Quiddities — Musings essential and frivolous
My wife and I were laughing helplessly last night watching this video. But you have to watch it without worrying about what’s happening to the cats or babies, who catch a pretty hard time. But then cats and babies are quite resilient, and in most cases, though not always in this video, they’re close to the ground.
Above is the title of Emily Wilson’s review in the current, August 3, Times Literary Supplement of two books about Isidore of Seville, “who became patron saint of the internet in 1999.” Unfortunately the books from Cambridge University are expensive, really expensive: Barney et al.’s The Etymologies of Isidore is $150 for 475 pages, and John Henderson’s The Medieval World of Isidore of Seville: Truth from Words is $99 for 244 pages. But these would be fun books to peruse if they were affordable or if the library purchased them.
Isidore’s effort in sixth-century Spain, when it was ruled by the Visigoths, to reestablish the importance of Roman culture through its language, specifically the etymology of Latin, had an impact that was comparable to the Bible’s. Indeed, Isidore’s family “played an important role in the conversion of the Visigothic kings to Roman Catholicism, away from Arianism (a form of Christianity which denied that the Son is co-eternal with the Father).”
While Isidore’s cultural impact was profound, much of what Isidore wrote, much like the internet today, was made up. “Most of Isidore’s supposed etymologies are — by the standards of modern academic philology — complete twaddle.” Take, for example, his entry on beavers:
It may often seem as if Isadore, like a bad search engine, offers little or no control over all this material. Certainly, much of the “information” he provides is (from a modern perspective) blatantly false, albeit entertaining. For instance, we are assured that “Beavers (castor) are so-called from castrating (castrare). Their testicles are useful for medicines, on account of which, when they anticipate a hunter, they castrate themselves and amputate their own genitals with their teeth.”
Wandering the Internet, passing time while I was eating lunch, I ran across this article by Charles Wheelan, “Want Good Schools? First, Define ‘Good’,” who raises the issue of how we should measure education.
. . . schools with high test scores may or may not be doing a great job; perhaps their students are capable of much more. And conversely, some schools with middling or poor test scores may be doing a terrific job educating students who would otherwise be failing abjectly.
Obviously, we can spot the outliers — the school in the middle of Detroit that manages to send 95 percent of its students to college, say. If we give researchers enough time and enough data, they can try to answer the school-quality question using statistical techniques that take account of what kind of students are walking through the front door.
But even then the results are often equivocal. The bottom line is that it’s hard to evaluate school quality, which is why it’s even harder to make schools better.
What Wheelan is getting at is that not all entering students are equal. Some have vastly more potential than others, and a school district that has a preponderance of such students because of economic influences will score better than another school with fewer students with brainy parents. So we need to figure out what a good education is, but he fails to define what this is.
Yet the answer seems obvious, which is what I get for wandering the Internet when I should have been doing something more productive: The answer is to evaluate the change in each student’s abilities, not his performance on a fixed test.
That we do the latter isn’t surprising because, really, we don’t care about change so much as ability when we’re evaluating an adult who’s going to fly a passenger airplane or operate on our brains. But children aren’t adults, and our hope is as educators that we bring each child along as far as he or she can go during the semester or year.
If a student can’t write an essay at the beginning of the semester but can by the end, that’s terrific progress in 18 weeks. But that does not mean that this same student has become an accomplished writer, which is the performance measurement we apply when we assign a grade or give the student a normalized test.
The two aren’t incompatible during the education process, but they do present problems when it comes time to graduate, which is when society says that it’s time to make sure that students have certain minimum skills. The only thing that’s wrong with this is the nature of the test, which can be hard to fashion fairly in our diverse society, and the psychological impact the test has on students and their families.
But as long as we have a society that depends critically on critically skilled people, there’s no getting around the need for skills-based tests. Perhaps instead of exit exams we should have diploma classifications: first class, second class, etc.
But isn’t this exactly what grades are? If one were to always look at the grade the student achieved in getting his diploma, wouldn’t potential employers already know what they need to know? Certainly colleges already do this.
Ah, there’s the rub. The exit exams are given because some in our society believe that teachers are cheating by giving higher grades than they should. Grade inflation is the cause. So the tests aren’t about the students, but are about the teachers. Interesting.
