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March 8, 2006

YOU’RE NOT GOD ANYMORE: Indeed. But neither is the guy saying it.

A U.N. INVASION OF SUDAN? Austin Bay looks at the situation, and notes some ironies.

SINCE BIG MEDIA FOLKS have been writing about the responsibilities of bloggers lately, here are some thoughts on the responsibilities of mass media. ” I really don’t want to allocate blame, I want the media to change their actions.”

THE CARNIVAL OF EDUCATION IS UP: And here’s a related item from today’s USA Today:

Last month, as I averaged the second-quarter grades for my senior English classes at T.C. Williams High School in Alexandria, Va., the same familiar pattern leapt out at me.

Kids who had emigrated from foreign countries — such as Shewit Giovanni from Ethiopia, Farah Ali from Guyana and Edgar Awumey from Ghana — often aced every test, while many of their U.S.-born classmates from upper-class homes with highly educated parents had a string of C’s and D’s.

As one would expect, the middle-class American kids usually had higher SAT verbal scores than did their immigrant classmates, many of whom had only been speaking English for a few years.

What many of the American kids I taught did not have was the motivation, self-discipline or work ethic of the foreign-born kids.

Politicians and education bureaucrats can talk all they want about reform, but until the work ethic of U.S. students changes, until they are willing to put in the time and effort to master their subjects, little will change.

Read the whole thing.

UPDATE: A reader of Indian parentage emails:

Your post about student work ethics reminded me of the following incident. As a kid in gradeschool (in the 70s), I was given a test to determine my ‘natural’ math abilities, and based on this test, placed in the ‘C’ group. There was an ‘A’, ‘B’ and ‘C’ group, as I recall, and the idea was to give you work according to your ability. My father, a math professor who raised and educated in India, didn’t care for this. So, he went and spoke with the teacher, then sat with me and tutored me, and had me retake the test. I got into the ‘A’ group. What I remember most about this experience was that it gave me confidence in myself: not that I expected to get an A all the time, but that I had to work, work, work if I wanted something. It also taught me that I was really lucky to have a father like mine :). I know I have just re-enforced every stereotype about the overanxious Asian parent, but wait! My parents cared that I was having fun, too, and I did have fun growing up in that little Iowa town. Sounds pollyannish, but I did, I had a ball. It’s just that in addition to fun, they wanted me to put real effort into a task. They thought there was value in struggle. Oh, I also learned that girls can do math, because my Indian father never got the whole memo about girls not being able to doing math. Did. Not. Compute.

(Okay, maybe I wasn’t so positive as a kid about the whole studying instead of playing for an extra hour a day, but it did stay with me. The idea that without real effort, any natural ability I may have toward a subject didn’t mean much. I have had varying successes in life, good grades and bad and an academic record with rough spots. Some people from my past might be surprised at what I am today, but hey, it’s a marathon, not a sprint!)

Americans tend to make a cult of brilliance. That’s nice, but you still have to work.

BOOK-AUTOGRAPHING: Reader Barbara Merges writes:

Glenn, your new book just arrived from Amazon and I remember having read on your blog that you would autograph it. What do I have to do? BTW, delighted with your mention of Rob Merges since I’m his mom.

Everybody’s mom is getting into this book stuff . . .

If you’d like an autograph, send a stamped self-addressed envelope to me at:

8905 Kingston Pike Suite 12-230
Knoxville, TN 37923

I’ll return an autographed bookplate. If you’d like it inscribed a particular way, enclose a note and I’ll aim to accommodate you.

If, as some readers have emailed, you really want me to autograph the book itself, send it with a stamped self-addressed envelope — be sure to put on sufficient postage — and I’ll do that, too.

Thanks! I’m really grateful for all the support people have offered for the book, and I hope everyone likes it. And for those of you (er, and me) who are tired of the Insta-book-a-thon, the good news is that it’ll be over soon.

UPDATE: Trudy Schuett says I should keep pimping. It’s for the children, or something. She sounds like my publishers . . . .

IN BANGLADESH, 2,000 Muslim men protest against acid attacks on women. Sad that that’s news, but nice that it’s happening.

THIS IS INTERESTING: “Blogs change how carmakers deal with media:

As Detroit’s automakers struggle to keep market share and make money, a new breed of watchdogs is emerging on the Internet. They post regular columns on Web sites and send out e-mail newsletters providing blunt, and often colorful, analysis of the auto industry. . . . Whether the companies like them or not, the Internet sites are increasingly pushing information to the public, said David Cole, chairman of the Center for Automotive Research in Ann Arbor, Mich. They quickly circulate news and ideas about the auto companies.

