Refusing to even play the game

We are now in the midst of Week 5 of the fall semester and certain trends show up about now in my 16-week online courses.

For the Metro students, the original enrollment of 22 is now down to 20. That's normal as students discover that the online world just doesn't work for them or personal scheduling issues are interfering. In fact, it's smart for students to recognize that this might not be the right semester for this particular class, and to cut their losses (and maybe get some tuition money back).

More concerning is that there was an assignment due Tuesday night that simply required taking a stance on one of several sample "advice" essays that I shared in our readings. I asked for 400-500 words and that students paste their short essays into a discussion window through Canvas. One of my goals was to allow students to see what their peers were writing, not to mention seeing any responses from me on each argument.

The assignment is worth 40 points, which makes it fairly substantial in a course with about 1,000 total points. In the end, I mostly awarded all 40 points to each submission as they did solid work for early in the semester.

But here's the distressing thing: Of the 20 remaining students, only 12 completed the assignment. I am not sure I have ever had 40 percent of a class opt for a zero on any assignment. I emailed each of the missing individually and heard back from a couple with vague excuses about being "super busy" and "having a mental health issue," as two examples. 

I replied with encouragement and urging everyone to submit their work late, exchanging a few penalty points for the zero. It's Friday now and none of the 8 have completed the missing essay.

So, at this point, it appears that 60 percent of those Metro students are "in" for the course and the remainder are not so sure. 

Last week I read an email from CSU's instructional coaching mentor (it goes to everyone each week) which argued that the pandemic's effects are lingering and that instructors may need to make adjustments in everything from expectations to assigned workload to outside-of-class readings. Many current college freshmen and sophomores (the most likely level to be taking my basic writing class) must have been in 9th or 10th grade four years ago, at the height of the Covid nightmare, so I get the point.

They were damaged by the year or two where most education happened online and where secondary teachers were likely in as much despair as their students. "Standards" were lowered or eliminated. Students must have felt abandoned and without the support from adults they were used to.

Now I am working with students online, where I might as well be an AI program for all the personal interactions we are having. I share some quick videos from time to time, mostly to prove that I am a living being and I insert personalize (and sometimes quirky) responses on discussion posts and essay assignments. I respond to emails with speed. 

But it is clearly not enough for a good portion of these college students who missed a whole lot of preparation for the rigors and expectations of higher education. Even the threat of failure may not be enough to motivate them.

On the other hand, at least a handful of students in the class are doing excellent work, full of personality and insight. They went through the same pandemic. Very different academic lives now.

Two Americas, indeed.

They're eating the dogs... they're eating the cats...

Another week and another dramatic twist in the 2024 election narrative, and I am amazed that all the political pundits have the gall to show their faces/drop yet another commentary into the mix. Did anyone really see Kamala utterly destroying Trump on Tuesday, with the humiliation rivaling what Biden experienced in June? 

Mainstream journalists don't really know what to do with Trump and his endless and outrageous stream of consciousness, and appear to have forgotten how to cover candidates like Harris and Walz who seem "normal," at least in our turbulent century. What they do understand is "keeping score," and they use whatever the latest poll may be to anchor, well, everything.

Of course, they don't really understand public opinion polling, so there is little available that could help a reader in Highlands Ranch make sense of all the competing numbers. I laughed at Trump pontificating about 93-2 and 72-27 with not a shred of context and without a murmur of dissent from reporters simply hoping for a soundbite. But I also admit that any poll results from last week already seem questionable. I know Americans hate each other, but the only evidence I have for that comes from social media and TV.

David Brooks has established himself as the "voice of reason" for the New York Times, staking out positions based on a combination of traveling the country listening to people and his own brand of personal ethics. If I could sum him up, it might be that he prefers to give people the benefit of the doubt, and that is decidedly not what makes for good TV or for more clicks.

His latest column suggests that American culture goes through regular phases and that the culture has become exhausted (bored?) with the drumbeat of "our country is failing... millions are invading... they're eating dogs" rhetoric. He thinks Kamala is riding on a new feeling in the zeitgeist, with Americans wanting something more hopeful and at least cautiously optimistic. Most people prefer joy to agony and unfocused fear. Kamala and her team have chosen to highlight the joy. Trump and his minions are doubling down on the hate. 

What worked in the past is not guaranteed to work in the present or future. What wins one election may have little to do with the next. Biden won because he convinced just enough voters that he would make life seem a bit more normal after years of chaos. History will likely show that he did preside over more normalcy for most Americans, though there is always a lag between perception and reality. I see that gas prices are down nearly 15 percent nationally but all the media shares is that eggs are up 50 cents. Bad news sells, of course, but there must be a point where most people simply look at their bank statements and note that they are doing OK.

