At a bookstore in Saugus on Monday, I asked a staff member if they had any titles on Aztec history. (You might find out why later this week, faithful readers.) The staffer was very helpful and pointed me to the Latin American history section. Yet while I did find works that covered the Aztecs, I was dismayed by a larger issue: The store's entire Latin American history section only covered about one-third of a single shelf.
This illuminates a problem with the American -- or should I say, the United States -- mindset. In our educational systems and media, we devote too little attention to the nations of Latin America, with which we share geographic ties that we ignore at our peril.
I realized the extent of my own ignorance yesterday, when I opened one of the volumes on Mexican history and found that I had never heard of many of the country's natural features, such as its rivers. (Not including the Rio Grande, of course.) This surprised me because I considered myself better-informed about Mexico from the many trips I've taken to visit family there. I can rattle off the names of rivers in far-off places in Europe and the Middle East, but when it comes to basic features on my own continent, I struck out.
The only features of Latin America with which people in the US seem to show a particular interest come in three categories: when we want to go on vacation there (Acapulco, Cancun and Toby Keith‘s Cabo San Lucas), when a political leader does something we don't like (Hugo Chavez of Venezuela being the most prominent example lately), or when we feel the effects from a problem that roils a Latin American nation, such as the Mexican drug cartels or illegal immigration.
Our general lack of interest in Latin America has also helped our government pursue some pretty unsavory policies there, such as the thug-training School of the Americas and the coups we supported in Guatemala in the 1950s and Chile in the 1970s. If we learned more about such schemes and vented as much outrage about them as, say, the international community recently demonstrated on the Israeli blockade in Gaza, perhaps our Latin American policies would be more pacific.
What would be the result if, say, teachers in US public schools taught their students as much about Latin America as they did about Europe? Or if the US media covered Latin America as frequently as the Middle East? Or if bookstores opened their shelves to a spectrum of the richness of Latin American history? We would have a clearer picture of both North and South America: a clearer understanding of why many people from Latin America illegally immigrate to the US, a clearer awareness of why a leader like Chavez appeals to his followers in Venezuela, and a clearer sense that the two continents that form America are not ours to dominate, but to share.
And so I encourage people in the United States to cultivate a greater interest in Latin America. A desire to learn more about our neighboring nations to the south might help us understand them better, and to see the connections across two continents.
Tuesday, June 22, 2010
Monday, June 21, 2010
Ban Bullies, Not BFFs
In their latest stand against bullying, schools across the country are unwittingly giving their students a lesson right out of George Orwell or Aldous Huxley.
Schools in states such as Missouri and New York are trying to eliminate bullying through an unlikely method: They are discouraging students from having best friends.
It might seem that students being bullied and students having best friends are separate issues, but so-called educators see otherwise. The New York Times reports that “the classic best-friend bond … signals potential trouble for school officials intent on discouraging anything that hints of exclusivity, in part because of concerns about cliques and bullying.”
What emerges is a push for students to be friends with … everyone. “We try to talk to kids and work with them to get them to have big groups of friends and not be so possessive about friends,” Christine Laycob, a day-school counselor in St. Louis, tells the Times. Parents in Pennsylvania and Georgia echo this sentiment, and camp counselors in New York take it to its extreme. They employ “‘friendship coaches’ to work with campers to help every child become friends with everyone else,” the Times reported in words that seem like an excerpt from 1984 or Brave New World.
Although I disapprove of such thinking, I can understand why schools, and others who work with children, would do this. Phoebe Prince, an Irish immigrant and South Hadley High School student, committed suicide in January after suffering repeated bullying from a clique at school. She was 15 years old. More recently, the Boston Globe detailed the heartbreaking story of Lexi, a high school freshman who endured bullying … in part from former friends. The Globe cited a Bridgewater State College think-tank that described targeting ex-friends as one example of what “a textbook case of bullying by girls” would look like.
