Weekend Notes

Posted on June 21, 2010 by Ron Byrnes

U.S. OPEN

• I was off Friday and spent some of the day prepping for 17’s Graduation Open House and some fantasizing about being at Pebble Beach. As great as the visuals were, listening to Chris Berman do the U.S. Open is excruciating. I’m sure he’d be a fun guy to play poker or watch football with, but he obviously did not grow up playing golf. I can take “We’re all just Dustin’ in the Wind Johnson” but I can’t take the “He shot a 9” and “That’s the second snowman there of the day!” and the “back, back, back” urging of a short putt. No one shoots anything on an individual hole. One MAKES a nine. And pros occasionally make eights, not snowmen. This is a MAJOR, not the Bristol Municipal Club Championship. Listening to Dick Vitale is soothing by comparison.

• Also on Friday, very interesting ruling involving Paul Casey’s chip on 14. Brutal uphill chip with zero margin of error. Casey hits it a tad chubby and in frustration hits/repairs the divot a few times. In the ensuing ten-fifteen seconds, the ball backs all the way off the green, eventually to almost the exact spot. Viewers alert the rules officials that Casey has improved his lie. Penalty? Rules officials huddle with Casey after the round, review the particulars of the two shots, and ask him whether he hit/repaired the divot in order to improve his lie in case the ball returned to the exact same spot. Based upon his body language they didn’t think so, and so they weren’t surprised when Casey confirmed that. There really was no way Casey could have known the ball would return to exact same spot. The rule is it’s a penalty if there’s intent is to improve one’s lie. I hereby declare that before wives rip husbands and daughters ban fathers from speaking in public that they adjust for intent.

WORLD CUP

• After reading the comments about my “it’s poor form to complain about officiating” post, I’ve changed my mind. Merty’s comment in particular reminded me of the NBA/FBI/Tim Donaghy fiasco. I’m sure there’s far more $ coursing through World Cup matches than NBA games. Maybe the Malian ref who blew the call at the end of US/Slovenia is cut from Donaghy cloth. So here’s my revised axiom. Whenever athletes are amateurs, it’s poor form to complain about officiating. The corollary is “The younger the athletes, the poorer the form.”

SCHOOLING

• I understand it’s sociocultural/historical roots, but I’m still amazed at how prevalent individualism is in our schools especially when future success will inevitably hinge on interpersonal intelligence. The OHS awards assembly and graduation (where the same award winners were feted a second time) reminded me of that. Why is it that teamwork and groups are only emphasized in extracurricular activities? Our success in solving pressing social, economic, and environmental challenges hinge mostly on team/group work. Sarason’s concept of the “regularities of schooling” comes to mind. A “regularity of schooling” is some feature of teaching and learning that we no longer question, it’s just accepted as the natural order. For example, we always assign grades to each individual student and we only award individual student achievement. This also calls to mind Sarason’s “ocean storm” metaphor in the Predictable Failure of Education Reform. Lots of wind, waves, tumult on the surface during an ocean storm, but no change in water chemistry, temperature, etc, on the ocean floor. The ocean floor is the teacher-student relationship. How would teaching and learning change if we tempered our individualism and focused at least some of our assessment efforts on small group academic achievement?

• During his grad speech, the OHS principal honored the top ten students. A slide of the students flashed above. He said, “good job girls” with no sense of irony or urgency. I’m in the middle of a related article in the most recent Atlantic magazine titled “The End of Men”. Highly recommended.

• Byrnes Postulate (be sure to credit me). The more meaningful the curricular objective and related classroom activity, the more difficult to assess the associated student learning. Granted seems obvious, but I suggest that postulate informs more of what’s wrong with the “standards movement” than is first apparent.

WORLD POLITICS

• Heard an interview with the author of this book. He persuasively argued that no single nation can singlehandedly solve the immigration challenge. Made perfect sense, but it doesn’t seem as if anyone is acknowledging that. In fact, it’s true of most global issues today, but there are at least two serious impediments to thinking more globally and acting more in concert with other people in other nations to address pressing global issues like global poverty, environmental crises, and terrorism/war. First, the U.N. has a lot of negative baggage associated with it and there are wonderful NGOs, but few truly global alternatives. And secondly, no country/region (in the case of the EU) really wants to be take the lead in compromising their relative sovereignty.

FITNESS MALISE

• It’s 12:56p Sunday, we’re on the cusp of the summer equinox, and I’m sitting at my desk in half a cycling kit, staring at a cold, wet, dark gray landscape with 57 miles on the odometer for the week. Pathetic. I started down the street at 9:50a only to turn around when it started to rain. Mother Nature is testing all cyclists’ mental health this June. Look for some to start snapping. I was supposed to be Lance’s domestique on Mount Saint Helens today and then opted for a 10a club ride. Now I’ve performed the rare “double wuss”. My problem is I have nothing I HAVE to train for, not a single event on the calendar. I don’t even think I’ll do our local Oly triathlon in September. I’m 280th on the RAMROD waiting list. This is a desperate cry for help. Someone tell me what event should I do next and why? To add insult to injury, 14 informed me that if I had stayed in bed, her sister and her would have made me a “Dad’s Day” breakfast.

