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| 0245582959
| 9780245582950
| 4.28
| 2,808
| 1962
| Sep 08, 2020
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it was amazing
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Why did it take so many decades for this sublime, intensely delightful collection to be translated into English? What other magnificent works are we d
Why did it take so many decades for this sublime, intensely delightful collection to be translated into English? What other magnificent works are we deprived of? In Spanish, we say Lo Bueno, Si Breve, Dos Veces Bueno [the good, if brief, is twice as good]. It is so very difficult to write an excellent tale in one or two pages, as every story here is, ostensibly because the father was relating the story to his child over the phone on a single coin. The imagination! The creativity! The alternate realities and magical realism! The stories are every bit as glorious as anything by Borges. Yes, sure, they're great for children, but my husband is reading one or two to me before we fall asleep. My husband of 20 years is like an onion; I'm always discovering something new about him. He does accents, sound effects, different voices, appropriate dramatic pauses; a hidden talent. Do not miss this book. It's exquisite. ...more |
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Feb 23, 2021
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Feb 23, 2021
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| 1982175761
| 9781982175764
| 3.43
| 146
| Jan 12, 2021
| Jan 12, 2021
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did not like it
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This book sinks in Californiana like a lead weight; the minutiae is excrutiating. If that's your bag, have at it. If not, even if you're raring for a
This book sinks in Californiana like a lead weight; the minutiae is excrutiating. If that's your bag, have at it. If not, even if you're raring for a paean to Harris, don't bother with this. Do yourself a favor and just read The New Yorker articles on Harris (e.g. https://www.newyorker.com/magazine/20... ). Or read her autobiography, The Truths We Hold, from which Morain sources most of his info. Morain's career has been focused on California politics and Harris became SF District Attorney and then CA State Attorney General, so bla bla bla about CA politics, crime and criminal justice initiatives, gun control, charges against parents of habitual school truants, and mortgage relief to people who took on far more than they could pay. [I used to live in CA and was astonished by the folks earning $9/hour in the Del Monte packing plants buying $400,000 homes; um, as a taxpayer, I don't want to bail out people living above their means; ditto student loan debt eradication]. I'll save you the trouble and summarize: Kamala's mom to Kamala, what do you want? "Fee-dom!" (3). That Harris has repeated this brings to mind the German term Fremdschämen, embarrassment on behalf of another. I'm red-faced for her. About the assistance she received from her relationship with the married Willie Brown-the-Rainmaker: "He used that clout to open doors for Harris early in her career, part of a long tradition of mentorship and patronage. No one rises on his or her own...." (34). (What's a little adultery in politics, after all?; sex is a commodity, a means of exchange). Harris's character is unimpeachable, we read. In fact, when no one was watching, she visited a dying fan (64), demonstrating her humanity and true caring nature [egads]. "...Harris, always scouring the political landscape..." (67) just reveals moxy. "The comparisons between Harris and Obama were unmistakable, if facile: they are biracial, smart and attractive; both accomplished attorneys; and both reflective of the new face of the Democratic Party, if not the nation itself. The May 2006 edition of Ebony magazine names them both as being among the '100 + Most Influential Black Americans.' Her photo was number 5; his was number 67." When asked about Obama's legacy, "I have my own legacy," she told the reporter" (69). Now that's some authentic humility right there. Most important takeaway: Harris's sister, Maya, is married to the Tony West, chief legal officer of Uber, you know, those folks who want to avoid paying health insurance and other safety nets and make everyone an independent contractor. He is responsible for its legal, security and compliance and [lack of] ethics functions. He had been Associate Attorney General of the United States and general counsel of PepsiCo, another company known for its lack of ethics, union busting, and bottled public water tap water (Aquafina). That's quite a pedigree prioritizing monetary gain over ethics. I didn't know this until p. 115. How was this nugget kept out of the news? As a necessary aside not in this book: Harris and Gov. Moonbeam "oversaw the passage of the first ride-hailing state law in the country, California actively assisted ride hailing’s rise. The California law, which became a national model, included a state preemption that handcuffed the ability of local governments to establish their own laws for ride hailing, as they were already doing for traditional taxis. This turned out to be a terrible mistake. It set the stage for the destructive business model that soon swamped city after city. It did not take long before ride hailing’s familiar features became apparent. The companies flooded the streets with cars, resulting in dramatically increased traffic congestion, along with more pollution and carbon emissions. New York City published a report called “Empty Seats, Full Streets,” which showed that a third of drivers have empty cars as they circle, looking for a passenger and burning up hydrocarbons. Too many drivers meant not only more traffic and emissions, but not enough work for all of the drivers. Many do not even make minimum wage after driving expenses are deducted from their gross incomes." Read this: https://prospect.org/labor/kamala-har... It's a perplexing paradox that Harris's sister became pregnant at 17 and gave birth, although the Indian grandmother was a contraception educator and Harris is an ardent advocate for abortion rights. Yes, of course, Democrats defend individual choice and all that, but what if her sister, Maya, had aborted her beloved niece, Meena? Just puzzling this out... Her modest achievements in CA are listed in chapter 20. "Certainly she could have done more...But she was mindful of who she is, a Black woman..." (132). "Critics and some friends say Kamala Harris was overly cautious during her time as attorney general. There is evidence to support that view" (146). Obviously we are meant to see Harris as a politically astute moderate, until... In her victory speech after winning a seat in the Senate in 2016, Harris repeated "the word 'fight' no fewer than 26 times: "I intend to fight for BLM...for students against loan debt, to fight against Big Oil and science deniers, and to fight for workers' rights to collective bargaining and for gun safety laws" (165). BLM is an avowedly Marxist organization. Student loan debt erasure is regressive; it privileges the wealthy who will earn enough with their degree over time to pay off the debt. Science deniers include those on the Left who say that biological sex does not exist, so we can eradicate it, which will privilege men (see my review of Irreversible Damage"). This is an appropriate place to insert Harris's Tweet regarding equity vs. equality: https://twitter.com/kamalaharris/stat... Several chapters are devoted to Harris's role in the attempt to tie Russia to Trump's election. She refused to meet with Trump's nominees, preferring instead to "grill them in public...with yes-or-no questions about complex topics that could not be answered in simple ways....[This] might make for good sound bites, but it did little to provide the public with answers...[or] foster productive relationships..." (188). Again, she knows how to position herself, which is affirmed by the spectacle of Harris v. Kavanaugh. Is it that Democrats believe Christine Blasey Ford and don't believe Tara Reade? Misogyny abounds on both sides of the aisle. The Biden-Harris presidential campaign is lightly treated in the final chapters 32-34, since we all lived through it and it's fresh in memory. That's it. Nothing surprising, edifying or revealing. Skip this one. ...more |
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Feb 21, 2021
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Feb 21, 2021
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Feb 21, 2021
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| 198212914X
| 9781982129149
| 4.02
| 304
| Apr 07, 2020
| Oct 13, 2020
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it was ok
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I don’t feel more informed after reading this book. Upswing reminds me of Malcolm Gladwell’s books, and that is not a compliment. Gladwell is a journa
I don’t feel more informed after reading this book. Upswing reminds me of Malcolm Gladwell’s books, and that is not a compliment. Gladwell is a journalist popularizer who draws scant connections and attempts to simplify the complex losing all nuance along the way, while Putnam is a distinguished political scientist. As one example, Putnam and co-author Garrett repeat the flawed and incomplete narrative about sexual wage disparities without any of the qualifiers. Could this book be unfulfilling precisely because it is more social science than political science? In their defense, that Putnam and Garrett don’t identify causality is probably strength. We tend to want tangible, identifiable causes when there simply aren’t any, but failing to do so doesn’t satiate one’s hunger to know. In a nutshell: "[T]his book is primarily about trends and narratives, not certifiable causes. The various trends we have identified are braided together by reciprocal causality, so it is difficult and even misleading to identify causes and effects. In the 20th century, the American experiment followed a long arc of increasing solidarity and then increasing individualism. That arc had implications for equality, for politics, for social capital, and for culture. It led to an increasingly zero-sum, tribal view of society and, eventually, to Trumpism" (291), the last of which Putnam and Garrett regard as an abject abomination. Their political leanings exercise undue influence throughout the presentation. One core thesis here is that Gilded Age corruption and disparity gave rise to the communitarianism of the Progressive Era, “a clear turning point in the history of this nation.” Unfortunately, this trajectory "reversed direction, and since the 1960s, America has become steadily less equal, more polarized, more fragmented, and more individualistic--a second Gilded Age" (286). Putnam and Garrett strongly imply (and urge) that we can attain what Progressivism once achieved: "an America whose prosperity was more equally shared, whose citizens were more engaged and connected, whose politicians were more able to compromise, and whose culture was more oriented toward a common purpose" (336). It is crucial to understand how Progressives resisted socialist revolution for compromise to "put private property, personal liberty, and economic growth on more equal footing with communitarian ideals and the protection of the weak and vulnerable, and to work within existing systems to bring about change" (336). Will we cycle back to a new Progressivism? I don't buy it. History doesn't repeat itself, but it often rhymes... (There is no evidence that Twain stated that, so I'm not making the common attribution). The final chapter "Drift and Mastery," is meant to buoy our hopes that a new corrective era could arise, and steer us in that direction, one that will bring us from the "I-we-I curve" to a new more inclusive and equitable "we." Putnam and Garrett identify signs of hope in what they call the [well-funded by billionaires but ostensibly] "grass-roots" Resist movement against Trump, climate change, and other signs that may turn "outrage and moral awakening into active citizenship" (329). So pink hats, riots, destruction of public property, selective science (climate change YES; biological sex NO), Critical Social Justice (not social justice), and public shaming, cancellations, forced confessions of privilege and guilt will lead to a better tomorrow? Probability is nil. A major flaw in this book is the authors’ view of equality and inclusion. They are squarely in the camp that seeks and expects equality of outcomes. That is extremely problematic. The perspective that sexism or racism are responsible for women and Blacks not earning the same average incomes as men or Caucasians is indefensible. There is a concatenation of factors at play. Just to challenge the racial narrative because it takes center stage, according to the US Census Bureau, less than 7% of Black married couples live in poverty. Only 30% of Black children are born to married couples. Know, too that Black African immigrant women earn more than native born Caucasian women and brown-skinned Indian men out-earn every other group, including native born Caucasian men. Research is clear (Haskins & Sawhill, 2013, confirmed by many others) regarding how to escape poverty: 1. Finish high school. 2. Get a full-time job. 3. Wait until age 21 to get married and have children. As Harvard Professor of Economics Glenn Loury, who is Black, states: behavior, cultural patterns, what peer groups value, how people spend their time, what they identify as being critical to their own self-respect all factor heavily in to poverty more than any imagined systemic racism. I do not, however, discount the role of luck, as well as choices. Moreover, see education, crime, incarceration and labor force statistics for Black males here: https://blackdemographics.com/popu...... "In 2013 about 6% of working-age (18-64yrs old) Black men were in state or federal prison, or in a municipal jail and approximately 34% of all working-age Black men who were not incarcerated were ex-offenders compared to 12% of ‘all men’ which means they have at one point in their lives been convicted of a felony." And refer to FBI Table 43. Black males are 6% of the population but commit over 50% of the homicides. Committing a felony or a murder is a choice, one with serious consequences that will remove a man from the labor force and, when en masse, will reduce group income levels. Indulge me for repeating Thomas Abt's postulate regarding why, the causative factors that Putnam and Garrett studiously eschew. "A compelling case can be made that African Americans, having spent centuries in the South, adopted the southern white penchant for violent responses to perceived insults and affronts….On this view, black criminal violence was the product of the southern-male honor culture that, among black men of lower socioeconomic status, manifested as a violent response to petty insults, sexual rivalries, etc. Since African Americans interacted socially with other persons of color much more than with whites, the victims of such honor-culture assaults were overwhelmingly black. This violence continued when African Americans migrated to the North. Indeed, it escalated in the northern cities, where there was greater freedom and less oppression." https://www.nationalreview.com/.../th... Ah, a sigh of relief, an identified possible cause. Now I feel better; hunger sated in a way this book failed to do. ...more |
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Feb 19, 2021
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Feb 18, 2021
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Hardcover
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| 1684510317
| 9781684510313
| 3.86
| 2,053
| Jun 30, 2020
| Jun 30, 2020
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really liked it
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Why are 10 year-olds administered puberty blockers; 16 year-olds prescribed testosterone; 18 year-olds undergoing double mastectomies? Why has the num
Why are 10 year-olds administered puberty blockers; 16 year-olds prescribed testosterone; 18 year-olds undergoing double mastectomies? Why has the number of "gender surgeries for natal females in the US quadrupled" between 2016 and 2017? Why was there in the UK "a 4,400% rise over the previous decade in teenage girls seeking gender treatments" in 2018 (26)? It is as though we have summarily discarded the core tenets of developmental psychology: the primary job of the adolescent is identity exploration and formation and the area of the brain responsible for reasoning, problem solving, impulse-control, creativity and perseverance, the prefrontal cortex is not fully developed until around the age of 25. "All the institutions we've built to keep young people from making irreparable mistakes have failed them. The universities, the schools, the doctors, the therapists, and even the churches have been won over by a dogged ideology that claims to speak for a more important class of victim" (220). Add to that public libraries, which have systematically censored this book. Parents and others who care for and work with them need to read as much as possible from different angles to be informed of the causes and consequences to make wise decisions. This book is one of few crucial resources. Journalist author Abigail Shrier is sympathetic to those who from earliest childhood manifest signs of gender dysphoria; they are not her subject. Rather, she is concerned with those girls who rather suddenly choose to identify as trans (T), "non-binary" or male. Shrier intends to challenge and clarify the current narrative regarding transgender through hundreds of interviews with the girls, their parents, school personnel (primary, secondary and tertiary), psychotherapists, surgeons, and those who have proceeded to transition and those who have not. Shrier explores the many reasons girls wish to abandon their sex. 1. Society portrays women as victims, which leads girls to seek an alternative identity; who wants to be a victim? One prominent T author provides this horrifying definition: "Female is a 'universal existential condition' defined by submitting to someone else's desires" (152). 2. Many adolescent girls struggle to cope with their changing bodies, so they seek to block puberty or remove the offending secondary or even, in the case of internal organs, primary sex characteristics. 3. In contrast to the movement in the 1960s-90s to eliminate sexual stereotypes, many schools are actively teaching promoting stereotypes, some with The Genderbread Person https://www.genderbread.org/. Non-gender conforming girls, "tomboys" are encouraged to view themselves as "really boys" and seek redress, but they lack the understanding that we all subscribe to some gender norms and rail against others. 4. Claiming T identity elevates a girl as more interesting than her peers, granting her the social status she previously lacked and desperately desired, even if only in the online setting. In reality, claiming "non-binary" creates false poles: those who adhere to the culturally conditioned gender norms and those who do not, when none of us adheres to all gender norms. 5. Avoidance and fear of sexual relationships is quite common in girls, more so now that violent porn is ubiquitous. Anorexia is one way of dealing with modifying the body to avoid sex, T is another. The pool of romantic prospects diminishes exponentially for T; lesbians are virtually erased by T. In one all girls school of 500 students in the UK, 15 girls identify as T, none as lesbian. 6. Like many other phenomena documented as far back as the Salem witch trials, with more recent manifestations including eating disorders and cutting, the role of social contagion in Rapid Onset Gender Dysphoria is empirically proven. Shrier emphasizes "Social media saturation, anxiety, and depression fell together like so much dry tinder and kindling" to fuel this craze. It's all so easy for girls to learn the scripts on the Internet to know exactly what to say to a therapist and immediately receive prescriptions for testosterone. We don't prescribe liposuction for anorexics. We should be endeavoring to align the disordered mind with the body, "talking about mental illness and clinical management of symptoms" (132), but T have politicized the issue so that by 2015, in Canada, "gender-affirmation therapy" became the standard of care, or else "lose your job and maybe your license" (126). The patient is diagnosing herself and prescribing her treatment. Do not conflate psychological treatment for gender dysphoria with conversion therapy for homosexuality; they are not related. Nevertheless, I'll take any opportunity to note it is axiomatic in the field of women's sexuality that female sexuality is fluid and male sexuality is more fixed, but, as usual, males control the narrative, so we must all subscribe to the male experience as normative and state that sexuality is fixed in the womb, despite the evidence and lesbians' affirmations of the role of choice . Gender is not sexual orientation and many LGB argue T should not be part of LGB for a variety of reasons. She can't do it all, but I wish Shrier would follow the money! She never mentions T billionaire Pritzker's role in the T lobby. The money involved is enormous. And the Affordable Care Act in the USA pays for all of it. The blocking of natural processes and removal of healthy organs and tissue is an execrable exhibition of a deplorable lack of ethics in the fields of mental health and medicine! Puberty blockers and lifelong hormone treatments are likely to be quite lucrative for Big Pharma. We know that sex hormones are crucial to neurological development and a healthy endocrine system (https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/arti... ), yet these unscrupulous doctors prescribe Lupron to halt normal puberty, an off-label use not approved by the FDA (164) and testosterone. And the effects are irreversible. If the girl stops taking the testosterone, she remains with "extra body and facial hair," an enlarged clitoris, "deepened voice, and possibly even the masculinization of her facial features" (170). The long term effects we do know about include higher mortality and "heightened rates of diabetes, stroke, blood clots...heart disease," and cancer, especially uterine cancer, lost sexual function, and, of course, sterility. Then there are the financial rewards to be reaped by surgeons and hospitals from successive surgeries needed to construct and remove sex characteristics. A cavalier attitude is typical of many physicians, but in this field, it prevails. The microsurgery necessary to execute "bottom surgery" is quite complex and has many risks, yet arrogant surgeons without the extra training have the audacity to undertake them. One of Shrier's subjects nearly died; another told of a 19 year-old friend "whose phalloplasty resulted in gangrene and loss of the appendage," lacks genitalia of either sex, and must use "a catheter that empties into a urine bag strapped to her leg" (178). See what a phalloplasty looks like https://www.researchgate.net/figure/T... Further, from the Medical Dir. of the Center for Transyouth Health in Los Angeles, Dr. Johanna Olson-Kennedy: "'So what we do know is that adolescents actually have the capacity to make a reasoned, logical decision,' she says. 'And here's the other thing about chest surgery: If you want breasts at a later point in your life, you can go and get them'" (172). No, Johanna, adolescents are neither rational nor logical, and should not be entrusted with giving informed consent for such procedures. And the breast is a complex structure of lobes, lymph nodes, blood vessels, tissues, etc. I sincerely hope you and your clinic are sued for malpractice to the full extent. Shrier predicts that litigation is precisely what it will take to end this. In November, 2020, Britain's High Court agreed that children under 16 years of age are incapable of giving informed consent to medical treatment involving drugs that delay puberty and surgery like mastectomy, phalloplasty, vaginoplasty, orchiectomy, chondrolaryngoplasty, etc. Other nations must follow suit to end this madness. Why do parents succumb? Emotional blackmail and the misguided desire to be supportive. Therapists and the mass media tell parents that their kid will kill themselves unless the parents submit. Shrier does not dedicate as much discussion to the issue of suicide as warranted, but that's due to the lack of evidence. I'll add the data the statistic comes from: "In total 2078 questionnaires promoted by the LGBT community were analyzed, however only 120 of these were transgender people, and only 27 of these were under the age of 26 years old. It is only the results from the 27 young trans people that was reported in relation to suicide. Of these 27 young trans people 13 of them reported having attempted suicide at some point in the past. This is where the 48% of all trans youth attempt suicide stat comes from." The sample size is unacceptable and is not random; hence the study is invalid, as any researcher knows. Further, these adolescents' anxiety, depression and other comorbidities (co-occurring issues) do not simply go away with transition and often worsen when parents affirm their daughters' claims. There is no evidence that "affirmation ameliorates mental health problems" (117) and "rates of self harm and suicidality did not decrease even after puberty suppression for adolescent natal girls" (118). "Several long-term studies have shown that a majority of children with gender dysphoria [70%] have outgrown it" (134). But all the adults who should be trusted to set healthy boundaries cave. In chapter 11, "What can be done?", Shrier presents all the data she gathered about what works to prevent adolescent girls from this scourge and to address it where it has already taken root. An outline of points she fleshes out: 1. Don't give her a smartphone. 