that this or that is necessary in "a time of war." The thing is, I just can't find any evidence—other than rhetoric from the Bush Administration, of course—that we, the United States, are at war. Did Congress ever officially declare war on anyone or anything? Did I miss that somewhere? And if not, shouldn't we be concerned that our government is in violation of Article I of the Constitution of the U.S. if it claims to be at war w/out official declaration from Congress?

I'm not talking about a war against Iraq, specifically, but a war on anything—terrorism, terrorists, Osama bin Laden. I mean, many people have said we're at war with these things, but there's a difference between people (even the President of the U.S.) saying we're at war and the U.S. Congress officially declaring war. I know, for example, that Congress "authorized the use of force" against Iraq, but does that mean war? Does that authorization give Bush and the Defense Department and everyone else the same rights and options that an official declaration of war would give them?

A Google search on the subject turns up some interesting things from the past year or so, but if anything, all these pieces simply raise the problem (or related problems), but don't answer it. The one piece that seems to directly address the question of whether the U.S. is really at war with anything argues pretty convincingly that, indeed, it is not.

As I write this, I vaguely recall some punditry about this problem sometime in the last 18 months, but for some reason, no one seems interested in pressing the point that we've got a problem if we allow presidential rhetoric to push us into a war that seems to exist only because the executive branch of government says it does. I've been told that the last time Congress actually declared war was WWII, meaning that Korea, Vietnam, and Gulf War I were all wars in which Congress abdicated its responsibilities. So I guess the precedent for this was set long ago and we can expect to go to "war" any time a President decides we should, despite the fact that the framers of the Constitution wanted to prevent exactly that possibility when they gave Congress the responsibility to "make" (later changed to "declare") war. Brave new world and all that, I guess?

Posted 10:49 AM | general politics

What Will Be in 2003?

Hi hi hi hi. After a looong and luxuriously stress-free break from school/work and other demands of "real" life, the time has come for getting back to business—both here at ai and elsewhere. But rather than bore you with a litany of the mundane and unfun things I now must do to prepare for the spring semester (which begins next week), I'm going to indulge in the belated but fun ritual of annual predictions/hopes. I'm no oracle, so these are just a few ideas that are a combination of what I think might happen, as well as what I hope will happen in 2003.

First, we're going to war. [1] I still have hope that this won't happen, but not much. What I think will happen is that the U.S. will commence battle during sweeps month (is that Feb. or March?), both to get maximum viewers for the show when they want to brag about something, as well as to make sure there are plenty of other diversions (in the form of a new tv lineup) for American couch potatoes if things don't go smoothly. There seems lots of reason to believe things won't go that smoothly for the U.S.—Iraq could attack Israel or gas U.S. troops, or the growing peace movement could reach critical mass and U.S. leadership could find itself engaged in a war w/out popular support. (This would be especially likely if Rep. Charles Rangel is successful in his attempt to bring back the draft. He won't be, but his effort has opened a new avenue for critique of Bush's war plans.) At this point it's looking like the best outcome here is that an attack on Iraq creates enough global anger at the Bush administration that the U.S. will be forced to start playing nicely with others and the Bush administration will have zero hope of being re-elected in 2004.

Many things in 2003 will likely hinge on what happens w/Iraq and N. Korea. If there is war on Iraq, and if it is "successful" (meaning not too many Americans die and somehow international and domestic opinion blesses it as a "good or at least not bad thing"), the Bush Administration will probably have carte blanche to continue its insanity of tax cuts, increased military spending, and starving all other domestic and social programs. But that's a big if. On the other hand, if the Iraqi war doesn't happen or goes south somehow, perhaps Americans will wake up and start being a little more critical of the dismal places Washington is sending our country (and our world). Already it's starting to look like Democrats (and many Republicans) are gaining traction w/their criticism of Bush's tax cut/"stimulus" plan—very few people seem convinced that allowing the wealthiest Americans to keep more cash is really good for anyone but the wealthiest Americans. [2]

In 2003 we'll see a shakedown of democratic candidates for President. I haven't had a chance to really take a look at the field as it's forming, but from the little I've seen, John Edwards looks like a great potential candidate. I'll be following his campaign via Oliver Willis' blog, Americans for John Edwards. If Edwards can maintain his "raw potential" approach as something of a Democratic outsider (and if he really turns out to be the people's candidate he claims to be), he just might be able to re-invigorate the Democratic Party and have a good chance at getting the nomination. With regard to the 2004 election, I predict (hope) that as the contest heats up, a vigorous national debate will begin about the value of the electoral college. [3] Following an earlier post on the subject, I also predict that blogs will begin to play a bigger role in the political process. [4]

