The Ritualists

A new strain of tardiness

The old pattern was very familiar, especially since I tend to give my students lots of short quizzes, often at the beginning of a class period: A student arrives late, sees a quiz in progress, and leaps into action, yanking a pencil out of the old book bag, snatching a quiz off the table in the front of the room, and scribbling quickly in a desperate attempt to catch up. That's the old pattern and it's not a surprising one.

Lately, however, I've seen several instances of a new pattern that is, frankly, utterly bewildering. In over thirty years of teaching, I had never seen this behavior until the last few semesters. A few of my tardy students have an unprecedented sang froid. They arrive late, see a quiz under way, and then progress casually to their desks. They never rush up to the front of the room to pick up a quiz. Their leisurely saunter gives me plenty of time to stroll over and hand them one. (Service with a smile!)

This new breed of tardy student is calm and generally unruffled, except sometimes a small moue telegraphs the unspoken thought, “Oh, here we go again!” The serene latecomer positions the water bottle or energy drink or Starbuck cup on a corner of the desk,  carefully tucks away the cell phone or iPod, peels off the coat and rolls it up to tuck in the book cage under the desk, rummages about in the book bag for a pencil or pen (sometimes deliberating over his or her choice of several writing implements—mustn't pick the wrong one!), digs out a calculator and places it precisely in the corner opposite the beverage (whether or not the quiz requires number-crunching), and then finally (as if in surprise) takes note of the quiz sitting atop the desk and begins to ponder it.

This settling-in ritual, in its various versions, eats up at least two minutes, sometimes three. Sometimes there is a lengthy interlude with the smartphone, scrolling through messages and tweets received in the interval between breaking eye contact with the screen upon arriving at the classroom door and arriving at the desk, occasionally extended by the imperative of replying to urgent missives. I imagine most of them are in the vein of

L8 agin
prof :(
lol

Strangely enough, the explanation does not appear to be the simple one: Such casually late students are the class's losers, doomed to fail, and have fatalistically accepted their fate. Nope. That describes very few of them. My unruffled tardies are mostly C students mired in mediocrity. Perhaps they've figured out that they're doing enough to survive and it would be too much trouble to put in the work necessary to rise to the B level. I really don't know.

One thing, however, has not changed. After arriving ten minutes late and getting only five minutes to work on a fifteen-minute quiz, many chronically tardy students are quick (for a change) to complain: “I didn't have enough time!”

“Yes, you did,” I explain. “You just chose to use most of it for something else.”

Brain pain

Lesson unlearned

My students were not happy with me and they weren't keeping it a secret. After a unit on scientific notation, I gave them a quiz containing a question they deemed terribly unfair:

The mass of a proton is 1.7 × 10^–27 kilograms. What is the total mass of 7.2 × 10³³ protons? (Write your answer in scientific notation and include the units.)

I was told, with exquisite care and patronizing precision, that it was wrong of me not to tell them which arithmetic operation was expected. Addition? Multiplication? Subtraction? Division? How dared I give them numbers without specific instructions!

With professional patience, I waited out their lengthy complaints. Then, without saying a word, I turned back to the chalkboard and wrote out a brand-new problem:

The mass of a nickel is 5 grams. What is the total mass of 6 nickels?

With frowns still on their faces, they blurted out, “Thirty grams!”

Another long silence as I waited for their reactions. The faces went neutral. One brave soul ventured a comment: “Were we supposed to know that?”

“Sure,” I replied. “All of you know that you multiply to solve problems like this. You just yelled out the answer to the nickel problem because it was so easy. What I'm trying to get across is that numbers written in scientific notation are still just numbers. You work with them just like you work with other numbers. You're letting your minds shut down because they look different, but you actually already know what to do.”

A smug expression is bad pedagogy, so I maintained a mild and neutral mien. I was quietly satisfied that I had gotten an important point across. My self-congratulation was just a little premature. (You'd think I would know better by now.)

A student in the back row grunted in dissatisfaction and posed a question in an irritated tone: “So on the next exam are you going to tell us what to do with the numbers?”

My spirits fell a notch.

“What do you think?” I asked.

I hope indeed that they do.

Anthony Kennedy and Proposition 8

Another growth opportunity

It was a coincidence. On Thursday I stumbled across a television program devoted to the life of Nathaniel S. Colley, Sr. The name was familiar to me, since I had heard it many times during my stint in state service. Colley was an attorney and civil rights leader in Sacramento, known to all of the state capital's elected officials and public servants. The biographical program on Sacramento's KVIE devoted a significant amount of time to Colley's vigorous endorsement of his McGeorge Law School colleague Anthony Kennedy for the U.S. Supreme Court.

“I am here because I know Judge Kennedy well. He is a man of great integrity who has a sincere devotion to the rule of law.” —Nathaniel Colley, December 1987

On Friday I picked up a copy of that morning's San Francisco Chronicle and a headline caught my eye:

Proposition 8 foes seek sweeping high-court ruling

The newspaper reported that attorneys for the plaintiffs would argue for a Supreme Court decision that would quash not only Proposition 8, but all similar bans against same-sex marriage. Such a ruling would have the effect of extending gay marriage throughout the United States, much as Lawrence v. Texas invalidated all of the state laws against so-called sodomy (however defined) and same-sex relations.

