Random Thoughts From the Morning Paper on July 22, 2011

The following items are thoughts from my reading of this morning’s New York Times (Vol. CLX…No. 55,474)

Re: Obama Closes in on Deal for Cuts in Boehner Talks (page A1 and A12)
There is a real struggle over the size and appropriate function of government fueling the disagreements between Republicans (inclusive of their “Tea Party” faction) and Democrats that imperils the current budget discussions. Were the implications not so serious it would almost be farcical that the party that refers to Jefferson as one of its founding fathers favors larger, more intrusive governmental actions with preservation of federal entitlement programs and higher taxes and the party of Lincoln seeks smaller central government and greater authority for local and state governments with what amounts to a “scorched earth policy” to deny the party in power the resources it needs to address social, environmental and international policy issues.


Re: Shuttle Ends Its Final Voyage and an Era in Space (page A3)
I would hope that, in the absence of a large national space initiative America does not lose sight of the importance of national programs that can fuel the imagination of youth and stimulate both the educational and business sectors of the economy. Private efforts (NY Times; In a Private Race to the Moon, Flights of Fancy Are in the Air pages A1 and A3) are all well and good; however, their impact on the larger population will be minimal. Indeed, they may accelerate the growing chasm between the highly educated, financially wealthy, “empowered” segments of our republic and those millions who lack the access and resources to participate in private efforts. Space exploration is still very much in its infancy. Accountability within national efforts is to the populace; however, there is no parallel requirement for accountability among those who would seek to exploit space travel for their own corporate objectives in the face of competition with other private contractors. The great marketing mill of the world will turn private efforts into non-stop opportunities to attract investment and we have recently been treated to the bitter taste of the fare that attracts the financial markets. One of America’s real needs is a new and very public space initiative. There will be the naysayers who will state that our urban infrastructure and road systems are so much in need of repair that we cannot afford such and effort now. To those people I would submit that since 1955 the United States has added the interstate highway system, most of the urban infrastructure that exists today and 150 million people to its population in addition to successfully completing the Explorer I, Mercury, Gemini, Apollo, and Space Shuttle programs.
Most of my childhood was bracketed by America’s commitment to successfully place a man-made satellite into orbit and to land a man of the moon. I was the first kid on my block with a model of a Saturn V rocket that towered nearly three feet high in my bed room! My childhood days were filled in conversations with friends about the flights of Alan Shepard and John Glenn and, later, Neil Armstrong, Buzz Aldrin and Michael Collins. The National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA) programs: Mercury, Gemini and Apollo rekindled our link with the history for the foundations of Western culture while providing a moniker to attach our hopes for future achievement in a mission that was bigger than any ever accomplished in human history. I am aware that all of these required the input of private contractors but the focus upon a national (not corporate) objective was paramount.
Late in the evening of July 20, 1969, I stood behind my grandfather’s chair in the little North Carolina town of Southport looking at a small black and white television screen as Neil Armstrong took his “…one giant leap for mankind”. The family oral history was that my grandfather’s father had been the head of the Kitty Hawk, NC lifesaving station whose crew had helped the Wright brothers to carry their plane to the top of a sand dune at Kill Devil Hills. I could feel “goose bumps” along my body in the realization that the aged man in front of me was witnessing the culmination of the journey that had begun on that cool December day in 1903. For me it was a moment of joy, reassurance and rededication to set lofty goals in the hopes that, through great effort, some day they might be realized. My nation had experienced many failures along the way but had never given up the ultimate goal. As a child I had learned two valuable lessons from our space efforts. The first was to set high standards and goals. The second was to treat failure as an opportunity to learn how not to do something so as to gain greater insight as to do the right thing that would help me to accomplish the goal. Not once did I think of any commercial concern and the only patches and logos on the space craft and the uniforms of the participants read: “United States of America”!

