Let there be better teachers ..

.

John Dewey

What are the problems of education ? Are they complex, calling for thought to be given to a number of factors, or are they, as current fashion would have it, so simple that they can be reduced to a single factor ?

From the White House down, and most certainly including City Hall in New York and its brand-new Chancellor of Education, there is now a simple mantra: let there be better teachers and all will be well, in the schools, in the country, in the world. Ninotchka had similar ideas ("The last mass trials were a great success. There are going to be fewer but better Russians."), but let that pass.

Michelle Rhee, until recently the Chancellor of the District of Columbia schools, was perhaps the most vocal and the most active proponent of this doctrine. She came into office, she fired teachers, she got tremendous acclaim from politicians (including the current incumbent at the White House), and, voilà, the District schools are, well, in turmoil politically but, insofar as anyone can tell, academically no better than before.

No matter. Rhee may be gone, but her ideas still carry in the halls of power. Diane Ravitch (The Death and Life of the Great American School System) describes Rhee's program:

As a member of Teach for American, Rhee taught for three years in a Baltimore elementary school managed by Education Alternatives Inc., a for-profit organization that received a contract as part of an experiment in privatization. According to Rhee, during her second and third years of teaching, the proportion of her students who read on grade level leapt from 13 percent to 90 percent (critics were doubtful since the Baltimore records could not be located). From her experience, she concluded that effective teachers could overcome poverty and other disadvantages…."Those kids, where they lived didn't change. Their parents didn't change. Their diets didn't change. The violence in the community didn't change. The only thing that changed for those 70 kids was the adults who were in front of them every single day teaching them."

So here we have it: the teacher is the thing, nothing else matters. Nothing. And, to judge from Rhee's administration in D.C., let these teachers be few, young, inexpensive, and, above all, "good." How do we know when a teacher is "good," or as it is sometimes put, "effective" ? Not a problem. Just administer tests to students, and those teachers whose students do best on the test are the best teachers. And how do we know whether the tests are any good ? Not a problem. Tests are good if their results can be quantified.

Well, a beginning -- and only a beginning -- of appreciating the problems with the Rhee doctrine is to look at how these attempts at measuring student and teacher performance have worked. As Diane Ravitch has shown in her book, the testing of student achievement by standardized, bureaucratized instruments has been almost uniformly unreliable. She cites the "law" promulgated by the social scientist Donald Campbell: "The more any quantitative social indicator is used for social decision-making, the more subject it will be to corruption pressures and more apt it will be to distort and corrupt the social processes it intended to monitor."

If the prevailing standardized tests for student achievement have proven unreliable, the attempts to measure "teacher effectiveness" by such measures have been a complete failure. The New York Times has published an unusually good accounting on December 26. Despite very considerable number-crunching by statisticians, nobody has been able to find coherence in these ostensible measures of teaching quality. Even after overlooking such obvious absurdities as grading teachers who weren't teaching for the period in question and failing to grade those who were, these reports undermine their own premise when they indicate that a "good" teacher one year is, almost as often as not, a bad one the next and then back again.

There is no rhyme or reason in this kind of quantitative "accountability" of the teaching profession. For anyone who has given thought to the complexity of the teaching enterprise, the reason is obvious: the problems of education are far more complex and far more profound than are dreamt of in the philosophies of Ms. Rhee's Teach for America (a three-year program), or Ms. Black's Hearst Publishing (executive suite).

John Dewey, the great American philosopher of education, published a little booklet in 1902: "The Child and the Curriculum," calling attention to two of the complex factors that need to be considered in any discussion of education. Let me run down a few:

1. The child. Obviously, every child differs from all the others, as every snow flake differs from all its peers. But there are some regularities in this variance that the school must accommodate. It is a truism of the social science research that children from lower economic strata, as a group, come to first grade with far less (formal) verbal equipment than their peers from the more advantaged classes. To say, as Ms. Rhee does, that the heterogeneity of the students doesn't matter is to say that the moon is made of green cheese. To everyone else, it would appear that the school must take careful account of heterogeneity and that, for that reason, class size -- and the time a teacher can spend with an individual child -- is too obvious a factor to sweep under the rug.

2. The neighborhood. Variable neighborhoods are obvious to all serious observers. Educational planners cannot ignore them.

3. The curriculum. The current fad of emphasizing only language comprehension and mathematics, at the expense of a great world of other topics, rules out the necessary and continuing debate about what it is that our children need to experience in the school. There really should not be final answers about what is and what is not important to the curriculum. We need to learn from evolving research -- both into the state of scientific knowledge and the state of children's needs -- how the curriculum is to evolve.

I had planned to make this posting one in which I say everything that I can I think of on the topic of education. But I will not go that route; I can see too well all the obvious reasons that would make such an effort both shallow and futile. Instead I will close by recalling two mathematics teachers with whom I studied at City College between 1948 and 1949:

A. Mr. Zeig, instructor in Plane and Spherical Trigonometry, using the 1936 text by Rietz, Reilly, and Woods, which is before me as I write. It was a class of tremendous energy, with a teacher better organized than anyone I have met before or after. Every week, without fail, there was a test. Everyone, I believe, kept up with the material, everyone did well. I certainly did. I got an A. I memorized the trigonometric functions, I could perform all the required operations, and I mastered all this to its very maximum, as far as the class was concerned.

B. Professor Bergman, Professor of Calculus. The text by Sherwood and Taylor, dated 1942, is also before me now. I remember Professor Bergman standing in front of the class, scratching his head, trying to write a proof on the board, muttering: "I am not sure I'm quick-witted enough to get this right here...." I felt bewildered, as did, I suspect, much of the class. I worked very very hard in the class, but I did not have the neat structure -- a test every week, etc. -- that Mr. Zeig had provided in trigonometry. Moreover, much of calculus, I knew then and I know now, was beyond me. I managed to get a B for the course, which in those days was considered an achievement.

Who was the "better," the "more effective" teacher ? By Ms. Rhee's lights, it undoubtedly was Mr. Zeig who performed better: more of his students, no doubt, would pass a Rhee-devised test. But it was Professor Bergman's difficult calculus that I remember, and it is Professor Bergman, from my perspective today, who has contributed far more to my education. Of course it is not an entirely fair comparison because Mr. Zeig's trigonometry may be an inherently less profound subject. Still, Mr. Zeig made no attempt to convey to us whatever profundity that, surely, could have been found, even in trigonometry.

Final tally: I give Professor Bergman an A as a teacher. I will not grade Mr. Zeig ....

The Nicest Guy in the World

Sometimes, perhaps not often enough, people we do business with  are so nice that they make our day, sometimes even year: that really attentive waitress; that ultra-smart handyman; that honest and efficient car mechanic. And now we found a great jeweler in downtown Brooklyn, Mr. Jacques Renard.

