Giving Away the Store

by
by wj 
 
Here's your chance to predict the results (if you get in early), or comment on them (after the fact), of Trump's meeting with Putin today. 
 
Recently, Trump has characterized this as a "listening exercise."  Which is probably, perhaps by accident, accurate. If not quite in the way he meant it.
 
Trump will blather, and probably fawn.  And Putin, like the well-trained KGB operative he was, will listen.  Just in case Trump reveals new handles or leverage that he can exploit.  Then, Putin will spin a fantasy, using his great understanding of Trump's psychology, and Trump will listen and swallow it whole.  Then Putin will hand Trump a pre-written statement on their agreement to sign.  And Trump will.  (All this, most likely, behind closed doors, as in Helsinki) 
 
Ukraine will, almost certainly, get hung out to dry.  Russia will get pretty much every concession it asks for.  The only question is whether Trump will concede something that even Putin didn't think to ask for.  Probably the speculation about returning of Alaska to Russia is overblown — Trump is unlikely to give up real estate he sees as his.  But Most Favored Nation status, to exempt Russia from all the tariffs Trump is throwing around?  I, for one, wouldn't bet the ranch against it. 
 
Open Thread also, because why not
 

76 thoughts on “Giving Away the Store”

  1. Yesterday I made this comment on Charlie Pierce’s blog at Esquire, and I stand by it:
    The MAGAts who run Congress probably think that He, Trump owns Alaska’s (and Ukraine’s) resources and is therefore entitled to trade them to his KGB handler in exchange for a Noble* Prize. The rest of us need to do something about that, and I propose this: demand a commitment to deMAGAfication from any candidate for office who seeks our support. DeMAGAfication of government agencies, deMAGAfication of the courts, and deMAGAfication of “deals” made by the MAGAt-in-Chief. Of course a decent nation honors its commitments — even those made under the previous regime — but we can worry about that AFTER we Make America Decent Again.
    –TP
    *sic; look it up

  2. Yesterday I made this comment on Charlie Pierce’s blog at Esquire, and I stand by it:
    The MAGAts who run Congress probably think that He, Trump owns Alaska’s (and Ukraine’s) resources and is therefore entitled to trade them to his KGB handler in exchange for a Noble* Prize. The rest of us need to do something about that, and I propose this: demand a commitment to deMAGAfication from any candidate for office who seeks our support. DeMAGAfication of government agencies, deMAGAfication of the courts, and deMAGAfication of “deals” made by the MAGAt-in-Chief. Of course a decent nation honors its commitments — even those made under the previous regime — but we can worry about that AFTER we Make America Decent Again.
    –TP
    *sic; look it up

  3. Spent some time off and on this week adding a first cut illumination correction to the toy software for processing images of documents.
    Original snapshot taken with a handheld iPad here.
    Result of correcting various geometry impairments — curled pages, perspective, orientation — here.
    First cut at doing some illumination correction here. The approach I’ve taken seems to do well at correcting problems caused purely by the light source being off to the side (darker sections where page curl has the surface normal vector pointing away from the light, brighter where the normal vector is pointing towards the light). The shadow in the lower right corner is from the iPad and will require a different approach to identify and correct. Or more likely, when I get closer to production I’ll arrange things so the camera doesn’t cast shadows.

  4. Spent some time off and on this week adding a first cut illumination correction to the toy software for processing images of documents.
    Original snapshot taken with a handheld iPad here.
    Result of correcting various geometry impairments — curled pages, perspective, orientation — here.
    First cut at doing some illumination correction here. The approach I’ve taken seems to do well at correcting problems caused purely by the light source being off to the side (darker sections where page curl has the surface normal vector pointing away from the light, brighter where the normal vector is pointing towards the light). The shadow in the lower right corner is from the iPad and will require a different approach to identify and correct. Or more likely, when I get closer to production I’ll arrange things so the camera doesn’t cast shadows.

  5. Re TonyP’s comment, and a general thought about Alaskan resources… Those would be oil, natural gas, and coal for the most part. Russia already has lots of those.

  6. Re TonyP’s comment, and a general thought about Alaskan resources… Those would be oil, natural gas, and coal for the most part. Russia already has lots of those.

  7. Putin left Trump virtually speechless….given Trump’s gonoerrhea mouth, quite a feat if you ask me. I wonder if the KGB hacked the Epstein files.
    That Ukrainians will continue to die trying to deal with these monsters is absolutely enraging.

  8. Putin left Trump virtually speechless….given Trump’s gonoerrhea mouth, quite a feat if you ask me. I wonder if the KGB hacked the Epstein files.
    That Ukrainians will continue to die trying to deal with these monsters is absolutely enraging.

  11. I’m actually pleasantly surprised at the outcome. Far less bad than I had expected. Far less.
    I read some griping about Putin being “honored” by being welcomed on US soil. Putin may feel honored (fat chance!). But will anyone else be impressed? Will anyone change their opinion of Putin? No and No.

  12. I’m actually pleasantly surprised at the outcome. Far less bad than I had expected. Far less.
    I read some griping about Putin being “honored” by being welcomed on US soil. Putin may feel honored (fat chance!). But will anyone else be impressed? Will anyone change their opinion of Putin? No and No.

  13. It’s pretty bad. Trump has gone from “stop fighting or else” to “carry on, we’ll have some peace talks”.
    Letting Trump conduct international negotiations is like letting a toddler conduct brain surgery. But with many more lives at stake.

  14. It’s pretty bad. Trump has gone from “stop fighting or else” to “carry on, we’ll have some peace talks”.
    Letting Trump conduct international negotiations is like letting a toddler conduct brain surgery. But with many more lives at stake.

  17. wj, I think you underestimate the effect on the Russian people of seeing Putin treated like an honoured guest in America. However, neither Ubu nor Witkoff nor any of their stooges have enough knowledge about internal Russian politics to understand that. Not to mention there is symbolic value in keeping tyrants and aggressors as isolated as possible, out of the G7 etc. But of course, with Ubu as POTUS, expecting any such idea to have currency is hopeless. I like TonyP’s Make America Decent Again, but can’t see it happening anytime soon. I dread the Zelensky meeting on Monday, and I can’t imagine how he must feel.

  18. wj, I think you underestimate the effect on the Russian people of seeing Putin treated like an honoured guest in America. However, neither Ubu nor Witkoff nor any of their stooges have enough knowledge about internal Russian politics to understand that. Not to mention there is symbolic value in keeping tyrants and aggressors as isolated as possible, out of the G7 etc. But of course, with Ubu as POTUS, expecting any such idea to have currency is hopeless. I like TonyP’s Make America Decent Again, but can’t see it happening anytime soon. I dread the Zelensky meeting on Monday, and I can’t imagine how he must feel.

