What isn't so

Irrationality at large

“It ain't ignorance causes so much trouble; it's folks knowing so much that ain't so.” —Josh Billings

The local affiliate of Salem Communications broadcasts a short news break just before the hour. Sometimes I tune it in just before punching the button for a more mainstream station's top-of-the-hour newscast. These occasional doses of right-wing media keep me informed on what the nut-case fringe is saying, and it can be enlightening. Recently, while driving to school in the early morning, I tuned in the Salem station and heard its newscaster's report, “The nonpartisan Congressional Budget Office reports that the Obama administration's healthcare act will cost the nation's economy two-point-three million jobs in the next dozen years.”

It was startling news. My first thought: That's a lie. I was considering the source. By the end of the day, I had discovered the truth. The full implementation of ObamaCare would pick the so-called “job-lock” and free people who had been forced to stay in jobs they hated simply to preserve their health benefits. The CBO estimated that over two million people would be able to give up their second (or third!) jobs, scaling back to something less burdensome without running the risk of losing health insurance. In many cases, it would presumably enable parents to spend more time at home with children, which is something Republicans also support as long as it's merely theoretical.

And, as we have already seen, the GOP will repeat the “job-killing” claim at the top of their lungs all during the 2014 election campaign. Will this be the year that it doesn't work because they've cried “wolf” much too often already? If so, I look forward to their being devoured.

Ignorance is not a mysterious thing. All of us have it in abundance, even as we whittle away at it during our lives. What we have been seeing, however, to a greater degree in recent years than I can recall in previous decades of politician-watching, is the deliberate nurturing of ignorance, the creation of fake knowledge (like an inoculation?) to keep people from absorbing genuine knowledge. The right-wing propagandists have raised this to a high art.

It was just a few years ago that I was in Texas during the summer to visit some friends who had moved from California. The matriarch of the clan was concerned about the state of the national economy and confided her worries to me. Knowing that I had been a legislative staffer in Sacramento and assuming I still had some insight into such matters, she wanted to know if there was any chance that the U.S. Congress would “fix” matters by repealing ObamaCare. “If only they could get rid of it, the national debt problem would be solved!” She really believed that (and had never heard about the CBO analysis that determined ObamaCare would reduce the nation's annual deficits).

She also had Fox News playing in the den during every waking hour. She wasn't uninformed. She was massively misinformed.

Quite recently one of my nieces became one of the president's hapless victims. She wasn't quiet about it. ObamaCare had forced her to change doctors (which, you know, never happened when insurance companies ran the world) and “Becky” was furious:

Becky feeling annoyed

So... I am so disgusted in Obama!!!! My insurance plan disappeared because it was not OBAMA approved. So instead of having basic insurance and paying cash for my dental and vision and paying $300 for my family. So now I am being forced to go to Covered California and pay $250 with the state paying $250 and putting my kids on medical. How does make any sense!!!!!!

After reading her plaintive post on Facebook, I pointed out a little bit of reality (cribbed from my blog post on same):

Your insurance company did not have to cancel your policy. It decided that it wanted to do it despite language in the healthcare act that permits individuals to maintain existing policies. It's in Section 1251 of the Affordable Healthcare Act:

SEC. 1251. PRESERVATION OF RIGHT TO MAINTAIN EXISTING COVERAGE. (a) NO CHANGES TO EXISTING COVERAGE.(1) IN GENERAL.—Nothing in this Act (or an amendment made by this Act) shall be construed to require that an individual terminate coverage under a group health plan or health insurance coverage in which such individual was enrolled on the date of enactment of this Act.

What the act did not do, however, was mandate that the insurance companies keep offering the plans people wanted to keep, and many companies have grabbed the chance to cancel lots of policies. They didn't have to. They wanted to. The administration should have anticipated this and blocked it, which would have given some teeth to the president's you-can-keep-it pledge.

I might as well been hollering into a dry well. Some of Becky's Tea Party buddies chimed in. Here’s a couple:

Sadie: I hated him before this - but we had all sorts of trouble getting coverage because of Joeys pre existing condition - even though that wasnt ment to be taken into consideration. Its a joke and a very bad one.

Sadie refused to recognize that the ACA is what made her husband’s pre-existing condition irrelevant. It was all the fault of the hated president, who was daring to occupy the White House while black.

Gertrude: All the people that voted for him owe the rest of us working people an apology !!!

Don't hold your breath, Gertie!

And here’s my niece again, for the big finish!

Becky: To privately cover my family would now cost me $800-$1000 per month with a $4000 deductible. That is ridiculous.

So Becky points out that private health insurance is damned expensive. As much as a thousand per month, with a high deductible. Wow! Instead of like before, when her bare-bones insurance plan cost her $300 (as mentioned above). Now, of course, under Covered California, she’ll pay $250 for a $500 policy. Hurray? No! That's only because she's also getting a $250 subsidy, and that’s (apparently) awful and humiliating! Like welfare!

Sounds like ObamaCare worked to her advantage, although there is the aggravation of having to choose a new primary care physician, since her old doctor was tied to the old plan and (I guess) is not available under the new. But saving $50 each month is sort of good, no? No! It’s communism! (Or something.)

Perhaps I'll get some sympathy when I tell my niece that I had to change health plans in order to keep the doctor I've had for several years as my primary care physician. When she gloats that I, too, am a victim of the Affordable Care Act, I'll mention it occurred before the measure was enacted. I was, instead, a victim of my college district's health insurance providers—back in those days when the insurance companies ran everything and the president had yet to drive us from health-insurance paradise.

Sharing the good news

A most unlikely source

Do you remember Ken Ham's lament that most teenagers stop going to church when they leave the family nest? The Creation Museum highlights the datum that only one in three continue their participation in church activities once they are on their own. It's one of the most uplifting features of Ham's “museum.”

Similar good news comes to us now from Michael Voris, the unconscious self-parody who holds forth at ChurchMilitant.TV, routinely excoriating the insufficiently ardent faith of the current leadership of the Roman Catholic Church. Voris wrings his hands in frequent episodes of  The Daily Vortex (“where lies and falsehoods are trapped and exposed” [the distinction between lies and falsehoods is never clarified]), decrying the lack of rigor in contemporary Catholic practice.

Despite himself, Voris recently found himself unhappily reporting good news from the annual “March for Life” in Washington, D.C. With microphone in hand, Voris accosted several young demonstrators who styled themselves “pro-life” and quizzed them on camera, subjecting them to a quick inquisition on the depth and breadth of their faith. To his horror, he discovered that approximately 30% of the young Catholics were unwilling to agree that contraception is always wrong: “Do you think a couple using birth control is always wrong in every situation?”



Voris was deeply shocked that many respondents did not agree with him that contraception is inherently a “diabolical evil.” The video ends with a lengthy and irritatingly repetitive diatribe against all forms of birth control (in stark black-and-white for enhanced drama). Exposing the laxity of young Catholics with respect to contraception was just the tip of the iceberg. Voris also quizzed the March for Life participants on the evils of homosexuality. Many of the young demonstrators disappointed Voris in their lack of anti-gay militancy. “Do you think it is okay for two guys to be in a romantic relationship?”