2. Push back against instead of supporting any claims a teenager makes about her sexuality or gender. Adolescents need boundaries to push against. They need to feel safe but also able to individuate and rebel--contain but enable that rebellion. 3. Oppose gender ideology like The Genderbread Person in your school. It is not innocuous. It introduces and instills a non-fact-based ideology. Schools often will not notify parents of their children's decision to change their name and pronouns. 4. Monitor social media use and emphasize privacy. 5. Consider big steps: "physically move [your] daughters away from the school, the peer groups, and the online communities that were relentlessly encouraging the girls' self-destructive choices." 6. Stop pathologizing girlhood. "A young woman's unruly emotions in her teenage years--the whirlwind fury and self-doubt of female adolescence--may be a feature, not a flaw." For more on this read Lisa Damour's books on girls (and/or my reviews of them). Male experience is regarded as normative in patriarchal societies like ours. "We need to stop regarding men as the measure of all things--the language they use, the kind of careers they pursue, the apparent selfishness..." Women are different; embrace that. 7. Don't be afraid to admit it's wonderful to be a girl. One of the wisest lines in this book: "In a certain sense, we all transition." As helpful as the book is, Shrier's perspective is journalistic rather than academic, which means that she gave much shorter shrift to topics I desperately wished she had presented in greater depth, like the studies about outgrowing gender dysphoria, comorbidities with other mental disorders, suicide, etc., but in reality, the phenomenon lacks long-term studies with adequate sample size. The issue is new and the damage that can now be inflicted is irreversible. We must not suspend all that we do know about developmental psychology, adolescent development, endocrinology, neurology, etc. for the sake of misplaced compassion for the intransigent minority of T activists. Shrier does not mention the paradoxical fact that society has chosen to downplay the significance of sexual dimorphism at the same time that medicine is discovering enormous differences between males and females beyond metabolism, bone mass, fat, etc. See page 33: https://www.researchgate.net/publicat... Unalterable facts: each sex can only produce sperm or eggs; there are XX or XY chromosomes present in every cell of the body. She makes no mention of the studies going back to the 70's regarding the impact of pharmaceuticals taken by the mother on transgenderism, nor the issue of intersex, often a sidecar to this issue, the prevalence of which is often overestimated but is about .018% (just 50,000 in the USA), according to Dr. Leonard Sax. Shrier only intimates what is at stake here: the erasure of women. I would plead for an extra chapter. We feminists used to embrace gender neutral language. Now that has taken on a life of its own. As Shrier writes, "Pregnant women are increasingly referred to as 'pregnant people,' and the word 'vagina' replace with the hideous phrase 'front hole'" (153). Look no further than the furor that arose when J.K. Rowling declared that women menstruate. Male forms of words like "hero," "actor," and "comedian" are now considered neutral, but they are NOT; they are male. Educate yourself and others regarding what else is at stake with T rights (and the so-called Equality Act in the USA). Take a look at this list: https://deadwildroses.com/2019/12/04/... For those interested in pursuing the topic further: "Outbreak: On Transgender Teens and Psychic Epidemics" by Jungian therapist Marchiano "Parent reports of adolescents and young adults perceived to show signs of a rapid onset of gender dysphoria" by OB/GYN Dr. Littman, challenged on the basis of political correctness but found to be scientifically sound. Ruth Barrett's superb comprehensive anthology, Female Erasure https://www.goodreads.com/review/show... Janice Raymond's watershed classic from 1977, Transsexual Empire, available as a PDF online Leonard Sax's work in various books and articles. "Gender is not a spectrum," in AEON Andrew Sullivan's essay on how transgender deconstructs homosexuality, "The Nature of Sex" and participate in the Women's Human Rights Campaign https://womensdeclaration.com/en/about/ I am a former professor of women's studies and have been following this issue for decades and I am alarmed. We must fight it, defend what it means to be female, and oppose the Equality Act in the USA. It effectively promotes precisely this insidious gender ideology, not equality for women. ...more |
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not set
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Dec 25, 2020
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Jan 04, 2021
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Hardcover
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| 1250752043
| 9781250752048
| unknown
| 3.51
| 305
| Aug 04, 2020
| Aug 04, 2020
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really liked it
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In a nutshell, this book makes two assertions: First, "Education, we are relentlessly told, is the key...to social mobility, to reducing inequality, t In a nutshell, this book makes two assertions: First, "Education, we are relentlessly told, is the key...to social mobility, to reducing inequality, to ending poverty, to the American dream. It seems education is a key that can open any lock" (84), but it is not and cannot be that. Second, "Acknowledging that not everyone has the same academic gifts is the first step in ending the Cult of Smart...The assumption is that intelligence is something all-defining, something existential. This heightened sensitivity inevitably reinforces the notion that only intelligence matters." Instead we need "a more expansive...a more mature vision of what it means to be a worthwhile person" (202) and "make a sweeping set of changes to our basic social contract" (202). Before going any further, understand this point that deBoer repeats incessantly to ensure we take it in: "An individual's academic talent is influenced by their genetic endowment" and "a race's collective academic talent is the product of their genes" are two vastly different and incompatible claims (81). He's not talking about race. Got it? Let's move on. It is likely that most readers will agree with or be convinced by parts of this book and utterly hostile to others, particularly deBoer's proposed reforms. DeBoer writes well and his notions about education are rooted in teaching experience. Nevertheless, I have to wonder about writers and professors who claim to be Marxists. In Marx's Theses on Feuerbach, he wrote, "The philosophers have only interpreted the world in various ways; the point, however, is to change it." Anyone who is just writing or teaching or analyzing society isn't out there changing it; they just think they are. DeBoer writes what we all know but most of us won't say. Children are not a blank slate; "intelligence, like all cognitive traits, is significantly influenced by genetic parentage" (141), an assertion he repeats often. Six of the nine chapters reference extensive research proving beyond any doubt that cognitive talent is inheritable and that, regardless of how many trillions of dollars any entity spends, there will be students who simply do not and will not meet the standards. They lack the volition. They lack the ability. There. Doesn't it feel better to admit it at long last? "...[W]hat we are left with is a simple reality: thanks to the heritability of academic ability, the range of the possible in the classroom is dramatically smaller than conventionally assumed. A large portion of the variation in academic outcomes will remain permanently out of the hands of schools and teachers" (121). He counters with ample research whatever argument you may intend as rebuttal: charter schools, after school programs, voluntary Pre-K, merit pay, flipping the classroom, gamifying, all comes to naught in large scale studies over time; the results don't persist, etc. Small group and individual tutoring works, but it's not new, so it runs against the real addiction to innovation in education and "it doesn't lend itself to hype" (121). There are "millions upon millions of children before they have stepped foot in a classroom" were "exposed to drugs or lead in utero...born severely premature," did not "have the benefits of a stable home" and perhaps were abused (196). School quality is merely a by-product of who attends. The student body will be limited to talented students if there's an admission test or if it is located near highly educated elites or if it charges exorbitant fees. Having worked in one of the top three most expensive boarding schools in the country, I can attest to this. Moreover, "[T]he idea that all children enjoy more or less the same academic potential and can excel if only they enjoy stable parenting, a healthy environment, and good teaching cannot withstand scientific scrutiny. It's precisely this conceit that dominates education politics and policy, and the consequences hurt students, teachers, parents, and taxpayers" (86). It leads to blaming teachers and school systems; "education becomes a proxy for our society's greatest ills." Why? Because schools are something we can control with public funding, legislation, and school boards, which need to believe they are making a difference. But let's get real. It's all a waste, throwing trillions upon trillions of dollars into a black hole. DeBoer urges us to be realistic about what we can control and who is responsible for outcomes. That leads to deBoer's second major point: "Whatever the value of schooling, we must consider soberly and rationally, what it means for society that all students are not and will never be equal in the academic talents. Given the realities of meritocracy and its relationship to our economic outcomes and the job market, the consequences are profound. Indeed, if we truly understand those consequences, we can see that they demand a radical restructuring of the basic social contract of contemporary American life" (121). A crucial part of his argument: "...if talent tracks with income or wealth...then increasing the rewards of talent only solidifies the position of the already awarded" (155). DeBoer is fed up with Raj Chetty and his ilk and their talk of social mobility. "The point is that in a society of perfectly achieved formal equality of opportunity, there is no mobility" (emphasis in original)(156). (He defines equal opportunity as "matching talent to reward"). This results in "an aristocracy of the talented," which he despises. Grasp that, as it is the orthodox Leftist position. To quote John Cleese's Tweet of 10/2/16, "Seriously, I'd rather have educated, cultured and intelligent people in charge. Sorry for the elitism." I fully agree, Mr. Cleese. We must be thankful for deBoer's explicit presentation of the Leftist position: "As a leftist, I understand the appeal of tearing down those at the top, on an emotional and symbolic level. But if we're simply replacing them with a new set of winners lording it over the rest of us, we're running in place" (157). He insists that social mobility necessarily means that some must descend into poverty for others to rise, which is not at all the case, as demonstrated by the most superficial understanding of history. A rising economic tide lifts all boats, some more than others according to their ability to recognize opportunity and seize it. DeBoer is on board with San Francisco Unified School District's decision to eliminate the possibility of ANYONE taking algebra in 8th grade because too few Blacks were enrolled, or NYC Public Schools' decision to eliminate the entrance exam for the elite high schools of science for the same reason. He advocates for permitting 12 year-olds to drop out of school to do something else. "I argue that you should accept lower standards in order to keep more students in the system and to spare those who will never meet the more rigorous standards from the frustrations and humiliation of failure" (182). So lower the bar and let's do the limbo as a collective society. However, if you haven't read Andrew Hacker's book, The Math Myth, I recommend it. https://www.goodreads.com/review/show/1672414116: The idea is that there is absolutely no logical rationale for demanding algebra (and calculus in university), etc., the [not one of many] primary obstacle to graduation from high school and college. It really is indefensible to ascribe such significance to math. I agree with that one. It is simply a truism that "we can have higher standards or higher graduation rates, but not both" (191). University degrees, he tells us, are a "relative advantage rather than an absolute one. It's a mechanism to signal a certain perseverance, a certain wherewithal, perhaps talent and skills and time management. As more people earned degrees, more jobs that didn't require them in the past began to require them. The place from which the degree was earned became more important." College for all is idiotic, entirely nonsensical. Many do not have the desire or the aptitude. Instead, we must create broader models of what a well-lived life means. Chapter 9 is an abrupt change of course: DeBoer's vision for American socialism and it is horrific to those of us who oppose equality of outcomes, the repression of striving, and elimination of rewards for taking initiative. "If we make the meritocratic race entirely fair in terms of race, gender, economic class and similar, the stakes of that race would remain as high as they are now, and the competition of our young people would stay just as brutal. And free of social and economic inequality, those who support the system would only be emboldened, and those who fail to develop academic skills that are valuable under capitalism would endure the added indignity of having lost in a system that was 'fair'" (203). At this point, let's inject Turchin’s theory that the overproduction of elites gives rise to competition and social chaos and my favorite explanation, relative deprivation theory. In the 1960s, Davies posited that civil unrest results not from absolute poverty but from the increased expectations following a period of progress, a theory subsequently applied to the radicalization of youth in Arab Spring, Hong Kong, and Black Lives Matter. This is a cautionary tale about urging “College for All” and inflating assumptions of socioeconomic advancement upon degree completion. The mass protests of 2010 through the present are the results of student debt, underemployment, resentment and the rage of adherents of the false gospel of education (and stirred by the clerisy preaching Critical Race Theory…). People want more. We don't want to all be the same. We strive. We want to be individuals, not a collective. That's why deBoer's vision cannot work in the USA. Nevertheless there is authentic wisdom here: "For too long the left has obsessed over the vague idea that is 'equality." "Rather we should simply pursue what's good for everyone, what fulfills their basic human needs and allows them to flourish. Human beings are complicated creatures, and we can be ranked and measured and divided on a thousand metrics. To suggest that we will ever achieve equality of any meaningful kind is to deny our nature. Recognizing that we have fundamentally different abilities and talents does not curse people to a harsh existence. It is the first step in their liberation. Acknowledging the inevitability of inequality in individual talent, as a society, would lead to the most profound change in consciousness imaginable....The notion that we more or less receive what we deserve, that our station is determined by our work ethic and talent, is the lifeblood of capitalism, the stuff of the American dream." OK so far. I'm right there with him. But then deBoer goes off the rails when he continues, "And that notion is a lie, one promulgated by those deluded by religion into believing in cosmic justice, by those who benefit from our exploitative economic system, and by those...convinced by centuries of propaganda that they are to blame for their own misfortune" (239). Nope, Freddie, it's not a lie. That's why people are knocking at the door trying to come to the USA. As the saying goes, how do you know if it's a good country or not? See whether more people leaving or trying to get in. He wants Medicare for all, but socialized medicine, unfortunately does not work well, as we have seen exposed in innumerable contexts around the world. DeBoer knows that forgiving student loan debt is regressive; it benefits the wealthiest most, but he wants to do it anyway. Naturally, he wants to see universal basic income and jobs guarantee, and above all, "the destruction of markets" This book is worth reading. It's controversial and thought-provoking. It affirms some of the ideas you already have and challenges you to consider others and makes you imagine where it all should lead in the future. ...more |
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It's difficult to resist an anthology of feminist essays about food writing, especially one with essays like "Writing Recipes, Telling Histories" and
It's difficult to resist an anthology of feminist essays about food writing, especially one with essays like "Writing Recipes, Telling Histories" and "Understanding the Significance of 'Kitchen Thrift' in Prescriptive Texts about Food." The reader should expect many of the essayists to be academics steeped in Critical Gender Theory (CGT), overly proud of taking the quotidian production and consumption of food as a subject of inflated and overwrought analysis. I kept wanting to ask, "Yes, but so what?" Maybe I've outgrown this unproductive production, but it was generally fun to read. In the first part, "Purposeful Cooking," we read delightful quotes from the illustrious American food writer MFK Fisher (1908-1992): "Our three basic needs for food and security and love are so mixed and mingled and entwined that we cannot strictly think of one without the others." When we read that recipes are in fact "a highly complex form, one containing discrete parts and serving multiple functions with in a wide range of rhetorical context: ordinary and exceptional, popular and erudite, private and public, practical and literary" (32), what does that contribute? It's a titillating thought-toy for a few seconds...and then? Is that sufficient? This is the problem with so much academic production. It doesn't lead to new understanding or illuminate any aspect of the human experience. While Goldthwaite tells us that definitions of what it means to be feminist change over time (7), these essays don't explicitly seek to trace them in any way. Abby Dubisar's essay on activists' cookbooks made an attempt, but the logic is flawed. She criticizes cookbook writers in the "new domesticity" movement, who prioritize their rejection of "mass produced consumer capitalism" and embrace of "home and hearth" over their social and peace activism. Moreover, "The key assumption that women should perform cookery duties thus never gets fully questioned" (72). I emphasize that the texts she is using to make her point are cookbooks . A cookbook author's proper focus at the time of writing the cookbook is the production of food, otherwise she or he would be writing something else, a manifesto (or a cookbook of incendiary devices). The presentist presumption of contemporary superiority to women of the past is troubling. For example, Jennifer Cognard-Black tells us that by reading her grandmother's recipe cards and "analyzing" them, she becomes a "more complex woman reader and writer" able to "honor...critique...change" the world the recipes memorialize (42). Time and again, we see in feminist writing the insertion of patriarchal hierarchies, here the assertion that a woman engaged in academia occupies a higher rung than a woman engaged in creating a home. That must not be a feminist assertion; there are no strata. The obviousness is tiresome: "I argue that all recipe titles and attributions potentially convey a food's ethnicity, class origin, historical period, authorship, and connection to a specific discourse community" (36). Argue? Who would dispute this obvious fact? The kitchen thrift essay was particularly interesting. "Thrift has much in common with other practices and 'moral goods' such as self-restraint, conservation, and stewardship and 'notions of justice, charity, and the public good.' Understood historically, thrift is a mindful and deliberate approach to daily living that considers the welfare of self and others" (51). To the frugal, it is advisable that "convenience [be] a secondary object (53). We really would do well to recall that. Kristen Winet's piece on the "shameful act" of culinary tourism was troubling for any number of reasons. She positively lambasts travelers, stating they "veil their colonizing attitudes in curiosity" and quotes bell hooks, who regarded the culinary tourism as "'consumer cannibalism,' a kind of 'Other-eating' that thrives on foreignness and a lack of critical engagement with the people involved in food production and dissemination and can lead to the constant production of cultural difference as a consumable commodity" (103). Yikes. That is absurdly harsh, but it gets worse: "colonialism is pervasive, resilient, and malleable--it leaks into well-intentioned exchanges, inhabits our travels, and benefits the privileged in ways that the privileged are not often even aware of. ...I worry that by not examining new ways of seeing the relationship of Western travelers to their Other-eating, we run the risk of perpetuating a hopelessly superficial non-reflective, inadvertently ignorant perspective....travelers can learn to refuse the us/them framework and upset the packaged idea that the world's foods are there for them to consume as they desire" (112). And if that traveler is male, being served by a female, she has particular vitriol reserved just for him. It is absolutely true that the typical traveler goes to a restaurant or the market and engages in a transaction, not a relationship, and I have often felt that global travel for short periods with students is akin to touring a human zoo for its lack of genuine and equal human exchange, but to abstain from travel, and this means domestically not merely abroad, unless one can engage authentically is to impoverish our lives significantly. Winet is the quintessential CGT author. Statements like, "He is in many ways enacting the persona of what communication scholar Jean Deruz likens to a kind of culinary plunderer, someone who is 'greedy to devour the commodified products of other people's home-building practices' by placing himself as the Anglo subject 'reembodying himself in a new location'" (109). Egads, Kristen needs to spend more time outside of the academy. In contrast, Lynn Bloom draws on feminist culinary autobiographies, like Barbara Kingsolver's Animal, Vegetable, Miracle, to affirm, "Food is the medium of community and generosity... Planning 'beautiful meals and investing one's heart and time in their preparation is the opposite of self indulgence.' 