A mix of pleasant and unpleasant surprises the past couple days

I missed posting yesterday and almost did today, to boot. I blame it on a large project I have taken on judging nearly 80 high school print newsmagazines for a national organization plus struggling through assessing the first major writing assignment of the semester for one of my college classes.

I was pleasantly surprised at the quality of many of the papers I browsed. Despite the chaos of the pandemic and the continued assault on education at various levels, at least some high school media programs continue to produce outstanding work that combines "voice" and fun and sensitivity and courage and even some serious investigative work.

I like publications that "sound" like students, and they can sound quite sophisticated. I did note that most of the top entries are from the "usual suspects," being established programs in suburban schools, often private schools (the best high school newsmagazine in the nation IMHO is from a private boys school in Dallas). 

Just as in athletics, consistency in coaching and a tradition of excellence, not to mention a bit of money to maintain high quality in teaching and inspiration from connecting with other students and advisers from top programs through state and national conferences can produce some terrific work.

The assignment I have been slogging through must have been so "outside their experience" that only two of the college writers managed to retain an A mark, though many had been doing just fine prior. The essay was a descriptive one, and I framed it as something like journalism. They had several weeks to find the time to observe and take notes on a place or event or person in action, and then write 1,000 words that would make key scenes come alive or provide insights into personalities. 

Many of them appeared to NOT find that time and ended up trying to recreate something from their memories... and it showed in lack of specifics, lack of clear characters, and lack of focus.

There was a LOT of telling, not showing, and a lot of those writers made the always fatal mistake of trying to cover too much time in just a thousand words. Trying to cover too much inevitably leads to rushing, including rushing past key people, key moments, key dialog, and even correctness of expression.

As I try to emphasize: feel free to write as fast as you can for that first draft. The magic is in tightening and focusing and reorganizing and adding detail that connects to readers who were not there.

I suspect that many young people are not keen observers of their surroundings, and that may reflect the expanding use of screens as substitutes for life. I also suspect that many young people assume they can just sit down and pull narratives from their heads at deadline time. 

They can't. 

In a different course, the online video discussion focused on Aristotle's three proofs or appeal: ethos, pathos, and logos. That turned out to be a most pleasant series of discussions and I would guess there will be some fine final formal reports that come out of this early planning. We will see in about eight weeks or so.

You can't win 'em all, as they say, but it's nice to get a few victories. 

One way to improve our writing is to avoid our defaults

I was reading a recent Frank Bruni post where he began a new feature on his blog called "Words Worth Sidelining," and it happened to be right when I was reading some college assignments where I found myself counseling my young charges to avoid using exclamation marks so often (actually, my advice is to avoid them always unless in informal birthday messages on Facebook, where all bets are off).

Three words that Bruni and many of his readers object to due to overuse are "amazing" and "perfect," with a bonus British expression -- "brilliant" -- added in.

He noted, and I agree, that there is nothing terrible about their use in conversations -- they are polite and won't lead to fights -- but the language is better served when we don't overuse some words, thus diminishing their power.

I would add "unique" to the list, certainly, since the meaning of the word is plainly "one and only one."  "Perfect" is related, since the adjective should reflect a peak... nothing can be better.

Brilliant and amazing, as they are commonly used in England and America, respectively, have become default terms showing approval... the same way "Nice!" or "Awesome" have evolved into almost invisible praise, much like "Have a nice day.".

For many college students and younger, a constant barrage of exclamation marks is seen as being friendly and supportive,  I would guess. But when we start using them after EVERY sentence! Well! That starts getting to be a bit much! 

My argument to college writers is that if we work on our diction and syntax a bit, we don't have to rely on a stray punctuation mark to stand in for the lack of excitement in our ideas.

Interestingly, avoiding using exclamation marks will never damage our prose and the students who read my comments asking them to avoid their use find it quite easy to stop... at least in my classes. 

It's nice to have some cut and dried rules, I suppose. 

The following is not quite so "cut and dried," but I also find myself constantly suggesting to students that they don't need to use "I believe" all the time -- same with "in my opinion" or "I think." We get it. It's your writing. You don't need to hedge your bets, so to speak. Adding those little disclaimers rob our claims of some of their power.

