4521 and done

If you hadn't already heard via Twitter, this is the official announcement: I'm getting out of blogging. Thus endeth decorabilia.

I started blogging seven years ago largely for my own benefit. Over time, the landscape changed: I began debate-blogging, which drew my time away from other topics, and turned me into a national expert in LD. Along with that honor came a gigantic obligation, an obligation I can no longer fulfill. I simply don't have the time to blog consistently anymore, and I don't want to keep readers hanging on in expectation of posts that will likely never arrive.

Life changed in even greater ways: in those seven years, among all the other events both amazing and banal, I got married and was divorced (there the passive voice is intended), living out a life lesson in failure that I might have taught my students. In these seven years at CHS, I took on more and more responsibilities, and am now English department chair, debate coach, APEX online coordinator, Powerful Teaching and Learning facilitator, unofficial tech support guy, and... I can't remember what else.

Most important, my life has radically and profoundly changed for the better. In the last six months, I met an amazing woman, Stefanie, with two lovely daughters, Keira and Miranda. Now, married again and a father for the first time, life is more exciting and busy and rewarding than I could ever hope or imagine.

I don't bemoan the loss of blogging. Instead, I'll celebrate the time I'll have to share with my wife and kids, and to explore the personal pursuits I had largely abandoned, including reading and writing for fun. It's been a while.

Thanks to my readers, especially debaters, who've made it fun and intellectually stimulating. For current and future readers, I won't erase anything. The archives are still there, with all kinds of advice--just click the labels. I'll someday string together all my LD thoughts into one gigantic post for your information. That someday will be soon, when I can finally catch my breath.

4,521 posts. This is the last.

Thanks and good night.

robopocalypse delayed

Robot apocalypticists often presume that artificially intelligent beings will be all-too-eager to cooperate to destroy humanity. Which is why this video is so reassuring.

[via Mark Frauenfelder]

not for the squeamish

Though it gets flippant when discussing the philosophical implications, Jesse Bering's piece is a nice (nice? not the right word at all) introduction to the many and diverse kinds of parasitic twins.

thoughts about animal rights

The first post about the animal rights resolution has sparked a lot of great questions. Rather than try to answer them in the comments, I'll tackle them here, all at once, and see what other thoughts I can add.

First, a reader writes,

[If] we were to affirm, would major corporations such as McDonalds and Burger King be in violation of these rights, and if they were, would they be shut down by the government, costing thousands of people their jobs and adding to the country's unemployment rate?

This is one of the most critical points in this resolution: it doesn't define the nature or scope of animal rights. For all we know, animals could only have negative rights of a fairly limited extent, such as the right not to suffer cruel and unusual treatment. (It may seem morally strange to allow a person to kill and eat something, provided it doesn't suffer while alive, but that's just one of the morally strange things about trying to blend carnivorous and animal rights.)

So, unless animal rights include a "right not to be killed," we simply can't answer the question.

Next, reader nesh asks, "Didn't we as humans create this system of justice that the resolution speaks of?"

That's a great question that won't find an easy answer. In this view, rights are socially constructed. They're invented by humans, for humans--but this also makes rights a matter of human whim, changing with times and cultures. This gets tricky quickly, leading to cultural / moral relativism, and slippery grounds for disapproving of moral horrors like murder or rape.

Even if rights are human constructs, does it follow that animals are excluded from rights-talk? Not necessarily. There may be a good reason--a utilitarian or pragmatic reason--to extend rights to animals so that all humans benefit. More on this later.

A less constructivist approach is to argue that rights exist independent of human thought, but are discovered by rational actors, much as mathematical concepts exist on their own plane, waiting to be plucked out by mathematicians. Humans might disagree on the nature of rights, but they can't merely construct them. Animal rights could exist in a like manner, waiting for the first John Locke of the dolphins to squeak out a treatise. Even if such an event never occurs, however, a creature that can articulate animal rights--a human being--already exists, and can potentially assign those rights to animals.

An anonymous reader writes,

I do not like anything on the aff side... people will say that there are animals with "near human intelligence" and like arguments. This is not a good argument on several levels... First, that only occurs in certain cases. Not a true reason to affirm, and secondly if they were so smart they would protect their own rights

Giving animals rights for inherent reasons--they're intelligent, they can suffer, they're cute and fuzzy--is only one approach. Another is utilitarian, as I mentioned above: when we assign rights to animals, we protect their welfare, which not only improves their lives (and the environment), but may make us more moral as human beings. To wit, a person who treats animals with respect is more likely to treat humans with respect. (The opposite may be true as well; stereotypically, it's the psychopathic serial killer who's cruel to animals at a young age.)

Furthermore, an ethicist like Peter Singer will argue that the same reasons we defend the rights of defenseless, pre-rational human babies can be extended to the defense of non-rational animals.

As a different anonymous reader writes later on,

As for the justice approach, you're gonna have to be specific about the definition of justice, or what justice really is and what it applies to. Is justice a human-only concept? If we talk about justice and its benefits, is it utility for humans only? and if it is or isn't, why?

Amen and amen.

I'm running out of time at the moment, so I'll stop there for now. More questions, and concomitant answers, coming soon.

Resolved: Justice requires the recognition of animal rights.

The September / October 2011 Lincoln-Douglas debate topic has been released:

Resolved: Justice requires the recognition of animal rights.

It's a fairly straightforward sentence with a lot of deep philosophical implications, and is a great way to start the season.

To get started, here's a thought-experiment.

An alien spaceship descends on your hometown, bug-eyed spindly-legged creatures emerging from its bowels. "Great," you think. "This is gonna be great." You've always wondered whether there was intelligent life elsewhere in the universe--and here it is, practically knocking down your door.

Actually, it is knocking down your door, and vaporizing your furniture, and corralling you and your family into cages, until you're whisked off to some distant galaxy, ostensibly to serve as entertainment for Emperor Garthron of Planet X.

You try to reason with your captors. Their eyes are blank with apathy, however; they cannot hear, nor can they understand your rudimentary bleating. They ignore your gestures and are unfazed by your scribblings. Your actions are meaningless to them, beyond the detached interest of idle alien curiosity.

How would you convince one of these aliens that their behavior is unjust, and that they've violated your rights?

Or would you even bother to try?

Clearly, your rights exist regardless of your ability to articulate them to an outsider. But what if the situation were reversed, a la District 9? Would intelligent aliens have rights?

Or, more to the point, what if animals find themselves in the same position regarding their human neighbors?

How wide is the circuit of our moral concern? Should it include organisms of different species?

Why do we care about animals?
Suppose you feel anger or sadness about recent reports about whales' susceptibility to industrial toxins. Your sentiments could arise from many sources: appreciation of the whales' beauty and power and intelligence; pity for their helplessness; respect for their unique place in nature, or for divine mandates for environmental stewardship. You could also take a different tack, highlighting their instrumental value--for instance, their essential role in the oceanic ecosystem, or their utility as a food source.

The last makes the problem particularly acute. It's tough to concede rights to something you might grill on the barbecue. Here the culturally arbitrary nature of our attachments becomes evident: some folks dress up their dogs in funny clothes, while other folks eat them. (And if dogs have a right not to suffer, why not whales?)

How do we define "animal?"
Dictionary.com (based on the Random House Unabridged Dictionary) gives us at least three workable definitions.

1.any member of the kingdom Animalia, comprising multicellular organisms that have a well-defined shape and usually limited growth, can move voluntarily, actively acquire food and digest it internally, and have sensory and nervous systems that allow them to respond rapidly to stimuli: some classification schemes also include protozoa and certain other single-celled eukaryotes that have motility and animallike nutritional modes.

This scientific definition would set up an interesting affirmative:

All humans have rights.
All humans are animals.
Therefore, some animals have rights.
Thus, we affirm the resolution.

The second and third definition are much narrower:

2. any such living thing other than a human being.
3. a mammal, as opposed to a fish, bird, etc.

The former sets up a distinction between human rights and animal rights, which is the traditional manner of thinking about such things. The latter is even more restrictive, making it so the affirmative would have to defend rights for whales and grizzlies and gibbons, but not for lobsters, snakes, or chickens. (Serious efforts to grant rights to apes and to cetaceans already exist.)

Which animals would have rights?
The definition chosen points to a potential answer; other arguments might revolve around distinctions based on sentience or intelligence.

Which rights would these animals have?
Hard to say. In Spain, for instance, non-human apes have rights of life and freedom from suffering.