“The petitioners are entitled to respect for their private lives. The State cannot demean their existence or control their destiny by making their private sexual conduct a crime.”

Lawrence v. Texas majority opinion
Justice Anthony Kennedy, June 2003

As a prominent black civil-rights activist, Nathaniel Colley's endorsement was a key factor in Anthony Kennedy's unanimous confirmation to the Supreme Court. Kennedy had been criticized for his membership in a whites-only country club, but Colley testified before the Senate Judiciary Committee that Kennedy had worked against the restriction on minority membership and resigned when it became clear that he would not succeed in ending it.

“Several witnesses attested to this evolution and to Judge Kennedy's open-mindedness, and to the fact that his development process is continuing. He is a grown man who will grow more, said Nathaniel Colley.”

Hearings before the Committee on the Judiciary
United State Senate

One Hundredth Congress
December 1987

Justice Kennedy is today the high court's most famous “swing vote.” With the notable exception of the Obamacare decision, where it was Chief Justice Roberts who cast the deciding vote, most observers agree that as Kennedy goes, so goes the Supreme Court. Naturally, therefore, all eyes are on the author of the Lawrence v. Texas decision. Will Justice Kennedy seize upon the Proposition 8 case as a new opportunity for growth, or will he continue his recent trend of aligning with the court's conservative bloc?

Many people are pessimistic. Kennedy has not inspired much confidence. My fingers, however, are figuratively crossed. Justice Scalia is an intemperate bully who has roundly abused his colleagues when they disagree with him. Kennedy has no reason to embrace Scalia's position to preserve a collegiality that is nonexistent. He can do as he pleases.

Will it please him to strike down Proposition 8? And, if he does, will he dispatch it with a stiletto or a saber? If Kennedy is thinking in terms of his judicial legacy, he must certainly be aware that cases decided on narrowly-construed grounds with limited impact do not make for key chapters in the history books. If he ducks the matter with a convenient technicality, he will have squandered a golden opportunity to leave his mark on the Golden State and beyond. The author of Lawrence could burnish his reputation as a milestone jurist with a simple and straightforward ruling in Hollingsworth that Proposition 8 and all measures like it are unconstitutional on equal-rights grounds.

In this context it might be appropriate to recall Anthony Kennedy's tenure at McGeorge School of Law. The longtime dean was a gay man, as was one of the dean's best friends, a closeted actor who was among the law school's most significant benefactors when he wasn't playing a lawyer on TV. Kennedy should keep these friends and colleagues in mind as he decides the Proposition 8 case. He could strike another blow for the advancement of civil rights. He could confirm Nathaniel Colley's judgment that he is a man who grows.

And he could give Scalia apoplexy.

The once and future pope?

His eminence Boba Cardinal Fett?

The next pope of the Roman Catholic Church will be elected during the month of March, taking over as supreme pontiff from the resigned Benedict XVI, who is expected to revert to his pre-papal name of Joseph Ratzinger. The ex-pope is supposed to devote the remainder of his life to quiet contemplation and prayer, discontinuing his practice of inspirational writing for fear of overshadowing his successor. Ratzinger will supposedly be immured in the Mater Ecclesiae monastery.

There is, however, a subtle plot by the College of Cardinals to keep the new pope in check. The men in red are seizing the rare opportunity of having an ex-pope on hand while breaking in the new guy. They can always threaten to bring the old guy back if the new one disappoints. Of course, Ratzinger is old and tired. The cardinalatial plot depends crucially on Ratzinger's preservation as pope-in-reserve. A clever cabal has solved the problem. Unknown to the world at large, Benedict XVI has been encased in carbonite, as demonstrated by this rare photograph of the pontiff in frozen repose.

The revelatory picture confirms the rumor that Benny Hex was not part of the cardinals' scheme, as he was obviously taken by surprise in mid-blessing. Clever, clever cardinals!

Cows in the city

Escape from the valley

Or perhaps I should say, “Cows in The City,” as San Francisco is wont to style itself.

In a few hours I will be participating in my first book event to occur outside the boundaries of California's great Central Valley. My novel will be presented to curious urbanites, no doubt eager to learn about the arcane details of Portuguese immigrant life on a family dairy farm. The subject matter is redolent with a sense of thrills, excitement, and drama. Irresistible!

If you're in the Bay Area this evening, consider dropping in at Books Inc. in San Francisco's Opera Plaza on Van Ness. The event officially starts at 7:00, but I'll be loitering in the area beforehand. (Loitering in bookstores is something I'm good at.)

Self-diagnosis

This ought to hurt a little

It usually happens right after the first exam of the semester. Somewhere between one third to two thirds of the class is disappointed with the results. Nearly everyone expected an A or a B. Many are surprised they earned a C, D, or even an F. I give an assignment:

Send me an e-mail message by noon on Wednesday that contains two things:

1. A description of what you think went wrong on your exam and why you didn't score better.
2. A description of what you plan to do to deal with the problem(s) described in #1 and how you're going to do it.