'Kitchen-based family gatherings are process-oriented, cooperative and in the best of worlds, nourishing and soulful,' in part because 'a lot of talk happens first, news exchanged, secrets revealed across generations, paths cleared with a touch of the arm" (97). Again, nothing new, buy lyrically expressed. And we return to CGT with Abby Wilkerson's essay on the family farm and farmers' markets made some jaw-dropping statements. Her assertion of the off-putting "'heterosexual coupling" visible at the majority of stands" is laughable when most lesbians and probably gay men would point to the downtown farmer’s market as a meeting place. This irritation with "symbolically 'framing heterosexuality as normal'...linking the wholesomeness of sustainable food to the perceived wholesomeness of the hegemonic family form" is an "appeal to pathos." "At best, it fails to challenge heteronormative patriarchal patterns and, at worst, romanticizes them" (125). This sort of absurd statement is typical of CGT. Heterosexuality is normal. Normal means standard or typical. By any metric, heterosexuality is normal; homosexuals are about 3% of the population. Abby commits another affront to the English language with this sentence: "This is not the sense of reproductive futurity as a channel for the transmission for wealth that is integral to heteronormative temporality" (129). I found the two chapters centered on books I haven't read to be unreadable. Sylvia Pamboukian's essay focuses on girls in literature who "poison" others. She wants us to see Mary The Secret Garden, Jo in Little Women, Anne of Green Gables, and Hermione in Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets as threats to "hegemonic femininity," that is, selflessness and caregiving. She writes that "girl poisoners display traits not usually associated with good-girl heroines: independence, resilience, and naiveté, and readers warm to them expressly because of these qualities" (158), which is utter nonsense, since those are all classic characteristics of the heroine or shero. The depiction of alcohol consumption by women on television, according to Tammie Kennedy, serves to "normalize drinking wine as a way for women to navigate the tensions of their personal and professional choices, and this message is reinforced as it circulates throughout various spaces--social media, television/film, gender-based social activities [i.e. book clubs], and domestic drinking practices" (182). The viewer is meant to laugh at the sitcom family ribbing the women's over-consumption of alcohol or be concerned in the dramatic portrayal of the borderline addiction of the high powered professional. Kennedy writes that "wine drinking is equated with success...[and] functions as reward and respite from the emotional complexities for performing women's many roles" (173), helps "to navigate the freedoms and pressures gained from feminist and women's movements, as well as to manage her emotions and modulate her identity within these changing roles" (173). Temperance has historically been a women's issue. Men were the financial providers for the family but drank away their earnings, leaving the family impoverished. Alcohol also fueled their physical violence against their families. "In 2012, Gallup pollsters reported that nearly 66% of all American women drank [alcohol] regularly...purchase nearly two-thirds of the 856 million gallons sold and drink more than 70% of what they buy....women are more likely to drink wine to relax at home after work than men" (172). As Tammie quotes Barbara Ehrenreich, "Going toe to toe with men is a feminist act; going drink for drink with them isn't" (173). This is a deeply concerning trend. In view of the recent removal of the images of Uncle Ben, Aunt Jemima, and the Native American, the portrayal of Mexican women, Consuelo Carr Salas's essay, "The Commodification of Mexican Women on Mexican Food Packaging" is particularly timely. Salas wants us to see the "imagined nostalgia" that "creates identities for products": "Why do some companies choose to sell their product using a stereotypical image? What is the purpose of the image? Who is the audience of this image? What is communicated by these images?....Each image becomes one more stereotypical portrayal and continuously adds to the collective idea of who Mexicans are" (190). "We as visual rhetoricians, need to examine food packaging in order to recognized how attempts to appeal to the authenticity of a food product can create an essentialized stereotype of certain groups and cultures. Pausing when we encounter food products in the aisles of the grocery store and allowing ourselves to question audience and purpose in conjunction with an analysis of appeals of authenticity will allow for deeper understanding of what these images attempt to do--and allow consumers to question whether they are buying just a product or also stereotypical images of others" (197). I remain unconvinced that consumers are so engaged by the images on the labels of Mexican foods. If I want authentic tortillas, I drive to the tortillería and buy them hot off the grill. Alexis Baker seeks to understand why the art of Holocaust survivors didn't depict themselves with shaved heads and emaciated bodies and concludes "The soul not the body is the foundation of identity" (202); "the strong sense of self remains intact, regardless of physical conditions of starvation" (210). Perhaps one of the most troubling entries in the anthology is Morgan Gresham's piece on pro-anorexia websites. She pays particular attention to the House of Thin, created by Mandi Faux, a "transsexual escort model entertainer..." There is not a single mention in Gresham's article that transgenderism and anorexia are both body dysmorphic disorders, comorbid with a host of other mental health issues like depression and OCD. Further, this third wave feminist insists on referring to Gresham as she, which I as a second wave feminist find appalling. Pronouns matter and we must refuse to open the gates to males who desire to colonize our spaces, bodies, and experience. Sex cannot be changed; sex determining chromosomes are in every cell of the body; and the female body cannot be put on like a coat. Beyond that, these websites underscore the current perilous trend among those with disorders like OCD and trichotillomania to embrace them as part of who they are, rather than overcome them. Anorexics are encouraged to make "daily choices about identification." At least this site reinterprets pro ana mia [bulimia] to mean that it encourages "personal development towards a better future" (219), whatever that might mean. The article on the book Skinny Bitch draws attention to the authors' abusive language, profanity and name-calling, the indictment of "the readers' grotesque identity, intolerable and disgusting in the eyes of the authors" as the readers gain "thinness...self-control and...refined tastes" (236). Rebecca Ingalls compares their techniques with the Bakhtinian grotesque realism that encompasses "excessive corporeality...both decay and rebirth, both shame and merriment, both filth and purity" (223). "The very use of the term 'bitch' in the title of the text could be read as an example of Foucault's 'reverse discourse,' in which a marginalized population...' speak[s] in its own behalf, to demand that its legitimacy or naturality be acknowledged, often in the same vocabulary" (229). I'm not buying it. Any viewer of the BBC2 cooking show Two Fat Ladies, "feminist activists who used cooking as a platform from which to share their polemic" (241) is likely to enjoy Sara Hillin's article. "In this case, cooking and related activities...represent the everyday context from which the two fat ladies produced a complex rhetorical power--one that allowed them to exploit several of the more negative cultural connotations of fatness and somehow build a positive ethos through that very act" (239). They "sought to mobilize and rally others to take up their causes: promoting more ethical manufacturing and sale of meats, educating oneself about health claims related to diet, and ending gender-based size discrimination" (162). The final essay is on a related fat-positive theme, the subgenre of chicklit that features a plus-size female sleuth as protagonist. As it turns out, there are many subgenres of female detective chicklit with difference emphases and settings: baking, romance, sci-fi, vampire, pizzeria, and coffeehouse. The plus-size sleuth challenges the notion of fat people as "lazy, stupid, and libidinous" (253). "Fatness is a resource--a benefit rather than a liability--and cultural beliefs about fat people are challenged and overturned" (262), along with notions of femininity. This anthology is worth a read. Skip whatever becomes tiresome and enjoy the rest. ...more |
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Disclosure: I'm a college admissions counselor with 20+ years of experience in boarding and day schools, pro bono work with community based organizati
Disclosure: I'm a college admissions counselor with 20+ years of experience in boarding and day schools, pro bono work with community based organizations, and private international clientele, based in Greenwich, CT, Carmel, CA, and Palm Beach, FL. My intention here is to critique this book and fill in some critical information Selingo omits for the likely reader, whom I assume to be those interested in the college admissions process. There are a few points from this book I wish everyone would take in: "'Most of the real screening' for selective universities is 'rooted in the home and school environment of children from infancy on,'" --MIT Admissions Director B. Alden Thresher. "Colleges are a business [you have very little control over] and admissions is its chief revenue source,"--Dean of Admissions, Tulane It's incontestable that athletes receive systematic preferential treatment in admissions. "Nearly 8 million kids played high school sports in 2019. But only 495,000 of them ended up competing in college, and many fewer--just 150,000 or about 2% received scholarships, according to the NCAA" (150). Most of those scholarships are less than the value of "a very used car." Parents realize too late "the return on their investment in sports was no better than the discount tuition coupons colleges hand out to nearly everyone, whether they're athletes or not" (151). _________________ Selingo is the former editor of The Chronicle of Higher Education and has been journalist specializing in higher education for two decades. Hence, this book is a journalistic take on admissions, not a guide. Families who want to understand the process and procedure of college admissions are far better served by the truly superlative 2019 book by the Director of Admissions of Georgia Tech and a high school college admissions counselor, https://www.amazon.com/Truth-about-Co.... Experienced counselors who keep up with the field will not find much here they didn't already know, but families are likely to learn some new information. Selingo recounts a bit of the history of the elements essential to understanding the institutional procedures relating to enrollment management, marketing tactics, rankings, equity, and affirmative action. It astonishes me how many families not only do not understand that the marketing materials in the mailbox are not offers of admission, but argue with me about it, "No! They want her!" No, they want her to apply, but she hasn't got a chance there with ordinary activities, a mediocre GPA and SAT score. Selingo features three students, two of whom are "drivers," highly motivated information seekers regarding the admissions process, and one of whom is a "passenger," "along for the ride" (52). He also embeds himself in three university admissions offices (UW, Emory, Davidson) all "sellers," with brand names that tend to attract full-pay students, rather than "buyers," who don't, but we learn surprisingly few details because the process is truly "a cryptic recipe wrapped in what is supposed to look like a mathematical formula" (140), with similarities and differences in each university's process. Application readers rate applicants on different scales in certain categories: • Emory: 1-5; curriculum, extracurricular activities, recommendations, intellectual curiosity • Davidson: 1-10; grades, rigor of classes, academic caliber of high school, recommendations, written materials from applicant, and personal characteristics • UW: 1-9; academics, personal, overall Those personal characteristics scores are the way that affirmative action can come in, first generation college attendee, socioeconomic profile, hardships, as the handbook for readers states: "overcoming a significant educational disadvantage, tenacity, insight, originality, concern for others, or coming from a high school that has sent few students to UW" (100). Some truisms: • It is not the student who needs to be well-rounded, but the incoming class. • Quirkiness or unusual hobbies, like bee-keeping, Bharatnatyam style dance, or starting a botany club all serve applicants well. They make for a more interesting class. • The process is necessarily opaque and intuitive. If the crew team needs a coxswain or the band an oboist, the student who meets the institutional need will be admitted, other elements being equal. • GPA will be recalculated according to a university's own formula. Some, like Emory and UC, do not count 9th grade. "Spiky grades" with ups and downs are a distinctive negative. • Admissions/enrollment management increasingly resembles Moneyball, with sophisticated algorithms indicating "who was most interested in the school, who would enroll if accepted, and even how much financial aid it would take to attract them" (122). • The average college accepts 6/10 applicants; only 46 accept fewer than 20%. • If admissions officers are skeptical of some claim, they are more likely to defer admission (wait list). • There are no hard and fast rules. Nuance, finessing, and institutional needs you have no way of knowing are crucial parts of the process. Selingo only briefly mentions the best tool going: the Common Data Set. In your favorite search engine, type the name of the university to which you plan to apply and "Common Data Set." The CDS is VERY revealing. In section B, you learn how many students who started at X Univ. actually completed a degree in 4 or 6 years. (Average is 60%). In some colleges, fewer than 1 in 3 students who start there finish there. That is a strong sign of unhappy students! Do not apply there. Section C reveals the percentage of students with certain GPA and SAT/ACT scores, so you can know where you stand with yours. In Section C7, the university lists the criteria it considers important in admissions decisions. Look at the last category: interest. Some, like Berry in Georgia, actually want you to email them every week with updates(!); others (most of the "sellers") already know you're interested; you don't have to prove it. Where it does matter, students should be engaging weekly with the college's social media and website (they log the IP address), emailing the admissions counselor for their region, meeting with them when they visit the school; that person may read your application. This can mean the difference between acceptance and rejection and financial aid or not. Other colleges don't care about community service but value work. You won't know what they want unless you look. This helps you to craft your essay accordingly AND know about the university culture. In C21, see how many applicants are accepted in the Early Action or Early Decision pool. Selingo devotes a great deal of attention to EA and ED. ED is not a good plan for anyone who needs to compare financial packages, because a decision will be due before other decisions are returned. Also keep in mind that ED and EA admit rates will be higher because of the composition of that pool: nearly all of the recruited athletes, full-pay students, and low-income, first-generation students who are part of programs like QuestBridge and Posse. Section G shows the cost to attend. Section H2 provides the number of students who apply and receive need-based aid and what the average amount is. Usually the university "discount rate" is just under 50%. Would you be more likely to buy a car for $5000 or a car that is usually $10,000, discounted to $5000? They know that about you. That's why they give you a SALE! price and make you feel special. Psychology and Marketing 101. Section J lists the number of degrees conferred in each major, so you know how popular your prospective major is. Some universities admit by major; find out which of yours do. Major matters in another way. Use JobSearchIntelligence.com and universities' institutional research reports on student outcomes data (ask for it if you can't find it) to learn starting salaries for specific majors. At this writing, Bio and Chem majors' starting salaries are around $20,000. So much for lucrative STEM fields. Back to athletics. In addition to the quote at the top of this review, there's more. "Because they field dozen of sports with attention paid to making sure each roster is full, selective colleges like Amherst or Harvard find themselves with fewer spots for nonathletes" (155). The fastest growing high school sports for boys: fencing, volleyball and lacrosse; girls: lacrosse, fencing, and rifle. The former Dean of Admissions at Princeton confessed that "no hook was stronger in assisting the prospect of an applicant than athletics" (157). And make no mistake, athletes are mostly white and wealthy, major in econ, poli sci, and history, and rank in the bottom 1/3 of their class. Selingo clarifies another point: people do not understand that the high school matters. Read this article: The Frog Pond Revisited: High School Academic Context, Class. Rank, and Elite College Admission by Thomas J. Espenshade et al. It is difficult for a high school to establish a record with a college. 18% of high schools are responsible for 75% of applications and 80% of admitted students. Selingo doesn't go into the details of how high schools are evaluated beyond stating that officers review the list of students' universities acceptances, but I will. • What's the median SAT [or ACT] score? From personal experience, I can attest to the difference in high schools with a median of 1020 and 1480. • What's the highest math? If it's pre-calculus, that's a world of difference from Multivariable Calculus, Differential Equations, and Theoretical Math. • What % go to a 4 year college? Obviously, a GPA in one high school does not reflect the same rigor as the same GPA in another, and 40% of all American high school students graduate with an A average in 1998; half do today. That's why we need standardized testing. Unfortunately, Selingo repeats the fallacy that "test results are closely correlated with family income," but we know that is not true. Impoverished Asians, for example, score higher than the top quintiles of other ethnic groups. Standardized testing was found in many studies conducted by UC researchers to help discover minority students they wouldn't have found otherwise. Here's a principal point: Parents need to be parents and say no. Too many times, students' emotional desire to leave the state ("I gotta get out of _____") results in attendance of a lesser ranked university at twice the price, incurring high student loan debt. They can leave the state once they earn the degree; don't give in! Even massive universities like UCLA can offer a small college feel due to discussion groups, but with vast opportunities. In the past five years, most of my students who have elected to attend small colleges and even medium sized universities (4000-7000 undergraduates) with excellent reputations have wound up transferring to larger ones and are delighted with the difference. That's unexpected, but true. Selingo doesn't mention return on investment, which is too extensive a topic to deal with here, but in a nutshell, if the prospective career is not a particularly lucrative one, it is logical to consider only inexpensive options. Regarding elite institutions, "At a top-ranked school, you'll step into a river of valedictorians, calculus geeks, and National Merit Scholars. They'll pull you along, or...wash you out." Selingo writes that parents believe the relationships students form "will give their teenagers entrée into society's highest echelons" (249), but it does not work that way. Please read at least my review of Paying for the Party, but the book is well worth your attention. https://www.goodreads.com/review/show... Your middle class kid is not going to be going on all expense paid weekend skiing trips in Gstaad with the billionaire's kid. Do you honestly think salaries are higher in some fields for grads from highly selective schools just because they went to that school? Money in money out. Those universities and those elite professional services companies accept most of their students from the highest socioeconomic quintile; the students have connections. They attended the "right" preschools, primary schools, summer camps, boarding schools, etc. [See first quote above]. It's not that students from lowest quintiles will be admitted to the country club set. That's quite rare. Read my review of The Privileged Poor to see how that works out. https://www.goodreads.com/review/show... Or, if you're up for a scarier scenario, screen the film or re-read Patricia Highsmith's thriller The Talented Mr. Ripley.That's about right. A final note, focus on finding an affordable, financially solvent university where students graduate on time, have access to faculty, advising, and internships, and a suitable major, possibly with a desired concentration. It's surprising that Selingo doesn't address the solvency issue. It is expected that 20% of private colleges will go under in the next few years; there are hundreds that have already closed. See for example the Forbes article "Dawn Of The Dead: For Hundreds Of The Nation’s Private Colleges, It’s Merge Or Perish" to gauge the financial health of a college before COVID. Be assured that their financial situation has only declined. Many had to return the funds paid for room and board when students were sent home, but still had to pay for maintenance and other contracts. In summary, this is an okay book from a higher education journalist. If you want inside information and a usable guide, see https://www.amazon.com/Truth-about-Co... ...more |
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really liked it
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Terrence K. Williams' story is worthy of your attention. This is no maudlin tale of woe, despite the fact he was born fifth of nine children by six fa
Terrence K. Williams' story is worthy of your attention. This is no maudlin tale of woe, despite the fact he was born fifth of nine children by six fathers to a crack cocaine addicted mother. Williams' tone is dispassionate and matter-of-fact as he relates how he came to be a media sensation with viral popularity. His life story is one of triumph over starvation, neglect, abuse, broken promises, instability, loss, loss and more loss, recognition of his gifts and hard work to hone them, and a broken neck that nearly paralyzes him on his way to the White House. If it weren't for a few blessings, like his sister, Keisha, who was under ten years old when he was born and cared for him, God's grace, and a foster family who lived on a farm and provided "the stabilizing influence of regular meals, nightly prayers, weekly Sunday church services, consistent chores, wise counsel, and intentional time invested in me" (78), Terrence says he would likely have been another tragic statistic, which, he tells us, all foster kids know. In primary school, Terrence was constantly in trouble for his "motor mouth," and he writes, "Sometimes I think that as a society, we are too quick to try to discipline certain characteristics out of people instead of perceiving that if nurtured successfully, often those traits can become our greatest gifts" (121). Amen! Williams proceeded to follow a dangerous path with the wrong crowd, but was finally scared straight after some close calls and interventions, both familial and divine. He enrolled in college, but his natural curiosity and inquisitiveness were stifled; the instructors lectured and provided readings but told him what to think about them, when he had his own ideas. He courageously realized his purpose was other. He had to find a way to use his "personality that needs to be in front of the world," as a high school teacher told him (146). He practiced and perfected his craft and auditioned for television and film roles, but it was his discovery of Facebook Live that led Williams to viral popularity and an invitation to the White House. Aware of Trump's failings as well as his own, he nevertheless wisely declares that "God uses imperfect people to do great things" (193). Each chapter is prefaced with a pithy quote, which would make a fine book of inspirational Terrencisms. Not surprisingly, Williams is plain spoken and tells us how he sees it. "It strikes me as strange that people ...care about abused and neglected pets more than hurting and abandoned children...While shelter dogs are trendy, housing foster children is viewed as potentially dangerous and disruptive" (61). Williams' book is full of such unimpeachably pragmatic reflections and indictments of common assumptions. Above all, Terrence is a man of unshakeable faith: "In my mind, all the hard stuff that I went through was like my own boot camp, my training day for something bigger" (121). He learned adaptability, to stand up for others and for himself. Williams doesn't describe the players in his life by their ethnic identity. We have no idea if his foster and adoptive parents were Black or White, which is admirably consistent with his belief in individual responsibility in contrast to tribal identity politics. He loves to learn and challenge the prevailing narrative. He resents being told what to think or how to vote. He points out that the Democratic party is the one "capitalizing on the use of victimhood that they had skillfully orchestrated as the party of slavery, the KKK, the modern-day plantation of the projects, race-baiting" (159), LBJ's policy disintegrated the Black family, the Clinton crime bill that resulted in mass incarceration. Williams states unequivocally that Democrats enslave Blacks to government handouts, make people believe they are victims and weak, people who can't survive without scraps from the master's table, instead of being self-reliant and entrepreneurial. It's the Trump administration that initiated the First Step Act to give ex-offenders a chance and $250M to Historically Black Colleges and Universities. "Why would I embrace the mentality that I saw hold so many other people in bondage? Why would I want to be told how to think when I can think for myself? Why would I want to depend on the government to live when America has given me the opportunity to make my own way? The American Dream is not poverty and the projects. The American Dream is not victimhood and handouts. The American Dream is not subjugation and suppression of free speech and thought. The American Dream is the freedom to succeed and thrive, blossoming in the gifts and abilities that God has endowed within us. I believe in this beautiful nation that God has given us. Life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness are the things that make our nation great" (162). Terrence K. Williams has written a unifying story that inspires faith in God, country and our fellow human beings, transcending race, tribal, and partisan identities. It would make a fine selection for youth groups, and church and community book discussions. ...more |
