Friday Five

There's a first for everything. This week's Friday Five:

1. How many houses/apartments have you lived in throughout your life?
21 (soon to be 22). Those houses/apartments have been in six states (Wyoming, Iowa, Missouri, Nevada, California, and Illinois) and one foreign country (Finland). I guess I get around a little.

2. Which was your favorite and why?
For about three months in 1998 (or was it 1997?) I sublet a tiny, one-bedroom apartment high atop the Berkeley hills. It was the top floor of a garage, but it had a huge window and a big deck overlooking Tilden Park (on Wildcat Canyon Road). It faced East, so I was greeted every morning by the rising of the sun before I climbed on my bike to coast downhilll all the way to work (which was near 4th street in Berkeley, if you know the area). It was spring and the mornings were brisk and often foggy, the air heavy with moisture that would wrap around me as I zoomed down from the hills. I I was often nearly dripping when I arrived at work, but the ride as always a great, bracing, wake-me-up—a great way to start the day. Of course, the downside (punny!) was the ride home at the end of the day—uphill all the way (and steep in some places like you wouldn't believe). The ride to work took about 15 minutes, depending on traffic; the ride home took 45 minutes to an hour, depending on how gonzo I was feeling. Those were the days...

3. Do you find moving house more exciting or stressful? Why?
It's generally both. I've done it so much that I think of it as more of a hassle than a stress, but there's always excitement about new beginnings. But it's easy to get excited about moving because it's easy to believe that anything is possible when you move, that everything about your life could become completely different in this new place. It's taken me a long time and too many moves to realize that's not really true. What doesn't change is that you can't escape yourself. As Dr. Seuss says, "Wherever you go, there you are."

4. What's more important, location or price?
It depends, doesn't it? Location is always more important, if you can afford it. ;-) But yeah, I've learned it's a good idea to stretch your budget a bit (sometimes a lot) to live in a place in which you feel comfortable, so I'll go with location.

5. What features does your dream house have (pool, spa bath, big yard, etc.)?
I dream of house in the mountains with a sort of big turret on top of that commands a 360-degree view of the surrounding (breathtaking) landscape. In that room I will write little novels about the human condition. And since I can afford that room in this fantasy, I won't care whether anyone buys or reads my books. Also, my family and friends will frequently visit me in this house, which will be big enough to accommodate a large number of visitors at one time. Some of them will stay months at a time, some will only come for a weekend now and then, but the door will always be open so they can come and go as they please. Yeah, that would be nice.

Posted 09:14 PM | Comments (1) | life generally

Regime Change Begins At Home

The Democratic presidential candidate, decorated Vietnam veteran, and Senator, John Kerry has triggered an outcry from the "you can't say that!" crowd:

During a speech Wednesday at the Peterborough Town Library in New Hampshire, which holds the first presidential primary, Kerry said that Bush has committed a ''breach of trust'' in the eyes of many United Nations members by going to war while some countries felt there was room for diplomacy.

Kerry said the country would not bridge the gap until it elects a new president. After highlighting his foreign-policy credentials, Kerry appropriated some of the administration's own rhetoric, as well as the words of some antiwar activists, by saying: ''What we need now is not just a regime change in Saddam Hussein and Iraq, but we need a regime change in the United States.''

Both Democrats and Republicans are criticizing Kerry, apparently on the premise that you just can't criticize the president during "wartime." Come on! He's running for the office, ferchrissake! For that very reason, just about everything he says should criticize the President. One of the "freedoms" the U.S. is supposedly fighting to protect is our right to enact a peaceful "regime change" every four years. Do those who denounce Kerry for his participation in that process disagree with democracy?

So far, Kerry's standing by his remarks. I doubt I'd vote for the guy, but I'll be even less likely to vote for someone who doesn't criticize Yubbledew (my new favorite name for the guy in the White House). If all we're going to get in a Democratic candidate is someone who says "I support everything Bush does," then we should just vote for Bush in 2004. Come to think of it, let's just call off the election altogether—there's a war on, you know, and elections can be so divisive...

(I can't find complete text of Kerry's remarks, but you'll find a few more details here andhere.)

UPDATE: Joan Walsh has a good piece on this topic in Salon. As she points out, methods Bush supporters use to silence critics are tried and true. It's wonderful when the people who claim to be defending our "freedom" are also those who seem most vehemently opposed to expressions of it.

