The Death of News

I can't post it here due to copyright issues, but I will provide a link to today's Non Sequitur comic, by Wiley Miller. I got a kick out of this one.

With tired eyes, tired minds, tired souls we slept

This post contains only one accusation. Reading the news recently has gotten me too tense for my own good. There is plenty more to say about the Occupy movement, which is still doing great things to raise consciousness and getting people to think critically, even if it is at great expense to the protestors. At the New York Times, Thomas Friedman oversimplifies serious issues. I've wanted to write something about H.R. 3261: the Stop Online Privacy Act. However, my good friend Carlos has it covered. Another writing resource has helped somewhat to ease the stress. But news and academics have left me exhausted.

In anticipation of the deficit panel's failure to come to a consensus tomorrow, I would like to offer a more heartening picture of interpersonal cooperation. Black, white, Democrat, Republican, serving in religious and secular capacities. This comes from President Barack Obama's remarks at the highly-contested 2009 Notre Dame Commencement:

After all, I stand here today, as President and as an African American, on the 55th anniversary of the day that the Supreme Court handed down the decision in Brown v. Board of Education.  Now, Brown was of course the first major step in dismantling the "separate but equal" doctrine, but it would take a number of years and a nationwide movement to fully realize the dream of civil rights for all of God’s children.  There were freedom rides and lunch counters and Billy clubs, and there was also a Civil Rights Commission appointed by President Eisenhower.  It was the 12 resolutions recommended by this commission that would ultimately become law in the Civil Rights Act of 1964.

There were six members of this commission.  It included five whites and one African American; Democrats and Republicans; two Southern governors, the dean of a Southern law school, a Midwestern university president, and your own Father Ted Hesburgh, President of Notre Dame.  (Applause.)  So they worked for two years, and at times, President Eisenhower had to intervene personally since no hotel or restaurant in the South would serve the black and white members of the commission together.  And finally, when they reached an impasse in Louisiana, Father Ted flew them all to Notre Dame’s retreat in Land O’Lakes, Wisconsin -- (applause) -- where they eventually overcame their differences and hammered out a final deal.

And years later, President Eisenhower asked Father Ted how on Earth he was able to broker an agreement between men of such different backgrounds and beliefs.  And Father Ted simply said that during their first dinner in Wisconsin, they discovered they were all fishermen.  (Laughter.)  And so he quickly readied a boat for a twilight trip out on the lake.  They fished, and they talked, and they changed the course of history.

Amen.

Occupy This.

Maybe CBS News should do some research and vetting the next time it reports a story, because it failed spectacularly in Lynn O'Shaughnessy's article, "Occupy Harvard: Nation's most exclusive tent city."

O'Shaughnessy gets credit for recognizing that Harvard posted guards to check IDs at the gate of the Yard.

One protestor, who is a junior, lamented upon the heightened security to a reporter for the Harvard Crimson: "I think it's absurd. Do we really need eight guards per gate?"

Midterms just ended here in Cambridge. Let's see how this article fares:

• -5 points for not identifying the person
• -5 points for taking the quote out of context (see link above)
• -5 points for not mentioning that "8 guards" is hyperbole
• -50 points for failing to state Occupy Harvard's true intention of creating a more equitable institution.
• -20 points for making this issue seem way too easy. More on this below.

That comes to a 15, which is somewhere around an F with Harvard grade inflation taken into account. Nice try, but still a failing grade.

O'Shaughnessy makes a good point that education should be more equitable. But then again, so should distribution of income. The fact is, there is a lot more holding back low-income students before they even submit their college application. Only 8 percent of children that grow up in low-income communities graduate college by age 24. It is common knowledge among College Board test makers and education experts that there is a strong correlation between test scores and a family's level of income. And it's not just about money. Standardized testing is a terrible measure of aptitude that makes it easy for any educational institution to make a snap judgment. The problem is systemic, concretizing a test score into some supposedly meaningful measure when in fact it can just as easily serve as a reflection of student anxiety, family life, nutrition, income, and the school system he or she attends. Organizations like Teach for America recognize this and are fighting for change.

Harvard is an easy target, but the problem is an infinitely more complex system strongly linked to politics and economics.

This isn't all the journalist's fault. She probably had to meet a deadline. Sometimes you have to simplify. But there is a lot going on behind the scenes that cannot simply be dismissed. Education is a very complex issue, and to use the final graf for such an unsubstantiated statement is irresponsible.

