Today's Republican Party is not Conservative, and Conservatives would not be in today's GOP

The terms liberal and conservative are pretty familiar in contemporary America, and most people would claim to know exactly what they mean. However, when they use the terms, they more likely mean their perceptions of the contemporary Democratic and Republican parties. And, now the association of the word conservative with the Republicans is becoming problematic. In fact, the politics of the past twenty years, and certainly the politics of the past five have revealed that conservative does not mean Republican, as most people calling themselves Republican are decidedly not conservative. The expected vote by the GOP to remove Liz Cheney from her leadership position is only the most recent and obvious manifestation of the philosophical and ethical mess in the party of Reagan and Goldwater.

To even begin to understand what is meant by the term "conservative," and why Republicans are not it, we should look to the origins of the idea from the European neo-classical era, as well as its more recent American manifestation. The source for American conservatism has to begin with Russell Kirk, whose The Conservative Mind in 1953 clarified the beliefs, which are distinctly different from policy positions, legal issues, constitutional norms, and campaign platforms. In a recent piece for the Imaginative Conservative, history professor and scholar Bradley Birzer explored the significance of "Russell Kirk Reconsidered," a most insightful and apt piece for the troubled GOP.

Sophia & Bill did it Again

After the sheer brilliance of the film Lost In Translation, you might expect that the director and actor would not want to mess with the success of that surprise hit. But you'd be wrong if that director happened to be Sophia Coppola and the actor was the legendary Bill Murray. While LIT was a surprisingly successful film for such an understated story and pared down directing, the magic between these two artists shouldn't have been. And now, like before with very little fanfare, Sophia and Bill have done it again with the movie On The Rocks. The story and directing are again aligned with the style that brought so much with so little to Lost in Translation, but OTR is not a remake or sequel or attempt to repackage the same old thing. It's a worthy follow-up, and I'd definitely watch a third film from these two.

Random Thoughts for a Thursday

A few thoughts, quips, and comments are on my mind this afternoon. Here are a few things to ponder:

PSA: Grandbabies is not a word. It’s grandchildren, grandson, granddaughter, grandchild

PSA: It’s anyway, not “anyways.” And if you say “any-who,” I’m not sure we can be friends.

I am honestly suspicious of anyone who doesn’t drink coffee.

I am proposing that the two-finger “peace” symbol shall now be known as the universal “I’m vaccinated” sign. When people meet up, they flash the “V-sign” to acknowledge and confirm. #VforVaccinated

Perhaps burning bridges is just a way of making sure you go forward in life and not backwards.

Not everyone is gifted. Everyone is not “brilliant in their own way.”

Stolen Art, Fake Art, Is It Art? -- Lots of great documentaries on Netflix

Art makes for great stories, and sometimes the story is a piece of art unto itself.

That's certainly true on Netflix lately with the premiere of Made You Look: A True Story of Fake Art. This documentary look at one of the largest art fraud cases in contemporary history is a fascinating look into the world of high-priced contemporary paintings. The question of "what is art" is always present when talking of the abstract expressionists like Rothko and Pollack, but that question becomes more intriguing when suspicion of art forgery enters the picture, and the question becomes not what is art, but how do you know for sure that art is authentic. 

Made You Look is a great piece of investigating filmmaking with a cast of characters who entertain as much as they beguile. One of the best is a young millennial art critic for the New York Times who opines about Ann Freedman, the curator of the esteemed Knoedler Gallery which bought and sold numerous fraudulent works, something to the effect of, "She either knew and was in on it, or she's just incredibly stupid." And that's not even the most shocking statement of the film. As one critic says, "You couldn't make this stuff up." The film is filled with an incredibly entertaining cast of characters, including the forger, the victim, the authenticator, the curator, and a seemingly endless list of experts who weigh in. It's simply a rich and colorful story that will beguile and amuse anyone with even a passing interest in the art world. 

