How We Argue

Defining Literacy

2012-01-22T14:00:00.000-08:00

This week, Rebekka asked the class to think about what the term 'literacy' means in a digital world.

Interestingly, shortly after I put my last blog post up on Facebook, my cousin asked me a similar question in the comments section. An image of the exchange is posted here because...

I think I composed a nice little definition there, if I do say so myself, and...
That exchange is a an good example of reading in today's digital environment.

Some explanation of the exchange: When I posted to Facebook, I noted that my literacy narrative referred to the white-on-blue word processing screen made famous by the TV show "Doogie Howser M.D." As a result, the comments that followed include hyper-specific pop culture references alongside a discussion of the abstract concept of literacy.

I love this about digital literacy. A quality exchange normally has multiple foci. Digital literacy is found in the act of navigating all the points, counterpoints, ironic responses, non sequiturs, misfires, misunderstandings, baiting, esoteric references, and the all-too-obvious observations that are each accepted as part of the discourse.

Paul's Boutique

I'm reminded of the Beastie Boys 1989 album, Paul's Boutique. The Wikipedia page for the album's 6th track, "The Sounds of Science," lists no less than twenty-one pop culture references, and that list is nowhere near complete. Luckily, Soopageek has provided a much more complete annotated version of the song's lyric. Here's one annotation from Soopageek's page:

Ponce De Leon constantly on
The fountain of youth not Robotron

Ponce De Leon was a Spanish Explorer who discovered Florida while searching for the fountain of youth.
Robotron: 2084 was a popular arcade video game released in 1982.

Now I know that the Beastie Boys' effort to innovate through extensive sampling and rapid-fire references from across the cultural spectrum is more of a reflection of postmodernism's influence than it is of digital literacy, but... And this is a big 'but'...

The fact that a postmodern approach to ideas had seeped so deep into our culture by 1989 has a lot to do with what digital literacy looks like today.

In our class last week, Aaron argued that for the digitally literate, the onus is on the reader to understand how a link or allusion informs the document at hand, and this is true regardless of the cultural capital the author is drawing from - from Spanish explorers to early 80s video games. Aaron's argument suggests it is no longer the author's task to anticipate the reader's frame of reference.

I resisted in class, but I'm coming around.

Here's an instance that might explain why: Today I read James Sullivan's review of William Gibson's latest book. Among other things, the review refers to Skip Spence's 1969 album "Oar," the post-hippie era, Jorge Luis Borges, eBay, politics in Singapore, and of course Gibson's entire body of speculative fiction.

I was on a website I visit regularly reading about an author with whom I am familiar. Nevertheless, I had to look up Skip Spence (good stuff, btw).

It's not the number of references that requires a new kind of literacy, it's the range. A reader attempting to take in the full meaning of that review needs to have access to such a broad swath of cultural knowledge that internet search becomes a necessary part of the reading process.

In fact, readers now expect digital texts to send them off searching. If readers aren't moved to teach themselves something new as a result of a digital document, than the author isn't properly taking advantage of the medium. And if that's the case, then the author is not fully digitally literate.

So, if we lost functions of memory in the shift from an oral to a literate culture, as Wolf and Hass suggest, then perhaps we'll have to sacrifice the concept of individuals owning cultural capital in the shift to a digital culture.

I'm in a New Class

2012-01-17T17:10:00.000-08:00

I've enrolled in the UWP's Literacy and Technology course this winter. The seminar is being led by Rebekka Andersen.

Maintaining a blog is one task in the course. I've been keeping a blog for a while, as my 3 readers know, but I'm looking forward to the added direction. This week I'm posting a literacy narrative with a focus on how technology has impacted my reading and writing. Normally I won't explain a post's aim like this, but I thought the shift in focus might merit an explanation for those who have visited before.

Below is a video of a spokesperson from the Hunt Institute talking about his institute's take on 'literacy in other disciplines' as seen through the lens of the common core standards. You can watch it if you want. The man says nice things, sounds smart, and paints a wonderful picture of the value of literacy in science and history. I want this guy to be right about what school can achieve, but this task of composing a literacy narrative has me feeling skeptical. When I listen to someone describe students acquiring broad cultural literacy via a formal process, I can't help thinking about how messy that process was for me personally - a white, Midwestern, middle class, heterosexual male; I'm the kind of person for whom the system was designed... when it was designed over a century ago.

So, how is a formal educational system to inculcate literacy across disciplines to a diverse population in a world where literacy is changing as the speed of technological development?

I don't know the answer to that question, but I think developing a narrative of an event that contributed to my literacy could be a point of departure.

When I was in eighth grade, every assignment in our English class was geared toward the composition of a large autobiography. Each student was to assemble final drafts of all the assignments into a binder, personalize the collection of assignments with photos and additional writings, and put finishing touches on what would be read as one coherent work. A select few of the projects would be judged by a panel of parents who would declare one student "The Author of the Year."

I would love to say that I set my sights on that prize the day it was announced, but I was not that kind of student. I was a reader, but I rarely read the assigned texts. I would occasionally complete a writing assignment, but only if the assignment grabbed my interest. In short, I was a bad student. My teacher told me as much when she pulled me aside a few weeks before the final deadline and expressed her concern. "Hogan, I know you have some good ideas, but I haven't seen any of your revised work yet. I'm afraid that you don't have enough time to complete your autobiography, and if that happens, you won't pass eighth grade."

I cried.

Don't feel bad. That was nothing new. I was a crier back then.

But when I stopped crying, I decided that my teacher was clearly in the wrong. While I may not have had my autobiography written, I had a lot of rough drafts, and more importantly, I had been thinking about the project quite a bit. I just needed to sit down at the computer and type it all up.

Word processing before fonts.

So the weekend before the year long project was due, I booted up the family PC, entered the appropriate MS-DOS commands, and had a blank blue screen of the early MS word processing software.

I got to down to the business of putting my ideas on the page. I had a lot to say. All the thinking I had done in the run up to the writing had the words flowing from my mind to my fingertips.

And that's when I realized I was a lousy typist.

It was bad. Hunting and pecking really isn't a fair description, because I spent so much time hunting.

After taking more than three hours to write one full page, I did the math and realized there was no way I would finish the project before Monday... or ever. I had something of a meltdown at that point.

Worth noting here: I am a middle child with an older sister who is the only girl and two younger brothers who are twins. It was a difficult environment in which to effectively communicate my needs. At that stage in my life, the only method of getting attention I had mastered was a horrible melodramatic outburst.

In the instance of the autobiography, this strategy worked. My folks calmed me down and listened as I explained my predicament. They picked up on something I haven't really explained here yet. In my tone my parents heard something they normally didn't associate with my orientation toward school: I didn't just want to finish the project and pass eighth grade; I really wanted to do a good job.

There were a few contributing factors:

That year I had started hanging out with a new group of friends, and they were all good students.
In seventh grade I had started reading the Xanth fantasy novels, and after finishing a few books with +500 pages, I had begun to fancy myself as a bit of a literary type.
I needed to prove my teacher wrong.

My dad told me that my execution of this whole project was a disaster, but he then told me that he would type if I read aloud the words I wanted to have on the page. We got to work on Sunday morning and did not go to sleep that night (yeah, my dad is great).

I ended up winning the "Author of the Year" award, which was really exciting.

My Autobiography's Cover

But something else happened as well. Throughout that day and night of writing, as my dad and I would print up a final version of this or that portion of the project, I began to compose the whole. I thought about appearance, order, pictures, captions, cover art, and the kinds of details I had never considered before.

I have awful handwriting and trouble spelling things on the first try. So before using a computer to complete an assignment, I really just wanted to get the required material on the page. Computer publishing put a well-composed document within my reach, and suddenly I was thinking about a reader's first impression.

Double-stick tape, a Sharpie, and dot-matrix printing.

Since that long day of writing with my dad, I have read and composed texts using technology quite a bit. But my appreciation for how technology and composition are woven together stems from this story.

So thinking back to that guy from the Hunt Institute video, I'm not sure if anyone can bottle that kind of experience and make it work for a diverse population of students. But I'm here at UC Davis trying to find methods that will help students discover their own set of circumstances that will lead to a better understanding of literacy.

My Letter to My Congressman about SOPA

2011-12-14T09:43:00.000-08:00

Dear Representative Thompson,
I'm a Ph.D. student in the School of Education at the University of California, Davis. My emphasis is in post-secondary writing instruction. I have been teaching young people how to critically engage in discourse for over a decade now, and during that time the role of an open internet has become crucial. This is why I oppose SOPA. There are a lot of talking points on both sides of this debate, but I'd like to present you with another point of view by way of comparing my experience as a student to the experience of students today.