Rita Corbeau and I needed to buy a nice magen david, Jewish star, for our youngest granddaughter. Jacques had been recommended to us by some of Rita's fellow health-club members, so we knew that we could trust him. Also, and this was a surprise in hard-bitten Brooklyn, he turned out to be the nicest guy in the world. His grandfather had started the business, he told us, his father had continued it, and now, to him, it was his life. The star that Jacques selected for us turned out to be more expensive than we had expected, but what a star ! Beautiful. Jacques does not accept credit cards, but, perhaps to make up for that inconvenience, he accepted some of Rita's old trinkets in partial payment. Jacques found that most of the trinkets had no value but he took them in to give to a local rabbi for charitable use. It sure saved us a lot of time and trouble.

That was two weeks ago. Yesterday I decided to go to his store once more. I needed a new battery for my watch. I realized that Jacques, having a quality store in an expensive location, would have to charge a tad more than the five dollars or so that I usually spend on that item. As before, Jacques was great. He took a quick look at the watch, opened it, slipped in a new battery, handed it back to me: "all done." No more than twenty seconds had elapsed. That's great, I said, what do I owe you ? "Twenty five dollars." Twenty-five dollars ? What's going on here ? Twenty-five dollars ? "But it's good for five years," Jacques said, "I know others charge less, but this battery will last five years."

OK. I was taken. It was a Madoff-victim experience, but, in that light, really cheap. After all, is twenty dollars a lot to learn a lesson about human greed, and more importantly, human gullibility ? I did go to see another watchmaker whom I usually use, just to check. "A battery for that watch ? Five dollars, but it's good for two years." Is there such a thing as a five-year battery ? The man just laughed.

Obviously I should have checked on Jacques. But who will question the greatest guy in the world ? Had I checked the internet before getting involved, I would have found his record right here.

UPDATE, Jan. 9, 2011: I ran into that local rabbi whom Jacques had mentioned, the one to whom he would give Rita's trinkets. Yes, the rabbi does know Jacques. And no, Jacques has never given him any jewelery "for charitable use." So the rabbi and I rehearsed some of the more important Yiddish expressions one needs to get through the day. The one we needed today was ganev.

Left Wing, Right Wing in Politics

Few people think that the political spectrum can be usefully depicted as extending from a "Left" to a "Right." Ever since the Bolsheviks became fatefully different from the Socialists -- about 1903 -- it has been apparent that what some people still insist on calling the (overall) Left conflates political forces of fundamentally different values.

But there is another aspect of this sloppy "Left vs. Right" usage that is often overlooked. While "Left" is a term that some political forces use as self-description, "Right" is not. English-language dictionaries do not describe the political connotations of political terms, but the great French Robert tells us under "droite" ('right') :

Dans le contexte français contemporain, le mot est surtout employé par des adversaires, se disant de gauche; les partis et le public dits de droite (par les autres) se réclamant en général d'autres dénominations.

In today's French, the word is mostly employed by opponents, who refer to themselves as being of the Left. Parties and public-opinion tendencies that are called right-wing (by others) generally use different self-descriptions.

So it would appear that the whole Left-Right political usage is primarily one of those who like to refer to themselves as being of the Left. Certainly those who are called "Right-wing" (as in such inexcusable phrases as "the Israeli government is a right-wing coalition") do not themselves use the term. In other words, while "Left" is often used by political groups -- for their own political ends -- to describe themselves, "Right-wing" is almost always used as a pejorative, as a term of abuse.

Ambassador Oren on Israel-US Relations (Oct. 2010)

The Puzzle of Vanity

C. Allen Gilbert

הבל הבלים אמר קהלת הבל הבלים הכל הבל
Vanity of vanities, said Kohelet, all is vanity. Eccl. 1:2

At first sight, and even at second, vanity makes no sense. A man boasts and brags, he trumpets wisdom and accomplishment and brains, all in the hope of gaining esteem and honor and admiration. But lo and behold, the world likes neither braggart nor show-off. Even a person of substantial accomplishment faces ridicule behind his back when he becomes a braggart; for a lesser person, bragging can be devastating.

Presumably the braggart craves esteem; that's why he brags. But bragging results in disesteem, a result quite generally understood. Hence the puzzle: why vanity ?

I have been interested for some time in the vanities of everyday life. Parents and grandparents like to boast of the accomplishments of their offspring. Does this kind of talk endear them, or their children, to anyone ? Minor academics sometimes like to place a "Ph.D." after their names in contexts where this is not customary. Obviously the effect is pathetic. The owner of a delicatessen store, an immigrant from a European country, calls himself "Dr. X." in his storefront window. Why ? People with business-related titles or academic degrees, real or self-conferred, or conferred by questionable authorities, adorn themselves with such decorations on their sig-files in personal e-mail. But obviously, all such show of vanity is to no avail. None of it can stave off the ridicule that the boasters so desperately hope to forestall.

Of course vanity comes in various forms and in various degrees of severity. One interesting type is vanity-by-understatement. When Queen Elizabeth opened the Faculty Club at the University of British Columbia in July of 1959 (some nine months before I myself became a member of that Club), she was asked to sign the visitors' registry. Her entry in its entirety read "Elizabeth R." I was twenty-one years old when I addressed a letter to Albert Einstein, disagreeing with him about the Soviet Union. Within days I had a modestly-worded reply from the Nobel winner, signed simply "A. Einstein." In Britain, we are told, "When a medical doctor passes the examinations which enable him to become a member of one or more of the Royal Surgical Colleges and become "MRCS", it is customary for him or her to drop the "Doctor" prefix and take up "Miss", "Mister", or etc. " (Wikipedia). I must say that where naked vanity is offensive, the vanity-by-understatement is charming. Or so it seems to me. It is the only kind, as far as I can tell, that does not produce the rebound of ridicule.

But vanity-by-understatement aside, there are obviously many degrees of vanity, and many types, and, not least, cases in which it is not clear whether the incident can be called vanity at all.

A most poignant account of vanity under extreme conditions comes to us from Arthur Goldschmidt (1873-1947), a Protestant German jurist of Jewish background who was imprisoned in the Nazi Ghetto Theresienstadt (Terezin) from 1942 until the end of the war in 1945. Immediately upon imprisonment, he established a church among the Protestant inmates, and, upon his release, wrote a "History of the Evangelical Congregation Theresienstadt, 1942-1945." The story is one of jockeying among a number of would-be preachers among these Jews-turned-Protestants. Whatever titles and positions they had had before imprisonment -- doctors, engineers, etc. -- were carefully referenced in the missives they sent one another in the course of the dispute over leadership in this little church. None had had theological training, but quite a few aspired to become lay pastors in the camp. Ultimately Goldschmidt, not least because he based his polemics on the Führer principle, prevailed in his exclusive right to preach. He survived the imprisonment, but almost all of the others -- his antagonists and allies alike -- were killed in the Holocaust. The various vanities documented in his story did little to either aggravate or alleviate the sufferings of the protagonists, but neither do they enhance our expectations for an ennobling effect of religious practice.