Some of the respondents are the same young people who indicated acceptance of contraception in the previous installment of The Vortex, but several new faces also popped up. A few of them wanted to qualify their position as “tolerance” rather than as “acceptance” of the right of people to engage in same-sex relationships, but Voris was still deeply dismayed that approximately 20% were essentially okay with gay partnerships.

Voris and his fellow Catholic militants fancy themselves as the faithful remnant that will be exalted at the second coming of Jesus Christ (any day now!), although they do not embrace the rapture concept of evangelical Protestant eschatology. Instead they are bracing themselves for the great apostasy that they believe is already rampant in what Voris dismissively describes as “the Church of Nice,” the insufficiently macho current incarnation of the One True Church. The bunker mentality is evident in each episode of The Vortex. But with Voris's every pronouncement of impending doom, the sensible viewer can take comfort in the dwindling influence of his point of view within the ranks of the next generation of Catholics. Not even the clergy embrace Voris's extreme ultramontanism.

Gaudeamus!

The new car, part 2

Let's make a deal

I am a mission-oriented shopper. Decide in advance what you want. Get in, get out. Done. Browsing is for bookstores only. Nothing else. Unless, of course, it can't be helped.

It could not be helped when my car died a couple of days after Christmas. When the service agent told me how much it would cost to bring my vehicle back to functional life, I asked to be referred to the sales department. Before long, I was in the clutches of an eager sales representative. Let's call him “Pete.” We immediately embarked on a magical mystery tour that I have yet to understand, but which I will strive to relate. Except for some small details and slightly rounded numbers, this is exactly what occurred.

New or used?

Pete asked me where I wanted to go, the used-car lot or the new vehicle showroom. There were some holiday specials to make the new cars more attractive, but I preferred to see what the used lot had to offer first. (I really didn't expect to end up pricing the new automobiles; I'm more of a bargain hunter than that.) Pete had two cars on offer that he thought I might like, especially since both were updated versions of my deceased vehicle. One was a 2007 hybrid and the other was a 2006 V6. The V6 was perky like my old car (also a V6), but the 2007 hybrid was no slouch. The hybrid was listed at $13,500. The V6 was a year older, but was listed at $18,000. I took each car out for a test drive and decided on the hybrid. I wanted to move into the 21st century.

It was about 4:30 when I made my choice, mere hours after my old car had been pronounced dead. I didn't haggle. It's not my nature. I was ready to go. I was not, however, taking into account the time-consuming rituals required by the process of car purchasing.

I had my checkbook in my pocket and I was ready to pay cash. The sales rep turned me over to his manager. The sales manager was bluff, unkempt, and overly friendly. I didn't really care. I could pretend to be buddies for a while. He handed me some paperwork to fill out. The manager—let's call him “Jim”—disappeared for several minutes into the rabbit warren of offices adjoining the sales floor while I sat on a plastic chair at a Formica table and sipped some water that Pete had fetched for me. When Jim returned, he pulled out the chair next to mine and took a look at the form I had filled out. He scratched out a big chunk of it because I was not applying for credit.

“With tax, license, and fees,” he said, “it comes to fifteen-five.”

It seemed sufficiently shrug-worthy. “Okay,” I said. ”Exactly fifteen thousand five hundred.”

“That's right,” he said, and watched while I wrote out a check. But he left the check where I placed it on the table. “Hang on a minute and I'll be right back,” he said.

A special offer

This time it was a longer wait. I was getting fidgety and irritated. I just wanted to get it over with and figured that a trouble-free customer like me should have been whisked through with a little more efficiency. But only half an hour had trickled by since I had said, “That one.” It was hardly at the ordeal level yet.

Jim was back. He sat down at the table. He had a piece of paper in his hand. It bore an easily-read number: $16,600. I scowled. My check for $15,500 was still on the table in front of me.

“We're going to be giving you a discount,” he said.

I kept quiet. In my opinion, the number in his hand did not reflect a discount. Jim was ready to explain how wrong I was.

“Your car was posted on our website at a special price, which we have to respect for walk-in customers, too. We're dropping the price a thousand dollars for you.”

Okay. That did sound like a discount.

“Sounds good to me,” I said.

“And we're going to offer you a two-year extended warranty on the car's electrical system for only twenty-one hundred, which is a great deal for a hybrid like you're buying.”

Ah. An extended warranty. Dad used to make a lot of money selling those extended warranties to customers who purchased consumer electronics from him. Dad's advice to family members: Never buy an extended warranty.

“No, thanks,” I said.

Jim acted startled. Maybe he was.

“It's a great deal. The whole thing comes to only sixteen six.”

“Yes, I can do the math, but I'll pass on the extended warranty.”

“You sure?”

“Quite sure.”

Jim pulled himself together and stood up, the piece of paper still in his hand.

“Okay,” he said. “I'll set things up.”

“What do I do with this check?” I asked.

“You won't be paying that much,” he said, so I tucked it back into my checkbook.

Pete came over while I was loitering at the showroom windows, watching the sunset. He asked me if I needed anything.

“No. I'm just curious how much longer this is going to take.”

“Oh, no more than another five or six hours,” he said.

I gave him a sharp look. “Just kidding!” he assured me, an awkward smile on his face. I was not particularly amused.

Happy ending

We had killed an hour and a half by the time Jim emerged to conduct me into the inner sanctum where their finance guy was ensconced in a messy, paper-crammed cubby. With a heavy Slavic accent, the finance guy asked me to take a seat in front of his desk. He proceeded to collect my signature about two dozen times on about fifteen different documents. (I'm not even counting all the places I had to initial.) The finance guy mentioned that they had a special offer on an extended warranty for my car's electrical system. “This is a very good deal for a hybrid. They are very complicated.” I assured him I was declining the opportunity. He mentioned it three or four times before I was done signing papers. He finally stopped after I inked a document that stipulated I had been offered the extended warranty and had turned it down in the full knowledge of how wonderful it was.

“Do you know how much this car is going to cost you?” asked the finance guy.

I was wondering if I would be ambushed at the last minute and end up refusing the deal.

“I already cut a check for fifteen-five,” I said, “but Jim says that's not right.”

“Yes, no way are you paying that much.”

That, at least, seemed the right response. He punched some numbers into his computer, scribbled things on the final document, and turned it toward me for my perusal and my signature. I was paying $14,150.

“This is it, then? I can cut a check for this amount?”

“Yes. That exact amount.”

In retrospect, nothing makes more sense now than it made that night. The dealer could have sold me the car for $15.5K. I even cut the check. Then we went through this rigmarole where they tried to get me up to $16.6K. When the fat lady finally sang, I was paying only $14.2K. What was up with that?

It sure wasn't my steely-eyed resolve and virtuoso bargaining skills.

Hit me with your best shot

No vaccine for stupidity

Even before the recent news flurry over anti-vaccine spokesmodel Jenny McCarthy and the status of her son's reported autism, there was a provocative news item in the Sacramento Bee concerning a new medical clinic designed for parents who need assistance in opting out of California's childhood vaccination program, recently made more stringent by long overdue changes in state law. The clinic's founder, Dr. Dean Blumberg, supported the new state law but also describes himself as a firm supporter of parental rights:

“I’m pro-immunization, but I’m also in support of parental rights,” Blumberg said. “That’s why we decided to set up the clinic as a community service, in case there are parents whose health care provider won’t sign the [exemption] form or some parents who don’t have a primary care provider.”