When I was an undergraduate, I had to go to the library to do research for a paper. It was a useful exercise, but one problem I didn't have to worry about very often was the authority of the sources I found in the library. I didn't have to hone my critical sensibility because I knew scholars, editors, and librarians had done the sifting and winnowing for me.

Today's students don't live in that world. Thanks to the internet, students have access to much more information than they once had, but the filters that keep information out of the libraries are less important to the research process. Some view this as a problem because students have access to bad information, but that has not been a problem in my experience. The students I work with understand that they need to become the filters - they need to critically evaluate the information that comes their way.

This is a wonderful skill for citizens in a democracy, and it is an open internet that fosters the development of such a skill. Tomorrow's information and media consumer has to become a more critical consumer, a more discerning consumer. They have to be critical because they know that supporters of SOPA are right about one thing: bad things happen on the internet. There are thieves and liars out there, just like there are on Main and Wall Street. But we don't need a government gatekeeper that would shut down avenues of information. Imagine if Wall Street reform was as harsh as SOPA aims to be. What we need is smarter consumers, and the open internet is producing such a consumer.

SOPA's values have unintentional consequences that are undemocratic. Please work to insure the bill does not pass into law.

Thank you for your time and consideration,
Hogan Hayes

#Occupy at UC Davis

2011-11-20T12:26:00.000-08:00

This is the video of yesterday's incident at UC Davis. There are plenty of reasons to watch the entire +8 minutes.

I am a Ph.D. student in the School of Education at UC Davis. A lot of the work I do here is with the University Writing Program, because my interests involve the improvement of instruction and access to early undergraduate writing courses.

Over the course of the past year and two months, I have worked with over 300 UCD undergraduate students from a large variety of majors and backgrounds. That's a pretty good sample. So I feel confident when I say this: UC Davis undergraduate students are intelligent, driven, reasonable, and articulate people.

The group that was protesting this week did not come out to demonstrate because they are lazy or because it's what the hip kids are doing or because they want someone else to pay for their mistakes or because they love urban camping.

The protesters in the video above are students at a competitive public university where the estimated cost of a 5-year education (the average time it takes to graduate) is $154,000 - that's the cost of a home in this region. And the price of that education is likely to go up even while the UC puts austerity measures in place.

Not my generation, nor any before my own had such a price tag attached to higher education.

The UC Davis students are protesting because they have the critical capacity to evaluate the system in which they are participating; they recognized that the deck has been stacked against those who earn less. They have also recognized that it is not enough to sit at home and whine about how unfair that seems.

Those students decided, "If the democratic system in which we participate is unfair, we need to make our voices heard." So they demonstrated peacefully while maintaining contact with the authorities at the school.

Like I wrote, they are intelligent, driven, reasonable, and articulate people. I am proud to study and work at a university with such an impressive student body - a group that not only believes in participative democracy, but also is capable of remaining civil in the face of hostility and violence. The students in that video are amazing and deserve the University's respect.

They certainly have mine.

I am troubled to be associated with a University where administrators and safety officers will bend the rule about camping one day, only to reinstate it the next through the use of violence and arrests.

However, as the students in the video assert, "This is our University."

To those who would assume otherwise, "You can go."

Dissidents and Democracy

2011-10-07T11:55:00.000-07:00

Here's Eric Cantor's take on #OccupyWallStreet.

Cantor not only refers the protest gatherings as "mobs," more importantly, he suggests that there is something wrong with supporting dissidents, or as he phrases it, condoning"the pitting of Americans against Americans."

I've got no love for Cantor's politics, but that is not why his statement offends me.

Dissidence, disagreement, protest, and debate are essential elements for a healthy democracy.

Democracy is the attempt to address the following social reality: The interests of people will conflict.

Cantor is suggesting that it is wrong to support the people willing to protest. That is an assault on democracy.

#OccupyWallStreet is a growing movement of people who are upset with both parties' inability to put democracy ahead of capitalism. The people joining that movement believe Americans have every right to voice their discontent when their government fails to address their interests.

You don't have to agree with the protesters, but we should all be offended when a prominent politician dismisses or condemns citizens exercising their First Amendment rights.

It's important to note, Cantor is not responding to the people's arguments; he is dismissing the legitimacy of the people making those arguments. Like I said, an assault on democracy.

Submission Hold

2011-08-14T13:06:00.000-07:00

Chris Benoit's Crippler Crossface Submission Hold

Michele Bachmann appeared on "Face the Nation" to offer her interpretation of the word 'submission.' According to her, "submission means respect, mutual respect."

I have to applaud Bachmann's commitment to personal freedom here. She is so anti-establishment, she will redefine the meaning of words.

No one is going to tell Michele Bachmann how to interpret the sounds coming out of her mouth.

When Michele Bachmann says something, she expects people - even the mainstream media - to understand her intended meaning, regardless of what the dictionary or common sense might dictate.

So, when you hear Bachmann's 2006 statement, "Wives, you are to be submissive to your husbands," you should know that she actually means, 'Wives, you should be in a mutually respectful relationship with your husbands.' And she won't back down from the bland message she's sending in that bold misinterpretation.

You would be mistaken, therefore, to apply the commonly accepted definition of 'submissive' to her statement - "Wives, you are to conform to the authority or will of your husbands,"
OR
"Wives, you are to be meekly obedient or passive to your husbands."

If you made that mistake, you would be submissive to the authority of language and its social construct, and --- wait... And in this instance, the word 'submissive' is, ah... Here the word does not mean 'mutual respect'. Here 'submissive' is used in to suggest meek obedience... Which is bad. Submission in this case is bad, okay...?

Boy, if we're going to use Bachmann's definition, we're going to need a new word to take the place of what submissive used to mean.

Any suggestions?

Are We Retreating from Science?

2011-07-30T17:13:00.000-07:00

The developing story about the suspension and investigation of arctic scientist Dr. Charles Monnett leaves me asking questions about science's role in the public discourse.

My composition students and I spend a lot of time examining how various types of evidence are valued in different communities. For example, policy makers appreciate statistics that are easy to interpret. The media gravitates toward gripping visual images. Literary scholars like well-articulated analysis that emphasizes context. Experimental scientists look for reproducible results.

In all of these communities, participants need to simultaneously communicate what it is they value as evidence while presenting their ideas using the evidence others value.

It isn't easy, but it becomes especially difficult when you throw politics, authority, and money into the mix.

A science news story is developing (see also here & here) that might shed light on the types of evidence we value - or fail to value - in the public discourse.

The Players
Dr. Charles Monnett: an arctic scientist working for U.S. Bureau of Ocean Energy Management Regulation and Enforcement (BOEMRE). Monnett has published findings about arctic wildlife that suggest a need for greater caution as we search for energy in arctic waters.

The director of BOEMRE Michael Bromwich: a public servant supervising a U.S. agency that, among other things, leases the offshore exploration rights to private energy companies.

PEER, a special interest group that defends public workers who protect the environment. The group has lodged a complaint over Monnett's suspension.

Those who assert climate change is "junk science." These people believe that Monnett's work is not rigorous, and claim he has an agenda that informs his research.
(I have not found these claims to be persuasive, but the influence of such claims can be felt while investigating this issue.)

The Context
Monnett's most publicly known work is about drowned polar bears he observed in 2004. The data from his paper was featured in Al Gore's slideshow/movie, An Inconvenient Truth.

The original paper was written by Monnett and Jeffrey S. Gleason. It was published in a 2006 issue of Polar Biology - a peer review journal. A community of scientists reviewed the work and decided it was a valuable contribution to endeavors in the field of arctic biology.

While at least one climate change skeptic has labeled Monnett's work as "junk science," it seems as though the blogger hasn't read Monnett and Gleason's paper, as the post never mentions Gleason.

The Story
Monnett is under investigation for unspecified allegations and has been suspended from doing his work for the Department of the Interior.

There is room for a massive conflict of interest on BOEMRE's part in this scenario - much of the funding for the department comes from leases for energy exploration.

Bromwich has not announced why Monnett is being investigated and justifies this with his quote, "We are limited in what we can say about a pending investigation."

The Question
I believe this is a case of our government retreating from scientific evidence, and I think the situation poses the following question: Do we as the American public value the input of scientists when the interests of the environment and energy conflict?

The Details
This gets a bit long.
On the 28th of this month, a press release was published protesting the investigation and suspension of a leading Arctic scientist, Dr. Charles Monnett - who supervises a large amount of research for the BOEMRE.