This is happening pretty much everywhere.

A “LONGEVITY DIVIDEND?” There’s an interesting article in The Scientist about how treating the causes of aging rather than the symptoms could save a lot of money:

The experience of aging is about to change. Humans are approaching old age in unprecedented numbers, and this generation and all that follow have the potential to live longer, healthier lives than any in history. These changing demographics also carry the prospect of overwhelming increases in age-related disease, frailty, disability, and all the associated costs and social burdens. The choices we make now will have a profound influence on the health and the wealth of current and future generations. . . .

In addition to the obvious health benefits, enormous economic benefits would accrue from the extension of healthy life. By extending the time in the lifespan when higher levels of physical and mental capacity are expressed, people would remain in the labor force longer, personal income and savings would increase, age-entitlement programs would face less pressure from shifting demographics, and there is reason to believe that national economies would flourish. The science of aging has the potential to produce what we refer to as a “Longevity Dividend” in the form of social, economic, and health bonuses both for individuals and entire populations-a dividend that would begin with generations currently alive and continue for all that follow.

Given the current state of the art, they think that accelerating research now could pay off dramatically in the future. (Via Reason, who observes a shift in the debate with this piece: “This is not support for the Strategies for Engineered Negligible Senescence or similar full-on engineering, damage-control approaches, but it is a large departure from the position of public silence on healthy life extension. The sea change in public opinion and awareness brought on by advocacy is creeping up on us, and factions within the scientific community are adjusting the cut of their sails in expectation of funding.”)

Interestingly, I was reading Arnold Kling’s forthcoming book on health care policy which Brink Lindsey gave me, and I noticed that he offers some support for this kind of approach, too. The disease-by-disease approach, as Arnold notes, costs a lot of money to treat frailer and frailer people with poor quality of life, as you fix the things that might kill them only to leave them feeble and vulnerable to the next thing that needs to be fixed. Better to approach root causes. I think that’s right.

THE JAWA REPORT is yearning for a fatwa. Emphasis on the word “yearning.”

March 7, 2006

GEORGE WILL IS rather hard on legal academia. (Via Howard Bashman).

I’LL BE ON ALAN COLMES’ RADIO SHOW in a few minutes. Follow the link to listen live if you’re interested, though it’s only fair to warn you that it’ll be more talk about, yes, the book. At this point, InstaPundit readers aren’t really the audience for this stuff any more. Even Lou Minatti has gotten the picture. And I do mean the picture. . . .

UPDATE: Heh.

THE NATIONAL JOURNAL’S HOTLINE BLOG is liveblogging the Texas election results.

UPDATE: Looks like an easy win for Delay.

PUBLIUS:

Simultaneous bombs exploded in a crowded temple in one of the country’s holiest cities. One of the entire religion’s holiest cities, no less. In a country where rival ethnic and religious groups have frequently clashed for years, the bombing raises the prospect of reprisal sectarian violence. It is holding together for the most part, but nobody knows what could happen next.

Hey, wait a second, this isn’t Iraq? And it isn’t the al-Askariya shrine in Samarra? I’ll give you one guess, but only if you don’t look at the post’s category tags. That’s right. India.

He makes a good point. Me, I question the Islamists’ strategy of making everybody else in the world hate them simultaneously, especially when they don’t have much power beyond what they’re already exercising.

HEY, MAYBE THE DUBAI PEOPLE WOULD DO BETTER — it’s looking as if it would be hard to be worse:

House Republicans vowed to defy President Bush’s effort to have a Dubai company take over six major U.S. ports. But ABC News has learned about a port threat from within — a major security breach at the ports of New York and New Jersey.

The two ports handle millions of tons of cargo a year, with scores of cruise ships passing through annually. Truckers who transport much of the cargo are issued ID cards, which give them access to the ports’ most sensitive areas.

ABC News has learned that the cards, given to thousands of truckers by the Port Authority of New York and New Jersey, were issued with virtually no background checks. The Department of Homeland Security recently investigated the New York and New Jersey ports, and found stunning gaps in security.

The new DHS report, obtained by ABC News, shows that of the 9,000 truckers checked, nearly half had evidence of criminal records. More than 500 held bogus driver’s licenses, leaving officials unsure of their real identities.

