What Doesn't Change

I have recently been reflecting on being in my early fifties and confronting change once again when I had hoped life to be more settled, not knowing, really, any better than I did at the age of twenty-five or thirty-five, the best course to take. It seems that one just muddles through, no matter what the age. One of my Facebook friends recently posted a cartoon of two chickens celebrating a birthday.  The cartoon is one of Doug Savage's "Savage Chickens." Standing over a birthday cake with candles, the first chicken assures the second chicken: "You're not getting older, you're getting wiser."

The second chicken testily responds: "That's bull@*!#!"

In the next frame the first chicken chortles: "See? You're wiser already!'"

Whenever I think of the "wisdom that comes with age," I remember a conversation I had with my grandmother Margaret Cole Dugat when she was in her eighties (she lived to be ninety-six). I guess I had asked my grandmother how it felt to be as old as she was. She was a very stoic woman, a faithful member of the Southern Baptist church, a non-smoker, non-drinker, a lifetime gardener, and for many years a middle-school English teacher.

When I was young, whenever we had a crisis at our house, which was located just across the country lane from my grandparents' house, Grandma Dugat was often the first person we turned to (though this statement fails to convey the complexities of family dynamics and secrets). When my sister Cynthia fainted in the bathroom one day, with the door locked, and she wouldn't respond when we called, my sister Nancy crawled through the window while my mother frantically directed me to call our grandmother. Calm came into the room with my grandmother.

But years later, when I asked my grandmother what it felt like to age, her answer surprised me: "Inside I still feel like I'm fifteen years old," my grandmother said. "And I look in the mirror and don't recognize the person there."

My grandmother had always been old to me. When she was the age I am now, two months short of fifty-three, I was almost five. My grandmother's seemingly unwavering view of the world, of her place in it and that of God's above it, had prepared me to expect a more weighty answer. And then--to say she still felt as if she were fifteen! I remembered what it was like to be fifteen--full of questions, bursting with hormones, head full of dreams--a vulnerable age. How could my grandmother, former middle-school teacher and Sunday School teacher, daily Bible reader, experienced gardener, woman of sorrows, feel like a vulnerable fifteen-year-old? Couldn't she at least feel like she was twenty-five or thirty? What hope did I have of becoming wiser as I aged if my own venerable grandmother still had a vulnerable fifteen-year-old peering out of her faded green eyes?

Now that I am on the cusp of old age, I understand, at least a little, my grandmother's answer. The accreted knowledge of age forms like layers of plaster of Paris, like those masks my children and I made years ago, taking strips of plaster of Paris, soaking them in water, then molding the strips to our faces and removing the resultant form when it began to harden. We all have a "mask" of experiences that help us determine what roles to take in a new stage of our lives, what choices might be appropriate. But, sometimes, the eyes staring out of that oh-so-carefully molded mask are those of a fifteen-year-old, who suspects that the choices are capricious, multitudinous, with unpredictable consequences.

Last week, as we curled against one another in bed, facing together another challenge in our 32-years of marriage, my husband murmured, "I keep thinking about how two-thirds of our lives is already over."

That fifteen-year-old in me gazed wildly into the darkness of the bedroom. "But I've only just begun to live!" she whispered.

photos above: my first-grade photo; my grandmother, picking butterbeans, in her eighties (click on the photo for a larger version)

Reflecting on Links to the Past

I have been going through the hundreds of letters that my husband's family kept over the years, letters that go back to the 1850s. The work is tedious because each letter must be opened carefully, quickly read, and then filed. As I read, I store ideas for posts on my Left for Texas blog, which I am using to create a narrative of the family, to establish connections in the family genealogy, and to help organize the overwhelming material that we have. I also perform online research and have made interesting discoveries about the history of the South before and after the Civil War as well as discoveries about distant relatives of my husband's, all descended from the same great-great-great grandparents. (I plan more extended research--in university libraries and on locale--after I have organized this material.) I have also made other discoveries: that human nature hasn't changed, that people can paradoxically hold progressive and abhorrent ideas, and that much of the daily experiences of our ancestors weren't much different than our experiences today. We may have better technology, access to faster transportation, better nutrition (perhaps), and multiple conveniences, but much remains the same.

One idea that many people have about the past is that people remained in one place for generations. This might be true in old civilizations, but it's less true in America, where folks seem to be in continual flux. News articles make a great deal of spouses living in separate cities or states, but these family letters reveal that spousal mobility and separation is not all that new. My husband's great-grandfather, Baker White Armstrong, moved to Texas from Virginia, where he was first employed with a drugstore/pharmacy in Bryan, Texas. Then it seems he began representing a large drugstore retail business based in New Orleans, and he traveled all over Texas from town to town promoting products for that company. His traveling meant that he was often separated from his wife and young family in the last decade of the 19th century. His wife, Mary Ophelia Nugent Armstrong, would also take the family back to visit relatives in Virginia, staying for weeks. The couple communicated by writing two or more letters a week to one another. As the family grew and Baker became more prosperous (by speculating in oil in Houston), Mary followed her young brood to boarding schools, staying nearby for weeks, and to sanitariums, where the couple sought medical help for their daughter Helen, who was epileptic. Also, the family bought a second home in Boulder, Colorado. Mary and the family would precede Baker in moving to the home in the summer. Of course, Baker and Mary were among those better-off individuals, but Baker was not only supporting his immediate family; he was sending money back to Virginia to his un-married sisters as well as to his wife's un-married sisters (two of Mary's sisters lived with the Armstrongs in Houston for a time in the early twentieth century), and the occasional handout to various other relatives, including Baker's youngest brother, who never seemed to succeed in anything he undertook.

Reading these letters provides some comfort to me, as in this current economic climate, our family has its own separations with which to cope: one spouse working in one state, the other spouse working in another and remaining there until the youngest child can be successfully situated, and a second young adult child in yet another state. Our concerns for our young adult children are really no different than the concerns that Baker White Armstrong's parents reveal in their letters. The worries may be slightly different--yellow fever, the lure of strong drink, the "wildness" of Texas in the 1800s--but the underlying parental concern is much the same.