Where do rights come from?
If they come from God, we may have to turn to some kind of scripture to answer the question.
If they're inherent, we have to figure out whether they're inherent in animals.
If they're social constructions, we have to decide whether our society admits nonhumans.
If they're contractual, we have to wonder whether non-signatories are covered by the contract.
If they're legal constructs, we have to determine whether the law assigning rights to animals is wise.
If they're a matter of utility, we need to know whether a life with animal rights increases utility.

Recommended Reading
The SEP's entry on the moral status of animals.
Lawrence Hinman's list of relevant links and resources.

As always, your ideas and questions are critical. Fire away in the comments.

Note: this is a slightly modified repost of the topic preview from last year, since, following custom, the Sept/Oct topic is the least popular top choice from the 2010-2011 list.

barbecue tour photos: part deux

[first installment here]

the fast and the furious

Johnette Howard of ESPN has written a fascinating summary of the triumph and travails of Oscar Pistorius, the path-blazing runner who might get a shot at the Olympics, as well as the controversy created by his technologically facilitated racing. Even the scientists disagree as to whether Pistorius' prosthetics give him an unfair advantage. Quite the paradox.

is your car winking at me?

Problem: your car isn't flirtatious enough.


Solution: eyelashes!

Linnenkohl gets his shot

Congratulations to Capital grad Alex Linnenkohl, who was signed by the Chicago Bears to a 3-year contract, getting a shot at center. The Olympian reports:

Linnenkohl, who finished his college career last season as one of Oregon State’s all-time best centers, signed a rookie free agent contract with the Chicago Bears on Tuesday afternoon, fulfilling his longtime dream of getting a chance to play in the NFL. He was one of two undrafted centers signed by Chicago, joining Mississippi State’s J.C. Brignone.

“This is all I’ve ever wanted,” Linnenkohl said Tuesday from Olivet Nazarene University in Bourbonnais, Ill., where the Bears will begin training camp Saturday. “It’s pretty surreal right now. It hasn’t really hit me yet.”

What follows is one of those I-knew-him-when's: Back in 2006, I appeared on the same stage as Linnenkohl in an improv comedy show. The papers always report his work ethic (second-to-none) and his determination (at only 303 pounds, he's small for a center), but what they miss is his quick wit and killer sense of humor.

Best of luck, Alex. Strike that: do what brought you here, and keep working hard. If you get a Superbowl ring before the Seahawks do, I won't even complain.

"wear it humbly"

In my time, I have twice grown a full beard, once for a competition, and once for a fundraiser. My barbaric exploits are nothing, though, compared to those of young Burke Kenny, beard champion at 26:

The 26-year-old Olympia resident recently returned from the World Beard and Mustache Championships in Trondheim, Norway, where he took first place in the "full beard with styled mustache" category. He won the same title four years ago in England, when he became the youngest international facial-hair champion....

The international competition featured about 20 categories. The Americans brought home six gold medals, and four of those were grown by men from Washington state, Kenny said. Besides Kenny, they were Bruce Roe of Bremerton, who won for Hungarian mustache; Craig "Rooty" Lundvall of the Everett area, who won for full beard natural; and Keith "Ghandi Jones" Haubrich of Seattle, who won the freestyle mustache category.

What is it that makes the Evergreen State such a haven for bearded folk? Could it be the 58-degree rainy weather in July?

the barbecue tour

Things have been awful quiet around here, and for good reason: I've been on the road, enjoying the best barbecue the country has to offer--and some outstanding natural beauty along the way.  Since the state figuring most prominently in my plans has more in the way of smoked meats than scenery, I'm focusing on the culinary experience, calling it my Barbecue Tour.

Why a gastronomic excursion through the heartland? Because I love smoked meats, and because I need to gain weight.

I'll add more photos as I take 'em.



Added: More photos from the new Nikon.

the LED bulb has arrived

As Farhad Manjoo explains, a company called Switch Lighting will soon ramp up production on an LED bulb that looks as warm and inviting as an incandescent--at a fifth of the energy costs.

On average, an incandescent bulb lasts about 1,000 hours—that's about a year, if you keep it on for about three hours a day. Electricity in America also costs about 11 cents per kilowatt hour (that's the average; it varies widely by region). In other words, a 50-cent, 60-watt incandescent bulb will use about $6.60 in electricity every year. Switch's 60-watt-equivalent LED, meanwhile, uses only 13 watts of power, so it will cost only $1.43 per year. The Switch bulb also has an average lifespan of 20,000 hours--20 years. If you count the price of replacing the incandescent bulb every year, the Switch bulb will have saved you money by its fourth year. Over 20 years, you'll have spent a total of about $142 for the incandescent bulbs (for electricity and replacement bulbs) and less than $50 for Switch's 60-watt bulb.

Getting Americans to give up incandescents won't be easy, even with their 2014 phase-out. Migraine sufferers have a reason to be concerned: up until now, the least expensive viable option, compact fluorescents, were a known migraine trigger. As far as we know, though, LEDs are a safer alternative.

Now, if only they could find a way to salvage the Easy-Bake Oven.

Guerilla Running's 4K Moon Run / Walk, Saturday, July 9th

On what promises to be a completely awesome evening, Guerilla Running is hosting the first ever 4K Moon Run / Walk this Saturday, July 9th, at Capital High School, to benefit CHS's Debate Team. I hear that 200 women have signed up to race, earning custom-designed sterling silver necklaces and post-race pampering.

There will be a raffle with great prizes from Olympia businesses, including The Alpine Experience, 510 Interiors, BeHive Massage Therapy, and Nathan's Performance Gear. Swing Wine Bar Cafe will provide desserts for the runners, served by volunteers including Debate team members.

Saturday night at 8 p.m., come watch, hang out, buy raffle tickets, and enjoy the race. If you'd like to donate prizes, cash, or time, feel free to contact me.

See you at the race!



Need more info? Check it the Facebook page.

survey says: fast food stinks

A recent fast food survey reveals nothing new: the food stinks, and the service isn't much better. Nobody orders healthy fare. Sbarro is the worst restaurant in America, if not the world.

I'd like to see a followup, ranking fast food joints with added geographical nuance. For instance, which fast food restaurants are most likely to abuse your palate?

1. Standalone
2. Shopping mall food court
3. Airport
4. Tourist trap
5. Grocery store-attached
6. Freeway overpass / rest stop

America needs to know!

summertime blogging blues

With summer commencing, if not weatherly, at least calendrically and vocationally, I was ready to write a series of blog posts on some tidbits I'd gathered from around the Web and stored in my Chrome bookmarks. Then, without warning, Chrome's "sync" feature devoured them all, and apparently has regurgitated them into a parallel universe.

So, more blogging to come, just not quite yet.

While I'm on the subject of summer: it's summer, so I have a series of backburner projects that are moving to the front burner. I won't say too much because I don't want to jinx myself, but it'll be great to have a couple months of serious writing time.

Creative chickens. That's all I'll say for now.

nobody likes a whiner

Whining is more annoying than a buzz saw, says a recent study...

In raw numbers, people made more mistakes per math problems completed when listening to the whines than any of the other speech patterns or noises (though the only statistically significant differences were between whining, the table saw and motherese).

And people completed fewer subtraction problems when listening to the whining, crying and baby talk than when it was completely quiet.

...that will soon be posted on refrigerators and in teacher's lounges all across the country.

you are not your genes

You aren't.  (And yet you are.)

But you aren't.

LD topics for 2011-2012

Whitman U's Jim Hanson sends along word that the NFL has released its slate of potential topics for 2011-12:

1. Resolved: The United States ought to extend to non-citizens accused of terrorism the same constitutional due process protections it grants to citizens.

2. Resolved: It is morally permissible for victims to use deadly force as a deliberate response to repeated domestic violence.

3. Resolved: In the United States, possession of handguns ought not be an individual right.

4. Resolved: The use of eminent domain for private economic development is just.

5. Resolved: Estate taxes are just.

6. Resolved: A government has the obligation to lessen the economic gap between its rich and poor citizens.

7. Resolved: A just society ought to prioritize environmental concerns over the production of energy.

8. Resolved: In the United States, law enforcement ought to be required to have probable cause to search data an individual has stored on remote servers.