The press release and a formal complaint were both composed by the Public Employees for Environmental Responsibility (PEER). PEER has suggested that Dr. Monnett's suspension is motivated by political or profit driven ambitions. The press release actually goes so far as to call the investigation a "witch hunt" (although, I don't think PEER does itself any favors with that choice of words).

According to the official complaint, Monnett "has been placed on administrative leave and suspended from his [...] duties due to 'an on-going inquiry'[...] yet Dr. Monnett has not been informed of any specific charge or question relating to the scientific integrity of his work."

Both PEER and the media outlets reporting this story have linked the suspension and investigation to Monnett and Gleason's 2006 paper published in Polar Biology. Monnett and Gleason's paper describes the bodies of 4 dead polar bears seen floating in the waters off the coast of Alaska - an undisputedly unusual sight. The paper suggests that the drownings can be attributed to late-ice/mild ice years and suggests that the the number of polar bear deaths is likely to increase as global temperatures rise.

The paper and accompanying images gained notoriety when they were used in Al Gore's slideshow/movie, An Inconvenient Truth.

In a story today, the connection between the 2006 paper and the current investigation was denied by the director of BOEMRE, Michael Bromwich. He stated in an email that the suspension "had nothing to do with [Monnett's] scientific work" and "was the result of new information on a separate subject brought to our attention very recently." That's all he says about the allegations in the email.

PEER, however, has provided journalists with documentation that suggests the investigation is related to Monnett's work on polar bears. Today's story reports that a July 13th stop-work order was issued for a polar bear tracking study. The letter Monnett received from his contracting officer at the time of that order states there is doubt about Monnett's ability to judge data in "an impartial and objective manner on the subject contract." This conflicts with Bromwich's statement.

Also, Bromwich's claim that the information came to his "attention very recently" is a bit odd. One record of an BOEMRE official working on this investigation is from February of this year. Maybe by "state-work standards" that is very recently, but the allegation's merit is less than convincing. According to transcripts of a meeting between Monnett, a representative from PEER, and two BOEMRE investigators, when pressed for specific allegations, the BOEMRE response was, "well, scientific misconduct, basically, uh, wrong numbers, uh, miscalculations" (Line 12, Page 83).

And of course, there is the climate change skeptic's blog with a post on this story. The author linked the investigation to Monnett's work with polar bears - contradicting the director's statement. (And as a side note, the blogger cherry-picked a passage from the transcript to suit her purposes. The transcript is actually kind of funny- the investigators questioning Monnett don't know much about research protocols or publishing conventions.)

The motivation of the investigation is not yet clear - not to the public, nor even to the man being investigated. Nevertheless, a leading scientist has been barred from doing his work.

The Implications
Now, this story may develop. Maybe there is something I'm missing. I'll allow that.

The story, however, is a few days old. An employee advocacy group has objected, and the media has picked this up. The allegations should have been made public by now.

Dr. Monnett has been tracking arctic wildlife for years, and some of his scholarly work has made the very difficult journey into the public consciousness. He appears to be a valuable contributor to the Department of the Interior's mission of "protecting America's great outdoors and powering our future."

Until we are informed otherwise, there is no reason to believe Dr. Charles Monnett did something that should keep him from his work, unless...

...Unless paying attention to Monnett's work on polar wildlife might influence what some believe to be a more important public good - energy production.

Was Dr. Monnett's decision to submit his findings for publication a step too far? Does his work hinder the public discourse?

Of course not. His work helps us construct a clearer picture of the risks and opportunities involved in energy exploration. We should welcome his voice and critique it in an open forum. It appears at least for now, however, people with authority are punishing him for enriching the debate.

As this story develops we need to ask ourselves: Do we as the American public value the input of scientists when the interests of the environment and energy conflict?

I hope so.

An Abuse of the Word 'Research'

2011-07-20T13:52:00.000-07:00

Chris Haworth, a friend of mine, posted a link to a study recently published by the Heritage Foundation.
The study was conducted by Robert Rector and Rachel Sheffield. It is an excellent example of the methods people use to corrupt the public discourse.

While I think the Heritage Foundation is an important voice, this particular study was conducted poorly. The study seeks to misinform. It is polemical and, in my judgment, unethical.

The study is labeled as a "Backgrounder on Poverty and Inequality." Its findings are primarily this: Most of the people who the US Census Bureau has labeled as individuals living "in poverty" should not be described as poor. This conclusion is based on 2005 survey data about the household appliances in homes of people who the Census Bureau categorizes as living below the poverty threshold.

The study is motivated by the fact that "in discussions about poverty... misunderstanding and exaggeration are commonplace." The researchers believe that "exaggeration has the potential to promote a substantial misallocation of limited resources for a government that is facing massive future deficits." They are concerned that Americans may have the wrong impression about the living conditions for a family of 4 earning less than $20,615/year.

The study's data show that in 2005, most families living in poverty have food security and a home. On top of that, most families living in poverty may have air conditioning, cable, or an Xbox (some may have all three). From this, the researchers conclude that in many cases, it is incorrect to describe a family of 4 earning less than $20,615/year as "poor."

I think the motivation for this study is interesting, and it deserves investigation. The way we label large portions of our population has huge potential impacts. Any investigation conducted, however, should seek as honest a depiction as possible.

Rector and Sheffield used data from 2005, despite the existence of a 2009 survey (they claim the microdata they need is not yet available). 2005 was at least two years before the economic crisis hit. At the time, credit was cheap and predatory lending was commonplace. In 2005, banks regularly were extending loans to people who couldn't afford to buy a home. 2005 was was a year when people thought they had money because they were living in an economic bubble. It is the wrong year from which to elicit data for this kind of study.

The study's conclusion quotes officials who the researchers believe are misinforming the public about being poor in America. The researchers claim that Children’s Defense Fund President Marian Wright Edelman has it wrong when she says, “It is a moral outrage that in the wealthiest nation on earth there are still 12.8 million children living in poverty” and “inexcusable that 12.8 million children are forced to suffer through hardship every day.” Rector and Sheffield claim that it is an exageration to suggest that children living in poverty suffer hardship.

Here's the math:
A family of four earns $20,615 to spend per year.
That's $1,718 per month.
That's $429 per person per month.
That's $107 per person per week.

If a person plans to accumulate no savings, they have nearly $110 a week for housing, utilities, food, clothing, education costs, and transportation. To assume that such a budget does not create hardship because in 2005 most poor families had cable is an abuse of the research process. It is an attempt to misinform the public using the guise of reputable research.

This is why critical thinking skills are so crucial if we expect today's students to engage in the public discourse. The study looks and reads like reliable material, but it is empty rhetoric aimed at undermining efforts to address economic inequality in America.

Why Does a Failed Plan Live On?

2011-07-09T23:59:00.000-07:00

There is something in the current budget negotiations that I don't understand: Why are we still listening to the "no new taxes" argument?

The people who are opposed to any/all new taxes are suggesting the nation's wealthiest create jobs, but they have no proof of that.

They want the public to ignore recent history: The 2003 Bush tax cuts were extended in late 2010. We are still facing a debt/deficit crisis, and the jobs numbers have not improved significantly.

The top earners in the US have enjoyed 8 years of Republican-approved tax breaks. The argument supporting those breaks is that top earners create jobs, but the jobs numbers are horrible. The promised job have not been created. The economy has not recovered. The debt crisis has grown.

The President yielded, and the Republican Congress passed the tax cuts they wanted last December. There has been no sign that those cuts have helped our economy. The Republican tax plan failed... again.

Why is anyone still listening to them? Their tax policy is a one trick pony, and the trick doesn't work.

I understand that these politicians won a midterm election, but they got what they wanted and it failed. Their 'no compromise' attitude is looking like willful ignorance at this point. They are not leaders worth following anymore.

Audience and Africa

2011-06-12T16:35:00.000-07:00

Hillary Clinton has taken a rather candid shot across China's bow. While on a diplomatic tour of Africa, she described China's newish influence on the Continent as New Colonialism.

She's suggesting China's representatives are going into Africa for the natural resources, paying leaders for access, and getting what they paid for. Which sounds fine if you think of Africa like a Stop-n-Go. If, however, you take Africa's history with these kinds of transactions into account, Clinton's comment cuts pretty deep, from a Western point of view, at least.