The Bee article generated a laudatory letter to the editor:

Dr. Blumberg helps no-vaccine parents' right to choose

Re “Clinic to aid no-vaccine parents” (Our Region, Dec. 19): Surely, we as doctors and parents can debate the many merits of and concerns with vaccination programs. However, UC Davis Medical Center physician Dean Blumberg has taken a position that is both praiseworthy and responsive to parental rights. As a parent working in emergency medical services, I have decided not to participate in vaccination programs for reasons that are really not at issue. What is at issue is that we are afforded the right and responsibility as parents for our children. I encourage Dr. Blumberg to continue providing information to assist parents in our choices and to continue honoring us as parents as we evaluate this information and make our decisions. The doctor should be recognized for his commitment to the higher standard of self-determination in the practice of pediatric medicine. —CK, Roseville

I was inspired to submit a response that the Bee did not see fit to publish, so I offer it here:

Anti-vaccination parents who leave their children vulnerable to preventable diseases are always so eager to appear rational and reasonable. As one said in Letters, “I have decided not to participate in vaccination programs for reasons that are really not at issue.” Not at issue? How delusional a statement is that? How would people react if a parent said something only slightly different? For example: “I have decided not to use child safety seats in my car with my children for reasons that are really not at issue. In case of a traffic accident, I prefer to hope that my children will be thrown clear.”

The new car

Where's the key?

Two days after Christmas, my car's transmission gave out. After more than sixteen years of dependable service, the vehicle had reached the end of the road. Of course, first I had to get off that road. Since it was an interstate, several helpful fellow drivers seemed to think it was useful to honk their horns and flash their headlights at me. I suppose that was to inform me that my car was in difficulty. Frankly, I thought the fact that I was poking along with my flashers going should have provided a clue that I was aware of the situation, but I guess it was nice of them to be so considerate.

Anyway, once I made my herky-jerky way to the next exit, I managed to creep along the frontage road to a nearby shop. (Since I have a talent for mitigated bad luck, the nearest shop was the one that normally did the maintenance on my car anyway.) The boy who checked me in jotted down the car's mileage and grinned at me: “You're the winner by a mile, sir. Biggest number today.” Yes, an odometer sporting well over 300,000 miles will do that for you. Of course, at that point I was not yet certain that I had finished accumulating miles on that particular car. But I did have a sneaking suspicion. When the service agent told me how much it would cost to replace the transmission, my fears were confirmed and I caught a ride to a nearby dealership. (Therein lies another story; something for later.)

Thus I began the new year in a new car. New to me, anyway. I'm now tooling about in a 2007 hybrid and gradually learning to deal with the 21st century. First of all, I no longer have a key. This freaks me out. I realize that most readers will not be surprised by this, but most people don't cling to a car for sixteen years. I had become completely adapted to that old car. Knobs and switches were all reached reflexively, no looking required. All quirks were completely internalized. Now I have to run a mental check-list before driving off, referring to the owner's manual to save me from pawing randomly at the console while trying to drive.

It's driving me crazy. (Ha, ha; “driving.”)

Good thing school is out. I'm at leisure to poke about town and learn my car's quirks. I've made one trip of significant length (down to Turlock to catch my editor while he was visiting family). That went fine, if a bit white-knuckled. Since the new car is a hybrid, I've learned not to jump when it “stalls” at stop signs. Nope. It's just shifting to electric mode.

I have a little list of things I wish I could fix, now that I'm getting used to the new car. For one thing, why is the B-pillar so wide? I'm meticulous about looking over my left shoulder at my blind spot (good work, Mr. Russ; your driver-ed class programmed me well) before moving into the lane on that side; the new car has a pillar half again as wide as my old car. Why? (Good thing it's not wide enough to hide a nearby car. I'll get used to it.) The inside door grip is farther back; recently, however, my hand has been hitting the right place when I reach for it. I'm getting there.

But that key thing? It's not like old times. No more going to the hardware store to have them grind out an inexpensive spare for me. I have only this one electronic unit that sits in my pocket and causes my car to recognize me. Very convenient but weird. Today I returned to the dealership and ordered up a spare to keep at home. It's worth it for my peace of mind.

“I miss keys,” I said to the manager of the parts department.

“You said it!” he accurately replied. “It's something that wasn't broken, wasn't it?”

Nope. Not at all. But they “fixed” it anyway. And these new-fangled electronic lock controls? They don't even have a button to keep the darned kids off my lawn!

Take the pledge

I mean, swear it off

It's the end of the year and I'm busy making last-minute contributions (here's to you, Alison), including paying up memberships for my local public radio and television stations. Perhaps you have the same reaction I do to the frequent pledge drives. It astonishes me how clumsy and intrusive they are, especially in the case of television. We get to see the same people say the same thing over and over and over again while rerunning the same chopped-up special programs on Victor Borge, Blenko Glass, or—worse—tawdry pitches for unreliable medical or psychological nostrums from the likes of Null, Perricone, or Dyer.

Why do supposedly smart people promote their stations by screwing them up? Why can't the crème de la crème do a minimally competent job of making pledge drives tolerable? It's agonizing how they incessantly repeat the same tired old pitches, gibber at the cameras, pan across telephone banks, and promise intermittently to return to some “special programming” that has been sliced up into bloody chunks. Herewith my modest year end's proposal for less grueling pledge drives on public television.

First of all, no chopped-up special programs. If regular programming is interrupted at all, let the specials be intact and uninterrupted. Since we've all been conditioned to deal with TV screens cluttered with those damned identification “bugs,” why not make more creative use of the video real estate. Most screens are bigger these days and readily subject to manipulation. Embed regular programming in an L-shaped frame. Use the horizontal bar of the frame to keep visible the public TV station's 800 number for pledges. Use the vertical bar for some kind of fundraising thermometer.

That's not quite enough, of course, because the usual format of a public TV pledge drive involves intermediate goals that they hector the viewers to achieve before allowing a return to actual programming. The threat of extended pledge breaks is presumably indispensable for forcing viewers to call in their pledges, but I think creative use of the fundraising thermometer could be an alternative. Set it up so that a target goal is displayed, rising incrementally throughout the pledge period. Also, however, display actual pledge receipts, letting viewers know that real programming will continue—without pledge breaks!—as long as the actual pledge level stays ahead of the rising target. In the mocked-up illustration, I've marked the supposed goal in red and the actual pledges in green. Keep the green marker above the red marker to keep the programming running and the pledge pitches shut down.

Think about it. Wouldn't the Downton Abbey aficionados call in their pledges to preserve the dowager countess from an uncouth interruption?

Brain damage!

Explaining students

Two of the greatest minds in pedagogy recently came together to ponder some of the profoundest educational conundrums of the era. Or, to put it more prosaically, I called up a former student of mine for a chat. I, of course, hold a prestigious tenured professorship at a California community college. He is a lecturer in English at an out-of-state university. No, we are not universally recognized as the leading experts in our respective fields, but we figure that's mostly the fault of other people. Whenever we talk, we quickly reach agreement in our perspectives and opinions. It immediately follows that the many deficiencies in modern education must stem mostly from a failure to sufficiently adopt our preferred policies and emulate our instructional practices. Just listen to us! It's really quite a pity that so straightforward a solution to so many problems continues to languish unrecognized.

