Disasters have varying emotional effects

There's something particularly disturbing and surreal about seeing and hearing the horrific stories coming out of Maui, specifically Lahaina, which was essentially leveled by fire last week.

The disaster likely appalls and saddens anyone who learns of it, but it's worse when you have actually walked on those ash-strewn streets and eaten in restaurants that now are only memories. Kathleen and I were there in 2019 for a few days, staying a few miles north of Lahaina in a resort in Napili Bay. That area was spared the flames, according to online reports, a reminder that such fires can devastate one area while leaving nearby spots untouched. 

Last Saturday night, a theater in the Ukrainian city of Chernihiv was struck by a Cruise missile, killing seven and injuring nearly 150. One of the dead was a 6-year-old girl. It was as horrific as the Maui disaster in some ways, though it clearly is different since the attack was manmade and deliberate, whereas the Lahaina carnage was random and "natural."

Or was it? Maui officials are accusing the electrical company of poor management and failing to shut off power despite many warnings of fire danger. Of course, had the Hawaii Electric Company cut the power, there would have been howls of protest... and how can we ever truly know whether cutting power would have made any difference? 

Maui Emergency Management administrator Herman Andaya chose to not activate the island's emergency sirens in Lahaina, saying sounding the sirens would have sent people fleeing into fire. The sirens are considered "all-hazards," from tsunamis to wildfires. He has resigned, citing health reasons.

He had a tough call to make and basically froze. He may have a point about the system causing panic and even more death. How would we ever know? 

Some might argue that the Ukrainians who gathered last Saturday in the central square of the city. After all, the Russian military has shown no mercy and little humanity as they indiscriminately attack civilians and wage a terror campaign. Shouldn't everyone cower in basements or stick to small groups, minimizing damage from the rain of death from the skies? 

That argument holds little water, though, since humans simply can't maintain that level of fear for long. The odds are that one particular town square will not be targeted for a missile attack, after all. It's the same logic that sends people out to festivals and concerts and Labor Day celebrations that bring thousands together. The odds are that our festival or concert or event will not be targeted by a deranged killer armed with an AR-15. 

I feel a detached anger and sadness about the Chernihiv massacre, just the latest (and soon to be supplanted by another attack) in a series of war crimes in Ukraine. I morn for Sofia, the little girl whose life was snuffed out in an instant, and morn for her family. 

But Lahaina seems different. That was the focus on our activities while on Maui, the docks from which we took a boat to Lanai, the restaurants we enjoyed, and the giant banyan tree that anchored the historic town square. Yes, another town square. 

We sat under the ancient banyan tree and listened to a free concert one balmy afternoon, much as I imagine Ukrainians sitting at cafes or attending the theater when the missile struck. 

I read that at least a couple of the eight Republican candidates in their debate suggested that we might cut our support for Ukraine, perhaps in exchange for... something. Shame on them.

Even in our advanced state of civic decay, can't we all agree that America must defy the monsters, no matter how terrifying? 

'Marian... Madame Librarian...'

In the latest news from the culture wars, this time from Mason City, Iowa, comes news that the school district used ChatGPT to weed out potentially offensive books from school libraries. Since Mason City is the hometown of the "music man" himself, Meredith Willson, I instantly wondered how Marian the librarian might have responded. 

The assistant superintendent decided to speed up the censorship required by a new Iowa law that has led the district to remove 19 titles - including Margaret Atwood’s The Handmaid’s Tale and Toni Morrison’s Beloved - from its library shelves. 

Signed into law by Governor Kim Reynolds in May, Iowa’s SF 496, the law is an Angry White People Party attempt to erase any discussion of sex or sexuality from schools. There is a lot of vague language but educators can be charged with a crime should they violate the uncertain rules. There is some language about "age-appropriate," but no guidance from the state department of education.

So, logically, when in doubt, just cut. And no one has time to read every book on the shelves, so why not task AI with simply answering: “Does [insert book here] contain a description or depiction of a sex act?”

Its stipulations are a sweeping attempt at eradicating any discussion of sex or sexuality, and as Mason City School District’s assistant superintendent Bridgette Exman explained in a statement to the Mason City Globe Gazette, “it is simply not feasible to read every book and filter for these new requirements.”

This combination of AI with book censorship was not something I could see coming, but there is some sense to it. The Open Chat folks have fed most published material published prior to 2022 into that giant database, and creating reports is something ChatGPT does quite well.

I shared some advice with my two college writing classes that begin Monday, basically urging the students to (if they wanted) use ChatGPT to simply proofread their drafts, and making spelling and grammar corrections is another thing the AI does very well. I likened using ChatGPT to using Word's spell check and grammar check functions (and what are those, after all, but primitive AI software?). 

Good writing is not anchored in perfect spelling and grammar, but in ideas and a sense of narrative, and a readable personal voice. Why not get a "second set of eyes" on what they write? I wouldn't have a problem with Metro students asking a roommate or spouse to give an essay one last look before uploading an assignment. How is ChatGPT any different?

