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(05/04/12 12:28am)
____simple_html_dom__voku__html_wrapper____>I could write an all-encompassing column tracking my entire college experience and giving pointers to incoming freshman about the best bars to go to, apartment complexes to live in and classes to avoid.But that would be about as cliché as a graduation column can get. Plus, the guy who wrote “My last words: 4 seconds at IU” already did that better than I ever could.Instead, I want to get only a tad less cliché and narrow my discussion to the importance of one word: “Offense.”And I don’t mean the type of offense our football team was so lacking this year at Memorial Stadium, or the moves creepers make at Sports with equal success as they try to pick up girls.Rather, I mean the devil-may-care, take-the-bull-by-the-horns, carpe diem type of offensive attitude only a graduating senior can really appreciate when he or she realizes the past four years went by in a blink of an eye.When I came to IU, I, like most incoming freshmen, was amazed at the number of opportunities open to me. Walking around the student activities fair that first month, looking at all the student groups and the amazing things they were doing, I wondered how I was going to do everything I wanted to do in just four years.But soon enough, as with most new experiences, the novelty of being in a new place wore off. I settled in with a group of friends, found my niche with like-minded students in the campus’ libertarian club and resolved myself to a comfortable routine of classes, homework and partying on the weekends.While I wasn’t the worst — I did do a lot of interesting things during my time at IU, such as run at Oregon’s famous Hayward Field with the IU track and field team, get into a war of words with columnist Mike Leonard in the editorial pages of the Bloomington Herald-Times and spearhead an IU Student Association committee tasked with reforming University policy — very few people graduate from college not wishing they had done more.And this is why “offense” should be an important word to any college student, freshman or otherwise. Trust me, things aren’t just going to happen to you in college, or in life in general. If you want something, you need to go on the offensive. Spend all of your four years as if you were a freshman, embracing every opportunity while actively trying to stay outside your comfort zone.If you feel as though tuition is too high or you’re tired of adjuncts teaching all of your classes, join the occupiers and raise hell at the IU Board of Trustees meeting.Or, if you can’t stand the occupiers, start your own group and fight for your own causes. Trust me, so long as you aren’t lobbying for more Friday classes, you probably won’t be alone.If you read the IDS and feel as though your perspective is not adequately reflected within the opinion pages, don’t bitch and complain. Apply to be on staff. I did, and everyone has been more than welcoming.If there is a guy or girl in your class whom you are interested in but afraid to ask out, just do it. After all, “YOLO,” right?If you have a paper you need to knock out but can’t seem to tear yourself away from Facebook and Twitter, give yourself a swift kick in the ass. When you graduate, you won’t regret the time you didn’t spend creeping on your friends’ pictures, but you will regret bombing an assignment.On the other hand, if you have a test you need to study for and your friends are renting a boat on Lake Monroe, forget the test. Seriously. Boating on Lake Monroe is just about the most fun thing you can do during your time at IU.And most importantly, don’t be afraid of people who are ideologically or culturally different from you. Engage them. Become friends with them. Their point of view might shock or sometimes offend you, but isn’t that what you go to college for? To be exposed to new ideas and ways of thinking? If you leave college having never once been offended, you should ask for your money back.Next week, I will leave Bloomington for a new job, a new home and a new life. And, just as I was four years ago as a freshman in college, I’m sure I’ll be overwhelmed and excited by all the opportunities open to me.But, to make sure I never fall into the same comfortable routine I often fell into here at IU, I bought myself a copy of “Pubs of Bloomington” to hang on my office wall.When I stare at that poster, I hope I’ll be reminded of $2 Tuesdays at Kilroy’s, karaoke Thursdays at Bear’s and 15-cent Wednesdays at the Bluebird Nightclub. If I never forget those nights, neither will I forget time goes faster than you think and to always stay on the offensive.— nperrino@indiana.edu
(04/25/12 12:53am)
____simple_html_dom__voku__html_wrapper____>In May, I will graduate, along with more than 18,000 other students in the IU system.And, despite what we have been told, the world we are graduating into isn’t all that bad. In fact, it is a better world than any class of seniors before us in human history has had the privilege of entering.On the day of our graduation, the infant mortality rate will be at its lowest in recorded history, while life expectancy will be at its highest. Those infants who make it past birth can expect to live until their 69th birthdays — up from an average of 52 years in 1960.More people than ever will also have access to clean drinking water. The target set by the United Nations of ensuring that 89 percent of the world’s population has access to clean drinking water and basic sanitation by 2015 was met this year. This represents an increase of 12 percent since 1990.We have also seen a considerable decline in the number of people living in poverty. According to projections from the World Bank, the overall poverty rate is expected to dip below 15 percent by 2015, a decrease from the 46 percent rate in 1990 and 27 percent rate in 2005.Corresponding with the decline in the overall poverty rate is an increase in the percentage of school-age students who complete a full course of primary schooling. In 1999, 82 percent of these students had; in 2009, that number had risen to 89 percent.And in the United States, of those people considered living in poverty by the government, 80 percent have air conditioning, 75 percent have cars, 33 percent have wide-screen plasma or LCD televisions and half own computers.We also hear about the growing income inequality in our country, which is supposed to scare us. Yes, the richer are getting richer, but so are the poor. Between 1979 and 2007, those with an income that put them within the 21st through 80th percentile range of earners saw an after-tax income increase of 40 percent, and the bottom 20 percent of earners saw an 18-percent increase, adjusting for inflation.But even if you are among the lowest 20 percent of earners, your chances of moving into a higher income group have never been better. According to the U.S. Department of Treasury, “Roughly half of taxpayers who began in the bottom income quintile in 1996 moved up to a higher income group by 2005.”What about metrics that are harder to measure, such as tolerance of racial minorities and people of differing sexual orientations? Though we still have much work to do in this area, it is hard to argue that we do not live within the most tolerant society the world has ever seen.Is it even necessary to mention the technological strides we have made in the last decade, if not the last two years? We are the most connected generation ever. Not only can I get in contact with anyone I’d like anywhere with the click of a mouse, but I can usually do it for free.And if I need access to a bit of information, I typically don’t need to go to a library or call up a friend. I can visit Google and within seconds figure out whatever I needed to know. For free. I can also order any product I might need or want within seconds without leaving my house.Though there is no shortage of people willing to scare you with unemployment or debt statistics, just remember: You live in a healthier, richer, easier, more tolerant world than anyone who has come before you.And for that, we should all be thankful.— nperrino@indiana.edu
(04/17/12 11:37pm)
____simple_html_dom__voku__html_wrapper____>Last Friday at Pastor Douglas Wilson’s lecture, “Sexual by Design,” I saw prejudice on display. It was not a prejudice cast from the mouth of a man so roundly branded a racist and homophobe. Rather, it was a prejudice revealed by a crowd of people who have adopted a viewpoint and let it ferment for so long without going unchallenged that they regard themselves as maintaining a monopoly on truth.Their belief in their truth was so strong, in fact, that many would not even hear what Wilson had to say, with some even going so far as to create a heckler’s veto — which, by the way, does not constitute an exercise of “protected speech,” as many tried to argue — to make sure others couldn’t hear what he had to say, either.It seems that the hecklers either forgot how one comes to truth in the first place or just didn’t care. Truth comes from the marketplace of ideas where different beliefs go to be analyzed and critiqued, resulting in a truth greater than the sum of the ideas that came before it. This systematic method of truth-finding is the foundation of our liberal education and the bulwark that has provided us with 200 years of progress unknown to most of human history.For this system to work, though, ideas need to be permitted to be presented and worked through. The method of suppressing ideas merely because one disagrees with them has been the work of kings and tyrants for millennia, to the detriment of progress and truth.I was hoping that in attending Wilson’s speech, I would be permitted to hear a thorough working-through of his argument and my peers would listen to what he had to say and engage those ideas in a lively and respectable manner.Instead, one dissident, representing a multitude of those in attendance, approached the microphone and prefaced his attack on Wilson by proclaiming his own intolerance, stating, “I really didn’t listen to anything you said.”By saying such a thing, the dissident was displaying not only his intolerance for the speaker but also his intolerance for our liberal truth-finding system.The dissident believed himself so infallible that others need not bother him with their differing opinions, as he had the whole of the truth and to hell with the rest. As John Stuart Mill argued, for people “to refuse a hearing to an opinion, because they are sure that it is false, is to assume that their certainty is the same thing as absolute certainty.”When it comes to the point when someone claims the authority to decide truth for all of mankind by refusing the right of others to judge truth for themselves, it is clear that that person no longer harbors a true, living belief but rather, as Mill might describe it, a dead dogma.It is important to remember that even if Wilson’s beliefs are wrong, which is impossible to prove absent God himself coming down from the heavens to reveal the true meaning of the scripture, his ability to present his opinion still has some benefit. Is it not true that truth becomes more powerful and better understood in confrontation with error?Indeed, it was Mill who also said, “Both teachers and learners go to sleep at their post, as soon as there is no enemy in the field.”If not out of respect for the progress our liberal truth-finding system has provided us, people should embrace the opportunity to engage with the likes of Wilson out of respect for their own beliefs.Because it is only through such opportunities that our beliefs are honed and improved, like a muscle, gaining strength through repeated exercise.— nperrino@indiana.edu
(04/10/12 11:58pm)