The letters also provide cautionary tales. In 1879, Perry Nugent's family was doing well. The girls were being educated at female academies, and the boys were soon to be sent away to well-respected institutions of higher education. They had recently moved from New Orleans to a fine old home, called Longwood, in Salem, Virginia. Perry still had his business concerns in New Orleans, and he was able to wonderfully furnish the family's new abode. Two of the oldest girls, Lizzie and Helen, were enjoying the waters, body rubs, and meals at Clifton Spa, probably located near Clifton Springs, New York. Helen writes a very diverting letter to her younger sister Mary, describing the clientele. She bemoans the changes in dress and style of the current clientele, and she makes mild fun of a woman from New Orleans with a heavy drawl who knocks on Helen's and Lizzie's door to inquire whether or not the girls might be acquainted with her own friends in New Orleans. As I read the not-very-flattering description of the young woman that Helen Nugent provides for her sister Mary, I couldn't help thinking of Helen's own future as well as the future of Perry Nugent's family. In December of 1888, less than ten years after Helen and Lizzie were enjoying the good life at Clifton Spa, Longwood and most of its lovely furnishings were to go up in smoke. Shortly after the fire, Perry Nugent was to experience a number of financial set-backs (the house was inadequately insured), and the family was to be scattered. Helen was to end up in a boarding house, carefully counting every penny, and becoming more and more obsessive and manic. Eventually, she was to find some safe haven in the Armstrong house (with her sister Mary and family) in Houston, Texas, but the intervening years were to take a terrible toll on her.

These letters remind me to count the blessings I have today, as small and insignificant as they may seem, and to judge carefully the actions and appearances of others, trying not to let diverting vindictiveness rule my judgments.

The past is not so different from the present.

Image above: Perry Nugent Family in better days at Longwood, near Salem, Virginia--Click on the image for a larger version of the photo.

The Press Should be the "Friend" of Political Candidates?

Every political candidate and elected politician would love to be questioned by "friendly" reporters, of course, but more and more far-right candidates refuse to speak to any reporters other than those they believe will shill for them. Sharron Angle, the far-right candidate running against Henry Reid in Nevada, has avoided all press questions from any but the friendliest news outlets--and friendliest for conservatives and the far-right is Fox News. On Fox News yesterday (h/t to Matt DeLong, Washington Post) Sharron Angle said that she wanted the press to be the "friend" of her campaign. That would mean asking no difficult (or serious) questions and allowing her to advertise her campaign for free in any interview or press session:

We wanted them to ask the questions we want to answer, so that they report the news the way we want it reported.

Voting for Sharron Angle is voting for someone with a warped view of the responsibility of the press. Her view, however, is becoming less and less radical and more and more mainstream, as the propaganda of the right that the press cannot be trusted gains more and more ground. Without a free and robust press, we're sunk. Of course, Fox News is just the kind of press the Sharron Angles, Sarah Palins, and Rand Pauls of the world want, a press that will not report on their truly radical ideas and that will ask only softball questions, as Angle herself described in an interview with David Brody:

Well, in that audience will they let me say I need $25 dollars from a million people go to Sharron Angle.com send money? Will they let me say that? Will I get a bump on my website and you can watch whenever I go on to a show like that ["Fox News or more conservative outlets"] we get an immediate bump. You can see the little spinners.

Additional note: This kind of use of the press is the wave of the future, Kevin Drum points out. Conservatives and right-wingers have led the way, but liberals will follow suit--so he thinks.

"The Liars Win" when Propaganda is Conflated with News

E. J. Dionne's editorial in The Washington Post today accurately describes what is happening in the media today as propaganda and outright lies are being treated as "news." (hat tip to Steven Bennen for the link) There has long been a tradition in the media (if imperfectly executed) to provide "both sides" to the story. This approach works if both sides act, at least relatively, in good faith. But people with an agenda can take advantage of this approach by promoting lies and propaganda as news. As long as citizens can recognize the difference, the republic stands. However, in recent years, the liars seem to be winning.

The first step, it seems to me, was to fuel people's fears that journalists could not be fair if their personal views leaned in one political direction. This, of course, meant completely denying the professionalism of journalism. So the meme has become "the liberal media"--and in spite of all evidence, the public at large believes that this "liberal" media is bent on promoting only its "side." Yet as many analysts have pointed out, the talk shows on radio, the guests invited to speak on those Sunday shows, the folks interviewed on the major networks are most often conservatives. Just look at how often John McCain, a twice-failed candidate for president, gets a slot on those shows. Mike Huckabee gets his own talk show. Did John Kerry get his own talk show? Or Howard Dean? But if you can convince the public that "the media" is "liberal," then you have convinced the public not to trust journalists' pursuit of truth--and then you can take advantage of that mistrust by promoting your own "truth."

The firestorm over the Journolist (a listserv for journalists) is the latest attempt at totally annihilating trust in journalists. "Journolist scandal proves media bias" screams a headline--and people fall for it without reading any more of the details. Tucker Carlson, a conservative pundit, has been milking this "scandal" for all its worth--but he refuses to release the full e-mails on which he is basing his claims of a liberal conspiracy among the members of that listserv, a listserv that included one of his own conservative reporters (so how conspiratorial could the listserv be?!). Ezra Klein, the creator of Journolist, explains why he created the listserv here: on his blog for The American Prospect. Most of the members on that list lean center-left, but their participation was not conspiratorial but empirical: they needed a place to discuss their ideas and to access experts who might be less willing to answer questions elsewhere. (The thing is, most of the public probably doesn't even know what a listserv is--and how many there are for every subject and interest.) Sure, ideas were raised that others in the listserv shot down--but Tucker Carlson and his ilk don't reveal the shooting down, the consequences of debate. Of course, right-wingers love conspiracy theories (uh huh, and left-wingers do, too, but for some reason, the left-wing doesn't carry the day, does it? Does anyone with any sense REALLY believe the Bush administration orchestrated 9/11? Oh, but how many on the right believe that Barack Obama wasn't born in the United States--and that he's a commie pinko?) To further support their view of the leftist conspiracy of Journolist, radicals claim that liberal pundits such as Rachel Maddow and Keith Olbermann were on the list. Not so, says Klein. But who's listening?

And that's the point, isn't it: to get people to stop listening, to stop thinking. When the majority of the public believes that journalists cannot be trusted, then the power-hungry win. The liars win.