  23. class in America.
    Yes, once upon a time there was a greater mix of higher-educated white collar professionals and non-college-grad working people in neighborhoods, schools, and social organizations.
    It was like that when I was a kid. Doctors, lawyers, business executives lived in the same neighborhoods as cops, plumbers, local mom-n-pop business owners. Their kids went to the same schools, familes went to the same churches, etc. The doctors and lawyers might live in nicer houses, but still in the same town and general area. So, a while back, but not that far. In living memory, mine at least.
    What’s different? Among other things, higher-educated white collar professionals make a sh*t-ton more money relative to their non-college-grad working class than they did back then.
    This is from 2015 and EPI are a bunch of commies, of course, but it gets the idea across.
    Higher-educated white collar professionals used to pay more in taxes. Non-college-educated working people used to be unionized a lot more than they are now.
    I don’t mean to be reductionist about it, but the increased income gap goes a long way to explaining the class-based segregation Brooks talks about. IMO.
    Maybe instead of waxing nostalgic about the loss of our common values and social bonds, we could tax wealthy people a little more and support organized labor.
    Sometimes things actually are as simple as that.
    As far as the summit goes, it’s just another episode in the Donald and Vlad show as far as I can tell. Trump clearly admires Putin, he adores bullies, autocrats, and “tough guys”, and Putin checks all of those boxes. He’s a Putin wanna-be, and if there is a more despicable role model on the face of the planet than Vladimir Putin, I’m at a loss as to who that might be.
    I have no idea how things are going to play out in Ukraine, Canada and the EU will likely have something to say about it all, and Ukraine by god most certainly will. But it’s pretty clear to me that Trump is not going to do anything of significance to hinder Putin’s desire to annex eastern Ukraine for now, after which he will likely rebuild a bit and return for the rest of the meal.
    Trump somehow combines the venality and corruption of Nixon with a breathtaking ignorance and incompetence all his own. He is a deeply stupid man. It’s remarkable.

  24. class in America.
    Yes, once upon a time there was a greater mix of higher-educated white collar professionals and non-college-grad working people in neighborhoods, schools, and social organizations.
    It was like that when I was a kid. Doctors, lawyers, business executives lived in the same neighborhoods as cops, plumbers, local mom-n-pop business owners. Their kids went to the same schools, familes went to the same churches, etc. The doctors and lawyers might live in nicer houses, but still in the same town and general area. So, a while back, but not that far. In living memory, mine at least.
    What’s different? Among other things, higher-educated white collar professionals make a sh*t-ton more money relative to their non-college-grad working class than they did back then.
    This is from 2015 and EPI are a bunch of commies, of course, but it gets the idea across.
    Higher-educated white collar professionals used to pay more in taxes. Non-college-educated working people used to be unionized a lot more than they are now.
    I don’t mean to be reductionist about it, but the increased income gap goes a long way to explaining the class-based segregation Brooks talks about. IMO.
    Maybe instead of waxing nostalgic about the loss of our common values and social bonds, we could tax wealthy people a little more and support organized labor.
    Sometimes things actually are as simple as that.
    As far as the summit goes, it’s just another episode in the Donald and Vlad show as far as I can tell. Trump clearly admires Putin, he adores bullies, autocrats, and “tough guys”, and Putin checks all of those boxes. He’s a Putin wanna-be, and if there is a more despicable role model on the face of the planet than Vladimir Putin, I’m at a loss as to who that might be.
    I have no idea how things are going to play out in Ukraine, Canada and the EU will likely have something to say about it all, and Ukraine by god most certainly will. But it’s pretty clear to me that Trump is not going to do anything of significance to hinder Putin’s desire to annex eastern Ukraine for now, after which he will likely rebuild a bit and return for the rest of the meal.
    Trump somehow combines the venality and corruption of Nixon with a breathtaking ignorance and incompetence all his own. He is a deeply stupid man. It’s remarkable.

  25. What you say about the reason for the class based segregation makes plenty of sense, russell. I must say, I was very surprised by this:
    Research by the Thomas B. Fordham Institute’s Michael Petrilli has demonstrated that red states are now much more active than blue states in adopting new education reform ideas. As a result, red states are leaping out ahead when it comes to student performance. The biggest education story of the last few years has been the so-called Southern surge, the significant rise in test scores in states such as Mississippi, Alabama, Louisiana and Tennessee.
    I’d be interested to know whether this is a well known phenomenon – I had certainly never heard about it, but that’s not particularly surprising I suppose.

  26. What you say about the reason for the class based segregation makes plenty of sense, russell. I must say, I was very surprised by this:
    Research by the Thomas B. Fordham Institute’s Michael Petrilli has demonstrated that red states are now much more active than blue states in adopting new education reform ideas. As a result, red states are leaping out ahead when it comes to student performance. The biggest education story of the last few years has been the so-called Southern surge, the significant rise in test scores in states such as Mississippi, Alabama, Louisiana and Tennessee.
    I’d be interested to know whether this is a well known phenomenon – I had certainly never heard about it, but that’s not particularly surprising I suppose.

  27. With Brooks, you have to take care with any evidence he offers. Yes, there is a Southern surge, but the states lauded (specifically Mississippi and Alabama) have historically been on the bottom of any ranking, so I suspect that them moving up is partly statistical. The data is from the NEAP, which only checks students in the 4th, 8th and 12th grade and the bulk of the surge comes from a leap in 4th grade, important to be sure, but it also corresponds with increased federal mandates on testing from No Child left behind in 2002 under Bush and the revised act signed by Obama. Mississippi didn’t even have any state level assessments until it joined the PARCC for one year and then opted out.
    The NEAP uses a weighted average of subgroups and gives only 4 classifications, Advanced, Proficient, Basic and Below Basic. Now, it’s a good thing that more students from Below Basic are lifted up. However, there is both a ceiling effect. Again, I don’t think that this means the Southern Surge is all bullshit, but it’s not like Mississippi and Alabama are becoming powerhouses, it is that they are becoming more like other states.
    The last thing is that the Southern Surge can be partially attributed to the pandemic. Every place had massive drops because of the pandemic. I’m not surprised that states with less developed educational infrastructure (like Mississippi and Alabama) could get up more quickly. The Southern Surge is attributable to Mississippi and Alabama moving up in the rankings, but doesn’t really talk about how and why other states dropped to make that happen.
    I don’t think that the Southern Surge is all hype, I’ve been reading a lot about the ‘Science of Reading’ approach, which replaces the Balanced Literacy approach and seems to have made a big difference in these cases. But I suspect that Southern states have had an advantage in shifting to a new system because the teachers in the old system were often under-trained or left to their own devices, so it has been easier to introduce it.

