Who says presidents need to be edu-mc-cated anyhow?

A modest proposal

When it comes to job qualifications for the role of President of the United States, let’s do away with archaic showstoppers like “well-educated.” Shall we?

After all, our current president “earned” his undergraduate degree from Yale University and his MBA from Harvard.  While some have argued Mr. Bush was able to gain admission and enough credits to graduate only by wholly relying on his family connections, let us assume for the sake of argument that his poor showing as President is instead a reflection on the decaying quality of higher education.  Let us embrace this assumption and conclude that top-notch education is, in fact, detrimental to one’s preparedness to lead the United States.  It’s worthless.  If the best education in the world made spit’s difference in forging leadership qualities in those who undergo such rigors, we wouldn’t be in the mess in which we find ourselves today.

And if you can swallow that line of argument, then buddy have we got the presidential ticket for you!  You guessed it, it’s the everyman’s ticket: McCain and Palin.  With investigative research and commentary by Laura Hayward, and with the caveat that Wikipedia has been found to be occasionally imperfect, we present to you the comparative guide to the educational backgrounds our 2008 Presidential & Vice Presidential candidates.

Check out McCain’s class rank at US Naval academy!!!  What a Maverick!

McCain entered the United States Naval Academy at Annapolis. McCain came into conflict with higher-ranking personnel, he did not always obey the rules, and that contributed to a low class rank (894 of 899) despite a strong intelligence.^[9][11] He did well in academic subjects that interested him, such as literature and history, but studied only enough to pass subjects he struggled with, such as mathematics.^[4][12] McCain graduated in 1958.

Sarah Palin, on the other hand had a hard time staying put anywhere for more than a semester…and no offense, but has anyone heard of these schools?? 

In 1982, Palin enrolled at Hawaii Pacific University but left after her first semester. From there she transferred to North Idaho College, where she spent two semesters as a general studies major. From there, she then transferred to the University of Idaho for two semesters.^[11][12] During this time Palin won the Miss Wasilla Pageant beauty contest,^[13][14] then finished third (second runner-up) in the Miss Alaska pageant,^[15][16] at which she won a college scholarship and the ‘Miss Congeniality’ award.^[17] She then left the University of Idaho and attended Matanuska-Susitna College in Alaska for one term. The next year she returned to the University of Idaho where she spent three semesters completing her Bachelor of Science degree in communications-journalism, graduating in 1987.^[11][12]

Admittedly, Biden ranking is not much better than McCain’s, but at least he’s honest – he was lazy!

Biden attended the University of Delaware in Newark,^[10] where by his own later description he was a lazy student.^[11] He graduated with a Bachelor of Arts with a double major inhistory and political science in 1965,^[2] ranked 506th of 688 in his class.^[12]

Finally, someone with a strong academic record qualified enough to be leading the country!!!  (Oh wait…we almost forgot that George went to Yale & Harvard, proving that education is worthless.)

Following high school, Obama moved to Los Angeles, where he studied at Occidental College for two years.^[10] He then transferred to Columbia University in New York City, where he majored in political science with a specialization in international relations.^[11] Obama graduated with a B.A. from Columbia in 1983, Obama entered Harvard Law School in late 1988. At the end of his first year, he was selected, based on his grades and a writing competition, as an editor of the Harvard Law Review.^[19]

State of the Union 2008

Driving to work this morning, I listened to a bit on NPR about two previous final State of the Union addresses. The host was interviewing the speech writers responsible for the final addresses by presidents Reagan and Clinton. Reagan was a thematic president, the one contended. Clinton was less so, went the story. They agreed that SotU addresses are boring, clunky laundry lists, they agreed that a president in his last year of his final term may not have nearly as much trouble capturing the audience’s attention as one might expect. They agreed about everything.

In the wistful peace of these previous opponents’ agreement, a space opened up. A creative space, wherein I heard the faint rumblings of GWB’s speech this evening. It was filled with the usual assortment of malapropisms – bungled compound sentences, clearly misunderstood and misused euphemisms, and mispronunciations of everything from “nuclear” to “mom.” He couldn’t decide if the economy was strawng or strugglin’. He urged us, when considering the recession, deficits, debts, wars, education and production losses, etc, to “try to keep yer prospective,” because ya never know – things could get better. …”they usually do, right?” He turned around and asked Cheney, “How’m I doin’ Dick?”

