This is a touching video put out a few years ago by USAID, the United States Agency for International Development, marking the agency's 50th anniversary. It features excerpts from two speeches by John F Kennedy, one from 1962 marking the first year of implementation of the Alliance for Progress in Latin America, and one from a 1963 commencement address at the American University discussing nuclear detente with the Soviet Union.
I'm normally not one for dramatic PR videos, but this one is damn good.
Economic development, current events, travel, sustainable living, and fatherhood, all from an agrarian perspective
Tuesday, November 29, 2016
Sunday, November 27, 2016
Friday, November 25, 2016
Wednesday, November 23, 2016
Sharing with your kids the vulgar music that shaped you
I think I'm like most parents in wanting to share with my kids the music, art, and movies that shaped me, that I think are important or moving or wonderful. This hasn't been a problem as far as the "high culture" stuff. They know now a bit of Dickens, of Prokofiev and Beethoven. When Sam was one I showed him an Indiana Jones movie before realizing an hour in that this was pretty flippantly violent; now I'm sharing with him and his brother the Young Indiana Jones TV series from the 90s that's less violent and more educational.
But when it comes to the popular music I grew up with, a fair chunk of it is pretty vulgar or otherwise inappropriate for kids. There is no "Young Snoop Dogg" series. Not just the gangsta rap, but a lot of the angry or destructive rock music just isn't fit for little guys. They'll hear it eventually, and I don't have a problem with that once they're a bit older and can understand and process it, but I don't want them learning from Axl quite yet that heroin is "a real motherfucker". In that vein, the Guns and Roses albums that I like are pretty much out of bounds for now.
So I've had a dilemma of how to expose them to good hiphop without exposing them to a lot of profanity. Thus far I've handpicked a few songs from Tupac's Me Against the World, the ones like Dear Momma and Can you get away that are sweet, as opposed to the frustrated, hopeless tone of the rest of the album (which is indeed its strength, since it captures the feeling of so many marginalized youth that don't have a place to be nor a place to go in our society). I also played quite a bit of Common's "Be" for my boys, since aside from the occasional drop of the N-word it is pretty positive and constructive.
This is why a recent article from a much more devoted hiphop fan than I really struck home for me. He has found a series of recordings called Kidz Bop that reworks inappropriate parts of pop songs, then has kids sing them. I don't think I'll be buying a Kidz Bop album anytime soon. That type of kids singing is often cloying, and I'm not up to date on most pop music, nor would I want to generate some consumer addiction for my kids. But the concept is novel, and the musings of the author on how to share some 20-plus years of pretty profane music that has shaped him with his kids is exactly the same question I'd been asking myself for some time.
But when it comes to the popular music I grew up with, a fair chunk of it is pretty vulgar or otherwise inappropriate for kids. There is no "Young Snoop Dogg" series. Not just the gangsta rap, but a lot of the angry or destructive rock music just isn't fit for little guys. They'll hear it eventually, and I don't have a problem with that once they're a bit older and can understand and process it, but I don't want them learning from Axl quite yet that heroin is "a real motherfucker". In that vein, the Guns and Roses albums that I like are pretty much out of bounds for now.
So I've had a dilemma of how to expose them to good hiphop without exposing them to a lot of profanity. Thus far I've handpicked a few songs from Tupac's Me Against the World, the ones like Dear Momma and Can you get away that are sweet, as opposed to the frustrated, hopeless tone of the rest of the album (which is indeed its strength, since it captures the feeling of so many marginalized youth that don't have a place to be nor a place to go in our society). I also played quite a bit of Common's "Be" for my boys, since aside from the occasional drop of the N-word it is pretty positive and constructive.
This is why a recent article from a much more devoted hiphop fan than I really struck home for me. He has found a series of recordings called Kidz Bop that reworks inappropriate parts of pop songs, then has kids sing them. I don't think I'll be buying a Kidz Bop album anytime soon. That type of kids singing is often cloying, and I'm not up to date on most pop music, nor would I want to generate some consumer addiction for my kids. But the concept is novel, and the musings of the author on how to share some 20-plus years of pretty profane music that has shaped him with his kids is exactly the same question I'd been asking myself for some time.