  28. With Brooks, you have to take care with any evidence he offers. Yes, there is a Southern surge, but the states lauded (specifically Mississippi and Alabama) have historically been on the bottom of any ranking, so I suspect that them moving up is partly statistical. The data is from the NEAP, which only checks students in the 4th, 8th and 12th grade and the bulk of the surge comes from a leap in 4th grade, important to be sure, but it also corresponds with increased federal mandates on testing from No Child left behind in 2002 under Bush and the revised act signed by Obama. Mississippi didn’t even have any state level assessments until it joined the PARCC for one year and then opted out.
    The NEAP uses a weighted average of subgroups and gives only 4 classifications, Advanced, Proficient, Basic and Below Basic. Now, it’s a good thing that more students from Below Basic are lifted up. However, there is both a ceiling effect. Again, I don’t think that this means the Southern Surge is all bullshit, but it’s not like Mississippi and Alabama are becoming powerhouses, it is that they are becoming more like other states.
    The last thing is that the Southern Surge can be partially attributed to the pandemic. Every place had massive drops because of the pandemic. I’m not surprised that states with less developed educational infrastructure (like Mississippi and Alabama) could get up more quickly. The Southern Surge is attributable to Mississippi and Alabama moving up in the rankings, but doesn’t really talk about how and why other states dropped to make that happen.
    I don’t think that the Southern Surge is all hype, I’ve been reading a lot about the ‘Science of Reading’ approach, which replaces the Balanced Literacy approach and seems to have made a big difference in these cases. But I suspect that Southern states have had an advantage in shifting to a new system because the teachers in the old system were often under-trained or left to their own devices, so it has been easier to introduce it.

  31. I’d be interested to know whether this is a well known phenomenon
    The NAEP stats.
    To the degree that the states Brooks calls out have made good progress in their educational outcomes, I applaud them. No snark. Well done, I hope they continue. In general they’ve advanced from pretty bad to somewhere between not-so-bad and not bad at all, which is actually a big jump, and worth celebrating.
    Good job. Keep it up.
    If you look at the NAEP stuff you’ll see that educational outcomes are not an especially blue state / red state thing. California doesn’t do very well, Utah does. IMO it’s more about the culture and history of the place, and what resources they bring to the table. Money, yes, but also an investment in the future mindset.
    At the risk of coming off like a coastal elitist snob, I note that my adopted home state of Massachusetts does quite well. We aren’t smarter than people in other states, we just have a long history of valuing education. A lot of the folks who settled the area were literate people, unusually so for their time. They valued education, and so they created pretty good schools. That culture persisted, and thus we do well on the NAEP stuff.
    I’m glad to see that some states that historically have lagged in that area are taking steps to improve. Well done, carry on.
    As an aside, I’ll also say that Brooks annoys me. Perennially. I think he’s sincere and I appreciate what I see as a real lack of cynicism. He seems to honestly be trying to make best sense of the world and his own life.
    But I also think he’s remarkably clueless. The story about wearing a Mets hat to break the ice with “ordinary people” just makes me think of that Pulp song. You know the one.
    I mean, he is genuinely a lifelong fan of the Mets, so by all means wear the hat. And if that helps break the ice, go for it. But I just don’t think he’s able to see outside of his white-shoe bubble.
    He’s just not a guy I think I need moral direction from. And that seems to be his primary way of framing his thoughts.
    I hope Mr. Brooks will forgive me if I misjudge him here.
    And that’s enough stream of consciousness from me for one night.

  32. I’d be interested to know whether this is a well known phenomenon
    The NAEP stats.
    To the degree that the states Brooks calls out have made good progress in their educational outcomes, I applaud them. No snark. Well done, I hope they continue. In general they’ve advanced from pretty bad to somewhere between not-so-bad and not bad at all, which is actually a big jump, and worth celebrating.
    Good job. Keep it up.
    If you look at the NAEP stuff you’ll see that educational outcomes are not an especially blue state / red state thing. California doesn’t do very well, Utah does. IMO it’s more about the culture and history of the place, and what resources they bring to the table. Money, yes, but also an investment in the future mindset.
    At the risk of coming off like a coastal elitist snob, I note that my adopted home state of Massachusetts does quite well. We aren’t smarter than people in other states, we just have a long history of valuing education. A lot of the folks who settled the area were literate people, unusually so for their time. They valued education, and so they created pretty good schools. That culture persisted, and thus we do well on the NAEP stuff.
    I’m glad to see that some states that historically have lagged in that area are taking steps to improve. Well done, carry on.
    As an aside, I’ll also say that Brooks annoys me. Perennially. I think he’s sincere and I appreciate what I see as a real lack of cynicism. He seems to honestly be trying to make best sense of the world and his own life.
    But I also think he’s remarkably clueless. The story about wearing a Mets hat to break the ice with “ordinary people” just makes me think of that Pulp song. You know the one.
    I mean, he is genuinely a lifelong fan of the Mets, so by all means wear the hat. And if that helps break the ice, go for it. But I just don’t think he’s able to see outside of his white-shoe bubble.
    He’s just not a guy I think I need moral direction from. And that seems to be his primary way of framing his thoughts.
    I hope Mr. Brooks will forgive me if I misjudge him here.
    And that’s enough stream of consciousness from me for one night.

  33. educational outcomes are not an especially blue state / red state thing. California doesn’t do very well, Utah does.
    I wouldn’t be surprised if a big part of that is California getting worse. I grew up when we made big investments in education. Not just university education (where tuition was minimal) but at every level. We stopped.
    Now, you can build up a couple of decades worth of debt even at a state college. And the quality of primary and secondary education (just in public schools, not even looking at private ones, where available) varies dramatically, depending on where you live.
    We didn’t have to do that. We chose to do that. The state government manages to find big bucks for projects with marginal benefits. (See the high speed rail boondoggle. It’s a nice idea in theory. In reality? No.) But serious money for the basics? Not really. And it’s not like Republican reactionaries and radical libertarians have any clout around here. These are the priorities of politicians on the left.
    I can hope for an equivalent to the Michigan “Fix the damn roads!” campaign. But I sure don’t see any politician who seem interested.

  34. educational outcomes are not an especially blue state / red state thing. California doesn’t do very well, Utah does.
    I wouldn’t be surprised if a big part of that is California getting worse. I grew up when we made big investments in education. Not just university education (where tuition was minimal) but at every level. We stopped.
    Now, you can build up a couple of decades worth of debt even at a state college. And the quality of primary and secondary education (just in public schools, not even looking at private ones, where available) varies dramatically, depending on where you live.
    We didn’t have to do that. We chose to do that. The state government manages to find big bucks for projects with marginal benefits. (See the high speed rail boondoggle. It’s a nice idea in theory. In reality? No.) But serious money for the basics? Not really. And it’s not like Republican reactionaries and radical libertarians have any clout around here. These are the priorities of politicians on the left.
    I can hope for an equivalent to the Michigan “Fix the damn roads!” campaign. But I sure don’t see any politician who seem interested.

  35. These are the priorities of politicians on the left.
    Isn’t what you are describing fallout from Prop 13, which capped property taxes, which was the mechanism that funded education? And Prop 13 didn’t have anything to do with the left and had everything to do with people who labeled themselves as conservatives.

  36. These are the priorities of politicians on the left.
    Isn’t what you are describing fallout from Prop 13, which capped property taxes, which was the mechanism that funded education? And Prop 13 didn’t have anything to do with the left and had everything to do with people who labeled themselves as conservatives.