- - -

This all being said, I think the Occupy movement is wonderful for people on all sides of the debate because it has finally raised pressing issues. The criticism that the movement lacks cohesive objectives might be valid in some respect, but that is part of Occupy's beauty. People raise the issues they think are relevant to them. A dialogue is beginning in the media, and as long as pundits are trying to mold the issue, facts and stats will get out and we will begin to determine how horrifyingly large, ingrained, and oppressive our current economic and political policies are. The wellspring of ideas that the Occupy movement has revealed is a true boon to America, for finally raising consciousness and debates about the issues. This is truly the first step to reform.

Dark Marketplaces

You can buy and/or invest in virtually anything in the market economy...Creating an economy-based corollary to Rule 34. That's the last bit of fun we'll be having in this post.

"Investing in a Stranger's Retirement"

Looking to make some money off of someone in need? Buy someone's pension! From the article: "Several buyers of pension payments who were interviewed by The Wall Street Journal declined to be identified because they didn't want to be seen as profiting from anyone's financial desperation."

"What's Your Dead Body Worth"

When you're dead, you can donate your body to science. Or sell its organs on the market. What are you going to do with it anyway? While you're alive you can also sell an organ to pay off that loan...or to buy bread for your family...or because you're forced to by other means. The poor providing organs for the rich; I can hear Aldous Huxley's unsold bones rattling in his grave.

Tropical Islands!

While most of us can't afford a tropical island, the collective actions of western society ensure that someone else pays for our lifestyle. Rising seas, the direct result of climate change, stand to displace 70,000 people. The U.S. has already guaranteed Marshall Islanders strife and disease for years to come, and defined affected areas in a limited way so as to limit desperately-needed reparations.

The darkest marketplace of all is the one in which the full price of unchecked industrialization exacts payments from indigenous people around the world. This tribute is fully payable in suffering.

TOMS Debate at Ithaca College

There is an interesting debate going on right now on the website for Buzzsaw, Ithaca College's independent student-run magazine.

In "Why I Hate TOMS Shoes," Topher Hendricks offers a compelling argument, if perhaps it took some discussion in the comments section to get there. Two points on this:

1. Comments are a great way to raise discussions and clarify points. That being said, it is best when the community is small, so that the discussion is not quickly swamped by a flood of comments. I try my hardest not to get sucked into comments sections on most blogs I read because the responses are inane and not interested in fostering conversation. (A few of these comments admittedly did appear in the Buzzsaw comments, but represented a small quantity and percentage of the total comments.)
2. Bravo to the author for responding to comments. In this case, it really helped to clarify his position. Comments served as a learning experience for the writer, readers, and commenters.

The piece is written in that classic angsty style college publications are famous for. It's well-reasoned, but needless flourishes like referring to TOMS CEO Blake Mycoskie as "Blakey boy" in parentheses do nothing to advance the argument. [caveat: I did once refer to Rick Reilly as a "Pompous Asshat" in the title of a piece.] That being said, referring to someone as a "douche" and then referring to oneself as a "douche" as well is a great move. Self deprecation is a great tool for winning people over. See also Hunter S. Thompson.

Hendricks notes that he will soon receive the shoes as a reward for a credit card, which raising a hairy issue. Getting the shoes for free exonerates no one, but on the other hand, half of his reward will support someone "in need." Maybe even the person who made the shoes, if indeed TOMS manufacturing practices are as cheery as they'd lead you to believe.

The fact that the shoes come for credit card usage is complexified by a comment in a follow-up piece by Rebecca Coffman, "A Different Perspective on TOMS Shoes." She writes:

I believe that society’s energy and resources should be aimed towards unraveling actual charades, and not merely attacking companies based on confused and misdirected anti-capitalistic rage. TOMS shoes may not be a revolution. But they may enable the people whose feet they clothe to start one of their own.

But Hendricks' article does point to a charade: Westerners are made to feel good by their purchases, but they don't see everything that goes into creating the shoes. The fact is we don't know about the working conditions, or whether shoes are causing some sort of social problem in the communities where they are distributed. A particularly interesting quote from the TOMS "Giving Report":

Shoes are a status symbol [in Ethiopia]. Children dream of having their first pair.

If you listen closely you can hear the distant rumble of the free market (dare I invoke that dastardly term, "neoliberalism"?). Using one consumer culture to create another - I would say "only in America," but the process is necessarily international.

Besides, there are more pressing issues than footwear. Think of how much good can come from providing, say, access to water, or healthcare, or education.

But back to that comment about the original article being penned in a fit of "anti-capitalist rage." Dude got the shoes through his credit card.