However, we should accept the need for a modicum of caution. There is an unfortunate gap in our grasp of the educational enterprise. Upon comparing notes, PiD and I have come to the unhappy realization that our immense intellects have yet to figure out what makes our students go. (Or not go.) It's perplexing!

For example, I told my entire algebra class that our mastery of the quadratic formula meant that we would never again face a quadratic equation for which “no solution” was a satisfactory answer. Solutions would always exist, whether rational, irrational, or complex. Always! Yet on the next exam several of my students labeled some of the quadratic equations as “prime” and solemnly wrote “no solution” in the answer blank.

PiD advised his English composition class that rewrites were a fundamental component of composition and that course grades would rely much more on their diligence in rewriting and improving their essays than on generating sparkling first drafts. As the academic term progressed, several students asked him how to get better grades. “Have you submitted rewrites of all of your essays?” he asked. “We didn't know we had to do that!” they told him. “But the due dates for rewrites are on the syllabus and I send out e-mail reminders as the dates approach!” “Yeah, but we can't know those unless we look at the syllabus or check our e-mail. You should have told us in class.” “But I did tell you in class!” “Well, maybe. But did you check that we were in class that day? I'm too busy to come to class every day, you know.”

A student wrote me a note in response to a problem on the calculus final exam. The problem asked, “What is the area inside the circle r = 3 and outside the cardioid r = 2(1 – cos θ)?” My student wrote, “Failed because I forgot the eq. for a circle in polar coordinates.” Um. Did you notice? The problem said, “the circle r = 3”?

The great minds of the age crumple in defeat.

Perhaps I did not sufficiently recognize a learning opportunity of my own from decades ago, back when my intellect was forming and a famous educator was trying to teach me some vital lessons.  William H. Cosby, Jr., Ed.D. (1976, UMass, Amherst), discovered these clues during highly personalized field research on his own family. Perhaps our students, like Cosby's children, are led into irrational, disturbing behavior by brain damage. It would explain so much!

If only I had paid more attention back then.

Trifling with tradition

A dangerous experiment

The initial notice came from my mother, who called with information about the family's holiday plans: “Thanksgiving dinner will be at your brother's.”

I felt a sudden frisson of anxious concern. And skepticism.

“He has your permission for this?”

“Oh, I think it's a great idea!”

My suspicion was not alleviated. Surely Mom was in denial. Or perhaps she had forgotten the lessons of the past, back when we tried this experiment before. As best as I can recall, it was in the early seventies. Perhaps late sixties. The family had quite overwhelmed the grandparents' dining space. Holiday dinners were served in shifts—menfolk and children at the first sitting, womenfolk and stragglers at the second. (I often managed to prolong my meal through both shifts, occasionally provoking my obese aunt to remark “I hate people like you” as she regarded my scrawny frame.)

In the year in question, someone (I don't know who) hit upon the idea of relocating the family holiday meal to my godmother's home. She had a spacious dining area with ample room for folding tables and an adjacent kitchen counter with stools that the kids loved. My avó (grandmother) was prevailed upon to give her assent and the new world order was implemented.

As I recall, my grandmother did a minimal amount of cooking that year and all the main dishes were prepared by my godmother, Mom, and aunt. Avó was enthroned as guest of honor and scarcely allowed to lift a finger. She presided over the adult table in a regal manner instead of bustling to and fro between kitchen and dining room. She seemed serene.

That's why it came as a shock and surprise when she burst into tears upon returning home and wept the afternoon away. There was no holiday mess in her home and no lingering cooking odors in the air. Avó sat in a home bereft of any trace that it had been a special family holiday and it sucked all the joy of the occasion out of her.

We never made that mistake again. For the rest of my grandmother's life, every subsequent Thanksgiving was squeezed into her home. While others gradually took over more and more of the cooking, Avó was unambiguously in charge of the event and no one trifled with the matriarch's prerogatives as queen of the kitchen and hostess of the event.

Hence my trepidation. While Mom appeared to be on board with my brother's plans, I wondered whether she remembered her mother-in-law's emotional trauma at being displaced.

On Thanksgiving morning, I arrived at the old homestead to find my brother in Mom's kitchen, carving the Thanksgiving ham. Our mother was hovering over the turkey, which was nearly ready to remove from the oven. Shortly before noon, a stream of pans, dishes, and bowls were conveyed outside to the runabout (an electric-powered light utility vehicle used to run errands on the dairy farm) and trundled next door to my brother's workshop. The shop floor had been cleared of current projects (like my brother's rebuilding of the family's old Willys-model Jeep) and a series of round tables and folding chairs set up in the open space—with enough room left over for the grandchildren and great-grandchildren to run about like maniacs. The pans, dishes, and bowls were arrayed on a long buffet table, people filled their plates to overflowing, and Thanksgiving dinner got underway.

“How does it feel to have dinner with everyone else, Mom?”

The question came from my brother.

“Pretty nice,” she replied, smiling, with no hint of reservation.

The leisurely meal lasted well over an hour, winding down with a dessert service. Mom and Dad were at the table where I was seated, so I kept an eye on her, nursing an abiding suspicion. Eventually various family members began to take their leave in order to meet other responsibilities. (My goddaughter would rack up five separate Thanksgiving events by the time she finished visiting relatives and in-laws and close friends.) Before the event had quite broken up, Mom announced that we would be meeting in the same venue for Christmas and my brother nodded his head in confirmation.

“That was really nice,” she said, as we left. “And such a relief!”

I guess those who remember history are sometimes doomed to worry needlessly about repeating it.

It's the law!

Can't anybody here play this game?

My lack of interest in sports is well-nigh complete. Please don't bother making small talk with me by asking whether I “saw the game last night.” Nevertheless, even I remember Casey Stengel's lament about his wretched New York Mets: “Can't anybody here play this game?” Stengel's question sometimes echoes in my head whenever I see another fumble by the Obama administration. (Yeah, I know: “fumble” is football. Did you forget that I don't care?)

Obama and company could stand to be a little more aggressive in the face of constant carping, petty backbiting, and outright lies. The president has been largely content to allow tea-stained critics to denounce him for “lying” about his statements that the Affordable Care Act would allow individuals to keep health insurance plans they liked. A little push-back would have been a good thing, instead of stoically accepting so much abuse and then apologizing.

In particular, I'm thinking Obama should have cited chapter and verse from the healthcare reform legislation itself. Yes, the measure is big and unwieldy (and Republicans like to pretend that no one knew what was in it despite months of delays and debates), but it's not impossible to look things up if you have specific questions. Have you ever read Sec. 1251? Did you even know it exists? Check it out:

SEC. 1251. PRESERVATION OF RIGHT TO MAINTAIN EXISTING COVERAGE.