I think Clinton has a point, and I like that someone has the... guts to call this as she sees it. In several of these exchanges, China is dealing with notoriously corrupt leaders to gain access to local resources. Often the result is rich African leaders with more money to defend themselves from the civil unrest fomented by dwindling resources and stagnant development. It's bad news. This NPR story has a nice bit on how African leaders are happy that China doesn't attach strings to its investments. No one talks about human rights during these exchanges, they talk about coal and currency.

It seems like Clinton's message should be loud an clear for all involved. But there's a rhetorical problem here. It's one of audience and frame of reference.

Let's start with the US:
When US officials speak publicly on diplomatic issues, they believe they are actually speaking publicly - that they are speaking to the citizens of a nation. There are plenty of private talks with leaders, of course, but in these open forum talks - like the ones in which Clinton is chastising China - US figures believe they are speaking "for the world to hear."

Part of this belief is influenced by the US conviction that the power of a nation is held in the hands of its citizenry.

China, on the other hand...
China has a government and culture that believes centralized power and respect for authority are the natural way of things. When the Chinese make deals with African leaders (corrupt or not) they believe they are meeting all of the appropriate expectations for international exchange. The Chinese don't see the well-being of African citizens as a Chinese concern. The African leaders are the ones who have to worry about the well-being of African citizens, and the Chinese are giving those leaders lots of money.
The Chinese beleive that the power of a nation is held in the hands of its leaders.

Then there's Africa.
We might see a shift in the near future, but for now, and for most of modern history, many African citizens have not been able to shake autocratic rule. The history is brutal in many places, and hope for an empowered citizenry has been fleeting-at-best in many nations. There are exceptions, but those are not the places that Clinton's concerns are focused.
The African leaders that enjoy the benefits of autocratic regimes are happy to have trade partner that won't challenge the status quo, and the citizens are not yet in a place to effectively voice any kind of opposition... yet. They don't see themselves as agents of change in today's Africa.

I like to think the only legitimate source of power for governments comes from the people being governed, but some of the actors in this US-China-Africa exchange do not share my views. That's bound to affect how messages are composed, transmitted, and received.
Clinton speaks to the concerns of global citizens.
China speaks to the concerns of leaders of nations.
Both believe they have the ear of the people with legitimate influence. Both have good reason to believe they've picked the right audience.
African leaders like being the primary audience, and they have very real influence.
Citizens of African nations should have a say in where their nations' resources go, but the impact of those citizens is hard to measure.

Just another wrinkle in geopolitical diplomacy, I suppose, but also a nice way of considering the "Speaker-Audience" relationship.

Elek Is One Today

2011-05-23T17:27:00.000-07:00

Where Can We Argue?

2011-04-10T18:42:00.000-07:00

The recent essay about economic inequality by Joseph E. Stiglitz is not the Nobel laureate's first contribution to Vanity Fair, that forum of Chardonnay sipping liberals (that I enjoy so well). Nor is Stiglitz's piece the first attempt to call attention to the issue of economic inequality.

What makes the essay remarkable is its place in the larger debate about the escalating economic inequality in the US.

Stiglitz provides a nice a primer on the issue, goes on to show just how intractable the issue has become, and then he demonstrates how problematic the consequences of growing economic inequality are. According to his essay, even the ultra-wealthy ought to be concerned. His evidence is based in clear historical examples and sound economic theory. It's a great essay.

Here's the problem: It's by Joseph E. Stiglitz, and it's in Vanity Fair.

One of the big writing challenges my composition students are working on this quarter is squaring rhetorical purpose and audience expectations. Last week the students decided that all of their essays this quarter will be focused on their investigation into the social and cultural impact of the internet. Two of their concerns going forward are 1) What do they want to say and 2) Who do they want to say it to.

I'm very impressed with the work my students are doing.

For an issue as divisive as economic inequality, I'm a bit concerned about the ability of anyone - even a Nobel prize winning economist - to marshal evidence effectively enough to bring both sides of the debate to a constructive place.

I think the message of Stiglitz's essay is critically important, but I also belong to the group who agrees with him. Our side believes that economic inequality is a pressing issue, and the right is actively engaged in class warfare: limiting union rights, blaming the social safety net for state budget shortfalls, cutting the education budgets for at risk kids, moving jobs overseas, mechanizing manufacturing, holding onto corporate tax breaks, and keeping capital gains taxes out of the public coffers.

The wealthy have been working hard not to pay taxes, but now that budgets are short, they have decided that it's outrageous that we pay for teacher health care and provide lunch to poor school children.

And yeah, it is time to do something about it, but people reading the Stiglitz article in Vanity Fair already knew that.

Worse yet, if I want to change the mind of a person who, for example, supports cuts to public education, citing either Vanity Fair or Stiglitz isn't going to get me very far.

I was involved in an email exchange with some conservative thinkers recently. One person argued the following: It is less than fair that a wealthy parent who sends their children to private school must pay into the public school system. My reaction is that the benefits of public education are distributed across the social spectrum. But the person doesn't see those merits, or else they don't think they are substantial enough to maintain an equatable education system.

I tried to present my views, but imagine if I had replied, "But have you read Stiglitz essay in Vanity Fair?"

If you are unfamiliar with conservative thinkers, you might not anticipate the following, "Yes, I read it, and I am not surprised that the liberal media give that crackpot a voice."

You see, the people who agree with Stiglitz are happy to read such a nice article that confirms their worldview. Meanwhile, the people who disagree will be outraged when they read the article, and that will confirm their world view.

The same article in a different place would have been much more effective, but where is that other place? Dora and I were talking today, and we're pretty sure there isn't an outlet where people with different opinions can engage in a healthy debate about important issues. Maybe you know of one. A little help?

Cognitive Dissonance

2011-04-06T00:13:00.000-07:00

When examining an argument, if the claim depends on the acceptance of two conflicting beliefs, there is a fundamental problem with the argument.

On April Fool's Day the Wall Street Journal published an op-ed about union activities in Wisconsin. The piece suggested that "unions are now getting out the steel pipes for those who don't step lively to their cause."

As I read on, I found something wrong with that op-ed.

It opens with the claim that unions are threatening a boycott that endangers the livelihood of small business owners.
Then the piece says that union numbers are on the decline and don't have the clout they once had.

Putting both points into one op-ed exposes the problem with the current opposition to union rights.
Point A) Unions are strong, because they have numbers.
Point B) Unions are obsolete and weak, because workers no longer support them - no numbers.

No matter your stance on union rights, if you accept one of those scenarios, you must reject the other.
If you oppose union rights because you accept Point A and believe unions are too powerful, then you have to accept that you are challenging a large number of people who can vote, protest, and boycott to some effect.
If you oppose union rights because you believe Point B is true, then you don't have anything to worry about. Your opposition is weak.

Judging by the rhetoric in Wisconsin, many who oppose union rights accept point A. And they are understandably frustrated that the group they oppose is organized and powerful. But last time I checked, organizing people with similar interests was acceptable behavior. I think there's something in the Constitution protecting the rights of people who do just that.

If steel pipes do come out, that's a problem. But boycotts are a far cry from violence. There is nothing illegal or immoral when a group of people stop patronizing businesses because of a political belief.

I'm not saying that people should blindly accept union demands. Opposing unions is different than opposing union rights. Unions are an interest group. Unions have an agenda: to get workers the most money the labor market will provide. And unions are pushy. Employers have to push back. In today's labor market, employers have the upper hand. So even if unions are strong, competent employers should be able to cut a nice deal.

Instead of entering a negotiation in which he had the upper hand, however, Governor Walker has tried, and to a certain extent succeeded in portraying union members as a drain on the system - the way Regan portrayed "welfare queens."
The problem is that union workers earn wages that were negotiated in the public sphere. We can object to how well they made out in those negotiations. We can investigate any shady dealings. We can be upset that the unions used connections and bargaining power so effectively.

But we shouldn't resort to passing laws that deny groups a voice at the table.

Bottom line: When the Wisconsin Republicans used the legislative process to limit citizens' rights to organize and act as a group, they violated one of their party's core principles. "Small Government" is not just about budgets; it's also about how laws affect lives.

You don't have to like unions. Hell, you can seek to undermine their influence, but if you use the government to cripple them because their interests are not in line with yours, you have failed to understand how a democracy functions.

And that is why we should examine our arguments for cognitive dissonance.

Belittling Civic Participation?

2011-03-08T13:34:00.000-08:00

Fox News is often too easy a punching bag, but this was something I had to post.
The head line "Shrieking Leftist Mob Shuts Down Town Hall Meeting in Wisconsin" is posted on the "Politics" portion of the Fox News Website.