Except for the few fatalists who signed up for the class in full expectation of miserable failure (why are they even there?), the students tend to take the assignment seriously. Interesting and often thoughtful responses come in:

I think part of my reason for scoring so low was I didn't thoroughly double check my work. I missed a good amount of points by not double checking that I knew answers to, or just wrote down wrong but still knew the right answer to.

An excellent observation. We have a long class period and I allow my students the entire time for the exam. They have ample opportunity to review and check their answers. Getting out the door before the class period is over is not a good priority.

I skipped the last two sections of the chapter so I didnt get enough practice with the word problems. I also made a lot of simple mistakes that could have been avoided if I would have checked my work carefully.

Self-knowledge. A beautiful thing. The next step is to actually do something about it.

I didn't push myself hard enough to finish all chapter homework. which would of help me master solving linear equations, inequalities and problem solving ect.

Indubitably. Hardly anyone succeeds without practice, and that's what the homework is for. Thanks for noticing.

I think my problem for the test was I didn't study enough.

Yes, I do recommend the practice of studying. Do please give it a try.

1. I think what was wrong with the exam and why I got such a low score was the fact that I barely got any sleep. 2. Study more, go to bed early, and be more prepared. Also I should try to understand certain problems more

Okay, I think you raise some good points. People do better on exams when they are well rested. However, I sense an element of denial. Of the last five class days, you missed three. See the problem?

Rewrite!

Where is an editor when you need one?

Perusing the San Francisco Chronicle over breakfast this morning, I lit upon an article on the insistence of Tea Partiers that they had no intention of going away, reports of their death supposedly greatly exaggerated. It was amusing to see that astroturf specialist Sal Russo was quoted: “Of course, the brand has been hammered, but the ideas haven't been hammered—and that's why they will always come back.”

The unrepentant Russo is described by the Chronicle reporter as “the Sacramento GOP political consultant who founded Tea Party Express, a network that since it began in early 2009 has connected millions of conservative activists, raised millions of dollars, and used its clout to back once-unknown political figures such as Sarah Palin.” That's half right. Russo is indeed one of the political promoters who reaped a rich reward by running out in front of a horde of disgruntled anti-Obama right-wingers and became a “grassroots leader” willing to collect names and spam those people with incessant appeals for money to fight against the Kenyan-Marxist-Socialist threat in the White House. Whether you account him successful or not depends on your choice of metric. Fleecing the flock? Brilliant success! Defeating Obama? Miserable failure!

But I come neither to bury Russo nor to praise him. He is what he is and his political operation will undoubtedly continue to seek willing victims to feed its appetites. My theme is taken from journalist Alan Barth, who in a 1943 book review penned the phrase, “News is only the rough first draft of history.” (The catchy line was later taken up by Philip L. Graham and others.) If the San Francisco Chronicle's news article on the so-called Tea Party is a “rough first draft” of history, I think the emphasis must be on “rough.” Did you spot the same anachronism that I did?

Yeah. It's the bit about Sarah Palin: “used its clout to back once-unknown political figures such as Sarah Palin.” While Palinistas abound in the ranks of the various Tea Parties, carts and horses are getting pretty badly mixed up in the Chronicle reporter's notebook. Palin was a political unknown only until John McCain disqualified himself from the presidency by tapping her as his running mate in the summer of 2008. That's several months before Rick Santelli blew his stack and called on live television in February 2009 for a “Chicago Tea Party” from the floor of the Chicago Mercantile Exchange. Right-wing interests were quick to exploit the opportunity to create various Tea Party organizations (like Russo's Tea Party Express), aided and abetted by constant promotional exposure on Fox News.

Today the Tea Party ranks are full of broken-hearted activists who grudgingly backed Mitt Romney as the only viable vehicle to oppose Antichrist Obama. Many of them pine for Sarah Palin to return from her frozen exile to lead them on a crusade (where “crusade” is indeed le mot juste) to save the nation from various ill-defined fates worse than death. But the Tea Party, as such, postdates Palin's over-extended fifteen minutes of fame. It had nothing to do with turning her from a “once-unknown political figure” into the wet dream of deranged right-wingers.

A failure of imagination

Non carpe diem

If it weren't Saturday, my reaction would have been different. Cartoonists like Stephan Pastis have confessed that Saturday is where weak comic strips go to die—or at least to be overlooked. If Scott Adams had scheduled the Dilbert strip to run on a Monday, I would have perceived it as the first installment in a promising new story arc, with four sequels to anticipate. Since, however, it appeared in Saturday's newspaper, the strip was evidently considered a dud, or at best a squib with a small pop. Here's the key panel:

Dilbert replies that his pointy-haired boss should not have high expectations for Dilbert's first draft. The reader can now emit a short, dry chuckle and move on. Unless Adams surprises me on Monday, however, this is a missed opportunity. Isn't the creation of content-free responses to awkward questions a significant corporate survival skill? Consider the following hypothetical question, which we can anticipate in general form if not in specific:

Q: What are your plans for NOUN? We can't afford to let our competition get ahead of us on NOUN.