  37. If anyone is looking for a really thought provoking analysis of what has happened to higher education in the US with a focused look at California and the UC system in particular, I’m currently reading Christopher Newfield’s book The Great Mistake: How We Wrecked Public Universities and How We Can Fix Them. Rather than try to summarize his points myself, I’ll link to a review published by the American Academy of University Professors that has a fairly complete synopsis to give you an idea of where Newfield is coming from:
    https://www.aaup.org/academe/issues/103-4/failure-privatization
    Yes, Prop 13 has had a damaging effect on education funding in California, but that was all made much worse when Schwarzenegger instituted austerity measures, and then compounded by both Brown and Newsom continuing the policy of allowing the burden of university funding to be covered by tuition increases rather than public funding increases.
    There are some other interesting bits of analysis that come out of his research that fly in the face of the public discussion as well – the biggest to my mind being that the Humanities actually subsidize STEM, rather than the other way around.
    Well worth the read.

  38. If anyone is looking for a really thought provoking analysis of what has happened to higher education in the US with a focused look at California and the UC system in particular, I’m currently reading Christopher Newfield’s book The Great Mistake: How We Wrecked Public Universities and How We Can Fix Them. Rather than try to summarize his points myself, I’ll link to a review published by the American Academy of University Professors that has a fairly complete synopsis to give you an idea of where Newfield is coming from:
    https://www.aaup.org/academe/issues/103-4/failure-privatization
    Yes, Prop 13 has had a damaging effect on education funding in California, but that was all made much worse when Schwarzenegger instituted austerity measures, and then compounded by both Brown and Newsom continuing the policy of allowing the burden of university funding to be covered by tuition increases rather than public funding increases.
    There are some other interesting bits of analysis that come out of his research that fly in the face of the public discussion as well – the biggest to my mind being that the Humanities actually subsidize STEM, rather than the other way around.
    Well worth the read.

  39. Isn’t what you are describing fallout from Prop 13, which capped property taxes, which was the mechanism that funded education?
    Prop 13 contributed, certainly. But, as nous notes, it’s far from the whole story.
    Property taxes are a big part of funding primary and secondary education. But they aren’t the only source. Also, the problem of reduced results has occurred even in places where there is relatively rapid turnover of home ownership. (Taxes weren’t capped by Prop 13. It just froze assessments of property values, on which taxes are based, until the property changes hands.)
    Funding for the University of California, and for the state university system, is totally unrelated to property taxes. It comes directly from the state budget, and from whatever tuition gets charged to make up the shortfalls. We could provide more funding from the state budget, and so reduce tuition. We chose, and continue to choose, not to.

  40. Isn’t what you are describing fallout from Prop 13, which capped property taxes, which was the mechanism that funded education?
    Prop 13 contributed, certainly. But, as nous notes, it’s far from the whole story.
    Property taxes are a big part of funding primary and secondary education. But they aren’t the only source. Also, the problem of reduced results has occurred even in places where there is relatively rapid turnover of home ownership. (Taxes weren’t capped by Prop 13. It just froze assessments of property values, on which taxes are based, until the property changes hands.)
    Funding for the University of California, and for the state university system, is totally unrelated to property taxes. It comes directly from the state budget, and from whatever tuition gets charged to make up the shortfalls. We could provide more funding from the state budget, and so reduce tuition. We chose, and continue to choose, not to.

  41. There’s a thing in the education literature called “the Colorado Paradox”. We are quite mediocre at getting resident kids through K-12, and into and through college. But we have the 2nd or 3rd most educated workforce in the country. Mostly it’s an accident of geography and history, and is probably not reproducible.

  42. There’s a thing in the education literature called “the Colorado Paradox”. We are quite mediocre at getting resident kids through K-12, and into and through college. But we have the 2nd or 3rd most educated workforce in the country. Mostly it’s an accident of geography and history, and is probably not reproducible.

  43. So much fascinating info, thank you all! It’s quite clear that my impression of the relevant southern states’ educational standards was seriously out of date. I haven’t yet read nous’s Reichman link on CA higher education, but I will certainly do so – I’m particularly interested in the Humanities subsidising STEM aspect.
    The story about wearing a Mets hat to break the ice with “ordinary people” just makes me think of that Pulp song. You know the one.
    russell, I think Common People is a brilliant song, but to me it describes a different phenomenon. The girl in it is acting as a tourist, sampling the ways and customs of an utterly foreign culture. It seems to me that the Mets hat thing is a way of trying to experience goodwill and a human connection between groups who may not have many other interests or passions in common (but who may find they do when they start to talk). I think it is like when people from completely different backgrounds and experiences love the same music, and can talk passionately and knowledgeably about it. The ability to do this, and to value it, seems to me to be a good thing.

  44. So much fascinating info, thank you all! It’s quite clear that my impression of the relevant southern states’ educational standards was seriously out of date. I haven’t yet read nous’s Reichman link on CA higher education, but I will certainly do so – I’m particularly interested in the Humanities subsidising STEM aspect.
    The story about wearing a Mets hat to break the ice with “ordinary people” just makes me think of that Pulp song. You know the one.
    russell, I think Common People is a brilliant song, but to me it describes a different phenomenon. The girl in it is acting as a tourist, sampling the ways and customs of an utterly foreign culture. It seems to me that the Mets hat thing is a way of trying to experience goodwill and a human connection between groups who may not have many other interests or passions in common (but who may find they do when they start to talk). I think it is like when people from completely different backgrounds and experiences love the same music, and can talk passionately and knowledgeably about it. The ability to do this, and to value it, seems to me to be a good thing.

  45. Speaking of California, I’d like to hear what nous and wj have to say about Newsom’s counter-gerrymander initiative. Any lurking Californians are especially welcome to comment as well.
    Come to think of it, I’d like to hear from the Texans among us, too, even if Abbott doesn’t.
    –TP

  46. Speaking of California, I’d like to hear what nous and wj have to say about Newsom’s counter-gerrymander initiative. Any lurking Californians are especially welcome to comment as well.
    Come to think of it, I’d like to hear from the Texans among us, too, even if Abbott doesn’t.
    –TP

  47. It seems to me that the Mets hat thing is a way of trying to experience goodwill and a human connection between groups who may not have many other interests or passions in common
    Yes, I think that is correct. And yes, I agree that trying to make connections and find common ground are good things. And yes, I understand that the motivations of the callow art student in the Pulp song are quite different.
    In general, I think Brooks is a decent person.
    But I also think there is, probably inevitably, a limit to the degree to which someone from Brooks’ background and in Brooks’ position can understand and speak for the experience and interests of people who do not share his advantages. Mets hat or not.
    Brooks tends to frame things in moralizing terms. I think he does that honestly, because it seems like his personal values and interests lead him to think in those categories. Which I don’t fault him for, exactly, but I think it causes him to miss the mark in a lot of ways. And it also makes him seem like something of a scold. To me, anyway.
    His argument often seems to be “Gee, we should be better people”. Well, OK, yeah, I guess we should all be better people. But transforming the general character of the public doesn’t seem like a particularly practical approach to what are actually, in many cases, systemic problems. Problems amenable to concrete solutions, solutions that you could actually implement. And that would actually make people’s lives better in ways that would, in turn, make it a hell of a lot easier to be “better people”.
    It’s easier to be virtuous when your larder is full.
    And that’s probably enough from me about Brooks. He strikes me as a basically decent person. I just can’t think of anything I’ve read of his that seemed especially useful. And, intentional or not, I personally find what I take to be the moralizing tone of his work kind of condescending.
    Just my opinion, offered more or less as an aside.