In an issue of special local interest, I predict (hope) that Illinois Gov. George Ryan's commutation of death sentences in Illinois will trigger a nationwide debate about the justice and necessity of the death penalty. Have you ever stopped to think about the connection between the death penalty and the U.S.'s militant foreign policy? Is it merely a coincidence that one of the only "free" countries in the world that still sanctions state executions is also the "free" country that is most aggressive militarily? We seem to have a culture that says that when someone does something we really don't like, that person has to die. On a micro level, this means the death penalty; on a macro level, it means war. In most free countries, people do not sanction state executions; they put a higher premium on human life than we do. Perhaps this also makes them much more reluctant to go to war. I submit that this is a good thing. So here's hoping that Americans will pause to seriously examine their approach to state-sanctioned murder on both micro and macro levels.

Another domestic conversation that will continue to heat up in 2003 concerns America's dependence on foreign oil, global environmental degradation, and the morality of driving SUVs. I've talked about this before, but also look for an upcoming post to return to this—it's becoming one of my favorite topics.

In my own life, it's looking more likely that by August I will be living in D.C., where I hope to be attending law school. Right now my ideal scenario is that I'll be awarded the Public Interest Scholarship at American University, which will allow me to afford to pay rent, eat, and be a good student. Honestly, the prospect of attending law school without a really significant scholarship is looking pretty scary. How do you concentrate on your classes when every breath you take costs approximately $5?

Finally, I have yet to hear from any marketing/video maestros with brilliant ideas of how I should go about selling myself to the producers of "Survivor," so whether 2003 will see me taking a critique of social darwinism to national prime-time television remains an open question. ;-)

Footnote:
[1] This "war" will not only ultimately prove a mistake for America's long-term health and security, but it will also be illegal and reveal some of the deep problems with our so-called "democracy"—primarily that Congress has abdicated its constitutional responsibility to declare war. This is such a crazy fact that it deserves a post of its own—look for it to follow this post.

[2] I heard Cokie Roberts on NPR this morning saying that the Bush Administration is breaking new ground in attempting to use tax policy for purposes of social engineering by reducing the so-called "marriage penalty," rewarding investment in the stock market, etc. I couldn't believe what I was hearing; tax policy has always been used for social engineering—it's called redistribution of wealth! The problem with the Bush vision is that it wants to do all it can to make sure wealth is redistributed up into the higher classes, rather than the other way around. If there's anything new about this it's simply the brazeness with which it's now being done. In the past the plutocrats tried to be more discrete about their attempts to shortchange the poorest Americans in favor of the wealthiest; now they seem to feel they don't even need to pretend anymore.)

[3] For those readers who have detected any cynicism in ai, please attempt to recall the last time there was a vigorous national debate about anything. If, like me, you have trouble thinking of a recent example, I think you'll agree that my predictions in this regard are quite optimistic—utopian, even. ;-)

[4] If you haven't heard it already, check out the story of Tara Sue Grubman, the woman who sort of ran for Congress via a blog. She didn't win, but she did show the value of a blog to allow voters to get to know a candidate, and to allow a candidate to communicate directly w/voters in a relatively raw way. Sure, a blog could be "spun and polished" just like a tv commercial, so blogs will likely have a positive effect on the political process only if candidates use them honestly. Yes, another big "if."

Posted 09:39 AM | life generally

Survivor/Nash Equilibrium

Hi. Welcome to 2003 at ai. This promises to be a full and interesting year. I believe the theme will be Change. I hope to post a bit of a preview/prediction post sometime soon, but let's get right to the most important stuff here:

If you look at the little statistics generated by the Nedstat button in the right column, you'll see that ai is currently getting the majority of its hits from people looking for information about how John Nash's noncooperative game theory applies to Survivor. If you're looking for information on this, I suggest you read the following and you'll know just about all I know:

1. Is the Key to Survivor in 'Non-Cooperative Games'?—this is perhaps the most basic and simple explanation of the connection between the Nash Equilibrium applies to Survivor. I'd start here, then move on to:
2. Survivor, Game Theory, and John Nash—an article by a Professor of Political Science that explains a little more abstractly how the author thinks Nash's equilibrium would apply to Survivor. This article also contains three links to more practical applications of game theory to the most recent edition of Survivor.
3. John Nash's Survivor—this is a long discussion board post that originally appeared here and discusses all five editions of Survivor at length. This page is where I found the links above.

What does all of this mean to you if you're planning to apply to be on the show? Your guess is probably better than mine, but there's some discussion of that question here.

If you have more or better information, please share (click the comment link below).

Posted 06:01 PM | life generally