Monday, November 21, 2016
The failure of the US education system vis a vis white voters
This is a reflection on how the US educational system has failed many white folks insofar as it has left them unable to participate constructively in a pluralistic, inclusive society. The author reflects on how the 2016 election has manifested various severe shortcomings in many white folks' knowledge of history, scientific process, and morality and values. In short, the tidal wave of white support for Donald Trump shows that their schooling (occurring in a drastically segregated environment, to boot) didn't prepare them with sufficient capacity for critical thought, empathy, or a sense of belonging.
Saturday, November 19, 2016
Gandhi statue in Ghana
A few weeks ago I became aware of a news item about a university in Ghana that had recently received in donation from the Indian government a statue of Gandhi. It appears that many professors and students objected to the statue, and successfully petitioned to have it removed from the campus. Around the same time, someone in my circle of friends shared on Facebook an article from the Atlanta Black Star with a list of racist statements Gandhi made while living in South Africa.
Gandhi is one of the people who have most inspired me in my life, along with Malcolm X, Archbishop Oscar Romero, and a few others. But I am always in favor of providing more nuance than the commonplace hagiographies might offer.
That said, I don't think it's fair to totally discount Gandhi because of the racist views he expressed during one phase of his life, especially considering that all the Black Star's quotes come from the very first step in his moral and political evolution. Indeed, during most of his time in South Africa, Gandhi supported the continued existence of the British Empire--he was even a soldier (in a non-combat role) for the British Army during the Boer Wars. At that moment his demand was for equal citizenship within the Empire for Indians. Obviously this position changed drastically later in his life, as he became an ardent, insistent fighter for full Indian independence from the Empire, and made strong criticisms of the very idea of Empire itself. So for me, I must consider Gandhi's statements early in his life in light of how they evolved later on. I would never accuse Gandhi of being an Imperial stooge, though he effectively was early in his life.
The difference in the case of his racist statements is that I don't know of any clear repudiation of this prior position later in Gandhi's life. He seems to have gone back to India and then stopped making many comments at all on black Africans. While the spirit of his thought and actions during his time in India is clearly one of tolerance, of shared humanity, of breaking down the barriers of prejudice and oppression, I don't think there's any clear statement of his on the record that explicitly, unequivocally disavows the idea that blacks are inferior to Indians. So I can't totally argue with those who would argue that Gandhi never did in fact overcome his anti-black sentiments.
Even so, even if we assume Gandhi remained as intolerant of blacks throughout his life as his earlier statements would attest, it still wouldn't be fair to totally discount his life's teachings. If he was a racist, then that means he was merely a product of his time. To mention another of my heroes, Malcolm X evinces in his autobiography and his public statements quite a bit of misogyny and homophobia. This doesn't lead me to discard his otherwise very astute reading of race and many other aspects of US society. It just means he lived in a time where it was socially acceptable to subjugate or scorn women and queer people, indeed where people were taught from an early age how to do so.
All this said, I respect the movement at that university in Ghana to remove a statue that they don't feel represents their progressive values. This is all the more the case when it seems that the professors and students are in large part protesting the attempt of India to project its power abroad. Their petition mentions "it is better to stand up for our dignity than to kowtow to the wishes of a burgeoning Eurasian super power". This sort of gets lost in the long Guardian article I liinked to, but it indicates to me that their objection is not only to Gandhi himself as a figure, but rather to the use of Gandhi as a sort of masthead, or even a Trojan horse, by the Hindu extremist party that currently rules India, in order to soften the country's image while making hard geopolitical moves domestically and internationally.
Gandhi is one of the people who have most inspired me in my life, along with Malcolm X, Archbishop Oscar Romero, and a few others. But I am always in favor of providing more nuance than the commonplace hagiographies might offer.
That said, I don't think it's fair to totally discount Gandhi because of the racist views he expressed during one phase of his life, especially considering that all the Black Star's quotes come from the very first step in his moral and political evolution. Indeed, during most of his time in South Africa, Gandhi supported the continued existence of the British Empire--he was even a soldier (in a non-combat role) for the British Army during the Boer Wars. At that moment his demand was for equal citizenship within the Empire for Indians. Obviously this position changed drastically later in his life, as he became an ardent, insistent fighter for full Indian independence from the Empire, and made strong criticisms of the very idea of Empire itself. So for me, I must consider Gandhi's statements early in his life in light of how they evolved later on. I would never accuse Gandhi of being an Imperial stooge, though he effectively was early in his life.