By the time the NPR spot had ended, I was in stitches. I had thoroughly amused myself with a tiny internal satire which reality will, I fear, closely resemble. I thought of Will Ferrell’s parodies of our fearless commander in chief. They’re so close to reality.

Stay tuned for tonight’s “big event.” And in the meantime, enjoy the Ferrell parody on global warming found at the link below. It’s wicked good. Just like nucyular energies.

http://www.transbuddha.com/mediaHolder.php?id=1147

Spiderman, Spiderman, does whatever a pizza can.

Italian Spiderman – the movie!  Excitement builds as I imagine a crusty Italian director hunting furiously for just the right adhesive mustache for our hero to don.

GRAZIE, ITALIAN SPIDERMAN!!!

*and thanks to Brian Creasy for the laugh.

Scamspam response competition

Gmail’s venerable spam filters have let pass a surprising piece of junk mail today. A letter announcing the intention of one Msr. Mutombo Dikembe of la Fondation de Dikembe Mutombo (a little known french alternate universe version of the well known Dikembe Mutombo Foundation?) to impart a gift to me in the name of Jesus Christ. Is this, perchance the real Dikembe Mutombo of NBA fame? To quote René Descartes’ last words, “I think not.”

(Dikembe Mutombo)

So I’m going to host a competition. Take your best shot at a response to this impostor. The winner’s response will go to the sender on Wednesday, January 16. Moreover, I’ll continue to publish the correspondence as it grows, to this blog, to my pownce account, myspace, facebook, and everywhere I can – with full attribution and links to your site. I’ll even send you a t-shirt.

The original (french) solicitation is below. Why is it in french? Who knows? Does that lend it an air of authenticity? I’ve also translated it into english (with help from babelfish, which ain’t that good, but considering the original french is atrociously awful in the first place, I couldn’t bring myself to translate manually and waste the keystrokes). You decide in what language to make the response.

On your mark, get set, go.

Cher Monsieur,

Que la Paix du Seigneur soit avec vous.
Je suis Mutombo Dikembe et je suis anime par la volonte de Dieu avous
assister financierement.
Je sais que vous etes surpris comment j’ai pu avoir votre adresse.Un
frere m’a parle de vos bonnes oeuvres,puisse Dieu vous benisse au Nom de
Jesus-Christ.

Je priais a Dieu pour savoir a qui et ou je devrais faire ce gestede
bonne foi,avant que ce quelqu’un me dise de vos bonnes activites,et dans
mon esprit et ma conscience,je sentis que vous etiez la personne
ideale pour recevoir ce don.

Merci de votre devouement et amour pour notre
Seigneur,Jesus-Christ.Veuillez-bien me repondre des reception de mon message.

Que Dieu vous benisse.

Mutombo Dikembe

rough babelfish translation:

That the Peace of the Lord is with you. I am Mutombo Dikembe and I am animate by the will of God avous to assist financially. I know that you etes surprised how I could have your adresse.Un brother me A speaks about your good works, can God benisse you in the name of Jesus-Christ. I requested has God to know has who and or I should make this gestede good faith, before this somebody tells me your good activities, and in my spirit and my conscience, I felt that you etiez the person ideale to receive this gift. Thank you for your devouement and love for our Lord, Jesus-Christ.Veuillez-well to answer me of the reception of my message.

When I grow up, I want to work in advertising

“I want to be so far removed from day-to-day business that I’ll need a crane to pull my bloated head out of my ass.”

Why do we do it? Why do we aspire to so many of the things parodied in this video? It’s not just us in and around advertising and marketing either. It’s all of us, it’s the nature of the corporate ladder, the rat-race, and maybe even competitive spirit. Are we all condemned to this vapid life?

In 15 years, the percentage of American GDP accounted for by consumer spending has gone from 63% to 70%. That jump should be so profoundly startling that it makes any American run for the hills to live in primitive isolation for fear of otherwise imploding with the rest of the country when the house of cards comes down. 70%.

Graphic representations of rap lyrics

We IAs and designers love good information graphics. Well, I can’t say these are good, but they’re worth a laugh.  (special thanks to Brian McNitt for putting these in my inbox.)

Fig 1.

Fig 2.

Fig 3.