Really, now. How difficult could it be to answer that question? Try this on for size (and impenetrability):

A: I'm glad you asked that. Our planning task force has a subgroup specifically devoted to NOUN and will be rolling out a timeframe for NOUN implementation that will maintain our competitive edge. We have been aware of the importance of NOUN for quite some time and have allocated resources for appraisal of NOUN options from our future projects initiative. We feel that we are ahead of the curve on NOUN and will be able to respond quickly to rival NOUN implementations.

You can't go too far wrong with that, can you?

Q: Are you ready to VERB? Your master plan does not address VERBing anywhere.

You already have the idea now. The answers write themselves:

A: Actually, the master plan has provisions for seizing opportunities for creative departures in new directions, implicitly including VERBing. You may be unaware that [random name] has specialized training in how to VERB and can bring those skills on-line in the near-term to establish our presence in VERBing in a high-profile and significant way. This is especially true because [repeat name] is the nexus of an inter-departmental strategy team that can facilitate cross-division implementation of VERBing options where those options are most appropriately tailored to enhance high achievement relative to our success metrics.

That speaks volumes, no? (No.)

With all of his experience in corporate bureaucracy, Scott Adams could easily have cobbled together a sequence of four superficially responsive non-responses for a series of strips. Alas, it looks like a missed opportunity.

I suppose it would be fun to add a couple of examples with more of an educational orientation, but I used all of those up in our latest accreditation report.

Comics crushed on the wheel of time

Déjà vu with Lucy Van Pelt

In place of the “eternal feminine,” Lucy from the Peanuts comic strip provides us with the “eternal fussbudget.” This week she spoke a truth laden with irony from the funny pages of the newspaper. The irony was new, generated by the fact that Lucy's words were not. Here is the installment from January 2, 2013, where Lucy is fussing about the supposedly “new” year.

The year, of course, is not the only thing that was “used.” For the uninitiated, the giveaway could be found in the label Classic Peanuts, the sign that Charles Schulz may be long gone but his undead comic has been sucked into the endless time-vortex of the modern comics page. Classic Peanuts had plenty of company. Lynn Johnston's For Better or Worse was shocked back into life with a brisk slap of the defibrillator paddles. The rebooted strip went into reruns, recycling the original strips (ostensibly with some modest editorial oversight and emendations by Johnson.)

At least these recycled comic strips are the actual products of the bylined cartoonists. The late Schulz and the retired Johnston really did write those gags and create those drawings. If you're fortunate(?) enough to have The Wizard of Id in your local paper, you'll see that it still carries the bylines of its late creators, Brant Parker and Johnny Hart, although it has long been in the hands of the uncredited Jeff Parker. It's not really a secret, of course, but it's still a little weird that the current Parker prefers to work without attribution. Perhaps he prefers that today's readers blame the original creators for today's pallid and deracinated version.

Johnny Hart's other brain-child, B.C. is similarly being kept alive by a distribution syndicate willing to settle for the imitative work of the creator's descendants. It works, right? Otherwise, we would not be seeing the cavalcade of strips that will not die: Dick Tracy has outlived Chester Gould, Blondie lives forever although Chic Young is gone, Mark Trail continues his trail-blazing without the help of Ed Dodd, Dennis the Menace still bothers Mr. Wilson in the absence of Hank Ketcham, and Frank and Ernest were inherited by the son of Bob Thaves. This is by no means an exhaustive list, even if it is a bit exhausting.

I admit that I usually smile when I see Classic Peanuts, even though I often recall having seen the strip before. The work of Charles Schulz holds up to repeated readings. In fact, it's usually better than the “new” strips cobbled together from the remnants of the work of the original creators. These latter offerings are often vigorless revenants that stalk the comics pages, their Frankensteinian stitches showing. If you listen closely, you can hear their sad pleas: “Brains! Brains!” But those brains are long gone.

Advertising conquers physics

Jewelry and reality

A regional jewelry chain has dug into the vaults to unearth a pair of commercials from a couple of years ago to promote sales of the Tacori line of rings. I understand, of course, that one should not confuse advertising with reality—especially not in the case of fine jewelry, which is traditionally entangled with all of the complications and unnaturally heightened romantic hopes and expectations of love and courtship. It doesn't matter. Every time the “Cupid's Arrow” commercial appears, I sit transfixed in grudging admiration of its blatant disregard for verisimilitude. If you can afford the expense of generating photo-realistic animation, why not use it with a careless disregard of the real-realistic world? Just shove that old camel through the eye of a needle! Rich people haunted by Matthew 19:24 will rejoice.



Just so you know it's no accident, Tacori violates the integrity of solid objects just as light-heartedly in its earlier “Checkmate” commercial. Again I cringe.


No doubt we're supposed to suspend disbelief and simply enjoy the surrealism of these highly transgressive advertisements. No over-thinking. Just go and buy the miraculous jewelry. Or ... are the magical powers inherent in the arrow and the chessmen instead? Or even just the black queen? Oh, the confusion of it all!