____simple_html_dom__voku__html_wrapper____>It is somewhat unnerving to me the number of times during the past year I’ve had to remind people that hate speech is, in fact, protected under the First Amendment.That’s why I was pleasantly surprised when I read an article on the Bloomington Herald-Times’ website Sunday about Thomas Buhls’ Confederate Heritage Rally, which occurred at the Monroe County Courthouse Square on Saturday.In the article, a counter protester is quoted as saying that many of those protesting against Buhls believed hate speech should not be a protected right.At least he understands that even a message touting white supremacy constitutes protected speech, I thought as I read the article.Indeed, “hate speech,” as the counter protester defined it, is not a category of speech currently recognized under constitutional law.Why?Well, “hate speech” is impossible to define. It is an utterly arbitrary phrase that would be better defined as any speech a listener finds offensive.And, if we censored offensive speech, the First Amendment would protect very little speech, as society’s most easily offended members would determine what speech is worthy of constitutional protections.This, of course, was not the intended purpose of the First Amendment: The First Amendment was ratified to protect unpopular, sometimes offensive, speech — popular speech needs no constitutional protections.In Texas v. Johnson, the famous 1989 U.S. Supreme Court case that invalidated prohibitions against flag desecration, the court stated, “The government may not prohibit the verbal or nonverbal expression of an idea merely because society finds the idea offensive or disagreeable.”And in regard to racism explicitly, one need look no further than a 1991 decision coming out of a federal district court in Virginia to find that such speech is protected.In Iota Xi Chapter of Sigma Chi Fraternity v. George Mason University, a George Mason fraternity was sanctioned by the university for having an “ugly woman contest.”In response, the fraternity challenged the sanctions, arguing that the activity was protected by the First Amendment, and won.In the ruling, the court unequivocally stated that, “The First Amendment does not recognize exceptions for bigotry, racism, and religious intolerance or ideas or matters some may deem trivial, vulgar or profane.”But, as we know, the law did not interest the counter protesters at Buhls’ rally. They understood what the First Amendment protects. They just disagreed with it.I find the idea that we should censor “hate speech” shortsighted.I wonder if those who would do the censoring ever thought of what might happen to them were they ever to adopt an ideology not accepted by the majority.For instance, I know a self-proclaimed Marxist who is outspoken in his dislike for some of the protections extended by the First Amendment. I often chuckle to think that if we were to get rid of the First Amendment, his ideology would be among the first censored.There is a wonderful passage from Robert Bolt’s play “A Man for All Seasons” that illustrates this idea well.In it, Thomas More — a 16th century English chancellor who would eventually be killed by King Henry VIII for not endorsing his divorce to his wife — explains to his future son-in-law, Roper, why he will not break the law to save his own life.“What would you do? Cut a great road through the law to get after the Devil?” he asks. “And when the last law was down, and the Devil turned round on you — where would you hide, Roper, the laws all being flat?“This country is planted thick with laws from coast to coast,” he continues, “and if you cut them down, do you really think you could stand upright in the winds that would blow then?”“Yes, I give the Devil benefit of law, for my own safety’s sake,” Roper replies.While I know many were offended by Buhls’ message Saturday at the square, we should not advocate for censorship of his message. As More so eloquently articulates, cutting down the law to get to those whose messages we don’t like will only hurt us in the long run and turn those being censored into free speech martyrs.As a society, wouldn’t we rather the racists and bigots be allowed to speak so that we know who they are?“Hate speech” is best fought with more speech. Bearing witness to one’s beliefs accomplishes much more than censorship ever could.— nperrino@indiana.edu
(04/03/12 11:13pm)
____simple_html_dom__voku__html_wrapper____>The IU Student Association has received increased scrutiny following the election commission’s announcement in March that only one ticket will be on the ballot for the organization’s elections today.Much of the scrutiny has come from the Opinion pages of the Indiana Daily Student, where the editorial staff has asked fundamental questions about the nature of the 100-year-old organization and the power it has on campus to effect change.In her March 22 column “IUSA, unopposed?” Kelly Fritz wrote regarding the IUSA, “One could argue that who, exactly, is in power doesn’t matter much or that we can’t get that much accomplished anyway.”And on March 28, IDS illustrator Will Royal ran a stand-alone cartoon that built upon Fritz’s argument that when it comes to important issues, the IU Board of Trustees wields ultimate authority, relegating the student government to arguably less important roles, such as putting touch-screen monitors in the Herman B Wells Library and electricity-generating bikes in the Student Recreational Sports Center.These questions posed by the IDS Opinion staff seemingly upset the current IUSA Executive Branch, which felt underappreciated and came together March 28 to write a letter to the editor outlining the “meaningful projects” the organization has worked on throughout the years.While it is important not to trivialize the work done by current and past IUSA administrations that have indeed worked on many meaningful projects, such as the Indiana Lifeline Law and IU student readership program, there is something to be said for how much power the organization really has to work on behalf of students when it comes to the issues most important to us.It seems that this is through no fault of any IUSA administration but rather a University administrative apparatus overseen by the IU Board of Trustees, Bloomington Faculty Council and University Faculty Council that likes to pay lip service to student concerns but doesn’t want to give us any decision-making power.Three issues of student concernDuring the past year, there have been three main issues of student concern to which we, through our elected officials, have been granted little input.In April 2011, the IU Board of Trustees essentially fired University Chancellor Ken Gros Louis when it closed and removed funding for his office. Historically, the chancellor’s office has been one of importance within the University. Once a position filled by the legendary Herman B Wells, the chancellor’s primary function of late has been as a University fund-raiser and resource for students to navigate the University system, often acting as a liaison between students and top-level administrators. During his tenure, Gros Louis fought on behalf of students in founding the Committee for Fee Review, which protects students from unjust fees.That’s why students and faculty were shocked when the IU Board of Trustees fired Gros Louis. According to his original contract in 2006, there was supposed to be a formal review of his position conducted by administrators and the University president after five years.No such review was conducted, nor was anyone outside the IU Board of Trustees — including students, to whom the chancellor’s office was an important service — consulted.A little less than two months later, another important decision affecting students was made without student input or significant decision-making power, this time regarding tuition increases. The IU Board of Trustees approved a stunning 5.5-percent increase in tuition and fees, which was 2 percent higher than the increase recommended by the Indiana Commission for Higher Education.IUSA President Justin Kingsolver expressed his concern following the hearing, which he attended, regarding how much input students had in the process.“Why are we not making the decision?” Kingsolver said. “We are footing one-seventh of the bill. Why are we not asked?”Had students been consulted or included in the decision-making process, we might have offered some insight into services on campus that could be cut to offset or minimize an increase, he argued.For example, between 1993 and 2007, IU has increased the number of administrators per 100 students by 55.7 percent and increased its spending on administrators per student by 57.6 percent in inflation-adjusted dollars.During the same period, IU decreased the number of instructors, researchers and other service personnel per 100 students by 6.7 percent.Had they asked, we might have told the IU Board of Trustees to look to their own ranks for positions or services that could be cut to offset tuition increases. But to expect them to give us such power would be unprecedented and endanger the jobs of their administrative colleagues, unnecessary as they might be.And for a more recent example of an important University issue for which students have yet to be consulted, look no further than the provost search.Former Provost Karen Hansen announced her resignation in September 2011 and officially stepped down in January 2012. Since then, IU has been searching for a permanent replacement while Lauren Robel fills the position in the interim.It has been almost four months since Hansen stepped down, and students have yet to be consulted. The provost’s office is arguably the most important office to students, as it “oversees academic and budgetary policy and priorities and ensures the quality of the faculty and student body by providing leadership in matters related to academic programs and policies, promotion and tenure, faculty recognition, research, university outreach, and student recruitment and retention,” according to the Provost’s office’s website.For such an important academic position, you’d think students would be among the first to be consulted, but according to statements made by Associate Vice President of University Communications Mark Land, it seems students will only be included at some arbitrary time once candidates have already been chosen. And once that time comes, students will have only a limited voice, as any selection committee will consist mostly of faculty and administrators.Land also told the IDS, “One of the challenges is sometimes these searches can take quite a while, and students are more transitory than faculty and staff.”That type of argument for limited student inclusion in important administrative searches should anger students, as it suggests that we cannot speak with a unified voice for an extended period of time about the primary reason for our being here — our education.It might also be important to remind Land that the University serves the students, not the other way around, and that there is no good excuse for marginalizing our input on important University issues.In all three of these cases — the chancellor’s firing, tuition increases and the provost search — IUSA has tried to make its voice heard but had limited success. The University apparatus doesn’t allow student government sufficient power to have any sort of impact.After Gros Louis was fired, IUSA passed a resolution condemning the IU Board of Trustees for making its decision without formal review and asked for it to be overturned.Nothing has come of it.As was already mentioned, Kingsolver complained about the tuition increases that occurred without any student input.Nothing ever came of it.And in regard to the provost search, student leaders, including Kingsolver, wrote a letter March 19 to IU President Michael McRobbie and other administrators “on behalf of the 43,000 graduate and undergraduate students at Indiana University in Bloomington” complaining about their lack of involvement so far in the process.In response, the president’s office essentially told Kingsolver, who told the IDS, that the time for student involvement has not come yet and will only come at a time the office deems fitting.Where does University decision-making power lie?In the grand scheme of things, students have only three positions within the University decision-making apparatus in which they have any real power to help make a meaningful impact.One is on the IU Board of Trustees, where School of Public and Environmental Affairs student Cora Griffin has the sole student-trustee position.The other two are on the Bloomington Faculty Council, which wields legislative and consultative authority on a wide range of issues.In all three positions, the student representatives are vastly outnumbered by their non-student colleagues.If students want any sort of power, either their numbers need to increase within the administrative councils and committees that have legislative and decision-making authority or IUSA needs to be able to create binding resolutions, which could then make their way through the proper channels on the path to becoming IU code.But for IUSA to have that capability, McRobbie would have to give it to them.In September 1987, the IU Board of Trustees gave the IU president authority to make policy and procedural decisions related to the daily governance of the University. It is through this authority that McRobbie could give IUSA more power. For him to do so, however, would be unprecedented.I had my own run-in with this unique University decision-making structure last year when I was co-executive director of legal affairs for IUSA. My team’s main task that year was to reform University policies regulating expression on campus that run afoul of the First Amendment.Since this was strictly a student issue, the student government assumed the reforms fell under its purview.Alas, we were wrong.For any policy changes to occur, we first needed to go through the Student Affairs Committee of the Bloomington Faculty Council, then to the Bloomington Faculty Council itself and finally to the IU Board of Trustees for approval.Unfortunately, the process stopped when the Student Affairs Committee — of which, ironically, no student is a member — told us to go to an unrealistic number of student and administrative groups to get their approval, as if our rights from the U.S. and state constitutions depended on such consensus.When it’s all said and done, IU student government only has the authority to collect $100,000 from students and spend it however they wish. It can’t even change basic student codes, such as those regulating campus expression.This money has gone to programs as wide-ranging as bus-tracking systems, electricity-generating bikes in the SRSC, bike-sharing initiatives and seminars about GLBT issues.These are all great additions and add value to our college experiences, but my tuition goes up each year, my chancellor’s job as a student advocate has been compromised, I have no say in who will be developing my educational programs in the future and my constitutional rights are being infringed upon.These are the issues that really concern students. These are the issues for which our voices should be heard.So instead of everyone going back and forth about how important or unimportant IUSA is, we should instead be organizing for basic structural reform of how the University makes its decisions.It would be great to have an IUSA ticket campaign on that basic premise.— nperrino@indiana.edu
(03/27/12 10:48pm)
____simple_html_dom__voku__html_wrapper____>With just more than a month left of school, many of us are looking forward to the time away from homework and tests that summer has provided us every year since our education began.But is the summer recess we have come to love a good idea?The 19th-century education reformers who were responsible for the break believed so. Former U.S. Commissioner of Education Edward Jarvis published a report in 1871 that documented 1,741 cases of insanity. Of those cases, he believed “over-study” was to blame for 205 of them, which led him — and many others — to conclude that “Education lays the foundation for a large portion of the causes of mental disorder.”According to Malcolm Gladwell, author of “Outliers: The Story of Success,” this belief led reformers to advocate for a long summer break and shorter winter break, mimicking the breaks in the agricultural year that follow the fall harvest and spring planting seasons that so many at the time were accustomed to.The breaks, according to the reformers, would prevent the mind from becoming exhausted and slipping into insanity and have remained ever since.But in eastern Asia, where people were used to working year round, planting two to three crops a year, according to Gladwell, such a program for mental rest was never adopted.We can see this contrast in the number of days we in America spend in school each year compared to our eastern counterparts.In the United States, schools, on average, are in session 180 days a year. That is the minimum number of days required by Indiana.But in the east, in countries such as Japan, South Korea and China, kids spend a minimum of 243, 220 and 200 days a year in school, respectively.When you add up the days through the course of a K-12 education, children in South Korea spend close to 800 more days in school — more than two full years of extra classroom time.But what do fewer days in school mean, you might ask?Well, it’s hard to know, but the least you could say is that more days don’t hurt performance as reformers once thought. If you look at the research coming out of the Organization for Economic Co-operation and Development, which reports about student achievement in math, science and reading across the globe, the United States’ scores continue to slide compared to eastern countries with longer school days, suggesting that longer school years actually improve performance.Of the 34 other developed nations tested, American students rank 25th in math, 17th in science and 14th in reading, far below countries such as South Korea, China, Singapore and Japan in all categories.Research also suggests that summer breaks might also be a contributing factor to the achievement gap between students in poor and middle/high socio-economic classes.In a study led by John Hopkins University sociologist Karl Alexander, students from low, middle and high classes in the Baltimore public school system were assessed in math and reading. In the process, Alexander found that while in school, students from all classes performed about the same, with poor students often out-learning students from wealthier families.But coming back from summer break, Alexander found something interesting. Scores from students in the lower socio-economic classes fell dramatically compared to their richer peers, whose scores tended not to fall at all, suggesting that summer breaks disproportionately affect poorer students who might suffer from a less involved home life.And when you aggregate that discrepancy through many years of summer breaks, you can see how poorer students will continue to fall further and further behind where they are supposed to be in their education, thus exacerbating the problem.Long ago, the United States led the world in academic achievement. But since overseas economies have begun to grow and rise out of third-world nation status, we, like those poor kids in Baltimore, are beginning to fall further and further behind.In a global economy in which students in Indiana often compete against students in Shanghai for jobs, this slide should be cause for concern.Often, we hear it argued that we need to spend more money on education to propel ourselves back to the top. But of those 34 nations assessed in the OECD study, only Switzerland spends more than the United States on education per pupil.Since 1971, the United States has increased its per-pupil, per-year education spending by roughly 125 percent, with almost no change in student performance in math, science and reading during the same period.In 1961, the United States spent, on average, $2,769 per pupil in 2007-08 inflation-adjusted dollars. In 2006-07, that number had risen to $10,041, while in Newark, New Jersey spending has reached $23,141 per pupil.So if spending more money on the same failing education structure doesn’t work, and tweaking the structure with programs such as No Child Left Behind doesn’t work, either, why not try changing something more meaningful, such as the school calendar?Longer school years — and days — aside from their effects in the east, have worked for charter school programs in America such as KIPP, which has 109 schools in 20 states.At KIPP NYC, 95 percent of students perform at or above their grade levels in math, far above the New York state average of 57 percent for 3-8 graders. If it works for KIPP and eastern countries, why wouldn’t it work elsewhere?According to OCED, if American students performed 5 percent better on their international assessments, it would translate into a $41 trillion boost to the American economy during the next 20 years.In these tough economic times, can we afford not to do what is necessary to better educate our children, especially if it means a huge boost to our nation’s economy?Sure, if we wanted longer school years then we would need to pay teachers more, but the extra revenue the government generates from the boost in economic productivity would pay for that.And sure, there would probably need to be a conditioning phase where students learn to adapt to longer school years, but if 32,000 KIPP students can do it — many of whom come from some of the most disadvantaged communities in the country — so can the rest of us. Nevertheless, it is time to change how America does education. Perhaps in a way that means goodbye to summer.— nperrino@indiana.edu
(03/19/12 10:35pm)