On the other hand, these students who were said to be passing without being able to read — and the definition of “being able to read” is important here as well — probably did get their diplomas, but what were their grades? Do you really believe a teacher would give a high grade to someone who can’t read or write or do math well?
If they passed with a D, doesn’t that say something about their abilities. In other words, could we have solved this problem by just encouraging everyone to look beyond the diploma to the grade-point average that the student achieved?
There’d still be the problem that an A at one school is not the same as an A at another, so perhaps the exit exams could be used to normalize the grades, but they don’t need to be used to keep students from graduating. The teachers’ grades are perfectly capable of telling us who did well in school and who just got by.
As if Wikipedia wasn’t already confusing enough, because one doesn’t know what to trust, now some UCSC computer scientists are coloring questionable entries orange based on a calculation of author reputation. The trouble is that various intensities of orange, which indicate the degree of unreliability, can turn up in the middle of a sentence. So what do you do then?
Gail Collins of the New York Times has moved from editor of the editorial page on the left to the opinion page on the right, which is most welcome and has nothing at all to do with her political leanings. She’s just a really good writer and thinker.
See in particular her recent column on Mitt Romney who used to strap his dog in his crate on top of the family car when driving for summer vacations from Boston to Ontario, a distance of perhaps as much a 1,000 miles or more going who-knows-how-fast through an area of the country that can have some pretty nasty weather even in the summer.
Seamus, in case you missed the story, was the Romneys’ Irish setter back in the early 1980s. Mitt used to drive the family from Boston to Ontario every summer for a vacation, with the dog strapped to the roof in a crate.
As The Boston Globe reported this summer, Romney had the entire trip planned so rigidly that every gas station stop was predetermined before departure. During the fatal trip of ’83, Seamus apparently needed one more than the schedule allowed. When evidence of the setter’s incontinence came running down the back windshield, Romney abandoned his itinerary and drove to the closest gas station, where he got a hose and sprayed both dog and station wagon clean.
“It was a tiny preview of a trait he would grow famous for in business: emotion-free crisis management,” The Globe said.
The question raised is what ugly snippets like this reveal about character. From Malcolm Gladwell’s Blink, we could probably conclude that these little embarrassing moments — not little from Seamus the dog’s POV, certainly — are the most telling of all.
Science News reports in its July 28th issue that there appears to be a correlation between sunlight, which increases with decreasing latitude, and multiple sclerosis.
A half-century ago, doctors from Europe and North America who spent time in central Africa were struck by the absence of multiple sclerosis there. Indeed, the farther from the equator people lived, the more prevalent multiple sclerosis (MS) seemed to become. Scandinavians faced a higher risk than most other people. Thus arose the “latitude hypothesis” of MS, suggesting that a lack of direct sunshine somehow contributed to the nerve-damaging immune malfunction underlying the disease.
Although the geographical connection was strong, says Michael J. Goldacre, an epidemiologist at the University of Oxford in England, “it seemed almost too obvious to be true.”
The problem with this hunch, of course, was that genes play a role as well. This was addressed by selecting Southern California twins who had been exposed to differing amounts of sun. Using a questionnaire, which seems more qualitative than quantitative, they asked about sun exposure when the twins were young. I suppose the issue was whether they preferred playing volleyball on the beach or reading. The results, though, are significant.
But a study from southern California now lends new credence to the sunshine theory of MS protection by removing a persistent confounder in such studies—the variability in people’s genes. The researchers sifted through a large database to find records of 179 sets of identical twins in which one had MS and the other didn’t. Estimating these individuals’ childhood sun exposures, the scientists found that the twins with MS on average had gotten less sun.
The study bolsters a 2003 report from Australia that associated greater sun exposure and a history of sunburns in childhood with reduced risk of MS. Also, Goldacre and his colleagues discovered in 2004 that people with MS were only half as likely as the general population to develop skin cancer—a condition linked with exposure to ultraviolet radiation.
“There’s clear evidence from multiple publications to suggest this is something that’s real,” says Avery August of Pennsylvania State University in University Park, an immunologist not part of these studies. “There’s a genetic component [to MS] but also an environmental component,” he says.
In the new study, epidemiologist Thomas M. Mack and his team at the University of Southern California in Los Angeles analyzed questionnaires that the twins had completed before 1993 to obtain data on childhood sun exposure. The surveys included questions about outdoor sports and time at the beach.