Warding off bullets with magic

Armored with irrationality

Ruben Navarrette was outraged by the behavior of some people in the wake of the massacre of schoolchildren in Connecticut. The syndicated columnist quickly took aim at those who offended his sensibilities: the people who decried America's insane love affair with guns. Navarrette was dismayed by the prompt and vigorous reaction by supporters of more stringent gun-control standards. In his view, they were guilty of not maintaining a sufficiently long period of silence. The NRA, at least, was good enough to duck and cover for an entire week before calling a press conference to double-down on their traditional gun-worshipping insanity.

Navarrette singled out in his column some especially egregious offenders against common decency:

How about giving a horrified and heartbroken nation a chance to mourn and bury the dead? How about showing some respect for the victims you claim to care about? How about giving politics, pet causes and partisan jockeying a rest until we wipe our tears and catch our breath?

Tell that to Rep. Jerrold Nadler, D-N.Y., who said after the shootings: “If now is not the time to have a serious discussion about gun control and the epidemic of gun violence plaguing our society, I don't know when is.”

Sorry, Ruben. I agree with Nadler. Completely.

Navarrette points his accusing finger at Nadler and other gun critics and demands, “Have you no decency?”

Go to hell, Ruben.

In his defense, we should perhaps point out that Navarrette is legitimately worried over the state of the nation—although he dismisses Nadler's similar concern. The columnist fears for the safety of his children, as would any responsible parent. His solution? A return to childhood superstition.

I spent Sunday morning looking for answers in a place I hadn't been in a while—a pew of my neighborhood church. The woman next to me wore pain on her face, and didn't smile once during the hour-long service. I held on tight to my kids. During communion*, I asked the priest to bless them. As we walked toward the altar, I whispered, “This is to keep you safe.”

Yeah, Ruben. And a garlic clove dangling from a neck thong will keep vampires away.

---

*Note: Is Navarrette a nominal Catholic? If Navarrette has indeed been absent from his neighborhood church for a while, then he is guilty of the mortal sin of deliberately missing mass and therefore cannot legitimately partake of communion. I have more contempt for pretend-Catholics like Navarrette than those who take seriously the arcane rules of the club they belong to. If you think that communion is real, then you apparently believe in the Church's magical powers. How does that square with flouting the Church's rules except when you feel like going in for a tasteless snack?

Religion: the cure for science

Praying instead of studying?

I'm not sure what Bob Christopher was doing in college during his years as a biology major, but it sure wasn't learning science. Christopher had occasion during today's installment of “People to People” on Christian radio to discuss how learned-up he was about science. Seems, however, that it didn't take. During a program on Christmas titled “Jesus is the Reason,” Christopher fielded a question on evolution from a young man named Shawn, who hails from Waco, Texas. He promptly trotted out the “only a theory” meme:

Shawn: I'm really wondering, though, about evolution. I hear this a lot. I hear, of course, you know, we're descendants of Adam and Eve. You know, just kind of wondering what your thoughts are on evolution.

Bob Christopher: Well, Shawn, my degree in college is a degree in biology, so I spent a lot of time studying the theory of evolution. And that's exactly what it is: it is merely a theory. There's no scientific fact that supports evolution as the way we came into being. There is microevolution, there are small changes that occur within the species, but the species always remains the same. We don't see one species changing into another as evolution would have it. That's just not supported with the facts. But it is a theory. It's an intriguing theory. It's an interesting theory. It held no water until geologists came along and started proposing the idea that the earth was much older than we first believed. Up until the mid 1800s it was just a known fact—or at least everybody believed—the world was no older than six thousand years as far as the age was concerned. But geologists started proposing that quite possibly that it would be older than that, could be millions of years. And without that assertion into the scientific community, the theory of evolution would have died. Why? Because that theory requires time for it to be a reality. So the geologists helped move it along just a little bit and it took root in the scientific community and they've been exploring it and trying to figure it out ever since. But, quite frankly, I think it's a veil that they're using to cover up what they really believe, and what they really believe is that there is no God. And so they're using that veil of evolution to hide that fact.

Who is this “they” that Bob Christopher keeps talking about? This mysterious entity appears to comprise all scientists and teachers of science. Christopher's further remarks do not clarify his meaning. In fact, he concludes his argument with a shocking revelation.

Bob Christopher: And so schools have bought into it hook, line, and sinker, they're teaching it as if it was truth, but it's not truth. It is just a theory. It's a person's theory on how things came into being. It stands in opposition to what the word of God has to say, and as far as science is concerned— I love science. I was, like I said, a science major. I thought the courses I took in college were absolutely fascinating. I was intrigued by every single one of them. But science, if you follow the evidence, I think that evidence is going to lead you right back to God. It has to. God is the author of science. God knows how this world works. God is the very force that holds it together. He understands physics better than our best physicists that are out there. He understands the way the body functions better than any medical doctor, better than any biologist. He knows how our chemicals work inside of us better than any biochemist. He knows us better than anyone else. He knows how this thing works. So any study of science, any real study of science, that looks at the evidence and looks at the facts and lets the evidence and the facts speak for themselves, that person is going to be led to the Creator. And I think more and more scientists, up in the upper echelons of the scientific community are coming to that reality.