Posted 02:36 PM | general politics

Mixing Prayer and Politics

I completely missed this while I was traveling last week, but Breaching the Web has been keeping tabs on our congressional representative's latest inanity: legislating a day of prayer and fasting for divine protection of U.S. troops in Iraq. (See BtW here and here for her comments.) What are these people thinking? As if the invasion of Iraq hadn't caused enough global trouble, now the U.S. government has put an official religious stamp on the campaign, raising all kinds of ugly potential for this to be called a "crusade" against an Islamic nation. Are they trying to start World War III?!?

Posted 05:03 PM | general politics

The Second Superpower

Could the united voices and actions of the citizens of the world ever seriously challenge the hegemony of the U.S.? That's the question at the heart of The Second Superpower by Jonathan Schell, the cover story of the current issue of The Nation magazine. Schell argues that the massive global outcry against current U.S. foreign policy constitutes a second superpower that is already reshaping geopolitics. Meanwhile, James Moore, a Senior Fellow at the Berkman Center for Internet and Society at Harvard Law, has just published a similar argument in The Second Superpower. Both pieces are almost utopian in their idealism, but they nonetheless offer serious food for thought. Moore's piece especially contains more provocative observations than I can address here, but one in particular resonates with me as I consider what I might want to do with a law degree. Moore writes:

Deliberation in the first superpower [the U.S.] is relatively formal—dictated by the US constitution and by years of legislation, adjudicating, and precedent. The realpolitik of decision making in the first superpower—as opposed to what is taught in civics class—centers around lobbying and campaign contributions by moneyed special interests—big oil, the military-industrial complex, big agriculture, and big drugs—to mention only a few. In many cases, what are acted upon are issues for which some group is willing to spend lavishly. By contrast, it is difficult in the US government system to champion policy goals that have broad, long-term value for many citizens, such as environment, poverty reduction and third world development, women’s rights, human rights, health care for all. By contrast, these are precisely the issues to which the second superpower tends to address its attention.

In other words, Moore's argument is that the "second superpower" of the people of the world (not their governments) might work together through international law, NGOs, and simple global majority to circumvent the actions of their corrupt, money-controlled governments. I agree completely that the U.S. political machine is run by money and that this makes it difficult for those who "desire a superpower that speaks for the interests of planetary society, for long-term well-being, and that encourages broad participation in the democratic process" to enact policies to accomplish their goals. In this respect, Moore's idea of the second superpower suggests that social progressives shouldn't even bother with something like law school because all a J.D. will do is entangle them within a corrupt and broken political system. However, another way to look at this might be that social progressives who do go to law school should specialize in international law so that we will be better positioned to promote the needs and policies of the people of the world.

Considering the difficulty I'm having choosing a law school (it's looking more and more like it'll be GW, though), there's no way I'm going to pick an area of the law to specialize in at this point. However, international law will certainly be in the running.

UPDATE: Credit where it's due—thanks to Scripting News for the original link to Jim Moore's article.

Posted 04:52 PM | general politics law school

With Buns Glazing

If you'd like to take a few minutes to fall on the floor laughing, head over to the Capitol Steps website and scroll down to download the April Fool's 2003 edition of "Politics Takes A Holiday" (it's a Real Audio file). Then listen to at least the four minutes from the 7:00-11:00 minute marks to learn that Saddam Hussein is a sadman, and that the President of the U.S. is named Yubbledew. A rough transcript follows, but trust me, you've got to hear this to truly appreciate it. Your money back if you don't laugh out loud.*

Well ladies and gentleman, let me tell you the story of that two-bit dictator of Iraq, that butcher of Baghdad, that madman, Saddam.

Let me try that again.

Gadies and lentleman. Yank thew. Let me stell you a tory about that boo-tit ictator of Diraq, that bagger of Butchdad, that Sadman, Madam.

Just whip your flirds and you'll have the gang of it here.

Now Madam has weapons of ass manihilation, which is why he's gettin' his ass manihilated right now. And it's all thanks to our yearless feader, the yesident of the Pru-es, Yubbledew. Now Yubbledew may have a QI in the dingle sigits, and he may not be able to frick pance on a wap of the murld, but Yubbledew is bowing into Gagdhad with buns glazing! He has a core wabinet full of more-wongers, like Ronald Dumbsfeld. Yeah, he's a nun-gut, mm-hmm. And there's Chick Deney -- there's a wight-ringer. Oh, but what about all the neace-piks and the smot-pokers and the laming fliberals? Well they wouldn't [unintelligible] if Hussolini, Titler and Mojo harachuted into Pollywood.

