Student Protests

Many college students in California last week protested proposed statewide tuition increases, and in addition to the outrage induced by the prospect of higher education now becoming unaffordable or financially crippling, the anger only grew due to a series of racially motivated events that occurred throughout California's higher education system.  At the University of California-San Diego a student hung a noose in the school's library, predominately white students had a ghetto-themed party, and a school television show questioned the need for Black History Month.  Students at UC Irvine also questioned the need for Black History Month in the school paper.  For many Californians this is not a great time to pursue higher education.  For many students the financial burden of pursuing a higher education may make education undesirable, and for minority students the growing reality that some segments of the student body do not enjoy your presence only compounds that same burden.  However, regardless of how unsavory these events may be the focus of this issue is the response.

The events created anger and frustration, but a response has been discussed for quite a while.  The students would protest the events, and ideally they would be peaceful protests.  The students' protests should disrupt the usual course of people’s lives.  If everything stays the same then nothing has changed, so the essence of a protest is to disrupt the normal.  The normal is no longer enough, thus we will change that and we will do so peacefully.  However, with peaceful protests comes the reality that those whose lives have been disrupted may not respond peacefully.  The police may want to beat your ability to reason or to recognize injustice into submission and replace them with the fear of further beatings.  That is what happened in California, and that is all I have to say. 

The appropriate act is to watch the video below because protests are simple acts both major and minor in size with the intention of eradicating the insignificant normalcy that can so easily encompass ones life.

A kinder, gentler philosophy of success

Here is a great and humorous lecture by author Alain de Botton about a new perspective for defining success.  Success must not only be gauged through prosperous careers, but also through the ability to have less anxiety throughout our life.  Many people have obtained wealth or high status through their chosen profession, but many of these people still remain unhappy and filled with anxiety throughout their daily life.  This should not be viewed as a successful life, and Alain de Botton gives an informative and entertaining perspective on this definition of success.

I highly recommend purchasing any and all of his books and you can read more about them on his website.

I Chose Yale for the Glee

This is a real recruitment video for Yale.  I thought it was a joke, yet I was wrong.  Watch the video below and then read what Editor of Lapham's Quarterly, Yale '56 graduate, Lewis Lapham had to say.

Click to read more ...

Cool, or Not-So-Cool, College Facts

"The Decade of Broken Dreams"

Time Magazine has officially declared the first decade of the 21st Century as "The Decade from Hell".  ("The Decade of Broken Dreams" was a contender, but it didn't make it.)  As for the 2000's here is what Time Magazine had to say.

Bookended by 9/11 at the start and a financial wipeout at the end, the first 10 years of this century will very likely go down as the most dispiriting and disillusioning decade Americans have lived through in the post-World War II era.

We're still weeks away from the end of '09, but it's not too early to pass judgment. Call it the Decade from Hell, or the Reckoning, or the Decade of Broken Dreams, or the Lost Decade. Call it whatever you want -- just give thanks that it is nearly over.

Frankly, I find it hard to disagree with them, and doubt I could find a person that feels the 2000's have been better than the 1990's.

Here is the video Time is putting out to promote this issue.  It is of a crying baby while confetti falls to the ground.

Two of My Favorite People: Bernie Sanders & Michael Moore

Senator Bernie Sanders answers Michael Moore's question, "What is wrong with American Capitalism."  Watch the video below

The Ability to Serve

Teddy, Jack, and Bobby

When you look upon a life such as Ted Kennedy's you must admire the devotion to public service, but the observation must not end there.  You must wonder as to how he was able to devote his life to public service.  Spending a lifetime devoted to others is not a task easily accomplished.  You must need some assistance or luxury to be able to not worry about ones self.  

Now the obvious answer to this question is that he came from a very wealthy family.  The wealth that his father Joseph was able to bestow upon the family allowed for none of the Kennedy family to worry about the basic needs in life.  None ever feared or endured undue stress from poor employment prospects.  None of them ever feared whether they would receive a proper education, and they never had trepidation about whether someone would be able to tend to them when they became sick or injured.  This is a basic platform for productivity.  Their life consisted of more than survival, and now could focus on benefiting others.  This can be observed when the discussion gets taken further.

Currently, the state of our country's affairs advocate a reliance on the "Haves" deciding to fight for the "Have Nots".  We hope that the rich see a moral imperative to fight for the less fortunate, but what is left if the rich decide to only fight for themselves.  Will the less fortunate be able launch a strong enough fight to protect their future?  No one knows the answer to this question, but the goal should be to not have to ask the question.

When you look at the Kennedy's you can see the benefits that wealth can provide, but more importantly you get to see people fight for others to have similar benefits.  They never flaunted their wealth, and many could assume this humility arose from an acknowledgement that many of the benefits that they received due to their wealth were not really that special.  Instead they were luxuries that all American's should have.  

All American's should have the luxury of not having to worry about what calibre of health insurance or schools their children will be able to attend if their company decides to downsize.  Your level of health and education should not be dependent on your income or that of your parents.  When a society partners basic necessities with your level of income, it now becomes hard to advocate the value of public service over personal service.  In this society such as this, you cannot neglect personal for public because that could lead to a loss of the basic services you have grown accustomed to.  Ted Kennedy, and the entire Kennedy family, gave a shinning example of how sharing the wealth and promoting equality makes us all stronger.  It started with the Civil Rights Movement, included Title 9, and continues today with health care reform.  This should not be lost on anyone, and we all should consider how when basic needs are already taken care of we can now stop focusing on ourselves and can be willing to commit our lives to the service and benefit of others.  This can make us all stronger, and hopefully allow the emergence of more people like the Kennedy family.

