Yes, his middle name is Hussein and he wears a turban, let us hunt him down

Fixing the schools

I read in the san diego union tribune today that a school district in Georgia is going single-sex. They want to separate all the boys and all the girls in order to improve test scores (by improving the student's ability to learn, presumably). The superintendent of the district said this was the last thing he could think to do after trying everything else for the past 7 years to increase the scores (to get more funding via the no-child-left-behind act). He claims that the biggest problems include underage pregnancy, and suspects that this should help fix it.

I don't know that literature on sociological studies on single sex schools and their increased or decreased test scores so I can't say for sure whether separating the boys and girls is going to have the desired effect. But when I read the article I got depressed because this is just one example of school districts totally missing the point.

I feel incredibly confident that the problem is this: Parents depend on their schools to educate their children. This leads to the idea that the school is solely responsible for educating them. Parents are removed from the equation by both the school district as well as the parents themselves. It should, of course, be the other way around. Parents should be responsible for their children's education and the school is supposed to help the parents educate their children.

And that's the fundamental problem of the 'no-child-left-behind act'. It holds the schools responsible regardless of what the parents are doing. The reason why so many of our schools are not producing results is because the vast majority of parents don't care what the child is doing in school, don't have time to care, don't realize that they should care, feel inadequate to care because their own education was so shitty, as a result they don't instill into the child any sense of urgency, pride, respect, or desire for academic achievement and this results in schools becoming day-time detention centers.

why didn't I think of that?

If you give me $3,200 I will travel to the great wall of China and send you a picture from there.

catch 22

It has been claimed that the Clinton campaign has "leaked" this photo of obama wearing a traditional Somali robe and head-dress.

It is presumed (at least by the Obama campaign) that the reason for doing this is to instill fear among Texas and Ohio's voting public of Obama's ties to the muslim world.

Here is where it gets tricky. Obama's campaign fired back at Clinton's campaign for doing this, and Clinton's campaign replied that Obama should not be offended by being seen in cultural dress, but should instead be proud. Clinton, herself, has worn traditional clothing of various cultures during her visits to foreign countries.

Of course, the Clinton campaign is right: There should be absolutely nothing wrong with a candidate wearing the traditional clothes of any culture if done as a form of respect.

But the majority of us know that this sort of photo is detrimental to the subconcious of the "plain folk" of mostly rural, but sometimes urban, America. "Plain folk," of course, is a euphemism for the generally unworldly folks who are typically liable to classify all non-protestant christians as hell-bound, nanotechnology as ungodly, abortion as murder, the French as enemies, all of Africa as "the jungle" or "the desert". "Plain folk" are people who generally have not spent more than a day outside of their own state, let alone the country. They have a difficult time finding Iraq on a map, and they fear that mexicans are going to turn this country into a spanish speaking pit in the span of the next 10 to 20 years.

I certainly realize that the above paragraph makes me sound like an elitist prick, and that I'm generalizing to a level that is quite beyond a simple stereotype. I had a difficult time even writing those sentences because I had the constant urge to censor myself. But we live in a world of polls and statistics, no matter how bad they are. And these polls have led my irrational brain to believe that "plain folk" have these negative qualities, just like this photo will lead the "plain folk's" irrational brains to believe that Obama is a sleeper agent for Al-Qaeda.

I recently read an article (can't link to it because i can't find it) about how politicians must use euphemisms like "plain folk" because accusing average americans of being un-aware of concepts like "bio-technology" and "Islamic pacifism" and "8th grade geography" will lead to being labeled as an elitist. The author of the article goes on to say that it isn't bad enough that the average American doesn't know where Iraq is on a map, or how the basic tenets of Islam might differ from those of Calvinism, but what is worse is that the average American feels that she DOESN'T NEED to know these things.

It is a curse of rampant anti-intellectualism currently striking this country.

Which brings us back to the Obama photo. If Obama makes a fuss about this photo being leaked he is admitting that it is a detrimental photo and thus admitting that people in America will be affected by it because they are unworldly and cannot see that wearing a traditional Somali robe and headress are a positive act. But this can easily be twisted (as by the Clinton campaign) into Obama calling Texas and Ohio voters idiots.

What is Obama to do?

Actually, I truly hope that I'm completely wrong, that my irrational brain is being irrational in trusting those awful polls, and the voters in Texas and Ohio who see the photo will think absolutely nothing of it. That's the world I choose to live in.

saving endagered languages

Here is a time condensed version of a thought process that has gone on within me over the past several years:
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Endangered languages why should we save them and how should we (as linguists) argue our case for the grant money necessary to do so?

Typically I'm PRO doing our best to revitalize languages that are on the verge of extinction. But this hardly ever works, so at the very least, I would hope that we can document/record/study in detail the moribund language for posterity. But why?

When I was a naive undergrad I felt that the biggest reason for doing our best to save or document these languages was because they are the best medium for transmitting the corresponding culture. It seems to me that this is the best argument to make if you want to get funding for such a project.

But then I thought: "should we force a minority population to keep their language alive if there is greater economic benefit for them to adopt the regionally dominant tongue?" And of course, the answer is no. So if there is a demand in the culture for learning materials, that demand should be met. But if there is no demand, then all the funds should go toward creating the very best linguistic database the remaining speakers can provide.

But then I thought: let's assume someone goes ahead and records a bunch of interesting data from such a language. Who actually goes back and looks at that data? Not many people... Sometimes you get news stories of grandchildren of speakers of some language reconnecting with their ancestors via the use of recordings of the old language (this generally leads to tears with a mixed bag of proud feelings and guilt over being so disconnected from your past - which all makes for good radio or tv programming). And that's a great use for them. But do linguists make use of the tapes?

Where am I going with this? Well, I think the real important reason to document these dying languages is so that we have records of the types of languages that exist - a more complete typology of the world's languages. I think this is important because I think that languages are the best window to the inner-workings of the brain, and the more such windows you have, the better you can see what's going on in there. I thought maybe, when we ask for money to document languages, we should mention this as being important. It turns out that nobody in charge of giving away money really cares about that. It's a stronger argument to say that you want to preserve the culture.

And then I thought, although the role of window-to-the-brain seems like it would ultimately be more useful, those long extinct languages for which we do have records are never really used for that purpose. Some syntactitians would have you believe that they are using them for that purpose, but I'm not convinced. But that's probably because I strongly disagree with the dominant views (in linguistics, if there are any) of what the brain is doing.

So what should we do about these endangered languages? I have no idea.

Early 90's memories

Do any of you remember this awesome gem? I was always pleased by Rambo's concluding appearance.

Music makes my brain make my body move

I'm not a "dancer" -- I would have to learn how to make my limbs move in a visually pleasing way to become a "dancer" -- but very often, as I listen to music at home, I find myself growing aware that my body has been bobbing, swaying, and generally moving along and that it's been doing this without express written consent from my conscious brain.

This unnerves me, though not because my body is doing things that I'm not controlling. I know it does things without my conscious control all the time - things like removing my limbs and digits from scalding hot things, or pumping air and shit through my lungs and small intestines, respectively of course.

What unnerves me is that I don't have the conscious control to remove the consciousness that otherwise strongly prevents me to preform these largely unconscious acts in public. I consciously assume that I don't care what others think of me and, when I have an opinion, I am typically willing to sacrifice group harmony and boldly wear it on my suit-pants' legs. But I also think that the reason I avoid the dance floor is not to avoid embarrassing myself but to avoid the discomfort that others would feel (Exhibit A: George and coworkers during Elaine's escapade).



But, really, doesn't that mean that I care what people think of me? Shock!