And from a grand fraud scheme that was eventually uncovered to the greatest unsolved art heist of all time, Netflix also features a fascinating limited series, This Is a Robbery, which attempts to unravel the story of the 1991 theft of the Gardner Museum in Boston, a baffling crime the netted nearly a half billion dollars' worth of paintings, none of which have ever been recovered. The stories behind the stories behind the story of the Gardner Heist will mystify nearly anyone, especially because it seems impossible not only that the heist ever happened, but also that it's never been solved. 

Listening to the Radio

I still listen to the radio in the car.

It might be one of the most GenX things I do, and I know it's starting to fade from common practice as everyone can now connect their phones with Spotify or Pandora of iTunes and play whatever they want. But it's scrolling through the radio stations that I love the most, not know what is coming up and always being surprised when the "deejay plays my favorite song." My radio dials go from jazz to alternative to country to classic rock to Eighties or Nineties hits to R&B to hip hop to modern pop and hit radio. I love the variety and diversity, and I listen to all the stations.

This morning I went out to the car to listen to the radio while I waited for my daughter who needed a ride to school. And the radio wouldn't work. Literally. The music would not play on any station. I was really bummed out. My daughter just laughed and told me to play from my phone. 

And that just misses the point entirely.

Michael Lewis Knows -- He's had a Premonition

Bestselling non-fiction writer Michael Lewis has always seemed to know where there's a story brewing before anyone else has any idea it will be a thing. From his earliest days uncovering and spilling all he knew about the finance industry in Liar's Poker, the Princeton grad just seems to have a premonition for the latest story of our times.

His latest work The Premonition: a Pandemic Story was practically written and published in real time as the coronavirus/Covid-19 public health catastrophe unfolded over the past fifteen months. And in producing his latest insightful non-fiction narrative, it might appear he knows something the rest of us don't. The reality is he simply listens to the people who do know, and he asks good questions. That angle has been part of what the WSJ calls "A Unified Theory of Michael Lewis." 

Michael Lewis' The Premonition is a Sweeping Indictment of the CDC

Michael Lewis Found the People Who Should Have Been In Charge During the Pandemic

Talking Heads Don't Teach Us Anything

I've written before of my distaste for the talking heads on cable news who mask their info-tainment as news, commentary, and authentic debate about the issues. Here are my latest thoughts on that problem in my column for the Villager:  "Talking Heads Don't Teach Us Anything" 

Talking Heads Don’t Teach Us Anything

Tucker Carlson and Don Lemon are hurting America.

The respective hosts of talk television shows on Fox News and CNN take to the airwaves five nights a week to allegedly provide thoughtful commentary and debate about the issues of the day. What actually happens could hardly be considered thoughtful, commentary, or debate. Instead, these savvy media personalities orchestrate a nightly circus of obfuscation and diversion. The same can be said about Sean Hannity and Rachel Madow, about Chris Cuomo and Laura Ingrahm, about Lawrence O’Donnell and Jeanine Pirro. And it’s literally hurting America.

Approximately seven million people spend weekday nights watching the talking heads on cable news, split among FoxNews, CNN, & MSNBC. While that may seem like a large audience, it’s only a tiny fraction of the nation’s 331 million people. So, it’s at least reassuring to know less than one percent of the nation wastes its evenings tuned in to echo chambers of divisive partisan politics. Far from delivering actual news or insightful commentary, the shows are simply vehicles to produce ad revenue for the stations and lavish salaries for the hosts. At one time the business model for media was large audiences with broad views; the new approach caters to limited audiences who seek narrow content designed to reinforce their own individual beliefs, biases, and prejudices.

Contemporary media critic and humanities professor Neil Postman described the talk radio and television genre as “info-tainment.” In his 1985 non-fiction book “Amusing Ourselves to Death,” Postman explained that from a word count and general content perspective all the information heard in an hour-long television program could be found on a single page of a newspaper. Thus, as people sit through hours of talking heads like Carlson and Lemon ranting and agitating, they are learning almost nothing. In fact, that’s precisely the point of these shows. They exist as a form of soundbite news with all the intellectual nourishment of a bumper sticker.