9. Resolved: Targeted killing is a morally permissible foreign policy tool.

10. Resolved: Individuals have a moral obligation to assist people in need.

The "targeted killing" resolution is my initial favorite, not only because of its timeliness, but because it's focused without seeming too specific. (#8, for instance, seems too narrow for my tastes.)

What's your favorite?

the GPS had murder on its mind

This wasn't the first time, and it won't be the last:

Three women from out of the country drove their car into Mercer Slough in Bellevue early Wednesday while trying to follow directions from their GPS.

The women, from Mexico, told police they had been following the device about midnight but obviously took a wrong turn.

The women went into the water with the rental car but were able to get out safely, said Carla Iafrate, spokeswoman for the Bellevue Police Department.

OEA ratifies contract; RIF defunct

The Olympia School District will be able to return all its RIFed teachers this year, thanks to the new contract overwhelmingly ratified by the Olympia Education Association last night.

Some of the major changes for the next contract year include...

* A reduction from 30 staff development (optional training) building, District, and teacher-directed hours to 12 teacher-directed hours.

* Reduction to 177 student days; 3 days out of the 180 in the school year are now non-student training days.

* A cap on overload payments at $866,0760

* 3 additional "optional day" hours (to mitigate a portion of the pay cut)

* School's out June 15, 2012, absent any snow days

The three non-student days are at least a little closer to the furlough the state didn't provide.

All in all, this is good news. Not great news--cuts are cuts--but good news.

a fond farewell to CHS's graduating debaters

Last Saturday marked the end-of-the-year celebration for CHS's Speech and Debate team. It's a celebration I've come to relish. We find a park if the weather's good, or a team member's home if it's not, and potluck it. Games, conversation, food, and, of course, speeches to recount triumphs, visions of the future, and, for the seniors, parting wisdom.

And gifts.

A few years ago, the team started a tradition of cobbling together some mementoes for the coach. This year's soon-to-be-graduates led the charge , and I have to say, the swag pile is pretty impressive, with reading material (Catch-22, The Encyclopedia of Useless Information), folk music, Guatemalan worry dolls, hair gel (gorilla snot? really?), a puzzle book, and a leopard-print Snuggie, which I will never, ever wear. Grace's handmade collection of Mr. Anderson Quotes (that have never made Twitter) was a delightful surprise, too. (Sample: "Well, let's just make a shot that will keep people from becoming Satanists, because that's a public health concern." I swear, it was valid in context.)

Their generosity and good humor should surprise no one, for this year's seniors are a special group. Sure, they've shone competitively, including a 2nd-place finish at the State I.E. tournament, but more important, they've always valued truth over trophies, and have always competed with character and class. As often as I have coached them, I have merely stood out of their way, and watched them triumph through their own effort and persistence.

They're good people made better by their experiences in forensics, leaders in the classroom and in the community.  They're writers, scientists, actors, scholars, artists, doctors, politicians, and whatever else they can imagine. They are tireless, and their possibilities are limitless.  It's humbling to see how much they've grown in four years, and more than a little sad to see them leave. They leave behind a history of accomplishments and a legacy of leadership, already inspiring their younger teammates to greatness.

So, to Jackson, Grace, Cameron, Matthew, Vamsi, Josie, Jesse, Layne, Shira, and Aaron: thanks for everything. I'll be so proud to see you walk across the stage tonight, out of CHS and into the wider world, bold representatives of a new generation.

The scaffolding is complete. The rest of the future is yours to build.

(re)defining violent felonies

A while back, while blogging about the juvenile justice resolution, I tried to find a solid definition of the phrase "violent felonies," looking to the Armed Career Criminal Act of 1984.

A recent Supreme Court ruling hinges on an ambiguity I hadn't explored: section 924, (B) (ii):

(ii) is burglary, arson, or extortion, involves use of explosives, or otherwise involves conduct that presents a serious potential risk of physical injury to another[emphasis added]

In a 6-3 decision, SCOTUS found that fleeing from police in a vehicle constitutes a violent felony under this definition.

Mr. Sykes’s flight was dangerous, Justice Anthony M. Kennedy wrote for the majority. “Sykes wove through traffic, drove on the wrong side of the road and through yards containing bystanders, passed through a fence and struck the rear of a house,” Justice Kennedy wrote.

But, Justice Kennedy went on, the issue was not whether Mr. Sykes’s actual conduct had been violent. Rather, it was whether the crime he had been convicted of was as a general matter a crime of violence.

As a matter of both common experience and statistics, Justice Kennedy wrote, the answer was yes. Fleeing from the police in a car, he wrote, “is a provocative and dangerous act that dares, and in a typical case requires, the officer to give chase.”

Scalia penned the strongest dissent:

Justice Antonin Scalia, writing only for himself, issued a vigorous dissent. He said the provision of the federal law under review (“involves conduct that presents a serious potential risk of physical injury to another”) was a hopelessly vague Congressional “drafting failure” and that “today’s tutti-frutti opinion” produces “a fourth ad hoc judgment that will sow further confusion.”

The phrase "otherwise involves conduct that presents a serious potential risk of physical injury to another" may be broad, but the context--as part of a "crime" or "act of juvenile delinquency"--limits the scope, which is probably why six justices lined up in favor of the broad reading.

As an aside, what is a "potential risk?" Isn't any risk inherently "potential?" Lawyer friends, help me out here.



[via Glenn Reynolds]

decriminalization no longer a fringe movement

A mix of former global political figures and business executives are calling for an end, of sorts, to the War on Drugs. The Guardian's Jamie Doward reports:

Former presidents, prime ministers, eminent economists and leading members of the business community will unite behind a call for a shift in global drug policy. The Global Commission on Drug Policy will host a press conference at the Waldorf Astoria hotel in New York to launch a report that describes the drug war as a failure and calls for a "paradigm shift" in approaching the issue.

Those backing the call include Ernesto Zedillo, former president of Mexico; George Papandreou, former prime minister of Greece; César Gaviria, former president of Colombia; Kofi Annan, former UN secretary general; Fernando Henrique Cardoso, former president of Brazil; George Shultz, former US secretary of state; Javier Solana, former EU high representative; Virgin tycoon Richard Branson; and Paul Volcker, former chairman of the US Federal Reserve.

The commission will call for drug policy to move from being focused on criminal justice towards a public health approach. The global advocacy organisation Avaaz, which has nine million members, will present a petition in support of the commission's recommendations to UN secretary general Ban Ki-moon.

But don't expect an armistice--or even a truce--any time soon. Jacob Sullum explains:

As the report makes clear, the commission, whether for ideological or tactical reasons, is not prepared to renounce the use of force to stop people from consuming politically incorrect intoxicants. It wants to lighten up on users and low-level suppliers while cracking down on "violent criminal organizations...in ways that undermine their power and reach while prioritizing the reduction of violence and intimidation." But it is prohibition that enriches and empowers such organizations while encouraging them to be violent. As the Mexican government has vividly demonstrated since 2006, fighting drug cartels escalates the violence associated with the black market, which will persist as long as supplying people with the drugs they want remains illegal. The commission knows this: It quotes a study concluding that "drug-related violence and high homicide rates are likely a natural consequence of drug prohibition" and that "increasingly sophisticated and well-resourced methods of disrupting drug distribution networks may unintentionally increase violence."

Violence that continues apace.

you, too, can be a championship speller

In a neat little article, Slate's Nina Shen Rastogi asks, "How Would You Do at the National Spelling Bee?" She gives you 14 prize-winning words, pronounced properly, with parts of speech, definitions, sample sentences, and language of origin. You can use as many or as few hints as you need.

How'd this former National Spelling Bee loser fare?

10 out of 14. (I missed #s 1, 3, 4, and 13.)

today's science links

Mars rover Spirit is gone for good? Probably.

Chronic Fatigue Syndrome caused by a rodent virus?? Probably not.

Government funds ridiculously wasteful research??? Not exactly.

Cell phones cause cancer???? Uh, insufficient evidence, thanks.

Washington teen discovers that diaper powder increases crop yields????? You better believe it.



Added: Now with a panda tie bonus.

the vuvuzela as a biological weapon

Enjoy your vuvuzela, you germ-spreading hooligan, you.

Evergreen's Science Carnival: more science than carnival

Yesterday's Science Carnival at The Evergreen State College brought a lot of science, and a little bit of carnival, to the public. The Olympian sent reporter Rolf Boone to cover the story:

Elementary school students descended on the campus Friday as part of school field trips, while more children – this time with their parents – attended Saturday.

