Category Archives: Random Blogging

How Did We Get Here and Where Do We Go Now?

This semester, I am teaching an elective course that I “invented” some years ago; it is called “Individual Rights and the Common Good,” and the readings and class discussions center on the proper role of the state, and the optimal balance between respect for individual autonomy and the needs/interests of the society.

Because it is an elective, the students who choose to enroll tend to be engaged, and the discussions have generally been thoughtful and substantive.

The class meets on Tuesday nights, and Tuesday–today– is election day. In consideration of that fact (and, admittedly, the probability that several of them would skip class in order to watch the returns), I decided to forego our usual class meeting in favor of an effort to connect the more abstract principles we have been discussing with the very immediate realities of America’s political environment.

Here is the assignment I gave them. What would your answers be?

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The 2016 election campaigns have been among the most contentious in our history, and have displayed wide—perhaps unbridgeable–disagreements among Americans not just about the comparative merits of individual candidates, but about the proper role of government and the nature of the common good.

Our next class is scheduled for election day. As these campaigns conclude, and in lieu of holding that class, I am asking you to consider the opposing views and attitudes that have been revealed during the course of these campaigns, and to write a 2-3 page essay addressing the following questions:

  • How would you characterize the Presidential candidates’ visions of the common good/national interest?
  • How would you describe their respective approaches to balancing protections of individual rights against the interests of the country as a whole?
  • In the wake of the election, how do you see Americans resolving our very different perspectives and deep disagreements? (In other words, given the incredibly acrimonious nature of the campaigns, do you see efforts at reconciliation or continued animosity, and in either case, with what result?)
  • In your opinion, what is driving Americans’ current partisan polarization and anger?
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Call My Car….

There really are things going on in the world other than the upcoming election (which can’t come–and go–soon enough!).

For example, Architectural Record recently weighed in on the apparently inevitable advent of the driverless car.

First it was Google, mapping the known world with autonomous vehicles. Then it was news of various efforts to perfect the technology, and an announcement that Pittsburgh is going to be the site of an actual demonstration.

In fact, the day when a phantom chauffeur will charge an electric vehicle on its own, analyze the route, exchange up-to-the-moment information with other cars on the road, and pick you up for work—or your kids for school—is no longer sci-fi fantasy. Many of the manufacturers expect fully autonomous vehicles (AVs), requiring no human supervision or backup drivers, to hit the market around 2020—letting you sleep, read, work, or entertain guests as an unmanned sedan ferries you door to door.

As the article notes, the most important promise of driverless cars is a vast improvement in safety. The least reliable part of a car is the driver, and worldwide, 1.2 million people are killed in car accidents every year. Ninety percent of automobile accidents are attributed to driver error.

Architectural Record then explored the questions we should all be asking: assuming the inexorable shift to such vehicles, how will that change both the built environment and our housing choices? How might it change the way we go about our days?

A major consequence could be a radical reduction in parking space. And slots could be packed tight, given robotically nimble maneuvers, not to mention the area saved when no one needs to exit or enter a parked vehicle—ever. (After dropping you off, the car would “valet” itself.) Even curbside spots could become unnecessary, allowing for narrower streets—an efficiency boosted by sensing-and-reaction mechanisms that permit AVs close driving distances, increasing road capacity. The gains could be huge. As Ratti puts it, “Parking infrastructure in the United States covers around 5,000 square miles—an area [43-percent] larger than Puerto Rico.” The freed-up land could be converted to creative and socially enriching uses, providing for art or recreation..”

It’s an open question whether self-driving cars will promote urban density—or suburban sprawl. The article suggests arguments for both options. Some of the potential changes AV’s may usher in have the sound of science fiction:

“Autonomous vehicles promise to have dramatic impact in blurring the distinction between private and public modes of transportation,” says professor Carlo Ratti, director of MIT’s SENSEable City Lab. “After taking you to work, ‘your’ car could give a lift to someone else in your family—or to anyone in your neighborhood, social-media community, or city—rather than sitting idle.” While the average automobile in the U.S. is unused an estimated 95-percent of the time, a robo-vehicle has the potential to reposition itself continually, with network-optimized efficiency, from one passenger to the next. Theoretically, self-driving could lend everyone—including the blind, elderly, and very young—unprecedented mobility, providing a shared system of individually customized, on-demand travel with a fraction of the cars currently on the road.