View them all here: http://www.jamphat.com/rap/

Additionally, Google “Village Voice This Is Why I’m Hot” (or click that link, buddy) to see one of the most hilarious IA-esque breakdowns of a rap song in history. Peace…

Who Needs Monday Through Friday? (How Public Education Is Failing My Sons)

At the beginning of the current school year, Avonworth Elementary School dropped a bomb on its students and their families. The bomb arrived on a pink sheet of paper, one of nearly 40 pages of unorganized, unstructured “announcements” that made their way home in my son’s backpack during the first week of school. Verbatim, it read:

 

8/27/2007

 

This year Avonworth Elementary is going to adopt a more educationally sound scheduling practice. Beginning this year we are going to be on a five day rotation cycle. Instead of Monday through Friday, we are going to follow a Day 1 through Day 5 schedule. This revised schedule will result in no students missing their specials class. Most of our scheduled Inservice/Act Days fall on certain days of the week. (We missed over 9 Mondays last year). The Rotation Day Calendar will be sent home to you with your child at the beginning of each month so you will know ahead of time what specials class your child has. Calendar could change due to inclement weather also, and if that happens you will receive another revised calendar.

If you have any questions, please call me at (number removed).

Sincerely,

 

(name removed)

Elementary Principal

Note: This letter is published on the Avonworth Elementary School website. You can view the entire letter here.

Here’s what the resulting calendar looks like (click it to enlarge):

There’s so much to say about this, but so little required – it seems to me.  Where should I start?
At the beginning of the school year, Monday was Day 1. All was well with the universe.  But the universe has since changed.

Within a month, Day 3 was falling on a Monday.  By mid-October, Day 2 will replace Day 3 as the Monday designation.  Or is it that Monday is now falling on Day 3 and will soon fall on Day 2?  To me, that’s the source of the problem here:  Which way of conceptualizing the week is primary?  The answer is so obvious that the question is absurd.   The implicit claim here is that the importance of In Service / Act days supersedes everything – even the thousands of years old established system of the weekly calendar.  They have embarked upon a rewrite of one of the cornerstones of industrialized civilization – because the CHOICE between fewer In Service days and kids missing P.E. was one they couldn’t stomach.

When I was younger and more revolutionary, I was taught (and I embraced) that if we don’t like the way the world works, we can and should endeavor to change it.  But this change is so disruptive, so out of sync with the rest of civilization, that it has the effect of turning its back on the most fundamental purpose of education: to prepare kids to participate in the established world into which we all must flow.  To me, this is a fundamental, stark betrayal of that obligation.  Though dressed in terms like “educationally sound,” it is functionally insane.  It disrupts and confuses students and parents alike.  I fear it serves only a narrow group of special interests, with perspectives too myopic to be entrusted with my children’s sound education.

Don’t look now, you’re being redirected.

How much Amazon.com stock does Southwest Airlines or CNN hold, anyway?

Though I’m loathe to admit it, I found myself looking up the term, “halter-style dress” today while reading a CNN.com story on Southwest Airlines recent altercations with two different women who were admonished to cover up before boarding flights run by the carrier. Apparently, Southwest’s “The Love Airline” image is shifting from its hippie 1970’s incarnation to a version updated to fit the times. Huh?

At first blush, I thought less of Southwest. What business is it of theirs who wears what for a plane ride to wherever? I tried to imagine Greyhound imposing a dress code – de facto or written – and laughed. (Before you get upset with me, think for a minute about your last bus ride across country.) A plane is just public transportation, after all, even if the ticket to ride can run you some big bucks.

Or maybe, I thought, there’s a deep thought here regarding public appearance, social respect, and etiquette in a civil society. A cursory reading of the yahoo! message boards and CNN’s “sound off” module cleared up that misconception in a flash. It seems pretty self-evident that there’s always a push-and-pull between individual freedom and collective accommodation. Nothing new here. Just a couple of emblematic incidents whipping up the tiniest bit of public discussion.

No, I don’t think it’s about the debate, and I don’t think there’s anything insidious going on at Southwest (or at least if there is, it’s not being reported on CNN). But you can bet there’s something going on somewhere. Someone I respected once said, “Every time someone tells you to look up at the sky, he’s got his hand in your pocket.” Don’t look now, there’s a Southwest plane flying overhead.

iPromise

How’s your iLife going?

I’m asking because I’m curious. I’m curious about whether or not your iLife is what you’d imagined – what you’ve been promised.

Mine isn’t, but I’m not surprised. Consumer advertising, after all, promises us far more in regards to products and services than what any product or service is capable of delivering. Deep spiritual satisfaction from a walkman? Social fulfillment and a permagrin from a hard drive full of jpgs? Become the toast of your friends (which of course, number in the scores and consist of supermodel geniuses and dapper playboys) thanks to your German engineered car? I learned fairly well to look through the veneer of consumer advertising when I was a freshman in college and read Ways of Seeing, by John Berger. But consumer advertising is an adaptive beast, relentless and ever more persuasive.