Marian Paroo defended "vulgar books (BAAAlzac...) and it's disappointing that Iowa, a state that once boasted loudly of its literacy and even prairie progressive history, is now just a crappy version of Florida and its war on woke. 

If there is any comfort to be found in all the school censorship battles, it's that a large number of people actually believe books matter and that ideas can create change. 

And there are certainly a lot of "Harold Hill" flimflam men running for the Republican nomination for president. Marian broke down his cynicism and greed in the musical. 

Who will step up for us today?

Large institutions rushing, and dawdling, to make changes with the times

I did a bit of time traveling this morning while reading a story about how colleges were scrambling to handle the challenges of ChatGPT and rampant "cheating." One of the first suggestions from some professors? Return to the Blue Books.

Of course. Never accuse universities of abandoning the "old ways" and hanging on by tooth and nail to traditions. Unless we are talking college football and the Power 5 schools. 

BTW, this latest round of conference shake-ups may be a good example of why large organizations need to be careful about massive changes without much planning... and almost always responding to money. As many commentators have pointed out, flying from California to Newark for a football game on Friday morning for the Saturday game, returning late Saturday or early Sunday, might be fine for the semi-professionals at USC. But what about the baseball or softball teams? What about basketball teams that normally play at least one mid-week game? 

It all sounds like a scheduling nightmare but, as always, all that time-consuming travel is likely to negatively affect the student athletes (and, honestly, most college athletes really ARE students). 

When football rules all, it's similar to "you hate America" as a motivator in political "debate." Anger and misinformation and rash decisions overwhelm common sense and even civic behavioral norms. 

Eventually, I predict that the top 60 football programs will have to be separated from their traditional (or untraditional) conferences and split into more rational geographic "leagues" of 15. Then the other sports can return to the former conferences and fan bases that have always inspired so much devotion (and pleasure). 

But in the meantime, chaos and misunderstandings and more division within the country awaits. 

Speaking of chaos, we are one week out from opening online courses for Metro and CSU, and no one from either institution has offered any firm guidance as to how to deal with ChatGPT. I received the fall syllabus policies document yesterday from Metro, for instance, and there is no mention of AI. Everyone pledges to "not cheat" but who knows what that means anymore? I checked the Liberal Arts academic integrity videos featured on the university site and they were produced in 2020.

My how time flies. 

I am still fiddling with a ChatGPT "best practices post/unit for my own section, and need to have that ready to go in a week. One thing I know for certain: I will not be returning to Blue Books. 

Would I be comfortable with a classroom culture that assumes cheating and student dishonesty and that exults in "catching" the guilty.

Short answer: no.

But I am certain I can create essay prompts that cannot be simply answered by AI (like, list three common themes in the writing of Charles Dickens). Those simple "regurgitate the facts" exams have got to go. But that was true before ChatGPT.

Rowing against the current... and losing to the waves

As I was wrapping up my (what I thought) was my final student media critique of the summer, I felt that sense of, well, despair, that I often get from reading lots of student writing from across the country (from Florida to New Jersey to Illinois to California). 

One reason is that I find myself typing the same basic advice over and over again... and most of that advice is not recent in my thinking. We should try to anticipate what questions readers will have, for instance, and then find the answers, if possible. We should avoid simply TELLING  readers things in favor of SHOWING them. In other words, advice that they have heard many, many times in their educational lives.

And yet the writing remains consistently flat and lifeless and unsupported. I try to write narrative critiques, when I can, and I adopt first person plural to emphasize that we are all in this together (and to allow me to pretend that I am their media adviser simply going over last year's work as we prepare to start a new academic year). 

I assume that clear narrative writing is not taught enough in schools, particularly once kids get to middle school, but it's hard to imagine that students haven't picked up a few standard techniques storytellers use to engage with readers and viewers. 

One of my go-to pieces of advice is to think "more cinematically," which I explain by asking readers of the critiques to imagine they were writing a TV script. Unless they choose to use a narrator who simply states all the facts, they couldn't choose to TELL instead of SHOW. They would think of dialog. They would imagine a specific setting. They would create characters. They would introduce some sort of conflict, or at least set viewers up for a conflict to come.

Many times TV show or movie will simply drop viewers into an exciting or significant scene. A standard device is to open with something shocking or threatening, and then cut away to a quick screen of "x days or weeks earlier..." We were watching "1883," the first "Yellowstone" prequel a couple weeks ago, and in the very first scene we see a young girl shot in the midsection by an arrow during an attack on a wagon train.  

Spoiler alert: it did not turn out great... but it took 'til the penultimate episode (of 10) to get the context for the attack. That's a long time to wait in dread.

Still, so much better than the several stories I read this week that began with what I can only describe as "creative non-fiction," where the reporter imagines what it might be like to be a hockey player or point guard on the basketball team.

I often ask (somewhat rhetorically, since I have no idea who actually reads my comments) if staff members read many stories or watch TV or movies? Sounds a bit snarky, but when so many students (with the OK from their advisers) are fine publishing material that in no way resembles what they see every day... there is a definite disconnect.

I suppose I could add to the large number of "how to write a narrative" books out there... but who would read it? They aren't reading any of the others, that's certain.