Reading the article (which I recommend) leaves me with a question that is becoming a daily preoccupation: how can humans be so good at science and technology, so innovative and creative–and so terrible at governing ourselves?

We can invent wondrous things. Why can’t we learn to live together harmoniously?

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Journalism and the 2016 Election

Wednesday evening, the ACLU of Indiana hosted one of its “First Wednesday” programs. These are brief, hour and a half presentations focused on current civil liberties issues. This one was titled “Election 2016 and the Media: Free Press or Free for All?”

John Ketzenberger moderated the panel, which consisted of two television reporters, Russ McQuaid and Marc Mullins, the opinion editor of the Indianapolis Star, Tim Swarens, and Mary Beth Schneider, who recently left her job at the Star, where she had been their long-time statehouse reporter.

Rather than focusing on the coverage of the 2016 election, as the title had suggested, the panel mostly bemoaned the challenges of today’s media environment, particularly the impact of digital media on longstanding business models. In response to an audience question (posed by my husband), they did agree that Trump had “played” the press to his advantage for much of the election cycle.

Despite the focus on the challenges posed by the Internet, most of the conversation avoided recognition of the actual state of traditional media. At one point, one of the broadcast representatives did note that media companies had become too dependent upon young reporters with little experience in lieu of (more expensive) seasoned journalists. But there was absolutely no discussion of the constant, punishing newsroom layoffs by Gannett, the loss of reporters like Mary Beth whose work was informed by institutional memory and deep knowledge, and the utter lack of print coverage of state and local government.

At times, Tim Swarens seemed almost delusional. He made the point that newspapers can gain/keep readership if they provide consistent, high-quality journalism (no argument there), then repeatedly and proudly claimed that the current iteration of the Star produces such journalism. There was no acknowledgment of the evisceration of the paper’s news staff, the dwindling ratio of actual news to sports and entertainment coverage, the virtual absence of reporting that used to be routine–stories about school board meetings, City-County Council committee deliberations, agency decisions and the like. (On the rare occasion that there are such reports, they tend to lack the context and background necessary to understand their significance.)

Our local business paper, the Indianapolis Business Journal, actually does a much better job on that front, recognizing that area businesses need to know what their government is doing.

The panel did recognize that the frantic competition for “clicks” and eyeballs too often drives coverage, posing a danger to the accuracy and completeness of stories.

I certainly don’t have a remedy for the very real problems journalism faces in an era of rampant on-line news and propaganda, declining revenues and outmoded business models. But I do know two things: 1) Americans need reputable news sources that tell us not just what we want to know, but what we need to know; and 2) you can’t fix a problem if you refuse to admit you have it.

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Here’s the Choice

Absent a “November surprise,” this will be my last post about the 2016 Presidential race.

A friend shared a litany that pretty well sums up Donald Trump’s bona fides:

Donald Trump is facing multiple charges of defrauding students at Trump University, one case with a Court date set for November 28, 2016.

Donald Trump is facing a December 16, 2016 Court date to answer for claims he raped a 13 year old girl.

Donald Trump is the subject of multi-state investigations, uncovering fraud and self-dealing related to his Trump Foundation.

Donald Trump has a history of thousands of lawsuits against him over his business practices, in which he bankrupted small businesses and cheated employees.

Donald Trump has a long and well-documented history of harassing and disrespecting women.

But by all means, let’s talk about Hillary Clinton’s emails.