In the many instances of self-assertion of daily life, what would count as vanity and should therefore be avoided ? What is necessary for a decent self-respect, and should therefore be practiced ?

Without denying gray areas that may sometimes be genuinely difficult to navigate, a number of principles seem well established:

1) It is good to pay close attention to customary practices. It is not customary, for example, to add a Ph.D. after one's name except under very limited circumstances. It is not customary (and may indeed be illegal) to call oneself "Doctor" if one is not a licensed physician. And so forth. Obviously, any gross violation of custom will be taken as vanity and invites ridicule.

2) Avoid any deviation from veracity. Avoid half-truths. Avoid exaggeration.

3) When in doubt, use under-statement.

I do not think that my advice will affect the person of true vanity. To whom does such a person listen, anyway ? With all that, the puzzle remains. Braggarts and boasters are not liked, their actions, beyond some very short-term advantage sometimes, bring them disesteem and grief in the end. And yet they persist.

Why ?

Academic Criticisms of Israel: 96% Hypocritical

Like any other democracy, Israel's is imperfect and therefore open to reasonable criticism. There is certainly no a priori reason for suspecting the critics of Israel of unworthy motives. On the other hand, we do know that there are people who, under color of universal human values, criticize Israel because, not to put too fine a point on it, they don't like Jews. So it is often a bit of a quandary to figure out, in any given circumstance, the preponderant motivation of the critic.

To solve this quandary, if only in the case of a single initiative by a group of Israel critics, we now have the ingenious work of Fred Gottheil, a University of Illinois economist. Gottheil contacted the 675 professor who signed an anti-Israel petition (a statement alleging human rights violations, and all the rest). Without making reference to their petition, he asked each of these signers to endorse a protest against human rights violations in Muslim countries. The result: of the 675 scholars he contacted, only 27 would endorse his proposed protest. So it appears that, at least in this case, fully ninety-six percent of the academic criticism of Israel was hypocritical. Except for a small minority, the signers did not appear to be moved by universsal human values at all. They don't like Israel, pure and simple.

Gottheil's project was carried out with sophistication and care, but of course, like any study in the social sciences, it has its limitations and cannot give an absolutely definitive answer to the questions it poses. But the results came back so clear-cut that they certainly constitute very strong evidence for the conclusion: this particular anti-Israel effort was 96% hypocritical.

Click here to read Gottheil's report.

Read interview with Gottheil

Charflie Rose Stumbles -- II: Tariq Ramadan

Dear Charlie,

Your interview with Tariq Ramadan yesterday was very disappointing.

There is an important literature that describes the darker sides of Ramadan's public life. In particular, a recent book by Paul Berman, "The Flight of the Intellectuals," has detailed Ramadan's record of anti-Semitism and his support of terror attacks against Israel. When Ramadan mentioned "Palestine" in your interview with him, in a context in which it was probable that in fact he meant Israel, this should have alerted you to the problem even if you were unaware of what Berman and so many others have written.

You did not probe at all. You gave him a pass on all that is disreputable in his positions. The least that I can say is that you did not promote public understanding of this very problematic public figure.

Werner Cohn

Charlie Rose Stumbles -- I: the Question of Alzheimer's Disease

As current television goes, the Charlie Rose show must be rated as among the very best. He often gets intelligent guests, and the discussion is, more often than not, informative. Offhand and just guessing, I would say that I benefit from watching this show about half the time; I cannot think of another TV offering to which I could give a higher score.

All the more reason for me to criticize when he falters. Here is the first of a number of instances that I plan to discuss:

On August 28, the New York Times published an exceptionally informative article about the current state of knowledge of Alzheimer's disease. It seems that the National Institutes of Health had convened a very high-level "science court" to assess what is known and what isn't, and that this court had come to a conclusion:

... the jury’s verdict was depressing and distressing. So far, nothing has been found to prevent or delay this devastating disease, which ceaselessly kills brain cells, eventually leaving people mute, incontinent, unable to feed themselves, unaware of who they are or who their family and friends are.

“Currently,” the panel wrote, “no evidence of even moderate scientific quality exists to support the association of any modifiable factor (such as nutritional supplements, herbal preparations, dietary factors, prescription or nonprescription drugs, social or economic factors, medical conditions, toxins or environmental exposures) with reduced risk of Alzheimer’s disease.”

Nevertheless, a couple of days after these widely-diffused findings, Charlie had Dr. Eric Kandel, an aged Nobel Prize winner, mentioning quite casually that mental stimulation would help delay or mitigate the onset of Altzheimer's.

Does Kandel know something that the NIH panel does not ? If so, that should have been mentioned. Of course Charlie is not responsible for the opinions of his guests, but he should have known enough, or his staff should have known enough, to question the venerable Nobelist. And if Charlie was caught by surprise during the interview, he should have brought his viewers up to date on a later date. In the meantime, I am afraid, here is an example of Charlie working against public enlightenment.

How to Be a Progressive Jew

In his important book "Trials of the Diaspora," Anthony Julius has a section on "oppositionist Jews." They are also, I think, Progressive Jews. This is what Julius writes about them:

There has always been in Jewish circles the harshest self-criticism. These criticisms foster the taking of public stands by some Jews against their community or its established institutions. They often preface their criticisms with the phrase, 'As Jews, we …..', by impaction claiming to champion the 'true' Jewish perspective -- an embattled, minority position, for sure, calling for a certain moral heroism, and articulating fidelity to an idea of Jewishness, rather than more mundane solidarity with Jews. In modern times, they often deprecated Jewry's 'narrow-minded provincialism', 'narrow bigotry', 'religious intransigence', and so on -- what Bruno Bettelheim disparaged as 'ghetto thinking'. Some oppositionists have rather complex relations with Judaism that repay study; others are no better than posturers, without real knowledge or understanding of the religion. There are oppositionists who are prophetic excoriators of Israel, and they speak or write of of a love of Israel. There are an equivalent number (perhaps a greater number) of oppositionists, who lack that commitment, and are driven instead by embarrassment, fear, or a desire to ingratiate themselves with non-Jews or to distance themselves from their fellow Jews' reprehensible conduct -- or some combination of these motives. … Many oppositionist Jews have now taken up positions as scourges of the Jewish State. Out of perversity, some oppositionist Jews now place themselves in the company of anti-Semites.