There's a link to the full story from (and I'm not making this up) RightNetwork.com.

The story is about a pair of YouTube videos (embedded below) from a Wauwatosa town hall with a Republican politicians.

I know the left was harsh when Tea Party protesters used much of the same tactics while the health care reform debate was raging.

My question is this: Why would either side belittle the people who are engaged enough to attend public meetings and voice their opinions?

These people are doing more than just voting. They are participating in democracy in the most active way they can. It takes time, energy, and thought to do so.

Neither side of the political spectrum (nor their respective media outlets) should discourage such civic participation.

That headline sprinkled with insults not only offends the targets, it offends anyone who believes in participative democracy.

Stonewalling Takes Brickheadedness

2011-02-28T12:14:00.000-08:00

It is odd having my home state in the news as much as it has been lately.

Overall, I have been impressed by the way Wisconsinites have conducted themselves. They've treated this like a tough issue that deserves careful consideration.

For example, the Journal Sentinel's Patrick McIlheran is an editorial columnist on the right side of the spectrum. He doesn't like collective bargaining, and he has made that clear. And when someone from the Daily Kos misinterpreted McIlheran's argument, McIlherandid did not shy away from getting into the details. This is a complicated issue, and a real debate is not going to be sound-bite friendly.

Then there are the protesters and the counter-protesters. By all accounts, they are passionate yet reasonable people.

Sadly, the same cannot be said for the Governor.He's presenting an argument to the people of Wisconsin (oh, and incidentally the nation - the man seems to be enjoying the attention) that the State Senators who are holding up the vote are on the verge of costing the state millions of dollars.

There some truth to that. If the State Senators don't return to Wisconsin, state money will be lost.

But the Governor's assertion would not hold up well as part of an essay submitted in my composition classroom.

His argument suggests that members of his opposition are the ones being overly-stubborn. A critical reader would need some evidence to support that.

Sadly for the Governor, the evidence suggests that he and his fellow hard-liners are the people refusing to compromise.

His opposition has offered to compromise on the financial issues. They don't, however, want to lose collective bargaining rights. I believe the thinking there is as follows: We are willing to give up pay and benefits when times are bad (now), but we want to retain the right to bargain so we can recoup those cuts when times get better (later).

The Governor has forced his opposition to give up a lot, and so far he has yielded nothing - and he has said he is unwilling to yield anything.

His assertion that a stubborn opposition has held up the process is problematic. When one side is ready to compromise, while the other side refuses to do so, the label of stubborn is applied to the latter.

The Governor is the stubborn one here. He sees this as a zero-sum game. That is an obtuse understanding of democracy, a view that is putting his state and his constituents at risk.

Michael Sandel on Democratic Debate

2011-02-24T11:26:00.000-08:00

This is the video we watched in the class I'm TAing. We're starting a unit on civic engagement. Good stuff.

Duped

2011-02-22T23:53:00.000-08:00

I recently re-posted a statistic on Facebook. I thought it was a nice piece of persuasive evidence in a heated argument. But it was actually a misleading set of figures.

I hate to admit this, but I was seduced by numbers that were too good to be true. I should have known. I should have looked into it, but like most people, I saw numbers that supported my argument and my blinders went up. I didn't need to think anymore because I had numbers on my side.

Let me explain. The labor issue in Wisconsin has got my attention (along with a few other people). I don't agree with the governor's position. So I couldn't help myself when I saw the following stat: "Only 5 states do not have collective bargaining for educators and have deemed it illegal. Those states and their ranking on ACT/SAT scores are as follows: South Carolina - 50th, North Carolina - 49th, Georgia - 48th, Texas - 47th, Virginia - 44th. If you are wondering, Wisconsin, with its collective bargaining for teachers, is ranked 2nd in the country. Let's keep it that way. Repost."

Doesn't that seem like great support for people who oppose the governor's plan?

The problem is that those stats are misleading. They are not wrong, but they paint a picture that is very different from reality. Most Wisconsin universities don't require the SAT, so the in-state SAT participation rate is very low. So the numbers can't be compared in a meaningful way.

I know that now, but only after Jason pointed out some problems with my evidence. I learned this because Jason was willing to engage in a real debate. He questioned evidence and looked at the bigger picture.

Wouldn't it be nice to see elected officials do the same?

Anyway, if a student presented my argument in class, I like to think I'd encourage them to take a more critical look at their evidence. I should have examined where the data was coming from and who was presenting it.

The good news is that I have friends on Facebook who aren't afraid of debate and discord. I maintain relationships (albeit mostly digital ones) with people who will call me out when I step over the line.

There should be at least two sides to every debate, and I hope to always know and respect people on the other side of each issue I argue.

How We Don't Argue

2011-02-15T15:24:00.000-08:00

This past summer I came home to the US after living abroad for six years.

It wasn't long after my return that I started to notice how divisive public discourse has become. That was the primary motivation for making this blog about the rhetoric of current event debates.

I've become uncomfortable with the way major issues are presented to the public by both officials and experts. Everything has to be spun. Outlets have to pick a demographic. And people end up picking a side - listening to commentators that pander to one specific worldview.

We've seen scientists meddle with information in an effort to make their findings on climate change more 'understandable.'

We've seen blatant demagoguery in the health care debate.

We've seen Glen Beck.

Despite all the trouble spots I worry over in American public discourse - despite my concern over the failure of cool heads, I think it is important to point out this:

It could be a hell of a lot worse.

Iranian lawmakers are calling for the execution of opposition leaders.

Hungary enacted a law restricting the media from reporting anything a government-appointed panel finds "unbalanced or immoral."

It seems increasingly dangerous for governments to take such harsh stances against dissenters.
The era of centralized powers restricting the freedom of their peoples is coming to an end, and I expect a few of the dying giants won't go without a fight.

In times such as these, it's nice to live in a society that values freedom of expression. Our debates might not always be eloquent, critical, or informed - but at least there aren't any gunmen preventing such exchanges.

What Do You Mean We, Kemosabe?

2011-02-04T12:30:00.000-08:00

I like to pay attention to the smaller words - prepositions, articles, and pronouns to be specific. I find these often-overlooked words can have tremendous impact on meaning.

My interest stems largely from experience teaching English as a second language. Try to explain the logic in the difference between 'look up' and 'look down on' to someone learning the language.

So after jumping on Congressman Paul Ryan for his misplaced article, I feel it's only right to turn that kind attention on my own choice of words.

I decided to call this blog How We Argue. I think the title has a nice ring to it, but I am guilty of the use of an unclear pronoun. The we in my title is troublesome.

We as in 'you and I'?
We as in 'a group I belong to'?
We as in 'a group I belong to, but you don't'?
We as in 'a group I belong to and a different group who argues with my group'?
Oh, I could keep going. My use of an undefined pronoun leaves a lot for readers to decipher. Here on a public blog, that's not a very wise choice. I don't know the profile of all my readers, and while one reader may read the 'we' as inclusive, others may read 'we' as exclusive. This could change the meaning of my blog from one reader to the next in ways I hadn't anticipated. It's sloppy.

So, who is this 'we' I'm referring to?

In the composition classroom, a defensive student presented with this question typically comes up with a variation on the following answer: I'm going to leave that up to the reader. It is the reader's job to decide if they are with me or against me.

That sounds nice, doesn't it? It acknowledges writing as a social activity, and puts agency into the hands of the reader.

If it were my intention to give a reader that responsibility, then I could stop right here. Readers could decide whether they are with me or against me.

But I do not think that is a productive purpose for my writing. That describes the work of partisan pundits, a group who may be included in the 'we,' but I don't want to join a group exclusively composed of such people.

No, I don't want this blog to be an exercise in drawing lines in the sand. And leaving the 'we' undefined would move the effort in that direction.

In composition class, if my students use undefined pronouns such as 'you,' 'they,' or 'we,' I try to get them to describe the who behind those words. All to often, the words are lazy shorthand for a subject too complicated or uncomfortable for students to wrestle with. The 'they' often refers to a shadowy group of people who control everything, as in, "They knew the financial crisis was coming, and they choose to do nothing about it." Or maybe the 'they' refers to a miraculously homogeneous group of people different from the author, as in, "They have trouble succeeding in school because they lack support at home." There's a lot of unexplored complexity hiding behind those theys.

An undefined 'we' often hides similar complexities. So again, what does my 'we' refer to?

If my aim here is to examine public discourse in America, then I think I'm talking about the Constitutional 'we,' as in "We the people..." That seems vague, I know, but I'm going to pull another overused quote to tighten the focus a bit.