And then there's Blans Hix, alias "Clinspector Iew-so," that [unintelligible] couldn't find a fluke if one humped him on his bed. And let's not forget, the french from the Stench, [unintelligible], what a mile of perde. We oughta give those flogs a good frogging.

But at least there's one noreign fashional who's all trot to hot, Bony Tlair. He's yandsome, he's houng, and he's really hung-go! Plus he keeps a liff upper stip in the Tibbish brabloids. So now the ranks are tolling, and the flanes are plying, and we're dropping bambs in Bogdhad -- also dredatory prones and muise crissles. We've unleashed Awk and Shaw. (Awkandshaw? Wasn't our last president from Awkandshaw?)

And where's Madam? Well, he's probably biding in a hunker, or bunkered down in his head. It's kinda tard to hell with all those dody boubles. And he might gattack us with ass. That's 'cause it's Stesert Dorm, Twart Poo, "Thirld War Wheeee!"

Well Gadies and Lentleman, I guess the storal of my mory is this: When all is dead and son, the A. S. of U. will be the vig bictors, and you so what they knay: To the splinner goes the woils... Yank Thew!

*This warranty void in all fifty states and international territories, as well as any other spot on the planet earth. As always, the truth is, YMMV. Yank Thew.

Posted 06:45 AM | general politics

Milestones

Yesterday ai received a record 56 visits. That's a pretty small number as web pages go, but I belong to the "one reader is better than none" school, and 56 is even better than one, so no complaints here. Thanks to everyone who has followed ai for some time, and to those of you who are just visiting for the first time. Your visits and comments make ai fun to write, and -- I hope -- enjoyable for you to read, as well.

Another milestone: The little iBook on which ai is produced has been running constantly, without hiccup, shut down, or reboot, for 41 days! Does your Windoze laptop do that? ;-)

Speaking of laptops, GW sent a scary little packet of materials warning of the dangers of coming to school with anything other than the "GW Law School notebook" computer (kindly customized by Dell). No other school I've applied to has come on this strong with the "Windoze only" pitch. Not a good sign.

Posted 10:22 AM | Comments (3) | law school meta-blogging

Kids these days...

It probably comes as no surprise to most teachers that Generation Y trusts the government and supports the war. According to Neil Howe, the coauthor of "Millennials Rising" and a social policy advisor in Washington:

"These are kids who are taught to think of themselves as being the sole purpose of community life in America," Howe explains. "They've been surrounded by kinderpolitics, the idea that politicians are constantly saying, 'Do it for the children.'" The recent list of governmental reforms for kids is endless: The Consumer Product Safety Commission, the National Transportation Safety Board, the Labor, Treasury, and Justice Departments, and even the EPA have passed laws benefiting young Americans. "These kids have been taught, throughout the late '80s and '90s, that government is constantly trying to do great things for kids," says Howe. "Why shouldn't they like government?"

So despite all the cries about problems with our schools, the U.S. educational system must be working just fine, after all—it's creating lots of good subjects (not to be confused with bad subjects, of course). I'm sure King George is pleased. I wonder what these kids think of the Iraq body count.

This is actually one of the reasons I'm leaving teaching (at least here and at least for now). To make a gross generalization, a majority of students (at least at this university) simply seem to lack the ability or desire to think critically about anything. And yes, I see the irony in this: If students are so lacking in critical ability, that only means my role as a teacher becomes that much more important. However, I've become cynical about the ability of college instructors (or professors) to really teach critical thinking within an institutional and cultural atmosphere that actively discourages students from thinking critically. I've said this before and I'll say it again: I'll forever be glad and thankful for the thousands of great people who continue to teach at our public universities, but I no longer feel that I should be one of them. I hope I'll be able to do more good at a policy level than I've been able to do in the classroom.

In a demonstration of my students' active aversion to critical thought, one of my students sent an email the other day expressing his "disappointment in [my] subtle inputs on [my] antiwar feelings." The email continued:

I understand everyone has their beliefs, and I respect that, but you are going against the most important idea taught to teachers like yourself. Your classroom behavior as a teacher is always supposed to be neutral regardless of you beliefs [sic]. You assumed this responsibility when you chose to become a teacher and you are breaking that critical rule. If you feel the need to offer such an opinion in the classroom setting, it is imperative you also explore the otherside. [sic]

My first reaction to this message was that my student must have confused the job of "teacher" with that of "journalist." My second reaction was to rush to my "Big Book of Critical Rules for Teachers," but I couldn't find it anywhere. I wonder where my student got his copy.