Nevertheless, I’m worried that schools are on the wrong path here. I’m concerned that they underestimate the richness of close friendships for students. Friendships create positive moments for students in and out of school. They instill feelings of value, fun, and trust. I count with pride the friends from middle and high school that I keep in touch with about two decades later (one of whom mentioned the Times story to me). I’m not against schools encouraging students to branch out in their friendships … but I also believe that confidants aren’t common, that finding the few people who can fulfill that role takes time, and that schools are giving students the easy way out by banning BFFs.
If bullying represents students at their worst, friendships represent them at their best. (A student sitting with a friend might also offer a less inviting target to a bully.) By forming close bonds with a friend we learn the hard but rewarding experience of what it means to care about someone else. Schools should separate this from their antibullying efforts. If they continue their misguided policy, the end result will be a social superficiality in which bullying may disappear, but at a cost of students missing out on more profound lessons of life.
Schools in states such as Missouri and New York are trying to eliminate bullying through an unlikely method: They are discouraging students from having best friends.
It might seem that students being bullied and students having best friends are separate issues, but so-called educators see otherwise. The New York Times reports that “the classic best-friend bond … signals potential trouble for school officials intent on discouraging anything that hints of exclusivity, in part because of concerns about cliques and bullying.”
What emerges is a push for students to be friends with … everyone. “We try to talk to kids and work with them to get them to have big groups of friends and not be so possessive about friends,” Christine Laycob, a day-school counselor in St. Louis, tells the Times. Parents in Pennsylvania and Georgia echo this sentiment, and camp counselors in New York take it to its extreme. They employ “‘friendship coaches’ to work with campers to help every child become friends with everyone else,” the Times reported in words that seem like an excerpt from 1984 or Brave New World.
Although I disapprove of such thinking, I can understand why schools, and others who work with children, would do this. Phoebe Prince, an Irish immigrant and South Hadley High School student, committed suicide in January after suffering repeated bullying from a clique at school. She was 15 years old. More recently, the Boston Globe detailed the heartbreaking story of Lexi, a high school freshman who endured bullying … in part from former friends. The Globe cited a Bridgewater State College think-tank that described targeting ex-friends as one example of what “a textbook case of bullying by girls” would look like.
Nevertheless, I’m worried that schools are on the wrong path here. I’m concerned that they underestimate the richness of close friendships for students. Friendships create positive moments for students in and out of school. They instill feelings of value, fun, and trust. I count with pride the friends from middle and high school that I keep in touch with about two decades later (one of whom mentioned the Times story to me). I’m not against schools encouraging students to branch out in their friendships … but I also believe that confidants aren’t common, that finding the few people who can fulfill that role takes time, and that schools are giving students the easy way out by banning BFFs.
If bullying represents students at their worst, friendships represent them at their best. (A student sitting with a friend might also offer a less inviting target to a bully.) By forming close bonds with a friend we learn the hard but rewarding experience of what it means to care about someone else. Schools should separate this from their antibullying efforts. If they continue their misguided policy, the end result will be a social superficiality in which bullying may disappear, but at a cost of students missing out on more profound lessons of life.
Friday, June 18, 2010
Forget the Gulf, Tap the Arctic!
In his speech on the Gulf oil spill on Wednesday, President Obama noted that oil companies are running out of options to drill undersea. He said that due to American demand, "oil companies are drilling a mile beneath the surface of the ocean -- because we’re running out of places to drill on land and in shallow water."
Well, Satan has a simple solution for this conundrum: Tap the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge. He explains this strategy to the president in the latest episode of "The Devil Made Me Blog It."
Wednesday, June 16, 2010
Sausages and Citizenship at Fenway
On the surface, it’s hard to imagine why anyone would defend people from another country who have illegally immigrated to the United States. If you’re illegal, and you’re caught, you should be sent home. Case closed.
But some folks want to do more than just deport illegal immigrants. Not only do they want to send them out the door, they want to hit them with that door on the way out and slam it shut in their faces while singing, “Now go, walk out the door, don’t turn around now, you’re not welcome anymore,” Gloria Gaynor-style. And this is why people across the US have marshaled their strength against the Arizona immigration law that Gov. Jan Brewer signed on April 23.