Over the two days, more than 150 science presentations were primarily presented throughout three buildings on campus, with an emphasis on hands-on activities.

I sampled some natural soda (dandelion blossoms should not, under any circumstances, be carbonated), saw how bacteria can power a fuel cell, and learned how oyster mushrooms are crucial to mycoremediation. The only disappointment: the cancellation of the 1:00 showing of "That's a Chicken?!" I never did learn what the putative quasi-chicken was, or what it all meant.

The carnival closed with Mentos/Diet Coke fountains set to "Thus Spake Zarathustra," which mostly made a mess of Red Square and the students manning the event.

Oh, and to Jimmy S., the commentator on the Olympian's website who claims that "The words science and Evergreen do not belong in the same sentence," you are obviously right. Clearly, an institution that sponsors cutting-edge phage research, has a "Research Ambassador Program" to connect science to the community, gets high school teachers involved in lab work, and has several top-notch programs in various scientific fields (with unparalleled opportunities for undergraduates to participate in research!) , and, for goodness' sake, HOSTS A SCIENCE CARNIVAL, has nothing to do with science.


Added: Science!

identity in duality: craniopagus twins

The story first caught my attention in November. Now, in a humane and insightful piece, the NY Times magazine gives the incredible, philosophically- and neurologically challenging tale of craniopagus twins the long-form treatment.

The explanation Cochrane proposes is surprisingly straightforward for so unusual an outcome: that visual input comes in through the retinas of one girl, reaches her thalamus, then takes two different courses, like electricity traveling along a wire that splits in two. In the girl who is looking at the strobe or a stuffed animal in her crib, the visual input continues on its usual pathways, one of which ends up in the visual cortex. In the case of the other girl, the visual stimulus would reach her thalamus via the thalamic bridge, and then travel up her own visual neural circuitry, ending up in the sophisticated processing centers of her own visual cortex. Now she has seen it, probably milliseconds after her sister has.

The results of the test did not surprise the family, who had long suspected that even when one girl’s vision was angled away from the television, she was laughing at the images flashing in front of her sister’s eyes. The sensory exchange, they believe, extends to the girls’ taste buds: Krista likes ketchup, and Tatiana does not, something the family discovered when Tatiana tried to scrape the condiment off her own tongue, even when she was not eating it.

Even knowing about the tests and what Cochrane believed, I listened to the family’s stories with some amount of skepticism. Perhaps they were imagining it or exaggerating for the sake of a good story. Then in one of the many idle moments of the five days I spent with the family, the girls were watching television, and I absent-mindedly gave Tatiana’s foot, which Krista could not see, a little tickle. She turned to me and smiled, and then Krista spoke: “Now do me,” she said. Had she felt the sensation but wanted the emotional experience of knowing that she, too, was receiving that kind of playful attention?

If you TL;DR this one, you're going to miss out.

National Board bonuses preserved (mostly)

One of the bigger surprises of the 2011 legislative session, at least from this board-certified teacher's perspective, is that the bonuses for NBCTs came out relatively unscathed. A little accounting trickery, plus a reduction for first-year certificate-holders, saved roughly $61 million. The rundown:

Two changes are made to the National Board for Professional Teaching Standards (NBPTS) bonus program. Beginning in the 2011-12 school year, The Office of Superintendent of Public Instruction must pay bonuses on July 1 of each school year, achieving a one-time savings in fiscal year 2012. Additionally, first year national board bonuses will be prorated by a factor of 60 percent (a 40 percent reduction), to reflect the percentage of the school year newly NBPTS-certified teachers are certified. The proration produces a first year base bonus amount of $3,054, and a first year high poverty school bonus of $3,000. With the exception of the first year proration, the $5090 base bonus and $5000 high poverty school bonus are fully funded in the 2011-13 biennium.

I heard from several sources that NBCTs were some of the most persistent, consistent, and articulate gadflies at town hall meetings--which squares with my experience with a local NBCT advocacy group-- and apparently we got results.

final budget: not the worst of the worst

For this post, I'm not going to focus on the budget deal now heading for the Senate, which includes a 1.9% pay cut for teachers, which was expected, but not the worst case scenario. We won't know the impact in the Olympia School District until the Board adopts its budget, slated to take place June 28th, although we'll probably soon get an update from District officials.

Instead, without comment, I'm going to zoom in on this bit of behind-the-scenes reportage:

"You go on adrenaline," Dunshee said, noting there were no catered dinners. "You sort of forage around the building looking for something. You find some old Girl Scout cookies or granola bars."

Sen. Ed Murray, D-Seattle, said he can tell lawmakers are ready to go home. "People are flipping out over different things ... People are exhausted," he said. "I'm so tired it kind of scares me."

when Wal-Mart called

After school. The phone rings. I answer it, trepidatious.

"Hi, this is [redacted] from Wal-Mart, hoping to talk with you about [redacted]."

Excellent. I am a reference for a former student seeking gainful employment. Shall I expound, at great length, as to [redacted]'s character and accomplishments, fortitude and charisma? Shall I relate a piquant anecdote, recount [redacted]'s classroom odyssey of learning? Possibilities! Ask, dear Wal-Mart, and I shall--

"Do you have any reason to believe that [redacted] poses a violent threat to any other person?"

Uh... No.

"Do you have any reason to believe that [redacted] lacks integrity or honesty?"

No.

"One last thing. Is there any reason you would not recommend [redacted] for a position at Wal-Mart?"

No.

"That's all. Have a nice day."

Click.

budget deal within sight?

Up until now, negotiations over worker's compensation were the major holdup in Washington state's budget wrangling. No more:

A path emerged Sunday for lawmakers to wrap up their work without delaying their overdue exit any further. It came in the form of an agreement between the Legislature’s four top leaders and Gov. Chris Gregoire to reduce the costs of the state-run insurance system for injured workers by $1.1 billion by 2015.

Lawmakers are putting the plan on a fast track to approval as early as today, giving the business lobby a version of what it has been demanding: an option for workers hurt on the job to take payments to settle their injury claims.

There's been movement, if not progress, on the education front, too:

Teacher pay remained one of many spending items on the chopping block. Rep. Kathy Haigh, D-Shelton, was resigned to seeing a cut to teacher salaries and said top budget negotiators had rejected her idea to cut the number of school days by a corresponding amount.

School districts that can’t persuade teachers’ unions to accept the pay cuts, she said, would have to make the cuts elsewhere.

If the extra session wraps up on Wednesday, teachers will know shortly after just how bad the bad news will be.

attention

I.
Earlier this year, I recommended Lawrence Rosenblum's See What I'm Saying, which explores the lesser-known aspects of sensation and cognition. What I didn't mention was that I had two of my English classes read an excerpt, then head out into the halls to test our echolocating skills. Since we had so little practice, we were terrible at it--but we could hear the possibilities. Navigational failure was a pedagogical success.

I was reminded of that experience when pointed by Maggie Koerth-Baker to this blog entry by neuroscientist Bradley Voytek.

We're used to thinking of our senses as being pretty shite: we can't see as well as eagles, we can't hear as well as bats, and we can't smell as well as dogs.

Or so we're used to thinking.

It turns out that humans can, in fact, detect as few as 2 photons entering the retina. Two. As in, one-plus-one.

It is often said that, under ideal conditions, a young, healthy person can see a candle flame from 30 miles away. That's like being able to see a candle in Times Square from Stamford, Connecticut. Or seeing a candle in Candlestick Park from Napa Valley.

Similarly, it appears that the limits to our threshold of hearing may actually be Brownian motion. That means that we can almost hear the random movements of atoms.

Voytek calls humans "inattentive superheroes," our skills fundamentally underdeveloped in a world full of noise. We underestimate the value of silence, of darkness, of time spent alone. We'd like to be more focused, but we don't know how--and we keep filling our lives with more things that siphon attention away.


II.
Much of the siphoning is well-intentioned, an attempt to remind us--to alert us--to pay attention. You're rolling through a residential neighborhood, at the wheel of a two-ton death machine. In the corner of your eye, a yellow warning: "Children at Play." It's a safety measure that can be--and will be--easily ignored. And probably should be torn down.

The National Cooperative Highway Research Program, in its "Synthesis of Highway Practice No. 139," sternly advises that "non-uniform signs such as "CAUTION--CHILDREN AT PLAY," "SLOW--CHILDREN," or similar legends should not be permitted on any roadway at any time." Moreover, it warns that "the removal of any nonstandard signs should carry a high priority."