Really, Bob? The most prestigious members of the science community are embracing the God hypothesis? You'd think someone would have noticed this trend by now, especially since it entails a dramatic reversal of a highly publicized result from 1998, when it was determined that only 7% of the members of the National Academy of Sciences (is that “upper echelon” enough for you, Bob?) believe in a personal God. The God-botherers within the nation's scientific elite could hold a convention in a phone booth with room left over for the catering staff.

Better do it soon. Phone booths are going the way of the dodo.

Music. Therefore, God.

A different fine-tuned argument

The resident curmudgeon at the American Record Guide decided to share a few theological nuggets in his column in the November/December 2012 issue. Editor Donald Vroon has had personal experience of God through music, and shame on you if you don't acknowledge this as proof of the deity's existence:

I have often said that music is spiritual in its essence. It reaches us thru purely physical means (sounds) but it conveys so much more. (Actually, I believe that all spiritual values come to us thru physical things.) Music has always been viewed as divine, and the power of music makes it impossible to deny that there is a God. I think that is so obvious to the true music lover that we suspect that anyone who persists in denying God is fighting his own inner conviction that there must be. And he may have good reasons for that, but he may also be blinded by a false faith in reason and/or science that fails to see how limited their vision is. It may very well be that the largest, most important realities are beyond reason and science—both too simple and too complex for them.

As arguments go, it's not a particularly strong one. The foundation stones are shot through with the weakening striations of “I think that is so obvious” and “It may very well be.” Nor can I say that I am especially impressed by his wide-stance, have-it-both-ways declaration that some things are “both too simple and too complex” for comprehension by reason and science. Here, instead of tautology (“I believe because I believe”), he invokes internal contradiction. Sorry, Donald, but the Venn diagram blobs for “too complex” and “too simple” don't intersect.

Vroon cites Easter Vigil services as further evidence of his experience of the divine:

[T]he bishop stands up, spreads his arms, and shouts “The Lord is Risen”—and joy breaks forth: bells ring and peal, the organ comes to life and roars, the lights go up, and the candles are put out. And we sing! And every year at that moment I lose conscious control of myself and burst into tears. My surroundings vanish and I am on a higher plane—and I don't want to come down again.

Higher plane? Vroon is caught up in a well-choreographed theatrical event (with better staging than most religious spectacles of my experience) and equates that with ascending toward God. At least he's consistent. He continues:

That is exactly the same response I have to parts of Mahler—and Wagner, Strauss, and Bruckner.

Hey, me too! Vroon cites my favorite composers. But I don't confuse a deep emotional response to thrilling music with mystical communion with a godhead. In fact, I draw a conclusion opposite to that of the esteemed Mr. Vroon: If humans are capable of generating such profoundly stirring experiences, then where's the evidence (or the need) for positing divine intervention? While it's true that Mahler and Bruckner were imbued with religious feelings that they were trying to work out (while Wagner and Strauss mostly just worshipped themselves), Gustav and Anton place no obligation on me to give God credit for their compositional genius. I recognize it directly.

I have experienced enough with music to begin to rise to God.... I have tried to write about this a few times, and I am never satisfied that I have dealt with it adequately.

Indeed not. Perhaps because you want your ecstatic experience of music to entail more than emotional enjoyment and the physical impact of an endorphin rush. For me, the enjoyment is enough.

Deck the halls with Schadenfreude

Being good during the holidays

I first saw the anti-Obama LOL sticker last year on the back of an SUV that also carried the logo of a local Republican women's group. It seemed little more than kitschy snark from an aggrieved right-winger—especially in this deeply blue section of northern California. Poor thing. Of course, I once enjoyed displaying an anti-Bush sticker that called him the worst president ever. All in good fun! (Actually, I was in dead earnest.)

As we all know, Republicans are deeply devoted to recycling. Hence it was no surprise recently to see a vehicle (another SUV!) sporting a variation on the worst-president theme. This has probably been going on since the days of James Buchanan, if not before. (Even good old George Washington came in for some licks of his own from his political opponents.)

I'm thinking that perhaps I should get myself one of those Obama LOL stickers for my own vehicle, repurposing it to suit the happy results of the 2012 elections. Whose turn is it to laugh out loud now, bitches? On the other hand, my better judgment tells me it would be better to gloat internally rather than externally. In fact, that's what I did during the Thanksgiving holiday, when I was in the midst of disheartened family members whose trucks (and SUVs) sported Romney-Ryan stickers. A subliminal aura of gloom hovered over the festivities, although I had as cheerful and upbeat a demeanor as ever. Since they were reticent about their disappointments, I refrained from chortling my joy.