A writer might be thinking, this ideas is "just my opinion," so please don't attack me. It's a way to step away from being directly responsible for an opinion and avoiding criticism.

But what readers always want are facts and strong claims, and then some support for those claims. 

I guess a person could say, "I think I love you," but "I love you" is more direct and contains no hedging at all. 

Sometimes even the most cruel tactics produce the unexpected

Liberal commentators continue to lambast DeSantis and Abbott, both calculating Angry White People Party governors, for their "cruelty" in shipping migrants asking for asylum to progressive areas of the country.

Ironically, many of the actual migrants finding themselves in far-off places seem thankful for the unrequested "cruelty." After all, progressive states often are ready to respond with kindness, shelter, food, and even employment... and the migrants got a free bus (or plane) ride. 

Of course, the governors did not intend their practice of spending millions to ship immigrants to other states to be any sort of charity. They wanted to make those despised liberals uncomfortable and score political points with their most rabid supporters. Maybe they accomplished those things.

But the law of unintended consequences seems to be at work here. After all, the tax dollars of the citizens of Texas and Florida paid for the transportation, and I would guess that many of those immigrants find themselves in a more supportive area with opportunities for them and their families. 

That has got to bug some of our more racist fellow citizens. 

There is no doubt that states along our southern borders are more directly affected by more and more poor, desperate people looking for a better life. The federal government spends a lot of money to provide services for those folks, of course, but many champions of personal liberty and "taking care of themselves" happily accept all sorts of federal support.

They are hypocrites, of course, but that is hardly new in politics. 

It's just nice to see those provocations blow up in their faces, at least for some of us. 

In a related bit of news, surveys show that Trump supporters have not dropped their support for the embattled and horrifying former president, no matter how many law suits and embarrassments he and his family suffer. 

It's tough to get people out of a cult. 

And those liberal commentators moaning about all the cruelty may be missing the point.

Writers need to be on the same page as their readers

Over and over, I am reminded of how important "shared knowledge" is for writers and readers, and how a lack of shared knowledge can cause problems for those feeling like "outsiders."

From a recent Frank Bruni e-newsletter and his "for the love of sentences" feature:

From The Washington Post, Michael Gerson contrasted Christianity at its best with what Trump’s evangelical supporters have not only accepted but also embraced: “It is difficult for me to understand why so many believers have turned down a wedding feast to graze in political dumpsters.”

This sentence demands some knowledge of the Wedding Feast of Cana, where Jesus turned water to wine, though it does not have anything specifically alcohol-related. The assumption Gerson was making was that the reader would be able to create a quick mental image of a sumptuous wedding feast as well as imagine desperate people foraging for food in dumpsters.

A lot of kids won't be able to imagine EITHER scenario, so this essay only can connect with older readers. Trying to get students to appreciate Gerson's prose and points would require all sorts of backgrounding just to get students to "get" the basic contrast. That seems like a lot to ask of teachers already struggling to get everything done in their curriculum.

In The Tampa Bay Times, John Romano reflected on the predominance of passing over rushing for the Tampa Bay Buccaneers, led by the phenomenal quarterback Tom Brady: “When you have Eric Clapton in your band, you don’t schedule a lot of drum solos.” 

This metaphor might have a chance with many students, as long as they have even a vague familiarity with Brady (and the NFL) and with the idea that Clapton is a famous guitarist. His point is that most teams (most people) tend to emphasize what they do best, even though there may be fine reasons to try something else (and that being somewhat one-dimensional might eventually cause problems for that team). 

Sometimes reaching for a clever metaphor backfires, in other words, particularly in a student publication. 

Bret Stephens (in the New York Times) on Trump’s evolving excuses for absconding with classified documents: “With Trump, the line between the shambolic and the sinister is often blurred. His entire being is like Inspector Clouseau doing an impression of Jack Nicholson in ‘The Shining,’ or maybe vice versa.”