Mais où sont les neiges d'antan ?

Some five hundred years ago François Villon (1431-1463) wrote his Ballade des Dames du Temps Jadis about important women, who, alas, were no longer. At the end of each such evocation he concluded with the wistful mais où sont les neiges d'antan ?, ' where are the snows of yesteryear ?' This line, frequently quoted in the original even by speakers of other languages, may well be the best loved in all of French poetry.

Now fast forward a few hundred years. Back in the 1940's I was part of the Trotskyist movement in America, some decades before this movement turned more or less anti-Semitic (for an account of this development, see my old essay on this). While in this movement, I was fortunate enough to enjoy the friendship of an exceptional group of people, all, I was sure, brilliant like me, all able to see the unspeakable evil and ignorance of the non-Trotskyist world.

Now and then, the Internet being informative about the famous and obscure alike, I get glimpses of these erstwhile comrades. Some seem to be as smart as before (i.e. they evolved their thinking as I have), but about some there is a cloud of uncertainty. In this latter group there is X, who had been, as a girl, really, but really smart. In those days of our youth, that is to say the 1940's, X had known all about the pretense and phoniness (a favorite term then) of conventional big shots. But I did hear, over the years, that perhaps X turned into a bit of a pretentious windbag herself. Could it be ? What is she like today ?

Recently I was involved in a project that led me into some collaborative work with Y, a long-term colleague of X at an institution of higher learning. I asked Y: you know X as a colleague. What is she like today ? I understand that X may have political opinions that differ from ours (Y and I are together in our work now), but, surely, beyond that, and remembering her from days of old, she is still a very decent human being ?

So here is Y's report, which I have every reason to trust completely:

I doubt that I knew X. in the days of which you speak. She should live and be well, but she very much hates me, and I have to admire her capacity to hate lastingly. Not many civilians have it. Has she gone all the way to Chomsky? That is far.

So here is the lesson about the snows of yesteryear, as I see it: those snows that looked so bright and white probably never were what they seemed; as is the case with so much that glitters clean and white, they more than likely always had plenty of dirty mud just below the surface.

The Imam and the Sergeant: Open Letter to Mr. Jeffrey Goldberg

Dear Mr. Goldberg,

In your Atlantic article last week ("'Ground Zero' Immam...") you heap praise on Imam Rauf and excoriate his critics:

The right-wing campaign against the so-called "Ground Zero mosque" includes vicious personal attacks on the Muslim cleric who leads the Cordoba Initiative, the organization behind the plan. I know Imam Faisal Abdul Rauf, and I know him to be a moderate, forward-leaning Muslim -- yes, it is true he has said things with which I disagree, but I have never expected him to function as a member of the Zionist Organization of America.

Now here is why I am writing. You no doubt know of Sgt. Gilad Shalit, the Israeli soldier who was abducted from Israel by Hamas more than four years ago and who has been held hostage, incommunicado, for all this time. International groups like the Red Cross have been denied access to him. It is a barbaric action by these Islamists, and it is ongoing. So here is my thought. You tell us that Imam Rauf, while devoted to Islam, of course, is also both moderate and forward-leaning (whatever that means), and you tell us that he is a man you know. You vouch for him. So this is my suggestion. Get the Imam to prevail upon Hamas (a group the Imam has always refused to criticize), to prevail upon this group of fellow-Muslims to end their barbaric imprisonment of Sergeant Shalit.

Can you do that, Mr. Goldberg ? That would be, how can I put it, very forward-leaning on your part.

Sincerely,

Werner Cohn

Dystopia on Bedford Avenue

Brooklyn College

Every transfer student to Brooklyn College must read one and only one book: "How Does it Feel to Be a Problem," by BC's own Associate Professor of English, Moustafa Bayoumi. I suppose that there is no penalty for reading more than this one book, but only one book is required. And all freshmen at BC are also required to read this book. Moreover, the students are then to hear Prof. Bayoumi, and only Professor Bayoumi, at a presentation of his views.

The book is all about Arab immigrants to Brooklyn. There are five or so case studies, with no indication of how typical these may be for Arab Americans in general. The case studies are then distilled in the author's thesis in an "afterword" as follows: Arab immigrants suffer here because of American imperialism. (For a moment the author hesitates between blaming American "hegemony" or American "imperialism," but he quickly decides for the latter, without explanation.) In any case, it is this U.S. imperialism that deprives the Palestinian people of their right to self-determination, since, he says, the US takes the side of Israel in the Israeli-Palestinian dispute. And it is this pro-Israel US imperialism, if I understand Professor Bayoumi at all correctly, which makes the life of Brooklyn Arabs so difficult. That is the thesis, that is the book that every student at BC must read, and that is the only book that every incoming transfer student to BC must read.

So far so good. Surely Professor Bayoumi (known also as a regular writer for The Nation, as the editor of the Edward Said Reader, and as a tireless polemicist against Israel) has a right to his opinions, this being a free country. And of course BC has every right to require its students to study him. But does he have a right to have his book used as the only source in a discussion of a public issue, at an institution of higher learning ? And does BC have a moral right to give him a monopoly in the presentation of his views ?

I asked these very questions of Dean Donna Wilson of BC, and this is what she replied:

Each year professors in the English Department and I select a common reading for our entering students. We choose memoirs (a genre familiar to students) set in New York City, often reflecting an immigrant experience, and written by authors who are available to visit campus. Students in freshman composition respond to the common reading by writing about their own experiences, many of them published in ‘Telling Our Stories; Sharing our Lives’. This year we selected How Does It Feel to be a Problem: Being Young and Arab in America by one of our own faculty members, Professor Moustafa Bayoumi, because it is a well-written collection of stories by and about young Arab Brooklynites whose experiences may be familiar to our students, their neighbors, or the students with whom they will study and work at Brooklyn College. We appreciate your concerns. Rest assured that Brooklyn College values tolerance, diversity, and respect for differing points of view in all that we do.

Naturally I was happy to learn of Dean Wilson's commitment to tolerance, to diversity, and, most of all, to respect for differing points of view. So I wrote to her again, and again, and then again once more, suggesting that she provide some balance to Bayoumi's book, that she provide additional authors and additional speakers. I even suggested another author, Paul Berman, also resident in Brooklyn, also writing on Arab themes, also willing (I would assume) to speak to her students. And what did Dean Wilson reply to these repeated suggestions of mine ? You guessed it, she did not deign to reply at all.

As the saying goes in dystopia: Big Brother (or here, Big Sister) knows best.