At the end of his famous Gettysburg Address, Lincoln describes the US government as "of the people, by the people, for the people" (What a graceful use of parallel structure).

I count myself among the people in that quote, but I don't think everyone in America can say the same thing. A lot of people seem to be ignoring the "by the people" part of the quote. Many people don't vote. Many people don't work to understand public issues that affect them personally. Many people don't try to understand the views of people with whom they disagree. All important parts of participating in the public discourse of a democracy. My aim as a teacher and writer is to encourage more people to actively assert themselves as members of Lincoln's people.

I think the best way for people to do so is to become thoughtfully engaged.

So that is the 'we' I'm aiming at.

Do you count yourself among us?

Wisconsin Shout Out

2011-01-26T14:11:00.000-08:00

Today on How We Argue...
Examining Persuasive Rhetoric & Arguments with False Evidence

Okay, for my first crack at this 'How We Argue' thing, I decided to pull a quote from a rising star in the House of Representatives who also happens to be from my home state.

What We Saw in the Public Discourse

It was reported today that Chairman of the House Budget Committee Paul Ryan (R-WI) recently said, "We must reject the notion that a centrally planned, bureaucratically run health care system can produce more favorable outcomes than the one managed by doctors and patients."

I don't want to wade too far into the health care debate on this first post, but I think this is a great quote. It demonstrates so much about persuasion and argument.

Congressman Ryan starts with a call to action: We must reject something.

He goes on to characterize the plan he is arguing against with some charged yet accurate descriptors: centrally planned & bureaucratically run.

What a great way to describe the plan we must reject. With just a few words Ryan has exposed the characteristics that most people don't like about the plan.

Then we get an alternative plan: the plan managed by doctors and patients.

Nice move. Doctors and patients are the most logical managers of health care. It's a great alternative.

Ryan's rhetoric is spot on: We should reject a demonstrably bad plan because there is a better plan available.

But be careful.
Persuasive rhetoric is a powerful tool, and it must be wielded with care. Ryan crosses a line in this quote.

He starts off fine. A lot of people don't want a centrally planned & bureaucratically run health care system, and for that reason his call to reject such a plan is reasonable.

But what about that alternative he presents: the plan managed by doctors and patients.

The plan?

There is such a plan? I've never seen such a plan. Health care is not currently managed by doctors or patients. It is managed by large bureaucratic insurance companies.
The Republicans have not presented a plan in which health care is run by patients and doctors.

Ryan's use of the definite article "the" suggests that we have a health care plan (somewhere) that is managed by doctors and patents. This rhetorical move may be persuasive, but it is problematic. It suggests the existence of evidence that is never presented - that doesn't exist. Decision makers are led to believe there is a strong alternative, but there is not.

In an effort to be persuasive, Ryan is trying to keep that information away from his audience.

What We Would See in the Composition Classroom

If this sentence was in a persuasive paper, I would applaud the student's command of language and the clarity of the argument.
I would, however, ding the student's grade for suggesting the existence of evidence but failing to present that evidence.

My constructive feedback would be as follows:
For the next draft, go out and find a reliable source that can attest to the existence of a health care plan run by doctors and patients.

Failing that, do not refer to evidence if that evidence is questionable or non-existent.

At the very least, lose the definite article.
"We must reject the notion that a centrally planned, bureaucratically run health care system can produce more favorable outcomes than ~~the~~ one managed by doctors and patients."
That way the alternative is only hypothetical.

How We Argue

2011-01-26T13:16:00.000-08:00

Since I moved back from Hungary, the impetus for this blog has lost some of its edge.

Let's face it, the ramblings of a Midwesterner living in Central Europe are a bit more exotic than the thoughts of a Midwesterner studying in the Central Valley.

So it's time to shift the subject to something more specific - something this blog has flirted with for years: the critique of public discourse.

I had this idea last month, but after the shootings in Arizona, I decided to hold off.

Odd choice, I know, but I didn't feel right jumping into that fray.

Here in Davis, I'm studying writing instruction. Since 2003, the teaching of writing has become increasingly important to me. I believe the ability to express oneself to multiple audiences is a critical skill, and the tools of composition are essential in the building of that ability.

I like my work, and I find a great deal of motivation for it in this belief: Students who can articulate and analyze an argument will become capable contributors to a healthy public discourse.

I'd like to test that belief here, in an admittedly less-than-direct way.

I'm going to use the concepts and tools we discuss in the composition classroom to examine the way issues are addressed in the public discourse.

I'll try to get a new post up today or tomorrow, but for now, let me know if you like the idea - or if there are issues being discussed that you think I should examine.

Last Week of Classes

2010-11-30T14:06:00.000-08:00

I'm starting to get a sense of the rhythm of things here at Davis. Of course, all of that will be tested next month when I start a new quarter.

My writing students presented on their Writing in the Disciplines papers yesterday, and I walked away very impressed. They showed a deep understanding of both the task and the aims behind the task. And they did that without much guidance from me.

I've worked hard in the past few years to reduce the amount of hand-holding I do in my classroom. When I got to Davis I really stepped that up. I put a number of task descriptions on the course website that I never spoke about in class. I counted on the syllabus to speak for itself. I used class time to teach, not to walk students through time-management exercises. And the students rose to the occasion. It's heartening to see students present thoughtful commentary on how the linguistically diverse audience of a hard sciences paper should dictate the grammar choices a writer makes.

Things were less heartening in another class - less heartening, but enlightening. There was the lively discussion we had in pro-seminar yesterday. Each of us presented a prominent scholar's take on Scientific Research in Education. It is a booklet describing the research methods that a group of scholars deem to be the most trusted - and therefore the only types of research that should receive Federal grants. We called the exercise "The Debate," because there is a wide spectrum of arguments surrounding the booklet. However, the ship has more or less sailed on this "debate." The winner is... quantitative research that uses randomized trials and yields reproducible results. Loosely translated, the science of education should look more like the natural sciences.

I think studies that fit the above mold are excellent, but I do not believe it is the only kind of informative research in the social sciences. I'm not alone, and that's what led to the lively discussion. The group went round and round for a while. It was a comment about intended audiences from our professor Rebecca Ambrose that led me to realize what was behind all this: when the government funds research, the researchers' intended audience is government policy makers. I know, seems obvious, right? It was less an "ah-ha" moment than it was a "duh" moment. But it sure does muddy the waters that I dove into this fall.

I had a naive notion of pure research lingering in my head. Left over, no doubt, from my days in the humanities. It was a bit foolish, I guess. I won't claim to have been completely grounded just yet, but this article sent by my professor today helped that process along.

Yesterday, as I attempted to sketch the rhetorical situation that illustrates the relationship between all the education stakeholders, I got a sense of what kind of work I'm setting out to do.

This drawing here is what I came up with. I want to make a sculpture on which the positions of the stakeholders can shift. I won't have time, but it's a fun idea.

On what may feel like an unrelated note, can someone explain to me the economic thinking behind making the Bush Tax Cuts permanent? Before jumping in, however, please take the following into account: These tax cuts may have helped us out of the 2002-03 dip, but they were still in place before and during the 2008-09 recession, making it difficult to argue that they have longterm beneficial effects on the economy.

Contention

2010-11-10T14:02:00.000-08:00

For this post I started with a Google Image Search: "Contention."

The cover of the 23rd Xanth novel (23rd??!!) caught my eye.

Piers Anthony's Xanth novels were the first books I read without any outside encouragement. They were the first books for which I would actually go to the bookstore and spend my own money.

I don't think many would describe the books as serious literature, but they were fun, and they were more involved than anything I was being asked to read in sixth grade. Xanth showed me how novels base themselves in intricate worlds with tremendous amounts of activity taking place off the page. The books sparked my interest in long form reading and writing.

I owe a lot to the first eight novels in the series. From there I moved on to Hitchhiker's Guide, then Dune, then Notes From Underground, and suddenly a lot of books were on my self. Somewhere in there I started writing.

The trend continued, and years later I was studying fiction writing here at Davis, and then I was in Hungary teaching writing, and now I'm back at UCD studying writing education.

I've always felt a strong link between my love of literature and the act of writing.

That link is what came to mind when a debate broke out in practicum on Friday. We were performing a dry run of portfolio grading.

We started discussing the first essay in the portfolio of a student-writer with a particularly strong voice. That is when things got contentious.

From what I read, a clearly talented student developed an effective voice for a piece, but unfortunately the composition fell short of coherent. My focus on composition left me wavering between Satisfactory and Unsatisfactory (portfolios can receive 1 of 3 grades, Meritorious, Satisfactory, Unsatisfactory).