One of the things that is known, thanks to peer-reviewed science, is that increased traffic speeds (and volumes) increase the risk of children's injuries. But "Children at Play" signs are a symptom, rather than a cure--a sign of something larger that is out of whack, whether the lack of a pervasive safety culture in driving, a system that puts vehicular mobility ahead of neighborhood livability, or non-contextual street design. After all, it's roads, not signs, that tell people how to drive. People clamoring for "Children at Play" signs are often living on residential streets that are inordinately wide, lacking any kind of calming obstacles (from trees to "bulb-outs"), perhaps having unnecessary center-line markings--three factors that will boost vehicle speed more than any sign will lower them.

If, at our best, we're "inattentive superheroes," at our worst, we're overly confident, cognitively-deficient supervillains.

As is often the case in driving, when we meet the enemy, it is us. You want difficulty in judging spatial relations? Consider the research, by Dennis Shaffer, that showed people reporting 10-foot-long highway stripes to be two feet long. You want difficulty estimating speed? Consider this study, which found drivers underestimating their speed in the presence of children by upwards of 50 percent. You want exceeded sensory abilities? Consider the widespread phenomenon of "overdriving" one's headlights. You want trouble estimating distance? Ask any driver how many feet they'll need to stop, driving at 65 mph. You want impulsive? Who's reaching across the seat for that buzzing BlackBerry?

If "Children at Play" signs are ineffective at capturing our attention--or doubly ineffective when they do--what about other supposedly helpful road signs: speed limits, "Road Narrows," "Koala Crossing?" (We'll leave aside "One Way" for now.) What if they were gone--all gone? John Staddon points toward a possible future:

So what am I suggesting—abolishing signs and rules? A traffic free-for-all? Actually, I wouldn’t be the first to suggest that. A few European towns and neighborhoods--Drachten in Holland, fashionable Kensington High Street in London, Prince Charles’s village of Poundbury, and a few others--have even gone ahead and tried it. They’ve taken the apparently drastic step of eliminating traffic control more or less completely in a few high-traffic and pedestrian-dense areas. The intention is to create environments in which everyone is more focused, more cautious, and more considerate. Stop signs, stoplights, even sidewalks are mostly gone. The results, by all accounts, have been excellent: pedestrian accidents have been reduced by 40 percent or more in some places, and traffic flows no more slowly than before.

Of course, all of this could be moot once automobiles become truly auto. And then we can turn our attention toward more important things.


III.
For some, it's even harder than usual to block out the tumult of the everyday. In the fourth part of a fascinating series, Marie Myung-Ok Lee describes how her autistic son was finally able to learn how to ride a bike.

After my husband and I bought him a bike with training wheels, he would sometimes sit on it for a minute or two, try to pedal, and then have a tantrum, hurling the bike in frustration. His classroom bike-riding lessons weren't going any better. At a school meeting, the consensus among his teachers and other professionals was that independent bike riding was something he'd probably never learn.

They probably would have been right, were it not for Lee's persistence in seeking out a remedy: high-grade marijuana.

[C]annabis not only mitigates J's pain, it also seems to help him to focus... [M]arijuana's effect on short-term memory allows a user to focus intently on a single sensation (that "Whooooaaaa, man... look at that flower" feeling). One feature of autism is a heightened, disordered, nondiscriminating sensitivity, so that autistics seem to see and feel and hear and smell everything at the same time.... But with cannabis (which also regulates anxiety and stress), I noticed that J had a much higher tolerance for activities that involve multiple steps, like unloading the dishwasher.

Bicycling, when you think about it, involves myriad functions: coordination of gross motor movement with the vestibular, visual, and proprioceptive systems that regulate balance. On a nice weekend I brought J, his bike, his helmet, and a wrench to a nearby private school that has a bunch of wide, paved paths. I removed the training wheels from his bike, put him on it, and gave him a push, figuring that once he realized how good it felt to bike--to move along on his own power--he was going to love it. He pedaled and immediately tipped over, laughing, as he was expecting the training wheels to be there holding him up. But after a few tries, he started to get it. And before the afternoon was over, he was biking independently.

Lee's story is inspiring and infuriating; our federal government's increasingly bizarre insistence on persecuting medical marijuana users made her take unnecessary personal and medical risks. In a saner world, her doctor would have been able to prescribe a standard, fully-tested treatment, and her son's triumph would have been heartwarmingly ordinary.

It may tax your 21st-century attention span, but start with the first part and keep going until you're done.



Asides
When I was young, I could get so wrapped up in a book (or so focused on my Legos) that I'd shut out the world. Maybe that's why I've never been interested in trying pot: that "Whooooaaaa, man..." sensation may not sit well with a brain perfectly comfortable managing its own focal point.


When we let someone else sort the signal from the noise, we risk missing the whole signal. Call it a "filter bubble," algorithmically facilitated attention-narrowing.


Just because you can see a photon from space, doesn't mean you should drive without your glasses.


Driverless cars? Soon. But not quite yet.

Olympia in springtime

Robert "Berd" Whitlock is one of Olympia's indispensables, a photographer who blends politics, philosophy and imagery from his unique, and uniquely Olympian, perspective. Regardless of your partisan proclivities, you can enjoy his work--and, if you're like me, it'll inspire you to go outside / get a better camera / learn how to actually use the better camera.

Here's his latest set, in which he somehow manages to make the Ugly Building look beautiful.  And here's his Flickr stream.  Enjoy.

smoke 'em if you have the proper permit for 'em

The Washington State Senate has passed a bill re-legalizing indoor smoking--in select locations.

The plan would permit up to 100 cigar lounges and 500 retail tobacco shops to allow smoking.

The bill would reverse part of a wildly popular 2005 initiative, which banned smoking indoors in public buildings and places of employment.

The bill may hurdle the House, but I'd be surprised if Gregoire signs on. After all, as Attorney General, she made her political reputation by leading the campaign to sue tobacco companies for deceptive practices, to the tune of $206 billion, $4.5 billion of that for the Evergreen State alone.

Even if the bill passes, don't go celebrating the moderately reasonable rollback of nanny-state social engineering, or lament the death of democracy. There's one overwhelming reason for the exemption:

Businesses would have to pay annual fees of $17,500 to obtain cigar lounge endorsements and $6,000 to obtain tobacco store endorsements.

Olympia Awesome Film Festival lives up to its name

The Rundown
Last night's Olympia Awesome Film Festival, the first ever, showcased the talents of twenty filmmakers from all over the U.S., with 24 low-budget short films in 5 hours--sci-fi, action-adventure, music videos, slasher parodies, documentaries, mockumentaries.

The festival's producers and attendees clearly loved all things cinema, bringing great energy to the evening. The event's sponsors also played a huge role in the festival's success, giving away hundreds of dollars in gift certificates, from pub fare to oil changes. (I'm not even mad that I didn't win one.)


The Subjectively Chosen Highlights
The audience favorite, Daniel Klockenkemper's Deathwalker, shot on Super 8 stock for an especially Carpenteresque look, had some of the best moments of visual humor. Apparently a foldable walker + a shotgun = comedy gold. (Couldn't find it on YouTube, sorry.)  Accepting his award, Klockenkemper noted that the short was ten years in the making. Here's hoping the sequel comes out a little faster.

For its composition and overall excellence, the judges chose--and chose well--Never Been Used, a simple premise neatly executed, short and sweet. Unsurprisingly, it was 1st runner up at the Seattle 24 Hour Film Race in 2010.

Documentaries deserved their own award, but since there wasn't one, I'd pick Hamilton: Town at the Tipping Point, a thought-provoking look at "FEMA welfare."

The animation Asteraceae and the mockumentary (at least, I think it's a mockumentary) Rats also entertained.

The two biggest "WTF" moments* were the slasher Waffle, perhaps the festival's riskiest entry, and My Brother's Dog Helen, a documentary that, in a few painful and surprisingly poignant minutes, deconstructs notions of family and forgiveness.


The Suggestion Box
The following suggestions are offered in love, as I'd really like to see the festival become an Olympia tradition.

Speed it up a bit. The festival started close to six, and wasn't over until 11:00. A good chunk of the audience left early, missing out on the final raffle and the prize announcements, probably because that's a lot of seat time (in a fairly stuffy venue, which, to be fair, wasn't the organizers' first choice). Cut a few films (see below), shorten up the breaks, and count votes while the raffle's going.