Update, Aug. 30:

The Jewish Week in its online edition has additional material on Professor Bayoumi:

But Bayoumi , an associate professor at the school, also recently published “Midnight on the Mavi Marmara: the Attack on the Gaza Freedom Flotilla and How it Changed the Course of the Israeli-Palestine Conflict.”
A publisher's blurb describes the book this way:

“In these pages, a range of activists, journalists, and analysts piece together the events that occurred that May night...Midnight on the Mavi Marmara reveals why the attack on Gaza Freedom Flotilla may just turn out to be Israel’s Selma, Alabama: the beginning of the end for an apartheid Palestine.”

The book includes contributions by prominent Israel critics – including Noam Chomsky, Norman Finkelstein, Stephen Walt and Philip Weiss.

Everyman a Handyman !

A. D. Gordon

I think that all youngsters should have instruction -- formal and informal -- in basic carpentry, plumbing, electricity, auto mechanics, and similar subjects, and I think that such instruction should be consistent and prolonged. My reasons here are only partially practical.

Young children do get training in soccer, in dancing, sometimes in chess, often in music, and sometimes even in cooking. But training with basic tools ? I have never heard of it. I suppose that farm children, or at least the boys, do get such training early on. But this does not seem to happen anywhere off the farm.

The practical need for such skills is obvious. When something goes wrong around the house or apartment, or in the car, those with basic handyman skills can take care of it more often than not. Obviously, anything serious needs a serious specialist, but, in my experience, most problems of life do not rise to that degree of difficulty.

Beyond the obvious convenience of being able to solve many of life's little problems, I believe that a habit of problem solving by the use of manual skills will help develop the practical aspects of intelligence. I would think that this is the case even though I have not looked into the technical literature on the subject, if any.

So much for the utilitarian considerations. There is also an ethical, moral, and philosophical side, which is not free of problems but which, in the end, is the decisive consideration for me.

Various movements in Europe, beginning roughly in the middle of the 19th century, spoke of an ethical, redeeming value of manual labor. A. D. Gordon (1856-1922) represented this strain in the early Zionist movement, and there is no doubt his thought and life had an important influence on the kibbutzim and continue to influence aspects of Israeli thought today. Elsewhere, very similar ideas of Thoreau, Gandhi, Tolstoy, Ruskin, Marx, the anarchists, and many others, constitute one of the living legacies in Western thought.

Much of this legacy is shoddy or worse. The totalitarian movements, both Nazi and Communist, adapted snippets of manual-labor worship as part of their propaganda (consider, for instance, the "proletarian art" of the Stalin era, and the similar esthetic of the Nazi art scene). And, at least since Marx's 1844 essay "The Jewish Question," it became a staple of certain left-wing (and later Nazi) propaganda to accuse the Jews of being "parasites" because Jewish occupations were seldom manual.

So the broad "religion of [manual] labor" (a phrase associated with the thought of A. D. Gordon) had connections with all the horrors of the last two centuries. Nevertheless, I would maintain, the notion of manual work as an ethically positive should not be dismissed on account of the perversions of this idea by the totalitarians.

I do get uneasy when some of the young people that I encounter are too exclusively engrossed by techniques of amassing money and status -- the study of business administration, for example. Obviously not all bookish work in schools of business administration -- and certainly not the bookish work required for mastery in other branches of scholarship -- is to be suspected on ethical grounds. But I would like to see more of a general appreciation of manual skills to be acquired for their own sake, or at least for practical ends that are separate from those of advancing in the eyes of the world.

I cannot prove that effort and time spent on developing manual skills will make people better human beings. I cannot prove it, but I believe it nonetheless.

So -- everyman, every girl and every boy -- a handyman !

Yivo's Encyclopedia of Jews in Eastern Europe

A few months ago there occurred an event in Jewish scholarship that was not marked as it should have been: the publication of "The YIVO Encyclopedia of Jews in Eastern Europe," edited in two volumes by Gershon Hundert.

A great review of this work by Professor Bernard Wasserstein, in itself a monument to Jewish scholarship, appeared in the Times Literary Supplement of December 18-25, 2009. Click here for this review-article.

And here is the best part: the whole of this important work is available on-line to the public, free of charge, courtesy of YIVO. Our profound thanks must go to these folks on West 16th Street. Click here to consult the book.

Larry King interviews Bibi Netanyahu

Archives of Medical Ethics

One day, she confronted a woman and her mother, who were getting into an illegally parked black sedan with medical license plates, which often had a placard in the window. "I said, 'How do you like your parking space?'" the executive recalled. "And she said, 'I went to school for many years and worked very hard for this.' And I said, 'For a parking space?' And she said, 'Yes.' And her mother said to her, 'Close the window!'"
---Lizzi Widdicombe, The New Yorker, Jan. 18, 2010

Israel and Its Arab Neighbors

http://www.justpeaceforisrael.com/

Surprise ! Hitler less than truthful (and then there is Professor Khalidi)

Sixty-nine years ago today, the Nazi armies started their surprise invasion of the Soviet Union. I was a boy of fifteen at the time, and my strongest memory of the day was this: I was wondering what the (American) Stalinists would say to THAT ! Well , right on cue and within hours, they changed their front organization "American Peace Mobilization" (which advocated staying out of the war) to the "American People's Mobilization" (which demanded and full and energetic participation in the war).

Now, sixty-nine years later, a new detail has captured my interest. Hitler's proclamation to his people on that June 22 (read on the radio by Goebbels -- see the video above) contains the following interesting passage:

As early as 1936, according to the testimony of the American General Wood to a committee of the American House of Representatives, Churchill had said that Germany was becoming too strong again, and that it therefore had to be destroyed.

Let us say, for the sake of argument, that there was indeed an "American General Wood" who testified in Washington in 1936. (In that year Stanley Baldwin was prime minister of Britain, who preceded Neville Chamberlain, who preceded Winston Churchill ... but let that pass). What relevance would that have to the Nazi invasion of June 1941 ? It seems that Hitler meant to suggest that this statement from the horse's mouth, as if "by his own admission," would prove, in and of itself, the evil intentions of the British empire.

Hitler was not in the habit of supplying supporting footnotes to his declarations, so now I can only guess at the grain of truth that may be involved here. (I have not made a thorough search of all the scholarship on Hitler's statement). In that period there was indeed a retired Brigadier (one-star) General Robert E. Wood of the US Army, later chairman of Sears, Roebuck and, more importantly, a leader of the America First Committee. So I surmise that Wood may have appeared in Washington in 1936 to speak for his isolationist agenda. What he may or may not have known about Winston Churchill at the time would be anyone's guess. In any case, his testimony would hardly qualify as reasonable evidence concerning Britain's war aims five years later.