The twin who spent more time outdoors had a 25 to 57 percent lower risk of developing MS, depending on the activity recorded, the researchers report in the July 24 Neurology. The people without MS had spent significantly more time than their siblings sunbathing, beachcombing, and getting out on hot days.
During childhood, it’s a trade-off between skin cancer and MS. But the effect fades after adolescence, so when you’re older there’s no excuse to sunbathe.
“This is a very sound piece of work,” Goldacre says. “Dermatologists may feel that [advice to] spend some time in the sun is not a wholly welcome message. But it’s all a matter of this being good for you in small doses.”
Curiously, the latitude effect in MS seems to fade after adolescence. While this study and earlier ones hint that ultraviolet rays set a child’s immune system on a normal course for life, they don’t prove it, August says.
Specifically, the studies don’t show how sunshine would thwart the rogue immune attacks on nerves, which cause a loss of muscle coordination in MS patients.
On Wednesday a Benicia man, Danny Takemoto, who that day was beginning a new schedule, forgot that his 11-month-old boy was buckled into his car seat in the back of the car. Takemoto parked his car, went to work, and didn’t remember his son until his wife called many hours later, wondering why the boy wasn’t at daycare.
Can you imagine what this poor man went through as he dashed to his car? If you are or have been a parent with young children, you’ve probably experienced similar lapses. You’re not paying as much attention as you should and suddenly can’t find your child. You turn your back for just a second or your mind drifts off for even less time, and your child manages to dash into the street.
With luck your child is okay. I’m sure Takemoto was hoping the same. But his son wasn’t okay. Then, on the worst day in Takemoto’s life, when he had made the worst mistake he will ever make, he’s arrested and taken off to jail.
I suppose a cell to a police officer is like an emergency room to a doctor: if something goes wrong, each assumes the worst and takes action — one size fits all when there’s a crisis. But perhaps the quickness to lock someone up who clearly is not a criminal, who isn’t wandering the neighborhood endagering children, should be rethought.
In fact there should always be solutions that don’t involve handcuffs and incarceration.
The man has been released from jail, but prosecutors haven’t yet ruled out criminal charges. At sad times like this I’m not sure we’ve moved much beyond the stone age.
In the NY Times today is a story about rats in need of a novel. My guess is that the author of the segment, Anand Giridharadas, is already writing it.
MUMBAI, India, July 19 — Behram Harda was a dancer in the Bollywood films of the 1970s, gracing the screen with his twist and his cha-cha.
Then he became a rodent assassin.
Today, in the sprawling B Ward of this teeming, filthy, exhilarating city, Mr. Harda is admired by his colleagues as the last of the great Mumbai rat catchers. His is a dying breed in a city whose dreams of being rat-free recede year by year.
The rat catchers can snag buckets full of rats in minutes, which they then kill in various gruesome ways, the worst being to grab the rat by its tail and beat its brains out on the ground. But then we’re talking about rats that might be carrying bubonic plague, not cuddly squirrels, beady-eyed raccoons or Remy, le rat de Ratatouille, who wants to be a master chef.
Unfortunately for Mubai, the number of rat catchers is decreasing because of better jobs, especially in call centers and software firms built from bytes:
But Mr. Harda is an Indian Sisyphus. When he got the job 33 years ago, the rats were no match for the catchers. Government service attracted India’s brightest in those days, and Mumbai was still clean enough to starve rats of the garbage on which they snacked. But in three decades, India has turned inside out, and so has the equation between catchers and rats.
Private-sector jobs in call centers and software firms beckon, and the government struggles to attract men of Mr. Harda’s caliber. Many rat-catching posts lie vacant. Meanwhile, Mumbai has metastasized from a genteel city of a few million into a grimy megalopolis of 17 million. More than half of the population lives in shanties surrounded by garbage — and, consequently, by rats.
So if you’re looking for a job in India that is more about spirited scurrying about than a lot of heavy lifting . . .
Here’s the news on the bridge opening from the San Francisco Chronicle.
From Look, No Hands by reporter Sena Christian in the Benicia Herald.
It’s that time again: time to roast documentary filmmaker Michael Moore, and nit-pick and debunk the most minute details in his latest film “Sicko,” burning him all the way to hell.
“Sicko” came out about two weeks ago. I saw it on the Fourth of July, doing my patriotic duty. I don’t know the last time I cried so much during a movie.