Even Dad tried—mostly successfully—to be good. Instead of his usual rants and jeremiads, he kept his own counsel and contented himself with watching the entertaining antics of his many great-grandchildren. His one slip-up, if it was even that, occurred during a conversation about a recent wedding attended by several of the members of the family. I didn't know the people involved, but my parents traveled to the Central Valley city where the nuptial mass was celebrated. The local church was an old-style building festooned with statuary and iconic art. Dad vigorously approved this exemplar of pre-Vatican II ecclesial practice. He waxed nostalgic while recounting the beauty of the church, the mass service, and the traditional hymns:

“It actually choked me up a couple of times. It really took me back. It made me thankful for my many blessings: My long life, good health, wonderful wife, great children and grandchildren and great-grandchildren, and getting to live in this nation while it was a free country.” Because, you know, it ain't anymore, what with that black tyrant squatting in the White House. I winced when he said, “while it was a free country,” but I kept quiet. Besides, the family has had plenty of experience dealing with him, and even the majority that tends to agree with him prefers to head him off before he launches into political oratory. In this case, a quick remark about the beauty of the bride took the conversation in a much safer direction and Dad subsided into silence. Perhaps he was contemplating the future of his great-grandchildren in socialistic bondage.

As Thanksgivings go, it was a relatively happy holiday. Anyway, as long as I don't provoke my father by actually saying, “Happy holidays!”

Plus or minus

Rather missing the point 

One of my favorite negative reviews on RateMyProfessors.com is the following:

I don't understand why people say he is a good instructor. Many students in his class struggle to get a good grade. yes he is clear but his tests are extremely difficult. And expect a ton of repetitive homework assignments.

Let's deconstruct my student's complaint piece by piece:

Many students in his class struggle to get a good grade.

Yes? You mean they don't get good grades automatically? The student in question was enrolled in a calculus class. Such classes are notorious for easy grades, right? Yeah, right. More to the point: In a typical college class you can expect a distribution of grades, most of which are C's. Not what I would call “a good grade.” Good grades are A's and B's, earned only by those students who put in the effort.

[E]xpect a ton of repetitive homework assignments.

I checked. The syllabus contained homework assignments for each section with, typically, 12 to 20 problems. There were 33 sections that we covered, so students were expected to solve approximately 500 problems over the course of a 16-week semester, or a little over 30 exercises per week. (My bleeding heart weeps for them.)

Funny thing: There is a remarkably high correlation between doing the homework and getting one of those good grades. There were thirty students in the class. I note that only one student in the top half of homework performance was not earning an A or a B (and that one student was pulling a solid C). Of the fifteen students in the bottom half of homework performance, only four had “good” grades (three B's and one A [there's one in every crowd]). Conclusion: Do the work, get a good grade.

[H]is tests are extremely difficult.

Evidently not the case for those who work at it by doing the “repetitive” assignments. (Average scores were actually in the low eighties.)

yes he is clear

Thank you very much. Clarity is something I strive for and I am pleased that you noticed.

I don't understand why people say he is a good instructor.

Indeed you don't.

Check and mate

Several moves ahead

The president's most devoted advocates believe that Barack Obama is a political genius who plays eleventh-dimensional chess, always several moves ahead of his opponents. I was thinking about this a lot before the election, right after his bloodless performance in the first presidential debate spread dismay among the ranks of his supporters. Had he lost his touch?

I had been confident of the president's re-election. It shook me to see his Electoral College lead shrinking in Nate Silver's projections and his likelihood of winning falling to sixty percent. I wanted him back at eighty and, indeed, he gradually climbed back up there after Joe Biden kicked off the recovery phase of the campaign with a drubbing of the over-matched Paul Ryan.

In retrospect, I recall the worries I had in thinking that Obama was likely to put Romney away in the first debate. Sure, I wanted a stake driven through the heart of the Republican presidential ticket, but the governor's definitive defeat would divert huge rivers of SuperPAC cash from Romney-Ryan and funnel that money instead into regional campaigns for House and Senate seats. I was afraid that the result would be a solo victory for the president, while Democratic candidates were washed away in a tsunami of unregulated special-interest dollars.

The temporary Romney surge (the “Mittmentum” that horse-race-obsessed talking heads kept babbling about long after it faded away) put an end to my fears about down-ticket races. The Romney-Ryan effort would continue to soak up all of the available cash. Ironically, we have learned after the fact that Romney's vaunted management skills were not equal to the task of using his resources efficiently and effectively. Those monies he controlled directly through his campaign team were often squandered in over-priced media spots costing much more than the president's political ads. Obama's superior bang-for-the-buck may have neutralized the independent outside money that came down on Romney's side.

To borrow Ross Perot's term from an earlier presidential campaign, the “loud sucking sound” we all heard was the Romney-Ryan campaign vacuuming campaign dollars into a black hole of wasted opportunity. Did this Republican profligacy save the Senate campaigns of Jon Tester, Heidi Heitkamp, Tammy Baldwin, and Tim Kaine? Perhaps not, but it sure didn't hurt.

The Republican ticket was clearly hurt by incompetence at the top, with that negative impact trickling down to the state-level races. Did the president help the GOP fall on its face by pulling his punches in the first debate? Media reports that he was pleased with his performance suggest otherwise. Perhaps it wasn't eleventh-dimensional chess after all.

