Thursday, November 29, 2012

Wired.com Names Laura Hudson Culture & Entertainment Editor

Daughter Laura continues to move her career through the world of online entertainment journalism. Earlier this year, she left her position as Editor-in-Chief of the best-of-class blog site Comics Alliance, which she founded and built for AOL/Huffington Post to address the world of comics, graphic novels, and the movies that follow from them. She wanted to do more freelance writing as she had occasionally done for Publishers Weekly, The Los Angeles Times, Complex magazine and, yes, Wired magazine.

But a funny thing happened on her way down that new road: a car named Wired.com stopped and asked her if she wouldn't rather take a ride with them as their new Culture and Entertainment Editor. An offer, an opportunity, that would be hard to turn down.

And after the requisite soul-searching, she accepted the offer, of course. She recently moved to the San Francisco area, spent Thanksgiving with us at brother Adam's house in Irvine CA, and began work at Wired this past Monday. So, from Brown to Toyohashi, Japan to New York City, then to Portland, OR, and now San Francisco.* That's my girl, and I'm very proud of her.

Click the following link to see the announcement:
http://www.minonline.com/news/Wired-com-Names-New-Culture-and-Entertainment-Editor_21528.html

[* Following her brother Adam's peripatetic example: he from Colby to Amica where he has worked in their Boston, Rhode Island and Ann Arbor, MI offices, was general manager of their West Coast call center in Spokane, WA, and now is Southern California sales and service manager in Costa Mesa, CA. I'm very proud of him, too. We raised our children to follow their opportunities, and the lessons seem to have stuck!]

Narrowing Notions of Higher Education & Narrowing of the American Mind

More and more, entering college students tie their choices of degree program and curriculum to its immediate prospects for employment and salary. Those choices have too often become narrowly utilitarian, and oriented too much to short-term horizons. Too often, they forego a broader education and the valuable skill set offered in the liberal arts. There the focus is more on analytical reading, critical thinking and effective writing about the world from a science, social science, humanities, mathematics and historical perspective. And that provides the kinds of knowledge and skills that make you better and wiser at whatever you choose to do professionally, and in serving your family and community, too. More, it just opens more horizons for exploration and enjoyment, for life-long learning and better understandings.
 
It’s easy to understand the phenomenon. It also makes some sense, even if only along a very narrow path of thinking and decision making for the here and now. Given the increasingly out-of-reach cost of higher education for low- and middle-income families and students, and given the realities of a struggling economy and the lack of jobs for college graduates, it‘s even more understandable.
 
The fact that there are now educational research data available that reveal which degree programs and which majors usually command the highest salaries is only fueling the march to misguided notions of a higher education experience and its value. Of course, that is not the purpose of this research and data, but that is the purpose to which it has too often been misappropriated.
 
A recent article in the Chronicle of Higher Education addresses both these issues: the narrow thinking about what constitutes a good education, and the misappropriation of data that supports it. It begins with a hypothetical job interview:
 
"I'm in it for the money," she explains. "I make all my choices on the basis of how much I can expect to earn. I chose my major based on earnings reports. I applied for this particular position because you pay more than any other company in the region. Actually, I'm a bit sorry that I didn't stop with a two-year degree, since I read in the newspaper last week that I could have made almost as much in my first job with half the time spent on college. I hate thinking about all the time I wasted."
 
You have no difficulty deciding not to hire this new graduate. The job applicant who arrives talking money first, money only, lacks common sense, and career sense, too. And yet our candid candidate did nothing more than parrot—with chilling accuracy and very recent data—the current national dialogue about what really matters in college.
 