This trend to conflate propaganda with news is evident in the recent Andrew Breitbart/ Shirley Sherrod episode. And here, the purpose was not only to conflate propaganda and legitimate news but to push the idea of the equivalency of white racism and black racism in this country. The NAACP had called on the Tea Party to repudiate racist elements in its ranks. Now, anyone who has listened to Tea Party participants in interviews and who have watched videos know that there are racists in the party. That's not to say that every person involved in the Tea Party is a racist. A radical group is going to attract un-desirable elements. But wouldn't it be best for the country if a group such as this said, "We're in opposition to the government led by a black man, but we're not against a black man being president. Racist literature, signs, and statements are totally out of character in our movement." But instead of doing that, radicals such as Andrew Breitbart go about trying to prove that white racism can't be so bad because there are black racists, too: the stupid (yes! stupid!) argument of equivalency. It's the childish argument that what I'm doing isn't so bad because others--especially those who claim some kind of moral superiority--are doing it, too. Only in this case, Breitbart chose a woman who was communicating exactly the opposite of what he purported that she was communicating. Here was a woman who had experienced racism of the worst sort--the kind that led to a miscarriage of justice. Yet here she was, telling her audience of how she rose above hate and how she believed that they should all work together to create a society where people of all ethnicities could live in better communities. And her audience demonstrated their understanding of her message with "uh huhs" and "alrights" and "amens" and their sympathy with her feelings and experience, likewise.

Here, again, the purpose is to call into question any sense of fairness and justice on "the other side"--and to use race to do that. The far-right has the media and the government so scared of being accused of unfairness, that they bend over backwards to avoid the appearance of unfairness and thus give credence to lies. Breitbart got what he wanted: a larger audience, a national presence in the media, and more white followers who believe that they are just as discriminated against as blacks in this country--contrary to evidence. Because, guess what, they've been gradually led not to believe in evidence, to conflate propaganda with news.

Without journalists being able to ask hard questions, without people having some trust in the professionalism of journalism, a country's citizens are at the mercy of the powerful. Just look at dictatorships such as Burma, which routinely arrests journalists and passes jail sentences of twenty years on those who speak truth to power. The rodeo clowns win; the man (or woman) in the saddle loses.

More Conflation, Propaganda vs. News, black racism vs. white racism

• "Fox News, the DOJ Pseudo-Scandal, and White Racial Hysteria," Jonathan Chait, at The New Republic
  
  
• And now the back-tracking to find SOMETHING to hang around Shirley Sherrod's neck: "Defining Lynching Down," Adam Serwer, on Jeffrey Lord's claiming that Shirley Sherrod lied when she described Bobby Hall's being beaten to death by Sheriff Screws and his colleagues as a "lynching." Disgusting. Having been called out for lying about Sherrod's hopeful message, the right now is looking for any mud to sling on the woman.

Taking Away the Limelight from Scumbags

Michelle Cottle says it best: "The End of Andrew Breitbart," on The New Republic website. And here's a quote:

Increasingly no one cares about (or recognizes) the difference between marshalling facts to make your argument and just completely making shit up.

Unreconstructed Lying

When the Shirley Sherrod story broke, I was in the middle of attending freshman orientation with my daughter at a state university in Georgia, and so I came in on what seemed to be at the time the tail-end of the story: a tape of Ms. Sherrod's speaking at an NAACP dinner had been edited to suggest that she was a racist; it had been published on Andrew Breitbart's website; after Breitbart and his ilk created a firestorm, administrative officials panicked and fired Ms. Sherrod without researching the truth. It was finally revealed that the tape had been edited to grossly mislead (and that Brietbart had had it in his possession for several weeks before posting it).

I learned that, at first, Breitbart and other far-right bloggers yelled foul over Ms. Sherrod's words, claiming that here was a prime example of an African-American woman in a position of power (USDA's Georgia state director for rural development) who admitted to failing to help a white farmer. It was a nice story to use to claim the equivalency of black racism and white racism in this country, that there was no foundation for criticizing all those white Tea Party people showing up with racist signs. Only that was a lie. Now Breitbart is claiming that he posted the video not because it reveals Ms. Sherrod's racism (racism which the unedited tape clearly refutes) but because it reveals the racism of the NAACP members listening to Ms. Sherrod and clapping at times in her speech when she is describing her previous attitudes. Only that's a lie, too, now that I have listened to the whole damn tape, to five sections that Breitbart has now posted on his website, probably believing that most people won't take the time to listen to it. And as there are only 8 comments on that site (as of 2:00 p.m. today), I think it's safe to say that most of Breitbart's loyal listeners and readers will not view the entire tape and will accept Breitbart's continued unreconstructed lying.

What Ms. Sherrod does in her speech is put one of her past actions in context. First, she tells the crowd about her father being murdered by a white man and the family never receiving justice. Anyone who knows anything about the African-American experience, especially in the South, will know that it was not unusual for a white man to murder a black man and not suffer any legal consequences. In addition, Ms. Sherrod describes a time when a bunch of white men showed up at her home and burned a cross on the front yard. Her mother--then a widow--was home alone with the baby boy born just weeks after his father's murder--and a couple of other children. The family was in danger, but several neighbors--all African-American men--showed up with their shotguns. They didn't fire a shot, and they allowed the white men to leave, but their show of unity prevented further violence. This background puts everything else into context.

Ms. Sherrod describes how she had wanted to leave the South, with its terrible memories, but that she finally decided to stay to help create change, and so, long before her tenure as a government official with the USDA, she worked for a non-profit to help farmers. But she said that when she "made that commitment [to stay in the South and to create change], [she] was making it to black people, and to black people only...But you know," she went on to say, "God will show you things and he'll put things in your path so that you realize that the struggle is really about poor people." [Here the silence is broken by affirmative responses: "all right, all right."] And that's her preface to the story of when her attitude changed. In the edited tape, these words are missing--Ms. Sherrod's indicating to her listeners that she was to change her mind about helping "her own" alone. The audience did not clap when she said that her first intentions were to help black people alone. There were no "amens" there. So Ms. Sherrod tells the story that most people have heard totally out of context, of how a white farmer came to Ms. Sherrod for help and how when he had spent a great deal of time showing he was superior to her, she wasn't inclined to help him as much as she should have, so she referred him to a white lawyer because she figured he could get help from "his own." When the white farmer came back to her and told her that the lawyer had not helped him, she realized that she had been wrong. Sherrod then helped the white farmer get what he needed, and she goes on to say some really inspiring words:

I've come a long way. I knew that I couldn't live with hate.... I've come to realize that we have to work together. And it's sad that we don't have a room full of whites and blacks here tonight 'cause we have to overcome the divisions that we have. We have to get to the point where, as Toni Morrison says, 'Race exists, but it doesn't matter.' We have to work just as hard. I know it's, you know, that the vision is still here, but our communities are not going to thrive, you know, our children won't have the communities that they need to stay in, to live in and have a good life if we can't figure this out, you all. White people, black people, Hispanic people--we all have to do our part to make our communities a safe place, a healthy place, a good environment.