While these shows are broadcast on news stations, they are actually an affront to the news-gathering mission of journalism. In a speech to the Women’s National Press Club in 1960, Clare Boothe Luce challenged the harmful direction of journalism by warning “What is wrong with the American press is what is in part wrong with American society.” She questioned whether the American press should be excused for not providing “more tasteful and illuminating” content simply because they were businesses and had to give the audience what it wanted. I cannot imagine what an ethical and inspirational woman like Luce would think of today’s contemporary media. At best she’d be ashamed the Fourth Estate would ever be used to agitate and inflame America’s internal struggles and conflicts rather than enlighten and resolve them.

In a now legendary episode of CNN’s Crossfire when Jon Stewart chastised the show’s hosts Tucker Carlson and Paul Begala, the schtick of the cable talk show was first called out as fraudulent. When the hosts claimed their show debated the issues, Stewart responded, “No, no, no, a debate would actually be great.” But that’s not what happens in the contemporary era. Debate has a rich, extensive history as a form of public discourse in American society. The actual Lincoln-Douglas debates lasted three hours, with no commercial interruptions. One candidate spoke for an hour straight. The opponent responded with ninety minutes of claims and refutations. The first speaker then finished with thirty minutes of rebuttal. Imagine the deep thought-provoking content developed over that time. Imagine the thoughtful attentiveness audiences must have displayed.

At one time, Americans could sit and listen for hours of truly enlightening intellectual content. The lyceums of the New England Renaissance featured public intellectuals like Emerson, Thoreau, and Twain who travelled the country, speaking for hours at public events that provided an organized adult education system. Similarly, Boulder’s chautauqua system was a historical example of a time when Americans sought out and sat for hours of thoughtful discussion that wasn’t interrupted every eight minutes for a commercial break.

Ultimately, the media, from large national television stations to small local newspapers, has a sacred responsibility to seek, protect, and promote the truth. Clare Booth Luce ended her speech with these words: “Let us watch then, with hope, for the signs of a new, vigorous leadership in the American press. For if you fail, must not America also fail in its great and unique mission, which is also yours: To lead the world toward life, liberty, and the pursuit of enlightenment.”

Virginia Plans to Eliminate Math Acceleration -- wait, What?

All kids do not learn math at the same age, pace, and proficiency. In fact, we know the literacy, math, and critical thinking skills of kids are not actually age-specific. That, of course, is a key problem and inefficiency of the K12 once-size-fits-all education system. However, many schools are able to adjust for responsive learning needs through flexible acceleration, and as a result, not every kid is stuck in Algebra I during their ninth grade year, even though that class has long been the standard. As a GT coordinator in a high achieving school community, I've known kids in ninth grade to be in geometry, algebra II/trig, and even calculus. So, clearly one math pathway is not responsive to students.

Thus, the move by the Virginia Department of Education to "eliminate all math acceleration before eleventh grade" is a truly baffling, unsettling, frustrating, and disappointing decision. It is a step backward in education, as is the reasoning of holding kids back in the name of equity. For those of us who have spent a long time in education, in understanding giftedness, and in working for equity, the idea of treating all kids the same is outdated thinking. In fact, we've all seen the graphic of the kids at the fence and the distinction between equity and equality. Equality is providing one path and treating all people the same; equity is providing equal access to opportunity while providing multiple pathways to success and achievement.

Virginia is making a huge mistake in its misguided attempt to help kids. 

Unpacking the Backpack

This year I have a new writing gig, doing a weekly column for The Villager, a small community weekly in southeast Denver. My pieces logically are from an educator's view, and much of the time I am shedding light on school and learning-based issues. Here's the text from my first piece earlier in the year.

Unpacking the Backpack - What’s Really Going on in Education

Our youth today love luxury. They have bad manners and contempt for authority. They disrespect their elders and love gossip and socializing instead of exercise. They no longer rise when adults enter the room. They challenge their parents, scarf their food, and tyrannize their teachers.

While you might think those comments were part of a recent NBC news special or an article in the New York Times, they have actually been attributed to Socrates in the fifth century, BC. We hear much criticism of young people and public education these days. Some pessimists and curmudgeons even argue both are in a state of ruin. I assert, however, such views are naive, and there is more to the story.