The difference in the case of his racist statements is that I don't know of any clear repudiation of this prior position later in Gandhi's life. He seems to have gone back to India and then stopped making many comments at all on black Africans. While the spirit of his thought and actions during his time in India is clearly one of tolerance, of shared humanity, of breaking down the barriers of prejudice and oppression, I don't think there's any clear statement of his on the record that explicitly, unequivocally disavows the idea that blacks are inferior to Indians. So I can't totally argue with those who would argue that Gandhi never did in fact overcome his anti-black sentiments.
Even so, even if we assume Gandhi remained as intolerant of blacks throughout his life as his earlier statements would attest, it still wouldn't be fair to totally discount his life's teachings. If he was a racist, then that means he was merely a product of his time. To mention another of my heroes, Malcolm X evinces in his autobiography and his public statements quite a bit of misogyny and homophobia. This doesn't lead me to discard his otherwise very astute reading of race and many other aspects of US society. It just means he lived in a time where it was socially acceptable to subjugate or scorn women and queer people, indeed where people were taught from an early age how to do so.
All this said, I respect the movement at that university in Ghana to remove a statue that they don't feel represents their progressive values. This is all the more the case when it seems that the professors and students are in large part protesting the attempt of India to project its power abroad. Their petition mentions "it is better to stand up for our dignity than to kowtow to the wishes of a burgeoning Eurasian super power". This sort of gets lost in the long Guardian article I liinked to, but it indicates to me that their objection is not only to Gandhi himself as a figure, but rather to the use of Gandhi as a sort of masthead, or even a Trojan horse, by the Hindu extremist party that currently rules India, in order to soften the country's image while making hard geopolitical moves domestically and internationally.
Thursday, November 17, 2016
Tuesday, November 15, 2016
Sunday, November 13, 2016
Friday, November 11, 2016
Pledging Allegiance
Even from my analog cave, I do get trickle-down news of things like the controversy over Colin Kaepernick's stand/sit/kneel decisions. I don't really want to comment on this per se, except to say that I don't see how it could be disrespectful to soldiers sworn to uphold the Constitution for a citizen to generally exercise his rights under that Constitution. To the contrary, the oath of soldiers in the US is to protect those very rights, so a civic-minded citizen making a political statement protected by the First Amendment is in fact showing his appreciation of soldiers' work in the most profound way.
Anyway, I stumbled across this other article that muses on the larger implications of when children see role models like Kaepernick practicing civil disobedience. It made me recall my upbringing in the Chicago Public Schools, where Pledges and order and standing at attention were indeed the norm, though probably less so than in today's climate of uniforms and standard tests and draconian discipline. I often chafed against certain aspects of this system, but I am glad that I went through it as opposed to a friendlier alternative school model. This is because the things that I chafed at in school are the very things I still chafe at in society, so learning to navigate, negotiate, and often outright resist what I saw as unjust or absurd rules was valuable training for life after school. A great example of young people resisting the system in creative and powerful (and also morally ambiguous) ways was when some of my peers at a different high school, the best in their class, threatened to intentionally flunk a test that would determine funding levels and ratings for their school. They were protesting what they saw as an excessive focus on standardized testing (and this was before the boom in tests of the 2000s!). Some people agreed with them, while others decried their lack of collective spirit to help their school prosper. But either way, they were thinking critically, grappling with complex questions, and learning how to exercise their role as citizens. This is the type of stuff we need more of in education, so I am happy to have had the opportunity to have come through a rather rigid system that inspired us to push back.
Of course I'm saying all this as a middle-class white kid, who didn't and doesn't encounter in society at large an all-encompassing, stifling repression on my movement and thoughts. A conservative, order-obsessed public school culture was good for me because it was just a taste of repression in my otherwise charmed life. For a kid constantly subjected to oppression and humiliation in every sphere of public life, as are many of the black and brown kids in our large urban school districts, adding school to the list of repressive, unsafe spaces is not a constructive experience nor a formation in civic life, as it was in my case.