In a world where massive, empty promises are routinely made, what are the consequences for our expectations of the world – most specifically and critically of the other people in our lives? After all, people make and keep (or don’t keep) promises. Implicit, explicit, marriage, work, etc. If any number of 1,000’s of things in the world can be promoted as panaceas for a yearning in us (a yearning I’d say has been amplified and manipulated to respond to the promises of advertising), what kind of fulfillment expectations arise? Am I likely to work through a difficult stretch in a relationship when I’m pretty well conditioned to believe there’s a newer, better one out there that will require less work and will provide greater – if not complete – fulfillment?

iWonder, if we stripped our world of the context of accepted empty promises of fulfillment, would we re-adapt and learn to nurture our relationships better? Would we still have a 50% divorce rate? Consider this passage from an article on Askmen.com, wherein the author plainly argues that women and men change after marriage (for the worse) and that doing so is fundamentally unfair:

Why shouldn’t one have a say if their wife or husband puts on too much weight from sitting on the couch and eating nachos all day? When you buy a car, a BMW for instance, you expect it to remain a BMW. The car won’t become a GoodYear blimp with time, it will inevitably get old but will always remain a BMW.

This, from an article categorized under “marriage advice.” Complete article on Askmen.com. Would anyone else read this and wonder why, oh why, anyone would compare a person to a product and expect a human being to behave like a car? Yet, I find this way of “philosophy” prevalent. And seeing its prevalence turns me away from marriage. It’s not the changing spouse I’m afraid of – it’s the likely expectation in her that I’ll be like that car. It’s the shameful recognition that, in me, there’s the same expectation of her.

It’s the knowledge that we all judge one another against the expectations made by impossible promises – iPromises, if you will.

constant entertainment

Speakers in every room. iPod in a pocket. Cell phones browse the internet. Television may no longer be on 24/7 – replaced by the computer.

Over Labor Day weekend, I went out of town to a cabin on a lake in Maine – to get away from civilization and relax for a few days – and getting there requires a plane trip to Boston, followed by a bus ride to Portland, followed finally by automotive extraction from the bus terminal by family members who brave winding back roads to take me to the undisclosed location. That final leg of the trip – 35 miles – takes an hour and a half. It is nearly as long as the ride from Boston to Portland, and almost double the plane trip. It is also the best part of the journey, crawling along the Maine back roads, looking for moose, gazing out at glistening lakes through dense forestation, and zoning out.

For the first leg of the journey, I flew Jet Blue. It was my first time on Jet Blue. I had taken Neil Postman’s Amusing Ourselves to Death to read on my trip. Published in 1984, it is supposedly more relevant now than ever, and I’d long been looking forward to reading it. As I sat down in my comfortable leather airplane seat, cracked the spine, and started in on the introduction, I noticed a flickering light in my periphery. I glanced up to see what it was, and noticed (for the first time) that every single seat-back on the plane had its own little 9″ TV screen, and every single one was turned on. Wow, I thought, that explains the flickering. Apparently, among Jet Blue’s claims to fame is the fact that it graces passengers with 34 channels of Direct TV programming and 100+ XM Satellite Radio channels. Never a dull moment on Jet Blue. Nor, however, a moment to unplug. I tried to go back to my book, but the flashing lights of the televisions was relentless and distracting. I figured out how to turn my TV off, but the other 315 passengers were intently watching ET, The Sopranos, Who’s The Boss?, and a multiplying array of other junk food TV equivalents. I was physiologically overpowered by the lights. And after 20 minutes of vain struggle to read, I had to throw in the towel. Satellite Radio or Direct TV? That was my choice – simple and uncompromising. Yeah, yeah, I had options regarding what program to passively consume, but the option of unplugging was simply unavailable to me – and to all of us on that flight considering the enraptured stares on fellow passengers’ faces.

I didn’t even get far enough into the book, but the irony struck me like a cast iron skillet over the head. From Boston to Portland, the bus was nearly as bad. Multiple TVs playing a DVD to fill the minutes prevented dreaded lack of distraction. Why look out the windows when you can look into the flickering box of constant entertainment? I am deeply worried about us. And I’m saying so on a web log. Relentless.