---“The Narrowing of the American Mind,” by Carol Geary Schneider, The Chronicle of Higher Education (10.22.12)
 
But Ms. Schneider understands fully the social and economic backdrop for the expansion of this kind of thinking among prospective and new college students. And while she sees great potential value in the broader sets of data that research will produce, she is very concerned about its narrow, short-term application by prospective or new college students. From the article:
 
With Americans now experiencing acute anxiety over jobs, money, and our larger future, policy analysis and public discussion of higher education—from the White House down—have focused with laser-like intensity on the connections between college and earnings. The U.S. Department of Education has led this effort with its "gainful employment" regulations—ostensibly aimed at for-profit excess, but all too clearly a blunt instrument waiting to be used on all parts of postsecondary education.
 
Over the past year, numerous wage studies have analyzed which majors correlate with the highest earnings. And last month, the American Institutes for Research [AIR] helped produce an even more finely honed analysis, which ties specific programs—for example, business or health—in specific Tennessee colleges to the wages that graduates earned when they entered the job market. Virginia has announced its own program-level wage-data system, and other states are poised to follow.
 
The larger development behind the AIR study is the emergence of unit-record systems that can tie together, over time, information about an individual student's educational history and other parts of her postgraduate history, including employment. Speaking only for myself—the Association of American Colleges and Universities has taken no position on unit-record systems—this is potentially a very positive development. Given the importance of higher education to America's ability to compete, we urgently need the capacity to track achievement by individuals, and not just by institution.
 
There is good reason to worry, however, that if these systems focus on only a few data points—such as students' major fields and salary levels—they will end up distracting attention from the very components that matter most in education: individual opportunity, the health of our democracy, and economic vitality and resilience.
 
And Ms. Schneider also points up the problems with an approach to higher education that is more likely to fulfill short-term income hopes than the best long-term interest of the individual and the nation. The article, in closing:
 
The basic problem with the recent spate of wage studies is that they start not with a full analysis of what society needs from its commitment to college, but rather with data sets that are now available and can be correlated…
 
The fact is that society needs many kinds of talent and knowledge development from the nation's colleges. This is a global century, so wherever a student enrolls and whatever the major, college needs to help build citizens' global intelligence—the knowledge and skills to navigate an era of economic interdependence and cross-cultural intersection. This is a science- and technology-fueled century, so everyone needs science, technology, and mathematical savvy and experience. This is a democracy, so students' ability to engage in collaborative civic problem solving is, in the long run, just as important as their capacity to engage in job-related problem solving. This is an economy where innovation is all-important, so students must develop adaptive and problem-solving skills in addition to critical thinking and quantitative capacities.
 
In short, whatever students choose as their particular majors, we need to ensure that their choices—majors and core studies combined—help them develop all these capacities. We need to make sure, in short, that college provides students with an opportunity-creating education—a liberal and liberating education—and not just with knowledge specific to a particular field.
 
Even if we focus strictly on the learning needed for success in the economy, employers who advise the Association of American Colleges and Universities' work on educational quality emphasize that the major is only a part of the job-success equation. What they really want to know, they say, both in national surveys and in focus groups, is whether a graduate can tackle new questions and complex problems. Have graduates developed the capacities and commitment not simply to apply what they learned in their majors, but rather to keep pace with the dizzying pace of change in every field, in organizational ecologies, and in the wider society? Are graduates ready for a lifetime of new learning that will challenge them to make connections across many kinds of evidence and many areas of endeavor?
 
Wage studies that look only at the graduate's choice of major may well accelerate the narrowing of the American mind at the very moment in history when multidimensional learning—liberal learning—has become essential to success.
 
[Carol Geary Schneider is president of the Association of American Colleges and Universities.]
 
Amen, and Amen.
 

Saturday, November 24, 2012

The "Cliff," the Deficit, and Progressive Tax Reform

We’ve talked a lot about the dismal state of American political leadership, and the despair it has brought us. And even those of us who take heart in the flashes of strong leadership President Obama showed earlier in his first term, and see his potential and promise, feel that too often he has lacked boldness and strength. But this is his time, if there is truly to be one. The opportunity, the necessity, is a bi-partisan deal to avoid the “fiscal cliff” and set in place the first substantial step to a plan that will wisely and effectively reduce our gaping budget deficit, but without throwing us back into recession. And just as important, we’ll need the same brand of leadership from Speaker Boehner. It is his time, too.
 