Anyway, I thought the above Kaepernick article was an interesting reflection on the interplay between loyalty, patriotism, obedience, and critical disobedience. It's not easy to know what is the most coherent way of responding to things like the custom of standing up for the National Anthem. But it's good that people are asking themselves hard questions and trying to find the right way to be in the world.
Anyway, I stumbled across this other article that muses on the larger implications of when children see role models like Kaepernick practicing civil disobedience. It made me recall my upbringing in the Chicago Public Schools, where Pledges and order and standing at attention were indeed the norm, though probably less so than in today's climate of uniforms and standard tests and draconian discipline. I often chafed against certain aspects of this system, but I am glad that I went through it as opposed to a friendlier alternative school model. This is because the things that I chafed at in school are the very things I still chafe at in society, so learning to navigate, negotiate, and often outright resist what I saw as unjust or absurd rules was valuable training for life after school. A great example of young people resisting the system in creative and powerful (and also morally ambiguous) ways was when some of my peers at a different high school, the best in their class, threatened to intentionally flunk a test that would determine funding levels and ratings for their school. They were protesting what they saw as an excessive focus on standardized testing (and this was before the boom in tests of the 2000s!). Some people agreed with them, while others decried their lack of collective spirit to help their school prosper. But either way, they were thinking critically, grappling with complex questions, and learning how to exercise their role as citizens. This is the type of stuff we need more of in education, so I am happy to have had the opportunity to have come through a rather rigid system that inspired us to push back.
Of course I'm saying all this as a middle-class white kid, who didn't and doesn't encounter in society at large an all-encompassing, stifling repression on my movement and thoughts. A conservative, order-obsessed public school culture was good for me because it was just a taste of repression in my otherwise charmed life. For a kid constantly subjected to oppression and humiliation in every sphere of public life, as are many of the black and brown kids in our large urban school districts, adding school to the list of repressive, unsafe spaces is not a constructive experience nor a formation in civic life, as it was in my case.
Anyway, I thought the above Kaepernick article was an interesting reflection on the interplay between loyalty, patriotism, obedience, and critical disobedience. It's not easy to know what is the most coherent way of responding to things like the custom of standing up for the National Anthem. But it's good that people are asking themselves hard questions and trying to find the right way to be in the world.
Wednesday, November 9, 2016
In shock
I'm sure plenty of people will write eloquent articles analyzing the phenomenon that brought Trump to the White House. Here is one that I think is pretty sage and reserved, all things considered.
For my part, I am left speechless. A lot of ink has been devoted to exploring the psychological or metaphysical angst of the legendary white, working-class voter. This is a fair theme to explore, and one close to my heart, since my family, perhaps like most white families in the country, springs from humble, even miserable, origins. But in the end, angst or no, we all have to be accountable for our actions and our decisions, and I don't see under what circumstances it's okay for someone to dehumanize others, or for someone to vote for an elected official who promises to dehumanize and oppress others. By my rough calculations, about 70% of white folks in the US affirmed with their vote that they essentially don't like anyone else in the country, and won't brook the idea of respecting the equal rights and humanity of others who don't look like them. They would put the nation and the world on the verge of economic and social collapse, not to mention war, rather than grant equal respect and equal opportunity to colored folk in the US. This is sad, and I don't know what to do about it.
I'm sure the Republic will go on, but I'm worried about what form it will take. President-to-be Trump seems not to have much knowledge of, nor respect for, the basic functioning of our government or Constitution. You know, division of powers, checks and balances, protection of basic rights of a minority even against the majority. I am not one of these who thinks the Constitution is some sort of sacred document. It works pretty well, and it's open to tweaking where it doesn't work well, and that's good enough. That's in fact what's so great about it--that it's good enough, without being perfect, set in stone. If the citizenry chooses to modify or skirt some provision of the Constitution, I don't a priori have a problem with that, if it serves to make the polity more inclusive, more protective of its people. I don't get incensed at the possible un-Constitutionality of Social Security or other effective programs of the welfare state that make us all better off. But Trump's proposals and his supporters seem to wish to modify the law not to expand the rights and wellbeing of all of us, but rather to make some people more vulnerable, to take away their rights and wellbeing. I can't get on board with this.