  48. It seems to me that the Mets hat thing is a way of trying to experience goodwill and a human connection between groups who may not have many other interests or passions in common
    Yes, I think that is correct. And yes, I agree that trying to make connections and find common ground are good things. And yes, I understand that the motivations of the callow art student in the Pulp song are quite different.
    In general, I think Brooks is a decent person.
    But I also think there is, probably inevitably, a limit to the degree to which someone from Brooks’ background and in Brooks’ position can understand and speak for the experience and interests of people who do not share his advantages. Mets hat or not.
    Brooks tends to frame things in moralizing terms. I think he does that honestly, because it seems like his personal values and interests lead him to think in those categories. Which I don’t fault him for, exactly, but I think it causes him to miss the mark in a lot of ways. And it also makes him seem like something of a scold. To me, anyway.
    His argument often seems to be “Gee, we should be better people”. Well, OK, yeah, I guess we should all be better people. But transforming the general character of the public doesn’t seem like a particularly practical approach to what are actually, in many cases, systemic problems. Problems amenable to concrete solutions, solutions that you could actually implement. And that would actually make people’s lives better in ways that would, in turn, make it a hell of a lot easier to be “better people”.
    It’s easier to be virtuous when your larder is full.
    And that’s probably enough from me about Brooks. He strikes me as a basically decent person. I just can’t think of anything I’ve read of his that seemed especially useful. And, intentional or not, I personally find what I take to be the moralizing tone of his work kind of condescending.
    Just my opinion, offered more or less as an aside.

  49. GftNC – the analysis of how the humanities and social sciences actually end up subsidizing STEM are not in the review synopsis that I linked, but rather in the book being reviewed, so here’s another link that gets at those details some more (esp. in section 2):
    https://profession.mla.org/the-humanities-as-service-departments-facing-the-budget-logic/
    There’s a lot more analysis like this in The Great Mistake.
    Tony P. – I find it tragic that Newsom has opted to put redistricting up to a vote, but I fully understand and accept the necessity of it, and will vote in support of it when it comes to that. This all could have been avoided had the Roberts Court done the right thing and allowed the Wisconsin gerrymandered districting to be struck down. It’s fully on Roberts’ shoulders that partisan redistricting is considered to be allowed under the constitution. Likewise, their systematic erosion of voter protections under the Civil Rights Act of 1964 has allowed the GOP to attempt this latest scheme to disenfranchise opposition voters by wasting their votes on non-competitive districts and empowering their own voters in competitive districts.
    I’d gladly vote to go back to non-partisan redistricting after the fact if this GOP power grab is unsuccessful. I don’t want to disenfranchise Republican voters, but neither am I going to get caught up on principle while the other side cheats to win.
    I don’t know if it will be enough to break the fall, but taking the high road is conceding the contest, and that cannot happen.

  50. Clarification: if it wasn’t obvious, by “the ways and customs of an utterly foreign culture” I didn’t mean Greek v English, I meant rich v poor.

  52. Sorry, I posted that before I saw russell’s and nous’s. nous: thanks for further link. I read the synopsis which refers to it tangentially, but will certainly follow up.
    russell: I hear you. And I can only hope that a lot of other people reading the NYT are less subtle than you, and take the general theme of the piece (segregation by income and education) seriously when they may not have seen it in quite that way before.
    It’s easier to be virtuous when your larder is full.
    A truer word was never spoke.

  53. russell: I hear you.
    Thanks GFTNC.
    My comments about Brooks were probably off-topic, and probably not that constructive or useful. I’m sure I do him a disservice, at least to some degree.
    I’m generally disgusted with the state of public life here in this country at the moment, and I think it colors my thoughts about a lot of things. Disgusted doesn’t quite cover it – angry, broken-hearted, feeling generally helpless to know how to counter the widespread and gob-smacking folly and senseless cruelty that we are obliged to live with, and under, at the moment.
    It sucks.
    I appreciate your more generous thoughts about Brooks’ work, it reminds me to look for the positive.
    Better days, y’all.

  54. It seems to me that the Mets hat thing is a way of trying to experience goodwill and a human connection between groups who may not have many other interests or passions in common.
    For the first 3/4 or more of the 20th century, baseball was one of the things that bound people together in this country. Rich or poor, black or white, city or country — people, whether they followed the game closely or not, were sufficiently aware to be able to talk about it. Their favorite team might not be the local one, but nobody got too exercised about that.
    I think two things happened. One was technological: television. Baseball games can be readily followed on radio (presuming good broadcasters, which most were). But football is a TV game. You can’t really appreciate what is happening without seeing things unfold. Somehow, football seems much more divisive than baseball.
    The other was cultural. It became de rigueur for the upper classes to look down on the game. One could be interested, and many were. But showing interest was not the done thing. If you must talk about sports, talk about something lacrosse, which the lower classes don’t do.
    What that Mets hat does is show an interest in breaking down that barrier. And a refusal to sneer at the people he’s talking to.

  55. I’d like to hear what nous and wj have to say about Newsom’s counter-gerrymander initiative.
    I strongly supported the initiative that set up our nonpartisan redistricting commission. I really, really hate to see anything that weakens it.
    That said, like nous I will vote for this one-time, Congressional districts only, change. It’s tragic that it has come to this. But the world is how it is, and the alternatives are worse. As long as nobody tries to make it a permanent change, or extends it to state legislative districts, I expect it to pass.

  56. Here is a really good discussion between Ezra Klein and Philippe Sands about Gaza and genocide:
    https://www.nytimes.com/2025/08/13/opinion/ezra-klein-podcast-philippe-sands.html
    Sands pretty much has the same position I have: it is pretty clear that it is genocide but endlessly debating the matter is a distraction from the daily horror and might even be counterproductive. Obviously, nobody cares what I think and why should they, but Sands, as both a prominent human rights lawyer and author of several books on the matter, including one about the “inventors ” of the words “genocide” and “crimes against humanity”, has a bit more weight to throw around.
    A propos de rien: Hannah Arendt seems to be all the rage in certain circles of the US intelligentsia, which is great since we need eclectic but sharp and principled thinkers now more than ever, but please learn how to pronounce her name correctly: the stress is on the the first syllable, not the second.