Michael Moore's "Capitalism: A Love Story" Trailer

"No One Has Written Your Destiny For You"

Today, President Barack Obama addressed the NAACP at its national convention which marked its 100th year of existence.  His speech was fitting and timely.  Few could have written a better story.  The first African-American President of the United States addresses the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People on their 100 year anniversary.  Few would have guessed that this story would ever come true.

The President's speech was good, but so many of his are.  What makes this speech stand out more than others is not what he said or the skill in which he delivered it, but instead what he was allowed to say.  President Obama can speak from a position that no one has been able to obtain.  He can congratulate and chastise, bring you down to earth and motivate you to a degree which few are capable.  He can do this because he does not proclaim to be perfect, or better than the average person.  Yes he knows he is talented, but he also knows he was helped along the way.  He has a mixed upbringing, so he can relate to most on many levels.  He is a real person advising, and even telling people what they need to do based on what he has learned throughout his life.  We know he has learned these through action and not instruction.  We all can respect that more.  

However, when he gets the chance to address the NAACP we know that he identifies himself as Black.  The knowledge he has gained from learning from all races without a prominent bias has given him the ability to address this close knit, although far reaching, group with a cosmopolitan outlook that we all need to hear.  What he said tonight was personal, it may not be more personal than many of the other speeches he has given, but we know it was personal.  We can feel that he meant it from the bottom of his heart and all African-Americans need to hear that.  More often than not, we may feel that the government does not care about us, but we can know that this one does.  That is good to hear.  When you know someone cares you will let them tell you the harsh truth.  You just hope that they can bring you back up once they have brought you down.  President Obama did this marvelously tonight.

The speech was good.  He could say what few if any others could say, and he did it well.  Events like this do not happen everyday and we all need to know that.  Sure the news cycle will continue, and this post will get lost amongst my many others, but we all need to respect and admire the fact that the first African-American President of the United States of America spoke at the 100 year anniversary of the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People.  Tonight was a testament to progress.

Watch the speech in its entirety below.

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Afghanistan and Me

The Atlantic Monthy in their latest issue has a section titled Quick Fixes that proposes quick solutions to our biggest problems.  One concerns Afghanistan, and I will laboriously type the text of this long paragraph, so that you can see how quick this fix could be.

With American efforts to pacify Afghanistan now in their eighth year and flagging, the Obama administration confronts this question:  Is there an alternative to the Bush strategy of invade, occupy, and transform?  Although few lessons from Iraq apply directly to Afghanistan, one does: "transformation," in the sense of modernization, is hopeless.  Operation Iraqi Freedom now ranks second only to World War II as the most expensive conflict in U.S. history.  Transforming Iraq has cost roughly $1 trillion, with the meter still running and the job unfinished.  Transforming Afghanistan, by any measure an even more daunting task, is likely to cost as much or more.  That's money we don't have.  Even if we did, the attempt to create a cohesive nation-state governed from Kabul (something that has never existed in modern times) is a fool's errand.  better to acknowledge and build on the Afghan tradition of decentralized governance.  Let tribal chiefs rule:  just provide them with incentives to keep jihadists out.  Where incentives don't work, punitive action--U.S. air strikes in the neighboring Pakistan provide an illustrative example-- can serve as a backdrop.  Denying terrorists sanctuary in Afghanistan does not require pacification--and leaving Afghans to manage their own affairs as they always have will reduce internal instability, while freeing up the resources to allow our own country to tackle other challenges more pressing than the quixotic quest to modernize Afghanistan.

That was one long paragraph.  To summarize, what we are doing does not work and costs too much.  Instead we should let the ruling regional leaders govern their territory, but encourage them either through aid or fear of military retribution to not support terrorists.  How this relates to me is that back in college I wrote a paper that basically said this and I was told that I was an idiot.

I had a final paper for my American Government class that asked me to, based on my knowledge of the American Presidential system, to advise the Afghanistan people how to build a proper democracy.  I thought this question was garbage, and I told my professor that.  I said I would not advise them to use our system, and that at best they should use a parliamentary one based on regional rule.  He said that I would have to right something to show that I know American government, and I argued that the fact I know it would not work should prove that.  He disagreed.  We had a discussion in the middle of my final exam, and he gave me my worst grade of the quarter on my final paper.  This event started a rapid increase in my questioning the competence of my professors, and very soon I knew I needed to leave school.

A large part of me felt vindicated when I read that in the Atlantic Monthly.  I started reading that magazine in college, and it may turn out to be one of the best things that has happened to me from school.  At least they can agree that I was not an idiot even though it took over six years for it to appear in print.

Free School - University of the People

I like school, and I like free, so this could be perfect.  However, more than anything I hate the rising tuition costs in this country, and the need to essentially enter a debtors prison to obtain a college degree.  Therefore the University of the People could be the best solution to all our needs with their tiny registration fees and miniscule exam fees.  School may now cost hundreds instead of thousands.  This could be really good.  Check it out.  www.uopeople.org  

Founder Shai Reshef describes the University of the People as,

There are hundreds of millions of people around the world unable to afford higher education.  We are offering them an alternative.

Not only are their people who cannot afford higher education, which should include many Americans, there should be an even larger array of people who frankly do not feel the need to spend money on something they could get for free.  Food tastes better when it is free, so I hope the same applies to education.  Classes start in the fall of 2009.