The film takes on the health care system in the United States, criticizing the nation for being the only industrialized country in the Western world without universal health care.
I should fall in line with the mainstream media and riot talk about our broken health care system or commend the film for bringing the subject of socialized health cate to the forefront of public discourse.
This column should absolutely not be about the nearly 50 million Americans — nine million of those children — uninsured.
I don’t want to talk about employers who fail to provide health benefits. I am one of the lucky ones. I signed up for Kaiser’s worst plan, (high co-pay and deductible), paying
the lowest monthly rate for the least coverage with the sole purpose of not going bankrupt in case of a medical emergency.No, I won’t talk about that stuff. Instead, I should probably talk about how Moore is not a likable human. He’s disheveled-looking, a bit overweight and kind of rude. I don’t like the eyeglasses he wears and he interrupts CNN interviewers too much. All of this is of the
utmost importance.You know, Moore blatantly misled the American public with “Sicko.” He told us that Cuba’s health spending per capita is $251. According to CNN, this number is actually
$229 per person.When Dr. Sanjay Gupta, senior medical correspondent for CNN, broke this news, I was shocked. I no longer see Moore’s films as a journalistic look at the human condition and as passion-driven, personalized attempts to create a better world.
OK, so, I’m being sarcastic. I like Moore and wish we were friends. I agree, he is incredibly antagonistic, but so what? The best hell-raisers often are. I don’t understand
why we have become a society that values personality and looks over ideas and compassion.When Al Gore was running for president, we said he was too stiff. But look what this boring politician who couldn’t tell a joke to save his life has done for raising awareness about the climate crisis, and for educating us about sustainability and clean technology.
There were those who said Gee Dubya had charm and look where that got us.
Moore’s abrasive nature came out full force this week on CNN’s “Situation Room,” during which he tore into the network for its failure to tell the American public the truth. He showed his contempt for corporate media: “I don’t talk in sound bites,” he said.
Host Wolf Blitzer was sent from the powers that be to drill Moore about inaccuracies
in “Sicko.” But one of the first things Blitzer said is reporting is a “business.” According to the Idealistic and Pure Journalism textbooks they gave me in journalism
school, this is not true. Journalism is supposed to be a profession, not a business.Blitzer questioned Moore about rumors that the federal government plans on investigating him for breaking the law by taking three U.S. citizens — 9/11 relief workers
– to Cuba for medical care, leaving it up to Moore to point out that Americans are allowed to visit the country for journalistic purposes.And in lovely irony, the next day CNN aired the second part of the interview, at the beginning of which Blitzer said the first part was filmed the day before. Actually, Moore clarified, the second segment was being filmed that same day.
For the sake of accuracy.
I honestly don’t know which parts of Moore’s film are inaccurate or inconsistent. Maybe he did only show the positive side of other countries’ health care systems as many contend (he said to contrast and highlight our own inadequacies) and not the whole picture.
When Moore put Canada’s system up on a pedestal, people slithered out of the woodwork to complain about the long waits to see a doctor there and talked about’the Canada Health Act, which makes it illegal to obtain or supply private health care thus proving the discontent Canadians have for their health care system.
As one native Canadian now living in the U.S. commented on an alternative news site, the American health care system is far better than that of his homeland With one minor exception: “If you’re uneducated and unemployed then you’d be better off in Canada,” he wrote.
Well OK then.
As long as Mr. and Mrs. Ivy League, with their five bedroom house, three television
sets and Lexus are alright with their health care, then everything in the Land of the Free is great!I try to be a good journalist. I understand the importance of accuracy in reporting,
but I can’t help but wonder why we get so up in arms whenever Moore comes out with a new film, and accuse him of cherry-picking statistics and when that doesn’t work, go off about his unpleasant demeanor.Maybe it’s because Moore threatens the status quo. He breaks into our comfort zone, and forces politicians and business leaders to answer tough questions.
Moore didn’t make “Sicko” for himself. He’s rich. I’m guessing he has pretty reliable health insurance. Maybe he made the film for another reason.
Maybe he believes the sentiment expressed in “Sicko” that when it comes to health care, access to education, affordable childcare or anything else, we should widen our visino and not look out just for ourselves, but for on another.
Sena Christian is a reporter for the Benicia Herald