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Why We Need To Stop Saying “Support Our Troops”

Posted on September 5, 2013 in Articles

Stop Supporting Our Troops

The Article: No, thanks: Stop saying “support the troops” by Steven Salaita in Salon.

The Text: My 16-month-old son was having a bad day. When he doesn’t sleep in the car, he usually points and babbles his approval of all the wonderful things babies notice that completely escape adult attention. On this afternoon, though, he was teething and hungry, a lethal scenario for an energetic youngster strapped into a high-tech seating apparatus (approved and installed, of course, by the state).

When it became clear he couldn’t, or wouldn’t, sleep it out, my wife and I stopped at a nondescript exit, the kind one finds every six miles in the South, with two gas stations and three abandoned buildings (if you’re lucky, you also get a Hampton Inn and Cracker Barrel). While she tended to the baby, I entered a convenience store — one of those squat, glass and plastic rectangles that looks like a Sears & Roebuck erector set — praying it would have something other than beer, cigarettes and beef jerky.

I settled on two Kraft mozzarella sticks, resisting the urge to purchase for myself a shiny red can of Four Loko.

The Public School System From Hell

Posted on September 4, 2013 in Articles

Public School Corbett

The Article: “Indescribably insane”: A public school system from hell by Aaron Kase in Salon.

The Text: Want to see a public school system in its death throes? Look no further than Philadelphia. There, the school district is facing end times, with teachers, parents and students staring into the abyss created by a state intent on destroying public education.

On Thursday the city of Philadelphia announced that it would be borrowing $50 million to give the district, just so it can open schools as planned on Sept. 9, after Superintendent William Hite threatened to keep the doors closed without a cash infusion. The schools may open without counselors, administrative staff, noon aids, nurses, librarians or even pens and paper, but hey, kids will have a place to go and sit.

The $50 million fix is just the latest band-aid for a district that is beginning to resemble a rotting bike tube, covered in old patches applied to keep it functioning just a little while longer. At some point, the entire system fails.

Welcome To The Age Of Climate Denial

Posted on September 3, 2013 in Articles

Climate Denial

The Article: Welcome to the Age of Denial by Adam Frank in The New York Times.

The Text: IN 1982, polls showed that 44 percent of Americans believed God had created human beings in their present form. Thirty years later, the fraction of the population who are creationists is 46 percent.

In 1989, when “climate change” had just entered the public lexicon, 63 percent of Americans understood it was a problem. Almost 25 years later, that proportion is actually a bit lower, at 58 percent.

The timeline of these polls defines my career in science. In 1982 I was an undergraduate physics major. In 1989 I was a graduate student. My dream was that, in a quarter-century, I would be a professor of astrophysics, introducing a new generation of students to the powerful yet delicate craft of scientific research.

Why We’re Still Not Intervening In Syria

Posted on September 2, 2013 in Articles

Why Not Intervening In Syria

The Article: Why We’re Still Not Intervening in Syria by Michael Hirsch in The Atlantic.

The Text: Bashar al-Assad is, finally, having a very good week.

The latest allegations of chemical-weapons use against the Syrian dictator don’t matter nearly as much as other dramatic developments–in particular, the United States’ willingness to stand aside while Assad’s autocratic brethren in the Egyptian junta cold-bloodedly killed some one thousand protesters, supported by the Saudis and Gulf states.

And this week, the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, Gen. Martin Dempsey, finally said plainly what Obama administration officials have been thinking privately since June, the last time Washington said its “red line” had been crossed and pledged military aid to the Syrian rebels–then did nothing. In a letter to Rep. Eliot Engel, D-N.Y., Dempsey said flatly that U.S. aid to the rebels know would just end up arming radical, possibly al-Qaida-linked groups. And Obama wasn’t going to allow that to happen.

Why We Need To Start Treating College Funding Like We Do High School

Posted on September 1, 2013 in Articles

High School College Funding

The Article: Start funding college like high school by David Sirota in Salon.

The Text: Whether or not President Obama’s speech today is in direct response to Rolling Stone reporter Matt Taibbi’s eye-opening must-read on the college loan crisis, it is great news that the White House is evidently now taking the crisis more seriously. The credit bubble in college loans has ballooned into a systemic threat to the nation’s economy. Additionally, as Taibbi documents, economic and political trends are now converging to force an entire generation into a truly no-win situation: either don’t get a post-secondary education and severely harm your ability to get a job in an already weak economy, or get a post-secondary education and condemn yourself to a lifetime paying off debt that you may never be able to pay off because the economy is so weak and your job prospects are still not guaranteed.

The economic trend that is fueling this perfect storm is about job credentials. Peruse employment data and you’ll see that the New York Times was right when it declared that “the college degree is becoming the new high school diploma: the new minimum requirement, albeit an expensive one, for getting even the lowest-level job.” Though the Times notes that the weak economy means the job outlook for college grads “is rather bleak,” it is even more bleak if you don’t have a post-secondary degree.

So, in terms of job-market competitiveness, some form of higher education is now increasingly as necessary as high school education. Yet, that’s the thing: in its financing models, America isn’t treating it as such. Just consider the critical distinction between how high school and college education are funded.