After viewing this entire tape, it's clear to me that the folks in that room were receptive to Ms. Sherrod's message. They weren't applauding her racism; they were applauding her altruistic ideals to overcome racism and to make the world a better place. As Ms. Sherrod says, the problem is poverty; the problem is the haves and have-nots; the problem is that those in power want to keep power, and they keep that power by dividing us. In posting the edited video and in continuing to spew lies, Andrew Breitbart and others like him are counting on perpetuating those divisions.

[After writing that last sentence, I came across this video of Anderson Cooper's interview with Ms. Sherrod. Breitbart himself might not be racist, but he is using racism to make a political point (albeit, unfairly, and with lies), and he certainly doesn't care one iota about who gets hurt. His cynical manipulations, however, are no better than racism. And he needs to be called out on this!]

More Here:

• "Some Find Irony in Shirley Sherrod's USDA Incident," by Krissah Thompson, Washington Post, 23 July 2010.
  
  
• "Amen Canard," by William Saletan, Slate, 23 July 2010.

Pet Peeves I: The Teaching of Writing

For about twenty-five years, I taught writing at the university/college level. I was a good teacher, consistently receiving positive evaluations from my students as well as from colleagues who visited my classes and evaluated my teaching. To prepare for that teaching, I took graduate classes in rhetoric and composition and taught a total of eight freshman composition classes in graduate school. Later, I learned from experienced colleagues, in the inevitable exchange of ideas with office mates, in workshops and in reading research. And I learned from my students. One of the most important things I learned as a teacher was not to underestimate my students. I treated them as practicing writers, and they became practicing writers. Oh, there were certainly failures--but the successes far outnumbered the failures.

And so it is with a sinking heart when I hear from students that their college writing teachers are telling them to write paragraphs with 7 sentences (or 11 or 10) in each paragraph, and to write essays with five paragraphs that develop three points. I tutor these confused students, who think the form is the rule rather than a (suspect-at-the-college-level) teaching tool.  The college instructor who tells her students that every paragraph should have so many sentences, no less and no more, is condescending to those students. She is assuming that adults cannot understand that writing is a messy process that involves discovery and experimentation. She is so concerned about whether or not that student is going to pass the state writing test that she has abdicated her role as a teacher, someone with experience in the craft who passes on to students the best of what she has learned.

Of course, I understand the frustrations the writing teacher encounters, especially at open enrollment colleges such as the one where I now tutor part-time. Because of the poor economy, colleges are filling classes to the maximum and beyond; full-time writing instructors teach at least five classes.  Students in those classes are variously prepared for those classes: some learned English as a second language, others don't quite meet the expectations of the proponents of academic English after twelve years of secondary education, and others are returning to writing after years in the work force where they weren't required to write academically. The easy way for the writing instructor to tame the unruly is to demand adherence to rules, no matter how arbitrary those rules might be in the apprenticeship of real writing:

• An essay is composed of five paragraphs: an introductory paragraph, three body paragraphs, and a conclusion.
• Each body paragraph has a topic sentence that states the focus of that paragraph. 
• Each body paragraph should have ____# sentences (7 sentences, 11 sentences, 12 sentences--number depends upon the teacher).
• Never begin a sentence with "because."
• Never begin a sentence with "and" or "but."
  
• Never use the second person ("you") in an essay.
  
• Never use the first-person ("I") in an essay.
  
• Never write sentence fragments.

The conscientious student, especially, takes these rules to heart. And so [woot! woot! here I am breaking a "rule" that is not a rule!] that is why today I had a student who was worried about which way was the "right" way to write an essay. The teacher in her first learning support class told her that she should have three points in every essay and that those three points should be developed in five paragraphs. The teacher in her second learning support class told her that it was okay to have two points in an essay and that if those points needed to be developed in six paragraphs, that was okay, too. "Which is right?" she asked me. That is also why I tutor students who have the most wonderful experiences that relate to the topic they are trying to develop but are frustrated because their instructor told them never to use first-person in their writing. And students who have a great, approachable "tone" in their writing but have been told by their writing teacher never to use the second person. [Woot! woot! the previous sentence is a sentence fragment AND begins with a coordinating conjunction!]

I was recently asked by a writing instructor how many sentences I suggest students include in paragraphs that they write for the state writing exam. I tried to give a nuanced answer, but it was clear that this instructor thought his students too stupid for nuance. "At this level [the freshman level of English composition]," the teacher said, "students need a number."

Take a number. That's education today. And that's my number one pet peeve.

Returning

I've moved many times in my adult life, but those moves have doubled back on themselves so that I often feel as if I'm in some kind of reincarnation cycle, that I'm being sent back to a place I've been before in order to work something out or rectify some grievance or succeed in some task I've failed before. But the cycle is just shy of the mark in a couple of ways, perhaps the most important way being that my returns have yet to result in any clarification or illumination. I've returned to Texas twice in my adult life, after living in other states of the union, but not exactly to the same locale. In 1983, my husband and I left our birth state of Texas to live in Louisiana for four years; then we returned to Texas, to Bryan/College Station, where we lived and worked for six years. Then we left for Minnesota, where we lived for 2 1/2 years before heading to Columbus, Georgia (and a town nearby) for a seven-year stint before returning to Texas once again, to Belton, a small town an hour's drive north of Austin. Staying there for 3 1/2 years, we were lured back to Georgia by expectations that ultimately didn't materialize, and here we've been--except now my husband has taken a job in Louisiana, just north of New Orleans. Shall I follow? Will we have lived twice in every state in which we've made a home in our adult lives? I don't know yet. I really like the town where I'm living now, and my husband is hesitant to cut the cord, too. We remain in a kind of limbo before our next geographical reincarnation.

But the one state to which we have yet to return to live--though we have vacationed there several times--is Minnesota. When will I return to live there, I wonder, as I sequester myself from the heat wave that is washing across Georgia. Today, the temperature in Ely, Minnesota, rose to 73 degrees Fahrenheit. Here where I am in Georgia, the temperature hit the mid-nineties and is predicted to hover near 100 degrees tomorrow. Perhaps because I haven't returned to live in Minnesota as I have in Texas, Georgia, and (perhaps) Louisiana, Minnesota still has the lure of a young love never consummated. It remains in memory not just as a "what was" but as a "what could have been," a "could have been" more poignant because of the opportunities that were opening up to me there just as I was packing to leave.