The latest example of such demonstrations against the Arizona law is the immigration-rights rally outside Fenway Park when the Boston Red Sox played the Arizona Diamondbacks on Tuesday. Standing behind the sausage vendors on Landsdowne Street, protesters held signs with messages highlighting the fact that almost 23 percent of baseball players are immigrants, and urging baseball commissioner Bud Selig to withdraw the 2011 All-Star Game from Phoenix.
Granted, the Arizona law has plenty of defenders. Sixty percent of voters supported it in a nationwide Rasmussen Reports poll in late April, Newsmax magazine reported. But if immigration-rights advocates keep getting their message out, like they did on Tuesday, maybe that number will change. For the law is a mix of redundancy and repugnancy. “The law … makes it a crime to be in the country illegally,” Newsmax reported. (Isn’t that kind of repetitive?) If an immigrant can’t prove that he or she has the proper documents to reside in the US, they could face arrest, a jail sentence of up to six months, and a $2,500 fine … as opposed to simple deportation. “Piling on,” I believe, is the equivalent expression in sports.
Fenway is not the first sports venue where immigration-rights advocates denounced the law. The National Basketball Association’s Phoenix Suns showed their distaste for their state’s legislation by wearing “Los Suns” jerseys, reflecting the Mexican and Central American heritage of many of the 460,000 or so illegal immigrants in Arizona. New York Post columnist Phil Mushnick considered this move pure cynicism, wondering whether the Suns owners would have been so magnanimous if they “discovered that hordes of people were sneaking into Suns' games without paying.” One of the reader comments to Mushnick’s piece, however, put him straight: “(If) those same people had to sit two-to-a-seat, clean up other people's vomit and repair broken urinals once they've sneaked in, then maybe management wouldn't be so opposed to it.”
It was refreshing to see that people are so committed to mobilizing against the meanness in Arizona that they showed up to a Boston ballpark to protest. (Too bad they probably didn’t get to enjoy the game.) Boston and Massachusetts enjoyed a reputation for fairness in the 19th century that, while sullied at times in recent decades, has continued with the immigration issue. Here’s hoping the immigration-rights advocates who made their stand at Fenway continue spreading their message.
But some folks want to do more than just deport illegal immigrants. Not only do they want to send them out the door, they want to hit them with that door on the way out and slam it shut in their faces while singing, “Now go, walk out the door, don’t turn around now, you’re not welcome anymore,” Gloria Gaynor-style. And this is why people across the US have marshaled their strength against the Arizona immigration law that Gov. Jan Brewer signed on April 23.
The latest example of such demonstrations against the Arizona law is the immigration-rights rally outside Fenway Park when the Boston Red Sox played the Arizona Diamondbacks on Tuesday. Standing behind the sausage vendors on Landsdowne Street, protesters held signs with messages highlighting the fact that almost 23 percent of baseball players are immigrants, and urging baseball commissioner Bud Selig to withdraw the 2011 All-Star Game from Phoenix.
Granted, the Arizona law has plenty of defenders. Sixty percent of voters supported it in a nationwide Rasmussen Reports poll in late April, Newsmax magazine reported. But if immigration-rights advocates keep getting their message out, like they did on Tuesday, maybe that number will change. For the law is a mix of redundancy and repugnancy. “The law … makes it a crime to be in the country illegally,” Newsmax reported. (Isn’t that kind of repetitive?) If an immigrant can’t prove that he or she has the proper documents to reside in the US, they could face arrest, a jail sentence of up to six months, and a $2,500 fine … as opposed to simple deportation. “Piling on,” I believe, is the equivalent expression in sports.