The first sentence relies on a comparison, but hinges on the reader knowing what "shambolic" means. Some students might be able to puzzle out a meaning, using the more common "shambles" to tease out the adjectival meaning -- it boils down to messy or disorganized. Stephens is also just having some fun with alliteration, of course, but for many students this is just creating added levels of meaning.

And the simile, comparing two fictional characters from movies that were popular when I was young, will be tough for our students. They likely have not seen either film and then the writer is asking them to imagine those two characters interacting... and I honestly had trouble with that. 

The dithering inspector trying to be menacing is all I could get out of it, and maybe the former president is behaving precisely in that way. 

The teaching point here is that metaphors and similes are never exactly correct... and always give readers some room to maneuver. And sometimes a good piece of writing opts for precision and has to turn away from "clever."

On the money phrases may not make Bruni's newsletter, but for our young writers and readers are often the best choice.

Our first job may be to clearly identify the problem

I happened across this lead to a news story on The Colorado Sun website today:

Chamba launched a bilingual app in April 2020 that connects Spanish-speaking workers with the employers who need them. In late July, Chamba narrowed its focus to the restaurant industry. That seems like good timing if you’ve been paying attention to the restaurant staffing woes and how hard it’s been to find people, especially for jobs busing tables, in the kitchen and other nontipped “back-of-the-house” work.

But Montemayor has a different perspective.

“There’s not a labor shortage. There’s a connectivity problem,” said Montemayor, Chamba’s co-founder and CEO. “And that’s what we’re solving here. We’re connecting restaurants to the talent that wants these kinds of jobs.”

Employers, he said, are “looking for talent in the same talent pool. They have not diversified where they search for talent and are looking in the same, common places.”

A number of companies are already promoting Chamba’s service on the app’s site, including Brothers BBQ. Within two days of using the app, the Aaron Nelsen, the general manager for two of the Denver-based chain’s locations, arranged three interviews and made a hire. “We picked the best candidate out of those three interviews,” he said in a video testimony on Chamba’s site. The Spanish-speaking employee started work the next day.

Sometimes a shift in perspective can reveal an underlying problem rather than a symptom of that problem. 

Here is the headline package that caught my eye initially: 

Why the maker of a Denver-based job app says there isn’t a restaurant labor shortage
Restaurants say it’s been hard to find workers, especially busers and for nontipped back-of-the-house jobs

That opening line is provocative and I wanted to know more. The deck (in italics) presents the "common wisdom" that the story means to challenge.

No one app will change the employment dynamics of a giant nation but the thinking behind the app is important. What if we are not tackling the true problem, and what if we are agonizing over something that could be improved with some creativity and ingenuity? The CEO of Chamba would claim that the employment problem is rooted in employers not communicating with the potential workers who might become valuable employees.

I know I need to think more deeply about why some of my writing students seem to have so much trouble. I could blame earlier teachers or family issues or whatever, but the job of education is to take people from wherever they are and move them forward. The blame is not important (though you could argue that better writing instruction in elementary school would pay off down the road).

One thing I know is that many writing students simply HATE to go back and proofread their work. They know how to spell and punctuate... but they just didn't make the time to reread. That doesn't make them poor writers. 

They just don't care enough to find a little extra time. 

That is something I can work on, though I admit I don't have any easy answers.

A nation's choices always have consequences

In the current issue of The Atlantic magazine is an article on why boys should start school a year later than girls, and the statistics are staggering.

Starting boys a year later than schools suggest is, of course, something that doesn't happen often, mostly because most parents can't afford to pay for an additional year of childcare. Now if that doesn't convince you that a solid percentage of what a school does is simply childcare, subsidized by the state, I'm not sure what could.

It's a longish article, but the longer it went on and the more evidence it shared, the clearer the truth became. Our schools are structured to basically guarantee problems, particularly for boys. I don't know the biology of it all but it is clear that girls mature earlier than boys, and that school requires that added maturity for academic success.

Some of it may be due to the overwhelming numbers of female teachers, particularly in elementary school, but there is also the fact that boys eventually can "catch up" to their female peers... though not until late in high school, if then.

We don't really need studies to teach us this truth, since every parent and grandparent has seen the evidence. Yes, there are exceptions, but the overwhelming evidence is clear.

