American Right Wing Terror

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All of us at Planned Parenthood of Kansas & Mid-Missouri are horrified, angry and deeply saddened at the murder of Dr. George Tiller this morning. Our hearts and our prayers go out to Dr. Tiller’s wife, his children and other family members, to his brave and dedicated staff and to the thousands of women who have benefited from Dr. Tiller’s compassionate and dedicated care.

Planned Parenthood Mourns Dr. George Tiller, Statement by Peter B. Brownlie. President/CEO

The right wing has endorsed violence against Dr. Tiller and others like him for two decades or more. It’s not simply fringe elements either. Fox News has for years hyped the idea of “Tiller the Baby Killer.”

It works too: Tiller had been attacked several times before. In fact, this sort of right wing terror has made abortion increasingly unavailable. Yet his assassination is being called “a murder” as if it weren’t politically motivated.

It seems very obviously part of the crazed right wing response to the Obama administration. The right is most dangerous when it senses its own irrelevance. It starts making wilder and wilder claims, hinting at the necessity of violence.

It’s just a show for most people; entertaining, but no more real than anything else on television or radio. There are always a few, though, who buy the performance completely. That’s the danger.

Posted in: Language, Online Places, Professional, Writing

Writing and Counter-Racism

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Fear of failure at school can be crippling, especially for ethnic minority students. Research shows it’s all too common for them to fear that their own poor performance will reinforce negative stereotypes. Unfortunately this anxiety only serves to undermine their achievement, thus perpetuating the cycle. Now Geoff Cohen and colleagues have shown a simple psychological intervention based on self-affirmation can help prevent this downward spiral, leading to academic benefits up to two years’ later.

Research Digest Blog, Simple psychological intervention boosts school performance of ethnic minority students

I have mixed feelings about this report– it’s too early to count these chickens, for one thing. I also wonder if it represents a kind of liberal wishful thinking, a hope that a simple, inexpensive solution might be found to a seemingly intractable problem. If it’s so easy, why did it take so long to figure this out?

Then again, perhaps the real problem is that it has taken us– Americans– so long to collectively accept that racism has profound effects that go well beyond anything an individual can correct on his or her own. It seems too obvious but maybe only recently have we really acknowledged that kids need help with racism.

Once we– or some sub-section of the American “we” anyway– accept that racism is real in this sense then we can begin to try to figure out ways to counter it. We have to recognize the disease as a disease, in other words, before we can even begin to imagine treatments. If that’s true, then perhaps this is very good news.

I wonder how well this would work in situations where the anxieties are rooted in class and gender as well as in race. At my school, for example, I meet lots of students whose fears about school seem rooted in socio-economics. I wonder what would change if we tried this sort of intervention…

Posted in: Language, Professional, Writing

Death of a Cash Cow, Part II

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WASHINGTON — President Obama’s budget proposal on education would for the first time index student-aid Pell Grant to inflation, guaranteeing low-income college students a stable grant amount, and pay for that expensive shift by eliminating $4 billion in annual subsidies to private banks who make student loans.

“The president has proposed the biggest change in the federal programs that help students finance a college education since the main higher education law was written in 1965,” said Terry Hartle, a vice president at the American Council on Education, which represents hundreds of colleges and universities.

Student Loans, SAM DILLON, February 26, 2009

The Reagan Era made stupid ideas seem ordinary and t encouraged us to not think too carefully. There are so many dumb ideas circulating that it’s impossible to know where to start the critique. Why, for example, were loans the primary form of student aide? And why were private banks involved?

A loan doesn’t make an education affordable, it puts off the costs of the education until after graduation. It’s a classic conservative short-term thinking confidence game. Don’t worry about the loans, the argument goes, you’ll be making more than enough money (thanks to your degree) to afford it.

Meanwhile, conservatives argue for increases in tuition and make enormous profits on textbooks while trying everything possible to drive down wages and salaries. And if that were not enough, they make the loans impossibly expensive (and profitable) by adding the costs of profit and administration.

It would make much more sense to cut if not eliminate tuition and fees. Schools, including universities, should be a ubiquitous and expected as fire departments and highways. In any case, taking private banks out of the equation can help free up a lot of money and potentially reduce the abusive of students via these loans.

Posted in: Economics, Professional