____simple_html_dom__voku__html_wrapper____>The debate about a piece of legislation that would introduce a statewide smoking ban to Indiana saw compromise just before spring break when the state senate passed a watered-down version of the bill exempting bars and casinos.But even with the compromise, the new bill, which was signed into law by Gov. Mitch Daniels on Monday morning and will go into effect July 1, still does little to address concerns about private property rights.We must be wary anytime the government expresses an interest in telling property owners what they can and cannot do and allow on their property — especially when it comes to otherwise perfectly legal things such as smoking.Superficially, a smoking ban might sound like a good idea. People hear “no more smoking in public places” and think, “Wow, that’s a good thing. Smoking is bad. I support that.”However, government mandates such as this could set a precedent for additional intrusions that, although well intended, could further erode the sacred institution of private property.If the government can come into your home or place of business and tell you what otherwise legal things you can or cannot do, what else can it do? Can you really call something “private property” if the government controls the decisions of the owner?Granted, the government goes into restaurants, hotels and workplaces all the time to, for instance, make sure kitchens aren’t infested with rats and cockroaches and ensure that there are handicap accessible entryways.Personally, I’m OK with these intrusions. After all, it’s hard for a patron to know how sanitary a restaurant’s kitchen is and handicapped people can’t help the fact that they are handicapped. For the same reasons, I’m perfectly OK with the provision in the 1964 Civil Rights Act that desegregated hotels, restaurants and other privately owned public places.But there is a big difference between these intrusions and a smoking ban. Smoking is always out in the open. Visitors know if an establishment allows it as soon as they walk in the door, and from there they can decide to give them their patronage or not.It is also voluntary, unlike race and disability.What it all comes down to are balancing tests. Does encouraging integration outweigh the damage that will be done to private property by mandating that property owners serve people of all races? Yes, I believe it does.Now, does the same test, which pits encouraging less smoking against private property rights justify legislation such as the statewide smoking ban?I’d say no.After all, what is the point of the smoking ban? To encourage healthy habits and environments, no?If the government decides to get into the business of policing a person’s health and is willing to go into private businesses where people voluntarily choose to be among smokers even if they themselves do not smoke, where does it end?Would the same rationale for the smoking ban not also justify its going into restaurants and bars and telling the owners what food and drink they can and cannot serve or that they can only serve food with so many calories or so much trans fat?When you look at it, it’s really not all that different from the government going into a business and telling its proprietors they cannot allow people to smoke.In addition, would the same rationale not also justify the government telling overweight people that they can’t eat this or that food?But still, some supporters would argue that the ban passes the balancing test because the act of smoking isn’t something confined solely to the smoker. True: Secondhand smoke does exist and does have negative health effects.But as I said, the decision to patronize or work at smoking establishments even for non-smokers is completely voluntary. People don’t have to go to these places. And for those who refuse, certainly there are businesses that profit from welcoming the smoke averse into their non-smoking establishment.If the government wants to limit smoking on government property, that’s fine by me. I don’t see any problem with that. But it becomes a slippery slope when it starts getting into doing the same for privately owned property. And if one is willing to defend the legislation that sets the ball rolling down that slope, he or she must also be willing to defend all of its consequences.— nperrino@indiana.edu
(03/07/12 1:52am)
____simple_html_dom__voku__html_wrapper____>The Indiana Lifeline Bill, S.B. 274, spearheaded by IU Student Association President Justin Kingsolver, was introduced to help encourage students to be responsible if one of their friends is dangerously intoxicated and in need of medical attention.While that bill awaits the governor’s signature, another government action, this time on the part of the Indiana State Excise Police, seeks to discourage responsible behavior.The new program, which was rolled out Feb. 6, called Intensified Collegiate Enforcement, or ICE, “is intended to expand previous efforts to reduce underage possession and use of alcohol” in the IU, Ball State and Depauw University communities, according to the department’s website.To do this, additional excise police will be deployed in these communities with the priority of seeking out alcohol-related infractions.While efforts to curb drinking are laudable, to discourage the use of designated drivers — which is exactly what this program does — is counterproductive and dangerous.The crackdown, according to IU’s Student Legal Services, has resulted in an uptick in the number of students being pulled over for things such as having license plate lights out or too many people in the backseat.This is done not because the police care that a license plate light is out. Rather, they are looking for drunken people, even if they are not the driver.Director of IU Student Legal Services Randy Frykberg said most students looking to go out and have a good time responsibly by having a designated driver don’t realize that their designated driver means nothing if they get pulled over and are drunk in the passenger seat.This is because in Indiana any passenger — of-age or otherwise — who is intoxicated can receive a ticket for public intoxication if the passenger tells the officer he or she has been drinking and consents to a Breathalyzer test. And many people do consent because they don’t know they don’t have to.Frykberg said students don’t realize that police officers need a warrant to search their vehicle and that only the driver is required to submit to a Breathalyzer test with the presumption of guilt if he or she refuses to.“IU students answer questions thinking that if somebody in a uniform with a badge asks them questions that they’re obligated to sing like a bird, and they’re not,” Frykberg said.“You need to tell the officer what your name is, and the officer can ask you for identification. You don’t have to say ‘Yes, I’m in the midst of committing a crime.’ Our system is not premised on your having to do that.“The police always say, ‘We can do this the easy way or the hard way,’ and what they mean is, ‘We can do this the easy way or the hard way for me, the police officer.’”Aside from suspicious pullovers that have nothing to do with erratic driving behavior, there has also been an increase in the number of tickets issued under another strange law.The law says that underage drivers cannot transport any alcohol, even if it’s unopened and in the trunk of the car, and even if it’s in, for instance, a passenger’s jacket and they don’t know it’s there.The crackdowns by these two laws alone have drastic consequences for all students who depend on designated drivers.After all, what students — especially those who are underage — are going to want to risk going out of their way to help their intoxicated friends by giving them a ride if the police are going to punish them for it, or at least make their life more difficult?And for intoxicated students, even using an IU safety escort can get you in trouble if your escort is pulled over.While it’s nice that the Indiana State Excise Police would like to create a sober utopia in Bloomington and other ICE communities, they need to realize that many well-intentioned efforts can have consequences worse than those problems they are trying to solve. Prohibition, which ironically the Indiana State Excise Police was created to enforce, is the greatest example of this. It saw the rise of a criminal underworld that took decades to stamp out.Indiana would be well served to eliminate some of these laws that discourage the use of sober drivers, but in the meantime it can do good by ending programs such as ICE.— nperrino@indiana.edu
(02/29/12 12:00am)
____simple_html_dom__voku__html_wrapper____>It’s happening again.Another student group — this time at the University of Cincinnati — is filing suit in federal district court against its school for maintaining and enforcing unconstitutional “free speech zones.” The lawsuit comes after Christopher Morbitzer and his university’s chapter of Young Americans for Liberty were told by campus authorities to stop gathering signatures for a statewide “right to work” ballot initiative unless it was done within the confines of the university’s free speech zone.The group was told if it didn’t limit its ballot initiative to the free speech zone, which requires registration five days in advance and consists of only 0.1 percent of campus, “Public Safety (would) be contacted.”It is surprising that after numerous findings of their unconstitutionality both in and outside of court, universities continue to maintain free speech zones.According to a federal court case challenging a free speech zone at Texas Tech University, a judge in Texas’ Northern District ruled against such zones, stating, “to the extent the campus has park areas, sidewalks, streets or other similar common areas, these areas are public forums, at least for the university’s students, irrespective of whether the university has designated them or not.”Like the University of Cincinnati, IU also maintains seemingly unconstitutional policies regulating campus speech.One such policy restricts free speech to only two areas of IU’s 1,933-acre campus: Dunn Meadow and the Sample Gates.Such restrictions — when there are numerous other public areas on campus that meet the precedent cited above — are extreme. In the 1989 Supreme Court case Ward v. Rock Against Racism, the justices found that, for a university to justify regulating campus speech, the policies must be “narrowly tailored to serve a significant governmental interest” and must “leave open ample alternative channels for communication.”One has to wonder what significant government interest is served by IU’s limiting free expression to only two areas of campus.What’s worse, in only one of those two areas — Dunn Meadow — can students engage in spontaneous speech.And even that “liberty” is made uncertain by other policies in the Student Organization Handbook that say otherwise.For instance, the outdoor campus events policy says that for events in Dunn Meadow, a registration form must be filled out and submitted to the Student Activities Office a minimum of 10 business days before the event.Another policy in “Appendix D: Free Speech Policies and Guidelines” says “organizations planning a protest march or demonstration on campus should contact Student Life and Learning 24 hours in advance.”So what is it, IU? Is it spontaneous, as the trustees so designated it? Or must one register 24 hours or 10 days in advance? How is a student, or even an administrator, for that matter, to know?As we have seen, according to the law, all public areas of campus should be free speech zones. And not only that, they should be spontaneous free speech zones. After all, how else are students and faculty supposed to respond to unfolding events on campus if they cannot congregate?Imagine if a student group wanted to have a vigil in Dunn Meadow the night of Sept. 11, 2001. Would it be permissible under the policies requiring prior registration?While it might seem like IU does not always enforce these policies, their mere existence creates a chilling effect, whereby students or faculty who wish to speak or assemble don’t do so for fear of being reprimanded.If IU wishes to avoid lawsuits similar to the one levied against the University of Cincinnati and also desires to remain in accordance with its responsibilities under the First Amendment, it would be well served to eliminate its free speech zones and open up all public areas of campus to assembly and demonstration.— nperrino@indiana.edu
(02/22/12 5:00am)