You know, I’ve become convinced that the Dubai ports deal isn’t a bad thing, but I absolutely can’t defend the Administration on this, assuming these reports are true. And sadly, they’re not at all unbelievable. I’ve been noting for years that homeland security is a bureaucratic nightmare, and, well, it is.

UPDATE: Reader Eric Hall notes that the underlying problem is with the Port Authority of New York and New Jersey, which is not a federal agency, and that the federal DHS found the problem. That’s a fair point, but it’s also true that the federal Homeland Security apparatus was sold as an answer to stuff like this. It’s nice that they’ve found the problem, but it’s been nearly four years since the DHS was created, and this sort of thing doesn’t seem to be any more secure. Check out this Wall Street Journal story (free link) for more on port security problems in general.

GRAND ROUNDS is up!

WELL, YOU KNOW IT’S A TREND NOW:

Vatican Radio employees gave Pope Benedict XVI a new iPod nano loaded with special Vatican Radio programming and classical music to honor his first visit to broadcasting headquarters.

Vatican Radio offers podcasts in eight languages, so the pope can now plug in and import the broadcasting service’s audio files.

I presume he got the white model.

BY NOW, ONLY MY MOM is interested in this stuff, but what the hell. And yes, Trippi and I were on the same page throughout.

THE CRAPPIEST INVENTION EVER: A bad review for auto-flush toilets. “The auto-flush toilet violates two basic rules of technology adoption: Never replace a technology with an inferior technology; and never confiscate power from your users.”

UPDATE: Reader Cathy McCaughan emails: “The reviewer fails to note that parents of preschoolers everywhere loathe auto flush toilets because children find them frightening.”

So in addition to their other faults, they’re scaring our children!

MORE ON BLOGGERS AND P.R.: Here’s an article in the New York Times about bloggers, PR, and Wal-Mart. It’s getting a ho-hum reaction from Wonkette. My thoughts on the general subject can be found here.

Slashdot readers seem to be of mixed opinion.

Duncan Black weighs in: “Unless I’m missing something this New York Times article is just another stab at holding bloggers to ethical standards and practices which don’t apply anywhere else in the universe.”

MORE: Jeff Jarvis observes:

Remember that reporters do not tell you every story idea that came from a flack — and so stories do start with PR pitches that I’ve often said if I ran a paper, I’d have flack-free days: Every story in today’s paper came from actual reporting! (It’d probably be a thin Saturday.)

Reporters may be smart enough to rewrite the verbiage in press releases (unlike the hapless blogger in the Times story caught quoting Walmart’s flackery without attribution — a practice Edelman, smartly, warned them against). But they don’t tell you all the and facts and viewpoints they use from flacks.

Reporters do not tell you about the meetings, lunches, drinks, and help given them by flacks.

There is no scandal in the Times story. And in fairness, the Times doesn’t directly present it as a scandal. It points out how Edelman is transparent about its activities and even advises bloggers to be open. No, The Times is merely reporting how PR works. Only the object of this PR is the public, not the press. And some of these people, these bloggers, aren’t as slick as reporters in knowing how to deal with this.

So my first reponse is to help bloggers with advice.

If you write a post inspired by what you get from a company or its PR agent, say so. If you use facts or quotes from a company, politician, PR agent, or press release, say so (better yet, link to it). If you get anything from a PR agent — things, business meetings, social events — say so. Your public has a right to know where your information comes from so they can judge it accordingly.

And then you know what? You will be way ahead of the press.

It’s good advice. Read the whole thing. And here are more thoughts worth reading:

This is by the way an important milestone for the blogosphere as it begins to take over the role of the MSM in informing people. We bloggers usually meet a higher standard of journalistic ethics than the MSM becuase we do, as a general rule, provide the links to the source material. This is our comeptitive advantage and combined with the fact that we tend to make no attempt to be impartial is a huge strength. Any reader should be able see what our sources and our biases are and if we are to be credible sources of news and informed comment we have to continue with that level of disclosure. However, having said that, this NY Times piece is in many ways another classic attempt at spreading FUD about the blogosphere. The intent is surely to tar all bloggers with the same brush, something that simply doesn’t work and something that would be like bloggers tarring all MSM outlets as equally incompetent. The fact is that just as bloggers who make the latter smear find it tough to prove so the reverse MSM smear of the blogosphere is equally poor.

Read the whole thing here, too. And here’s a different sort of “reprinting.”