I honestly don't know if this problem is getting worse or why that might be, but there are now three college females for every two male college students. There is so much more to be done in achieving better balance for women in the workplace and academia and in society generally, but there is a clear discrepancy in K-12 schools and many behavioral and achievement challenges that grow from that discrepancy.

A 2021 study contained this: "American girls are 14 percentage points more likely than boys to be “school ready” at age 5, controlling for parental characteristics. That’s a bigger gap than the one between rich and poor children, or Black and white children, or those who attend preschool and those who do not. The gap is mostly driven by social and emotional factors, or what social scientists label “noncognitive skills,” rather than academic ones."

Bottom line: boys are not nearly as "ready" to begin formal schooling as girls. 

And I suspect that many of the nation's problems with young men -- and there are so many -- involves a lack of maturity and (maybe) years of frustration at being "not good enough" in school.

So it should be easy to fix this, right? We can observe the basic problem, and the basic solution is to "red shirt" most boys for a year. Will this happen? Not a chance.

The U.S. prefers "freedom" for parents of young children, putting all financial responsibilities on them to find childcare, provide support and "extra" social experiences... all while those young parents are near the beginning of their careers and have little time and money to effectively support those kids.

Just as our country chooses to continue our culture of violence by refusing to limit guns in any meaningful way, we also choose to produce increasingly angry and frustrated young men.

Of course, providing a stronger start for boys in school wouldn't guarantee that the nation would soon see "better" young men. And there are plenty of terrific young males, regardless of how their education began (and continued). 

We could, however, increase the odds of success. 

Professional writers and speakers must "sweat the small stuff"

It's striking that clear advice on who should get the latest "targeted" booster shot is not readily available everywhere... and that it's not at all easy to schedule getting the shot (and a flu shot) once we determine if this is the right time.

Here is a section of a Washington Post article that helps me, at least.

Should I wait and time the booster for when Covid cases get bad again?

Most experts agree you shouldn’t wait. You’re eligible to get the updated booster shot if you’re 12 or older and it has been at least two months since your initial vaccine or your last booster. Older Americans, those with chronic illnesses and people who are immunocompromised or pregnant should get the updated booster shot as soon as possible.

Of course, today's brouhaha is over President Biden saying on 60 Minutes that "the pandemic is over," and then immediately saying we still have work to do to contain the virus. Huh? I would guess that almost anyone not looking for controversy might interpret his initial comment as closer to "The emergency part of the pandemic is over," since hospitalizations and deaths are quite low compared to the past, but we don't live in a time when people care to give anyone the benefit of the doubt.

I watched that interview and was struck by the strategy that Scott Pelley (the interviewer) used to try to catch the president saying something that would make news (in short, looking for a mistake that would boost ratings and provide more support for the TV show). Several times Pelley began questions with "Many people are saying..." -- followed by negatives like "you are too old" or "you have a low approval rating."

Pelley stated the president's approval rating as 40 percent, but just a couple days previously the rating was 49 percent. Different surveys? Failure to update known data? A preference for a lower number and therefore a more dramatic situation? 

Probably all the above.

BTW, the Post quote above uses what journalists call AP Style, with no comma before the final "and" in the series. Most other style guides prefer what is known as the Oxford Comma, and here we see some potential for confusion when that comma is not included. (I hope you saw my use of the Oxford comma here.)

The last two items in the series are "those with chronic illnesses and people who are immunocompromised or pregnant should..." A reader could be forgiven for wondering if people would need to fit TWO conditions -- having a chronic illness AND being either immunocompromised or pregnant -- to get the booster shot. As opposed to one of THREE situations, which is the intent.

I only mention this because the basic problem we have in so many areas of the world is simple clarity and truth. Just as Mr. Biden might have expressed himself a bit more clearly in that interview, so the Post reporter/editor might have added that little comma to make certain that readers clearly saw the A, B, and C pattern of the series in my example paragraph. 

Official communication needs to pay special attention to the "little things," even down to those commas. 