____simple_html_dom__voku__html_wrapper____>I don’t usually attend student conferences of any sort.As a self-described moderate libertarian, I’m used to being surrounded by people who generally disagree with me. So, when a friend of mine asked me to attend this year’s annual International Students for Liberty Conference, I was unsure how I felt about it.The idea of spending a weekend among 1,000 people who, for the most part, hold the exact same beliefs as me sounded uninteresting at best and torturous at worst.And, unfortunately, I wasn’t entirely wrong in my prediction.There are some things about the libertarian movement I don’t like, which — given my minority status at home, on campus and in the community — I don’t usually have to deal with. These aren’t particular policy issues. On those, for the most part, I think libertarians are right. Rather, I take issue with the way they carry themselves. And at this weekend’s conference, these bad tendencies were out in force.At the conference this year, the Fox Business show “Stossel” decided to do a taping. You might remember the host, John Stossel, from his days on ABC’s “20/20.” For the show, Stossel chose to bring on some guests with whom presumably most libertarians would disagree — the idea being to start a debate. He brought on a member of the socially conservative Family Research Council and former U.S. ambassador to the United Nations John Bolton.Unfortunately, things didn’t go as planned.As Stossel began asking these guests questions and they responded with answers that didn’t track libertarian ideology to the “T,” they were harangued by the audience of close to 1,000.People booed the guests’ every answer, shouting “dirty statist” from the far side of the room and lecturing them during what was supposed to be a Q&A portion of the show. At one point, the executive producer even had to stop the show to come out on stage and remind people to act respectful to their guests.The whole ordeal made me feel as though I was teleported back to the late 1980s and was on set at “The Morton Downey Jr. Show” rather than at a conference full of young idealists and intellectuals.And here lies the biggest problem with libertarians: For all they say regarding the rights of the individual, they can’t stand it if someone disagrees.It almost seems as though many of them believe that if you don’t come to the same conclusions regarding particular policy issues, there is something intellectually wrong with you deserving of public ridicule.Now, this might be symptomatic of all people who are strong proponents of one political ideology or another.But unlike liberals or conservatives, for example, libertarians are a fringe political movement. They can’t afford to paint themselves in a negative light. They should be doing everything they possibly can to endear themselves to non-libertarians.Calling the former U.S. ambassador to the U.N. a “dirty statist” on national television, however, will not accomplish this. It won’t convince anyone to agree with you. It will only make them stronger political opponents.If libertarians want to be taken seriously, first they must separate themselves from the anarchists who hang around in their midst pretending to be libertarians. Second, they must take themselves seriously.Carrying one’s self with respect and dignity, and not ridiculing others if they hold differing beliefs than you, is one place to start. Milton Friedman was a great example of this, and that was why he was such a great messenger for the movement.I truly believe that most people are libertarians. I believe that most people are in favor of liberal social policies and a government that lives within its means. However, when the ambassadors for the libertarian message are disrespectful, the message, no matter its virtues, is tarnished.Hopefully, after watching the Stossel show air on Thursday, libertarians will realize this and will be shamed into changing their ways.If not, I’ll just write columns like these and pray for the best.— nperrino@indiana.edu
(02/14/12 11:39pm)
____simple_html_dom__voku__html_wrapper____>It is unfortunate that many would probably agree with German satirist Ludwig Börne, who wrote that history serves no purpose other than to provide income to historians and book dealers.To these people, history seems like little more than a catalog of mankind’s injustices and follies.And this is understandable: The methodology of teaching history as a dismal leapfrog from tyranny to tyranny, war to collapse, has become so pervasive both in primary and secondary schools that it has done nothing to engender its appreciation.But, if understood properly, history is much more than that.It is the study of humanity, of our attrition despite thousands of years of varying degrees of growth and decline. Of our thankless labors that may not provide us riches, but nevertheless drive civilization forward.And, of course, of our heroes — of those who make so lasting a contribution to human knowledge and invention that we can only provide our thanks in post-mortem reverence.Because history is the study of humanity, its usefulness cannot be relegated to contemplating the past.It is a laboratory crowded with a million experiments to understand 6,000 years of man’s impassioned motivations, which are the same passions that continue to motivate man today.When our founders began drafting our Constitution, they understood it was not a constitution for the order of government but for the order of man.And such an order cannot be successfully achieved without first properly understanding his nature.For this, they looked to the laboratory of history and found Rome: the story of an empire whose trudge up and down the hills of greatness is unparalleled.It was there that they came to understand the peril of professional armies, the nature of unchecked democracy, the malleability of unwritten law and the virtues of a strong, albeit limited, executive.It was our founders’ enlightened understanding of history that propelled our nation to greatness in 150 short years — far fewer than it took their ancient exemplars to do the same.And had this understanding of history also extended to our current leaders, perhaps our armies would not have begun their futile march into the mountains of Afghanistan, the graveyard of empires — a place not even Alexander the Great, warrior nonpareil, could pacify.But more than mere political insight, history gives humanity reasons for hope.After all, it is only a student of history who can paint the picture of relativity that reminds those who preach the gospel of decline and despair that it was not long ago that all of civilization was more or less confined to a few mountaintop monasteries in Europe.If civilization can survive in such desolation, what in this present day do we have to fear?For me — and so many other students of history who understand its true nature — the study of the past, echoing Jacob Burckhardt, is in large measure poetry.Poetry that can be found in the unrequited love of Dante, the musings of Plato, the steadfastness of Thomas More and even ourselves, in which our heritage is inextricably tied and cannot be understood without.So, next time you pick up a book of history, don’t think of it as a tragedy, but rather a comedy. Or poetry, in which the story of humanity is told and the future envisioned.— nperrino@indiana.edu
(02/08/12 2:46am)
____simple_html_dom__voku__html_wrapper____>As school boards and teachers prepare to institute the reforms passed by the Indiana state legislature last session, grumbles from educators can already be heard.For a group that claims to have the best interest of students in mind, you’d think a reform package that is almost identical to the one passed by Jeb Bush in Florida would have them ecstatic.Bush’s reforms caused a 21-percent increase in the state’s overall high school graduation rate and a 400-percent increase in students who take and pass AP exams. The reforms also caused a nation-leading 47.2-percent increase in combined gains in math and reading for free and reduced lunch eligible children between 2003 and 2009, according to the National Assessment of Educational Progress.When it comes to advancement in education, it’s hard to argue with Bush’s success in Florida. Even the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation has recognized it through support of his Foundation for Excellence in Education.So, why are teachers so vocal in their opposition to the same reforms in Indiana schools? Hint: It has nothing to do with how the reforms will affect the quality of education. Rather, it has everything to do with how it will make them more accountable for their performance. No longer will teacher pay necessarily be determined solely by how many years a teacher has been teaching or how many degrees they have. Those factors can contribute to no more than 33 percent of teacher pay. The rest will be determined by other factors such as student success.Because of this, some teachers are upset because the state incentive for getting post-graduate degrees is now not as great as it once was.Although, if the point of getting a master’s degree in the first place is to become a better teacher, that should come across in merit pay, right? If it does not, doesn’t it demonstrate that having a post-graduate degree does not necessarily make one a better teacher?And if it does not make one a better teacher, aren’t we glad taxpayers are no longer paying for the degree?Similarly, when teacher reductions need to happen, performance will take precedent, not tenure. “No longer will the least effective teacher in the school be treated as the most effective,” Superintendent of Public Instruction Tony Bennett said.Some also argue this system will increase competition among teachers because it creates four categories into which they can be placed: “Highly effective,” “Effective,” “Improvement necessary” and “Ineffective.”My question to them is, why will it increase competition?It’s not like principals are required to place a certain number of educators in each category. Nobody wants to mischaracterize teachers. If all teachers in a school corporation improve their students’ relative performances, they will all be rewarded. So, why the need to compete against one another?The only competition will take place between schools as a result of the new school voucher system that empowers parents to send their children to the school they think is best for their child. This means schools must compete for students, which adds another layer of accountability. And this is a good thing: When in our history has competition ever not improved the product?But it’s important to note that student success isn’t the entirety of the equation either. Rather, it is one of many metrics that will go into determining teacher pay. Each individual school board in consultation with teachers and the community will determine the other metrics, which, as I noted, can include seniority and number of degrees. In this way, each community can determine how best to keep their teachers accountable, taking into account diverse local factors.This discussion will continue until the reform results start to trickle in. If they are anything like the results in Florida, Hoosiers should rejoice and similar education platforms focused on accountability should be passed throughout the country.— nperrino@indiana.edu
(02/01/12 5:00am)
