LifeItself

In Part I , I criticized current framing of disputes about the future of public higher education.  Now it's time for a positive proposal.  I will show you that private and public schools cannot be easily compared and should not be included in the same rankings.  As you will see, these unrealistic rankings compare equivalents of a leisurely weekend runner jogging at 5 miles per hour (private schools) with a hurried man barreling down a freeway sixteen times faster at 90 miles per hour.  It is impossible to apply the same criteria to the behavior and priorities of both. In my mind, current university rankings by the U.S. News and World Report should be soundly repudiated by public universities acting as a group, and a case should be made to split the ranking lists of private and public universities.  I am assuming here that we will continue to insist on numerical measures of academic success, however incomplete and distorted these measures are.  That's beca...

The dominant contemporary narrative in the U.S. was delineated 42 years ago by Lewis Powell in his August 23, 1971, confidential memo to the Chamber of Commerce. No one I have talked to in the U.S. knows anything about this memo, but several people in other countries do. As the Powell memo instructs its confidential readers, there should be a concerted effort to bring our side of facts (our facts?) to fore regularly, with high intensity, and from many seemingly independent sources: "The conscious and intelligent manipulation of the organized habits and opinions of the masses is an important element in democratic society.  Those who manipulate this unseen mechanism of society constitute an invisible government which is the true ruling power of our country." Edward Bernays, Propaganda , Chapter 1, 1928. In this vain, for a while now, it has been fashionable to put down OPEC and Russia, and tout eternal oil and gas abundance in the U.S.  Here are but three recent exampl...

Yesterday, I inadvertently looked at the TV screen in my house.  MSNBC was on, and Brian Williams said something funny about how stupid and empty TV news has become.  He aged very well.  The last time I saw him, he was 5-7 years younger.  Now you know how much TV I consume. After about 5 minutes, the 10 o'clock news was on.  The news started from giving us an overview of the deadly Nile virus that has been truly decimating us poor Texans.  We were told how we should fear the virus, mosquitoes, walking outdoors, wearing shorts and short sleeves, and being near water - especially stagnant water.  A 90-year old woman in Dallas was reported to have died of the virus. Next, they showed a guy, who was younger than my wife or me. The guy told us how concerned he was for his life.  An older woman followed and spouted out how she too feared for her little old life. Being an eager student of Edward Bernays , and other younger experts in propaganda and m...