My brother's keeper

Cain and Abel?

A student was talking to a friend. He sounded a bit irked.

“My brother is enrolled in a college in Oakland. He's having a really bad time in his math class.”

His friend nodded her head in sympathy. The young man continued his tale of woe.

“Yeah, a really bad time. You know, I took the placement test for him so that he could get into the class in the first place, but it's really kicking his butt!”

Strange to say, the boy sounded exasperated. Here he had done his brother this great big favor, helping him enroll in a class for which he was not prepared, and nevertheless his brother was squandering this golden opportunity by flunking the class. No doubt the brother was insufficiently grateful, too.

At least the young man has a great future before him. He'd be a natural as a Republican campaign consultant.

Must be present to win

A cry for help

One of my students—let's call him “Dick”—sent me a distressed e-mail. He was not doing well in class and was hoping for some wise words of guidance from his teacher. His semi-coherent message ran thus:

hey Dr.Z dick here,
hey i wanted to run over a little bit of questions, 1.please tell me if there is anything you can pinpoint from my work that i can work on to develope the grasp of this sections.i do not want to fail and sometimes i feel i can grasp it then sometimes i fail it.i do not want to fail this class i meet with tutors every week twice and home tutors and i can do decent but cannot prove my worth on every other test.im using the dropin ctr efficiently...any help you can recommend i do not want to lose my financial aid as it is viable to my continued succession.i can retake the course next semester as a retry but do not want to receive a W as it may discontinue my aid as well..
dick,

I often reply immediately to such messages, both to reassure the student and to prevent them from getting lost in the in-box maelstrom. Students benefit most from timely feedback. This time, though, I sat on my hands and just stared. And stared. And walked away from the computer.

Dick was in class the next day. I asked him to see me at the end of the period. He dutifully approached me as his classmates filed out of the room.

“I got your message, Dick, but I have to say I'm puzzled. Isn't it obvious what you need to do?”

“Huh? I'm trying everything I can, Dr. Z!”

“Even attending class? You routinely miss one class session per week and you often skip two. I'm less impressed about the frequency with which you meet with tutors if you don't attend actual class sessions.”

“Well, uh, sometimes I can't make it.”

“So it seems. But if you can't attend class, you can't reasonably expect to pass it. And where is the work you're doing with your tutors? I didn't see any homework from you for the last two chapters. So far, in fact, you've missed about thirty percent of the homework and quizzes. You'd barely be passing if you got perfect scores on the remaining seventy percent, but you're nowhere close to that.”

Dick had nothing to say, but he was nice enough to look embarrassed.

“Dick, I was astonished by your message, especially since it should be perfectly obvious that you desperately need to come to class and pay attention to the lessons. You can't skip out on a third of our sessions and survive. Few students could get away with that. I need to see you in class, on time, every day for the rest of the semester. That's my advice.”

He nodded his head. He even showed up the next day. Two days in a row. That's good! I wait to see if he makes it to three, which has occurred before—but rarely.

One thing sticks in my mind, though. Dick was clearly surprised—startled, even—at my advice. The notion of actually coming to class regularly had never occurred to him.

Self-validation

Oops! ... I did it again

It was an accident.

I gave my students a take-home quiz, due at the beginning of our next class period. This doesn't happen too often, but it's a nice opportunity for them to score maximum points by working together and carefully comparing notes before submitting their results. With a few exceptions (the handful of students who prefer to keep their work as secret as possible), my students spring at the chance to cooperate and rack up the points.

This time was no exception. However, one student e-mailed me with a concern. “Abe” had transportation issues and was afraid he might be late to class or even miss it entirely. As a precaution, he had scanned his solution to the quiz and attached the image to his message. I wrote back to put him at ease, confirming my receipt of his work, and wishing him good luck in making it to class the next day.

As it turned out, Abe was in class that next morning and handed in the original version of his quiz. I slipped it into my binder along with all of the others. Like the absent-minded professor I am, I quite forgot that I had printed out his scan and already had that in my quiz folder. During my grading session that afternoon, I inadvertently graded Abe's quiz twice, marking up both the original and the scan.

I noticed my oversight while sorting the quizzes into alphabetical order for purposes of entering the scores in my gradebook. I placed the two versions of Abe's quiz side by side and discovered that they were still identical: My red-ink marks on the two quizzes were identically placed, the corrections were a perfect match, and both quizzes bore the exact same score.

Naturally I was pleased. Consistent grading is one of the most important factors in treating students equitably. Here I had evidence that my correction process was rigorously—even rigidly—consistent. I have achieved the gold standard in the potentially capricious and subject process of grading!

Either that, or I'm a robot.

Did not do the math

An example of undercutting

If a large fraternal organization invites you to be the speaker at its annual fundraiser, you should definitely accept. If that same organization asks you to contribute a signed copy of your novel for the silent auction, you should provide it. If they reserve a table in the lobby for a local bookseller to hawk your book, your delight should exceed all bounds!

However...

If they put a starting bid on your book of $25 when it's being sold for $21 in the lobby, don't be surprised if your book is left behind on the auction table. Oops!