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| Jul 21, 2020
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really liked it
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When I subscribed to and actively promulgated the Marxist ideology of the far Left as a professor, my colleagues and friends and I raged and spouted f
When I subscribed to and actively promulgated the Marxist ideology of the far Left as a professor, my colleagues and friends and I raged and spouted frothing criticism of the USA daily. It was only after I departed academe did I come to realize not only how very skewed this perspective was, but how insincere my colleagues were. Although Marx wrote in Theses on Feuerbach, "Philosophers have hitherto only interpreted the world in various ways; the point is to change it," they did nothing but talk and deride those who provided "bandaid" solutions to systemic problems. A major turning point for me was a convention of several thousand conservative homeschoolers, who contextualized the past sins of the USA as part of humans' fallen nature, transcended with human reason and God's grace. They celebrated America's singular history of freedoms and respect for individual rights, culture of self-reliance and striving, and its philosophical roots in Jerusalem and Athens. They awarded prizes to students for their knowledge of the Bill of Rights, the Declaration of Independence, and the Constitution. They were a joyful and patriotic bunch. I wondered about the reasons for the sharp contrast between these folks and the lack of a similarly balanced view and good humor on the Left. Shapiro provides a cogent analysis in this uplifting book sure to be enjoyed by anyone with interest in U.S. history. In each section, he defines what he perceives to be the distinguishing characteristics of American philosophy, culture, and history as he builds the case that a shared understanding of these elements bonds Americans together. The dissolution of that bond will lead to the very disintegration of the nation. Shapiro's defense of the Unionist perspective against the Disintegrationists is a nuanced one. He does not gloss over the troubling aspects of American history, but he demonstrates quite clearly that the foundational principles work when adhered to and striven for, and should be retained rather than jettisoned. Unionists side with originalists who seek to discern the will of the Founding Fathers in the Constitution as one might use holy writs as a moral compass; Disintegrationists perceive the Constitution as a period piece in dire need of serious revision or, more likely, abrogation. "Disintegrationists see themselves as new founders of the country" (199). Philosophy American philosophy is founded on natural rights to life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness that preexist government; on the equality of individuals before the law; and on the notion that government is instituted only to protect those preexisting rights and equality of individuals before the law, not "override them in the name of some greater good." The section on philosophy introduced me to the concept of negative rights and positive rights. The difference between the two is foundational to Shapiro's argument, but I had to seek clarification elsewhere, which I provide for you: "A negative right is a right not to be subjected to an action of another person or group; negative rights permit or oblige inaction" and prohibit the government from interfering. Negative rights are Unionist. Masterpiece Cakeshop v. Colorado Civil Rights Commission is an example. The baker had a right to control his labor (an extension of property) and not create a cake that would infringe on his Constitutional rights to free speech and the free exercise of religion. Requiring people to use others' preferred pronouns is a similar violation. In contrast, "A positive right is a right to be subjected to an action or another person or group; positive rights permit or oblige action." Disintegrationists want more of these, like the [pseudo] "rights to housing, health care, food, and social security" (38). Individuals thus become reliant on the government for their wellbeing, instead of taking responsibility for it themselves. The rights of the landowners, doctors, food producers, etc. are violated because they can be coerced to provide services without their consent, and taxpayers are forced to pay. As Alexis de Tocqueville wrote in 1835, the American "has only a defiant and restive regard for social authority and he appeals to its power only when he cannot do without it" (77); this self-reliance, a defining principle of America, is eroded by the Disintegrationists. An additional major sticking point between the two factions is that the Founders [and Unionists] regarded rights as pre-existing government, they are "inalienable;" they cannot be given or taken away, even by consent of the electorate. Historically, God has been the ultimate source of legitimation of rights and law; the government protect them. Wherefore the source of rights in an atheistic society? Common convention and agreement are too subjective and inconstant. The argument concerning equality of opportunity should be evident to anyone involved in a field that applies Affirmative Action: "seeking 'equality of opportunity' through disparate treatment of individuals means violating the rights of some on behalf of others. But Disintegrationists maintain that "all disparities result from societal injustice rather than human differences" (43). Unionists, in contrast, see that "Equal protection under the law is a far better remedy than restorative discrimination" (46). Traditionally, the phrase "states' rights" has been perceived as a dog whistle for racism due to its association with the slavery defended by the Southern Democrats, but since there are significant regional differences in this country, there is much to support subsidiarity, the principle that whenever possible or feasible, issues should be resolved or engaged by the most local entity rather than a centralized authority. Politics becomes high stakes in the US because the Disintegrationists explicitly intend to erode delegated powers and check and balances in favor of broader powers for government. Culture: American culture is predicated on 1. The tolerance for the rights of others, "particularly when we don't like how others exercise their rights" 2. The cohesion and duties instilled and imposed by social institutions like family, church, and associations of all kinds 3. The insistent desire for freedom 4. The spirit of adventure and risk-taking. That last one matters a great deal, particularly in the wake of 9/11, which resulted in the PATRIOT Act and its enormous infringement on rights. As Ben Franklin wrote, "They who can give up essential liberty to obtain a little temporary safety, deserve neither liberty nor safety." In contrast, Disintegrationists promise "guarantees of positive 'freedom' from want and fear, rather than negative freedoms of speech and adventure--and duties created by the mob, dictated by a cultural elite at best indifferent to and at worst openly opposed to the institutions of church and family" (119). Shapiro underscores that the Constitution guarantees freedom of religion, not from it. The contemporary narrative avers that the Founders were not religious people, which is demonstrably false from their writings. John Adams stated, "Our Constitution was made only for a moral and religious people. It is wholly inadequate to the government of any other." The Disintegrationists want to "turn the state into a weapon against" religion; Obama and Clinton both disparaged religion. "The founders believed that an immoral people with rights would slide into childish libertinism, and then into the comfortable swaddling of tyranny" (69); how very prescient. Nevertheless, with great freedom comes great responsibility, duties, moral obligations to be inculcated by those social institutions. Alexis de Tocqueville wrote that while American "law permits ...people to do everything, religion prevents them from conceiving everything and forbids them to dare everything" (70). For how much longer? History Shapiro presents an unabashed and stirringly convincing defense of American exceptionalism in the section on History. For Unionists, 1. "America was born with glorious ideals" 2. "America has been united by those ideals more and more universally over time, rather than divided by sectarian interest, and that adherence to those ideals has been at the center of America's progress" 3. "The world has benefited from America's power and greatness" (123). The strongest evidence supporting this view is that holding fast to the founding principles "has reduced colonialism and imperialism over time which is why the United States may be the most powerful country in the history of the world but does not rule the largest territorial empire in history of world" (184). "The story of America is one of the great stories in human history. America was founded on principles; America has struggle to live up to those principles, but with each step toward those principles, America has magnified its own greatness. The world is better off for America. We ought to understand the shadows and curses of our history; we ought to understand how history affects the present. But we all ought to understand, most of all, that we are part of the same history, not rivals in a country divided by identity or class. Yet, as we will soon see, Disintegrationists have reworked American history to do just that" (164). Disintegrationists identify alternative fundamental principles (169, 181): 1. "America was founded in evil" 2. "America has always reflected divided sects and hierarchies of power"; it is "irredeemably divided and can never escape her past absent dismantling for founding principles" 3. "America's role in the world has resulted in poverty, death, inequality, and injustice".... "on net, terrible for her citizens and terrible for the world." The Disintegrationist view is without question what I was taught in a Jesuit university in the late 1980s. The reasons for that are best explained by John Ellis in his recent book (see my review), namely the illiberal liberalism, politicization, and neophilia that have taken over academe. Shapiro provides a corrective to that and its recent manifestations in The 1619 Project and the work of Howard Zinn, Disintegrationist projects which dominate educational institutions. "The founders did accept slavery as part of the founding bargain, since the alternative would have been the division of the United States itself" (57); it would have severed the Southern delegates. Later, we are reminded that Rockefeller and Carnegie grew up poor, "took risks, and read the rewards." The entire country's standard of living increased enormously during the The Gilded Age, but the disparities ushered in the Progressive Era, "the complete rewriting of the bargain between Americans and their government" (144). He proceeds thus through the 20th century into the 21st. Why this matters occupies considerably less space than the argument itself. A nation needs a shared history and common touchstones for its unity. Conclusion The Disintegrationists and Unionists have two starkly distinct views of America, its philosophy, its culture and its history. The former demands "ever more adherence, ever more control. They seek to dominate where they cannot persuade and convince. And so America will be left with two choices: submission or disintegration" (201). Shapiro urges resistance to these forces, reaffirmation of the founding principles and the unity of our nation. He believes that American exceptionalism will prevail. He is far more hopeful than I. ...more |
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really liked it
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In the opening chapter, there is a quote from Arthur Schlesinger's prescient The Disuniting of America (Norton, 1991) that captures the point of this
In the opening chapter, there is a quote from Arthur Schlesinger's prescient The Disuniting of America (Norton, 1991) that captures the point of this book: "The bonds of national cohesion are sufficiently fragile already. Public education should aim to strengthen those bonds, not to weaken them. If separatist tendencies go on unchecked, the result can only be the fragmentation, re-segregation, and tribalization of American life." And that is precisely what has occurred. All 500,000 students in the Cal State University system are now required to take an Ethnic Studies course, the characteristics of which are the following components: "affirmation of their cultural identity [not American, of course, but their identity group], external attribution for difficulties [!], forewarning about stereotypes, etc." This is divisive and un American. We are Americans all, not tribes. E Pluribus UNUM. All of my grandparents immigrated to this nation. The story of America is my story, and the task of the public school is to guide students to know that with their heads and feel that with their hearts. Hirsch's focus is on the primary grades, which transmit foundational knowledge, foster the ability to communicate, and shape "our gut allegiance." Noah Webster (of dictionary fame) declared in the 18th century, "The Education of youth is, in all governments, an object of the first consequence. The impressions received in early life, usually form the character of individuals; a union of which forms the general character of a nation." They are a critical period for developing citizenship [and civilizing the savages, as the Victorian Arnold of Rugby put it], a duty that schools took seriously from the dawn of the common schools in the 1800s through the successful assimilation of massive waves of immigrants through the 20th century. It is precisely this mission that helped the Irish, Italians, Jews, and others to adopt the American identity, and gain the necessary cultural capital to rise out of poverty and prosper. In the 1960s, however, a massive and tragic shift occurred to individualistic child-centered "vacuous" education. Informed by Romanticism and the correlate that children should learn what interests them naturally and be guided rather than taught, direct instruction a brutal power play meant to subdue the noble savage into conformity with a fallen world. In the Sudbury schools, a quintessential example, graduates interviewed just last year couldn't identify Thomas Jefferson or Martin Luther King, Jr., because their interests didn't lead them there. Clearly, this method will not lead to an educated citizenry. Alas, unchecked and untamed, human nature slides into barbarism and tribalism. Individuals' preferences, aesthetic tastes, and behavior must be elevated, shaped to esteem that which is good, virtuous and beautiful, to sacrifice for the common good and a meaningful life. They do not come to that naturally any more than any other animal. Hirsch's point is that "The results [of this recent educational philosophy] have been devastating: It's not simply a matter of ignorance...[but] also the loss of a shared knowledge base across the nation that would otherwise enable us to work together, understand one another, and make coherent, informed decisions at the local and national level" (5). Ergo, we must return to knowledge-centered schools, in which the specific content, not merely skills or nebulous standards, to be covered is explicitly stated and the same throughout the nation. Hirsch, a professed socialist, was been mischaracterized in 1988 as an arch conservative with the publication of his renowned book Cultural Literacy, because his approach did not square with the nascent multiculturalism that was then becoming de rigueur. He argued even then that instilling common foundational knowledge was essential to helping the more challenged socioeconomic quintiles to reach parity. He now demonstrates that the repeated lowering of the bar to suit the lowest common denominator has had deleterious consequences for civic engagement, social cohesion, and basic knowledge, particularly as indicated by PISA scores. Hirsch points to declines in PISA scores in the U.S., Germany, France, and Sweden when they adopted the "progressive" method of education, centering differentiation and student-centered practices and their recovery upon implementing knowledge-based pedagogy. As one who is particularly sensitive to correlation without causation, I found the evidence presented compelling. [As an aside, other scholars have taken great issue with comparing other nations with questionable reporting ethics with U.S. schools, which have considerable numbers of students whose first language is other than English. See https://www.newgeography.com/content/... ] What is frankly bizarre here is Hirsch's preoccupation with what he perceives to be the ubiquitous influence of Dewey and touchy-feely student-centered learning when it is axiomatic in education that "Thorndike won," with his emphasis on grades, structures, etc. The standardized testing that governs what is taught in K-12 is all Thorndike. Project-based, inquiry-driven learning is Dewey. How on earth could Hirsch somehow imagine the latter to be prevalent? Where does this idyllic, if misguided, differentiation and extensive choice occur? Not in any of the public schools I visit or read about in EdWeek. Where do they not use the same texts and topics in every classroom? Hirsch describes the imperative for a common language, by which he means cultural referents. Lacking those, communication breaks down and society along with it. As Founding Chief Academic Officer, I held the responsibility for creating the program of study for a new high school that was diverse in every way and I prioritized instilling cultural capital in the disadvantaged. I wanted to be sure that they were familiar with significant cultural references and literary allusions, that they were able to communicate clearly in standard English, and that they knew how to behave during an interview or business lunch, among many other situations. No one disputes that there is a dominant culture, which the radical Left sees as oppressive and "Whiteness" and the mainstream sees as a neutral statement of fact. To fail to prepare students to function in this society is dereliction of duty. Hirsch is concerned with lifting the downtrodden and thus, what he is suggesting is more relevant more to the challenged quintiles than the highest. The charter schools that get all the attention for minority students' high test scores, like Success Academy, are like prisons, while progressive schools are attended by the top socioeconomic quintiles, with lax rules. It is instructive here to reference Jean Anyon's work on the ways that socioeconomic class is reproduced in the classroom. Working class schools like Success Academy emphasize obedience and procedure; middle class schools, learning or calculating the right answer; professional class schools, creative expression. In the executive class school, however, analysis and strategy are emphasized. "See the pattern, develop the work plan, find the flaw, present your work with authority." They are training to work in the C-Suite or McKinsey from earliest childhood. Different socioeconomic quintiles are provided different opportunities and levels of knowledge that build on one another. As noted, Hirsch's focus is the primary school. In the wildly successful high school, I had a vision for project-based education inspired by attending the International Science and Engineering Fair, at which high school students from around the world present their astonishing research. We attempted and succeeded in lifting all boats, not an easy task with offspring of both billionaires and indigent in the same classroom. Everyone completed the same assignment, but some students read peer-reviewed journal articles, while English language learners read texts on their level. Both groups presented sophisticated posters with a hypothesis, methodology, conclusion, and citations they and we were proud of. They learned skills and content. We offered math courses through Multivariable Calculus and Differential Equations. Our students won the $100,000 Siemens Award, ISEF Grand Prize, obtained patents, presented at national conferences as adults (not students), published hundreds of novels, etc. Our first graduating classes were admitted to all the Ivy and Ivy+ universities, including CalTech and MIT. I wrote about my vision and its implementation in Engage!: Setting the Course for Independent Secondary Schools in the 21st Century. Hirsch is right that schools exist to educate citizens, particularly in the United States, where we do not share inherited features, blood ties, or shared religion. He is right that we need to build cultural capital. He is right that we need to be more specific and clear about the content to be learned in every grade level and standardize it across the nation. I remain at a loss to understand why he seems to think content cannot be learned through projects, students must be physically oriented to the teacher, or that students should not pursue their individual interests within the structure of the specific content. I have empirical evidence to the contrary. ...more |
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really liked it
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At the core of this book is the assertion that "Nothing on earth can satisfy your desire for happiness." Only God can and thus God must be at the cent