(a) NO CHANGES TO EXISTING COVERAGE.
    (1) IN GENERAL.—Nothing in this Act (or an amendment made by this Act) shall be construed to require that an individual terminate coverage under a group health plan or health insurance coverage in which such individual was enrolled on the date of enactment of this Act.
    (2) CONTINUATION OF COVERAGE.—With respect to a group health plan or health insurance coverage in which an individual was enrolled on the date of enactment of this Act, this subtitle and subtitle A (and the amendments made by such subtitles) shall not apply to such plan or coverage, regardless of whether the individual renews such coverage after such date of enactment.

(b) ALLOWANCE FOR FAMILY MEMBERS TO JOIN CURRENT COVERAGE.—With respect to a group health plan or health insurance coverage in which an individual was enrolled on the date of enactment of this Act and which is renewed after such date, family members of such individual shall be permitted to enroll in such plan or coverage if such enrollment is permitted under the terms of the plan in effect as of such date of enactment.

(c) ALLOWANCE FOR NEW EMPLOYEES TO JOIN CURRENT PLAN.—A group health plan that provides coverage on the date of enactment of this Act may provide for the enrolling of new employees (and their families) in such plan, and this subtitle and subtitle A (and the amendments made by such subtitles) shall not apply with respect to such plan and such new employees (and their families).

That's right. The provisions of the healthcare act expressly establish a person's right to keep a health plan! The language is clear and explicit. In what way, then, did the president lie? Why, then, are people losing their current plans despite Sec. 1251?

Simple. Nothing forces the insurance companies to continue to offer those plans. Sec. 1251 has an invisible and unanticipated qualification: You can keep your current plan if your insurance company doesn't cancel it! The Obama administration cared enough to put the language of Sec. 1251 in the bill, but it failed to anticipate how many insurance companies would use the measure's enactment as an excuse for immediate cancellation of plans that don't meet Obamacare standards. Are we grandfathered in for a period of time? Who cares? We insurance companies sure don't!

Perhaps the president needs a little help in rebutting his critics, but it's probably too late for him to deliver the following short speech I just drafted:

My fellow Americans, you have heard many critics accusing me of having lied to you when I said, ‘If you like your health plan you can keep your health plan.’ Most of them know that accusation is false. In fact, that provision was expressly written into the Affordable Care Act. I quote word-for-word from Section 1251: ‘Nothing in this Act ... shall be construed to require that an individual terminate coverage under a group health plan or health insurance coverage in which such individual was enrolled on the date of enactment of this Act.’ So what happened? I'll tell you. Many insurance companies decided to cancel policies anyway, abandoning their clients despite the fact that the Affordable Care Act does not require it. Perhaps healthcare reform needed more mandates rather than fewer, but we did not require insurance companies to maintain their existing policies during the transition period. We should have been stricter.

Let me remind you again that nothing in the Affordable Care Act requires anyone to terminate a current health plan that does not initially meet the requirements of healthcare reform. They were grandfathered in. Unfortunately, the many people who were tossed aside by their insurance companies have not had ready access to a fully functioning health care website in order to seek out their most affordable alternatives. We are committed, however, to rectifying the situation and improvements are being made every day. We will stay the course and get the job done. In the meantime, whenever you hear someone screaming about the supposed lies and failings of healthcare reform, be sure to ask them what they are doing to help, besides just making baseless accusations. Thank you.

Lesson unlearned

College crisis by the Bay

The example of the accreditation crisis at City College of San Francisco is being cast as an important lesson to those involved in higher education. I fear, however, that not everyone is learning the right lesson. Consider, for example, the unfortunate Rafael Mandelman, first elected to the CCSF board of trustees in November 2012. He joined a board in upheaval. The Accrediting Commission for Community and Junior colleges had rejected the college's self-study report and application for reaffirmation of accreditation. Instead, the ACCJC had issued a “show cause” decision at its June 2012 meeting, which meant that CCSF had one year to show why it should not be shut down. Five months were already gone when Mandelman was elected to his board seat. By the time he was sworn in as the board's newest member in January 2013, two more months had gone by and the deadline for CCSF's response to the ACCJC was looming.

On March 15, 2013, CCSF submitted its Show Cause Report to the accrediting commission in hopes of having made its case for the college's continuing existence. In June the ACCJC met and in July the commission revealed that it had voted to terminate the college. CCSF had neither resolved the deficiencies identified in the 2012 evaluation nor demonstrated sufficient progress toward alleviating them. Barring dramatic developments, the college would close after its spring 2014 semester.

Trustee Mandelman, of course, had minimal impact on these developments. Not only was he the board's junior member, the entire board had been subordinated to a special trustee selected by the statewide community college chancellor. The dysfunctionality of the board had been highlighted in Recommendation 14 of the ACCJC evaluation, so the board was not being trusted to devise its own solution; adult supervision had been imposed. Even that, however, had not been enough to save the school. Understandably frustrated, Mandelman expressed his outrage in an opinion piece published in the July 21, 2013, edition of the San Francisco Chronicle:

If the Accrediting Commission for Community and Junior Colleges is correct and City College has failed over the past year, there is plenty of blame to go around.

But I do not agree that City College has failed. There have been missteps, to be sure, but the facts do not support [California Community Colleges Chancellor Brice] Harris' portrayal of a recalcitrant institution resisting change. Rather, they show one that has moved quickly to bring itself into compliance with accreditation standards.

That real progress has been made over the last year is evidenced by the report of the accrediting commission's visiting team, which indicates that although work remains to be done, significant progress has been made in each of the 14 areas cited.

“Significant”? Perhaps. But obviously not deemed “sufficient” by the accrediting commission members. A dozen of the deficiencies had been previously identified in the ACCJC's 2006 evaluation of the college. Accreditation was reaffirmed, with a reasonable expectation of resolution of the problems by the time the 2012 cycle rolled around. Instead, the ACCJC found continued neglect and added two more deficiencies, producing the new baker's-dozen-plus-one recommendations. (In one of the more amusing responses to the lack of progress by CCSF, one of its exponents commented that it was never clear that CCSF could not just take it or leave it when it came to “recommendations.” But one should not take an Internet comment as representative of the college's understanding of the imperative nature of ACCJC recommendations.)

The list of recommendations constitutes a strong bill of indictment against CCSF, even when rendered in buzz-word summary form by the college itself in its Show Cause Report:

The College has focused its attention on responding to all 14 current Recommendations over the past nine months by:

• revising and focusing the College Mission Statement (ACCJC Recommendation 1);
• creating a more effective, integrated, data-informed planning process with the Mission Statement and Program Review as central mechanisms for decision making that promotes institutional effectiveness (ACCJC Recommendations 2 and 3);
• engaging in a comprehensive, College-wide effort to centralize the documentation, reporting, and assessment of SLOs [Student Learning Outcomes] that informs institutional planning (ACCJC Recommendations 2, 3, 4, 5, and 6);
• identifying and implementing changes to the delivery of student services to better promote student achievement and access by all students, regardless of location (ACCJC Recommendations 2, 3, and 5);
• developing more efficient administrative structures with greater authority and accountability (ACCJC Recommendation 7);
• improving the management of physical resources, including the development of a model to determine total cost of ownership (ACCJC Recommendations 2, 3, and 8);
• creating a comprehensive plan for equipment maintenance, upgrade, and replacement (ACCJC Recommendations 2, 3, and 9);
• improving the College’s financial stability, integrity, and reporting (ACCJC Recommendations 2, 3, 10, and 11);
• developing and implementing a new Participatory Governance system that is efficient, serves an advisory function, and promotes transparency (ACCJC Recommendations 12 and 13);
• and providing the Board of Trustees with opportunities to realize fully their appropriate role and responsibilities (ACCJC Recommendation 14).