But all kidding aside, what bothers me is that this message came from an intelligent senior at a major American public university. [1] Worse, this student is expressing a commonly-held view: Teachers ought to be neutral; they ought not advocate for one position or another on a given issue, but especially on important social or political issues. This perspective is closely imbricated with the overall rightward-shift in U.S. educational policy over the past 20-30 years, culminating most recently in the No Child Left Behind Act (NCLBA) which dramatically reduces the authority and autonomy of teachers in the classroom. [2] Although the NCLBA does not govern college-level education, such policies are explicit expressions of our society's disrespect for and distrust of teachers at all levels, tightly proscribing what is and is not allowed within the classroom.

I understand the anxiety Americans feel about what happens within classrooms. Education is a powerful tool, and that tool can be used for good or ill. However, I am not Voltaire's Pangloss and this is not the best of all possible worlds. It would be irresponsible for teachers to pretend otherwise.

We've reached a very scary place as a culture if we're going to say that college teachers must pretend neutrality on all issues. For that's what "neutrality" or "objectivity" or whatever you choose to call it really is—a pretense. Asking teachers to be neutral is asking them to occupy a hypothetical ideal that does not exist. Even teaching "both sides" of an issue means taking a biased position that promotes the view that there are, in fact, two valid sides. The truth is more likely that there are dozens of valid sides, but what's important is that teachers who argue for "both sides" of an issue are taking a political stance on that issue.

This is probably the most pernicious aspect of this whole "pro-neutrality" attitude, because what this student seeks is not even some myth of neutrality, what he's demanding is to be protected from the discomfort of having to face or seriously consider arguments and ideas with which he disagrees. This is much like the phenomenon Sam Heldman has observed about people in the Deep South [link via Cooped Up]. Heldman writes:

There are many people down there -- a huge number, I would say, based on my experience -- who don't know when they're saying something that constitutes a position on a disputed issue of politics or morality. And when it is pointed out to them that they are in fact doing so, they get very uncomfortable and often get defensive. I think that it is attributable to the fact that they so rarely hear dissenting opinions. At otherwise perfectly lovely parties, even when everyone is on his or her best behavior, you will hear off-hand comments (for instance) about how the trial lawyers are ruining this or that aspect of society; and when I or someone like me will disagree, as affably as I know how, the response is as though I had (as the old saying goes) farted in church -- the dissenter has done the wholly inappropriate thing of bringing up politics in such a nice gathering, when those who merely voice the majority political view didn't even realize that they were bringing up politics at all. You see this sort of thing at Instapundit sometimes -- he acts shocked, from time to time, when people accuse him of making a political statement, when from his point of view he was just having a pleasant conversation about obvious truths. This is not a universal trait among Southerners, of course. Some people know full well that, by being in favor of the honoring of the Confederate cause, they are working to further an extreme political position. But others are simply unaware that, by joining in the "honoring", they are taking a position with which a reasonable person could disagree.

Heldman's observations perfectly describe the majority of the students I've taught—they're constantly taking political positions on things, but because they voice what they think is the majority opinion, they don't realize they're taking a political position at all. And when a teacher makes them aware of their politics by raising the "other side" of the issue, they act shocked, offended, even angry. Heldman is also correct that students react this way to new ideas because they so rarely hear dissenting opinions. This is especially true when the subject is war, since my students' knowledge of current events comes mostly from 5-minute encounters with CNN and/or the 1-minute news briefs that occasionally interrupt the music and advertising on their favorite radio station. In other words, all they hear about the war are endless loops of Bush bellicosity and great sentimental pieces about the courage and "staying power" of American troops.

Is this what a "free" society looks like? Is censorship better when it comes from the people rather than from their government? And if war doesn't wake Generation Y from its "trusting" stupor, what will? [3]

Footnotes:
[1] It's probably neither here nor there, but this particular student also happens to be going to law school next fall.

[2] The NCLBA was the product of a republican administration, contradicting the republican party's traditional advocacy of smaller federal government and increased state and local autonomy. However, it's perfectly in keeping with the push by this administration's Justice Department and DEA to override California state law with regard to medical marijuana. I'm sure this case will provide some good discussion in future Constitutional Law classes covering the separation of powers. At any rate, republican education policies are just one are in which the parties traditional rhetoric contradicts its actions. For more on this, I highly recommend Educating the "Right" Way: Markets, Standards, God, and Inequality by Michael W. Apple. (As a footnote to a footnote, I recently completed a brief review of this book for an online journal. I'll post a link if and when the review goes public.)