Several people disagreed with me. Which was a good thing; unsatisfactory marks and meritorious marks deserve a discussion. I was thankful to have the opportunity to discuss the case.

But I was surprised to hear that some readers would have given the essay a Meritorious. These readers were impressed by the student-author's voice and wordplay. They cited clever phrases, a playful tone, and the essay's ambitious thesis: a suggestion that strong writing is a subjective matter. They were impressed by some of the essay's literary merits.

As the debate developed, I cited the course rubric which states an Unsatisfactory mark should be given when “the organization of the text may be confusing or ineffective.” One of my peers argued that the organization was not problematic and then suggested what I had missed: The essay was strong because it was written in an unconventional mode.

I was struck dumb for a moment.

I wanted to be congenial. So I kept this to myself: the comment was insulting. It suggested I had misread a student essay at a very basic level, that I lack the capacity to interpret the modes of discourse explored in a draft UWP 1 essay.

I have since posted my reaction to this exchange on a course blog, and I hope it sparks a dialogue. But I bring the story here for a different reason.

The contentious debate I took part in last week is one aspect of a bigger issue, an issue being addressed in the academic journals and university departments that concern themselves with the teaching of writing. In CCC's latest issue Melissa Ianetta has a great piece on the subject - the unclear divide between the study of literature and the study of composition.

That divide is complicated, and it forces us to ask some uncomfortable questions: Is a literature scholar the best person to teach an engineering major how to write? Shouldn't it be the responsibility of each discipline to instruct its students on its conventions of writing? Does the teaching of introductory writing demand too much time/effort of literary scholars?

These questions force us to consider delicate subjects, e.g. expertise, funding, labor, and academic priorities.

So it should be no surprise that a debate got contentious when a group of lit people and comp people statrted discussing an essay with strong literary qualities yet troublesome composition issues.

One of my new goals here at Davis is to speak openly about the contention this subject inspires. I think contention can be a good thing, if it helps people solve problems.

So while I'm here, I want to ask lit people and comp people where they stand. I want to develop my stance and write about it. I want to speak to people from other departments who work with students who have gone through writing programs. I want to hear from students who have gone through such programs.

A lot of these wants can be satisfied by a good literature review, but I think this kind of contention is going to call for open dialogue. I hope I can contribute.

"Babies are bad at math, and they have very little toes." - Martin

2010-11-04T22:46:00.005-07:00

Today in intro to statistics for the social sciences, our professor Lee Martin was demonstrating that correlation does not mean causation. He asked the class if we thought there might be a correlation between math skills and toe length. Someone rightfully said there is a correlation, which prompted Lee's observation, "Babies are bad at math, and they have very little toes." I wrote that down.

The other line of Lee's that I had to commit to paper today was this: "In a real scenario you'd want to know what actually matters."

I like the way stats has asked me to bend my thinking.

Dora is amused to no end that I'm enjoying stats class. She knows just how nervous I was about dipping my longish toe back into mathematical waters. In high school I had come to believe my brain was missing something mathy. So when I started feeling confident in stats, I came home bragging. For this I was mocked. Dora has always seen me as a bit of a geek, and this new found pride in my math skills has driven that point even further home.

Anyway, reflecting on this reminds me of a student in my UWP 1 course. She has written two drafts of an essay about how she does not have the skills needed to write well. She is certain of this. She has family and friends who can write well with little effort, but no matter how hard she tries, she can't manage an A essay. She really wants to convince her readers that she isn't good at writing. She's put a lot of effort into explaining her frustration and failed efforts.

Looks like it'll end up being a good essay.

Response to Ryan

2010-10-14T08:48:00.003-07:00

My good friend Ryan asked about the top 20 errors listed in The Everyday Writer. I found them on this link.

He also asked if there was anything he could do to help the high school students at his school avoid making these mistakes.

My first thought, make the students aware of the list.
After that, instructors should continue to stress that writing is a process. In relation to this list, that means we should stress that our students will make these mistakes on the first draft or two. The reason the list is valuable is this: When proofreading, knowledge of what to look for is going to be helpful.

One last note, this list is the result of an updated study conducted by Andrea A. Lunsford and Karen Lunsford. They did the research in 2005/6, aiming to update a 1986 study. Perhaps not surprizingly, there were a lot of changes, most of which are related to the rise of the PC. Students should be aware that the "where and how" of writing affects the whole process.

Getting Ready for Day Two

2010-09-29T09:39:00.003-07:00

Just a quick note as I go into day two.

While reading the course material and the supporting material for this course I came to a harsh realization:

Over in Budapest, I was out in the composition-studies wilderness.

Until last year I only had access to embargoed journals and some dated texts. The only change I made last year was to join NCTE. That got me access to 2 up-to-date journals. It didn't exactly plug me into everything that's going on in the discipline. Now that I'm reading the student and teacher resources we have here at Davis, it's like I've traveled through time.

Reading our handbook has been an eyeopener.

For instance, the concept audience awareness has been made so much more accessible and easy to understand. The material I was working with framed this idea as more of an abstraction.

And then I read the list of the top 20 errors made by US college students today... Just that such a list has been compiled has me awed, but our text goes on to explain what kind of misstep a student is making when the errors get on the page. It's great stuff. If my students take advantage of this, I think it will make a huge difference in their work.

The challenge for me is to make these resources interesting for UWP1 students.

Of course I'm into it all; my area of study is making great strides. That is exciting for me, naturally. But how to convey that excitement is what I have to work on.

Morning of Day 1

2010-09-27T07:12:00.005-07:00

This is my first Stateside post. I will no longer be Hogs in Budapest. As you may have noted above, I am now Hogs in Davis.

Here you will find the blog post I was asked to write in the days leading up to my first day teaching the University Writing Program 1 course, expository writing.

Of course I wrote it the morning of my first class. Some habits are hard to break.

Today is an odd combination of the familiar and the foreign.

The past few years at CEU Business School, and the years before that at McDaniel College Budapest both help to make first days feel old hat.

There are, however, several things that have me nervous. It's a good nervous. The same kind I got when I was an actor in high school theater productions. The kind of nervous that makes me focus. But the source of those nerves is new.

I haven't worked with UC students in years.

I haven't taught a course built by someone else.

I haven't copied my handouts yet... okay, that's nothing new. I am going to have to work on having materials ready earlier, but that has always dogged me.

New students always get my blood going. I want to make a good impression, but I don't want to be that instructor who looks to be trying. That's the result of working with first year students; it's a age group deeply concerned with their environment's level of cool. I want to walk the line that gets me the respect of a friendly authority. I know how to do that in Hungary. I think some of those skills will transfer. We'll see.

The other thing that got me out of bed early was the question about how to make this class my own. Using Dana's syllabus is great because I get to try some new things, but I did develop a classroom rhythm while in Hungary. I hope I can cover everything without looking like I'm reading cue cards.

Well, I've got to go make some copies and get to class.

Farewell to Hungary

2010-08-02T02:06:00.005-07:00

In two weeks Hogs will no longer be in Budapest.

On the 17th of this month, Dora, Elek, and I (plus the dogs) will get on a plane and leave Hungary behind.

We plan to come back when we can, but we will return as visitors rather than residents (the dogs actually don't plan on coming back).

I've lived here since August 2004. It's been a busy six years.

I got married and grew even closer to Dora.

I figured out the career I'd like to pursue, and I gathered some excellent experience in that field.

I got a dog, helped that dog whelp nine puppies, and found homes for all of them - gaining a second dog in the doing.

I worked with incredible students from around the world, learning more about our global culture than I ever thought I would.

I finished a draft of my novel that I'm happy with - no publisher, but now I'm working on some other stuff, and the experience of finishing a big project helps me understand what "working on some other stuff" really means.

And then this last May I had a son.
Elek is very excited about the big move to the US. He is a bit concerned about how divisive the politics have become. I told him not to worry... much.

These years have been very good to me, and I would like to extend my thanks and best wishes to all the friends, colleagues, and students who made this time such a rich experience.

I will keep up a small blog, much like this one. Either there or via other channels, I hope to hear from people who were a part of this chapter in my life.

Be seeing you.

Who is Wrong?

2010-07-21T05:44:00.005-07:00

As this week has slipped by in a haze of diaper changes and late-nights, the world has continued to be a stupid place to hold a debate.

I've tried to keep up with the faux-scandal revolving around ex-USDA official Shirley Sherrod.