The modern version of "bread and circuses"

It was a vaguely disappointing weekend of football watching for me, beginning with the Iowa-Nevada snoozefest that ended up lasting nearly seven hours due to three different lightning delays. Iowa won easily but few will bother to remember the 27-0 score. People will remember those lightning delays and 70,000 fans sheltering in the bowels of Kinnick Stadium.

Our son and some friends were there, and apparently many fans simply withdrew to downtown bars after that first interruption. After all, they had weather apps on their phones and could see that the storms would continue most of the night. And they had been sitting in rain most of the game previous to the delays.

I gave up after 10:30 or so and set the recorder to capture whatever happened in the second half. It wasn't all that riveting to watch late Sunday morning, believe me.

Then came the Broncos' home opener and another snoozefest, though one devoid of electricity of ANY kind. Injuries, dropped passes, poorly thrown passes and endless penalties combined to produce choruses of boos from the stands. When the fans began counting down the play clock in the second half, I wondered if the Denver players were annoyed or grateful. After all, there had been a few delay of game penalties.

Media "experts" were universally appalled by the new coach and the seeming disarray and many fans are already questioning all the millions the team will be paying Russell Wilson for years to come.

My practice on Sundays is to spend most of my time on NFL Red Zone, the network that pops among games, always alert for a big play or anyone threatening to score. Those boring games in Iowa City and Denver couldn't match the incredible comebacks (or letdowns, in the case of the losing teams) that happened... and that make for great TV.

Thrilling comebacks are part of what makes pro football so appealing -- I saw that all but one event of the most-watched TV of the past decade were football games, which likely says something about the country (for good or ill?).

It is likely that ancient Romans at gladiatorial games had similar hopes of a close match or an upset -- and when you were upset by an opponent in those games, that was fatal.

From my point of view, I would prefer the teams I am rooting for to win easily, thus reducing my stress level, and that all the other games on TV on so many channels would be nail-biters. 

I haven't been to a game at Kinnick Stadium in over 20 years and have never attended a Broncos game in person, but I still allow myself to care about what happens.

It's particularly instructive to think of how even winning isn't enough at times, at least for fans relaxing at home or screaming (and counting down from ten seconds) in the stands.

I assume most Ukrainians could not care less.

Rightly so.

To no one's surprise, the powerful toy with the powerless

Humans are a cruel bunch, just as a matter of fact, but sometimes our cruelty goes over the top. The whole shipping immigrants applying for sanctuary in the U.S. thing is the most recent example.

Political stunts are par for the course, but DeSantis and Texas governor Abbott fooling some desperate people into agreeing to board planes and buses only to be dropped off without any preparation in D.C. and Martha's Vineyard -- after alerting Fox News, duh -- must be turning off some percentage of even the most rabid Angry White People Party members. 

You can count on this: soon untold billions of damage from fall hurricanes will occur in both Florida and Texas, and those same governors will be grabbing for every scrap of federal support they can get. The pitiful stories of people left homeless and businesses damages will dominate the news... at least, once we can move past Queen Elizabeth's funeral. 

And blue states will provide most of the tax dollars that will help our neighbors.

Many Republican candidates are trying to appeal to their supporters' worst instincts, and maybe they will succeed. As I stated in the beginning, we humans are a cruel species.

For me, the most sickening image was of DeSantis smugly rationalizing his cruelty while assorted smirking and laughing white supporters stood behind in view of the cameras, rejoicing at his clever misuse of power to torture some non-white fellow human beings. 

Some political commentators seem to think that DeSantis will be a more "normal" form of Trump, but the video from yesterday's press conference convinces me that this is a silly thought. 

There are no depths some "leaders" will avoid. There is no end to their willingness to use the poor and powerless to expand their own power. There are still so many angry whites who would find a way to rationalize Trump's boast about being able to shoot someone in broad daylight and get away with it. 

Colorado wacko Lauren Boebert continues to spew Christian Nationalism, proclaiming that God made Trump president and that the nation will soon end (unless, of course, Christians like her are given total authority).

We are getting to the point where the easiest way to distinguish among Americans politically is to measure the amount of needless cruelty each party will accept.