Despite the loose use of the word “scandal,” what Clinton continues to be criticized for was her use of a private server for non-classified official emails, a use inconsistent with State Department rules. Period. Not for leaking state secrets, not for dereliction of duty, not for any sort of malfeasance. (Ironically, James Comey is currently being criticized for precisely the same behavior–ignoring agency rules.) The reason Clinton’s server use was an issue was concern about the possibility of a security breach caused by either the use of that server to transmit classified material (which would have been illegal) or a successful hack; thanks to the FBI investigation, we now know no such breach occurred. (It is yet another irony that the State Department’s network has been hacked, and more than once.)

Let’s stipulate that–as Clinton herself has admitted– she shouldn’t have made that decision, and she shouldn’t have been defensive about it when it was discovered.

Hillary Clinton may be the most-investigated public servant ever, and despite having been the object of right-wing conspiracy theories for over thirty years, she has never been found to have violated any law. She has had a distinguished career as a lawyer, in the United States Senate and as Secretary of State and has been a tireless crusader for women and families.

To paraphrase P.J. O’Rourke, when she’s been wrong, she’s been wrong within normal parameters.

Voters in this election have a choice between a highly qualified woman who–being human–has made mistakes of judgment, and a thin-skinned narcissist with zero relevant experience or knowledge and a documented history of fraud, sexual assault, unscrupulous business practices and frightening volatility–a man with no discernible policy positions who has based his entire campaign on insults, ludicrous assertions of his own superiority, and not-so- thinly-veiled appeals to racism, xenophobia, misogyny and anti-Semitism.

There is no equivalence. This is not a “lesser of two evils” choice. One candidate is amply and demonstrably qualified; the other is simply unthinkable.

If Hillary Clinton had killed Vince Foster, she would still be the better choice.

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A Civic Help-Wanted Ad

For those unfamiliar with the term, copy editors are the people hired by newspapers and magazines to make the copy “clear, correct, concise, comprehensible, and consistent.”  According to the Free Dictionary, copy editors should ensure that a story “says what it means, and means what it says.”

Typically, copy editing involves correcting spelling, punctuation, grammar, terminology, jargon, and semantics.

A number of us who inexplicably continue to subscribe to the Indianapolis Star have remarked on the increased number of spelling and grammar errors that have escaped a copy editor’s notice over the past couple of years. (As a former High School English teacher, these errors affect me like nails on a blackboard.)

However annoying the obvious reduction in, or absence of, copy editing, that problem pales in importance beside the much more consequential reduction in the reporting of actual news,and especially the absence of government oversight. Coverage of City Hall and the Statehouse are virtually non-existent; the absence of reporters with institutional memory, investigative instincts and the time to do more than superficial reports on such issues as do surface leaves citizens without any reliable way to evaluate the performance of our government officials and agencies.

The most recent example (and by no means the worst) has been the coverage of Secretary of State Connie Lawson’s attribution of mistakes found on multiple voter registration forms to fraud, ostensibly by an organization focused upon registering African-American voters.

I have no idea whether Lawson’s claims are well-founded or politically motivated.(She was, after all, a co-sponsor of Indiana’s Voter ID law, which aimed to solve a nonexistent problem.) What’s worse, however, is the fact that until the third or fourth story about the controversy, I had no idea what she was alleging. The articles were so badly written that I couldn’t make heads or tails of what the issue was–nor could several friends who’d also read it. And when a follow-up story did clarify the nature of the controversy, it was presented as “she said”/”he said.” There was no indication that reporters had made any effort to independently assess the validity of the competing assertions.

If you are wondering what triggered this particular post, it was the Star’s recent announcement that it is once again trimming its editorial staff (i.e. reporters), and moving what is left of its pitifully inadequate copyediting out-of-state. (I wonder how an out-of-state copy editor would make the Lawson story, which depends upon a basic understanding of Indiana law and practice “clear, correct, concise, comprehensible, and consistent.”)

Ever since Gannett acquired the Star, the quality–and more importantly, the scope– of its reporting has declined. The paper was never a shining beacon of journalism, but it did employ actual reporters, it did cover state and local government, it did report on something other than sports, entertainment and the opening of new bars.

If there’s an entrepreneur out there who wants to find a currently unserved market, Indianapolis could really use a credible newspaper. (Online is fine.)

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