Quality over quantity.
A small festival, starting out, is in a tricky spot. You want to attract a wide variety of talents, and you want to attract and retain an audience. You want your films to be good, but you don't want to be so picky that you entirely shut out amateur auteurs.

Limiting to one film per director might help--did we really need two "instructional" films, Let's Shoplift and Save and Hot Wiring Made Easy, where the joke and the execution were nearly identical?

Also, to keep quality high while simultaneously building buzz, why not include your potential audience in the selection process? Choose, say, five flicks you're not sure will make the cut, put 'em on the website, and let the Internet vote for their faves. The top choice makes it into the festival, while the other four at least get some exposure, without slowing down the action. Everybody wins.

The order matters.
Selection and arrangement are critical. The festival had great variety in tone and style, but ended, I thought, on a bit of an anticlimax, an actioner with great production values (and lots of fight sequences) but a thin storyline--and only Part 2 of a 3-part series.

Concessions
It's small, but important: if this is a film festival, let's have film-quality popcorn. Butter it up.


In Summary
The Olympia Awesome Film Festival has great potential. I hope there's another next year--and I hope to see you there.




*And I should point out that this is meant as a term of endearment.

defining "national interest"

Recently, a reader noted,

I am having a lot of trouble defining "national interest". I feel like definitions are going to be extremely important for this resolution.

I agree that it's difficult to precisely define "national interest"--and that a good definition is critical for the universal human rights resolution.

Here's my brief attempt to un-muddy the waters.

National interest is usually defined in terms of the actions or policies that advance a nation's economic, cultural, or political standing. In the introduction to Michael Roskin's incisive analysis of the phrase, Col. John Mountcastle offers a decent summary:

The "national interest" is a composite declaration derived from those values that a nation prizes most--liberty, freedom, security. Interests are usually expressed in terms of physical survival, economic prosperity, and political sovereignty. The list invariably expands, and is ultimately shaped by subjective preferences and political debate. As an object of political debate, the concept of national interest serves to propose, justify, or denounce policies.

Roskin himself begins,

The student new to international relations is often at first intoxicated by the concept of "national interest." It seems crisp, clear, objective: what's good for the nation as a whole in international affairs. (What's good for the nation as a whole in domestic affairs is the public interest.) National interest lies at the very heart of the military and diplomatic professions and leads to the formulation of a national strategy and of the calculation of the power necessary to support that strategy. Upon reflection, however, one realizes how hard it is to turn concepts of national interest into working strategy.

The boundary between international and domestic concerns can be fuzzy, since the two are often (or always?) intertwined. Also, it's possible that national interest-seeking is a zero sum game--that one nation's interest rises only as another's falls, or, in other words, we have to define a nation's interest relative to other nations' interests.

Roskin traces the history of the phrase from Machiavelli to Morgenthau and beyond, summing them up in the overall concept that a nation's sole interest (from a practical and empirical perspective) is in preserving its own power. Roskin also notes the difference between vital and secondary interests, which could be important to clarify the debate.

For the LDer interested in this resolution, Roskin's essay is quite useful. Check it out.

zombies can vote?

Note: although I attended a political protest this past week, it was not this one. Nor did I give this speech.

Seven Ways of Looking at a Necktie: a Twitter poem

Apologies to Wallace Stevens.

One time, while surfing in the bluest ocean that ever evaporated into sky, I accidentally swallowed a sea slug.

Swirling dust in a desert of cupcake mix.

When flowers rained like diamonds, and distant strains of a pan flute grazed mist-soaked hilltops, a forlorn sheep bleated in the afternoon.

Three tigers prowl in a jungle of their own making.

As they argued over the nature of the soul, Picasso became enraged, and punched Matisse in the mouth. Matisse bled pure color.

Fiesta, a party. Fiesta, a car.

Burning with the fury of a thousand sunlamps.


[Original version starts here and ends here. Oh, and the tie is here.]

WEA Chinook rallies at the Capitol

WEA Chinook hosted an impromptu rally at the state capitol Tuesday, and about 110 teachers showed up to gather, mill about on the capitol steps, and wander peacefully into the building to chat with whomever might still be around. It started at 4:00 by the John L. O'Brien building, and ended roughly at 5:30, with a few latecomers trickling in as the early birds departed.

It was a low-key, friendly protest, with nary a chant or incident. Did it accomplish much? Probably not in the grand scheme of Washington politics. But it did remind this sometime-jaded political participant/observer that even in a maelstrom of despair, there are a lot of good people holding on to hope.

Pictured at the front of the slideshow is Capital's own Mike Deakins, a master of activism and sloganeering. (Ask him to write you a ditty sometime.) I hope to add links once the WEA posts their own official photos / writeup.

Update: WEA photos are now available. If you look closely, you'll find me in a few of them, protesting and such.

The Olympian hears about Olympia's RIF

They're a little late to the party, but at least they have the story now.

The Olympia School District is notifying 48 teachers this week that they might not have jobs in the fall, as it works to close a $2.3 million deficit.

Of course, the real number of teachers who could lose their jobs – and the actual amount of the deficit – depends largely on how things play out in the state Legislature’s special session, and how many teachers decide to retire, resign or take a leave of absence during next school year. “The majority of those folks will be offered their jobs back,” said district spokesman Peter Rex.

So far, 27 teachers have indicated they don’t plan to work next year. The district plans to basically leave 40 positions vacant to balance its budget. Unless there’s more attrition, about 13 teachers will lose their positions, Rex said.

More accurately, the 40 positions vacated may help balance the budget. There are other cuts planned; you can read all about the details here. If teaching positions are salvaged in the best-case scenario, many of the other cuts will still be necessary.

Chapter One of the worst case scenario has already been written, I should point out. As expected, the House has voted to suspend I-728 and I-732. Again.

The votes were lopsided but not unanimous to suspend initiatives 728 and 732 in the state House of Representatives Monday. The two iconic education-funding measures were first approved by voters in 2000 to provide class-size reduction funds and also to provide K-12 public school employees with annual cost-of-living raises.

The vote was to temporarily suspend the voters’ will on both measures, saving more than $1 billion in general fund outlays over the next two years.

We'll know in the next 15 days or so how the next chapter plays out.

do or do not. there is no "be."

Sartre meets Star Wars.

[via Maggie Koerth-Baker]

the happiness gene

On some level, it's obvious that happiness is genetic. Your ability to think and feel come from the brain you own (and that owns you), and the basic instructions to build a brain are found in your genes.

On another level, though, the complex interplay of environment, culture, genetics, and development means there's no gene for happiness.

Survey says: sort of.

The happiest people tended to have a long variant of a gene called 5-HTTLPR. This gene makes a transporter molecule for serotonin, a chemical that brain cells use to communicate with each other, and the long variant helps to recycle serotonin faster and more efficiently than the short one.

De Neve extracted his data from the US National Longitudinal Study of Adolescent Health, which has been following the same set of adolescents for 13 years, from 1995 to 2008. Genomic information in this study allowed him to distinguish respondents who had two long versions of 5-HTTLPR from those who had two short versions, or one of each.

Twice as many respondents with two long versions said they were very satisfied with life compared with carriers of two short versions.

Conversely, 26 per cent of those with two short versions of the gene said they were dissatisfied with life, compared with 20 per cent of people carrying two long variants.

Since there's not yet a truly objective way of measuring happiness, one wonders if 5-HTTLPR is just the gene variant for optimistic self-delusion. Or so says my skeptical gene.

conglomerated edu-blogging

For a while, I was writing about educational issues on three blogs--this one, 5/17, and Washington Teachers. At the time, it made sense to divide my efforts along personal, local, and state-based lines. Eventually, though, it became a time management nightmare--and the latter blog, a group effort, dwindled into nothingness as my co-bloggers and I were too busy elsewhere.

But it's not like I've run out of educational opinions. Now, thanks to the 5/17 label, you can access them all in one convenient location.

You're welcome.

the RIF hits home

Friday, OSD officials came to Capital High School to personally deliver RIF notices to six teachers, our rookie staff who find themselves in the "lower 48." Having barely scraped through the '04 RIF, I can speak to the fear and uncertainty the process creates. (It got my students fired up, let me tell you.)