Right now, Republicans are all in on cruelty (unless they are the ones needing help). 

But excessive cruelty often sobers people up, at least after the first glow of "victory," and my hope is that enough voters will feel a bit of disgust at the whole spectacle that moderation will prevail, if only barely.

Angry White People Party candidates are deleting their most extreme comments on abortion and backing away from claiming the 2020 election was rigged... but not until they secure their party nominations in their primaries. 

How sad that they must choose the cruelest positions to move on in their races, and how disgusting that they feel free to immediately renounce those cruel positions when they first feel safe in doing so. 

And how worrying to think that their most extreme positions are exactly what they will try to implement if enough voters choose them.

So much hypocrisy.

By tomorrow afternoon I will have taught in three states in one week

After a week off due to traveling "the long way" to Nashville to speak at the Tennessee High School Press Association conference this past Monday, I am back home and trying to quickly catch up with some grading, email responses, etc.

I know that teaching online should mean that I could manage my courses from anywhere there is Internet service, but this past week didn't offer many "downtime" hours to log on and focus on student writing. My home office and my desktop computer (souped up with lots of memory, large monitor, surrounded by source material and resources) is where the work really gets done.

I had about 30 minutes at City High in Iowa City to talk with a journalism class, encouraged by current adviser Jon Rogers to provide a bit of early in the year inspiration.

My keynote in Nashville went well as did my session, but I was reminded, once again, just how much separation there is between me and current high school students. Heck, their advisers are almost always younger than our children. Students still find it entertaining to hear me belt out my a cappella version of The First Amendment, mostly because it's so incongruous to have this old guy in a suit and tie with a thinning dome of white hair sing, so that's a reliable "show closer" for such conferences. It's nice to have a closer in your back pocket that leaves people energized and (sometimes) singing along.

Tomorrow I drive up to Fort Collins for my annual participation in J-Day, and I will likely be singing the First again as part of the closing ceremony. Granddaughters Grace and Anna will both be there as part of the Arapahoe HS delegation, and I will touch base with lots of advisers I got to know when I was in charge of such events.

Can't say I miss organizing and worrying about J-Day. Still, even with somewhat diminished numbers due to schools still recovering from the pandemic and a serious lack of bus drivers, it's always a fine event. That 160-mile roundtrip drive will also be a good reminder that teaching online is something I should never take for granted. Making two trips a week to Fort Collins on the state's busiest stretch of road was no fun.

Tomorrow night, after the J-Day stuff, comes my first in-person church choir rehearsal of the school year (the choir takes the summer off), which is another reminder of "normalcy" and a welcome return to routine. Maybe next Tuesday we will take in a movie at AMC (special Tuesday discounts) and dine at a local restaurant. 

I heard on NPR that such routines are part of what makes and keeps people happy and that they are good for our mental health. When life seems like we are lurching from one crisis to another, and from one job or activity to the next, we can get tired mentally and physically.

Kathleen said today that her summary of our quick road trip through Iowa (before we headed south to Tennessee) would be "from health issues to babies," and that is a solid way to look at it. We saw old friends, most of whom are dealing with eye issues, and heart issues, and bad knees and backs, not to mention encroaching wrinkles and bad posture. But we also saw five kids under six in Fairfield, including three babies all born this summer. 

In other words, we saw families at all stages, finishing with a couple hundred high school kids we will never meet again in Nashville. 

So, Iowa, Tennessee, and Colorado tomorrow.

Not a bad little fall trip.

About that "sea of red" on election maps

Here's something weird and perhaps a portent of things to come: when Democrat Mary Peltola won the Alaska special election for the one House seat the state possesses last week, the "election map" that always looks so red when we are measuring "dirt" or total acres represented by Republicans doubled in size for Democrats overall.

Obviously, Alaska is massive. Yet Alaska represent just one-fifth of one percent of total Americans.

Urban America simply lives closer together and almost all of urban America favors Democrats (though I did see that more Californians voted for Donald Trump than Texans who voted for Trump). 

Let's face it: the urban-rural split is a real thing and it's not going away any time soon. Urban areas are where the money is and where America still resembles a bit of a melting pot or tossed salad. 