  58. In this interview, an urban warfare expert, who has frequently been in Gaza, describes the current situation as unprecedented. One reason is that, unlike most urban warfare scenarios, where civilians can evacuate combat zones, in Gaza, civilians are compelled to remain in the heart of the fighting.
    “John Spencer is a retired U.S. Army Major and leading expert on urban warfare, known for his frontline experience, strategic insights, and influential writing on modern combat in cities.”
    War Expert Debunks Gaza Lies – John Spencer

  59. What that Mets hat does is show an interest in breaking down that barrier. And a refusal to sneer at the people he’s talking to.
    I’d like to try to be very clear about what I’m saying about Brooks.
    I fully believe he wears the Mets hat in an effort to break through social barriers. And who knows, perhaps his conversations about the Mets do expand into topics of greater substance vis a vis our various public and social dilemnas. And no, I’m not being sarcastic in saying that.
    And no, I don’t believe Brooks is sneering at the people he’s talking to, or at anyone in particular.
    My issue with Brooks is that he seems to feel that the world’s problems can be resolved through improvements in our personal, private virtue.
    Want to break through the socio-economic barriers that divide the college-educated professionals from their working class counter-parties?
    Sign up for one of the volunteer opportunities on the Weavers’ website. In my area, those opportunities are (1) lead playtimes for homeless kids who are living in area shelters and (2) drive seniors to appointments.
    Those are great things to do. I have done, and continue to do, similar things that somehow don’t appear on his list – put in hours at a local food bank, provide overnight chaperoning for homeless families camping out in my church. Cook meals at a local homeless shelter. And so on.
    What I can tell you from my experience with these things is that they *do not solve* the systemic problems that cause families to be homeless, or seniors to be without any form of useful public transportation. For example.
    They do not prompt wealthy college-educated folks living in islands of privilege to welcome cops, welders, nurses, and carpenters into their neighborhoods. They certainly and absolutely *DO NOT* prompt those people to do anything that would make lower-income housing more available in their communities, because that would put the assessed values of their own lovely homes at risk. And if the schools in their areas are not up to snuff, they quite often respond by sending their kids to private school, rather than take whatever steps would be needed to improve the local public schools.
    Without going into the gory details of my own situation, I can tell you that I live this stuff. Live around it, live with it. The class divide, as Brooks notes, is quite real. But signing up for a two-hour shift playing with homeless kids is not going to solve it. Driving somebody’s grandma to her haircut is not going to solve it. Those are more than fine things to do, let’s all go do our share of them.
    But they don’t address the root causes of the class divide. The class divide is fundamentally about money and power – who has it, what can they do with it. Me, a retired white software guy with basically enough money living in a nice suburban bedroom community going and playing with homeless kids at a local shelter *does not house that kids family*. It *does not magically provide that kids family with the resources to get them the hell out of the shelter*.
    Right?
    And Brooks’ digs at the Democrats in the “segregation” piece are unwelcome, and frankly less than honest. The educational “red state surge” is frankly not all that. Some states have improved from really bad to somewhere between middling and pretty good, which is an outstanding result. And that’s it. And education in some other red states absolutely suck, as does education in some blue states, or parts of some blue states. And education in some red states is actually exemplary, as it is in some blue states. It doesn’t appear to have all that much to do with whether you’re in a red state or blue state.
    Brooks talks about working people feeling that have no power. And he’s not wrong, most of the power in this country belongs to wealthy educated folks. How did that happen?
    In this country, historically, the way that working people have gained any measure of political and social power was through organization. Organized labor. Unions.
    I don’t see Brooks supporting organized labor. I don’t see him calling out for greater labor participation in corporate governance. I don’t see him calling out for employee ownership or other forms of meaningful equity in businesses.
    Those are the things that give working people power.
    I don’t see Brooks calling for any of the kinds of systemic changes that would actually address the “class divide” by *making the fucking divide smaller*. On the contrary, his history is one of supporting the kinds of (R) policies that exacerbate the problem.
    And his solution is for all of us to volunteer to do helpful stuff in our local community to “bridge the divide” and “rebuild social trust”.
    More meaningful forms of creating social trust, IMO, would be relaxing local zoning rules to make affordable housing in your neighborhood available. Would be supporting institutions like the CFPB so that fucking predatory financial institutions would stop ripping people off. Would be finding a sane way to fund public education so that It’s not just rich towns that get good schools. Would be supporting organized labor and employee participation in equity ownership and governance.
    I think David Brooks is a decent person. I think he intends good things. And I think he’s incapable of challenging the assumptions and policies of the conservative institutions that have been his professional home, and whose policies are largely responsible for the social ills he laments.
    He’s a nice man. And he doesn’t get – seems incapable of getting – the connection between the things he has spent his life endorsing, and the problems he clearly sees. So, his solution to things is for everyone to be nicer, volunteer, and talk to each other.
    If you want working people to have more power, support the things that have been the source of that power, historically.
    If you want people of different educational and social backgrounds to mix, make it possible for people with less-privileged backgrounds to live in places where the more-privileged people live.
    If you want to build social trust, address the gazillion forms of corruption that distort and undermine people’s trust in public institutions. Start with making sure that everybody gets to vote, and that their votes aren’t neutered by partisan gerrymandering – which of course means walking back yet another bullshit SCOTUS decision.
    Trust is built on hearing and respecting each person’s voice. It’s built on, not just the perception, but the tangible reality of fairness. And not just while you’re driving a nice old lady to her haircut, although by all means do it there as well. But also in the voting booth, in the workplace, in the doctor’s office. In people’s dealings with banks and insurance companies. In the immigration office. Right?
    The kind of almost cartoonish venality and abuse of power we see with Trump has been building for decades, and it’s the modern conservative movement, in which Brooks is knee-deep, that planned for it, laid the groundwork for it, built the institutions to make it happen.
    He won’t see that. Doesn’t seem capable of seeing that. Where’s Kamala’s education plan, he asks. It’s the (D)’s fault.
    Yeah, no it’s not. But he’ll never own that. So I don’t care for him. Don’t hate him, don’t wish him ill. But don’t think he’s got much to offer us. For all the reaons enumerated at probably tiresome length above.
    And with all of that, I think I’ve been sufficiently unkind to David Brooks for one day. He’s a nice man, in the context of all the shit that is going on he is very, very, very far from being public enemy #1. I appreciate his lack of cynicism and his instinct toward moderation.
    The current state of the nation has me in kind of dark place. Thank you for indulging my rant, apparently I needed to get some crap off my chest. I promise I’ll do my best to cheer up.
    Night all.

  60. They do not prompt wealthy college-educated folks living in islands of privilege to welcome cops, welders, nurses, and carpenters into their neighborhoods. They certainly and absolutely *DO NOT* prompt those people to do anything that would make lower-income housing more available in their communities, because that would put the assessed values of their own lovely homes at risk. And if the schools in their areas are not up to snuff, they quite often respond by sending their kids to private school, rather than take whatever steps would be needed to improve the local public schools.
    Without going into the gory details of my own situation, I can tell you that I live this stuff. Live around it, live with it.
    I have the recurring feeling that I am living in a different universe. This town is chock full of highly educated people. Has been since I was growing up here in the 1950s. (The town was a twentieth the size then, but its character hasn’t changed much.) A lot of my neighbors are college educated; a couple used to teach college.
    But my next door neighbor is a cop. (Not sure where. San Francisco maybe?) The guy a couple doors down is a farrier. (Yes really.) Great folks, not particularly well educated; one says he still marvels that he managed to graduate high school. In short, nothing like the class segregation described.
    The town is mostly single family houses; archetypal suburbia. But there are also apartment buildings. No more houses being built the last decade or two; we ran out of space. But new apartment buildings are still going up. Afordable ones; at least what passes for affordable for California.
    Like I say, a different universe. Not that I doubt for a minute that the problem exists. Just that it’s outside my lived experience.