Fenway is not the first sports venue where immigration-rights advocates denounced the law. The National Basketball Association’s Phoenix Suns showed their distaste for their state’s legislation by wearing “Los Suns” jerseys, reflecting the Mexican and Central American heritage of many of the 460,000 or so illegal immigrants in Arizona. New York Post columnist Phil Mushnick considered this move pure cynicism, wondering whether the Suns owners would have been so magnanimous if they “discovered that hordes of people were sneaking into Suns' games without paying.” One of the reader comments to Mushnick’s piece, however, put him straight: “(If) those same people had to sit two-to-a-seat, clean up other people's vomit and repair broken urinals once they've sneaked in, then maybe management wouldn't be so opposed to it.”
It was refreshing to see that people are so committed to mobilizing against the meanness in Arizona that they showed up to a Boston ballpark to protest. (Too bad they probably didn’t get to enjoy the game.) Boston and Massachusetts enjoyed a reputation for fairness in the 19th century that, while sullied at times in recent decades, has continued with the immigration issue. Here’s hoping the immigration-rights advocates who made their stand at Fenway continue spreading their message.
Tuesday, June 15, 2010
A Pyrrhic Victory for Free Speech
Seems like some college students are hitting the barricades more than the books, and university administrators have set an admirable but flawed precedent to deal with them.
The University of California at Irvine has recommended a one-year suspension for its Muslim Student Union after members of the group repeatedly disrupted a February speech by Israeli ambassador Michael Oren at the college campus. Among their comments: "Michael Oren, propagating murder is not an expression of free speech." Of all the charges the university launched at the MSU, the one that seemed to stick most was "participation in a disturbance of the peace or unlawful assembly."
In considering the benefits that colleges offer to students, one of the most important is exposure to ideas with which they disagree. The preacher's daughter from the Bible Belt can take a course in evolution ... the Cambridge liberal can study how rent control and Social Security are economically questionable ... and Jewish and Muslim students alike can explore the facts of the Israeli-Palestinian crisis.
The corollary to this is that colleges need to teach students how to disagree. No one should sit mutely through a speech they find objectionable, but neither should they throw tantrums worthy of a two-year-old. Going to college implies that we should act in a collegial manner, after all, and as the town-hall protests over health care showed, too many Americans aren't doing that these days. For the spirit of intellectual inquiry to progress, in college campuses and beyond, we need a respectful medium.
A one-year suspension for the MSU is a positive step toward showing students the difference between right and wrong ways of dissent. Yet it raises some vexing issues. Will colleges across the United States act so vigorously when other student groups act up in ways that administrators might secretly admire? I'm thinking about:
Of course, there is an easier way to teach students how to express dissent, and that is through debate. I wonder if the MSU would have been so prone to act disrespectfully had the university brought in Ambassador Oren not as a solo speaker, but as someone debating the Israeli side of Mideast issues with a pro-Palestinian counterpart. (Harvard, for instance, did this several years ago in an exchange between Noam Chomsky and Allan Dershowitz.) Ultimately, dialogue might be the best deterrent to disrespect.
The University of California at Irvine has recommended a one-year suspension for its Muslim Student Union after members of the group repeatedly disrupted a February speech by Israeli ambassador Michael Oren at the college campus. Among their comments: "Michael Oren, propagating murder is not an expression of free speech." Of all the charges the university launched at the MSU, the one that seemed to stick most was "participation in a disturbance of the peace or unlawful assembly."
In considering the benefits that colleges offer to students, one of the most important is exposure to ideas with which they disagree. The preacher's daughter from the Bible Belt can take a course in evolution ... the Cambridge liberal can study how rent control and Social Security are economically questionable ... and Jewish and Muslim students alike can explore the facts of the Israeli-Palestinian crisis.
The corollary to this is that colleges need to teach students how to disagree. No one should sit mutely through a speech they find objectionable, but neither should they throw tantrums worthy of a two-year-old. Going to college implies that we should act in a collegial manner, after all, and as the town-hall protests over health care showed, too many Americans aren't doing that these days. For the spirit of intellectual inquiry to progress, in college campuses and beyond, we need a respectful medium.