We know from the debt ceiling debacle that Mr. Boehner can be worked with and can be reasonable. And now he is as empowered as he will ever be to bring his party to the table. The nation demands it. And I believe he will. But the President has to be open to the Speaker’s opening bid of tax reform as a way to raise tax revenue from the financially well off. And I believe he will be. I’m sure Mr. Obama is well briefed on the long-term benefit and rightness of tax reform that would jettison a lot of inefficient, wasteful tax benefits (deductions, credits and exemptions) for various industries and well-off individuals.
 
Just as much revenue could be raised in that manner, and it leaves us with a stronger tax structure in the end. Yes, it would be good “liberal” politics to raise the rates on high-income folks, and it could contribute to the deal, but it would be more progressive in fact to reform the tax code—and have the Republicans taking or sharing the lead on it. That way, you get revenue and reform. Better, much better. (And by the way, some or all of those individual deductions—the home mortgage interest deduction, for example—could and likely would be means-tested or capped so as to still be available for lower- and middle-income families.)
 
A few issues ago, The Economist presented its well-researched, thorough and even-handed treatment of economic inequality and the implications for economic growth. A notable element of their prescription for needed change in the U.S. was tax reform. In the more recent November 17 edition, they follow up on that prescription with a “Leaders” editorial and a complementary article in the “United States” section. From the Leaders piece:
Setting a cap on deductions is a better starting point than raising tax rates. 
[…] Mr Obama has long argued that repairing America’s finances will require raising more tax as well as cutting spending. Influential Republicans, most importantly including John Boehner, the Speaker of the House, now appear to agree. This comes not a moment too soon. In less than two months America will reach a “fiscal cliff”, when George W. Bush’s tax cuts will expire and automatic spending cuts will take effect (see article). The economy could suffer a fiscal tightening of as much as 5% of GDP over a full year, easily enough to bring on recession. 
Before any deal to avoid this can be struck, though, big issues must be resolved. What categories of spending are to be cut? And, on the revenue side, which taxes should go up? Ever since taking office, Mr Obama has pressed to make Mr Bush’s tax cuts permanent for 98% of households while ensuring that the wealthiest 2% pay more. Mr Boehner says that tax rates should not go up for anyone; but he is open to raising revenue by eliminating tax breaks. The good news is that there may be a deal to be had that meets both objectives. 
Returning the two top marginal rates to 36% and 39.6% from their current 33% and 35% would hardly capsize the economy, but it is not the most efficient way to raise revenue. At the margin, higher rates discourage work and investment and encourage tax avoidance. It would be better to revamp the tax code, starting out by leaving marginal rates alone and instead raising revenue by curbing the deductions and exemptions that pockmark the system and cost the Treasury as much as $1 trillion a year in forgone revenue. These “tax expenditures” are camouflaged government subsidies and create damaging distortions: the mortgage-interest deduction, for instance, encourages supersized houses and debts to match; the charitable deduction forces taxpayers to subsidise everyone else’s pet cause, whether that be Planned Parenthood or the George W. Bush presidential library; and the tax break for employer-provided health insurance helps fuel the relentless rise in health-care costs. 
[…] Cap in hand 
There are many routes to reforming these exemptions. One would be to single out particular tax breaks for elimination. But the likelihood is that the process would crumple under the onslaught of lobbyists who defend every loophole, resulting in too many exceptions and too little revenue. An easier first step would be to cap all deductions, an approach advanced by none other than Mitt Romney. Set at $50,000 such a cap would raise some $750 billion over ten years, estimates the Tax Policy Centre, a think-tank—more than would be obtained by restoring the top two rates to pre-2001 levels. The cap would barely touch the bottom 60% of taxpayers while only slightly hurting the upper-middle class. Most of the money would come from the top 1%. 
---“Higher taxes the easier way,” The Economist, Leaders section (11.17.2012) 
 At the cost of some redundancy, let’s look at the second article, which explores the contours and possibilities of a political deal, and also shares the estimated budget impact of various reforms or changes to the tax code. From the article:
Barack Obama and Republicans grope towards common ground on taxes 
THE election dust had barely settled when Barack Obama and his Republican adversaries returned to their traditional rhetoric over taxes… Optimists, however, took note of what the men did not say: Mr Boehner did not rule out raising tax revenues. Mr Obama did not explicitly insist that the two top income tax rates, now 33% and 35%, return to 35% and 39.6%, as they are scheduled to do when George W. Bush’s tax cuts expire at the end of this year. 
This has aroused hopes that the two men can find common ground on tax reform that leaves marginal tax rates where they are while raising new revenue by curbing credits, deductions and exemptions (collectively called tax expenditures), which distort economic activity. Numerous such proposals have been aired in recent years, some of which Republicans hated because they raised new revenue; others Democrats rejected because they gave a windfall to the wealthy. 
One way this could be done is to target deductions that primarily benefit the rich. During the election campaign, Mitt Romney proposed paying for big marginal rate cuts by setting a cap on total deductions. The Tax Policy Centre, a think-tank, reckons a cap of $50,000 would raise $749 billion over ten years, comparable to the $800 billion that Mr Boehner entertained during failed negotiations with Mr Obama in 2011. Importantly, this fix would make the tax system much more progressive: 80% of the additional money would come from the top 1% of earners. This has helped draw interest from some Democrats. 
A slightly different proposal by Martin Feldstein, a prominent Republican economist, and Maya MacGuineas of the Committee for a Responsible Federal Budget, a think-tank, would cap the tax benefit of itemised deductions at 2% of income for all households. Mr Feldstein reckons that would raise more than $2 trillion over ten years, although almost all families would pay more tax, not just the rich.
 