  61. Two quick websites for getting a sense of the geography of income inequality in major US cities:
    https://inequality.stanford.edu/income-segregation-maps
    These show increases in concentration of rich and poor over time, but the levels of concentration vary by city.
    https://inequality.media.mit.edu/#
    This one looks not just at neighborhood median income, but tracks the places that people of varying economic backgrounds visit in several cities to show the geography of daily association.
    Hard to say if these patterns persist outside of major metropolitan areas. I imagine that smaller data sets lead to greater uncertainty of results.

  62. Thanks for sharing all of that, wj.
    The immediate situation in my area is this: in 2021 MA passed a law requiring that towns with public transportation access, or towns adjacent to them, had to allow multi-family zoning in areas near the public transportation.
    A number of communities affected by the law refused to comply. Most or all of these are upper-middle-class bedroom communities. Failure to comply is likely to result in the loss of significant state money, and the state may also appoint a special manager to write a compliance plan for you.
    I live in one of those towns, and the issue has been front and center. Folks who object to the law give lots of reasons for their objection, but basically they DO NOT WANT multi-family housing. Or, more multi-family housing, we already have some.
    They have a point. The town is already pretty densely populated, more people will require more services, etc etc etc.
    But the town also has a lot of very, very wealthy people in it, and many more who are aspirationally very, very wealthy. Those folks don’t want development that is going to make the town look down-market, because it will undermine the market value of their property. And those property values are, indeed, high – insanely high, because there is a lot of money chasing housing in this area.
    So a lot of folks who work in the town – tradespeople, cops, nurses, teachers, mechanics – live somewhere else. A lot of people who work in the town *and grew up in the town* live somewhere else.
    It’s a really old town, and there are some old-timers and children and grand-children of old-timers who still do hands-on labor. Lobstermen, couple of boatyards. But they’re aging out.
    And so, segregation by class.
    It’s not a universal thing, the vote to not comply was quite close – a lot of people here would be more than fine with complying.
    The political angle of all of this is that the folks who instigated the vote against complying were notable local MAGAs, and the folks who voting against compliance were likewise on that end of the spectrum.
    I personally live in a neighborhood that sounds like it’s a lot like yours. Neighbor across the street are a cop and nurse, to the right is a postal worker and the buyer for a museum gift shop, to the left is a retired local photo print shop owner and nurse. Folks behind us are a bit more upscale, but their street is a little more upscale, so I guess that makes sense.
    Basically, we live in the starter home neighborhood of our town, closer to downtown Salem than to our own downtown. But even our more modest neighborhood is likely out of reach for a lot of middle class working folks. We bought in 2002, we would likely never be able to do so now.
    There are lots of similar stories to tell from around here. The schools in my upper middle class town are not so great, because we don’t pay well, because people DO NOT WANT TO PAY TAXES and the wealthier folks in town just send their kids to the private school. Salem is running into conflict over a proposal to allow a very limited kind of multi-family housing – basically, in-law units that could be rented or used for extended family housing.
    The town I live in is quite old – settled in 1629, mostly by fishermen and somewhat famously by drunks and ne’er do wells who couldn’t get along with the Puritans in Salem. It has a history as a working town – fishing, boat building and related trades, light industry – there was even a small airplane factory here at one point. But those folks are getting pushed out. The ones who are still here are largely folks who’ve been here a really long time and got in before the big real estate gold rush(es). Or come from families who’ve been here forever.
    The folks to our right bought their place a couple of years ago. It’s a bog standard mid-century suburban colonial, 3 bed 1 1/2 bath, 1/8 acre plot. It went for almost $900K. They’re working people – postal worker and museum gift shop buyer – so maybe there’s some family money there, who knows. But holy crap, that’s a lot of money for a perfectly nice but totally unremarkable house in a perfectly nice but totally unremarkable neighborhood.
    That’s the scene here.

  64. I’m sitting here laughing at myself, looking at my novella-length posts in this thread.
    I’ve just started a short course of prednisone to deal with an inflammatory reaction I’m having to COVID, which I had back in June.
    My wife and I were visiting with friends yesterday and they asked about it all. Was it making me aggressive?
    No, my wife said. But it’s making him talk a lot.
    :: rimshot ::
    I will try to be more concise, going forward.

  65. Maybe you’re having a (perfectly understandable) inflammatory reaction to the state of the nation, too. I figure that’s a factor in my long (for me) comments.

  66. A number of communities affected by the law refused to comply.
    There were some minor rumblings here like that. They went nowhere because the Town Council basically said “We don’t have funds to pay the fines for non-compliance.” Which amount to $1 million — the number that sticks in my head is per day, but it might have been per month. Anyway, enough that nobody was jumping up volunteering to personally donate the cash to cover it.

  67. Re the link in nous’s 3:12…
    I’m on the author’s side, mostly. So I’ll get my initial childish response out of the way: if you’re going to argue numbers, for pity’s sake format the numbers so they’re legible. My normal response when given a table that I have to copy-and-paste into a different piece of software to read conveniently is to just stop there.
    Given the title of the linked piece — “The Humanities as Service Departments: Facing the Budget Logic” — the author never got to the point I was expecting. What I was looking for was a reconciliation of two facts. On the one side, the author’s table showing that A&H generated large amounts of tuition revenue at little expense. On the other, the administration’s assertion that A&H departments had relatively few students in their degree programs. He put the conclusion right there in the title, but apparently couldn’t bring himself to say it.
    It seems to me that A&H faculty should (a) have recognized that they were turning into service departments and (b) have been proactive on the question of how to be better service departments (while retaining their historical roles). The goal ought to be that when someone proposes A&H cuts, the non-A&H faculty scream.
    Long ago when I was a TA at the University of Texas, the state legislature proposed what was basically doing away with us and requiring full-time faculty to do the work. I went down to the Capitol the day they had public hearings. Two faculty members killed the bill. First, the head of the math department testified that with his current staff, the dept would have to drop the services they were providing to the engineering school: calculus, linear algebra, and differential equations classes. Second, the head of the engineering college testified that he would pretty much have to shut down if that happened because his faculty would go elsewhere rather than teach the math classes. Worth noting that the math department already segregated students. Both linear algebra and differential equations were taught in two versions, one for engineering students and one for people outside of engineering.