No wonder that CCSF could not adequately address all of these deficiencies between the “show cause” ruling in June 2012 and the response submission in May 2013, especially given the shortcomings in the college's planning and administrative processes.

While CCSF remains accredited through the current academic year, the negative impact of the accreditation ruling is already evident. Student enrollment is dropping and open staff positions are difficult to fill. Trustee Mandelman is ready to place the blame:

What City College does not need are stern lectures or threats, from Brice Harris or the commission. What it needs now is time: time to continue to address the real problems the commission identified last year and the ones they missed; time, frankly, to recover from the damage that the commission has done.

Chancellor Harris's people have been in place during the past year attempting to bail out CCSF, but Mandelman does not appreciate Harris's frank acknowledgment of the college's shortcomings. Almost all of the deficiencies have been on the record for half a dozen years while the powers-that-be at CCSF took a mañana approach to addressing them, but now there is no tomorrow.

I might point out that Dr. Harris is probably the best advisor and overseer that CCSF could hope for. When he was chancellor of the four-college Los Rios district based in Sacramento, Harris steered all of his schools through three rounds of accreditation with no significant findings of deficiency and numerous commendations. It's worth listening to him.

I have yet to mention a side-issue which some people in the CCSF community may be contemplating with undue optimism. The ACCJC has long been regarded as more draconian than other regional accrediting agencies—and there's evidence to support the charge, especially given the higher rates at which the ACCJC imposes sanctions compared to other regional accreditation agencies. The U.S. Department of Education has slapped the ACCJC with its own list of deficiencies. The unduly optimistic are therefore celebrating the treatment of the gander in accordance to what it inflicted on various geese. 

In brief, the Department of Education cited the ACCJC for lack of clarity in providing institutions with due process and in appropriately constituting its evaluation teams. The commission's responses to these shortcomings should make future evaluation cycles a little more civilized. However, there was nothing in the Department of Education's recommendations (there's that word again!) to suggest that previous accreditation decisions were so flawed as to require review or revocation. CCSF has to play the cards it was dealt.

The college needs to acknowledge more frankly the stark reality of what occurred: Its problems do not stem from the arbitrary decision of a star chamber tribunal populated by faceless bureaucrats. In reality, an evaluation team of peers—staff, faculty, and managers from other community colleges—visited CCSF and found it wanting. The peers reported to the commissioners of the ACCJC—who are also peers recruited from the ranks of community college faculty and management—and the commissioners concurred with the findings of deficiency. Until your peers agree that you're doing a good job, you're probably not.

The GOP wants you!

In your place, of course

When the August recess arrives, members of congress will (in most cases) return to their districts to ingratiate themselves with the constituents who will be deciding their fates in November's general election. Naturally enough, many of them look to the organs of their political parties for support in this endeavor. We recently learned that the House Republican Conference has the backs of the GOP representatives in congress, providing them with a 31-page manual for maximizing their effectiveness during the crucial days of August. The manual is titled Fighting Washington for All Americans, which clearly implies that the Republicans have nothing to do with Washington (“doing nothing” is arguably true) and that voters must choose Republicans to fix all of the things that Republicans have wrecked in the last several years (like the economy and employment).

Fighting Washington is replete with the sort of subtle and sophisticated strategies that you would expect from the party of Boehner, especially when it comes to outreach techniques that bring women and minorities into the fold. (The “fold,” as with sheep, right?) Since each picture is worth a thousand words, let's take a look at the most eloquent part of the Republican play book. Be sure to keep your eyes peeled for women in leadership positions and black and brown people in any role at all. (Hint: These latter appear almost as often as Waldo.) First, though, the textual preamble.

The women do at least start off strong in the text, where the one-named “Cathy” (like “Cher,” I presume) provides a full-page introduction whose third paragraph is

We know that Washington is broken. It spends too much, borrows too much, and takes too much. It targets people for what they believe. It chokes out jobs with more red tape, blocks new energy resources and makes our health care crisis worse. Our government is out of control.

A killer argument. (Don't forget now: The GOP has nothing to do with Washington's failures.) On the next page, Republican House members are exhorted to submit op-ed pieces to their local print media. A complete sample draft is provided for Republicans too dim to write their own. What's the lead? This:

As we conclude another busy legislative session in Washington, I look forward to working hard at home for the month of August. Each day I am grateful for the opportunity to represent you in our nation’s capital because Washington is broken and needs to be fixed.

It spends too much, borrows too much, and takes too much. It targets people for what they believe and punishes them for their political ideologies. It chokes out jobs with more red tape, blocks new energy resources, and makes our health care crisis worse.

Washington is out of control.

Hey, if it works on the members themselves, why shouldn't it also work on their dim constituents?

Let us now consider the importance of ginning up support from those “potentially targeted by the IRS.” This is ideal, because everyone is at least potentially subject to enhanced IRS scrutiny. One may as well start with the biggest real-life bogeyman of them all!

Check out the IRS's potential victims. That could be a token woman in the pink shirt, with her back toward us. The pants aren't very feminine, though, so we can't be certain. At least youth is represented by the teenage boy in the far corner. No doubt the revenuers are threatening his 501(c)(3) organization. Fortunately, the authority figure of the balding middle-aged man is present to instruct them on anti-IRS self-defense.

We can make a smooth segue from the IRS to the dangers of ObamaCare, which —as we all know—is merely a way to let the tax people threaten our health just as they do our wealth. The scruffy and rumpled doctor needs to be warned that the Obama administration's obsession over drug abuse (they really are rather over the top there) will threaten his easy access to prescription drugs for his recreational use (or energy boosts during long hours on duty in our understaffed socialist health system). That might be a woman there in the back, wearing purplish-blue and framed against a window. No doubt this is subliminal messaging that lets women know they're not entirely forgotten (just mostly ignored unless they're dangerously fertile).

A representative's constituency contains more than dissolute doctors and frightened IRS targets. To embrace the wide, wonderful world of one's district in all of its delightful diversity, organize a meetup! Be sure to salt the crowd with your hand-picked minions (“This will strengthen the conversation and take it in a direction that is most beneficial to the Member's goal.”)

This is the illustration the minions of the House Republican Conference chose to represent a typical meetup. Three white guys and one white gal. (Seen any minorities yet?) The woman is appropriately demure and quiet, listening with a docile demeanor to the guy in the middle. Observe the clasped hands of sincerity. Doesn't this look like fun?

One must be certain to use the August recess to argue in favor of people getting jobs (as distinct from actually passing job-stimulus legislation; this long-discredited socialist approach has been anathema since it was last done for the Bush administration). Fighting America—oops!—I mean Fighting Washington recommends a live YouTube Roundtable to boost jobs and fight (or at least whine) about unemployment.

As seen in the picture, a job roundtable need not be a roundtable at all. It can actually be as simple as a white guy haranguing people who are trying to have lunch in a cheap diner in an unidentified war zone. See the pensive lady in this one? (She's wondering if she's getting paid enough for this soul-killing posing job.)