I also recognize that some people are so entrenched in their ideological positions that they will vote for whomever has a D or R after their name. The character or leadership or intelligence of the candidate are not important enough to force a different choice. 

Yesterday, Trump blurted in Arizona that Kamala Harris is a "Marxist, Communist, Fascist, Socialist." He literally pulled four terms that he clearly doesn't understand and linked them all together, disregarding any sense of logic or just common sense... and hoping that at least one of those pejoratives will bring cheers from the cult. I assume he got what he wanted. He is doubling down on the hateful rhetoric about Haitians who came to Ohio (Ohio?) to work and avoid endless strife in their own nation.

Now they are getting death threats and bomb threats and AI-generated videos showing them "herding geese" for tonight's dinner. 

There are millions of Americans who are right now discussing the existential threat posed by Haitian immigrants. They are afraid. They have lost the ability to fairly evaluate outlandish claims. They will vote for Trump.

That may be frightening, but let's get back to the latest polls.

It turns out that we are terrible at predictions

One of the relatively few benefits gained by being 74 is that living over seven decades helps smooth out the hills and valleys of history. So many events and tragedies and victories and disappointments and promises that seemed so momentous at the time now seem much less dramatic and overwhelming.

Hindsight really is 20-20, but hindsight also provides real answers to the questions about "what's going to happen?" It is quite natural to imagine the very worst possibilities in the moment -- some would claim that the tendency to prepare for the worst is what has helped the human species survive. On the other hand, dogs don't imagine much about the future and the species seems to be doing OK...

As our memory of history stretches out, we also have a chance to see just how wrong our "in the moment" predictions" turned out to be. 

An example of time "smoothing" history might be the Vietnam War. For me, it eventually led to being drafted and then enlisting in the Air Force and risking being sent to southeast Asia. I was sent to England instead, and that bit of luck led to a marriage now approaching 53 years and our first daughter... and then so much more. Fewer and fewer Americans are now living who remember the events of the 1960s and 1970s very clearly, and that includes those of us who lived through them. Most of my memories of the Air Force are vague or fleeting, despite those years being stressful and formative (I guess). Maybe I just assume those three years were formative since I can't draw any direct lines between what happened then and who I am now. 

I was thinking the other day that my grandchildren couldn't even imagine being separated from family and childhood friends for two years, as Kathleen and I were from 1971-73 while we lived near RAF Lakenheath in the days before easy phone access and the internet. Considered as a fraction of a lifespan, two years really is not all that long. At 74, those two years amount to about 3 percent of my life at this point. And that percentage keeps getting smaller.

An example of a prediction that turned out much worse that I imagined was the advent of the internet, which I went on record as predicting would be the end of censorship. My reasoning was based on the old saying that "freedom of the press belongs to those who own a press." Therefore, when all of us could publish online, without needing to work for a newspaper's ownership, freedom would reign and we would enter a golden era of communication. 

Then came social media and endless online platforms that can publish everything from valuable insights on the human condition to sheer garbage. The U.S. Justice Department this week charged a number of Russians with adding very effective lies and distortions to the news feeds of millions of people who are simply not equipped with the means of separating fact from fiction.

Many people don't even try, of course, and actually welcome the fantasy world of conspiracies and breathless rumors based on slivers of truth. After all, it's fun... not to mention many people clearly are living lives of quiet desperation and find reality more disturbing than any wacko conspiracy.

How else to explain most of the Trump cult?

Related to my inaccurate prediction of an internet golden era would be the affordability and accessibility of smart phones. I recall many educators proclaiming that schools could stop wasting space on computer labs and that we could leverage the reality that all human knowledge could be accessed from a device students carry in their pockets and purses and backpacks. 

Social media basically took off in 2007, which already seems forever ago, and most people are in agreement that young people, in particular, have been seriously harmed by smartphones and their access to platforms that focus on creating addictions. I would argue that all age groups have been affected, but young people are more depressed, more pessimistic, more isolated, more unhappy. Even Gen Xers will proudly remember their youth as not being overwhelmed by devices and social media (though they are certainly addicted now). 

The biggest trend in education right now is taking phones out of the hands of students, at least during school hours. Every educator who has experienced the relief of devices being removed from the classroom and hallways and lunchrooms reports more engaged kids, fewer disruptions, and more laughter and smiles around the school. 