If the history of my doubling back stops in south Louisiana, perhaps the northwoods of Minnesota will be there for me just past my last breath. Perhaps I will be reincarnated in some other form, as Heart-flower (Pale Pink Corydalis), clinging tenaciously on a rocky outcrop above the Kawishiwi River; or maybe as a loon (more likely) calling wildly on Lark Lake. Or maybe I'll just be content with this last request: scatter my ashes on some quiet lake in northern Minnesota, my last return, my final resting place.

BP, Bad Bosses, and the Rest of Us

As oil and gas continue to gush out of BP's Deepwater Horizon oil rig in the Gulf of Mexico, and as the CEO of BP Group has made one public relations gaffe after another, I have been thinking of how people end up in management positions for which they are experientially or temperamentally unprepared or ill-suited. Tony Hayward seems to have risen steadily through the ranks, from his blue collar background to his appointment as CEO of BP Group. Along the way, did Hayward reveal any of the hubris and public relations cluelessness that he has displayed so well since the oil rig explosion? Or is he so embedded in a culture in which disdain of "ordinary" people is a given that his behavior was not interpreted as unusual or contemptible as the public would assess his later words and actions to be? More talented and smarter people than I concluded long ago that money and power corrupt. Too little of either, and one is crushed, diminished, hopeless--too much, and one becomes superior, assuming that one is better than others, blessed not because of caprice or luck or circumstance but because of some entitlement that gives one permission to discount the worth of others.

Like many managers promoted to levels for which they are, nevertheless, ill-suited or unprepared, Tony Hayward seems to have known the right people and said the right things in the past. Hayward's stepping into the role of CEO followed an earlier tragedy, the explosion of BP's oil refinery plant in Texas City in 2005, in which 15 workers were killed and 170 others were injured. An investigation of BP's safety record revealed serious problems, and OSHA imposed a huge fine on the company. The CEO at the time, Lord John Browne (the man who had been impressed by Hayward and who had promoted him to the position as his executive assistant in 1990), retired early and Hayward took his place. Before that final promotion, Hayward said these words at a townhall meeting in Houston: "We have a leadership style that is probably too directive and doesn't listen sufficiently well. The top of the organization doesn't listen hard enough to what the bottom of the organization is saying." He told his audience that "we need to be part and parcel of the society in which we operate."

Has BP's safety record improved since Hayward spoke those words and since he became the public face of BP? Has the top of the organization listened to the bottom? The record certainly suggests not, as information has emerged indicating that employees raised many concerns about safety even months before the explosion. And in his testimony before Congress, Hayward repeatedly claimed that he was not aware of decisions made concerning Deepwater Horizon, so he must not have been following his own advice to "listen...to what the bottom of the organization is saying." His own words and actions--saying he wanted to get his life back, suggesting that the oil spill would be minimal, and attending a tony yacht race while shrimpers and fishermen in the Gulf were losing their livelihoods--suggest that he also was not "part and parcel of the society in which [BP] operates."

How often have workers heard such high-minded promises from management, only to be disappointed by the lack of consequent action? Not only are organizations difficult to change. Something happens to many people when they reach the top of their professions, are promoted to positions where they have power over other people, or achieve their dreams of wealth. There are exceptions, but too often people begin to believe that they deserve their rewards more than any other, that luck, caprice, or circumstances had little to do with their achievements. Or if they think that luck and circumstances had too great a hand in their success, they do everything they can to conceal that fact, their lack of confidence in their own worth translating into bullying behavior. (See the research reported in "The Making of Toxic Boss" for a discussion of how the combination of power and incompetence leads to abusive behavior in the workplace.)

Over the years, most of us have encountered these "Mini-Me's" of management. Anyone who Googles "bad habits of bosses" will find numerous articles that list behavior he or she will recognize:

• The boss who gives staff an assignment that is "high priority" and that must be completed immediately--and then reverses his demands. The staff spend hours on the assignment, only to be told that the work isn't important, after all. Priorities change overnight, sometimes within the hours of a single workday. Or reports that the boss insisted were high priority are completed, handed in, and disappear into a black hole. The boss does not provide feedback, fails to follow through with the recommendations, and then acts as if the report never existed.
  
  
• The boss who constantly criticizes and rarely, if ever, praises. In 2002, National Public Radio's Workplace Correspondent David Molpus used a recent academic study on bad bosses to solicit stories from his listeners. One listener described two laboratories where he had worked. In one, the workers were proud of their work, competed in working overtime, and stayed with the company a long time. The boss of this laboratory listened to her employees, praised them publicly, and when one of them made a mistake, worked with the employee to rectify the error. At a second laboratory, however, the boss rarely ventured outside her office, was impatient when employees reported problems, never praised employees, and publicly criticized those who committed errors. At that place of employment, the turnover rate "was staggering."
  
  
• The boss who blames others for every error, mistake, or roadblock. People on the make are particularly prone to being abusive in this way. They are frantic to be seen by those above them as always competent, prepared, perfect, so they deflect any problems away from themselves. They are quick to blame mistakes and errors on others, even when the problems are part of the everyday experience of the job, unavoidable and eventually solvable. This abusive behavior can even become psychotic, for the person who fails to admit his own mistakes--or who refuses to accept that less-than-perfect outcomes may be the result of circumstances or multiple rather than individual error--may be so compelled to deflect blame from himself that he begins to view his employees as "enemies," as people determined to undermine his authority. He may direct blame for all problems--real or imagined--to one employee who becomes the scapegoat for the boss. Other employees may notice this behavior, but because they fear for their own jobs and because they feel they don't have the power to change the office dynamics, they can't help but be relieved that someone else is there to buffer them from their abusive boss.

These and other habits of bad bosses show up again and again in articles on management. Although in the long run bad management is bad business, bad bosses often have long tenures because senior management may only care for the bottom line. If the bad boss looks good on paper (often the result of the good work of cowed yet competent workers), the bad boss remains, no matter how many talented employees leave in response to bad management.

So what recourse do employees have? Robert Sutton, Professor of Management Science and Engineering at Stanford University and author of No Asshole Rule: Building a Civilized Workplace and Surviving one that Isn't, says that "[i]n normal organizational life, for people who have less power, the best thing is to get out. If you can't do that," he advises,"try to avoid contact with the person as much as possible." As a final recourse, he suggests that "[y]ou can learn not to care." [See Sutton's "Why I Wrote the No Asshole Rule," Harvard Business Review, March 16, 2007; also, "Prof has advice for tackling workplace jerks," at msnbc.com.]