A one-year suspension for the MSU is a positive step toward showing students the difference between right and wrong ways of dissent. Yet it raises some vexing issues. Will colleges across the United States act so vigorously when other student groups act up in ways that administrators might secretly admire? I'm thinking about:
- the Arizona undergrad who threw a pie at Ann Coulter
- the New School students who slammed John McCain on graduation day
- and the free-Tibet activists (I was one of them) who demonstrated against the Chinese government's visit to Harvard back in 1997.
Of course, there is an easier way to teach students how to express dissent, and that is through debate. I wonder if the MSU would have been so prone to act disrespectfully had the university brought in Ambassador Oren not as a solo speaker, but as someone debating the Israeli side of Mideast issues with a pro-Palestinian counterpart. (Harvard, for instance, did this several years ago in an exchange between Noam Chomsky and Allan Dershowitz.) Ultimately, dialogue might be the best deterrent to disrespect.
Monday, June 14, 2010
Start Snorkeling, Stop Future Spills
The Seven Seas Beach in Puerto Rico presents an array of beautiful sights to snorkelers. Brightly-colored fish swim past undulating plants in coral reefs. Some of the fish swim in schools, others are more solitary, but they all seem to coexist peacefully, navigating the ridges of the reefs somewhat more expertly than the land traffic on Route 3.
My muse and I enjoyed these sights while vacationing in Puerto Rico last week. The variety of ocean life just a few feet from the shoreline is stunning, and tourists only need a set of goggles, a snorkel and fins to experience it. And there is one group of people that particularly needs to experience it: Anyone who works for an oil company.
The inspiring scenes we saw beneath the sea contrasted sharply with the sad images of marine life destroyed by the BP oil spill in the Gulf Coast. Based on what survivors from the blast are saying, the spill was caused at least in part by a corporate philosophy that focused too much on keeping costs down and too little about the risks of such a policy. For instance, an argument allegedly broke out on ill-fated vessel Deepwater Horizon because BP wanted to save time and money by using lighter water instead of heavier mud to keep oil from floating up.
BP and the Obama administration are now exploring proposal after proposal to contain the spill, and yet it seems something has been missing since the crisis began: An appreciation of the undersea world affected. When the cleanup work is done, BP should hold mandatory snorkeling trips for anyone who draws a paycheck from the company -- and other oil companies should do the same. Fostering an appreciation for the underwater world they work in might make companies more sensitive to avoiding future spills.
My muse and I enjoyed these sights while vacationing in Puerto Rico last week. The variety of ocean life just a few feet from the shoreline is stunning, and tourists only need a set of goggles, a snorkel and fins to experience it. And there is one group of people that particularly needs to experience it: Anyone who works for an oil company.
The inspiring scenes we saw beneath the sea contrasted sharply with the sad images of marine life destroyed by the BP oil spill in the Gulf Coast. Based on what survivors from the blast are saying, the spill was caused at least in part by a corporate philosophy that focused too much on keeping costs down and too little about the risks of such a policy. For instance, an argument allegedly broke out on ill-fated vessel Deepwater Horizon because BP wanted to save time and money by using lighter water instead of heavier mud to keep oil from floating up.
BP and the Obama administration are now exploring proposal after proposal to contain the spill, and yet it seems something has been missing since the crisis began: An appreciation of the undersea world affected. When the cleanup work is done, BP should hold mandatory snorkeling trips for anyone who draws a paycheck from the company -- and other oil companies should do the same. Fostering an appreciation for the underwater world they work in might make companies more sensitive to avoiding future spills.
Thursday, June 3, 2010
Paintball Wizards on the Gaza Strip
Questions abound in the wake of Israel's response to the Gaza aid flotilla. Is Turkey right to show righteous indignation given its own murky human rights record? Does Israel's use of paintball guns show that it acted moderately before using the real thing? Satan and Frank Faust discuss these issues and more in the latest episode of "The Devil Made Me Blog It"!
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