philzoned-blog

[philzoned-blog]

George Will’s good idea

You’ve probably seen it making the rounds on Facebook -- a replay of Mr. Rogers’ emotional testimony in 1969 about the importance of federally-funded children’s educational programming. It finishes with Senator John Pastore (D-RI) saying this: “looks like you just earned the twenty million dollars.”

Maybe it was that swirl of attention that prompted columnist George F. Will to pen an op-ed in today’s Washington Post mocking the idea of federal funding for public broadcasting given all the channels that did not exist back when Rogers made his plea: “[Terminating the Corporation for Public Broadcasting] would reduce viewers’ approximately 500 choices to approximately 499.” 

Interestingly, the headline of the piece in the paper delivered to me today is “Where’s the public newspaper?” The headline writers (who chose something different for the digital version) grabbed onto a rhetorical question that hangs in the middle of the op-ed as if to support Will’s point without any explanation: “Before newspaper editorial writers inveigh against [Trump’s budget director] Mulvaney and in support of government subsidies for television and radio, they should answer this question: Should there be a CPN -- a Corporation for Public Newspapers?”

Though it’s not clear to me what exactly Will intended here in terms of support for his kill-the-CPB argument -- I assume he’s doing a bit of fear-mongering about a newspaper “public option” that in his mind would prove fatal for an industry already on life support, but I’ve written him to ask -- I thought his question was actually a good one. To try it in a different way: “What if the U.S. ensured universal access to plain-language news and educational content -- distributed through a variety of platforms, including newspapers -- based on findings from federally-funded research and development activities?”

Every day, university and private-sector researchers, powered by taxpayer dollars, try to unearth answers to big questions and come up with innovations to solve intractable problems. Currently much of what they learn (with our money) is written in highly technical language for tiny audiences of experts who exchange ideas in high-priced academic journals. That’s an important part of the scientific process: presenting questions, methods, and findings to peers and collaborators for review and feedback. But it leaves out the rest of us. It also funnels graduate students -- who face a tight labor market for PhDs and a higher education system confronting various sorts of “disruption” -- into a discipline-siloed, hyper-technical role that may not be relevant for work outside the academy. 

What if, alongside public funding for research and development --

 a.) graduate students affiliated with federally-funded research projects produced public-friendly versions (articles, podcasts, video briefs, whatever) of what they were trying to learn or develop, how they went about their project, what their results were, and why we (non-expert citizens) should care, 

b.) newspapers (and other information platforms) provided no-additional-fee access to this content alongside whatever they already produce or curate, and

c.) school curriculum developers -- free & open and paid & proprietary alike -- integrated this real-time content into their materials to ensure teachers and students have access to the most current information for teaching and learning?

Newspapers using a “freemium” model -- some types or amount of content for free, more or different content for a fee -- could harness this public content as a way to bring in new readers/users, develop premium content for those who want to dig deeper, and scout subject matter experts for jobs in journalism. 

Graduate students could increase their post-graduate employment options by demonstrating their technical know-how and communications skills with multiple audiences and formats. 

Researchers could benefit from increased exposure to their work, driving demand to continue the research and development activities they care about or offering feedback about new directions the public is interested in exploring. 

And our democracy, which thank goodness people seem to be paying more attention to these days, could be be strengthened by a more informed electorate. (Okay, so we would have to figure out how to get people to cut down on cat videos and care about science, but let’s at least give them/us the chance!)

I’m not sure this is what George Will had in mind, but I give him credit for asking the question. 

[philzoned-blog]

Memorial Day 2017

As a kid, Memorial Day meant putting on my Little League uniform -- stretchy grey pants with a wide waistband and stirrups, and an orange t-shirt with my number and “The Card Wiz” on the back -- and marching down Main Street as part of the parade. People lined the streets in folding chairs and cheered for us, and especially for the marching bands. I don’t remember knowing or even wondering why we were marching or why people were watching.

Thirty years later, the meaning of Memorial Day is clearer, and less celebratory.

We lay wreaths and flowers on grave sites, launch fireworks as symbols of bombs and gunfire, and raise flags to half staff. These acts are our collective prayer for those who have given their lives for our freedoms. Especially with so few of us in the U.S. personally affected by war deaths, this seems to me an appropriate ritual. But in truth it’s not just a day for remembering and honoring fallen soldiers. And it’s not primarily that.

Memorial Day has been hijacked by “capitalism.” The stars and stripes are used to get us to buy things we don’t need, at prices we think we can’t pass up, from companies who care about earning more dollars, not honoring the dead. I wonder how women and men who bravely died in battle would feel about being pimped out to sell new cars and mattresses. 

It’s also a day for blind promotion of militarism, American exceptionalism, and (maybe especially these days?) white nationalism. 

For example: Japanese guy wins car race, and white-guy-who-writes-about-sports-while-the-world-is-burning wants everyone to know he is “very uncomfortable” with that. 

More generally, we face the usual barrage of ahistorical platitudes about how the U.S. is and has always been "good,” and everyone we fight is and has always been “evil.” Cue Orwell: Oceania has always been at war with Eurasia. There is little room for political self awareness, much less self criticism or concern for non-U.S. lives lost that could lead us to wiser policy and fewer deaths. 

Today at 3 pm ET is a time for a shared moment of silence to remember the fallen.

I will be thinking of my cousin Georgie, who had just gotten to work in the morning when he was killed in the 9/11 attacks, and of his parents and sisters who mourn his loss every day.

I will be thinking of the men and women who joined the U.S. military in the spirit of solidarity after that attack and lost their lives or their limbs in their selfless desire to keep us all safe the best way they knew how.

And I will be thinking of the hundreds of thousands of people in Iraq and elsewhere who have died, and continue to die, at the end of made-in-the-U.S.A. guns and bombs because of a greedy and dangerous foreign policy that puts profits ahead of principle.

I pray my personal reflection on the misery of war, for U.S. and foreign combatants and innocents alike, will bring me greater clarity and courage to push our leaders to bind the world together, not break us further apart. And I hope the next generation of children will find the wisdom to do better for their children than we have done for them in matters of war and peace.