Lessons in Bahrain

Posted on May 17, 2010 by Ron Byrnes

What a beautiful, hopeful essay.

“Gossip Girl” Mom

Posted on May 10, 2010 by Ron Byrnes

From an Orlando Sentinel Journal article.

“In 2008, Harden checked out four books — one in the Gossip Girlseries and three in the spinoff It Girl series — after her daughter picked them out at a Seminole library. But when she flipped through them and saw foul language and references to sex and drugs, she asked the library to keep the books out of the hands of minors. Harden would like to see warnings about certain content as well as age restrictions on borrowing. When the library said it would reshelve the books in the adult-reading section but wouldn’t restrict them further, Harden decided to keep the books, with the idea that she would be preventing other young girls from reading the material. Harden does not fault people who have offered to replace the books. ‘They’re taking some action in response to something that I’m doing, and that’s what makes our country so great, that we have that freedom,’ she said. ‘I feel like I’m a pretty middle-of-the-road kind of person. I just want children to be safe and not come across material that’s really inappropriate for their age level.'” Read a lengthier explanation here.

What’s worse, Harden’s arrogant parenting of children that are not her own or people’s apathy about children’s books and their healthy development more generally?

I’d be more inclined to credit Harden for her awkward activism if she took responsibility for the $85 in late fees she owes the library.

Stop the Germaphobes Before It’s Too Late

Posted on May 7, 2010 by Ron Byrnes

A sign in the lockerroom at my Y. The grammar police, headed up by my oldest brother, sister, and mother (thank you D for resisting that tendency), will no doubt seethe at the capitalizing of “Health Concerns” and the missing period, but the problem with the sign is the thought process that produced it.

When I first saw it about six months ago I wasn’t sure if it was a joke. I realized it wasn’t one day when my ass cheeks were firmly planted on a towelless bench. All of a sudden out of nowhere, three male Y workers descended on me and threw me up against the lockers. They cuffed me, wrapped a towel around me, and took me into an empty room where they interrogated me for hours. Obviously McCainiacs, they didn’t even read me my Miranda rights. They were going to let me make a phone call until I rubbed the receiver all over my ass.

“Who the f$%^ do you think you are sitting naked on the bench?” Must fight the power I decided. “I also shower barefoot, spit in my goggles, and whizz while showering.” Chaos ensued. The three of them angrily debated whether to waterboard me until one finally said, “You probably ride your bike without a helmet around children and don’t use seatbelts out of fear you might wrinkle your dress?” Who knew the Young Men’s Christian Association now specializes in questioning male members’ masculinity?

Things went downhill from there. When I refused to comply, they started to smack me around which only deepened my resolve. I wasn’t about to be bullied so I fought back in the only way I could–with words. “I intend on not just sitting naked on the bench, but rubbing my ass cheeks all over your precious benches and I hope all your members catch the serious illnesses that are no doubt incubating on said ass cheeks.”

I could tell there was a two-way mirror and the Y director was signaling to his henchmen to increase the pressure. It wasn’t until I pointed out that 100% compliance wasn’t necessary that they stopped hitting me. I explained that as long as the germaphobes put down a towel, they’re protected from naked sociopaths like me. “Never thought of that,” one conceded.

Finally, the beatings stopped. After being forced to sign a confidentiality statement, I was uncuffed and escorted back to the lockerroom. Exhausted but unrepentant, I waited for the germ fighters to disappear. Then I tossed the towel on the floor and plopped down naked on the bench feeling equal part social activist and renegade.

Globalization’s Trade-Offs

Posted on April 28, 2010 by Ron Byrnes

As a result of economic globalization, goods and services—whether tax returns, x-rays, math tutorials, or credit card or airline reservation-related phone calls—are being digitized and then sent via coaxial cables under the oceans back and forth to India, China, and other developing countries where people are willing to work for far less than Amerians because the cost of living in their countries is considerably less.

Additionally, just like in major league baseball and the NBA, labor pools are much more international. Recently in the U.S., we’ve hired lots of nurses from South Africa and the Philippines, computer scientists from India and Pakistan, and according to Bureau of Labor statistics, in 2009 there were 185,234 foreign born doctors working in the United States representing 127 countries. Twenty-four percent of all medical school classes include foreign-born students.

If national borders are fences of sort, the fences are coming down.

At the same time, U.S. citizens are increasingly angry and outspoken about outsourcing and the exporting of American jobs, a sentiment exacerbated by politicians, including the president, playing to cameras. All you have to do to understand how wildly inconsistent most people are on this topic is visit the closest Wal-Mart. Few U.S. citizens have connected the outsourcing, global economic dots.

They want their jobs protected from foreign competition, but at the same time want continued access to inexpensive toys, clothes, and toothbrushes from China and other developing countries. One study asked U.S. homeowners applying for home equity loans if they would like their loans processed by a U.S. firm in twelve days or a foreign firm in ten and the vast majority opted for the foreign firm.

Arizona’s anti-immigrant law is another case in point. Many undocumented workers are willing to work difficult, minimum wage jobs that few U.S. citizens are, thereby lowering the cost of living for everyone.

Advocate for protectionist economic and more strict immigration policies if you must, but be honest about the economic costs and also insist that legislators pass a 15%-20% insourcing VAT.