Now fast-forward to 2009. Israel is engaged in battle with Hamas in Gaza, and a New York professor, Rashid Khalidi, finds that another general, this time an Israeli, had some years before spilled the beans about Israel's "real" war aims. Here again there are words allegedly from the horse's mouth, so to speak "by his own admission," etc. As I pointed out at the time, even if an Israeli general had said years before what Khalid attributed to him now, that would hardly have been proof positive of what Israel tried to do in Gaza. As it turned, Khalidi's alleged quotation was so completely distorted that what he reported was the contrary of what the general had in fact said. The New York Times, which published Khalidi's statement to begin with, was forced to publish a retraction. (Khalidi himself, however, never retracted and never explained.)

(Click here to see my series of four previous posts on the Khalidi affair, giving all the details)

Now, for those folks who specialize in communication with the dead, can we get Mr. Hitler to retract his reference to "General Wood," or at least explain ? That is not likely, but no less likely than getting Professor Khalidi to do the right thing.

"Accountability" for our Schools ?

Bill Gates: Working for Good or Not-so-Good ?

Let us say that a hospital were to institute incentive-based accountability for doctors as follows: 1) improvement in patient health is to be measured strictly by the numbers; 2) these numbers are to consist exclusively of fever measurements; 3) the more patients improve on fever charts, the more the doctors get paid; 4) whenever patients do not improve by a certain quota of temperature degrees, the doctors are fired to be replaced by newer, younger, more compliant and therefore "better" doctors.

What would happen under this system ? First, doctors would find ways of lowering temperatures (alcohol rubs, etc.) without improving underlying conditions. But even if temperature figures were not to get gamed in this way, any improvement in fever scores could not reasonably be interpreted as improvement in the overall health of the patients.

Well, let us hope that no such "accountability" scheme will ever be used in a public health setting. But in education ? As Diane Ravitch points out in her brilliant new book "The Death and Life of the Great American School System," it is exactly such misleading "accountability" that has taken over our education system.

First, standardized tests (which, like the fever thermometer, certainly have a place if intelligently used) are systematically gamed by teachers and administrators to get desired results. Even where used without deceptive intent, they cannot possibly tell us about the total quality of instruction.

Second, the extraordinary growth of charter schools has weakened the public education system. And nobody has shown that charter school results are superior to public education.

Third, gimmickry has taken over some of our largest school systems. Michelle Rhee, the young new chancellor of schools of the District of Columbia, symbolizes the new belief in quick fixes. With all of three years teaching experience of her own, she has formulated her educational philosophy as follows: a pupil's home background is irrelevant to education; neither poverty nor health nor parental input play any role; nor does a teacher's own background or education. Some teachers are just more effective, she holds, and it is these teachers she wishes to promote. All the others she fires, or tries to fire. Obama (who sends his own children to a very expensive private school) is among Ms. Rhee's many fans. Has her system worked, even in terms of higher test marks ? Not yet, as far as anyone can tell.

But the biggest bombshell of the book is its penultimate chapter, The Billionaire Boys' Club. Guess who is primarily responsible for pushing these pernicious ideas and for financing their adoption ? Among the three prime villains there is one I had up to now thought of as among the angels: Bill Gates of Microsoft, or rather Bill Gates of the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation. Neither he, nor his associates of the Walton and Broad foundations, practice any of the precious accountability that they demand of others. Here are the ultra of the ultra rich, dispensing billions with profligate abandon, dominating educational practice through ill-advised projects, but with nary a side glance at the deeper issues involved in educating our children.

On these broader issues of educational philosophy, Ravitch has all the right instincts (see her last chapter), but she lacks depth. John Dewey, one of the towering figures of American educational thought, is not found in the index. And when it comes to multiple-choice tests -- the be-all and end-all of the new fixers -- Ravitch only skims the surface of necessary criticism.

OK, she hasn't quite written the book I would have liked her to write. But what she has done is giving us a tremendous wealth of detail on what goes on, and especially on what does not go on, in America's schools. For that she deserves our gratitude.

How smart are you ?

How smart are you, I mean really ?

Here is a little test. There are ten questions. Each is worth the number of points shown in parentheses. For each correct answer you get the appropriate number of points. But here is the kicker: DO NOT GUESS. For each incorrect or incomplete answer there is a deduction of the number of points that is assigned to the question. Remember: there are no partial answers. To get the credit, the answer has to be complete and accurate. Any (substantial) error or incompleteness will earn you the full demerit.

For each statement, explain -- clearly and thoroughly -- what it most likely means, and also give examples of how it could be applied. Give as much detail as necessary, but no more.

1. “Other things being equal, it is expected that X causes Y.” (2)

2. “It was found that the law regulating X had unexpected consequences.”(2)

3. “There is only a weak correlation between X and Y.” (7)

4. “Most reviewers were favorable, but, even among the supporters of the work, there were reservations.” (1)

5. “The possibility for this happening is very remote.” (1)

6. “This is an empirical question.” (5)

7. “What is the place of value in a world of fact ?” (8)

8. “Sometimes an ad hominem argument is appropriate, sometimes it is not.” (8)

9. “Anachronism is the enemy of historical understanding.” (10)

10. “Under certain circumstances, all differences are statistically significant.” (13)

Any score of one or more is good, actually. A score of 57, the maximum, means that you have probably cheated. (Just kidding; you cannot cheat. If you get a 57 you can be satisfied with yourself -- up to a point.)

Good luck !

Thanks to Shoshana and Ruthie Schoenfeld for their help in this project.

Groves of Sanctimony -- and not only in the RC church

A.W.N. Pugin (1843) -- BBC

Tax hanky-panky; the "non-refundable" deposit; unenforceable waivers

Religious and quasi-religious institutions like to tell us what is ethical and what is not. But, aside from what they say, how do they in fact behave ? That can be quite a different story, a conundrum in fact. For poor Benedict XVI -- I feel that I have a special relationship to him because we were both born in the same country within a few months of one another -- for this poor Pope, who has inherited a mess that is mostly not of his own making, this conundrum probably disturbs his sleep.

The Pope now finds himself in the glaring light of worldwide publicity. New revelations appear constantly, seemingly from everywhere, about Catholic pastors, Catholic bishops, Catholic cardinals even, who are said have transgressed in ways strictly forbidden by Canon Law. Obviously there is more than a bit of Schadenfreude in all this publicity, a point stressed by Catholic apologists. And equally obviously, there is a real moral problem as well.