____simple_html_dom__voku__html_wrapper____>When President Barack Obama asked Steve Jobs at a Silicon Valley dinner party last February what it would take to make iPhones in the United States, Steve Jobs’ response was terse, yet honest.“Those jobs aren’t coming back,” he said.In a Jan. 21 article entitled, “How the U.S. Lost Out on iPhone work,” the New York Times investigated the reasons for Jobs’ response.Through interviews with Apple executives and other industry insiders, the investigation revealed interesting causes for the decline in manufacturing in America that run counter to the popular narrative.While, yes, labor is cheaper abroad, companies don’t go to places such as China and Taiwan for that reason, as many politicians would have you believe.Rather, according to the New York Times, they go because they find a labor force better suited to factory work. They are more “flexible,” “diligent” and properly educated than their American counterparts.This is not to say Americans are uneducated. Instead, they are too educated.According to Martin Schmidt, associate provost at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, the ideal industrial engineer has some level of post-secondary education, but not necessarily a bachelor’s degree. In the U.S., he said, that type of worker is hard to find and mobilize.According to the New York Times, when Apple began manufacturing the iPhone, it needed 8,700 industrial engineers to coordinate 200,000 factory workers. In the U.S. it would have taken nine months to find those workers. In China, it took 15 days.But the move away from manufacturing in the U.S. is not necessarily a bad thing. Economies dependent upon manufacturing are often found within societies in transition: Great Britain in the 19th century, America in the 20th and China today.Manufacturing leads to higher standards of living, stable lives and, after a while, a better-educated, more self-aware workforce whose skills and accustomed lifestyles put them above the often mundane, labor-intensive work typically found in factories and on assembly lines.In this way, these once-vibrant manufacturing-based economies become service-based economies where the work requires higher skill sets and the functional demands of the job are less labor intensive.It was not long ago that our grandparents and great-grandparents occupied this transitory role. They welcomed factory jobs because they saw in them an opportunity to rise up the socio-economic ladder. They put in long hours doing the same mundane work for years, if not decades, until their retirements. For them, these were stable, well paying jobs that their parents never had available to them.But their kids, like kids of all generations, wanted something more for themselves. They weren’t content with merely a stable job that brought with it livable wages, they wanted something more challenging and less monotonous, so they went to college.In college, they developed skills above that which is required to work an assembly line and, as a result, became over-qualified for the jobs their parents so hopefully sought after.Thus, the path from a manufacturing-based economy to a service-based one is an enlightened, educated path that expects more of its travelers than a life on the assembly line.Countries such as China — that are now in the process of rising up from the grinding poverty that gripped many other pre-industrial nations — see manufacturing jobs as an opportunity for a better life just as our grandparents and great-grandparents did.They have no problem living in factory dormitories working 12-hour days because it offers something new: an opportunity.It’s a necessary rung upon the ladder to prosperity. And later, once the manufacturing generation’s kids and grandkids begin the process of molding their futures, they, too, will look for something better.This is the story of life: Parents wanting for their kids a life better than their own, and their kids expecting it.In this way, we should not lament the loss of manufacturing jobs but instead recognize it for what it is: evidence of our continued advancement as a society and an opportunity for other nations to follow suit.— nperrino@indiana.edu
(01/25/12 12:46am)
____simple_html_dom__voku__html_wrapper____>“What type of sources should we use?” asks the student.His class was just assigned a research paper and told it needed to use five outside sources.“Are online ones okay?”“Online sources are fine so long as they’re reputable,” the teacher responds. “Things like Wikipedia don’t count. Just use common sense, and you’ll be fine.”If you’ve sat in a classroom sometime in the past eleven years, chances are this conversation is familiar to you. It happens almost every semester, in every class that requires even the smallest amount of writing.Teachers and professors like to pile on criticism of Wikipedia and use it almost every opportunity they get to discuss untrustworthy sources. And if you didn’t know better, chances are you’d listen to them and think of it as an online bastion of untruths, unapologetically spreading lies throughout the unassuming populace.But a 2005 investigation by “Nature,” a weekly international science journal, suggests this is not the case.The investigation found that the open-source online encyclopedia rivals the expert-written Encyclopædia Britannica when it comes to accuracy and prevalence of serious errors.Since 2005, Wikipedia has grown to include more editors, more articles and more readers.You see, the common argument from Wikipedia critics is that because anyone can edit an article on the site, the content is unreliable. This line of thinking stems from the antiquated 20th century belief that experts are more worthy of our trust than societal consensus when it comes to everything from basic facts to innovation.But the open-source movement, a by-product of the digital revolution, has blown this idea out of the water. Products like the Firefox web browser and the mobile-based Android operating system, which depend on a wide community of volunteer coders and hackers to maintain and improve the products, have demonstrated that great products can be created without experts on corporate payrolls.In this regard, Wikipedia is similar. Aside from a couple of the more popular articles that require basic registration, anyone can edit it. Therefore, the site depends on the consensus of society rather than a few anointed experts.And, as the safety and popularity of Firefox and Andriod suggest, and as the “Nature” investigation reveals, this can be a powerful way of doing business.My roommates and I were introduced to this power last year after we moved into our new house.There had been a running joke among us since we moved in that we were fighting an ongoing war against the cave crickets that lived amongst us.For those not familiar, cave crickets are spidery-looking insects that live in damp areas — often basements — of old homes. Admittedly they can be pretty scary. Because they’re blind, they’re often oblivious to your presence and will jump on you if startled. There are a lot of them in Bloomington, so chances are you’ve seen one.Anyway, my roommates and I renamed them “cave spider monsters” and one day decided it might be funny to rename them on Wikipedia, too.Because Wikipedia is “open-sourced,” our new name went up online. But, much to our surprise, it wasn’t up long. Within hours it was taken down, and the correct name restored.This surprised me.After all, the cave cricket article is a somewhat obscure article, which at the time I was sure probably wasn’t terribly well maintained.But I was wrong. The community that oversees each Wikipedia article is very serious about what they do, and every time something is changed, they are alerted.Anyone who has ever viewed the editors’ discussion behind a Wikipedia article knows what I’m talking about. They take the facts seriously.In this way, despite what your teachers might lead you to believe, it is hard to insert false information in Wikipedia and let it stand for very long.Also, every assertion of fact within an article requires a citation. If it has no citation, Wikipedia will let you know about it at the top of the page in bold type that the article is in need of additional citations for verification.So, while yes, it is always good to find a diverse range of sources to support your arguments within your research papers, don’t be afraid of Wikipedia. It is more reliable than many people think.— nperrino@indiana.edu
(01/13/12 5:00am)
____simple_html_dom__voku__html_wrapper____>You hear them loud, and you hear them often. Whether they are protesting the company’s circumvention of state sales tax laws or its use of mobile applications to undercut competitor prices, the Amazon haters cannot be silenced.I feel a special connection to Amazon. Ever since I began to enjoy reading in high school, Amazon has been my go-to place to find almost any book I’m interested in, regardless of whether it’s still in print.That’s why, when the Amazon haters began jumping on the company for what they are calling the destruction of independent bookstores, I felt compelled to defend them.There’s no doubt that independent brick-and-mortar bookstores are dying. Even the large corporate ones are struggling. Borders went out of business last year and Barnes & Noble is now talking about separating their e-book and physical book businesses into two separate entities. But while many see them as the last guardians of local literary culture, I see them as the antiquated vestiges of our paper-saturated past.Amazon is not killing independent bookstores, our digital modernity is. And while there are certainly some negative consequences of this, Amazon is not one of them.I think of independent, brick-and-mortar bookstores much in the same way I think of typewriter sellers right as computers were becoming popular: Yes, I feel bad that those people are losing their jobs, but is society really worse off now that we have computers?Amazon makes reading cheaper and easier. I feel safe in saying that were it not for Amazon, I wouldn’t read nearly as much. The process of driving to a bookstore, which I haven’t always been able to do because I haven’t always had a car, in and of itself is a deterrent.On top of that, the additional cost one incurs when purchasing books from a brick-and-mortar store (sometimes double what you pay on Amazon) makes