At the core of this book is the assertion that "Nothing on earth can satisfy your desire for happiness." Only God can and thus God must be at the center of our lives. As Kelly writes, "We are only here on earth for the blink of an eye. This is not our home. That's why the happiness that God wants and created us for is very different from fleeting happiness and momentary pleasures of this world." Yet we resist happiness in a variety of ways, and Kelly reveals its methods so we see it at work and devise tactics to overcome it. "Resistance loves keeping us busy with anything but the one thing that will most help us grow....Resistance likes to distract us, keeping us thinking about things we can do nothing about." Elections, celebrities, sports, fashion, even the latest novel are all distractions. Each chapter features a pithy summary statement and a feasible action step. For example: "Key point: People who read the Bible regularly make better decisions. The Bible gives us incredible insight into the mind of God. Action step: Set aside a few minutes each day to read and reflect on a passage from the Bible. Begin with Matthew, Proverbs or Psalms." The origin of Kelly's journey is compelling. When the author was a teenager, a man reached out to him and changed his life by encouraging him to take small gradual steps toward spirituality that resonated with him. Kelly instructs us in the steps, which in outline are as follows: Believe you are created for a purpose. Create a daily habit of prayer 10 minutes day. Offer every hour of your life to God as a prayer. Spend time reading the Bible and other great spiritual works. Make a difference in the lives of others, for everyone has struggles and so many are lonely. Attend church at least once or twice a week. Deny yourself in small ways many times today so that God can fill you with incredible spiritual strength. Confess your sins regularly For many reasons, I wish that every young person might read this book. It should prompt them to reflect on the big questions that matter: "Who am I ? What am I here for? What matters most? What matters least?" They may adopt the directive "Pray every day. Exercise every day. Read every day. Write every day." Sound advice. Additionally, the young are focused on themselves and often fail to grasp the imperative of being gentle with others, for "everyone you meet is fighting a hard battle." And too often, they settle for the bare minimum of effort. "Wherever you find excellence, you find continuous learning. They go hand-in-hand. Wherever you find that continuous learning is missing, you find mediocrity." As a college admissions counselor for high school students, I often work with students who demand to do as they please, often incurring enormous student loan debt (even $200,000+) to attend a private college out of state instead of starting at community college, not realizing or caring that "the ability to delay gratification is intimately linked with success. You cannot succeed at anything unless you're willing and able to delay gratification." Worse, in contrast to the media's assertions of altruism among today's youth, too many tell me they "just want to make a lot of money." Kelly writes, "The primary purpose of work is not to make money. Making money is the secondary outcome. Don't get me wrong– making money is good and necessary; it just isn't the primary purpose of our work. The primary purpose of work is to help us become the person God created us to be." In this book, Kelly succeeds in urging us to be that person. Nevertheless, there is no question this book may be too Roman Catholic for many readers. In contrast with many other Christian denominations, central to Catholic iconography is the crucifix, the figure of Jesus on the cross, which is unquestionably gruesome. While many of us are inured to the symbol, imagine if people sported guillotines or nooses or guns around their necks to commemorate the death of some hallowed figure put to death by those methods. The crucifix affirms the value of suffering, which can be taken too far. Kelly ratifies and promotes the Church's traditional suggestion we offer up our suffering for the sake of others. That borders on masochism and a distorted idolatry of suffering, as though a bloodthirsty god needed to be appeased and fed pain and blood. Recall that Mother Teresa of Calcutta refused analgesics to those in agony. That is a morbid perversion. On the other hand, Kelly offers a welcome corrective contrast to the gospel of wealth too often preached by popular pastors. This version of happiness more closely resembles Aristotle's eudaimonia, flourishing through the fulfillment of one's purpose, than fleeting pleasure and self indulgence. My hope is that even non-Christians and non-theists might read this book and be able to translate it into their own faith traditions to be nourished at their own wells. ...more |
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The premise of the book is that indoctrination in radical politics has supplanted the proper purpose of the university and has led to intellectual laz
The premise of the book is that indoctrination in radical politics has supplanted the proper purpose of the university and has led to intellectual laziness, lower standards, and "censorious intrusions into speech opinion and personal life." This may strike some as hyperbole; Ellis and I can assure you it is not. In fact, it would be difficult to imagine this "crucial part of the way in which political radicals exercise power on campus and in which identity politics now strangles academia" could be disputed by anyone in academia, where I have spent much of my own career and was admittedly one of the social justice warriors to whom Ellis refers. It is often noted derisively that non-college graduates predominate among the Right. The correlation implied is intelligence, when it may well be they have escaped the de facto indoctrination camps. Ellis provides many cases that reveal the radical leftist disposition on campus and could have included many more, but exercised admirable restraint. The instructors exploit students' immaturity and sophomoric self-righteousness, and appeal to emotion and tribal loyalties before students have developed the skills to think independently. "Instead of teaching students to sift evidence and weigh alternative explanations intelligently," they teach them to be firmly fixed in a political perspective. In particular, "The importance of 'diversity' in weakening resistance to radical control of the campuses would be difficult to overstate." It seems innocuous enough, a "noble crusade," but it is not. It erodes all reason and support for excellence and results in the establishment of leadership in the weakest, most immature, the ones who least embody "the academy's core values." Absolutely true. The intellectual giants are no longer in charge; no one dares question the Diversity, Equity and Inclusion teams; they are shielded from legitimate criticism on the moral hill of victimhood. The "injustices of the past" mandate "the need to remake society." Ellis's rationale is unimpeachable and moving when he writes at length about the exceptional nature of U.S. history, in stark contrast to Howard Zinn and The 1619 Project, promoted in schools across the country because it is provocative, but *admittedly erroneous*! Egregious! "Historical study on those aspects of a nation's development that are the least positive, subjected to the worst possible interpretations for wildly exaggerated attribution of the worst possible motives. This is not history; it is political propaganda whose purpose is solely to make the case that the country is so rotten that it must be radically transformed. As such it answers to neither fact nor logic." Yet it is taught ubiquitous in universities and K-12, not just at Berkeley, Reed, Hampshire and Drew. The USA grew "from a few fairly insignificant colonies...to being by far the most powerful nation on earth, militarily, economically, and culturally, in only 200 years, though its population was never more than 1/3 that of India or China....Its citizens have just about the highest standard of living in the world; it is the oldest democracy in the world with the longest-surviving written constitution...American technology and industrial methods have helped to spread a sharp rise in living standards across the globe....Life spans have doubled across the globe due to modern medicine which America had a significant role in developing." Previously only the most radical segment of the Left, but now academia and the Left in general insists on "painting as dark a picture of America as possible, for only if people are persuaded that something is completely rotten will they accept that it needs to be transformed" into the Marxist agenda that has "only led to misery everywhere it has been tried." Why is it that events sponsored by conservatives celebrate the USA and those by the Left disparage and condemn it? What a shame. Why do so many want to immigrate to the USA? There is so very much to celebrate here. Ellis posits that the sciences enjoy new discoveries often. Due to the love of innovation and neophilia, love of all things new, English, languages, history, etc. had to insert some fresh insight. Enter postmodernism and its spawn, Critical Race and Critical Gender Theory, which I discuss in my reviews of How to Be an Anti-Racist and White Fragility. [At least read this on CRT from The Harvard Law Record: http://hlrecord.org/racism-justified-...] These theories are absurd and irrational, but postmodernism affirms the absence of logic and the primacy of emotion and anecdote over empirical facts, which are described as tools of the oppressors to retain the power structure. Nevertheless, I disagree with several of Ellis's assertions. First, it is patently untrue that students are choosing not to major in the humanities because of the politicization of the faculty. The many colleges in danger of closing are not in that predicament because of their radical Left politics but demographics and economics. As a college admissions counselor for high school students, I can state emphatically from multiple studies reflected in the experience I share with colleagues that students and parents are completely unaware of how far gone academia is politically. They have no knowledge of the preferred pronouns name tags that await them at orientation or the one-sided teach-ins, etc. Rather, they increasingly associate the university with career preparation, and merely want to pursue a field that is likely to lead to gainful employment, particularly in view of the outrageous cost. Return on investment is foremost. Further, since the teaching of social science and history is so far to the Left, perhaps we are fortunate so many history departments are closing. *Update 9/26/20: I have 2 students who have told me they want a college with "people who are really liberal like me." This may not indicate an awareness of the environment, however. When I told the students about the preferred pronouns nonsense, they were unfamiliar with it. Moreover, in 2008, the Woessners published research about why conservatives don't pursue doctorates. It's not that they seek to avoid paternalistic radical leftist indoctrination, but that they have different values and As described in www.chronicle.com/article/conservativ... in The Chronicle of Higher Education: "They found that in a variety of ways, conservative students were less interested than liberals in subject matter that often leads to doctoral degrees, and less interested in doing the kinds of things that professors spend their time doing. For example, liberal students reported valuing intellectual freedom, creativity, and the chance to write original work and make a theoretical contribution to science. They outnumbered conservative students two to one in the humanities and social sciences — which are among the fields most likely to produce interest in doctoral study. Conservative students, however, put more value on personal achievement and orderliness, and on practical professions, like accounting and computer science, that could earn them lots of money. The Woessners also found that conservative students put a higher priority than liberal ones on raising a family. That does not always fit well with a career in academe, where people often delay childbearing until after they earn tenure." Second, it is not true that most professors are working toward the endgame of socialism. I did not. I taught as I had been taught, to raise students' consciousness of power structures and criticize and challenge what was then the prevailing status quo. Students were animated by critical race and gender theory and by seeing themselves as conscientized, woke, more aware than others, and for a few years that was sort of fun, until I realized I did not enjoy and it served no higher purpose to transform happy young people into angry young people. I did not, however, intend to lead them to foment socialist revolution, just think more critically. Professors continue to enjoy "waking up" young people without deeper reflection on their impact on society. In this sense, professors are merely useful idiots, armchair Marxists, limousine liberals. In his Theses on Feuerbach, Marx wrote "Philosophers have hitherto only interpreted the world in various ways; the point is to change it." The professoriate merely interprets and criticizes, which was my primary complaint while in the mix. It does nothing and sharply denounces any "band aid" assistance, when that is precisely what is often essential to address immediate needs. They don't act. They just pontificate. Action is up to the students. They encourage students to protest in support of BLM and similar but respond angrily when the poorly prepared affirmative action admits struggle to keep up with the work in their courses. They bristle at the suggestion they provide extra assistance. They engage in assortative mating to ensure they have an intellectual and socioeconomic equal. They rant when their own jobs are imperiled by the loss of tenure or the closure of their program or employer. They fail to appreciate the benefits they have reaped from capitalist-funded and capitalism-enabled research grants. It is a deliberate, willful, self-righteous naïveté. Third, it is not true that all professors in public universities know it is illegal for them to use the classroom as a platform for politics. They are not informed of this. Most private universities certainly neither warn nor castigate professors for doing so, presumably under the guise of academic freedom. In light of the Department of Education's well-played recent threat to withdraw federal funds from Princeton for racism on the heels of president Eisgruber's Maoist/Stalinist/woke confession of institutionalized systemic racism, it will be interesting to see whether the public admissions of guilt continue in academe. It should give them pause at the very least. That leads to one of Ellis's most important points, with which I agree, and that is his suggested corrective: cut or withhold taxpayer funding from universities that engage in political behaviors. It may well be the only way to get them back on track. But this may have little impact in light of the Woessners' study. While they suggested that "to attract more conservatives to the professoriate, [higher education] should smooth the way financially, offering subsidized health insurance and housing for graduate students, and adopting family-friendly policies for professors," Solon Simmons of GMU points out, “If it’s true that people are self-sorting, what is to be done?” Read this book along with Former Dean of Yale Law School Kronman's The Assault on American Excellence, who examines the ways in which excellence, freedom of speech, diversity, and our shared past are under siege in American universities, as political society invades and erodes the environment and values particular to academia. Is anyone listening? ...more |
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This is an extremely important book that explains how we arrived where we are. I took 10 pages of notes. Damerell disparaged teachers’ colleges for us
This is an extremely important book that explains how we arrived where we are. I took 10 pages of notes. Damerell disparaged teachers’ colleges for using their platform to implement a misguided social agenda in schools rather than transmit essential knowledge and skills. Anyone unconvinced should view "Abolitionist Teaching and the Future of Our Schools." https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uJZ3R... Damerell referenced Harvard Education Professor Sarah Lawrence Lightfoot's book, The Good High School (1983) and wrote: “At St. Paul’s [Concord, NH],…[Lightfoot] quotes a black female student as complaining, ‘We have to do all of the stretching and changing. They will always remain the same whether we’re here or not.’….[Lightfoot’s critique:] ‘It is expected that the unusual [minority] students, not the curriculum or pedagogy will have to be transformed.’ Lightfoot misses the point that this is what education is. The student is transformed. Without the transformation, there is no education. To make schools over into the likenesses of children, whoever the children are, is to destroy education.” Our nation, communities, and schools all have norms that the dominant group values, takes for granted, transmits, and expects to be accepted unquestioned. It is akin to asking a fish, “How’s the water?” when that’s the only matrix it knows. That is not injustice, but rather the very nature of a society. Part of the job in transmitting cultural capital is to identify what students need in order to thrive in the places to which they will go after ours. There is a downside. Many of us have had the experience of returning home after college unable to relate to the friends and family we left behind. As Damerell wrote, “That is a high price to pay but is not nearly so high a price as remaining ignorant and uneducated for a lifetime.” Educators Bettina Love and Jamilah Pitts are actually supporting RE-segregation, but with better funding for Black schools than under "separate but equal", since the NEA's foundational text White Fragility makes it clear that non-Black people are irredeemably racist and can never be anything but racist. Bestselling author Ibram Kendi [How to Be an Anti-Racist] insists that "Through lynching Black cultures, integrationists are, in the end, more harmful to Black bodies than segregationists are." STUNNING WORDS! Research from Black academics gave rise to many universities' initiatives like U Connecticut's Scholars House just for Black males. The graduates of US Historically Black Colleges and Universities are wildly successful (40% of the Black members of US Congress, 12% Black CEOs, 40% Black engineers, 50% Black lawyers, 80% Black judges). The graduates of women's colleges are similarly disproportionately represented. If the research bears out that the increased support in a homogeneous environment outweighs the benefits of diversity, what then? But wait, there's more! The Governor of the State of California this week signed into law that every student in the CSU system (500,000) must take Ethnic Studies, the characteristics of which are the following components: "affirmation of their cultural identity [not American, of course, but their ethnic group and only certain ethnic groups, not mine, which is decidedly marginalized], external attribution for difficulties [!!!], forewarning about stereotypes, etc." We must be clear and precisely define our intention when we hold up diversity and inclusion as our values. Do we intend to challenge structural inequality? Do we want to curate an experience? Do we sensitively transmit cultural capital and other skills according to students' needs so that they will be able to effectively interact in the dominant culture wherever they may go after graduation? We do transform our students and in turn, we send them off to transform the world. ...more |
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Eve Ensler, renowned author of The Vagina Monologues*, has a distinctive way of writing in vignettes, anecdotes, and brief but revelatory conversation
Eve Ensler, renowned author of The Vagina Monologues*, has a distinctive way of writing in vignettes, anecdotes, and brief but revelatory conversations. This one reveals the diversity of women's relationships with their bodies and their efforts to comport with some standard of beauty they have in their minds or please a [usually male] partner. In some of the pieces, Ensler implies that women in other countries don't have the same negative baggage toward their bodies that American women do; in others, she reverses that and shows us that they, too, seek to modify some part of themselves, like noses in Iran. We feel the affirmation of women; males be damned! And then we read about the painful vaginal rejuvenation surgery of a woman in L.A. whose husband suddenly takes an interest in her sexually. I could have done without reading that. It's like whiplash, but the purpose is served; the point taken. There is nothing straightforward about women and men and sex and beauty. Some women will find this book affirming. I found this book hard to relate to and frankly off-putting. In part perhaps it's because am one of those "skinny bitches" she refers to so often. Women of all ethnicities feel no compunction about telling me they hate skinny women like me. That's not very nice. Why is that OK for them to say? I don't hate my body and wasn't taught to be ashamed of my body. It's unfortunate that so many women are. *The Vagina Monologues has raised tens of millions of dollars for various charities. It was an early (2015) victim of cancel culture because its mention of vagina excludes the vagina-lacking gender dysphoric males who want to masquerade as females. ...more |
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It is astonishing that so many women daily take a medication that "influences billions of cells at once from head to toe" throughout the body, without
It is astonishing that so many women daily take a medication that "influences billions of cells at once from head to toe" throughout the body, without giving thought to the significant consequences these pharmaceutical have on every aspect of their being, how they think, look and behave, "how they see the world...and just about anything else you can possibly imagine." Your likelihood to divorce may even depend on whether you met when you were taking the pill or not. Hormones are powerful chemicals and their impact is far reaching. Hill, a PhD in the newish field of evolutionary psychology, delivers on her intention to provide information so the reader will be able to "make more informed choices, not just about your health but about who you want to be." She urges women to journal their responses to a series of questions BEFORE they go on the pill and then as they proceed to take it. "This will give you a trail of bread crumbs back to yourself once you're on it." Scary but necessary, as Hill reveals. The reader is sure to have a new understanding of how their bodies work. Some may decide to make alternate plans to address contraception, migraines, acne, cycle regulation, or whatever other problem prompted their taking the pill as a remedy. In addition to influencing sexual response, attraction and attractiveness, "stress, hunger, eating patterns, emotion regulation, friendships, aggression, mood, learning... relationship satisfaction...it changes who you are. The pill changes ...everything," as we read many, many times in this book. The author proves it beyond any doubt. That's the positive and the negative regarding this book. It is extremely repetitive, with many examples that, while perhaps titillating, are excessive for making the point. We got it the first time, or at least by the tenth, in the second chapter. Hill's tone is that of a *very* chatty vernacular-using Gen Y girlfriend, who happens to be a scientist, telling you how it is so you understand the impact of these drugs on your body because you mentioned the topic. The first conversation is a revelation, so you express interest, but then she keeps texting, calling, and emailing with more information...it starts to feel like she's stalking you. Have I read this same chapter five times? No, it just feels that way. She also provides a table of various iterations of the pill and their hormone percentages. Some work perfectly for some women while causing others severe side effects like depression (in the Denmark study, 50% more likely to be diagnosed, even when taking non-oral products like "a patch, vaginal ring, or hormonal IUD"). That's horrifying. Eventually, medications will be prescribed with a specific genome in mind; we aren't anywhere near that point yet. Hill provides a laudably balanced view. Yes, you are affecting billions of cells in your body and changing who you are in myriad ways, but "the numbers of women applying to law school and medical school skyrocketed once the pill became legally available to single women." There are socioeconomic unintended consequences beside the physiological however, which she addresses in Part III. There's the issue of delaying reproduction and the rise of the $3.5B infertility treatment industry. Since women have made themselves more available sexually, men don't have to work as hard, so they don't, at many things, not just seduction. "Nothing motivates and inspires boys to work hard to develop into respectable, financially independent men more than unfailing commitment to the belief that to do anything otherwise would doom them to a life of involuntary celibacy. When men are able to gain access to women without having had to accomplish or commit to anything first, oftentimes this is the path they will follow." See Baumeister and Vohs (2004) "Sexual Economics" and Regnerus (2017) "Cheap Sex." Most readers are likely to be unaware that drugs, even those intended for women, are most often tested on men due to female hormonal cycles, which "can easily triple the amount of time and money it takes to answer a research question." "Females make the results too nuanced (since males and females almost never respond the same way to treatments), and the results from females are mechanistically messier (since it is possible that their sex hormones may have influenced their results)." That means it's harder to study females, get funding, be published, etc. So the results for males are generalized to females for all kinds of drugs. And that is a Very Bad Thing indeed for females. This book should also prompt consideration of the grievous consequences of hormonal blockers and treatments for young gender dysphorics. Male is male and female is female and there are infinite differences between them that can never be bridged. The brain is under construction. Better to bring the disordered mind in alignment with the body that is than try to do the reverse; it can never work. This book makes that abundantly clear. "Treating the pill as the big deal that it is will require a major course adjustment for all of us. We've been far too cavalier about making changes to women's sex hormones." The steroids that disqualify athletes? Their primary ingredient is a male sex hormone. We know the dangers of steroids; they're illegal without prescription as dangers to public health. But women are on female sex hormones "for years at a time despite all the effects that they have on the body." The birth control issue is not solved. The stakes are high: the effects on a woman's body and control of fertility. Sex hormones are major determinants of the way the brain develops through one's twenties, so the impact on young women of taking the pill is especially serious, but that's not often impressed upon young women. The main takeaway is try as we might, we can't control Nature without serious pushback and unintended consequences. ...more |