Deep thinkers are asking, "How could we have ever allowed those phones to invade our schools?" Here's how: we made uninformed predictions.

Two freshmen and two math teachers were slaughtered this week at a Georgia high school by a freshman boy given an AR-15 by his father. Both will be going to jail, if there is any justice. The Republican candidate for vice president said that school shooting are just "a fact of life." 

Really? Aren't smart phones just a fact of life? But we are finding ways to put at least a few limits on their use. We aren't taking away the phones. Just regulating them, and just for a few hours each day.

Perhaps we can start to see ways to not just settle for "facts of life." 

About my personal detour lately

Suddenly it's four weeks since my last blog entry... as if nothing is happening either near me or on larger stages. Perhaps that's a good reminder about how easy it is to let the mind (and body) drift, to spend evenings criticizing WNBA officiating, or whatever else is easier than sitting down to write some random thoughts.

Or maybe it's a combination of a trip to Keokuk for a family wedding the first weekend of the month, and our two grandsons flying to spend three days plus with us (unaccompanied!), and four nights of the Democratic National Convention, and quite a few hours editing and adjusting two online college writing courses.

Or maybe it's just the lazy days of late summer.

Or... say, here's something: I am making progress on interviewing for my history of St. Luke's UMC project, which no one asked for and which has no clear end point or product. Yet, for something so vague, it certainly has been entertaining for me.

Yesterday I spent an hour on the phone with a guy who was an intern pastor for less than a year back in 1986-87, spanning the last few weeks of the tenure of the church's founding minister who was losing it to alcoholism plus the arrival of an inspiring young minister who basically restarted the church. Jay Rundell is now nearly 40 years on and works at a seminary in Ohio... but still remembers those days -- a combination of difficult times and nostalgic memories. 

That then-young minister is Bill Selby, now 81, and still living right across the street from St. Luke's. He has studied church systems for many years and heads a center that spreads the word about church philosophies and systems across at least seven states. I have enjoyed sitting in a local Starbucks talking with him, and even remembering to take some notes. Sitting down for an extended interview is a good reminder of how challenging the process can be... and the only thing that has saved me is going back to my computer and trying to reconstruct as much of the conversation as I can without delay. 

Bill's successor, Dick Evans, still lives in Littleton, and we have struck up a friendship that didn't have any time to build back in 2002, when Dick was the lead pastor as Kathleen and I joined the church that fall. He left the post in June of 2003. We have had extended conversations twice this summer, covering everything from how to write and deliver a great sermon to anecdotes about how a church exploded in membership in just a few years. 

After Dick, came Janet Forbes, who led the church for 12 years. She was brought in to provide stable leadership, to get finances in order. and to overcome the latest rumors and feelings of abandonment and more. She was nice enough to invest some time writing down her random memories, plus her strategies and tactics in leading a church. She and her husband were off camping much of the summer, but I plan to sit down with her soon for some follow up questions.

The little history project began with wanting to add some stories and "color" to the 40th anniversary of a church that did not have a building until 1986 and that parallels the community of Highlands Ranch in many ways (the place was a working ranch 45 years ago... there were 87 occupied homes here in 1981). It grew from nothing and there were lots of ups and downs along the way. Like my research?

Back to my lame excuses for neglecting this blog: stuff happened. 

So, along with other responsibilities (so much journalism judging), it's been interesting to have this church history side project. Right now, I am thinking I may need to produce two different versions of whatever  I come up with... perhaps one as an interactive ebook and the other as a printed book. 

But I still have at least a dozen more people to interview to flesh out what I have learned and I still need to gather visuals of all sorts, particularly from before the year 2000, which is the period when there was the most tumult (and the most riveting history, to be honest).

But today my task is to browse PDFs of 71 student newsmagazines entered in the NSPA Pacemaker competition and start separating them into "not winners" and "possible winners." I am leading a team of three who will name finalists and national winners, though we live in three time zones and two of us are active advisers. 

Well, enough with the excuses, which are weak since I spent plenty of time in the past month watching old "Star Trek: The Next Generation" episodes, and the Olympics, and Fever games.

But we are already into Week 2 of the university classes and the unofficial end of summer is here, and I just reactivated by sports package with Infinity so I can get the Big 10 Network... go Hawks!

Time to refocus.

Ad hominem attacks are logical fallacies... except in politics

My last post was a bit over the top, I suppose, but "over the top" appears to be the new American norm. I would hate to be out of step with the zeitgeist. Someone might start calling me names.