Compared to these alleged high crimes and misdemeanors in the Catholic hierarchy, certain garden-variety hypocrisies, chicaneries, and sanctimonious practices seem hardly worth mentioning. But obviously these almost-routine practices, generally not reaching the level of spectacular crime, nevertheless need the warming sunlight of public knowledge.

Tax Hanky Panky

Here are excerpts from the website of Camp Ramah of the Berkshires, a non-profit group that is directed by a rabbi and whose office is located at the (Conservative) Jewish Theological Seminary:

Camp Improvement Fund *. An additional $500 will be added to each family’s account as an annual, voluntary, tax-deductible contribution to the Camp Improvement Fund. This is an amount essential to the development and maintenance of Camp Ramah and is included as a donation to ensure tax deductibility for your benefit. As with all similar tax-deductible contributions, these payments may qualify for your employer’s matching gift program. Please forward the appropriate form if this option is available to you.

For your benefit. Right. Under our tax laws, "no goods or services" may be provided for a "contribution" to enjoy tax deductibility. So this "voluntary" CIF fee is first listed as a "fee," apparently part and parcel of the required payments for this camp, and is then called "voluntary." Which is it ? Between the wink and the nod, what is the message ? The "fee" part seems to be directed to the parent, the "voluntary" to pesky IRS investigators. So what these religious guides here teach, by example, is how to speak with forked tongues.

It is of course an open secret that many non-profit groups abuse the tax laws by providing tax-deduction receipts for what in fact are goods and services that they render, but rarely is the practice so blatantly advertised, on the internet no less.

The "non-refundable deposit" and other fees for services that are not performed

• A non-refundable enrollment deposit [of $725.00] is required at the time of acceptance. Website of Friends Seminary, New York

· Children will be dismissed early from camp for attempting to harm others, leaving the cabin after curfew, attempting to run away or for disruptive behavior.
· Refunds are not issued for children who are dismissed early due to disruptive behavior.
· The Camp Director makes the final decision on early dismissals.
Website of Long Point Camp, Salvation Army

Camper Withdrawals. No tuition refunds will be made for withdrawals after the start of camp that are initiated by parents without the concurrence of camp or if a camper is sent home due to behavioral misconduct. For other withdrawals, a prorated portion of the tuition will be refunded after deducting a withdrawal fee of half the tuition. (Conservative Jewish) Camp Ramah (Berkshires) website

"Behavioral misconduct" ? Yes, obviously, that kind, the behavioral kind of misconduct needs to be punished by a religious camp. But alas, abuse of the English language is the least egregious thing here. Non-profit schools and summer camps, including those run by religious groups, often give warnings to prospective parents: generally, once fees are paid they will not be returned, or will only be partially returned, even though no services are performed by the institution for these often considerable sums of money. The groups also frequently demand sizable deposits before enrollment, often with a warning that such deposits are non-refundable, or even "not refundable under any circumstances."

What is disturbing about these practices is that no attempt is made to relate these considerable sums to actual damages that may have been incurred by the institutions. Restitution of damages that are caused by early withdrawal, etc., would be rational demands and would have a strong basis in law. But a refusal to return deposits when there are no actual damages, or when such damages are smaller than the sums withheld, such refusal is illegal, and no agreement that a parent may have signed to that effect is enforceable. Parents should always demand a return of any such fees; if they do, they will regularly be vindicated in the courts.

Here are two cases that illustrate how courts have dealt with the issue:

Gunderson v Park West Montessori

Pacheco v Scoblionko

Obviously the many lawyers associated with these religious groups know very well -- the legal issue is beyond dispute -- that these practices are illegal, and that, if brought before the courts, they will lose. So why do they persist in these unconscionable demands ?


Unenforceable waivers

I hereby give permission for this youth to attend and participate in
___________________________________. I have familiarized myself with the expected activities and understand the possible risk involved. Permission is also given for the person named above to ride in any vehicle designated by the adult in charge during this event. If a problem occurs I assume all transportation cost for my young person. I understand that the participant is expected to obey the general guidelines for behavior: that the instructions of the adult(s) in charge must be respected and obeyed and that NO alcohol, illegal drugs or sexual misconduct will be permitted at this event. I will take no civil or legal action against the adult(s) in charge of this event. Website of Episcopal Diocese, Western New York

Camps and schools, soccer teams, all kinds of "youth-serving" organizations, both religious and secular, regularly demand that parents sign waivers to release them from their legal responsibilities in negligence cases. Such waivers are proper and enforceable in the case of adults but not in the case of minors. Professors Richard B. Malamud and John Karayan cite the legal doctrine as follows: "Minors can waive nothing. In the law they are helpless, so much so that their representatives can waive nothing for them." As their article makes clear, the courts will not honor such waivers, since parents do not have the power to grant them.

So why, knowing that the courts will not enforce them, do the lawyers of these groups -- secular as well as religious -- persist in demanding them from parents as a condition for their children's participation in recreational pursuits ? Do these lawyers act in good faith ? Do they, in fact, practice the integrity that their groups preach ?


Still more groves of sanctimony:

Sidwell Friends School

Jewish philanthropy

New Israel Fund

I own a lot of copyrights, and here are the benefits that I derive ....

Logo of US Copyright Office

During my academic career I would write scholarly articles from time to time and see them published in the periodical literature devoted to such work. I was rarely paid in money, but the gratification of seeing my work in print, and of contributing to the scholarly conversation was more than enough compensation.

But there was an additional, legal gratification: absent an explicit contract to the contrary, copyright remains with the writer. So now I own quite a few copyrights, and here are the benefits that I derive from them:

In this age of computerization, not a few of my old articles are available in the data bases of a number of well-known publishers. So I can find much of my old work there any time I want to refer to it. I can find it there, but as I learned to my chagrin, it is generally not free. Since I never gave permission for my work to be sold by others, I approached a number of these publishers. Look, I said, this work is mine. You sell it without my permission. Tell you what, I said to a number of them, I will give you permission to keep using my work if, by way of compensation, you will give me free access to your data base.

In not a single case have any of these publishers -- a very famous university press among them -- agreed to my proposal. I generally get a letter back saying that the matter is being referred to their legal department, or whatever, and then I never hear from them again.

The one exception is the well-known conservative magazine Commentary, to which I contributed a few very minor items more than fifty years ago, back when it was not at all conservative. This is what I wrote on October 2 of last year:

Some fifty years ago I contributed some book reviews to Commentary. Whatever the custom may be now, at that time I retained the copyright to this material, since, absent an explicit contract to the contrary, the copyright automatically belongs to the author. Now it appears that you sell access to these reviews on your website, even though these rights are not yours to sell. I was asked to pay for access to my own property !

I am willing to negotiate an arrangement under which I would grant you rights to sell access to my work in return for my having free usage of your archives.