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This is a tiny little book that accomplishes its goals neatly and succinctly. In Spanish, the saying is "Lo bueno, si breve, dos veces bueno" [that wh
This is a tiny little book that accomplishes its goals neatly and succinctly. In Spanish, the saying is "Lo bueno, si breve, dos veces bueno" [that which is good, if brief, is twice as good]. Kling reveals himself as a libertarian and the book was published by the libertarian Cato Institute. By his reckoning, most of us can be politically categorized as progressive P, Conservative C or Libertarian L. He describes them thus: P believe in human betterment, revere science and regard markets as unfair. C emphasize human weakness, revere the past, and believe markets promote virtue. L believe in human rationality, revere technology and believe markets promote peaceful cooperation. It is essential for humans to feel part of a group with a "a higher moral purpose. For centuries, major religions met this need, but now the need is being met increasingly by political affiliation." In the effort to foster more civil discourse, Kling urges us to examine the language of political tribalism that signals to others we are either in their group or not and asserts moral superiority. Understanding that political differences are languages can enable us to maintain open minds to more effectively communicate --listening and understanding, not merely speaking or writing-- across the political spectrum. Kling's model for that political language is compelling. "A progressive will communicate [and frame issues] along the oppressor-oppressed axis, framing issues in [those] terms....A conservative will communicate along the civilization-barbarism axis, ....A libertarian will communicate along the liberty-coercion axis." The archetypal hero myths and media stories that receive the most play operate respond to the "three negative polarities: oppression, barbarism, and coercive tyranny." Clearly, these are deeply rooted in the collective unconscious. Kling explores different aspects and applications of the axes model. The phenomenon of motivated reasoning describes the way a P, an L and a C can all examine the same evidence and come away with a perspective that affirms their side. The aversion to "ambiguity and uncertainty" is so strong it presses the need for closure. Kling proposes thinking more slowly, de-centering (intuiting what others are thinking, not feeling) and striving for objectivity. He recommends that we approach evidence that supports our perspective "as if it had reached the opposite conclusion...and with that mindset scrutinize the study for methodological weaknesses." Excellent idea. In the 20 page appendix, Kling continues to test his axes model. It's an effective illustration to help us recognize the languages in practice. Last is a section for further reading. This is a helpful book that has great potential for helping all of us to engage in more civil discourse. ...more |
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If you have ever wondered what happens to the stuff you donate to Goodwill or some other local thrift store, read this book, but don't buy it; check i
If you have ever wondered what happens to the stuff you donate to Goodwill or some other local thrift store, read this book, but don't buy it; check it out from your local library or face the realization that you are part of the problem. To wit, "Between 1967 and 2017, the money Americans spent annually on stuff... increased almost twentyfold" (xii). Mintner is a business journalist whose career has focused on the global recycling and reuse industry. He takes us on a journey around the world to estate liquidations, clothing markets, donation sites and their connected retail stores, warehouses, and places used goods are transformed. "From Mexico to Ghana to India, secondhand is the consumer economy" (264) but it's largely invisible to the wealthy, rarely considered by producers, and never covered in the news due to racism, ignorance, and governments' "focus on the value of things made and sold new." This book will give you and policymakers and manufacturers a great deal to consider about the life of material goods and the ethics of production and consumption. Each chapter takes us to a different site for this secondhand economy. We learn that everyone, whether Japanese or American, wants to feel the stuff they are discarding is worthy. And discard we do. The sheer numbers boggle the mind. In 2015, we discarded 24.1B pounds of furniture, 32B pounds of textiles, and 45.3B pounds of miscellaneous durable goods. Recycling, turning a product into a raw material to make something new, is limited in its ability to address the problem. "Most complex objects...are a combination of recyclable and nonrecyclable components, and the financial and environmental costs of extracting the former often make landfilling or incineration the more responsible option" (186). Clothing is an enormous problem. The clothing industry knows its unfortunate impact on the environment. A pair of jeans sucks up 10,000 gallons of water from cotton to consumer, for example. Clothing production has doubled, but people are wearing a garment far fewer times than every before. For all the media hype about millennials being so environmentally minded, they are the worst offenders, likely to discard a garment after wearing it between one and five times! But even in China, the number of wears has declined from 200 to 62, which is less than in Europe. We are making, buying, and throwing away too much stuff. This week, a new report by ThredUp and GlobalData Retail values the secondhand apparel market at about $28 billion today and forecasts it will reach $64 billion within five years. Where do the 4M tons of used clothes exported around the world every year go? This commerce remains a largely an ethnic minority and immigrant trade, just as the Jewish immigrants to the U.S. in the late 1800s started as rag pickers and became luxury clothing retailers (see my review of Mendelsohn's The Rag Race). One-third of the clothing from Canada and the U.S. is "sorted, priced, and shipped" by graders in Mississauga, Ontario (132). It may go to Pakistan, where it will be washed, dyed, repaired, and sold. Or it may find a new life in Malaysia, Japan, the Philippines, or Africa. In Japan, your discarded bedsheets might be turned into a dress. Since Minter doesn't currently live in the U.S., he may not have encountered the term upcycling since he never mentions it, but it's common parlance for the popular practice of taking an object and making something new from it. Some countries strictly prohibit secondhand textiles in order to protect their own industries, which have dwindled to nothing. Ghanian kente cloth manufacturers "employ fewer than 3000 today" due to Chinese counterfeits (137). It does not work. Low cost, low quality clothing from China, which incidentally is also the world's biggest consumer of new apparel and fifth exporter of used clothing, makes its way ineluctably to every corner of the earth. Protectionist policies actually ensure the population will have access to lesser quality clothing than they would have secondhand--and, often, smuggled clothing of better quality. Minter discusses the emotional aspects of discarding. Naturally, Marie Kondo's method makes an appearance and we learn of the 8M unoccupied homes in Japan and all the stuff that the deceased leave behind for no one. Minter doesn't mention Swedish death cleaning, though his wife calls her process "Preemptive Morbid Decluttering," which is in the same camp. We learn of the Japanese concept of Danshari: "severing a relationship with unnecessary things (dan); purging clutter that overwhelms the home (sha); and achieving a sense of peace by separating the self from things (ri). Cleaning your home of clutter...also cleanses your heart and mind" (105). The concept is noble and we love reading about such practices, but we don't actually implement them. The media paint millennial participation in the sharing economy as an indicator of their social responsibility but it is a consequence of limited income: 72% of them name owning a home as their top priority and 75% who don't own a car aspire to (188). Hopes for the future dashed. The secondhand market is so integral to people around the world that it must become an imperative consideration for producers and governments. That in mind, Minter prescribes the way forward in the final chapter that is positively riveting. Manufacturers must make durable and repairable goods, so that products can thrive secondhand. This is not about imposing minimum durability standards, as these would raise prices, "result in a backlash against the social and environmental goals that inspired durability requirements," and "would chill the quest for innovation in new and existing products...Forcing companies to get it right on the first go will convince many to skip the innovation and development process altogether, and just keep making what they're already making" (214). Instead companies must be transparent about projected lifespan "based on verifiable testing," "reveal the expected lifespans of replaceable parts, starting with batteries. For smartphones and other short-lasting consumer electronics products, the timeframe should incorporate the months of years that the manufacturer plans to support the product with security and other software updates" (215). This is already the practice in the EU. The right to repair is a hot topic in the U.S. Farmers have sued John Deere, for example, because it forbids anyone other than its agents from working on its equipment. "A consumer right-to-repair law would have two key provisions. First, manufacturers must be required to create and post online information for the disassembly and repair of any products that they make available for sale. Second manufacturers must be required to sell the same parts and tools (including software) to consumers and independent repair shops that they provide to authorized service centers...on fair and reasonable terms" (237). Again, this already exists in the EU. The "Right to repair is a means of encouraging reluctant companies uninterested in secondhand to rethink their approach" (240). The fact is that in most countries lacking the high salaries or power of the U.S. or E.U. to engage in trade, secondhand products are better quality than what they can get new, but governments erect barriers to the trade in used goods, rather than facilitating it for the good of millions of people as well as the environment. For example, European guidelines mandate that "if an electronic device--a monitor, a phone, a microwave-- isn't tested and working, it's automatically waste (and hazardous, at that)" and must be destroyed. A secondhand trader actually risks prosecution. "Never mind that in Nigeria and Ghana, a nonworking television isn't automatically viewed as waste but rather as a resource to be fixed or mined for parts and sold to people who can't afford new. And never mind that Nigeria (and Ghana...) not only don't prohibit these imports but have actually opened their doors more widely to them in recent years. African wishes be damned, Europe has decided that its definition--the rich mans' definition of his broken thing--is what matters" (259). There is so much more going on in those electronic waste dumps we have all seen in well staged photos. Nigerian "repair technicians are renowned for being some of the most talented and experienced in all Africa. They don't just fix televisions; they make refurbished televisions from parts scavenged from old ones. If a circuit board is faulty, they don't instantly throw it away; they take out their magnifying glasses, microscopes, soldering irons, and spare parts boxes and they fix it" (260), which, of course is precisely what people used to do in the U.S. and Europe. Minter isn't finished. He reveals this as a kind of dastardly and pernicious, racist and ignorant waste colonialism. "Barriers that give moral and legal standing to businesses, governments, and individuals who choose to discard their goods--electronic or not--rather than have them used by people of lesser means, aren't good for the environment, and they certainly don't help clean up clutter. Rather, they become short-and long-term incentives to buy new and cheap--especially for those who can't afford quality" (262). "Generally the globalized trade in secondhand stuff takes place between rich and poor. Due to a range of historical factors, including the lasting legacy of colonialism, income (and the state of national development) is often directly correlated with race and thus the globalized trade in secondhand goods is typically between different races. Whether acknowledged or not, debates over whether certain countries and peoples can import or export 'waste' are, at their core, debates over whether certain racial groups should have access to material goods in ways that richer usually white countries prescribe" (262). This book reveals an economy that few people in the developed world know anything about, yet one that millions rely upon for their livelihoods and quality of life. It's a fascinating journey to places we are mostly unlikely to visit, even though many of the original products come from our homes. ...more |
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Jun 29, 2020
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| 1576752054
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| Jan 01, 2003
| Feb 09, 2003
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really liked it
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Schuster was in business for decades and became an executive coach, speaker and author. He has written this wonderfully inspirational book for anyone
Schuster was in business for decades and became an executive coach, speaker and author. He has written this wonderfully inspirational book for anyone who is trying to find their calling, vocation, path and purpose in life or helping others to find theirs. There are three parts to this book. The first responds to common questions about calls, "how to respond to the real thing and how to combine them in harmonious ways to make a life of meaning" (31). "Believing in your calling is the only insurance that you'll have one." How do you know you have one? If you're alive, you do. Kierkegaard wrote 'we all come to life with sealed orders'; we just have to try to find the envelope. From whence does a call come? Schuster posits theological, psychological, biological and sociological sources. “I believe everyone has a calling and that it is our individual responsibility to seek it out. That means introspection, self-criticism, objective self-evaluation, and having the courage to follow whatever that direction may be. The lucky ones may end up exactly where we are meant to be. But I think that there is a broader call that exists for us too. It is this: wherever we may find ourselves, we have a call to make a difference, to create a positive impact on others, to make the world (our little corner of it) somehow better. . . . No matter what one’s occupation or circumstances. Where the two ‘callings’ meet, and feed each other, true inspiration and magic can occur” (Steve Sheppard of Foldcraft, 138). Calls are somewhere on a continuum drawing more deeply upon head or the heart, internal or external. Common calls, described with their ego pitfalls, include Family, Marketplace, Leadership, Scholarship, Spiritual Service, Higher Moral Order and Justice, Routine, Professions, Community, Nature, Beauty, Public Service. Life is a long and winding road. "Roles combine and have equal weight," say, parenting and public service and business, concurrently or successively. "Building a portfolio of calls is the means to be conscious and do well in multiple life roles." Schuster states that "External calls are more common than internal calls because most people are called to do something that is outwardly visible that takes an already-existing form, like a profession" (35). The second part is about saboteurs, who undermine the calling, but "Fighting off saboteurs strengthens your response to a calling." and evocateurs, who can call out potential and affirm it. "Evoking the possibilities of the moment is fundamental." Then there are the provocateurs, like Mother Jones or Dr. King, who "challenge the injustice of a system, provoking its members to abandon the current design" because it destroys human possibilities (100). "All callings are about head and heart and guts. This one is strong on the guts part...courage..fortitude..stamina.... The provocateur becomes a magnet for anger...motives and intentions are questioned." I know it well; the call to be a provocateur and challenge the status quo is definitely one of my callings, just see some of my other reviews. It's lonely and often unpleasant, but it's what I have to do. The third part is about the realities of living a called life. Schuster guides the reader to discern the drives of the ego from the call of the self, "the transcendent part of you connected to others and the universe that drives you to authenticity and adding value in the world. It is the seat of your highest aspirations, your soul" (112). It's helpful to have the ego and self play together well and elevate everyday life to meaning, the function religion has traditionally had, with prayers upon rising, eating, sleeping, etc. to render the ordinary sacred and turn our thoughts to God. How do we all build a better collective future? “What people see in the now is a ‘psychic millimeter’ from what they can imagine.” Some people, Gene Roddenberry comes to mind, can traverse those millimeters and effectively work the veil “to help people leave the constraints of this dimension, get out of normal mind to more creative mental space, in order to see where they may go next” (130). Any job can be meaningful depending on perception, execution and the sense of purpose. "Demand of yourself that you live on the other side of the veil to experience the essence of life. Practices like looking past behavior to intention, assuming the yearning even in those who have forgotten why they are here, framing your actions and those of others in meaningful terms--all help the humdrum aspects of life take on deeper significance" (140). Answering Your Call offers leading questions, profound quotations of the "WHOA! Give me a minute to take that in and write it down" variety, and an exercise or two for reflection. It's less a workbook than a reflection guide. This book can be a great boon to all who embark on a quest for the meaning in their lives. I wonder if it is more relevant to those in mid life than young adults in their 20s and 30 or even younger, say teenager with limited life experience. As a high school college counselor, I intend to use Chapter 2 and find out. ...more |
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Jun 26, 2020
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| 0553393057
| 9780553393057
| 4.49
| 7,211
| Feb 02, 2016
| Feb 09, 2016
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really liked it
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Like her other book, Under Pressure, this is the guide to girls their parents should have received at their birth. Everyone who lives or works with a
Like her other book, Under Pressure, this is the guide to girls their parents should have received at their birth. Everyone who lives or works with a daughter would do well to read psychologist Damour and probably Anna Freud. The opening quote that guides the rest of the book is perfect: "While an adolescent remains inconsistent and unpredictable in her behavior, she may suffer, but she does not seem to me to be in need of treatment. I think that she should be given time and scope to work out her own solution. Rather, it may be her parents who need help and guidance so as to be able to bear with her. There are few situations in life which are more difficult to cope with than an adolescent son or daughter during the attempt to liberate themselves. It is at this time that signs of an indigo child are also more apparent." Anna Freud in Adolescence, 1958. The brain remodels dramatically during the teenage years. "Emotional input rings like a gong for teenagers and a chime for everyone else. The frontal cortex, the part of the brain that exerts a calming rational influence, doesn't become fully online until adulthood....Work with the assumption that every teenager secretly worry that she's crazy" (85). "So if your teenage daughter is developing normally, you are living with someone who secretly worries that she is crazy and who might have the psychological assessment results of a psychotic adult and we might as well add that you are living with the girl whose key support system consists of peers who are also as reactive and erratic as she" (87) Damour perceives seven stages or challenges that young women must navigate to adulthood: 1. Parting with Childhood 2. Joining a New Tribe 3. Harnessing Emotions 4. Contending with Adult Authority 5. Planning for the Future 6. Entering the Romantic World 7. Caring for Herself She describes what the girl feels while she is in the stage, how she would advise the adult to offer support, what is normal behavior, and when to worry. Damour presents the results of various useful studies that you may or may not have come across. For example, family dinner still "improved grades and psychological health....even when teens reported that they weren't getting along with their parents...even with only one parent, more nights a week than not" (13). Speaking of dinner, Damour encourages "parents to ban technology including their own from places where humans learn and practice social skills, like the dinner table, designated family night and even short car rides" (72). Be mindful of digital technology. Many girls "never had to sit alone or with an uncomfortable feeling, never had to reflect on what was happening inside of her or find a way to help herself feel better." Rather, "the instant [she sensed] a feeling she didn't like she grabbed her phone and visited the feeling on someone else. She never even knew that she was in pain, she just knew that she needed her phone" (109). Girls leave childhood gradually with two steps forward, one step back. They can be "aloof, withdrawn, and sometimes, surprisingly mean" (21). Their methods are revealed: "girls are more likely to use potent but indirect forms of aggression, such spreading rumors about another girl excluding her poisoning her relationship with others" (52). "Research suggests that girls who bully other girls often do so to create a sense of belonging or to alleviate boredom in their group by creating excitement" (81). If your daughter is being bullied, however, be sure to reach out to adults at the school first. You don't want to learn she gives as good as she gets from the supposed bully's parents. Be careful with therapy, because it can cause girls to focus too much on problems. "Talking about problems at length can turn into what psychologists call rumination, focused attention on distress, can cause feelings to take on a life of their own. Rumination can lead to depression and anxiety especially in teenage girls" (103). When parents were the drivers for therapy and the daughter was clearly resistant, Damour's response was masterful: "I'm not sure it makes sense for Trina to join our meetings. Trina if you ever feel I can be of help to you my door is open. I'd be happy to meet with you on your own or with your folks." Further, parents become helicopter parents by intervening too much. Resist the temptation to intervene at school. We all have bosses who are difficult. Girls need to learn the skills of dealing with difficult people. This was a great quote from a mother: "The most successful people I know do their best work under any conditions, for anyone. You can use this year to...develop that capacity. Getting good at dealing with her will pay off for you in the end. You are not so fragile that you need everything to go your way. I trust that you can solve this" (149). Naturally, this depends on circumstances, but take this to heart. "Never get into a power struggle with a teenager in an area where she holds all the power," namely schoolwork. "A teenager will torpedo her own GPA" to make her point for autonomy" (169). "People make choices; choices have consequences." Helpful script: "We hate to see you shutting down options that you may want to have at the end of high school. You'll probably have interests then that you're not aware of and there's something else. We know that you want to go to parties and concerts with your friends but those come with risks that require maturity and good judgment on your part. You're not showing maturity and good judgment at school, so we're not doing our job as parents if