buying books expensive and inefficient.But aside from the inefficiencies and frustrations that Amazon helps book buyers avoid, it also contributes to the greater diffusion of knowledge.Before the digital revolution, publishers had to go through the brick-and-mortar bookstores to get their books into the marketplace. Bookstores, however, only had finite shelf space. That meant that only those books that were more popular — which tended to be those put out by the large publishing houses — got on the shelves, while the other lesser-known titles and publishers were left out to dry.With Amazon, there is no finite shelf space. That means almost any publisher can sell its books on Amazon, large or small, respected or not respected. Even authors who don’t have publishers but publish independently have the ability to sell their works on Amazon. This means that the marketplace for books has become richer, and the opportunity for the books to reach the masses has become greater.Let’s not forget that Amazon also led the way in the e-book revolution with its release of the Kindle in 2007. While the device may contribute to the death of bookstores, it certainly contributes to the life of many trees and to the intellectual development of many people. Anyone who owns an e-reader, Kindle or otherwise, knows that for some reason they help readers read faster, which means more books are read, which means more knowledge.There are some people who just like the atmosphere bookstores provide and care not for their costs and inefficiencies. These are the people who will always reject the Amazons of the world. And I can empathize with them. I, too, like to periodically peruse through interesting bookstores to see what treasures I can find — but these stores aren’t going anywhere.There will always be those niche bookstores that exist to cater to bookstore-lovers’ needs. For the rest of us who, for the most part, don’t care and just want to get our books in the most efficient and cost-effective manner, there will be Amazon.— nperrino@indiana.edu
(01/10/12 5:00am)
____simple_html_dom__voku__html_wrapper____>Newt Gingrich slammed Ron Paul for what Gingrich claims is Paul’s “systemic avoidance of reality,” in a CNN interview with Wolf Blitzer.While Gingrich touched on many of Paul’s views during the interview, he reserved special admonition for the representative’s foreign policy positions.He particularly criticized those regarding Iran, which he claimed “are totally outside the mainstream of virtually every decent American.”The former speaker said Paul’s views are dangerous for America because they suggest America had a role to play in the rise of radical Islam in the Middle East.For Gingrich, and most Republicans for that matter, anything short of “they hate us for our freedom” is “America-blaming” and unfit for the public narrative regarding American foreign policy.For a man who has a Ph.D. in history, you’d think Gingrich would know better than to supply such a simplistic rationale for the rise of radical Islamic regimes in the Middle East, but alas, he does not.So, in lieu of a nuanced, contextual understanding of American foreign policy from the speaker, I’ll provide a history.In 1953, at the request of the British Secret Intelligence Service, the American CIA carried out a coup d’état to remove from power the democratically elected Prime Minister of Iran, Mohammad Mosaddegh.The British government was unhappy with Mosaddegh because he sought to nationalize the Iranian oil supply that, since 1913, had been under British control.As a replacement for Mosaddegh, the United States and Great Britain installed an authoritarian military government overseen by Reza Shah Pahlavi.The Shah ruled with an iron fist for 26 years until 1979 when the Iranian people overthrew him and installed the vehemently anti-western Islamic Republic of Iran, which rules Iran today.In response to growing anti-western sentiment in Iran resulting from the Shah’s 26-year dictatorship, the U.S. looked to Saddam Hussein in neighboring Iraq to help limit Iranian influence.To the CIA and the British, Hussein was an asset, “a presentable young man,” and, most importantly, anti-Iranian.It wasn’t long before Iran and Iraq were at war.And to bolster Iraq’s efforts, President Ronald Reagan sent a special envoy to the Middle East, Donald Rumsfeld, to offer Iraq weapons and intelligence.Meanwhile, in Afghanistan, the U.S. was fighting an additional covert war, this time on the side of the Mujahideen against the Soviet Union.The Mujahideen were eventually successful in their efforts because the U.S. was able to supply them with FIM-92 Stinger missiles that hampered Soviet movements long enough for them to outlast the Soviet’s economic means.As was the case with Iraq and Iran, the Mujahideen would not remain American allies forever.Today, some Mujahideen still exist in the form of al Qaeda and the Taliban.You see, part of the U.S. effort to defeat the Soviets in Afghanistan also consisted of radicalizing the Afghan people.To do this, the U.S. set up schools teaching radical Islam with the help of four million books printed in the U.S.These books spoke of jihad and, according to the Washington Post, taught students “to count with illustrations showing tanks, missiles and land mines.”From this radicalization effort, we got terrorist groups bent on jihad against the West. The CIA calls such unintended consequences of foreign operations, “blowback."This history is critical to understanding the context of our current foreign policy, which extends much further than what has happened in Iran, Iraq and Afghanistan during the past 50 years, which space prevents me from discussing.The anti-western Muslims in the Middle East don’t hate America because we’re free and prosperous.Rather, as former CIA bin Laden unit chief, Michael Scheuer, and Osama bin Laden himself pointed out, the reactions we get from radical Islamists in the Middle East today in the form of terrorist attacks and anti-western sentiment spawn directly from years of U.S. involvement in the region.How would we feel if the Chinese were as involved in North America as we are in the Middle East, going even so far as to overthrow some of our democratically-elected governments?Before Republicans and Newt Gingrich condemn Ron Paul and any American who agrees with him as indecent for their hesitancy to go to war with Iran, I suggest they sit back and look at the history of our involvement in the Middle East and ask themselves if another war in the region is a good idea.One look should suggest the answer is pretty obvious.— nperrino@indiana.edu
(01/10/12 5:00am)
____simple_html_dom__voku__html_wrapper____>A friend of mine summed up the dilemma facing Republicans this year as well as anyone. He said most true conservatives, if they had a gun put to their head and were told to choose between Mitt Romney and Rick Santorum, would say, “Pull the trigger.”The not-so-funny-thing, however, is that it’s not entirely a hypothetical scenario if you disregard the gun. It’s precisely the choice conservatives are being forced to make as they head to the polls in New Hampshire: Choose between one incredibly flawed, hopelessly unoriginal candidate or his ideological twin.And, believe it or not, it’s a choice most conservatives are making.I have a lot of conservative friends. For the past three or so years, I have listened to them go on about how Pres. Barack Obama is spending us into bankruptcy, weakening our national defense and destroying our capitalist system. It makes me laugh because many of these same people now support Romney or one of his mutations for the Republican nomination as if they were any different than Obama. As if they didn’t support the bailouts, the endless spending and the bloated defense budgets.What I’ve learned from listening to these “conservatives” is that most Republicans will vote for any candidate the establishment churns out so long as he or she has an “R” next to his or her name. To hell with principles, consistency or voting records. If he or she is electable, that’s all that matters, because after all, beating Obama is the most important thing. Pay no attention to the fact that the current candidates are essentially Obama, and Obama is essentially Bush.I believe many of these people secretly would like to support one of the un-anointed candidates, such as Jon Huntsman, Ron Paul or even the popular, two-term Libertarian governor of New Mexico Gary Johnson, but fear the effects such an endorsement would have on their standing within the Republican Party. As if being a “yes man” like John McCain is something that impresses people and wins their admiration.For conservatives who pride themselves on open, and often public, admiration for America and its institutions, you’d think they would have more respect for perhaps the most important American institution of them all: Democratic elections. For a citizen of the United States, one of your most important responsibilities is voting every four years for the individual whom you believe to be best capable of leading this country as commander-in-chief.Yet, rather than doing just that — voting for the candidate their conscience tells them is most suitable — many conservatives instead use elections as a means to reinforce their establishment credentials.I cannot even begin to recount the number of times I’ve heard someone say, “Yeah, I like everything he stands for, but I just don’t think he is electable, so I’m going to vote for establishment candidate (fill in the blank).”The people who vote based on electability rather than ability are irresponsible Americans who (dare I say it?) do not deserve the right to vote. As an American citizen, you owe it to your country to vote for the candidate who you believe is best suited for the position, regardless of where he or she stands in the polls or his or her party membership. A vote for any other reason is irresponsible as a U.S. citizen.While I’m far from being optimistic that Republicans will abandon the presidential choices they’ve been given by the Republican establishment this year and rediscover their core principles, I’m looking forward to using the elections in New Hampshire and here at home to determine who the real conservatives are: The ones who wouldn’t take either option in that not-so-hypothetical scenario between Romney and Santorum.— nperrino@indiana.edu
(12/06/11 11:54pm)