So, are schools failing or is public education still the great American success story? The answer, of course, is yes. For as long as we’ve had schools in the United States, we have provided high quality education among the best in the world to many students while at the same time failing to meet the basic educational needs of many others. And we have been criticizing and complaining about schools for just as long. It’s worth remembering Rudolph Flesch first published Why Johnny Can’t Read back in 1953. And, twenty years ago education researcher Diane Ravitch published Left Back: A Century of Failed School Reform. So much for our nostalgic views of the past when, like in Garrison Keillor’s tales from Lake Wobegon, “all the women are strong, all the men are good-looking, and all the children are above average."

I’ve been in school virtually my entire life, working for the past 28 years as an educator in public and private schools, both here and abroad, as a teacher and an administrator. I’m also 51 years old, making me part of Generation X, a product of our “failing school system.” We were the subject of the Department of Education’s 1983 report A Nation at Risk, which described a “rising tide of mediocrity” in schools, and warned that had the effects on our children been inflicted by an outside power, we would consider it an act of war.

By 1991 Time magazine declared us the Slacker generation, a bunch of losers living in our parents’ basement, playing video games, and amounting to nothing. However, while the nation fretted about our future, Gen X basically went out and invented the internet and tech economy with Marc Andreeson launching the first web browser, Sergi Brin and Larry Page opening access to resources with Google, Jimmy Wales democratizing information with Wikipedia, and Elon Musk revolutionizing online money transfers at PayPal, then building electric cars and rockets at Tesla and SpaceX. Clearly the demise of education and American society was greatly exaggerated.

Yet all is not well, as inequities persist, achievement gaps grow, and too many students fall behind. In 2018, NAEP reading scores stagnated or dropped, indicating many kids are not performing at grade level. Journalist Campbell Brown, who runs an education reform website called the 74 million, expressed outrage, as she should, that “half of our kids can’t read and do math at grade level.” The most troubling part of this news is the inequity, for the low scores can be accurately predicted by family income, zip code, and race. Clearly the egalitarian promise of the education system is not being fulfilled.

We continue to have national debates about what’s wrong with schools and how to fix them. I was just entering the profession in 2001 when George W. Bush and Ted Kennedy teamed up for the No Child Left Behind Act, which declared “all children would achieve at grade level by 2014.” It was quickly replaced in 2015 with the Every Child Succeeds Act. These titles, designed to imply legislators can fix systems with the flick of a pen, would seem to defy the law of averages.

However, for all the struggles, we can also assert the US is more educated than ever before with 90% of people 25 and over graduating high school. In the 1940s it was 24%. Additionally, approximately 70% of students now go onto college, whereas that number was closer to 5% in 1950, and disproportionately male and white.

It’s also worth noting many kids are learning more than ever before. For example, I took Algebra II and Trigonometry in eleventh grade, but many students now complete it by freshman year. Perhaps the most impressive development is Advanced Placement courses which are college classes taken in high school. In 2018, 1.25 million graduates took 4.2 million AP exams in 38 possible classes. As an AP English teacher, I know my students regularly produce the type of writing I didn’t achieve until graduate school.

Thus, clearly great things are happening in our schools, and we still have much work to do. Public education is still among the best in the world, yet we also fail to meet the needs of vast numbers of kids.

So, how do I feel about education? About students? About the future?

Hopeful. After all, I’m a teacher.

Don't Make Students Perform Shakespeare

So, here's my controversial and unpopular English teacher opinion: Don't ask students to read/perform Shakespeare plays out loud in class while studying them. 

Each year that I've taught The Bard's plays -- mostly the standards like Julius Caesar or Hamlet -- I've begun polling my classes, asking, "Okay, so with a show of hands, how many of you are classically trained Shakespearean actors?" You can imagine the responses. I follow by asking how many are actors, are in theater, are public speakers, are comfortable performing plays and monologues, etc. Obviously, few if any answer yes. And, after joking that we can now agree listening to them perform the play, of which they are entirely unfamiliar, would be an insult to old William and would likely literally hurt our ears and our humanities instincts, I let them know we will not be "reading" Shakespeare in the class.