In an economy where over 14 million people are currently unemployed and job competition is fierce, leaving a bad boss is not an option for many people. Also, avoiding the bad boss is useful advice only for those who do not answer directly to management. The best option might be learning not to care, especially if you're a cynic to begin with--but that's a poor option for those to whom other employees report, unless you're an asshole yourself. And there's the rub: evidently, assholeness is contagious. "Jerk poisoning," Professor Sutton says, "is a contagious disease. It's something you get and give to others."

Of course, we don't know how BP CEO Tony Hayward treats employees who answer directly to him, but his public behavior certainly reminds us that poor management skills can have devastating consequences, to individuals, to the organization, and even beyond. In this terrible economy, organizations need to re-assess their management techniques and do as Robert Sutton suggests, that companies "screen for jerks as they hire and purge the bullies already in their ranks because, in almost all cases, they cost more than they contribute."

Coming Back

I quit blogging before spring arrived, and now we're just past the summer solstice. In the meantime, I've been thinking, writing, creating, dreaming, plotting. Life has been a little difficult these past few months and continues to be not what we had hoped and planned, and yet here we are.

A lot has happened since March 5th, when I decided to take a break from blogging, and I'm working on a long reflective piece to post maybe by the end of this week. Meantime, here are photos of the second folk art quilt I made, this one for my daughter. (first quilt here)I finished it a couple of months ago and am now working on smaller projects. I mark my return here with this evidence of my busy hands before I plunge into deeper waters.

Holding the Space, Being Silent

As anyone who reads my blog can see, I haven't posted much lately. Right now I am concentrating on my own life and the lives of people I love, especially those who depend upon me. Anyone who cares knows how to reach me. If you have found something here over the past two years that you enjoyed reading, please check back periodically. I can't be silent forever. Happiness to all.

So Much for Miracles...or at least this one

It seems that the miraculous story of the man being "unlocked' from a vegetative state of more than twenty years is not so miraculous, after all. The Belgian man suffered serious brain injuries when he was twenty and has been unconscious for over twenty years. Last year, doctors discovered more brain activity than was previously supposed, and a speech therapist seemed to demonstrate that the man could communicate, using "facilitated communication," "in which the patient supposedly directs the hand of a speech therapist who type[s] out his thoughts." The results, however, seem to have been false: "Belgian coma 'writer'  can't communicate," BBC News, Saturday, February 20, 2010.

Irony?

On page 104 of the 18th edition of Barron's GRE study guide is the following test question:

There is some _______ the fact that President Barack Obama is viewed as representative of African American society, for he spent his childhood growing up in Indonesia and Hawaii, and did not live in the black community until he was an adult.
(A) gratification in
(B) irony in
(C) validity to
(D) uncertainty about
(E) apprehension about

According to the answer key, the answer is "(A) irony in." Now let's unpack the assumptions made in this question: first, that only a certain sort of black American--not defined, of course-- can represent, without irony, "the black community." What is "the black community"? Is it a physical location?  Well, of course not--but the question suggests that it is, that someone has to live there to be considered un-ironically black. So--if one is black, but grew up in a neighborhood that's majority white, is one precluded from being "African-American"? Is a certain percentage of "blackness" required in the neighborhood in which one grew up in order for one to be able to un-ironically represent African-Americans? The "black community" is taken as a whole to be representative of all African-Americans. And that "black community" is indeed diverse, is now, has been in the past. There are people who identify themselves as belonging to the "black community" who are poor, who are rich, who are middle-class, who grew up in the South, who grew up in the North, who grew up in the East or the West, and who live overseas on military bases or in foreign countries as government employees or even as citizens whose parents are employed by multi-national companies . So wouldn't it stand to reason--and not be "ironic"--that any African-American could represent this very diverse group? And does where one spent one's childhood somehow define whether or not one is truly "American" or "African-American"?

The second assumption? That growing up in Hawaii necessarily precludes someone from being seen as truly African-American? I thought that Hawii was one of the fifty states, as American as Alaska or Texas. Why is it "ironic" that an African-American born in Hawaii might represent the "black community"? Except for four years spent in Indonesia with his mother and step-father, Barack Obama lived in Hawaii as a child and adolescent.

This question--with its suspicious fill-in-the-blank answer--raises troubling questions about how African-Americans are viewed in our society. And it's very troubling that Barron's GRE Guide seems to perpetuate those narrow views.

By Their Leaders You Shall Know Them

So the National Tea Party Convention is underway in Nashville, Tennessee, and one of the touted speakers is former Congressman, Tom Tancredo (R-Colorado). In the speech he gave at the Convention yesterday, Tancredo claimed that Barack Obama was elected president because our country does not have a "civics, literacy test before people can vote in this country." Ummmm..... when and where in this country was a literacy test required for voting? And who was the target of that literacy test? Mr. Tancredo, standing in a city in the South, demands a literacy test for voters?

What century is he wishing he lived in? Or to what century does he wish to drag back the country?

Good. Lord.

Feeling Grumpy but Not Over-Educated

So a few days ago I read a headline announcing that a majority of the "over-educated" continue to support President Obama, and I wondered just what is meant by "over-educated." The most popular definition of that term suggests that someone with a post-graduate degree is over-educated. I have a post-graduate degree, and I don't feel over-educated.

How stupid a term is that: "over-educated"?  More than educated? I really don't see how someone can be over-educated.  By whose measurement? If I'm a plumber with a doctorate, am I over-educated? Why? Because I know more than I need to know to fix a faucet? Who says so?

I'm feeling quite surly about this.....curmudgeonly, perhaps.... or.....misanthropic--an indication that I might be "over-educated"?

Good. Lord.

Not a Health Care Soundbite

Jerome Groopman, Chief of Experimental Medicine at Beth Israel Deaconess Medical Center in Boston and author of How Doctors Think has an interesting article online at The New York Review of Books website about how medical "best practices" might be included in government health care legislation and how that inclusion might play out in the decisions of doctors and their patients. Groopman provides two viewpoints of how "best practices" might be legislated in health care reform, one that uses the established best practices as a "nudge" to get doctors to choose governmentally-approved health decisions, another that more aggressively promotes these "best practices" by providing financial incentives or negative consequences. President Obama's friend and advisor, Cass Sunstein, favors the first (providing doctors with some leeway not to choose always the established "best practice" method in dealing with a patient's health issue) and Peter Orszag, another of Obama's advisors and director of the Office of Management and Budget, prefers the more strong-armed approach:

Doctors and hospitals that follow "best practices," as defined by government-approved standards, are to receive more money and favorable public assessments. Those who deviate from federal standards would suffer financial loss and would be designated as providers of poor care. In contrast [to the Senate bill], the House bill has explicit language repudiating such coercive measures and protecting the autonomy of the decisions of doctors and patients.