Capital's situation is a little more precarious than some, not only because of the political and economic climate, but because of our shifting demographic. With anticipated enrollment declines, we're overstaffed by 3.2 FTEs--and could lose an additional 1.8 positions if the Superintendent's proposed cuts are adopted.

The good news, at least as good as we can get at the moment, is that the 48 RIF notices mean, even in the worst case, a loss of 13 positions beyond the 29 already eliminated. The bad news is that even if a legislative miracle occurs and all the 48 teachers are retained, we're still going to face larger classes and fewer course offerings. Departing or retiring teachers just won't be replaced. But let's close on better news: District and school officials are optimistic that the worst case is unlikely.

Tomorrow's OSD Board Meeting (Knox Building, 6:30 p.m.) is your first chance for public comment on the proposed cuts. Can't make it? There's a survey.

blogging by request

Recently my life outside of decorabilia has become, paradoxically, both simpler and more complex, and I'll write about it when I'm ready. Until then, my blogging is going to be a little less debate-heavy than usual, a little more locally focused, and a lot more sporadic.

Casual readers and passers-by might not even see a difference, but some of my more ardent fans may have already noticed the changes, especially when it comes to debate-blogging.

I'll still provide the same level of quality, excellence, and customer service. Not getting the blogging you need? All you have to do is ask, either via comment or email.

And yes, I have a life outside of decorabilia. Promise.

The Wire short-circuits in Seattle

Anyone interested in criminal justice and civil liberties in the Age of Perpetual Terrorism should read Brendan Kiley's deconstruction of an FBI investigation gone wrong--because it could never go right.

"The degree of surveillance and monitoring has been extremely expensive," the officer tells Rick, sounding equal parts intimidating and frustrated. "When you've gone to the QFC and Corsair and Tubs. Think over the last two years—everything you've done in private and on the streets, people you've talked to, what you've had in your possession, conversations, intentions, plans... I have to emphasize the level of surveillance we've run over the last two years. Tell us about all the drug deals in The Yard. You want me to tell you about the red cabinet where you keep the drugs? The cocaine? We have hundreds of hours of surveillance, wire, video..."

"That would seem to be an absurd waste of state financing and funding," Rick says. "And that actually scares me more than the charges... You guys aren't after anything bigger than this? This is it?..."

The Seattle police seem to think that Rick's guns point toward some kind of guilt.

"Why the need to have so many weapons on the premises?" one of the officers asks.

"My home?" Rick asks, sounding flabbergasted. "That's my home. I own a small amount of firearms legally, most of which are locked in an extremely secure gun safe in an unloaded manner. I'm a man from Oklahoma," he continues, "and there's no such thing as a man from Oklahoma who doesn't own a firearm or two. Even the hippies own guns."

The agents sit silent, seemingly flummoxed. They've pursued this target for years, luring him into a bust that they hoped would scare him into giving up some valuable intelligence about domestic terrorists, or city politicians, or at least some drug dealers. But they've fundamentally misunderstood their own investigation.

And what does it get them? Four indigent poker players.

The defendants are quiet, well dressed, and bewildered by the charges. One of them told me that the poker stakes were so low, he would lose or win $100 at most in the course of a night. ("All those guys were broke, broke as a joke," Mia Brown agrees. "They'd borrow five dollars from someone to go put on the card table. It was small and it was stupid.")

The defense lawyers will be bewildered by what they find in the discovery process--all the paperwork and evidence and audio and video surveillance accumulated by the two-year investigation that involved the FBI, SPD, SWAT teams, and federal firearms and immigration and customs agents. One defendant's discovery request turned up nearly 2,000 pages of documentation and over 100 CDs and DVDs, and even that defendant's attorney had to file extra requests because he said there were big gaps of time missing.

Why did law enforcement dedicate such massive resources to bust some penny-ante card players for charges that only one person has faced in the past 10 years?

One of the defendants, Brady McGarry, had a simple explanation: "If you spend that much time and money, you have to put somebody up on that cross."

Read the whole thing, if you have the patience--and stomach--for it.

the context of the Olympia School District RIF

As announced yesterday, the Olympia School District is planning to send RIF notices to the 48 least senior teachers in the district.

To understand why, it's important to know a little bit about how teachers get paid here in Washington.

In the Evergreen state, your standard teacher's paycheck comes primarily from state coffers--and, more specifically, from sales tax receipts. Districts receive allocations based on student enrollment, divvied into FTEs--Full Time Equivalencies. Cut state funds, and you have two choices: shorten the school year, or cut teaching positions. (Or both? Don't say both.)

When the Great Recession tanked Washington's economy, sales tax collections tanked as well. Now, with the gap between will and way sitting somewhere near $5 billion in the coming biennium, the Legislature, at least until this point, has refused to consider new revenue sources by closing tax loopholes*, or--horrors!--raising taxes. (If anything, the recent $263 million boon from Sales Tax Amnesty proved that the state isn't yet entirely competent at collecting the taxes we're already supposed to get.)

Word is now coming from Governor Gregoire that she'll support closing the gap with a 1.9% pay cut for teachers--purportedly to keep things in line with the cuts other state employees have taken.  Fair is fair, right?

Not exactly. As The Olympian's Brad Shannon writes,

The House and Senate are negotiating daily during a 30-day special session on the 2011-13 operating budget, and the pay cut has left the chambers at odds. The House took a different approach, suspending COLAs and saving almost $57 million more by cutting “step” pay increases granted each year to teachers, based on their years of service and educational attainment.

House Education Appropriations Committee chairwoman Kathy Haigh, D-Shelton, has said she would prefer to shorten the school year so that teachers would work and earn less – while avoiding the sticky problem of having rich districts cough up money to avert the pay cuts while poor districts cut pay.

Other state employees have received furlough days commensurate with their salary reductions--but the Legislature finds itself in a bit of a constitutional mess, knowing that the state's mandated "paramount duty" is to fund public education, which seemingly prohibits shortening the school year, currently 180 days. Learning Improvement days can disappear--and they're gone--but school days are sacred.

Gregoire's accommodation is at least better than the Senate plan, which would not only eliminate the LID, but cut an additional 3%. Hats off to local rep Chris Reykdal, a former teacher who gets what's at stake.

Reykdal, a freshman who has been out-front among Democratic lawmakers this year in trying to raise new revenue by closing a few tax breaks, said there is a fairness issue for teachers. While the Senate wants additional 3 percent pay cuts to match the 3 percent pay reductions Gov. Chris Gregoire has negotiated with many public employee unions, Reykdal said the general-government cuts are accompanied by an equivalent amount of extra time off for workers.

“So our unit cost didn’t change” per day worked, Reykdal said. In the Senate plan, he said teachers see it as a cut in pay with the same workload.

And it is.

The rumble around the lunch table doesn't yet involve serious talk of strikes or walkouts or Work-to-the-Contract days or Wellness Walks, but if the Legislature foists its fiscal decisions onto local districts, abdicating its responsibility and leaving teachers in the lurch, you can bet that the rumble will turn into a roar.



* But that may soon change.

Olympia School District faces RIF

This afternoon, the Superintendent of the Olympia School District released a recommended list of budget cuts for the 2011-2012 school year. Thanks to a legislature that's still squabbling over state budget particulars, local school districts have had to draw up worst-case contingency plans. The OSD's proposal assumes a roughly $2.3 million drop in the next fiscal year.

Since the bulk of the District's funds go toward personnel, two of the biggest potential cuts involve increased class sizes, and, concomitantly, lost teaching positions.

• Increase elementary class size by about 2 per class, at grades 1-5. This is consistent with the new state funding schedule which provides 1 teacher for each 25 students in grades K-3. (OSD continues to subsidize kindergarten class size at about 23 students where the state pays for 1 teacher for each 25 students.)
• Increase secondary class size by 1.3 students from 28.7 students per teacher/section to 30 students per teacher/section. This represents an increase in the average; as is the case today, class sizes will vary depending on content and student interest.

According to the more detailed outline, this means a loss of 8.2 and 7.8 positions, respectively. Add (or subtract?) the nearly 14 positions lost to declining enrollment, and more (of an uncertain number) lost to vaporized federal stimulus money, and the District is looking at losing dozens of teachers--or, in the "best" case, simply not replacing those who leave.

Other recommendations include charging students for zero-hour classes, converting all middle school sports into intramurals, delaying social studies textbook purchases, and cutting the reserve from 4.3% down to 3%.