If you live in the rural areas of the country it may be difficult to envision just how many fellow citizens do NOT share your experiences, your spacious yard, your dependence on cars, or your familiarity with lots of different people living in close proximity. It may be hard to believe that Democrats could win the 2020 presidential election quite handily. After all, you may know anyone who voted blue.

Vice versa is also true.

But, like gravity, the reality is there and no wishing it away will make a difference.

I read this weekend that something like 70 percent of new voter registrations over the summer were women. I don't know exactly how many new voter registrations were processed since the Supreme Court gutted Roe, but suddenly the know-it-all pundits are predicting a much closer midterm election in November. 

The cause and effect here seems obvious, though I know many Americans don't rank abortion rights as their top issue. But maybe the polls are not as accurate as they think. Women may want to vote more because of the skyrocketing cost of groceries. But would you bet that way?

The very independent voters of Alaska aren't going to have much to do with the vote totals in November -- there just aren't many of them -- but last week's special election may be the clearest indication that Americans may have had enough daily drama and constant anger.

Maybe, just maybe, the show has gotten stale for many of our neighbors.

Howling into the wind

I was reminded today of the major weakness in most online classes, namely that many students don't spend much time reading the syllabus or even exploring the course site. 

This reminder came via the majority of one class NOT commenting (at least twice) on any classmates' discussion posts from last Wednesday. In other words, they had through Sunday night to go back to the discussion, watch a few videos (for that course video posts of not more than three minutes substitute for writing, though they do include PowerPoint slides), and respond to at least two of the 15 videos posted (five enrollees may be contemplating dropping or just skipped that assignment).

I know we are supposed to be kind to young people after over two years of pandemic chaos and so much cultural and climate and political chaos... but when reasonably engaged students miss such a simple requirement, that must mean something broke down in communications. It's tough to be kind to people who aren't even aware that you are trying.

I counted at least three places in the course content and the syllabus where this requirement to post a few comments was spelled out, plus I posted an Announcement (that only is read by someone already in Canvas, the course management system) and a link to a video I created that explains the requirement. Few in the class have watched that video, if the Loom statistics are reliable.

About 40 percent of the students DID post those two comments and thus earned 20/20 possible points. So I can reasonably deduce that they did, indeed, read the instructions all the way through and might even have invested 8 minutes on the video I created. I could post another Announcement, I suppose, but what good is communication when one side is not tuning in?

So, I will send an email through students' university email accounts this morning, with one more reminder. I will point them toward the several places in our course where the requirements are spelled out, and remind them that there are about 13 of these discussions in total and that they all need comments to be considered "complete."

Perhaps I need to get their phone numbers and send individual texts... or postcards to everyone... or track them down in their dorms or rental units. 

I'm not sure I should worry so much about students who, likely through ignorance, miss chances to participate in the course and earn higher marks. But, honestly, I do and always have. 

I made comments on essays that will likely never be read. I write a blog that few will ever read. I critique publications from across the country that rarely get any better, despite my "expert" suggestions.

My vague hope is that a few of my pieces of writing get through to someone. After all, I DO get paid the big bucks.

Homework due? Give me a moment to run my AI program.

Today's technology news comes from an unlikely location: the Colorado State Fair and its "digitally manipulated photography" competition. 

The winning image can be seen here.

The big news? It was created entirely using an artificial intelligence tool called Midjourney, as the software followed hundreds of hours of prompts from the "artist." The entry won first place and has sparked lots of arguments about what art is, what is fair, and what might even be frightening.

In almost all science fiction that includes AI, the software turns out to be harmful to humanity. In the reporting I have read recently, many people assume that AI will take over the majority of human jobs in the next few decades. There are predictions of chaos and drug use and loss of the will to live (which would not help our plunging life expectancy rates).

Our initial worries about "what will people DO all day?" have been answered by claims that people will have more time to pursue art, to study languages, to create beautiful music or cuisine or... whatever they might like. But what happens when computers and software that eventually teaches itself can create better art than most humans? What happens when even the creative arts are no longer the domain of the lofty human race?