Studying plays in class does not mean that students must read the roles, or even (gasp!) perform them, out loud in class. To truly appreciate the lines, they must be known well and delivered as intended. And reading over the play a night before just won't cut it, especially for young teenagers. Plays are not meant to be read, and while many people might be able to do so, it's not a particularly enlightening experience like reading an essay, novel, story, or poem can be. So, I don't waste class time with such nonsense. Plays are meant to be heard and seen. Yet simply showing the movie is too passive, especially for Shakespearean works where the language is challenging at best and undecipherable at worst for many kids. So, we listen to recordings together and work through the play, stopping and discussing and learning along the way.

Where They Go Is Not Who They Are

In my most recent column for The Villager, I considered all the high school seniors who are now hearing from colleges about their applications. 

Where They Go isn’t Who They Are

“We’ve decided on two colleges: Harvard or Yale.”

I actually heard that comment once from the parents of a freshman in high school; I’m pretty sure they hadn’t actually confirmed this with the colleges in question. Now, as spring arrives and high school seniors learn where they’ve been accepted, I’m thinking about the complicated college admissions game and the unnecessary angst it puts on many families.

The recent Netflix documentary “Operation Varsity Blues” about the 2019 college admissions scandal exposes the seedy details of wealthy parents gaming the system to secure spots at elite colleges “through the side door.” That actually meant bribery, altered test scores, phony athletics admissions, and more. Of course, these intense, unethical efforts to get into college actually reflect only a tiny percentage of the millions of high school seniors who apply to college each year. Most students simply study hard, find a few schools which are appropriate for them, apply in the regular process, get admitted, and go off to college like students have always done.

For others, however, the college admissions game has fostered a cottage industry of private college counselors who prey on the anxiety of students and their families. Operation Varsity Blues exposes the most extreme cases of counselors using personal connections, college rankings, and even the media to cast uncertainty on a higher education system that is actually more accessible than it’s ever been. Yet many successful, well-educated students literally believe they won’t get into college, or at least not “a good one.” As a result, countless families spend thousands of dollars for assistance getting their child into schools, often unnecessarily.

Most Baby Boomers, Gen Xers, and older Millennials would acknowledge they never needed private college counselors, college application boot camps, standardized test prep classes, or endless hours of tutoring to get into college. The reality is younger Millennials and Gen Zers don’t either. Granted, more students are applying to college than ever before, and each school only has a specific number of spots. It’s the shrinking pool of interest in a few schools that exacerbates the myth of access. In reality, if a student requires excessive hours of tutoring, editing, and counseling to craft the perfect college profile, the application probably isn’t an accurate representation of the student, and the dream school isn’t the right choice. And if their primary choices don’t have room, there are dozens, if not hundreds, of comparable opportunities for a college education.

Too often bright, qualified students are crushed by not being admitted to one specific school or program, such as engineering at the University of Michigan, only to begrudgingly accept admission to an equal or even higher ranked school like Illinois, Purdue, or Colorado School of Mines. Ironically, every year students from Texas, Michigan, and Virginia are surely devastated by not getting into their dream school of CU-Boulder, while young Coloradans turn their noses up at their home state while desperately hedging their entire future on acceptance to Virginia, Michigan, or Texas. These stories would be absurdly funny if they weren’t so sad.

There are more than 5,000 colleges and universities in the United States, and that means there are hundreds of top-tier premiere schools. Sadly, too many families believe there are only a few acceptable schools. The Ivy League consists of just eight schools, and many people are surprised to learn elite colleges like Stanford, Duke, and MIT aren’t even part of that group. After all, the Ivy League is actually just a football league.

Time Magazine has published numerous stories over the past two decades to emphasize how career access, future earnings, and professional success are actually more related to an individual student’s qualities rather than the institution granting the degree. Time researchers followed students who were accepted into elite institutions but chose not to attend for numerous reasons. Years out of school, they were no less successful than similar students who attended those schools. In many cases they were actually more successful with lower debt and far less stress.