Standing Around with a Half Empty Glass and Missing the Boat

We have a nation that seems stuck on the shores of despair. As a teacher of America’s youth, this is troubling to me. I am a “Baby-boomer” but, from my current perspective, it seems to me that the “boomer” signifies more than just a large increase in the population of the United States in the years from 1946 through 1964. It additionally signifies the psychological, political and economic “boom” that was reflected in the struggle of our democratic principles against politically oppressive ideologies, our societal struggle against individuals and local conventions that would oppress our civil rights and our national focus upon “shooting for the stars” in the effort to place a man on the moon by the end of the 1960s. To paraphrase the words of a February/March 2007 American Heritage article (“10 Moments That Made U.S. Business”; pp 23-33), since the dawn of the industrial revolution, America has always been known for its “megaprojects” – “…projects of unprecedented scale and scope [ that] encouraged its entrepreneurs and politicians to think big.” These were big goals, with big price tags and the big potential for not only giving lots of people good, well paying jobs and improving the educational level of the main-stream population but also defining our collective national character. We were Americans and we were the ones who created the San Francisco Bay Bridge, the Panama Canal, the Empire State Building, and the Apollo Missions to the moon, conquered Polio, made blue jeans the first mass-class international clothing style, tore down barriers that had been erected for centuries against blacks and women and turned the music world on its head with our “Rock and Roll”. None came easily but all was positive and forward looking. Our sails were always filled with the fair winds of progress and our glass was nearly always half-full with the expectation of more and better things to come in the future. We stood on the shoulders of “The Greatest Generation” and represented the zenith for the “children of the Enlightenment”. What our nation’s youth of today are being treated to is despair served with a generous helping of malaise.
For “Baby-boomers”, it was the tight focus and emphasis upon lofty political, social, and economic goals that defined the important moments of our lives, caused us angst when our efforts fell short and tremendous joy when we exceeded our aspirations. What of our young people today? What great “megaprojects” inspire them? Our current news sources are absorbed with headlines that, quite frankly, are very scary to young people: Can we hope to defeat Al-Qaeda and the Taliban if all the troops come home? With the recent cut backs in police personnel, can we really expect to control the excesses of our population? How can we address our $14+ trillion dollar national deficit? How long will the current national and global recessions last? In the midst of our national financial troubles are we at risk of selling off our national heritage along with the corporate and land resources that are being purchased at bargain basement prices by international concerns? What can we do to humanely address the illegal immigration issue? How can we keep violent video games out of the hands of kids under 18 years of age? With all of the tools our schools should be able to have at their disposal, how long must our formerly world class educational system be seeking rescue from the decline in academic performance that is negatively impacting American technological leadership? Has our societal emphasis upon immediate gratification begun to erode core characteristics of goal orientation, sacrifice, innovation and entrepreneurial spirit? How is it, in a world of “globalization”, crimes and acts of bigotry are rampant?
Theirs’ is a bright and colorful façade behind which gather dark clouds of tremendous personal, national and international challenge. Theirs’ is a glass not so different from that of their parents and grandparents; yet, portrayed by the popular press as virtually always half empty and most likely to contain less than what the glass held the children of the past two generations contained. Theirs’ is a culture “Looking for Superman”, seemingly absent of sufficient answers to address the overwhelming number of media-touted, perceived and imagined problems. Rather than fair winds to fill their sails, they stand along the shores and watch the gathering clouds of the approaching storm.
What I have described is a travesty and what I feel is a national crisis. Youth need to see themselves as part of the answer for what ever the challenge. They additionally need to see themselves as fully competent and capable to address the cahllenges. Rather than constantly looking outward for someone to blame for our troubles or for help from some other source to solve our problems, we need to be looking inward as to what strengths we have that can be collectively used to address our challenges. We need to help our children to understand that just as there will always be challenges, there will always be answers; just as there will always be doubters, there will be those who believe in themselves and just as there is a chance for failure, there is an equal chance for great success. To paraphrase what John F. Kennedy stated during his 1961 inaugural speech, we all should be not so much looking as to what others can do for us as for what we can do for others. Perhaps, for the youth of today, the collective “drops” fusing together will fill their glasses and will provide the fair winds to fill their sails.

The Verdict

There it was on the front page of the USA Today newspaper for July 8, 2011: “Poll: Two-thirds say Anthony is Guilty”. The story was written to drive home the point that, despite the verdict of the 12 men and women of the Orange County Florida jury that found Casey Anthony innocent of murdering her 2-year old daughter Caylee, the majority of Americans who were polled by the newspaper believed that Casey Anthony really was guilty. There were even individuals who were so incensed by the verdict that they immediately began to call for the felony criminalization of parental “…failure to notify police of a child’s disappearance, within 24-hours”. Such efforts not only totally miss the real import of the verdict and create a vigilante justice atmosphere but potentially create yet another avenue for the surrender of personal rights to those of the state. The real travesty here was that the jury seemed swept up in the enormity of their decision due to the media emphasis upon the case and opted to ignore the carefully crafted presentation of the circumstantial evidence to the contrary of their decision. This is not the first time the verdict in a high profile case has gone astray of where the evidence was pointing. It seems to me that we’ve been here before, in 1994, with victims by the names of Ronald Goldman and Nicole Simpson. In that case, the accused, O.J. Simpson, was found innocent in the criminal trial. Not satisfied with the verdict, the family of Ronald Goldman sued O.J. Simpson for libel in the violation of their son’s personal rights (“wrongful death”). O.J. Simpson was found guilty of the charges and, to the very day, is still held in prison. I am sure that, if there are those who, in their interest of addressing the wrongful death of little Caylee, wish to see justice served, their efforts should be directed towards a civil suit rather than the creation of another law to further restrict personal liberties. What we need to do is use the good civil protections already afforded to us to seek redress where we believe that justice for the individual has not been served. We also need juries who, although inconvenienced by time and media attention, are more deliberative in their search for protection of the rights of individuals who have had their rights abridged or taken away.

True Education is More Than the Sum of the Tests

There is a wonderful article by David Brooks entitled “Smells Like School Spirit” in the Op-Ed section of the NY Times (page A23) for Friday, July 1, 2011. It calls to mind one of the best films of the spring that was entitled “Waiting for Superman”. Both the article by David Brooks and the film point out that teaching is far more than what tests reveal and that true education is a construct of caring administrators who are adroit at risk-results decisions, classrooms staffed by dynamic teaching personalities and total school commitment to using the various subject disciplines as the means to infuse youth with quality character traits and a desire for knowledge. Only when assessment becomes a part of the learning process and not an end unto itself will both the school and the students be successful.

I Need My Space!

There was an article in the Wednesday, June 29th copy of the New York Times (page A12; "Debris Gives Space Station Crew Members a 29,000M.P.H. Close Call") that provided a moment of deep sadness for me. One of the paragraphs towards the end of the article indicates that, by some current estimates, there are as many as 500,000 pieces of artificial, man-made, material in near earth orbit. Some of the items are communication satellites, some are spent rocket boosters and some are pure "debris items" that are the result of collisions and component explosions. Regardless, these items are gradually filling up our near space with "space junk". To give you an idea as to just how much junk there is, refer to the following YouTube clip:http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=43ac9gmR3fA. I recognize the benefits that have extended from the technologies that placed most of the items in near earth orbit but it does seem to me that there will be a "tipping point" like trash thrown into a river ultimately destroys life below the surface of the water.