I didn't know much about this debate until I read Groopman's article this afternoon, and I was fascinated by Groopman's discussion of how established "best practices" sometimes turn out to be wrong or not the best health choice for certain individuals. Thus, there are problems with aggressively pushing doctors to choose the "best practice" standard at all times in all situations. This situation reminds me of the debate over mandatory-sentencing laws.  When judges do not have any discretion over sentencing criminals, serious injustice sometimes results, for instance, first-time drug offenders given long jail sentences when they could have been put on parole, provided with rehabilitation, and given the opportunity to change the course of their lives (and thus not cluttering up the prison system and costing the taxpayers huge amounts of money).

What really struck me was the anecdote of Groopman's personal contribution to a "best practice" standard that proved to be wrong. You just got to listen to folks who are willing to admit their mistakes.

Anyway, it's a long article, published in another one of those magazines that some people sneer at for being "elitist," and thus won't be part of any health care soundbite--but it's worth reading: Jerome Groopman, "Health Care: Who Knows 'Best'?," The New York Review of Books, February 11, 2010 edition.

Profiles that Complicate our Cardboard Cut-Out Judgments

Reading the profile of John Mackey, the founder and CEO of Whole Foods, online at The New Yorker this morning reminded me of some of the reasons I have subscribed to that magazine off and on over the years. The article's in-depth description of a complicated character makes me re-think my own knee-jerk reaction to Mackey's op-ed on health care reform that the Wall Street Journal published last year. Not only did I think the guy was a nut, I agreed with Matt Yglesias, who wrote that:

there’s asking a CEO to pander to your prejudices, and there’s pressuring a CEO not to go out of his way to offend your prejudices. Corporate executives have a lot of social and political power in the United States, in a way that goes above and beyond the social and political power that stems directly from their wealth. The opinions of businessmen on political issues are taken very seriously by the press and by politicians on both sides of the aisle. Once upon a time perhaps union leaders exercised the same kind of sway, but these days all Republicans, most of the media, and some Democrats feel comfortable writing labor off as just an “interest group” while Warren Buffet and Bill Gates and Jack Welch are treated as all-purpose sages. One could easily imagine a world in which CEOs were reluctant to play the role of freelance political pundit out of fear of alienating their customer base. And it seems to me that that might very well be a nice world to live in.

What Yglesias had to say on the issue still resonates with me--the idea that rich CEOs have too much power, anyway, so they need to be careful about how they throw their weight around in the public arena--but Nick Baumgarten's article also provides me with a more nuanced profile of John Mackey, whom I had never really thought about until Mackey wrote that op-ed.  Like many interesting characters, Mackey is a contradictory mix of hippie, capitalist, libertarian, paternalism, and goofiness. I think Mackey's idea that the world would be a wonderful place if other corporate leaders ran their companies as he does his--his idea of "conscious capitalism"-- and thus there would be no need for government laws to protect people from the over-reaching power of corporations, is very pie-in-the-sky.  I think we've had a very nasty wake-up call as to the self-centeredness and greediness of corporations--manned by their overpaid CEOs--in the debacle of Wall Street, the bail-out of banks, and the almost-collapse of our economy. I am glad that there are corporate leaders such as Mackey who do think it necessary and good to provide their workers with fairly generous benefits and good wages--too bad there aren't more of them these days.

Reading the article on Mackey reminded me of the profile of Barack Obama that I read in The New Yorker a couple of years ago: "The Conciliator," by Larissa MacFarquhar. Anyone who read that article would not have been surprised by Obama's leadership style this past year. Obama might have been one of the most liberal voters in the Senate, but as MacFarquhar pointed out two years ago, " In his view of history, in his respect for tradition, in his skepticism that the world can be changed any way but very, very slowly, Obama is deeply conservative." Obama had a history already of trying to understand "the other side," on whatever the issue might be. This is a telling story from his long-time friend Cassandra Butts:

Obama is always disappointing people who feel that he gives too much respect or yields too much ground to the other side, rather than fighting aggressively for his principles. “In law school, we had a seminar together and Charles Fried, who is very conservative, was one of our speakers,” Cassandra Butts says. “The issue of the Second Amendment came up and Fried is pretty much a Second Amendment absolutist. One of our classmates was in favor of gun control—he’d come from an urban environment where guns were a big issue. And, while Barack agreed with our classmate, he was much more willing to hear Fried out—he was very moved by the fact that Fried grew up in the Soviet bloc, where they didn’t have those freedoms. After the class, our classmate was still challenging Fried and Barack was just not as passionate and I didn’t understand that.”

So when I read the crazy right-wing comparisons of Barack Obama to "Hitler" or the claims that Obama is a "socialist," I know right away that the person making that claim is just plain stupid or highly misinformed--or deliberately misleading. And there are a lot of folks like that. They obviously don't read The New Yorker, and, of course, I'm sure they hold in high disdain anyone who does. It's an "elitist" magazine. But I sure as hell have learned a lot from reading it--many times the articles challenge my own assumptions. However, there are a lot of people who don't want their assumptions challenged or their minds changed in any way.

I quit subscribing because, damn it, the magazine is published every week, and I can't keep up with the reading of it. I love the cover art, and I continue to think I will return to read articles I don't have time to read right away, and so the paper copies just stack up--I can hardly bear to recycle them (though I did grit my teeth at the end of the year and did just that). I think I need to get with a couple of other people who would like to subscribe and start a joint subscription--in other words, have someone to whom to pass on my copies.

Fandom--Because I don't want to think about politics today

I don't write much about television or films, but that's not because I don't enjoy television or films. I love a good drama. Recently I've become a fan of the British television series Life on Mars, the story of a British policeman who is hit by a car in 2006 and "wakes" up to find himself 33 years in the past, in 1973. The series is being re-broadcast on PBS.  Although I root for the modern, methodical, more sensitive DCI Sam Tyler, the officer who is stunned to discover he's on almost alien soil in 1970s England, I have an awful soft spot for the often corrupt and bullying DCI Gene Hunt, but I would like to think that soft spot is more the result of my rather swooning regard for the actor who plays Hunt--Philip Glenister--than of any admiration for the ham-fisted Hunt.  But evidently Gene Hunt has a swooning effect on many women viewers, and I'm just one of many. Maybe it's that confident swagger and curling lip that attracts us so.  However, I first really noticed Glenister as an actor in his role as Mr. Carter in BBC1's Cranford, a very different role than that of DCI Hunt--and I immediately liked that character, too. So, yeah, though he is not traditionally handsome, for some reason, I think Philip Glenister has a lot of sex appeal. I think I'm a fan--or as much of a fan as I ever am of actors. Here is a list of some of my favorite actors/characters:

• As a child, I loved Eric Fleming's Mr. Favor in Rawhide, my first "crush" on a fictional character.
  