And that is my clunky segue to the very recent trend of Democrats and their social media supporters calling Trump and Vance names. Weird. Odd. Strange. They are, of course, outraged.

Trump is allowed to say whatever he wants by his dazed and confused cult members and he has been a consistent playground bully for, well, his entire life. No need to tinker with success. Vance is newer to name-calling but he's doing his best to antagonize pretty much anyone not already firmly in the cult's embrace. 

Yesterday's National Association of Black Journalists panel at the group's national conference has caused angst among many journalists. Should a respectable group invite someone as antagonist and dishonest as Trump to be part of a conference panel at all? Or should journalists go over and above in their duty to present all "sides," even the side of a convicted felon? These difficult questions cause people to resign leadership positions in protest and cause others to leap to the defense of free expression, with dozens of positions in between.

I honestly don't have an answer but I certainly am delighted by the spectacle of an old white man questioning the racial identification of a Black woman in a room overwhelmingly filled with Black journalists. I assume Trump had his more racist cult members in mind as his true audience yesterday and I also assume that radical social media (including FOX News) will spin his performance as brave. 

For Black voters considering supporting Trump this fall... well, that consideration should be quickly discarded.

I suspect that most Republicans who have even heard of this event experienced the slightest dread... in fact, they might have thought, "How odd. Our candidate didn't even try to answer questions with any policies or facts and seemed intent on taking on anyone not white." Republican politicians, of course, raced to explain away Trump's remarks, many pretending that they would prefer to discuss issues and the history of Kamala Harris's policies. 

The dirty truth is that the Republican Party is no more. It is now the Trump Party or MAGA Party, and we have a major political party that represents explicitly racist views. 

My hope is that the percentage of American racists is not all that large and that reason and hope will prevail in the election, now 98 days away (though voting must start at least a month earlier than that). 

In the meantime, creating silly internet memes that label Trump and Vance as weird and odd seems like a good way to make fun of the bullies. Legions of elementary teachers would object. "Turn the other cheek" is a laudable message, and Michelle Obama famously declared that "when they go low, we go high." The playground must be free of bullying.

Jesus and Michelle are right in the long run, but in the real world there is a need to win elections. Bullies hate to be ridiculed. That's what THEY depend upon in attacking others. 

Trump and Vance and the cult are certainly threats to democracy and American ideals. They could do a lot damage, at least in the near term, if they were to be elected.

But they are also fundamentally silly and weird. They are laughable.

And once people start laughing at you, it's tough to fight back. It would take demonstrating a seriousness of purpose and some actions that SHOW Trump acting for the good of the nation and the world.

Ha! See how easy it is to enjoy a good laugh about Trump and Vance? Mocking terms like "odd" and "weird" are not acceptable in logical arguments. But we are not engaged in creating rhetorically sound arguments. 

I would like to laugh all the way through the election results... and then continue laughing as the Trump cult noisily implodes.

I'm vaguely optimistic suddenly, and yet there's an ancient nutcase making speeches

The latest outrageous and (maybe?) demented contention from Trump, from the New York Times: 

In the closing minutes of his speech to a gathering of religious conservatives on Friday night, former President Donald J. Trump told Christians that if they voted him into office in November, they would never need to vote again.

“Christians, get out and vote. Just this time,” he said at The Believers’ Summit, an event hosted by the conservative advocacy group Turning Point Action, in West Palm Beach, Fla. “You won’t have to do it anymore, you know what? Four more years, it’ll be fixed, it’ll be fine, you won’t have to vote anymore, my beautiful Christians.”

Mr. Trump, who never made a particular display of religious observance before entering politics, continued: “I love you, Christians. I’m a Christian. I love you, you got to get out and vote. In four years, you don’t have to vote again. We’ll have it fixed so good, you’re not going to have to vote.”

First, what!!??? So, the goal for a true Christian is to never vote again? So, the convicted felon who is nearing 80 just needs to use a few million people to vote to keep him out of jail? Then they can return to irrelevance?

Second, can you imagine if ANY remotely normal politician would say such a thing in public? It would lead every news report, scream from front page headlines, and dominate social media chatter. For Trump, there are reports, certainly (see above), but our media seems unable to identify the clear nut case who is leading one of our two national political parties into the fall election. 

The tone and rhetorical strategies here are identical to the Vice President making a policy speech calling for an immediate ceasefire in Gaza. BTW: Trump called Kamala Harris an anti-semite in that same speech. And she's married to a Jew! 