 
As it happens, Mr Obama has already proposed curbing tax breaks for the wealthy (see table). His budget would restore the limits on their exemptions and deductions that Mr Bush’s tax cuts eliminated. A separate proposal would limit the tax benefit of deductions for mortgage interest, charitable contributions, municipal bond interest, employer-provided health care, and individual retirement plans to 28%, even for taxpayers paying a 35% or 39.6% marginal rate.
Despite their superficial appeal, such proposals face daunting obstacles. Foremost is that they may not raise enough revenue to satisfy Mr Obama. In the run-up to formal negotiations due to begin on November 16th, Mr Obama signalled he would begin by asking for $1.6 trillion in revenue over the coming decade, as his latest budget does. At a press conference on November 14th, he said “it’s very difficult to see how you make up” the revenue lost from failing to restore the higher rates just by closing deductions: “The math tends not to work.” But, he added, “I’m not going to just slam the door” on alternatives that accomplish what he wants. 
 The second obstacle is the calendar. Politicians are racing against a year-end deadline when Mr. Bush's tax cuts are triggered. The collective fiscal tightening, if sustained, could push the economy into recession. Even if the two sides agreed that tax reform would be the main vehicle for raising more revenue, the task would be too complex to accomplish by year-end.  A smaller deal would be needed to avert the cliff, leaving bigger tax and entitlement changes for next year. The challenge then would be to bind the hands of both parties to consummating a big deal next year.
For all the appeal of curbing loopholes, each has vocal and influential defenders. When the Obama administration first proposed its 28% cap on tax expenditures, “we got killed,” Peter Orszag, Mr Obama’s first budget director, recalls, in particular by charities and non-profit groups. For Mr Obama and Mr Boehner, finding agreement with each other may very well prove to be the easy part.  
---Opening bids,” The Economist, United States section (11.17.2012)
A form of capping or means-testing along those lines, or for some of those items, is likely what Mr. Obama has to be ready to work with if he is going to have credibility and success at the bargaining table. But if lobbying and politics deny the deal sufficient revenue from tax reform, then Mr. Boehner and the Republicans will have to show flexibility on increasing tax rates for high-income individuals to some material extent. Both the Dems and the GOP must engage and partner responsibly to get something useful and lasting done. Courage and flexibility in leadership must in fact to be present and on display by both sides. It’s about successfully restoring and strengthening the country—not party or ideology, not selfishness or political victory. Let’s hope that sentiment is sufficiently shared to carry the day.