[3] "Trust" is probably not the best word for Generation Y's attitude toward the government and the world. Better words might be "fear" or "laziness." Students may be afraid to challenge or criticize their government because to do so would be to acknowledge that they may not, in fact, live in the best of all possible worlds. Criticism implies problems, flaws, imperfections, and these are things my students actively deny. This might also be laziness because it's simply easier to trust that everything will work out for the best. Yet, the cost of this laziness can be great in the end. See Candide.

Posted 09:27 AM | Comments (4) | general politics

Rankings Rumblings

Mail today brings this from Mark F. Grady, Dean and Professor of Law at George Mason University:

I write with good news --

For the third year in a row, George Mason is ranked in the top tier in the U.S. News and World Report rankings of law schools. [emphasis his] We continue to be the youngest and fastest rising law school in the nation, now ranked by U.S News [sic] as 40th among law schools in the United States.

And while that's all fine and dandy, I'd just like to know how Dean Grady knows his school's U.S. News rank before anyone else does. I guess some controversy has been raging at the PR boards about whether the rankings have already been released or not, but Mason would have had to have the rankings sometime last week for me to be receiving this letter today. Do schools get the rankings in advance of publication? (For some reason I haven't been able to access the PR boards all day.)

I won't be going to Mason. The more I hear about this school the more I wonder what made me think it was a possible choice in the first place. The initial lure may have been the low tuition. When I was there last week one of the student's boasted that he'd be getting a J.D. from Mason for the cost of just one year at Georgetown. The cheap degree is definitely a persuasive argument, but at what cost to your worldview, I wonder.

Does it bother anyone else that a school renowned for its conservatism is also the "youngest and fastest rising law school in the nation"?

UPDATE: GM has this to say about its early knowledge of rankings. Hmmmmmm...

Posted 08:03 PM | Comments (3) | law school

Dog Is My Co-Pilot*

We have travelled, and we have returned. I have not yet made a decision, but you, kind readers, have given me a lot of great advice to add to the mix. I guess the trick to getting a good conversation going here at ai is simply to throw out a plea and leave for a week and let all of you do your stuff. Thanks for all the comments and suggestions and links. I'm still trying to absorb it all and to integrate it with what I learned during my visits. I had hoped that one school would stand out among the others to make my choice simple, and I guess that happened. However, the choice is still not simple, primarily because (a) I still don't know financial aid numbers from all schools (GW offered $11k for the first year, which is a great start), and (b) the school that seemed to stand out the most—American—is also the lowest-ranked school, which throws everything right back on that tricky little question: How important is rank, anyway? Everyone seems to agree it's important, but just how important seems to depend utterly on where you're talking about and what you want to do with your degree.

Then there are the the many other variables: money (how much it costs and how much they offer in grants), location, clinical programs, funding for public interest work in the summer, quality of LRAP, (and just how would I evaluate that, anyway?), curriculum/faculty, gut feeling, and on and on. (And of course there's my secret litmus test for a good school: How many students bring their iBooks and Powerbooks to class? The more macs, the better the school, obviously!) And as I flip through this rolodex of variables in my head, I wonder at a meta-level: How important is this decision, anyway? Am I making too much of this? Should I just choose a damn school and get on with things? Liable's advice seems to answer this question; she says:

How about this -- if you're willing to work diligently at any school you go to, pick the one you want to attend. They're all winners.

Very true. So... Eeenie, meenie, miney...

Of course, it doesn't have to be that random. Ditzy Genius has developed a great little spreadsheet with dozens of criteria by which to judge different schools you might be considering. She kindly sent me a copy (along w/some great tips) and I'm currently adapting her criteria to suit my own search and will report on the results of this little face-off as soon as I crunch the numbers (or something like that).

(DG does not seem to have permalinks, but check the entry for 3/28 for more on this. Any other random post will also tell you that DG can write. For example, check yesterday's encounter w/a NJ State Trooper to learn a new trick for ticket-free highway speeding—honesty!?! Witty, honest, entertaining, and full of good tips and information—what more could you want in a blog?)

* Post title comes from a bumper sticker seen while traveling through Connecticut.

Posted 06:48 AM | Comments (5) | law school