I have occasionally thought about the problem of "what are humans to do in the future?" in "retirement," as I suddenly didn't really have to do much of anything other than basic home maintenance and bringing home food from King Soopers. I have heard of people wasting away after retirement, victims of not planning well or not being willing to fully embrace their new status.

But I often fill significant hours assessing essays and student publications, writing extensive advice to individuals and to entire media staff with ideas and new challenges and picky comments about when to properly use past tense in a yearbook. I'm not sure there is much of a limit to how much of this online teaching I do other than my choice. 

After all, I'm experienced. I'm prompt, since I have fewer distractions that fully employed people. I'm cheap, since I don't require extensive benefits beyond what the federal government provides in health and social security (plus PERA each month). 

BUT... I have been reading more and more stories about computers writing entire news and sports briefs, about programmers fiddling with building machines that can construct entire narratives. We know there is software that can fool most viewers into thinking an image on their phone is real... not a fake with words inserted seamlessly. 

How long until universities realize they can invest in sophisticated AI software that can eliminate most of the flesh and blood instructors? And what if AI provides excellent advice and even can mimic having a caring personality? And if a machine mimics somethings perfectly, maybe the matter of difference is moot.

What happens when humans look at post after post of famous figures speaking directly to them, spouting whatever outrageous or enticing message the creators can imagine? 

I heard a guy on a TV news segment last night say he really appreciated the chance to work with his hands creating folk art in downtown Denver for a few hours each week. Then he added, "It's nice to get away from the real world, to put down the phone, and work with my hands and head."

Wait! So our phones are the "real world"? 

BTW, that state fair artist sold two copies of his winning work, for $900 each. They will be worth much more, very soon, since they are among the first examples of a new order in the art world.

All hail our new masters.

Are we a nation OK with shrugging off unnecessary deaths?

The news is normally depressing, particularly for a Rockies fan or just a fan of democracy and reason. But sometimes a news story seems to be worse than usual, and that story today was the report that the average life expectancy for Americans dropped three years in 2021 (from 79 to 76). I know averages are not "typical," but this is bad news in every way.

A society that is OK with excess and premature deaths, arguing that poor health, lack of medical care, economic hardships, etc. are part of being a "free" nation is a nation in trouble.

The pandemic accounts for some percentage of the drop in life expectancy but the average was pulled down more by young deaths among drug users. After all, a large number of Covid deaths have occurred among the elderly, so we can guess that their somewhat premature deaths could not produce a dramatic drop in the average. But a 30-year-old dying from a fentanyl overdose can sharply affect an average.

There are likely many factors that account for the one-year drop and scientists will be spending some time trying to decipher exactly happened. But we have to suspect that, as a nation, we just don't care all that much, particularly about our "neighbors."

I read today that the percentage of Americans who have received the virus vaccine drops with each dose and booster. The announcement of a revised vaccine that targets the most common current variant may be available in just a few days, but officials already worry that most people will just skip the latest booster.

After all, the pandemic is over, or that's the narrative many tell themselves.

For most of us, life is back to normal or as normal as possible. I still wear a mask on a plane, for instance, though it is not mandatory and I am among a small percentage of mask wearers. I have no idea how helpful wearing a mask on a plane, with someone next to me unmasked, actually is, but there is something to be said for simply avoiding weird odors in cramped conditions.

I did a rough calculation about our grandchildren's 529 accounts, finding that the totals have dropped about 17 percent since Dec. 31 of 2021. That is discouraging but my expectation is that the markets will rise again, at some point. I haven't LOST money so much as I have experienced a paper loss only.

More deaths than are expected normally amounts to real loss, however, and life expectancy may not be precise but it definitely indicates trends.

We are not a healthy country, physically or psychically. 

But a native Alaskan Democratic woman somehow beat Angry White People Party candidate Sarah Palin yesterday in a special election, and many in Palin's party have gone strangely quiet about Trump's stealing documents and trying to interfere with investigations.

Over 40,000 Americans are hospitalized with Covid but far fewer are now dying.

Hope is not yet on life support.