The OSD Board of Directors will take public comments on the budget at several upcoming meetings, beginning with a 6:30 p.m. meeting, May 9th the Knox Building. And if you live in (or teach in) the Olympia School District, you should take this survey, too.


Update:

The RIF communication team has more details:

We are writing to share difficult news. Although the State Legislature has not completed their budget work, the District is moving forward with its proposed budget and reduced education plan for the 2011-12 school year. This reduced education plan prompts a reduction-in-force (RIF) process that includes, but will be limited to, the 48 least senior certificated employees on our seniority list....

There are important considerations to keep in mind in this process. Although the employees who fall within the 1-48 seniority rank will receive RIF notices, the actual number of positions the District will eventually reduce will be fewer. Factors that will be taken into consideration to determine the final number of reduced positions include:

* The eventual number of retirements, resignations and leave of absence requests;
* The final state budget which will determine the actual revenue loss for the District;
* Updated projections of District expenditures for the remainder of the school year;
* Enrollment changes; and,
* Decisions made by the School Board.

No mention yet in The Olympian.

Added 5/5: The RIF in context.

Resolved: When forced to choose, a just government ought to prioritize universal human rights over its national interest.

The NFL has released the topic for the 2011 national tournament:

Resolved: When forced to choose, a just government ought to prioritize universal human rights over its national interest.

It's classic LD, a clash between cosmopolitanism and sovereignty, and among competing visions of the social contract. It's timeless--and, thanks to recent American involvement in Libyan strife, perfectly timely.

I wrote about this resolution in my summer preview of my favorite topics; it was number three on my list. It reminds me of the UN vs. sovereignty resolution from a few years ago, and will include some of the same basic arguments.

I've reposted some of my initial thoughts, have added more, and will continue to add more material as demand arises.

First, some key questions:

What is a "just government?" What is the nature of its social contract? And which contractarian gets it right? If the world is a Hobbsean "war of all against all," the argument is quite different than if the ideal of justice is Rawlsian egalitarianism.

I'd imagine that many Affs would have a value of justice aligned with a criterion of "protecting rights." But the Neg has to ask in Cross-Ex, immediately: where do rights come from? What defines or limits them? If "universal human rights" includes, for instance, trade or labor rights, must nations abandon protectionist trade schemes, or, conversely, stop trading with nations that allow sweatshops--even if it means a loss of economic security?

Why have nations at all? Why not have a universal government? Wouldn't that be the best way to protect universal human rights? Would affirming the resolution lead to a super-state?

Who or what defines "national interest?" Who is the "agent of action" in the resolution? The people? Government agents? Can we make any assumptions about the nature of the government in the debate?

What situations might lead to an forced choice between universal human rights and a nation's interest? (Some might include, but are not limited to, war, torturing terror suspects, immigration / refugee crises, trade agreements, dealing with dictatorships / oppressive societies.)

If a nation's citizens know that its government is going to prioritize universal human rights, will they remain loyal in a time of crisis? What are the upsides of nationalism?

What obligations follow from prioritizing universal human rights?

Do universal human rights exist? Can the Aff, for the sake of clarity, presume that they do--otherwise there's no forced choice?

Links, Analysis, etc.
1. Which human rights? A post from the vault noting the fractious origins of the United Nations' approach to human rights law.
2. Speaking of, The Universal Declaration of Human Rights
3. The SEP's article on human rights is, as typical, excellent.
4. How should we define "national interest?"

The Finland Phenomenon

Near the Arctic Circle, Finland is ice cold. In educational circles, though, Finland is smoking hot, recently lauded by pundits as a model for reform in the United States. How did it get that way?

Harvard's Tony Wagner attempts to answer the question in an hourlong documentary titled The Finland Phenomenon. Weaving together interviews, classroom observations, and provocative factoids, Wagner tries to tease out the complex strands of cultural values, teacher training, and governmental initiatives that have made Finland a global educational vanguard.

In my favorite moments, Wagner sits down with with Finnish students, who are just as gangly, bright-eyed, and emo as their American counterparts, and listens as they share their hopes for the future.  He sits in on lectures by accomplished and rookie teachers, and holds court with educational leaders who sound like a lot of people I've been working with lately: realistic and optimistic, theoretically solid and practically focused.

It so happened that I watched the documentary after a day of leading Powerful Teaching and Learning observations in a local school, and I was struck by the similar approaches, both philosophically and pedagogically, between PTL and the Finnish system of teacher preparation. Roughly 10% of the Finnish university students who apply for training programs will make the cut; once they're in, they're entrusted with tenure in a relatively rapid timeframe, and given a large measure of control over their classrooms.

And that's where I think the strength of the Finnish system lies. It's culturally established that teachers are professionals ("knowledge workers," in trendy/clunky edu-jargon) who are academic leaders committed to continuous improvement. The best American reform initiatives-- among which I'd include the National Board for Professional Teaching Standards, the Common Core Standards movement, Powerful Teaching and Learning, Professional Learning Communities, and Teach for America--share that reflective, collaborative focus. They bring teachers together, but their impact is fragmented, at least for now, because none is comprehensive in its adoption or reach.

And none is a cure-all.  Any successful educational reform has to change the culture of schools, which, in turn, changes the wider culture of the community. Our policymakers seem addicted to quick fixes and instant results, but in Finland, Wagner reports, the process has taken 25 years.

As Wagner points out, some of Finland's success may be due to its smaller schools and classes, its emphasis on vocational education (and concomitantly low dropout rate), and its curricular flexibility. There's at least one strand missing from Wagner's analysis, though: Finland's income equality. Socioeconomic status is a strong predictor of educational attainment, so, in my estimation, general equality in SES would not only reflect and influence a wider cultural consensus that education is valuable, but its opposite would reflect and influence a divergent value structure in which outcomes are similarly divergent.

For instance, Wagner compares Minnesota to Finland because of its similar population and demographics, noting that the Land of a Thousand Lakes, 17th globally in math, ranks well below Finland in achievement--but without mentioning the vast difference in, say, their Gini coefficients (mid-40s for Minnesota; mid-to-high 20s for Finland). The relationship between income inequality and educational attainment may be a mere correlation, but it's worth investigating.

My complaints about the film's production values are few and minor. A couple shots (especially of Wagner's "talking head" moments) look cheaply lit, while some action shots have annoying digital artifacts. However, for the most part, the film is well-paced, smoothly edited, and deftly scored.

The Finland Phenomenon premiered in D.C. back in April. At a time when education reform is both critical and in critical condition, its thought-provoking observations deserve wide viewing.


Full disclosure: Dittoe Public Relations sent me a free copy of the film for review. If you're interested in something similar, just send me an email.

trauma and nostalgia at the 25th Annual Putnam County Spelling Bee

When my sister told me that she had three free tickets for the SecondStory Repertory's production of The 25th Annual Putnam County Spelling Bee, (through April 30th; see it!) I was cautiously pessimistic. I was a little worried that the trauma of past failures would keep me from fully enjoying the show's irreverent sendup of the nerdiest of nerd pastimes.

When she said that she wanted to volunteer me to take part in the Bee, though, my whole attitude changed. All of a sudden it became yet another nerdy adventure--I've recently had a few--and a chance to re-experience the trauma firsthand.

So of course I said yes.

Upon signing up to be one of four non-actor contestants, I was given three simple instructions:

1. Always ask for a definition.
2. Always ask for the word to be used in a sentence.
3. Don't act.

The first two were essential to set up jokes. The third instruction was to ensure the right contrast between the actors and the amateurs. If I had attempted to ham it up--and believe me, the temptation was real--I might've spoiled the show. So I didn't act.

I just spelled.

The first word was easy: "xanadu." My only concern was that I'd make a silly mistake and screw up--my pulse raced, my voice broke a little at the end, but I nailed it. I didn't expect real nerves for a fake bee, but there they were.

The second was easier: "putsch." Also easy. I had encountered it in a real bee back in the late 80s, and I believe I misspelled it then. No way I would fail this time.

I forget the third word, which I spelled right, either because it wasn't a real word, or I was darned lucky. (It was an Irish something, starts with a K, and I can't find it in my unabridged Webster's.)

I figured it was my time to exit the show when I was called up immediately afterward. Lo and behold, I went out on "pheochromocytoma," which I heard wrong, starting with a T, so they sounded the fateful bell, leading to the hug and serenade and juice box from Mitch.

At least I was the last non-actor standing. Ignominious defeat never felt so good.