Monday, November 5, 2012

"O Captain! My Captain!" On Political Duty, Courage and Leadership

Yesterday the words kept coming to me: "O Captain! My Captain!" Perhaps it
was the two Lincoln biographies that faced me from the shelf, or the new and
promising movie about him. Or perhaps it was just the dejection, the
dispirited hangover of a political campaign season marked to an unnerving
degree by an abundance of purposeful mendacity and misdirection of the
electorate. Perhaps it was also the polarized, polarizing and dysfunctional
public process of government that has costumed itself as serious
representatives and servants of the public, and more unlikely still, as
statesmen. Sadly, precious little resembling public responsibility, courage and honor is to be found in our politics or governance.

More likely it was all those things, and a book of "best loved" poetry
recently read also facing me from the shelf. But the current state of
government affairs, bereft of political courage and leadership as it is, was
doubtless weighing heavily on my subconscious. (Yes, Mr. Obama offers promise, but promise as yet unfulfilled.)

So why wouldn't Abraham Lincoln come to mind, even if indirectly? Something
more like the leadership of Lincoln is what we hope for in our too quiet
desperation. It is what we need.

"O Captain! My Captain!" was Walt Whitman's poetic tribute to the fallen
President Lincoln, to the end undaunted in his duty, and likely first in
political courage among our presidents. It is only possible for me to
consider today's American leaders in the same discussion with the good Mr.
Lincoln for the purpose of pointing out how far they fall short of the
mark.

With that introduction, Mr. Whitman's poetic lament:

O Captain! My Captain!
O Captain! my Captain! our fearful trip is done;
The ship has weather'd every rack, the prize we sought is won;
The port is near, the bells I hear, the people all exulting,
While follow eyes the steady keel, the vessel grim and daring:
            But O heart! heart! heart!
               O the bleeding drops of red,
                   Where on the deck my Captain lies,
                       Fallen cold and dead.
 
O Captain! my Captain! rise up and hear the bells;
Rise up—for you the flag is flung—for you the bugle trills;

For you bouquets and ribbon'd wreaths—for you the shores a-crowding;
For you they call, the swaying mass, their eager faces turning;
            Here Captain! dear father!
               This arm beneath your head;
                  It is some dream that on the deck,
                     You've fallen cold and dead. 
 
My Captain does not answer, his lips are pale and still;
My father does not feel my arm, he has no pulse nor will;
The ship is anchor'd safe and sound, its voyage closed and done;
From fearful trip, the victor ship, comes in with object won;
             Exult, O shores, and ring, O bells! 

                But I, with mournful tread, 
                   Walk the deck my Captain lies, 
                       Fallen cold and dead.
How distant the time and how far our lost wandering from the leadership of
Lincoln to what pretends to political leadership today. We too should loudly
lament its passing. And we should demand better.

Sunday, November 4, 2012

A Poem of Hafiz, A Teaching of Paul (Revisiting a 2009 Post)


Would You Think It Odd? *
 
Would you think it odd if Hafiz said,
 
"I am in love with every church
And mosque
And temple
And any kind of shrine
 
Because I know it is there
That people say the different names
Of the One God."
 
Would you tell your friends
I was a bit strange if I admitted
 
I am indeed in love with every mind
And heart and body.
 