we let you go into risky situations without any proof you have the judgment needed to handle those situations. Show us your maturity in school and we will let you exercise that maturity when you spend time with your friends" (175). Another thoughtful line: "The best conversations I've ever had with my kids always started when I said, "Wow that's a really complicated situation. I don't know what to say. What do you think?" (224). Teenagers *want* limits and they can use their parents' strictness as an effective excuse not to engage in activities their peers are pressuring them into. "My parents would smell [alcohol/marijuana] and they'd freak out." They are also sponges for others' emotions. Boys likely than girls to take on a peers problem as their own. Damour has so many hits that I'm loath to mention the one great big misstep, which occurs in the sexuality chapter. The scientific foundation of the entire Gender and Sexual Diversities (preferred over LGB) is far more nuanced than we are led to believe. Homosexuality fixed in the womb is a more accurate description for males than for females, whose sexuality is now known to be far more fluid than males. That is why it is not uncommon for women to be in long-term romantic relationships with one sex and then another. This research founded in evolutionary biology has long been axiomatic in the field (Diamond, 2008; Goode & Haber, 1977; Rich, 1980; Baumeister, 2000; Kinnish, Strassberg & Turner, 2005, etc.), but not disseminated by the media precisely because it calls into question the prevailing narrative, which is controlled by gay males in the name of "political correctness" and tolerance for diversity. As you know all too well, nuance is not the media’s forte. And fluidity is also more true than not of transgender, which is not in every case an innate characteristic that warrants unquestioning acceptance (and funding for bringing the body in line with the disordered mind through pharmacological or surgical redress), but can often benefit from a critical examination of stereotypes and gender images, or psychotherapy. Gender dysphoria is often co-morbid with dissociative disorder, depression, and other psychiatric disorders. Crucially, international studies conflict regarding whether transition relieves those symptoms in a majority of cases. The studies are too limited in sample size (15 or 30 cases is absurd) and time period to be conclusive. Psychotherapy is indicated for children and youth with gender issues; it is imperative that it not be conflated with conversion therapy, as the two are as different as sexual orientation and identity. Yet "transgender" can actually be used to convert those with same sex attraction and/or those who do not adhere to sex stereotypes, like what used to be called tomboys. What a loss! It's imperative to understand that sex cannot be changed because XX and XY chromosomes are in every cell and the production of gametes (sperm/eggs) cannot be changed no matter what secondary sex characteristics are changed. The T should never be part of the LGB. That requires education. On a separate significant note, in several of the schools I have worked with in the past few years, there have been several girls claiming "non-binary" gender. [Girls' visits to gender clinics have increased over 4000% in the past five years.] It is irresponsible to unquestioningly acquiesce to and enable students to make this claim. Young women struggle to make sense of their changing bodies and their role in society, too often depicted as consistently oppressed as victimized. Who wants to be oppressed or a victim? They see males as strong leaders and therefore renounce their femaleness. (Employers share society's perception of males as better leaders, better businesspeople and fundraisers, which explains why males are disproportionately hired for these roles). Naturally, there is also a kind of contagious social nature to the phenomenon in schools, helpfully discussed in the article from a Jungian therapist: "Outbreak: On Transgender Teens and Psychic Epidemics." I highly recommend this book to everyone who has girls in their lives. There is likely to be a great deal of helpful information that is applicable daily. However, if you have a girl with gender identity or orientation issues, you'll need to look elsewhere. ...more |
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| Apr 14, 2020
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really liked it
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This is an important but controversial book that everyone should read in order to make informed health decisions for themselves and their families. It
This is an important but controversial book that everyone should read in order to make informed health decisions for themselves and their families. Its revelations will deeply challenge those who trust medicine and science to be the dispassionate unimpeachable quest for truth, free from pecuniary pressures and ego, always divulging findings, no matter how inconvenient to funding sources or power brokers. Would that it were so. Science is not exempt from human foibles, and Plague of Corruption details case after case of scientific malfeasance. Rather, human nature being what it is, today's Inquisitors continue to silence contemporary Galileos because too much money is at stake. Who knew science could be so exciting and entail so much intrigue? Plague of Corruption is worth reading for Robert F. Kennedy Jr's foreword alone. He neatly encapsulates the book's major points and chronicles well-known cases in the suppression of scientists whose discoveries threatened both the status quo and "powerful economic paradigms." Essential foundations: 1. Zoonotic diseases [like COVID-19, Lyme, and malaria] are diseases passed from animals to humans [we are animals, too] and “… account for more than 60% of known infectious diseases and at least 75% of new emerging infectious diseases." 2. Viruses can cause cancer and many other diseases. 3. Retroviruses can mutate quickly into strains with "wildly different genetic profiles," which complicates the development of a vaccine. A person vaccinated against one strain is not protected from a new strain. 4. Humans [and other animals] are loaded with retroviruses in every cell. Acquired retroviruses combine with our own retroviruses to "cause a myriad of diseases, depending upon each person's unique genetic vulnerabilities" (8). Mikovits and Ruscetti made important discoveries about the retrovirus XMRV (Xenotropic Murine Leukemia Related Virus) and its effects. The NIH and FDA confirmed their findings of "XMRV related viruses in 86% of patients with chronic fatigue syndrome and 6.8% healthy controls" (94). XMRV has also been linked to "epidemics in leukemia, prostate cancer, autoimmune disease, and the explosion of Alzheimer's disease." XMRV can be passed from mother to child and many of the females infected with XMRV had children with autism. The first recorded outbreak of ME/Chronic Fatigue Syndrome occurred in 1934-35, in people who had received a vaccine cultured in mouse brain tissue. There is widespread contamination of the blood supply with XMRV: 3%-8% of the population carry it, more than 10M-20M Americans. With an unsafe blood supply and an enormous liability if that fact were ever exposed, the true information of this significant problem has been kept quiet or put in doubt to protect the responsible parties. XMRV hides in tissues and is hard to isolate and detect. XMRV can also be spread through the air, saliva, and sexual activity. There is so much in this book that will make any thinking person very judicious about their physical contact. Vaccines function by stimulating the immune system. There are a few complications, however. 1. The manufacturing process is enormously problematic. 2. People with underlying issues can have adverse reactions. 3. There is little oversight. First, Manufacturing. Labs grow viruses in the tissue of animals or aborted human fetuses. That tissue contains viruses and retroviruses, bacterial phages, etc. A vaccine contains preservatives and heavy metals. “…vaccines are no single-ingredient pure (antigen only) drugs, but rather multi-ingredient preparations specifically designed to intensively challenge the immune system in the manner of an actual disease. Contaminants from the manufacturing process...that are not removed by the manufacturing process remain in the vaccine in significant amounts" (121). Further, just as the flu vaccine is only effective for certain strains of flu and the CDC guesses every year at which is likely to be the dominant one, it's beyond current capabilities to create a vaccine that combats a rapidly mutating virus. Second, Underlying Issues. The effects of a vaccine are dependent upon the human recipient’s individual genetics, their health, the strength of their immune system, and environmental factors. Consequently a vaccine might work for some people but be toxic to other people with the vaccination awakening a ‘sleeping monster’, such as autism. HIV+ mothers are told to "put children immediately on anti retroviral drugs prior to any immunization for fear that a vaccine might trigger full-blown AIDS" (79), but what about the XMRV+? Then there's the autism issue. Dr. Richard Kelley, a Johns Hopkins University professor of pediatrics and expert in mitochondrial dysfunction, stated in 2007 that "roughly 1/3 of children with autism have a mitochondrial dysfunction that is responsible for their autism. Vaccines will drain mitochondrial reserves" (137). Let's do that math. It's estimated there are now 1M children with autism. The 1/3 of that number estimated to be affected by vaccine-related mitochondrial dysfunction is 300K. The lifetime care cost of a child with autism is estimated at $3M. 300K x $3M = $900B. It's no wonder they don't want to risk letting that information out. Third, oversight. The authors present overwhelming evidence that "...scientific communication is being distorted by the government regulatory agencies, the scientific journals, the mainstream media, and blogs by scientists promoting their own self-interest" (129). They cite numerous examples of vaccines that have harmed people, aside from the above example of ME/CFS. The 2014 Ebola outbreak coincided with thee separate vaccination campaigns and "45M Americans took a defective Swine Flu vaccine in 1976, with several hundred developing Guillain-Barré syndrome and suing for their injuries." Moreover, "As of this writing, the Vaccine Court has paid out more than $4B in claims to children who have been injured by vaccines" (114). In 2004, CDC scientist Dr. William Thompson destroyed data regarding the MMR vaccine and admitted to it in 2014, but, unbelievably, still has not been called to testify before Congress. Administering the MMR vaccine to African American males at 12 months instead of 36 months yields a statistically significant effect for autism, yet protocols have not been changed. The 1986 National Childhood Vaccine Injury Act was passed to eliminate the financial liability of vaccine manufacturers for injury claims. One of the provision is "a report must be provided to Congress every two years certifying that the vaccine schedule is safe, no such studies have EVER been done" (201). Why does your doctor not caution you? A few reasons. Most doctors are not scientists and don't know how to critically appraise the science in an article. To a large extent, doctors are technicians relying upon the input from the scientific community that may just be as tainted as the vaccines that they develop and promote due to the monies provided by grants from big pharma, and due to their own egos putting them on a pedestal of non-critical assessment. The scientific community is willing to play God without acknowledging or telling the truth about their failures and refutes any questioning to their position. Big Pharma has extraordinary power. From chapter 12: "The pharmaceutical companies have corrupted the laws regarding vaccinations, and a corrupt media has poisoned the mind of the public. The public does not ask the simple question: if vaccines are as safe as sugar water, why do the pharmaceutical companies need to have complete financial immunity and be protected by a battalion of lawyers from the US Department of Justice? The pharmaceutical companies are the largest contributors to the US Congress and have more lobbyists than all our congressmen and senators combined. That means they control the federal agencies, which is exactly what our constitution with its series of checks and balances was designed to prevent. The pharmaceutical companies are also bribing the media by their massive advertising buys" (203) on TV and other media. Only the United States and New Zealand permit direct to consumer advertising by drug companies. Vaccines are intended to reduce risk, but can actually increase it. First, because “Every vaccine has been grown in animal tissue, usually of several different species, including monkey, mouse, bird, and cow. Each one of these cross-species events has the potential to transfer a pathogen to humans, or to create some new strain that can cause harm. We have fired several billion bullets of biological ammunition at the human species, and it is the height of arrogance to believe we have caused zero damage" (150). Second the number of vaccines is excessive. "If we are taking all the possible passage pathogens, serious and mild, that we might conceivably encounter over the course of a lifetime, we are being exposed to more pathogens that might otherwise be expected. That exposure is in most cases bypassing critical immunity such as the skin and gut. Each challenge to the new system by a vaccination has the potential to dysregulate the immune system. We have no idea what happens when multiple different pathogens are injected at the same time....With multiple vaccinations, you cripple several parts of the immune system at the same time and do nothing to restore the balance of the system." (151, 153). Third, "We are finding that natural exposures, such as having the measles, not only provides lifelong immunity, but also tunes the system to make it less likely you'll have certain cancers when you're older" (151). Plague of Corruption is a powerful indictment of the present state of science. The book also presents insight to guide the scientific community to get back on the right path of exploration, discovery, and proper treatment. If you enjoyed The Incredible Case of Henrietta Lacks and/or Bad Blood about Elizabeth Holmes and the Theranos scandal, you will likely find this a great read. On the downside, the book reads like a helix, with three strands that wind around, one focusing on the scientists' internecine intrigue, the second on XMRV, and the third other on scientific principles of vaccines. The repetition of important points of science is helpful; the complexity of the science may be off-putting to some. It could be much shorter and direct, but the authors felt the need to secure readers' confidence and build our base of knowledge, which takes some time and space. To those who refuse to read this book due to preconceived notions, my answer is read Plague of Corruption, do your own research, weigh the evidence and make your own decision. Your life and the lives of your loved ones may be dependent upon it. This is an abbreviated review. I'm happy to provide the 15 pages of more detailed and scientific notes I took to anyone who requests them. ...more |
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Kindle Edition
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| 4.25
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| Feb 12, 2019
| Feb 12, 2019
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really liked it
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If you have a daughter, psychotherapist Damour writes the parent manual you never received when they were born. Damour knows girls. In this book, she
If you have a daughter, psychotherapist Damour writes the parent manual you never received when they were born. Damour knows girls. In this book, she starts by making the case that stress and anxiety are actually essential to survival, but we must teach young people to manage them better so they don't become toxic and "to help them feel happier, healthier, and more relaxed in the face of the challenges we know will come their way". It is actually harmful to girls to teach them to avoid stress; they become more stressed due to worrying about feeling stressed. Instead, we need to change the message so they realize that stress builds capacity and resilience, just like using muscles, and can "enhance creativity, build relationships, and help people succeed in clutch moments" (139). Each chapter is devoted to a particular relational context: girls at home, at school, with other girls, with boys, in the culture. Girls' online activity is woven throughout each chapter. There are some real gems of advice here I intend to use as a college counselor. Girls experience a higher level of stress, exhaustion and overwhelm than boys. They want to please parents and teachers and peers and be accommodating to others. The age of puberty has decreased; "It is now no longer unusual to see a fifth grader sporting an adult woman's body." Hormones affect anxiety disorders. Social media has extensive consequence, not the least of which is the barrage of sexualized images and constant contact with peers. Nevertheless, as adults we must refrain from the tendency "to treat our own sturdy and steady daughters as if they are fragile and reckless." This is a helpful observation Damour presents: researchers find "that participating in sports improves how girls feel about their bodies...girls who participated in organized activities, such as team sports, took more pride in the *functional* aspects of their bodies than girls who simply exercised regularly or girls who were sedentary. In other words, structured athletic programs that involve skill building, cooperation and shared goals help girls to take pleasure in what their bodies can accomplish...and that girls who participated in activities that include a heavy emphasis on the physical form, such as dance and gymnastics took LESS pride in what their bodies could do than girls who played sports that focus on speed, strength or skill. This result echoes other research showing that participating in sports with an aesthetic component can actually leave girls feeling worse about their physique" (202 ). Hence, Damour concludes, if your daughter's choice is between a team sport and ballet, choose team sport! It's intriguing that the Stanford d-School folks concur with Damour, using different language. There are anchor problems, unsolvable only because of the bias in the way they're framed, often with non-negotiables: "I have to be accepted to an Ivy League college, rather than I want to be successful in life, which means realizing my potential and working at something that contributes to society and brings me joy" and gravity problems, which cannot be solved: "After taking the SAT 3 times, superscored, the total is 1150, or I have not wanted to be involved in after school activities, so I have none to put on my list." In the case of the gravity problems, acceptance is the most practical and wise response, "fixing what we can and finding a way to live with what remains." We medicalize far too often. Yes, psychotherapy, mindfulness, Cognitive Behavioral Therapy, and medication are all ways of dealing with outsized anxiety, but for ordinary anxiety, and most of it is ordinary anxiety(!), breathing techniques, structuring the day more effectively, ensuring sufficient sleep and a healthy diet can provide considerable relief. The glitter jar idea is one to adopt. Take a "jar filled with water and a layer of glitter, shake it up: "Right now this is what it's like in your brain. So first, let's settle your glitter" (38) with a walk or a snack or coloring pages, a selection of tea, etc. to get the rational cortex back online. Adults must keep their perspective and not be drawn into the maelstrom. Perhaps refrain from any action for 24 hours and realize that few events are of crisis proportion, teenage emotions notwithstanding. Teens tend to dump their feelings on their parents, who immediately react. Text messages throughout the day, for example, can be a release for the girl, but the adult can barely carry on due to worry, only to find the girl has already forgotten the issue at the end of the day. What to do? Have her write in a small notebook what she would want to text and at the end of the day, she can share what she wants. Suniya Luthar found that "teenagers from wealthy families are more likely to suffer from depression, anxiety, and substance abuse than young people raised in lower tax brackets" presumably due to intense achievement pressure (62). Terese Lund and Eric Dearing found that "girls raised in the wealthiest neighborhoods were 2-3 times more likely to report symptoms of anxiety and depression than girls living in middle-income areas." They also feel more constrained about the range of professions to choose and future places to live. The least stressed were kids with wealthy parents who lived in middle class neighborhoods. In the chapter on Girls among Girls, we learn the more friends, the more drama and some ways of engaging in unhealthy conflict: being a doormat, a doormat with spike (passive-aggressive), or a bulldozer; or choosing to respond with integrity and being a pillar. In the chapter on Girls among Boys, Damour tells us that boys bully girls more that other girls bully/harass girls. We must empower up-standers to call out bad behavior and avoid shaming the one bullied or harassed as though she were responsible. Sex ed is a minefield. We teach boys so differently from girls. Girls increasingly acquiesce to unwanted sexual activity, as in "Okay, fine, whatever." Instead, Damour urges parents to teach girls only to engage in sexual activity with joyful agreement. "Once you know what you want and what your partner wants, then you can figure out where you enthusiastically agree." (118). There is a dark side, however. Girls tend not to say NO to unwanted sexual activity when they "were worried about hurting a guy's feelings" and when they feared a "hostile response." Although it sounds disempowering, the reality is it may well be wiser to make excuses for not engaging in unwanted activity in order to protect herself than issue "an unadorned no" that could provoke a hostile response. Damour has no illusions about what it takes to be admitted to one of the most highly selective universities in the chapter on Girls at School. She urges parents to question the goal. What's the point? Plenty of Ivy League university alumni are miserable and plenty of high school graduates lead fulfilling, happy lives. Success is "pursuing well being, not conventional markers of achievement." She does find that many girls engage in "slavish overpreparedness...fear driven, highly uneconomical studying tactics" to quell their anxieties. And girls "develop tons of confidence in their work ethic and none in their talents" (155). The section on girls' communication styles is tricky. On the one hand, we are told bluntness can backfire and while girls generally have no trouble being "direct, outspoken, and unapologetic," it can hurt them due to cultural norms. This is especially true for Black girls, which Damour doesn't mention, but Monique Morris' book and film Pushout: The Criminalization of Black Girls in Schools does. Venus Evans-Winters says that she would slough off girls' behaviors white middle class teachers would regard as defiant and rageful. Damour says girls should do it anyway and continue to engage in other strategies. That may not work for Black girls... However, regarding appearance woes, Damour has a great deal to say which is interspersed throughout the book. She cites a study that found that 91% of adult American women disliked the shape of their bodies. Why would we expect girls to fare better? Here's a surprise: "African American girls and women report feeling quite a bit better about their appearance than their white, Hispanic, or Asian American counterparts" (200). I shall recommend this book to parents. Other reviewers have remarked it is mostly relevant to middle to upper class parents, especially Caucasian ones. That is the Damour's milieu; she doesn't work with the disprivileged and doesn't attempt to. I do work with low income youth as well as top quintiles, however, and am confident that most of it is just as relevant to them. Glean from it what is helpful and there will be enough to merit a read. ...more |
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| 0399591591
| 9780399591594
| 4.16
| 3,242
| Jun 18, 2019
| Jun 18, 2019
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really liked it
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If a loved one has died, this is a book for you. If you enjoy watching The Long Island Medium, this is a book for you, though this is a different medi