____simple_html_dom__voku__html_wrapper____>For Spartan males, adolescence was a trying time. Ripped from the arms of their mothers at age seven, they would be enrolled in the agoge system, where for the next 10 years they would be trained in preparation for life in the Spartan military.At 17, their training would be put to the test in what was known as Krypteia. The boy would be sent into the countryside with a knife and told to kill as many helots — Spartan slaves — as he could. If he returned to his school without detection, his training was finished, and the boy would become man.For Spartan males, Krypteia was a rite of passage into manhood, a culminating moment in which he drew upon all the knowledge and training acquired during adolescence.For males today, there is no such culminating experience. Asked what rites of passage exist today to help youngsters make the transition into manhood, one might respond with, “when he graduates from college,” “when he gets married,” “when he buys his first suit” or “when he gets his first real job.”Unfortunately, however, these traditional modern rites of passage are being pushed further back as men are taking longer to graduate college (if at all), waiting until later in life to get married and have children and even postponing moving out of their parents’ houses until into their late 20s.This leaves males in a metaphorical no-man’s-land between boyhood and manhood. Young males are desperate for some type of culminating experience, that moment when they realize they have made that exciting transition away from boyhood and can now be dealt with and given the responsibilities of a man.Instead, we have men who are adrift. Unsure of how to perceive themselves in the larger structure of society, they remain where they are comfortable and know how to operate. They avoid responsibility and prolong boyhood.We see this evidenced in today’s jobless statistics. According to the U.S. Labor Department, the number of women in the workforce surpassed the number of men last year. And today, males with high-school diplomas between the ages of 20 and 24 have an unemployment rate of 15.6 percent, more than the 12.6 percent for women of the same age.While these numbers can’t be attributed solely to the lack of rites of passage for males — the inadequate supply of proper male role models in our culture is also a contributing factor — I believe there certainly is a connection. One we see play out every day here in Bloomington.Many young males in college refuse to accept the responsibilities that come along with manhood. They dress as if they are still 14, sit in front of the television and play “Call of Duty” all day, spend four nights a week out at the bars, get grades that are just good enough to get by and treat post-graduation as if it is never going to come.Had these young males undergone a rite of passage that alerted them to their transition into manhood, perhaps the situation wouldn’t be as it is now. If nothing else, they would at least start thinking of themselves as men, and hopefully, as a result, start carrying themselves as men, too. This, in turn, would alert their communities and potential employers that they are ready to shoulder the responsibilities of men.Harvard Professor Harvey Mansfield defined manliness this way: “Manliness seeks and welcomes drama and prefers times of war, conflict and risk,” he said. “Manliness brings change or restores order at moments when routine is not enough, when the plan fails, when the whole idea of rational control by modern science develops leaks. Manliness is the next-to-last resort, before resignation and prayer.”Sadly, this type of manliness is far too absent in “men” today, and inevitably, our society suffers because of it. Were there more legitimate rites of passage, this deficit, I’m certain, could come close to being overcome.— nperrino@indiana.edu
(11/29/11 9:57pm)
____simple_html_dom__voku__html_wrapper____>Face it, privacy on the Internet doesn’t exist. While there is no shortage of people willing to complain about this consequence of the digital revolution, there exists a minority of us who recognize it for some of its benefits.Recently, Facebook has been pressured by the Federal Trade Commission about how it manages its users’ information. If you’re a Facebook user logged into your account, Facebook inserts what are commonly referred to as “cookies” into your browser. One cookie, known as the session cookie, gathers the personal information that you give to the website and your preferences, as indicated by “likes.” Another cookie, known as the browser cookie, gathers information about your screen resolution, browser type and operating system. The same cookie also collects time and date information in connection to any URL that has a Facebook plug-in.Many Facebook users, and the FTC, are concerned about the invasiveness of these cookies, but these users don’t understand that these cookies help make the user experience better.Facebook gathers this information for a reason. The information allows it to combat abuses within the website associated with phishing scams and fake accounts. It also gives Facebook information to prevent or limit the damage associated with viral weblinks, such as the ones responsible for infecting many accounts with porn and violent images just a few weeks ago.While the browser cookie, as of now, is not used to help Facebook target ads, the session cookie is. Therefore, only the information you explicitly give Facebook is used to generate revenue.Other companies, however, do utilize a user’s browsing history to help generate ads, even if the user doesn’t explicitly give them permission to. For instance, Google uses clickstream data to improve search results and help advertisers target ads to those who would be most interested in seeing them.If you use Google as frequently as most people do, you should be thankful for this. Were it not for the information that you unwittingly provide Google every time you click on a link, Google would not be the powerful tool it is today, and you would most likely be spending much more time searching for relevant information on the Internet.Likewise, without this information, advertisers, who pay for most of the websites we visit every day, might not be so willing to invest advertising dollars in the Internet. Tracking data gives institutions like Google the ability to provide advertisers with the information necessary to assure, for instance, that a gay dating website does not advertise to straight users.Data is powerful, and with the invention of the Internet, there is plenty of it. Many fear this development. But in reality, even before the Internet was a staple of our lives, we possessed no real privacy.In 2008, I interviewed Fred Cate, an IU law professor and director of the IU Center for Applied Cybersecurity Research. Cate told me the Fourth Amendment, which protects our right against illegal search and seizure, has become outdated. “Back in the 1970s, the Supreme Court held that the Fourth Amendment didn’t apply to data unless you possessed it yourself, so the court said if somebody else had it, then it must not be private, or else you wouldn’t have let someone else have it,” Cate said.The way I interpret this in the digital age is to mean that visiting a website is akin to visiting a brick-and-mortar store. It’s a public act — you willingly give away your visit and your profile of information (your data), just as when you walk into a store you give away your physical characteristics and any other information that can be deduced from that.Except in the case of the Internet, institutions, such as Google and Bing, can aggregate information from all the “stores” you visit to more accurately serve you. This is mutually beneficial. On the one hand, it saves businesses money by connecting them to potential customers. And on the other hand, it connects users with information that is relevant to our lives.While there are certainly some aspects of this data boom to be worried about — such as where our credit card information goes and government tracking — data mining by Facebook and Google is not one of them.— nperrino@indiana.edu
(11/16/11 12:45am)
____simple_html_dom__voku__html_wrapper____>When Steve Jobs announced the iPad in January 2010, he said Apple stood at the intersection of technology and the liberal arts. What he didn’t realize, though, was that such an intersection no longer existed — the two streets had already converged to create a single superhighway with no speed limits and no exits.Like Jobs, most liberal arts colleges and universities have yet to catch on to this convergence. Their curricula, which are supposed to supply students with a well-rounded, holistic education, instead provide students with an antiquated view of the world where technology sits within its own compartment, separate from the “more important” core subjects like math, science and English.Most of us here at IU are very familiar with the requirements for receiving an IU degree: We all need to take a composition course like W131, we all need to take M118 and we all need culture studies classes, A&H classes, S&H classes, N&M classes, a couple of foreign language classes and an intensive writing course.But what about a computer science course or some other course that educates in contemporary technological developments and processes? The average adult spends seven hours a day using technology — almost half of the 15 hours and 45 minutes we spend awake on an average day — yet most of us are uneducated as to how these technologies work.Many students, unless their specific major requires it, don’t know how Google spiders crawl the Web to provide users with their search results. They don’t know how information is calculated in spreadsheets, and they don’t know how to set up something as simple as a home network.We use these technologies every day, and they are an integral part of everything we do. There isn’t a department at IU that doesn’t use technology or the Internet in one way or another, yet a student can go four years without being required to take a single course explaining in depth how any of these technologies work.Even if your major places a lot of emphasis on the use of technology, you can still find yourself behind the times. I am a student in the School of Journalism, and after almost four years, I am shocked by how little I’ve learned from the school regarding modern technology. It’s no wonder the journalism industry continues to hemorrhage money: The schools that educate the workforce are inept at adapting to the digital revolution. It’s not enough to teach a journalist how to use a Flip cam and a digital camera. That isn’t educating for the future.Educating for the future means teaching journalists about text and data analysis, yet there aren’t any classes in the school that teach students how to develop a spreadsheet and use SQL queries to discover interesting information across a number of databases. There aren’t classes to teach students about text analytics and search engine optimization. There is only one class every semester, open to only 18 people, that teaches students about Web development and no classes that go in depth to explain how social networks can be integrated into a newsroom operation. Hell, it has been three and a half years, and I have yet to learn something as simple as how to set up a newspaper page (although I was told I was supposed to be taught that in J210 — I was not).With the unemployment rate for 16- to 24-year-olds at 16.7 percent, and with tech companies continuing to be the engine for growth in the United States, it would behoove universities to incorporate tech training into their core curricula. They might even want to consider allowing classes in programming languages to count toward the foreign language requirement. Long ago, liberal arts schools scratched Greek and Latin from their core curricula because they were no longer necessary to become a well-educated person. It is now time to make a similar transition, this time to include more classes that educate in modern technologies. IU President Michael McRobbie has a history in this field and is perfectly positioned to make the necessary changes. The question is, will he?— nperrino@indiana.edu