It's hard to accept the fact that the Republican Party has no clear platform beyond the appalling Project 2025 drivel that they went ahead and put in writing so it can be analyzed and argued with. It's demoralizing to realize that one political party has chosen to manufacture fear for their benighted followers to fetishize. It's appalling that people who claim to be moral and good are just fine with political leaders who name call in ways that would have them removed from an elementary school playground. 

Anyone in public life had some skeletons, some "I wish I hadn't said that" moments, and some beliefs that have "evolved." None of us should be judged by our very worst moments, and it is reasonable to assume that thoughtful people can change their opinions over time. 

Shouldn't someone be asking what Trump means by "it'll be fixed"? It's both ominous and meaningless... perhaps an accurate representation of Trump himself. 

I have given up on any hope of the die hard cult members who will find any excuse for their Beloved Leader and his minions. I mean, come on. Over 25 percent of Americans are certain the sun revolves around the earth. Just being in public reminds us that many of the people around us are morons (not all, but enough to remark upon).

But must the news media default to "we try to balance our reporting to show both/all sides"? Must we continue to pretend that "everyone does it"? Must we sort of laugh off an outrageous TV host who you never invite to sit down for dinner when he produces his latest drivel? Must we treat the obvious sycophants looking to make some money or gain attention by consorting with a man without principles and without shame as politicians to pay attention to?

There are heroes in America. Few can be found among the owners and publishers of our media. They did manage to bring down Joe Biden, a man who actually supports the free press and who actually pays attention to what the media says. 

And Trump continues to tease, offend, bully, and amuse those same media leaders. And many citizens of America seem content with that. Appalling.

Joe, you've got to go... and assorted thoughts on aging

Age is the hot topic across the country... at least for the remarkably few people who are paying attention to politics and the inexorable decline of our two major party candidates for the presidency. And since I turned 74 just yesterday (I am a day late with this post), I suppose I have spent more time than I should on the topic of aging.

In July of 1950, Harry Truman was president and also busy being born on July 12 was Eric Carr, who become the drummer for KISS. He died in 1991. So it goes. Just a week prior to my entrance, Private Kenneth Shadrick was the first American soldier killed in the Korean War. Also on July 5, the "Law Return" passed, which guaranteed the right of all Jews to live in Israel. That was the end of any controversies in Palestine, thank goodness.

On July 19, the New York Yankees signed their first two Black baseball players: Elston Howard and Frank Baines. I would later have both their Topps baseball cards and would never give a single thought to their race (or what they must have endured). At some point while I was in England in the Air Force, my mom cleared out the shelf in an upstairs bedroom where a large box of baseball cards were stashed. Old news. 

On July 27, 1950, President Truman promised aid to Taiwan. And that was the end of any controversy about that island.

Being born in 1950 helped out my parents, I would guess, as my dad would not be drafted during the Korean War due to having a family. They doubled down on this protection by adding brother Mike less than two years later, though my mother always said she wanted "Irish twins" and the fun of having two young children to dress alike, etc. I am quite certain that the idea ended up being more fun than the reality.

I was born in Mercy Hospital, which still exists but has now been taken over by University of Iowa Hospitals and Clinics. My mom claimed that I was the first baby delivered by our long-time family physician Dr. Charles "Chuck" Eicher. He delivered 2,682 after me. He was just 26 in 1950, and got married that year, which is irrelevant but a reminder of how young he was. I continued getting occasional physicals and assorted medical care (minor bone breaks, illnesses, etc.) until his retirement in 1991. He passed in 2009, age 85.

Kathleen and I still have a bowl he gave my parents as a wedding present. I guess Barb and Jack were friends... or maybe Dr. Eicher was just making an investment to insure that all eight Kennedy kids would be born under his watch. As Kathleen points out, the bowl must have been stylish then, but it didn't stand the test of time. It is some weird shade of green with scalloped edges and we retain it because... we don't really have a good reason.

Similarly, there is no good reason to search through history for significant events from 74 years ago, though it is good to be reminded that "stuff happens," whether we are actively participating or not. It's also bracing to realize that a lot of things haven't changed all that much in nearly 3/4 of a century or that "ancient history" really is within my lifetime. 

We haven't quite "solved" racism in America. Israel and the simple fact of a person being Jewish can still be a life or death situation. Taiwan continues to be in the middle of Great Powers pulling and pushing. The world will never rid itself of men who long for authoritarian power (and 1950 came just five years after the free world defeated Hitler). 

And on we go.