For my part, I am left speechless. A lot of ink has been devoted to exploring the psychological or metaphysical angst of the legendary white, working-class voter. This is a fair theme to explore, and one close to my heart, since my family, perhaps like most white families in the country, springs from humble, even miserable, origins. But in the end, angst or no, we all have to be accountable for our actions and our decisions, and I don't see under what circumstances it's okay for someone to dehumanize others, or for someone to vote for an elected official who promises to dehumanize and oppress others. By my rough calculations, about 70% of white folks in the US affirmed with their vote that they essentially don't like anyone else in the country, and won't brook the idea of respecting the equal rights and humanity of others who don't look like them. They would put the nation and the world on the verge of economic and social collapse, not to mention war, rather than grant equal respect and equal opportunity to colored folk in the US. This is sad, and I don't know what to do about it.
I'm sure the Republic will go on, but I'm worried about what form it will take. President-to-be Trump seems not to have much knowledge of, nor respect for, the basic functioning of our government or Constitution. You know, division of powers, checks and balances, protection of basic rights of a minority even against the majority. I am not one of these who thinks the Constitution is some sort of sacred document. It works pretty well, and it's open to tweaking where it doesn't work well, and that's good enough. That's in fact what's so great about it--that it's good enough, without being perfect, set in stone. If the citizenry chooses to modify or skirt some provision of the Constitution, I don't a priori have a problem with that, if it serves to make the polity more inclusive, more protective of its people. I don't get incensed at the possible un-Constitutionality of Social Security or other effective programs of the welfare state that make us all better off. But Trump's proposals and his supporters seem to wish to modify the law not to expand the rights and wellbeing of all of us, but rather to make some people more vulnerable, to take away their rights and wellbeing. I can't get on board with this.
Monday, November 7, 2016
School ratings as the new redlining
Here is an NPR article about how neighborhood school ratings are becoming a de facto way of reinforcing housing segregation.
I had hinted at this in a past blog post on Ferguson, in which I expressed skepticism that the white parents who obsess over school ratings in the neighborhoods they move to are in fact that concerned about education. If true education were really their chief concern, they'd be focused on getting rid of their TV, taking their kids a, their neighbors' kids, and themselves to more museums, and interacting more with a broad cross-section of society. If, on the other hand, one is mainly concerned with avoiding interaction with people of color, then school ratings track nicely with ethnic makeup of a school district.
Anyway, it is a validation for me to see a serious journalistic treatment of something I had only mused on. And it is interesting to read about the murky legal questions raised by using school ratings to sell houses.
I had hinted at this in a past blog post on Ferguson, in which I expressed skepticism that the white parents who obsess over school ratings in the neighborhoods they move to are in fact that concerned about education. If true education were really their chief concern, they'd be focused on getting rid of their TV, taking their kids a, their neighbors' kids, and themselves to more museums, and interacting more with a broad cross-section of society. If, on the other hand, one is mainly concerned with avoiding interaction with people of color, then school ratings track nicely with ethnic makeup of a school district.
Anyway, it is a validation for me to see a serious journalistic treatment of something I had only mused on. And it is interesting to read about the murky legal questions raised by using school ratings to sell houses.
Saturday, November 5, 2016
Beanbag spitter charged with hate crime
I just learned about an ugly little incident that happened in Chicago this summer, where a white woman screamed hysterically and spit at a black couple for having stolen one of her beanbags at a festival in a park. A few months later, she has been charged with battery and a hate crime, which seems fair to me. What I can't figure out though is what someone like that was doing to begin with at the South Shore Cultural Center. I mean, if you really don't like black folks, and especially if you worry about them hogging your beanbags, then DON'T GO TO A BEANBAG EVENT IN A NEIGHBORHOOD THAT IS UPWARDS OF 90% BLACK FOR MILES AROUND!
Thursday, November 3, 2016
Perennial wheat at last
This is a short profile of Kernza, to my knowledge the first commercially-available perennial wheat variety. As the article explains, this is a big deal, because the more we can transition away from annual cropping to perennial systems, the better it will be for soil, water, air, and climate on a worldwide scale.
Tuesday, November 1, 2016
Climate change and migration
This is a really good visual story about two brothers deciding whether or not to migrate from Honduras, framed in the context of the fierce drought of 2014 and 2015. Even the job opportunities that keep one brother in Honduras are tied to climate change, consisting in short-term scavenging of the timber killed by pine bark beetle. It's a bleak and challenging picture.