In any case, please note that, as of now, you are infringing on my intellectual property rights.

Kindest regards, and best wishes for the new year.

Well, it did not take long to get an answer from the good people of Commentary. Here is what they wrote back, on October 5:

Dear Werner Cohn:

I apologize for any misunderstanding. We will remove your work from our website as soon as possible.

I hope you have a sweet new year.

Well, I can't say that I was happy with this answer, but at least, I thought, they are doing the right thing: they know they are infringing on my property rights, and they agree to cease and desist, in full compliance with their own (current) private-property principles.

But there is a funny ending to this story. They have indeed removed my name from an old book review of mine, but the review itself is still there, published as "Reviewed by [blank]." No, I am not making this up. Click here.

UPDATE, about three hours later from the above:
Whoever says that Commentary has no shame is wrong, completely wrong. After I posted the above, and sent a link to Mr. John Podhoretz of Commentary magazine, lo and behold, a couple of hours later, two of my ancient book reviews have disappeared from the on-line archive of the magazine. And all that happened on shabat. Great work, John P. !

The Salary Scandal in Jewish Philanthropy

This is an old story, and bringing it up once again, by an obscure blogger like me, is not likely to cure the problem. But please ... why are these gentlemen (mainly) of the "Jewish civil service" paid as they are ?

In the chart above, I've pulled out salaries in excess of $500,000 in the world of Jewish philanthropy (see the excellent site of the Chronicle of Philanthropy), but this is just a tip of the iceberg of excessive payments to Big Shots, Jewish and otherwise. No more than one half of one percent of the American workforce receives this much (oops, I almost said "earns this much"). Ordinary people like you and me earn far, far less. We are regularly asked to contribute to groups like UJA-Federation, in the name of helping the less fortunate. Is there any rhyme or reason, or any decency whatsoever, in using our contributions to support the lifestyles of the upper one half of one percent ? There is not.

The apologists of such salaries invariably say that it is not possible to get "good people" to work for less. The same argument was advanced on behalf of the salaries and bonuses paid to the "good people" whose incompetence gave us the current recession.

Can you get "good people" to work for non-stratospheric salaries ? The President of the United States ($400,000), the federal judges ($170,000), officials of the Salvation Army ($216,000), Jesuit priests who lead major universities (room and board), all these seem willing enough to work for reasonable incomes. Moreover, scholars who have looked for empirical evidence to support stratospheric incomes have found none: there is simply no evidence that such salaries "are needed."

As it happens, the highest salary at the Salvation Army is $216,000. That is one fifth of the salary paid to the president of the Jewish Federation Council of Greater Los Angeles. On the other hand, the yearly income of the Salvation Army is $3,237,768,000, which happens to be fifty times as much as that of the Jewish Federation of LA. In other words, Sally Anne gets 250 times more value for her money than does the Jewish Federation of LA.

No, there is no valid argument "from necessity" for the high salaries at Jewish institutions. But in any case, whatever pragmatic reasons could be found or invented to justify such payments, the most important thing about these payments, in my view, is that they are unseemly.

Finally, I must hasten to add that certain payments to officials of elite universities are still more shocking than these abuses at Jewish groups. Please study the Chronicle of Philanthropy materials to which I have linked above.

Stalin, Robeson, and Me

Fifty-seven years ago this month Joseph Stalin died in Moscow, on March 5, 1953. I was a sociology graduate student, aged 26, just recently married, not yet a father (though expecting). Those Stalinists in New York, whom I had encountered at CCNY and elsewhere, were of professional interest to me (as were Jehovah's Witnesses, the Plymouth Brethren, etc. etc.). How would the Stalinists react to the death of their "great leader" ? I decided to make some observations.

By coincidence, a large public meeting had previously been planned by one of the Communist front organizations to take place on what turned out to be a day or two after Stalin's death. The venue was a large hall in Harlem, and Paul Robeson (whom the Communists had not yet revealed as a secret party member) was the scheduled speaker. I decided to attend. Would there be tears for the newly-late leader ? Would there be great public grief ? I wanted to know and I went up to Harlem to find out.

What a surprise ! The comrades arrived on time, maybe a couple of thousand, and sat politely through routine speeches without there being a single mention of Stalin. Finally Paul Robeson got up, and in the first sentence of his speech declaimed the death of "the great Stalin." Well, at that moment there was loud applause, a standing applause, but applause no different from that accompanying other points that the various CP speakers had emphasized.

I concluded that these New York Stalinists were devoted to their party and its discipline, but that they lacked any warm emotional tie to the man whom they had seen praised, so many times, in the Daily Worker and elsewhere, as Coryphaeus of Science, Father of Nations, Brilliant Genius of Humanity, Great Architect of Communism, Gardener of Human Happiness. The cult of personality, I concluded, was thin and arid, at least among the New York comrades.

The Name Changers

ricodebuco.wordpress.com/2009/09/26/two-faced/

No no no. This picture, designed by Rico de Buco, does not at all represent my view of people who have changed their names, say from an ancestral "Cohn" to a less incriminating "Collins." The sentiment suggested by the picture is an exaggeration of my views, at best. But, for what it's worth, here is my article on the subject, now more than twenty-five years old.

Child slaves in Haiti: The Restaveks

The institution of "restavek" (from the French "reste avec," 'stay with') in Haiti, in which hundreds of thousands of poor children are given into a form of slavery, is no secret whatsoever. Every Haitian is well acquainted with it, books have been written about it ... and yet, there seems to be no international concern.

For those who would like to learn more, there is the book by Jean-Robert Cadet, himself a former restavek, and the Restavek Foundation he has founded.

Take a look at the CNN video:

Are some people good, others bad ?

People aren't either good or bad. It's circumstances that differ: some are more fortunate, more educated, richer or healthier, etc. etc., than others. Do not make value judgement. Do not be moralistic.

That is the doctrine of the college-educated. But in real life all people speak of "nice guys," of "absolute jerks," etc.

What to make of it ? Here are my answers, or at least my reflections:

Bad Character, Good character

Who are the Jews ? What do they do ?

Photo by Werner Cohn

"Jews are a famously accomplished group. They make up 0.2 percent of the world population, but 54 percent of the world chess champions, 27 percent of the Nobel physics laureates and 31 percent of the medicine laureates.

Jews make up 2 percent of the U.S. population, but 21 percent of the Ivy League student bodies, 26 percent of the Kennedy Center honorees, 37 percent of the Academy Award-winning directors, 38 percent of those on a recent Business Week list of leading philanthropists, 51 percent of the Pulitzer Prize winners for nonfiction." -- David Brooks, NY Times, Jan. 11, 2010