  68. They went nowhere because the Town Council basically said “We don’t have funds to pay the fines for non-compliance.”
    In my case, the no-comply locals are basically taking the “damn the torpedos, full speed ahead” approach.
    The town is likely to lose several million dollars in state money. Competitive grants, mostly, for which we will no longer qualify. And we’re likely to spend a lot of money – I don’t know how much, but it will be a sum measured in legal billable hours – arguing with the state in court about it all.
    Where is the money for legal fees gonna come from? :: shrug ::
    The legality of the law has already been established at the MA Supreme Court. Precedent has already been set by other towns that have challenged all of this on similar grounds and lost. We don’t really have a leg to stand on.
    The state isn’t really asking a lot, here. They want the town to identify some areas where people can build multi-family housing without pulling a special permit. The areas the town government had identified are areas where there is already multi-family housing, or which are already zoned for mixed use. There is no requirement to actually build anything, we just have to say *if* somebody wants to build multi-family housing in a particular area, someday, they don’t have to pull a special permit to do so.
    NIMBY strikes again.

  69. They went nowhere because the Town Council basically said “We don’t have funds to pay the fines for non-compliance.”
    In my case, the no-comply locals are basically taking the “damn the torpedos, full speed ahead” approach.
    The town is likely to lose several million dollars in state money. Competitive grants, mostly, for which we will no longer qualify. And we’re likely to spend a lot of money – I don’t know how much, but it will be a sum measured in legal billable hours – arguing with the state in court about it all.
    Where is the money for legal fees gonna come from? :: shrug ::
    The legality of the law has already been established at the MA Supreme Court. Precedent has already been set by other towns that have challenged all of this on similar grounds and lost. We don’t really have a leg to stand on.
    The state isn’t really asking a lot, here. They want the town to identify some areas where people can build multi-family housing without pulling a special permit. The areas the town government had identified are areas where there is already multi-family housing, or which are already zoned for mixed use. There is no requirement to actually build anything, we just have to say *if* somebody wants to build multi-family housing in a particular area, someday, they don’t have to pull a special permit to do so.
    NIMBY strikes again.

  70. Michael – Given the title of the linked piece — “The Humanities as Service Departments: Facing the Budget Logic” — the author never got to the point I was expecting. What I was looking for was a reconciliation of two facts. On the one side, the author’s table showing that A&H generated large amounts of tuition revenue at little expense. On the other, the administration’s assertion that A&H departments had relatively few students in their degree programs. He put the conclusion right there in the title, but apparently couldn’t bring himself to say it.
    I think that what you are noting here is a product of the venue. It’s published on the MLA site, so the readers (mostly language and literature faculty) are already oriented towards that conclusion and mostly reading for the findings. Newfield unpacks more of his conclusions when writing for the general public.
    It seems to me that A&H faculty should (a) have recognized that they were turning into service departments and (b) have been proactive on the question of how to be better service departments (while retaining their historical roles). The goal ought to be that when someone proposes A&H cuts, the non-A&H faculty scream.
    Was more true a decade ago than today. Generative AI is convincing a segment of non-A&H faculty that a lot of the service that A&H provide for them can be handled by tech rather than teachers, because they have been using Gen AI to make their own work more readable. The same is true of coding and calculation. The high-ROI STEM fields use AI to parse the code they write to crunch their data, and they use MATLAB to do their calculations…
    …relying, of course, on the judgment and understanding they developed while having to learn to write, code, and calculate the old-fashioned way. The high school graduates that come through those service classes are not going to go through that struggle, and therefore not develop that judgment themselves.
    Whatever the case, the non-A&H faculty have a lot less solidarity with the A&H faculty than they used to, thanks to two decades of austerity budgets, and especially now as their research grants are being stripped away.
    It’s a bad scene all around. And the biggest casualties in all this are the teaching mission of the universities and the economic futures of the students who are being forced into ever increasing debt and being given a much degraded version of an education thanks to all of this.
    Our lecturer’s union is fighting against this trend (being wholly dedicated to the educational mission and having the majority of its members teaching in service departments). Our working conditions are our students’ learning conditions. But the regents and the professional management class at the university system level are entirely isolated from the teaching mission side of things and think that this level of precarity gives them more flexibility when dealing with state budget austerity. They don’t care about the quality of the student education, only that the quality of that education relative to their rival institutions (you know, the US News rankings, and admissions numbers) remain high enough to hold place or move up.
    It’s quite sad – moreso when you are in the middle of it and care more about the educational mission than about all of the rest.
    The only thing that seems to budge the statewide people is when they start to worry about bad publicity damaging the institutional reputation. But that sort of media attention is also hard to come by. It takes a combination of really bad circumstances and massive coordination efforts to get media attention, and it’s really hard to keep that attention for more than a blink with so much shit flooding the zone every single day.

  71. Maybe you’re having a (perfectly understandable) inflammatory reaction to the state of the nation, too.
    This. Also, I have known several near and dear who have had Roid Rage – it’s quite entertaining when you realise what it is. Anyway, IMO, you have no need whatsoever for more concision. What you say is always worth listening to – your jaundiced and despairing viewpoint is perfectly understandable, though nobody who knows you at all would wish it on you. This too shall pass (we devoutly hope).

  72. Roid Rage
    Yeah, I’ll be glad to be done with the steroid. It’s like pushing the magic “asshole” button.
    Haven’t followed today’s goings on in any detail but I’m assuming it’s been just as weird and inexplicable as the Alaska thing. Just in different ways.
    These days I find myself wishing I lived in some small, competent, unambitious country. Denmark or the Netherlands, maybe? Ireland? Botswana perhaps.
    Go about my business, live my life in peace, and watch the “Great Powers” choke on their own hubris.
    Not jaundiced or despairing, really, just so freaking tired of the pointless dick-measuring drama.
    Better days.

  73. The town is likely to lose several million dollars in state money
    This may actually be the salient point. Here, it isn’t a matter of losing state money (which may be earmarked for stuff they aren’t enthusiastic about anyway). Instead, it’s fines charged to the town. New Expenses!
    The dollar amount may be a wash. But the difference in perception between “stop giving us money (with strings)” and “charge us money” is apparently quite significant.

  74. This may actually be the salient point.
    Could be.
    The kinds of grant money that are likely to be at risk are funds that we currently use, and have used in the past, to prepare for the effects of climate change and for general infrastructure, e.g. repairing a bridge in town. There are some smaller grants – six figure – for energy conservation and decarbonization programs.
    The climate change stuff is especially relevant because we’re a peninsula, with water on three sides. The lower lying areas include the site of the town’s electric plant.
    We’ll muddle through, but it’s gonna be a loss.
    It’s the lawyers that are gonna show up on the “charge us money” tab.
    Really, I just brought it all up as an example of class based segregation. A sufficient number of people in town don’t want more people coming to town who can’t afford single family houses.

  76. Since this is the recent open thread…
    Mostly for wj, who purports to be an eventual user of what is currently a piece of toy software for dewarping images. After a small frenzy of coding today, here’s a very simple-minded cut at color. I chose this image to see if it preserved the red-eye effect in the right eye. (After looking at the original Polaroid print under 5x magnification, this is surprisingly good.) Among the things on my mind as I kept cutting corners were: (a) how many serial color-space and gamma conversions am I ignoring here, and (b) how much information am I losing by forcing intermediate values back to eight-bit integers? Still, I’m not unhappy with the results.
    http://www.mcain6925.com/obsidian/dewarp/obsidian09.jpg

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