Did you know that the Republicans favor family leave? It's another perfect topic for a roundtable! Your Republican representative can single the praises of the Working Families Flexibility Act, which empowers employers to rearrange your hours so as to avoid overtime pay. But don't worry, if you end up working overtime anyway and don't get a chance to take compensatory time off, you will eventually get paid. (Please don't think of this delayed compensation as an interest-free loan of your wages to your employer. That doesn't sound nearly as good as “flexibility.”)

As before, no roundtable is actually necessary. It's just an expression. Since we're talking about working families, it's important to run a photo with an unambiguous female in it. There's actually three or four in this one, and the nice lady in the blue top is congratulating a morbidly obese Tea Party member on his recent eating contest victory. Note the subtle way it reminded the reader about health issues and the dread impact of ObamaCare! And a bonus: There's a black guy in the back! Hi, black guy! (We're done with you now. Bye-bye!)

It's important to never stop hitting the jobs issue. (Remember, it's all Obama's fault that no jobs measure had gotten through the House of Representatives since the GOP took control in 2011. But what else could you expect from a shiftless black guy?) But let's stay on topic. Jobs!

The compassionate conservative congressman will find time to at least shake the hands of people waiting in an unemployment line. (Most of them are overweight, so look into cutting the food-stamp program some more.) There are one, two, maybe three women in this picture. A high point!

Now on to the job fair! Representative Bucshon managed to get his job fair on the local NBC affiliate. (Time to call up the local Fox affiliate and scream threats at them. Didn't Murdoch's check clear?)

There's something funny about this video-capture photo. Notice how the mix of men and women begins to approach societal norms when a real-life event is captured? Quite a contrast to the default choices of Republican operatives. Did any of them scratch their heads and think this picture was somehow “wrong” and out of place in their play book? I guess they decided to use it to please Rep. Bucshon. But it is a little jarring. (Hey! Is that a minority in the back? Or is he only in a shadow?)

The Republicans have a big demographic problem. Not only do minorities refuse to vote for them, so do most young people. But never fear! Having recognized this deficiency in their recruitment program, the GOP is highlighting the predatory impact of ObamaCare, which will force millennials to pay for healthcare while they're young and healthy, thus helping Mom and Dad and Grandma and Grandpa to stay alive while the youngsters could be using that cash to improve the quality of their partying. Vile redistributionist policies! If young people can be inveigled into destroying ObamaCare today, they can live happier, wealthier lives right now and not be concerned about it till much, much later (which is another matter altogether and not part of the current discussion).

Oh, look! Helping young people understand the wickedness of ObamaCare apparently involves old white-haired guys giving a talk to groups of young, pretty, nubile females. Hey, man, do you really want a camera in the room? (Oh, okay. I hadn't thought of that.) Big progress, though, for female representation in Fighting Washington. We have three young women listening submissively to an older man (just as God intended).

I know from personal experience that farmers love the Republican Party. It appears to make no sense, but they do. (Something about rugged individualism and subsidies for agribusiness.) Certainly the GOP will not fail to address farm issues during the August recess.

As we all know, women have nothing to do with agriculture. Neither do minorities. They're just no good at it (unless, of course, they're under the supervision of an overseer).

Much of the same is true with energy production. That's an engineering problem, and there's the rub. Women don't like hard hats because they muss their hair. The GOP understands this.

Also, there are no young or minority engineers. Get over it if you don't like it. The Republicans accept reality just the way it is!

Hey! Just one doggone minute here! Where did that picture of award-winning black engineering students from Clarkson come from? (It sure wasn't from Fighting Washington, I'll tell you that much!)

Sorry. We got a little off-topic there. Let's turn instead to the GOP's concerns about fuel and food. According to the GOP play book, the August recess should be used to tour gas stations and grocery stores (with the members acting like they've actually been in those places in recent years and not just during childhood). After making sure that the station owners and grocers “are comfortable with the overall messaging them” (that is, ensuring that these people understand that Obama is evil incarnate and responsible for all their problems), the congressman can stage a series of events where he stops off at each business to decry the horrible things Obama has done for them while the owner nods and/or wrings his hands.

This is yet another occasion where womenfolk are irrelevant. When it comes to grocery shopping or gassing up the car, all you need is a couple of white guys. Message received!

Another good topic is higher education, where you can address major concerns like student loans (and the importance of letting interest rates fall too low), lack of available jobs (because of Obama's destruction of the economy during 2008, before he was president), workforce training (which community colleges should provide more efficiently to compensate for budget cuts imposed by Republican governors), and keeping education affordable (see “student loans” and “workforce training” again).

And what says “higher education” more than a white guy lecturing at a white audience? Nothing, of course! (It is just possible that an Asian or two has slipped into this group, but that's okay because Asians are a good minority. Especially in math class.)

It's not enough to tour through farms, warehouses, gas stations, and schools, of course. You have to get out there among the little people. Like the good, honest folk who work in mom-and-pop outfits in strip malls that GOP policies are putting out of business via tax breaks to more efficient megacorporations with off-shore labor forces (where the miracle of the unfettered free market enable young people to find employment opportunities that would be denied them in the US [at least until they are teenagers]).

For a common touch, wear jeans under your sports coat. Commoners will relate to that. It's not clear that women were required in this picture, but perhaps they do the cleaning up. They seem friendly enough to their oppressor, suggesting that it must be hard cider in those plastic jugs. The wine is probably another reliable sales item in depressed economic sectors.

Republicans hate red tape (except when it comes to regulating abortion clinics), so  naturally Fighting Washington suggests yet another roundtable discussion on government over-regulation. A congressman can wander into a convenient factory and bring production to a total halt while he delivers a sermonette on the importance of efficiency through deregulation. He can demonstrate this by refusing to wear a safety vest while lecturing the employees.

If he lives through the experience, he can then visit a senior citizen center, part of his reliable support base as he promises to protect Social Security and Medicare from his party's policies.

The woman in the picture is just posing. She's got her flag pin on her lapel and is probably an example of the female of the Republican congressional representative species. She's a nice lady and probably won't be pushing the old man down the escalator in the background after the camera goes away. Legislation takes longer, but has fewer fingerprints.

When a GOP member of congress gets tired of going walkabout on these various roundtable tours, he can always cede the heavy lifting to local talk-radio hosts. Most of them are always willing to carry water for the GOP. You can read almost any dreck you like from cue cards cut from the party platform (or Fighting Washington!) and they'll run with it. They already feed their listeners several hours every day of right-wing cant. Rest assured that they know your talking points even better than you do!

This photo depicts a model talk-radio station. See the man's arm in the lower-left corner? He's undoubtedly the guy who has the cut-off switch in case the female host is having her time of month and goes off the reservation.

Broadcast media are dominant these days, but it's important not to neglect the surviving print media, which can be important in certain key demographics (like the old people who subscribe so they can keep up with Peanuts). Remember that op-ed stuff. You can get newspapers to run articles that align with your interest if you schmooze sufficiently ingratiatingly with the paper's editorial board.

As shown in the picture, modern editorial boards are made up exclusively of old white guys. These people are the GOP's core constituency and hardly even need an excuse to pitch their stories the way the local congressman would like.