O I am sincerely
Quite crazy
About your every thought and yearning
And limb
 
Because, my dear,
I know
That it is through these
 
That you search for Him.
 
 
The Apostle Paul, in Colossians 3
 
[Y]ou laid aside the old self, with its evil practices,
and put on the new self
who is being renewed to a true knowledge
according to the image of the One who created him—
 
a renewal in which there is no distinction
between Greek and Jew,
circumcised and uncircumcised,
barbarian, Scythian, slave and freeman,
but Christ is all, and in all.
 
And so,
as those who have been chosen of God,
holy and beloved,
put on a heart of compassion, kindness, humility,
gentleness, and patience;
bearing with one another, and forgiving each other,
whoever has a complaint against anyone;
just as the Lord forgave you, so also should you [forgive].
 
And beyond all these things,
put on love,
which is the perfect bond of unity.
And let the peace of Christ rule in your hearts,
to which indeed you were called in one body,
and be thankful.

 
 
* From I Heard God Laughing: Poems of Hope and Joy (1996, 2006), poems of Hafiz as freely interpreted in English by Daniel Ladinsky.
 
 

The Economist's Unenthusiastic Presidential Endorsement: Barack Obama

In a difficult call for them, and saying that America could do better than Barack Obama, The Economist has nonetheless endorsed the re-election of "the devil we know" rather than candidate Mitt Romney, whom they do not feel can be known, understood, or predicted--and on whom there are so many frightening political claims to support bad policies by those at the ideological or political margins of the GOP or conservative groups. But the publication gives both credit and criticism even handedly, providing a fair review of the things the President has done well, the things that should have been done, and those that now must be done.

I'm a little surprised by the endorsement, but relieved and pleased by it. There have been tentative signals in a number of articles. But candidate Romney left them with too little to build a principled, consistent and confident case on the key issues of our time--and too little to know who he now is. They had no other choice, not really.
 
Link to article:
 

Time Magazine: The Case for Obama, The Case for Romney

Time magazine offers us two strong and well-informed advocates, each making the case for his candidate. These authors, and an endorsement by The Economist to follow, may help you broaden or sharpen your understanding of the men and the issues.
 
First, making the case for presidential candidate Mitt Romney is Rich Lowry, the editor of the National Review, a respected conservative publication:
 
Link to article:
 
Second, making the case for President Barack Obama's re-election is E. J. Dionne Jr., a Washington Post columnist, author, and professor at Georgetown University.
 
Link to article:
 
 

Fiscal Austerity: A Deficit of Common Sense | The Economist

We hear so much about the need to responsibly reduce the budget deficit. Some are unmovable in their support of cold, program reducing austerity or tax increases, others intractable in their arguments for economic stimulus. The Economist explains that under a range of different circumstances, one or the other could be the better answer--or a combination of both. But with interest rates so low, the recovery so fragile, and program reform nowhere in sight, it appears clear austerity is the greater threat to America right now, especially as we must soon look over the so-called "fiscal cliff."
 
Link to article:
 
 

Thursday, November 1, 2012

Of Swans, and Love, and Such Things

How long do you have to read and reread a poem before it shares its truth with you? For a poem that holds promise, as long as it takes. In this case, three years.
 
 
Swans* (by Mary Oliver)

They appeared
   over the dunes,
     they skimmed the trees
       and hurried on

to the sea
   or some lonely pond
     or wherever it is

       that swans go,

urgent, immaculate,
   the heat of their eyes
     staring down
       and then away,

The thick spans
   of their wings
     as bright as snow,
       their shoulder-power

echoing
   inside my own body.
     How coud I help but adore them?
       How could I help but wish

that one of them might drop
   a white feather
     that I should have
       something in my hand

to tell me
   that they were real?
     Of course
       this was foolish.

What we love, shapely and pure
   is not to be held,
     but to be believed in.
       And then they vanished, into the unreachable distance.
 
 
*From Evidence, Poems by Mary Oliver (2009)