The unrealistic perceptions and misguided beliefs of students about college choices led Frank Bruni, a New York Times columnist, to research colleges and reveal the truth about higher education, the admissions game, and the status of schools. In 2015, he published “Where You Go Is Not Who You’ll Be: an Antidote to the College Admissions Game.” Perhaps that book should be added to the required curriculum for students and parents.

Yes, There is a Parenting Manual

Parenting is an exciting, heartwarming, challenging, fascinating, wonderful time in our lives, and it's important to know we are not alone in figuring out how to do it. Contrary to many quips from people who believe there is "no instruction manual for a child," there are plenty of parenting books to guide our decisions, actions, and feelings. Here's my piece from the April 1 version of The Villager:

Yes, there’s a Parenting Manual

At age fifty-one, with two kids in high school and college respectively, I look back with pride and a bit of relief I didn’t screw it up.

In reflecting on how we got to this point, my wife and I recalled getting ready to welcome our first child by reading. We read and talked a lot about parenting before we started living it. Just like we always did before planning a trip, we researched, heading to the bookstore and library in search of what was known about the experience we were about to embrace. Obviously it helped that we were both educators and natural readers. It has also helped we somehow have two incredibly amazing kids. In fact, we might not actually be good parents because in some ways we haven’t parented. Of course, that just means we haven’t struggled with managing their behavior. In reality, we’ve parented every minute of our kids’ lives, even when that means stepping back, giving them autonomy and freedom.

Parenting is undoubtedly an uncertain and ever-evolving series of events, and most parents advise newbies that you can never fully prepare for what comes next. However, that doesn’t mean there is no store of knowledge and wisdom about parenting. Sadly, too many people feel they are destined to fly blind, living in a state of crisis management throughout the childhood years. I recall an episode of Oprah when a guest lamented to Dr. Phil, “you know, there’s no parenting manual.” Both Oprah and Dr. Phil nodded, exclaiming, “That’s right, there is no parenting manual.” It’s not like the hospital gives you a user's manual as you head out the door, right? My wife and I looked at each other, dumbfounded. “Of course there’s a parenting manual,” we protested to the TV. In fact, dozens sprang to mind without even doing an Amazon search.

Being a Gen X child of a 70s upbringing, I remember my mom talking about Dr. Spock, the pediatrician whose 1946 bestseller The Common Book of Baby & Child Care influenced post-World War II parenting. Granted, much discussion these days is about everything Dr. Spock got wrong, but there’s no denying the significance of his book and his simple faith in the parenting instinct which reminds us “you know more than you think you do.” Dr. Spock had plenty of detailed advice on how new parents could raise and nurture their children into adults. His revolutionary tome broke with traditions in parenting by encouraging parents to not follow strict rules but to see their children as individuals. It’s an adaptive model used to raise two generations.

In contemporary America, the parenting self-help bookshelf has greatly expanded, and the industry now has specialized genres on everything from feeding your child to getting them to sleep. There are books on literacy and emotional intelligence and allergies and toy selection. There’s no shortage of books on discipline, with full manuscripts about whether or not to spank (Helpful Hint: don’t). In fact, two enterprising parents and “parenting coaches,” Carole and Nadim Saad wrote Kids Don’t Come with a Manual, a bestseller which has since become a series. However, if I am advising a future parent, I think it starts with the classic What to Expect When You’re Expecting, which should be a mandatory baby shower gift, and it should always be paired with What to Expect the First Year. If my wife and I reflect on our experience, the next most significant book we read was Proactive Parenting. And, of course, many people will swear by the “parenting Bible,” How to Talk so your Kids will Listen, and Listen so your Kids will Talk.

Some parenting manuals aren’t guidebooks, as much as they are memoirs of success and failure, sharing tips on how to raise children the French way, or singing the praises of tiger moms and hipster dads. As the parents of two successful children, my wife and I have often fielded not only compliments but queries about what we did. Mostly, we have read and talked a lot about parenting.

So, that’s the crux of my advice: there is a parenting manual, and there is one that is perfect for you and your child. Now read it.