• Vying for second place were Leonard Nimoy's Mr. Spock from Star Trek (all those other women could have the captain!) and Patrick McGoohan's "Number Six" in The Prisoner.
  
• Kevin Kline--a great talent
  
• French actor Jean Reno--oh yeah!
  
• British actors Alan Bates, Bill Nighy, Rupert Everett, Colin Firth, John Hannah, and Alan Rickman--all very sexy (and, yeah, I know that Everett is gay, but that doesn't make him less sexy!)
  
• I love Jeremy Brett's Sherlock Holmes.
  
• Japanese actor Toshiro Mifune, especially his role in Yojimbo
  
• Don Cheadle--not only a great actor but also very good-looking
  
• I first really noticed Forest Whitaker in Smoke and have enjoyed his acting ever since.
  
• Indian actors Aamir Khan and Ajay Devgan.

And that's my list of favorite actors, none of whom are really traditional heartthrobs--provided here today because I don't feel like addressing the really important news of the day, such as the execrable Supreme Court ruling on campaign finance. Yep, taking refuge in the superficial and entertaining.

Satisfaction in a Completed Project

I finally completed one of the folk art quilts I began last year. This one is my son's; I am now finishing my daughter's quilt.  In order to guarantee I wouldn't lose interest and thus finish only one quilt, I crafted simultaneously the blocks for two quilts before crocheting the blocks together.  Over the Christmas holiday, I sewed blanket stitches around each block of my son's quilt and then crocheted a half-double-crochet edging to each block. Then I hand-sewed the blocks together and finished the quilt with a crocheted edging.

Now I am sewing blanket stitches around the blocks for my daughter's quilt, and will then crochet an edging to each block before hand-sewing (yarning in the backs of each stitch) the blocks together. It is really satisfying to complete a project such as this, a project that evolved out of my interest in felting worn wool sweaters.  Half of the blocks on each quilt are embellished with buttons or applique from cut-outs or of my own design. The picture at top left is of the front of the quilt. 

The back of each square is made of cotton material I saved over the years. Much of the material came from clothing I purchased from Marketplace India. When the outfit became too worn, I would toss it in my rag bag. Some of the material came from items of my children's clothing; for instance, on the back of my son's quilt is one square with an embroidered dragon from a robe he had as a small child. Also, both of my children practiced embroidery stitches when they were young; I found some of these early attempts and incorporated them into the quilts, too. The photo on the right is of the back of the quilt.
 

Discouraging

Yesterday evening as we drove home from watching the 3-D version of Avatar, we noticed a woman at a stoplight. As soon as cars came to a stop at the traffic light, she stepped off from the sidewalk to brave the still-slippery spots of the icy road in order to beg for money. She passed from car to car, holding up a one-dollar bill in mute request for more. I thought of her later as I remembered Judy Woodruff's report about jobs in December: the percentage of joblessness was remaining steady--but that was in light of the fact that 600,000 people had stopped looking for jobs.  Where does the government get the numbers for unemployment statistics? I had been told that the number comes from unemployment offices and that it is derived from the number of people still seeking employment and receiving benefits. The answer is more complicated than that, however, and is described on this website of the Bureau of Labor Statistics: http://www.bls.gov/cps/cps_htgm.htm

Just as discouraging as the number of folks who quit looking for jobs last month (for whatever reason), is the information about what recently re-employed people are discovering in the current economy. Most folks take a pretty hefty pay cut with the next job. And this pay cut affects their future earnings:

[P]eople hired at lower wages in a tight job market tend to lag behind their peers for years, sometimes decades. For example, workers laid off during the 1981-82 recession earned 20 percent less than people who remained in a job — even 20 years after they were rehired, a Columbia University study found. The study examined pay for white- and blue-collar workers, managers and hourly workers. ("For the Unemployed, New Job Often Means a Pay Cut," Christopher Leonard, Associated Press Writer, 10 January 2010)

In addition, "[m]ore than six people are now vying, on average, for each job opening, according to Labor Department data — compared with just 1.7 workers per opening when the recession began in December 2007." (my emphasis)

Some institutions benefit from joblessness. I read a recent article that reported a tremendous rise in the number of people returning to college, particularly to community colleges, and the number of traditional students who are choosing less-expensive colleges closer to their homes. (See Washington Post's "Community Colleges Get Influx of Students in Bad Times," by Valerie Strauss, 31 May 2009).  However, many community colleges are unprepared for this huge influx of students, for their state funding has been hurt by the economic downturn as well. (See "Community Colleges Get Squeezed," by Brian Burnsed, Business Week, 15 January 2009) One consequence is that community colleges are hiring more part-time faculty.  Look at the employment pages of any community college and note how many adjunct positions are being advertised. For instance, as of last year, New Jersey's Burlington County College was planning "to hire up to 200 new adjunct faculty members, increasing its part-time teaching staff to about 575, at the same time that the college faces a drastic cut of nearly 42 percent from the county and state."

Such part-time jobs for educators might sound great in this tough economy, but the pay for those jobs is often very low, particularly in the South, and those part-time positions also offer little or no benefits.  In a country where one receives better access to health insurance through full-time employment, that's not good news.

(For more on part-time faculty at community colleges, see Inside Higher Ed's The Part Time Impact," 16 November 2009).

The Problem with "Eyewitness" Accounts

I clicked on the article about the man who opened fire at a power plant in Missouri, depressed, again, by how many people turn to violence to express their frustrations with their colleagues and fellow workers, with their spouses, with the government. What really caught my attention in the article, however, was the description of the shooter, a description that illustrates the problem with eyewitness accounts:

Descriptions of the gunman have been confusing to police as one witness described the gunman as a black man, about 5-foot-8, wearing a tan coat and carrying a semiautomatic weapon — but later, a company supervisor called police to give the name of a disgruntled worker, a white man, who had possibly been recently fired, The St. Louis Post-Dispatch reported.

The news account reports that relatives of workers are saying the shooter was a disgruntled worker.

The End of Christmas

....not with a bang but a whimper--from the perspective of our cat Pluto, looking out a window into our neighbor's yard...