Townhall meetings are lot like roundtables and all the previous tips and rules apply. Don't forget to salt the audience with shills who have the questions you'd prefer to answer. Get free media from your minions inside talk radio and newspaper editorial boards. Then you're on solid ground.

If you're a member of congress who wants to impress people at a townhall meeting, don't leave your visual aids immobile on an easel. Wave them around. That makes it harder to read anything that they can reconsider later, but people will remember your passion. Also, if you have an assistant with a semi-dark complexion, tell people he's of Indian descent (like Bobby Jindal!) and not Mexican (which will make people think he's illegal, or at least his parents were). Call him “Raj” or “Apu.” These are media-tested acceptable exotic names and will make your audience give themselves credit for their fake open-mindedness.

Republican candidates who learn the lessons of Blighting—I mean, Fighting Washington can be certain to reap the votes of their palest and most gullible constituents. Their success will continue until the dwindling supply of such constituents reaches a certain critical level. Fighting Washington is Exhibit A in the argument that the Republican establishment thinks that critical level is many cycles away.

Please prove them wrong in 2014.

Cheerfully innumerate

Happily ignorant

I'm sure we all remember in Season 17 when Marge Simpson expressed to Lisa her regrets about blowing off the calculus final in order to party with her boyfriend Homer: “Since then, I haven't been able to do any of the calculus I've encountered in my daily life.” Ah, yes. Thus do our mistakes return to haunt us, and—as we all know, a working knowledge of calculus is crucial for success as a homemaker.

The obvious basis for the humor is the effective disjunction between calculus and housekeeping. The more subtle reason is perhaps more significant: a sense of relief in the viewer. “Ha, ha! Thank goodness it doesn't really matter that I didn't learn any of that useless stuff!” It salves their guilty consciences over their collegiate screw-ups and omissions. “Math! Who needs it? Only nerds! (And I'm not one. Hurray!)”

 Brian O'Neill seized the opportunity to write a semi-humorous article for the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette after discovering that Google's Laszlo Bock found no significant connection between college grades and job qualifications. He cites Bock as saying in a New York Times interview that “G.P.A.’s are worthless as a criteria for hiring, and test scores are worthless.”

What? Algebra grades don't predict job performance? Grades in English composition don't correlate with corporate success? Shocking!

And why should they? I concede that the classroom is an artificial environment that does not in general (and is not intended to) emulate future work experience. The integration of the knowledge you acquire in the classroom is a separate skill, as is the selection of the right tools for doing a particular job. Why are heads exploding (or pretending to explode) over these “revelations”? People don't begin entry-level jobs with all of their skills and knowledge pre-melded into a unitary capability. Who knew?

A degree really signifies that you are able to achieve a goal, which is why many companies care more about your persistence in achievement than they are in the grade point average you attained. This, however, is the point at which people bewail the math classes that prevent attainment of a degree: “I can't do the math required for a college degree, so math shouldn't be required.” But college degrees are a sign of a range of qualitative and quantitative skills, so this argument suggests a watered-down college degree is okay. Should it have an asterisk on it? Should it be labeled “college degree lite”. Does everyone deserve a college degree even if he or she is illiterate or innumerate? Note how readily the argument generalizes:

“I can't do the _____ required for a college degree, so _____ shouldn't be required.”

Student success would soar! And student job options would correspondingly shrink.

Oh, but Google says academic success doesn't correlate with occupational success. Please pause to consider that Bock was describing what they discovered in the people they hired. Go ahead and visit Google's job opportunity site. They need account managers and executives more than anything else (at least during this summer of 2013). Minimum qualifications? Looking at today's listings in order, I see BA/BS (MBA preferred), BA/BS, Bachelor's (MBA preferred), BA/BS, BA/BS, BA/BS, BA/BS, BA/BS, BA/BS, BA/BS (and that's just page one). You get the idea.

Shall we do what Google says and ignore college attainments, or as Google does? While Google may not ask for GPAs and specific college majors, it still wants to know you can complete a certain level of education. If you can't, they're less interested in you (although they will in some instances accept “4 years relevant work experience” in lieu of the bachelor's).

Students without math skills may nevertheless thrive in the many occupations that minimize the need for numeracy, but those students dramatically constrict their options and straiten the path to success. And it's too late to have Euclid himself as an instructor: “Give him a coin, since he must profit from what he learns.”

Pavlov's button

Try pressing harder!

There is a big intersection near the post office in my town. It has multiple lanes, including turn lanes, and stop lights and crosswalks and buttons for pedestrians to press when they want to cross. Yesterday I was stopped at the light, waiting for it to turn. Two teenage girls on roller skates were on my right, fidgeting as they waited to use the crosswalk in front of me. The blonde was pumping the crosswalk button. If one press is good, won't a dozen presses be better?

Having done her duty, the blonde shuffled on her skates while keeping a keen eye on the Walk/Don't Walk sign. Just to be safe, however, the brunette scooted over and pressed the button several more times, presumably in case her blonde friend had not done it correctly. It was a busy intersection that morning and they were not getting instant gratification, so the blonde skated around the light pole and mashed the button again a few more times, pumping it with great vigor.

At last the lights changed, but it was to allow a pair of turn lanes to empty out and the Walk sign did not light up. The blonde's mouth opened in astonishment and she reacted as if she had been slapped in the face. Outrage! And banged the button a dozen times, pumping it in a fury.

The turn lanes emptied, the lights changed, and the girls were at last given the green light to skate across the crosswalk. Their mission was evidently only half accomplished, because they had wanted to reach the diagonally opposite corner and had one more crosswalk to navigate. Hence they began to take turns assaulting another crosswalk button.

They must be a barrel of fun in elevator lobbies.

Familiarity breeds contempt

No love for Sister Sarah

Townhall.com has sponsored one of those irritating pop-up polls that haunt the Internet. I normally ignore such things. My pop-up blocker catches most of them, but this one slipped through. (Okay, I confess! I asked for it. Townhall sneakily embedded it in a Facebook ad and I clicked on it.)

The question was very simple and probably easy to answer for 99% of the population. It asked the weighty question, “Should Sarah Palin run for Senate? She's considering it.” Since “Hell, no!” and “Only for the entertainment value” were not provided as response choices, I settled for “No, her time has passed.” The alternative was “Yes would love to see her back in elected office,” which seemed too subtle in its irony.

After voting, I got to see the results. Over two-thirds of the respondents wanted Sarah to run (but there was no way to determine how many of those respondents were mentally appending “and lose” to their answers). This is not a surprising result from a crowd of people willing to follow a link provided by Townhall.com. (Of course, Sarah might lose interest if she discovers that a Senate term is six years long.)

The responses were broken down by state. I looked at them one by one. Idaho was the most eager to see Palin on the Alaska ballot for U.S. Senate. No big surprise. I moused around until I found the state most opposed to a Palin candidacy. (You're ahead of me, right?)

It was Alaska. The state that knows Palin best expressed itself with 55% in her favor and a record 43% opposed. No other state broke out of the thirties in its opposition to the half-term governor. And don't forget that this is a Townhall crowd. I was not surprised. You weren't either, were you?