If a loved one has died, this is a book for you. If you enjoy watching The Long Island Medium, this is a book for you, though this is a different medium, not Theresa Caputo. Whether you see signs and synchronicities or wonder if something is a sign from the universe, this book will convince you it's not merely a coincidence when "a butterfly lands on your arm for an instant on your birthday" and will "show you how to create your own language with the Other Side, so that when your signs come, you will not only recognize them but feel the extraordinary power they bring." We know matter is condensed energy and matter is neither created nor destroyed, merely rearranged, so it's not really a stretch. First and foremost, PAY ATTENTION! or you'll miss the magic, guidance, assistance, greetings, and other messages that are there for you. I would also add fun. I have found the universe has a terrific sense of humor. When I was a high school principal, a young man fatally shot himself just outside my office one late afternoon. I spoke to his spirit and directed him to go toward the light. As I attempted to draft an email to all of the families whose students attended the school, the letters on the screen separated, then condensed, separated again and whizzed down the screen serpentine fashion, not adhering to the rows. It was impossible to type. The keyboard was not under my direction. I gave up and again directed his spirit toward the light. If you believe this was purely a coincidence unrelated to the young man, perhaps this book is not for you. Part One recounts a series of anecdotes that reveal that we often suspect or want some event or appearance of an object to be a sign and there need be no doubt. Trust it is. Don't let the "clutter and chaos of our busy lives...overwhelm these signs and messages...we see them but they don't register, or we dismiss them." We just need to raise our awareness and "be open to the people being steered into our paths, because those people may have been sent to help us heal and grow." The most common signs include dreams, birds, butterflies, electrical events, coins, pictures, slogans, music, feathers, rainbows, and a few others. When we scattered our dogs' ashes at the ranch, they were taken up by the gentle breeze in ribbons and a rainbow appeared. On one of my first outings with the man who became my husband of 20 years and counting, a pair of bluebirds circled our heads. When a friend of many years died recently in Connecticut, I went to Goodwill after the orange-themed memorial service and found a new-with-tags orange Guayabera shirt in just my size. In Connecticut, when I live in South Florida! I had been looking for a Guayabera for years and this one was perfect. [Thanks, Catherine]. Part Two gives ideas about how to ask for signs that are quite specific, "unique and even challenging" but not "next to impossible". In Chapter 21, we learn exactly how to become more receptive to signs from our Team of Light and how to ask for their help to choose our highest path, and thank them. Part Three, Navigating the Dark, is mostly more of the same but about ways "the universe sends us signs to steer us toward our highest paths." The final section, Part Four, Staying in the Light, tells us how to shine brightly. To shift and direct our energy to the positive, practice love and gratitude, avoid negative thoughts, and be mindful. Page 256 is a must read. Finally, "I believe that the earth is a school, and we are all students. And I believe we are here to learn continually how to elevate ourselves, how to help other souls, and how to share our powerful light and energy with the world. We are all learning a collective lesson in love. The tools discussed in this chapter can help each of us shine our brightest light and be fully open to the connections to our Teams of Light, and to one another" (268). ...more |
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Jun 02, 2020
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Jun 02, 2020
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Hardcover
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| 0307391671
| 9780307391674
| 2.33
| 3
| Oct 02, 2007
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did not like it
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In his first book, award-winning journalist and news anchor Gratas tackles the perennial issue of infidelity. While he states that his book is founded
In his first book, award-winning journalist and news anchor Gratas tackles the perennial issue of infidelity. While he states that his book is founded on years of research and interviews, he fails to cite studies and refers only to popular sources, such as Wikipedia. His examination of gender-specific motives arrives at the tired and simplistic conclusion that while men seek sex, women seek emotional intimacy. Gratas offers inane tips about what to look for when one suspects infidelity, including an unfamiliar fragrance and a new look, and says that dispassionate confrontation should only occur following thorough investigation and collection of unambiguous evidence. He also addresses how to overcoming the betrayal and move forward. For a book based on the author's premise that there is an epidemic of infidelity in our times, significant issues are glaringly omitted: Internet adultery and emotional cheating are only mentioned but not thoroughly discussed. Conceivably, this book could provide some help for the desperate, but the concept fails in its execution because the author offers only a superficial and narrow perspective on a socially relevant and important topic. Recommended only for bookstores with large self-help collections or where name recognition will draw readers.--Carolyn Kost, Stevenson Sch. Lib., Pebble Beach
...more
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May 09, 2020
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| 4.01
| 184,033
| Jun 1947
| Mar 1991
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it was amazing
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Irritated by the ceaseless and absurd statements of "unprecedented pandemic," I decided to revisit Camus' classic and I'm so glad I did so. While The
Irritated by the ceaseless and absurd statements of "unprecedented pandemic," I decided to revisit Camus' classic and I'm so glad I did so. While The Plague was intended as an allegory about the Nazi occupation and the courageous and cowardly ways humans react to adversity, it is akin to a scene-by-scene narration of our own time, as though humanity's reactions are the same in whatever place or time. The characters discuss "flattening the curve," the control of the media to avoid public panic, the underscored disparities between rich and poor, the challenges to the maintenance of the social contract, erroneous medical predictions, conspiracies, rumors about preventive measures and cures, concerns about the supply chain, boredom and fear, no exception to rules for fear of "creating...precedent," extensions to the quarantine, and the evolution of the plague's symptoms even as treatments were being devised. Perhaps Camus' lines most helpful in any age or situation are these: "[A response to the crisis] was done through official channels, and half-heartedly. What they're short on is imagination. Officialdom can never cope with something really catastrophic. And the remedial measures they think up are hardly adequate for a common cold. If we let them carry on like this they'll soon be dead, and so shall we" (62). Imagination is what is lacking, not regulations, not orders, not bureaucracy, imagination and creativity. In the beginning we read this: "Most people were chiefly aware of what ruffled the normal tenor of their lives or affected their interests. They were worried and irritated--but these are not the feelings with which to confront plague. Their first reaction, for instance, was to abuse the authorities" (78). And in 2020, we see people, especially those whose political affiliations are not shared by the ruling party, abuse the authorities and accuse them of not being prepared. Camus' narrator reflects, “Everybody knows that pestilences have a way of recurring in the world; yet somehow we find it hard to believe in ones that crash down on our heads from a blue sky. There have been as many plagues as wars in history; yet always plagues and wars take people equally by surprise” (37). And yet there is endless criticism of the lack of preparation of the current administration, as though the epidemic of 1918 were insufficient warning and it is only since the most recent presidential election that action should have been taken. I propose some other events for which we are unprepared: a major nuclear accident [like Chernobyl] at Indian Point, NY, from which 20 million people live within a 50-mile radius; a major earthquake or tsunami [like 2004 in the Indian Ocean]; to hit highly populated areas of CA or WA; a Category 6! or 7! hurricane [like the one in 1780 OR the recent ones in the past 10 years with winds >190 mph] traveling up the coast, hitting DC, Philadelphia, NYC and Boston! Let's prepare for the Internet cloud being brought down; a major volcanic eruption at Yellowstone that will likely bring about world cooling, epidemics and famine, etc. [like Tambora in 1815]; someone traveling the length of CA in the dry season with a box of matches, a cigarette lighter or a blowtorch and setting fires? Low tech but quite deadly and expensive. All of these are likely events some day "just a matter of time" and more that we don't think of. There are many, even infinite contingencies that could wreck havoc. Good heavens! How on earth to allocate resources to preparing for something that may or may not happen in our lifetimes when we have immediate needs that demand our attention and resources? Criticism in hindsight is cheap. There is further chatter about how our world has changed forever; what utter bollocks! The profiteer Cottard asks diarist and aspiring saint Tarrou, "Was it supposed, he asked, that the plague wouldn't have changed anything and the life of the town would go on as before, exactly as if nothing had happened? Tarrou thought that the plague would have changed things and not changed them; naturally our fellow citizens' strongest desire was, and would be, to behave as if nothing had changed and for that reason nothing would be changed, in a sense. But -- to look at it from another angle -- one can't forget everything, however great one's wish to do so; the plague was bound to leave traces, anyhow, in people's hearts" (279). Good heavens, how do people imagine Covid-19 will "change the world?" More remote work? More virtual conferencing and less travel? More frequent blanket closures and quarantines? Invasions of privacy through cell phones? These are all quite minor changes. There is much hew and cry about socioeconomic class disparities in C19 infection and mortality rates. In the novel, it's easier to see how this would play out with a plague than the Nazi occupation it's intended to represent. “Profiteers were purveying at enormous prices essential foodstuffs not available in the shops. The result was that poor families were in great straits, while the rich went short of practically nothing. Thus, whereas plague by its impartial ministrations should have promoted equality among our townsfolk, it now had the opposite effect and, thanks to the habitual conflict of cupidities, exacerbated the sense of injustice rankling in men's hearts. They were assured, of course, of the inerrable equality of death, but nobody wanted that kind of equality" (237). No indeed. Yet ashes to ashes, and dust to dust. We enter the world with nothing, we leave it with nothing, but we can brighten our little spot in the world and perhaps achieve a little remembrance in someone’s mind and a small place in someone’s heart. Religion's role is very much a modern one in The Plague. What is the role of God and why and how do we aspire to sainthood or even mere goodness or service with an atheistic worldview? Doctor Rieux tells Tarrou "if he believed in an all-powerful God he would cease curing the sick and leave that to Him. But no one in the world believed in a God of that sort; no, not even [Father] Paneloux, who believed that he believed in such a God. And this was proved by the fact that no one ever threw himself on Providence completely. Anyhow, in this respect Rieux believed himself to be on the right road, in fighting against creation as he found it." There is so very much to unpack regarding the role of clerics, the Church, and God here it could be a semester's worth of discussion. This book has withstood the test of time because it illuminates the human condition in all its depth, breadth and aspirations. It is clearly worth attention and returning to on several occasions in a lifetime. My irritation with this edition are not with Camus but the translation. Come now, these need updating, surely: "the once familiar smell of embrocation in the dressing-rooms"; "our townsfolk were in no hurry to jubilate"; "a special type of fever, with inguinal complications"; "There followed objurgations, screams, batterings on the door." These are awkward bits. Are they meant to showcase the translator's vocabulary or cause students to seek their definitions? A new translation is clearly in order. ...more |
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Apr 19, 2020
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Apr 19, 2020
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| 142143637X
| 9781421436371
| 4.32
| 44
| unknown
| Sep 10, 2019
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it was amazing
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This is much better than the average guide to college admissions. Apply the relevant information and ignore the irrelevant. In each chapter, the autho
This is much better than the average guide to college admissions. Apply the relevant information and ignore the irrelevant. In each chapter, the authors, a high school counselor and the Georgia Tech Director of Admissions, provide families with the means to discuss the process, which families desperately need but rarely do, largely because it's so fraught with emotion. They quote Simon Sinek: start with Why. Why are you going to college? Why do you want to study X? Why do you want to pursue a career as Y? Why do you want to attend college A, B, or C? They emphasize that the process belongs to the student, not the parents who must be careful not to speak of "our first choice" or "we applied, " etc. See p. 41 for a masterful list of behaviors to maintain a healthy family relationship throughout the process like "We can limit talk about college to one day a week. We can accept that a college does not define a person." This is true to a point and that point is financial When the authors quote "A 2018 report...that parents often overestimate what they will ultimately pay," I guffawed; this is not my experience. Rather, parents significantly UNDERestimate what they will ultimately pay. Do not miss the masterful chapter on Creating the College List. "Only .2% of students get more than $25,000 or more in scholarships per year. 1 in 8 students received an average of $4,202. Just 1.5% of undergraduates received enough scholarships ...to cover 100% of the cost of attendance." 2.7% were awarded 90%, and 6% were awarded 75% . In other words, don't believe the scholarship hype. The authors direct families to actually talk about the money issue and not to take on student loan debt; it's not worth it. Most students have no idea what the family's monthly expenses are and should know the implications of their college choice on the family, so open the books. This is an important step on the road to adulthood, so don't infantilize them. The College Visit chapter suggests some probing questions, but most tour guides and even admissions officers will not know the facts, just the marketing lines. They will tell you that this is the #1 college in the country for X, Y, Z, when there is no evidence at all to support their assertions. Asking how this college differs from others will not be helpful since most students will only have experience of this college and no means of comparison. Most of the answers to the questions the authors recommend asking are available through the common data set [type name of college and "common data set" in your favorite browser]. The phrasing of the question matters. Few tour guides will honestly reply to the authors' suggested "What has disappointed you?" but "If you could wave a magic wand and change 3 things about this college, what would they be?" and "What do you wish you had known coming here?" are more likely to result in the desired data points. The interview questions are also helpful, though so few universities actually conduct interviews these days. The book is at its best when it discloses information that many parents do not know (regardless of how many times we tell them) about colleges' marketing ploys and discount rate. You're more likely to buy something on SALE! than at a regular price; that's why the average college provides a scholarship of 50%, rather than merely lowering the sticker price. Furthermore, a lower price is too often associated with lower quality and who wants that? This is the guide I recommend to parents now, though I still use the guide I published for templates for resumes, activity lists, what to do when, questions to ask on visits, and requests for letters of recommendation. The main problem I have with this book is that these two fellows focus so much on fit, a luxury few families can afford. The families I work with focus on price, especially in Florida. Their progeny will attend Florida public universities because they are the second best buy in the nation and they are excellent. There are even several mechanisms in Florida that render a university education free: dual enrollment in high school and Bright Futures scholarships. Other states have similar programs. Avoid loans. Start at community college if necessary. Fit is overrated. Maybe your kid would be happier on the short term at a small liberal arts school, but there is no guarantee of that and s/he will be more likely to incur debt, which can seriously impede long term happiness. My advice is to be practical and downplay fit. ...more |
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| 4.28
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it was amazing
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Feb 23, 2021
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Feb 23, 2021
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| 3.43
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Feb 21, 2021
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Feb 21, 2021
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| 4.02
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it was ok
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Feb 19, 2021
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Feb 18, 2021
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| 3.86
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really liked it
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Dec 25, 2020
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Jan 04, 2021
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| 3.51
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really liked it
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Nov 20, 2020
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Dec 17, 2020
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| 4.60
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really liked it
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Nov 16, 2020
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Dec 03, 2020
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| 4.09
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really liked it
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Nov 28, 2020
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| 4.00
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it was amazing
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Nov 28, 2020
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| 4.17
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really liked it
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Nov 28, 2020
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| 3.72
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really liked it
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Nov 28, 2020
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| 3.82
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really liked it
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Nov 28, 2020
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| 4.21
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liked it
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Oct 29, 2020
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Oct 29, 2020
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| 4.70
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really liked it
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Oct 25, 2020
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Oct 25, 2020
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| 4.21
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really liked it
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Sep 25, 2020
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Oct 02, 2020
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| 3.97
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really liked it
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Oct 12, 2020
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Oct 02, 2020
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| 4.09
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really liked it
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Feb 2020
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Sep 22, 2020
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| 4.04
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really liked it
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Sep 21, 2020
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Sep 21, 2020
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| 4.17
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it was amazing
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Jan 2018
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Aug 21, 2020
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| 3.67
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Jul 20, 2020
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| 4.20
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Jul 19, 2020
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| 3.93
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Jul 10, 2020
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Jul 10, 2020
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| 3.94
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really liked it
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Jun 29, 2020
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Jun 29, 2020
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| 3.86
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really liked it
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Jun 26, 2020
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Jun 26, 2020
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| 4.49
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really liked it
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Jun 25, 2020
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Jun 24, 2020
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| 4.24
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really liked it
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Jun 04, 2020
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Jun 14, 2020
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| 4.25
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really liked it
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May 15, 2020
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Jun 03, 2020
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| 4.16
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really liked it
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Jun 02, 2020
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Jun 02, 2020
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| 2.33
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did not like it
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Jan 2007
not set
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May 09, 2020
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| 4.01
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it was amazing
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Apr 19, 2020
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Apr 19, 2020
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| 4.32
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it was amazing
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Feb 12, 2020
not set
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Mar 12, 2020
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