If this one slipped by you, here's a play by play:
* Sherrod gave a speech in which she spoke about racism.
* The right-leaning blog Big Government posted a portion of her speech, which out of context made Sherrod look racist.
Edit - I had placed the Fox report here. Fox did not report the story until after Sherrod resigned.
* The NAACP condemned Sherrod.
* Sherrod was pressured to resign her post - despite her protests that the comments were taken out of context.
* The "main stream" media picked up the story and suggested Sherrod is a racist... Well, Fox picked up the story and suggested as much.
* When the NAACP the took the time to view the whole speech, they realized that the speech was anything but racist. It was actually the story of a woman overcoming her own racist ideas.

This story has taken up a lot of space in the news world.
When that occurs, I stop and ask, "What happened?"
As far as I can tell, the answer to that question is this:
A polemic blog took a person's words out of context.

That's all that happened.
The blog Big Government twisted the truth for its readers, and in doing so they diverted the public's attention from real news and they hurt the career of a woman who helps farmers.

The news and the blogs are still trying to parse who was wrong, who over reacted, and who are the real racists here. What they have failed to realize is this: Nothing important happened.

Someone walked into the room and yelled "Racist!" and we all panicked.

I hope students of critical thought and writing can glean something from this story.
If I had a course in session today I'd use this as a teaching moment:
1) People don't always argue using respectable tactics.
2) You can gauge a writer's respect for their readers by the quality of the writer's evidence.
3) Buzz words and hot topics need to be handled with care.

The blog Big Government has once again sullied the reputation of right-wing blogs. Perhaps we can all stop paying attention to that particular blog. They are useless.

"The Secret Powers of Time"

2010-06-12T02:35:00.004-07:00

So much of argument and persuasion is about understanding another point of view.

This lecture by Professor Philip Zimbardo and a wonderful animated accompaniment helps us understand some of the cognitive tools we need to do just that.

Enjoy.

Elek Bolgar Hayes

2010-05-24T15:14:00.001-07:00

You can find pictures of Elek's first days here.

Arizona is Lovely

2010-05-21T23:14:00.006-07:00

I do not think the people of Arizona are racists or xenophobic - even if the Cuban government claims this is the case.

I do, however, think the uproar surrounding Arizona's new immigration law is merited.

From this blog's point of view, the most interesting back and forth has been about two words. I really enjoy a debate that can be broken down to the level of word choice. Popular examples of such debates are rare, but they make for great teaching tools.

Back when Arizona passed its immigration law, the initial uproar was over the words "reasonable suspicion." I have to admit, I never thought those words were problematic. Those words have a pretty clear legal definition.

My concern was whether or not Arizona cops could question a person without probable cause. They can do that here in Hungary, and it drives me crazy.

The words that left my 'probable cause' questions unanswered are Lawful Contact. Try as I may, I cannot find a clear legal definition of the concept, and the concept is critical to understanding Arizona's law (see line 20 of the law). And now the words have become the focus of many debating the law's merits.
Those who support the law claim that 'lawful contact' is what happens when an officer stops someone because they have broken a law, e.g. a traffic stop.
Critics suggest that 'lawful contact' could also include an officer speaking to someone who has not broken the law, e.g. a witness of a minor traffic accident. That is an example of an officer questioning an idividual without probable cause.

So we have a poorly defined key concept bound up in those two little words.

It will eventually take a judge to decide which interpretation of 'lawful contact' is correct. That troubles me. The courts only comes into play after the law has been enforced - after a police officer has exercised her interpretation of the law. It is sloppy lawmaking for legislators to leave something like this for the courts to decide.

When I help students draft research papers, I ask them to be more careful than the Arizona legislature has been. I suggest they develop their understanding of their subject's concepts, context, and issues. The term "concept" often trips up beginning researchers. Students define a concept as 'a key term required to discuss a subject', and that's more than half right. The problem, however, is that students don't define their concepts clearly enough. They'll use a term like CSR, but they never develop it into a clear concept. So when they write "corporations must behave in a socially responsible manner", a reader is left to decide what exactly 'socially responsible' means. Some read that term differently than others.

The Arizona legislature has made that same mistake here, and it could result in police harassment.

So there you have it, a real life example of a composition classroom issue.

Planck's Constant Times Two

2010-04-28T03:39:00.009-07:00

Both my first and my last name start with the same letter: H.

I like my initials. They have a symmetry and they look good together.

For several years I have signed my emails with my initials. For even longer, I have signed non-legal documents like this.

Recently I learned that white supremacists often use my initials, or the numerical equivalent of my initials as a short hand high-five. In chat rooms and text messages, these jackasses type one H and then another as an abbreviation of the Nazi salute to Hitler.

Let me just start off by saying that I hate Nazis and white supremacists. There is nothing more pathetic than white people complaining about the "raw deal" history has dealt their race.

Note:
If you think you are at a disadvantage because you are white, you are a stupid person.
You are actually at a disadvantage because of your stupidity. The color of your skin has nothing to do with how miserable a failure you have become. You have failed to achieve your goals because you suck at being a person.

Now, by calling white supremacists stupid miserable failures, I know that I have shut off any potential debate that might have led to a better understanding between myself and those who don't see these things the same way I do.

Cool.

I do not want to share ideas with people who think the white race is superior to other races. I don't want to associate with people who believe Hitler had some good ideas.

When I hear the bile these idiots spew, I am reminded that some people cannot learn. There are people who are hopelessly stupid. There is no reason to even acknowledge their voices. We have to let them speak in a democracy, but we don't have to engage them.

Shut them out. Their ideas are not useful.

All that said, I do have to deal with something these hopelessly small-minded and insignificant people have shat out onto the internet. In some circles my initials are interpreted as a symbol of hate. I am not sure if I should react to that. Should I switch to HMH when signing emails? Should I just use Hogan? Should I ignore the connotation and stick with my old signature? I'd like to ask my readers what they think.

Messy Discourse

2010-04-21T02:35:00.010-07:00

The aftermath of the Financial Crisis is finally beginning to take shape. The populist anger aimed at Wall Street and Washington has not not gone away. So with the SEC's lawsuit and the proposed Financial Reform Bill in the news, people are following stories that include terms like "collateralized debt obligation."

I am very interested in what it takes for a person to follow a debate when that debate involves unfamiliar subject matter. As a composition instructor, one of my goals is to teach students how to join a new and unfamiliar discussion. After all, most freshmen cannot tell you what professional community they plan to join when they finish college. So part of my job is to teach them how to evaluate the discussions of a community all by themselves - how to evaluate and then join those discussions.

The continued development of the debate about Wall Street and Washington has had my attention for a while. I've leaned heavily on two NPR outlets in order to stay informed. This American Life has done a bunch of shows on the subject, and they turned me on to the podcast, Planet Money - a bi-weekly show that explains economic issues in everyday language. I accept that NPR has a reputation for being left-of-center, but even the National Review has stepped in to praise the reporting coming from these shows. Anyway, they're the reason I don't click away when a news stroy mentions CDOs.

Now that CDOs are at the center of the Goldman Sachs lawsuit, however, it seems that a larger audience is going to have to come to grips with the term. That's no easy task. Jon Stewart had some fun on Monday showing pundits trying (and failing) to explain what Goldman is accused of. But all kidding aside, if the American public is going to try and follow this story, then the media has a hell of a job ahead. The story is bound to get political. The information involved is difficult to understand. The solutions are going to conflict with the interests of some powerful people. In other words, there is going to be a lot of mindless shouting and ranting. It's what they call a noisy channel in information theory.

The noise is already out there. In an effort to discredit the President, the Washington Examiner and bloggers have put together a lazy analogy comparing the Goldman suit to the Enron crisis.

Note to the Examiner: Trying to compare Goldman to Enron in order to score political points is not a good idea... unless your readers will believe a poorly constructed argument that omits relevant details.

The campaign donations from Goldman are there, true. But the SEC vote to sue Goldman was down party lines - 2 Dems voting to sue, 2 Republicans dissenting, & the Obama-appointed independent siding with the Dems.
The Examiner suggests that Goldman's connections/donations should get them preferential treatment, but it's fairly well-known that the practices at Goldman were happening elsewhere on Wall Street. Why is the SEC going after Goldman first? That does not strike me as preferential treatment.

Beyond that, the Enron analogy has other holes:
1) Enron's rise and its push for deregulation were both aided primarily by Republican administrations. Goldman's rise, by comparison, has utilized political connections from both sides of the aisle.

2) Back in 2001 - the year the Enron scandal took shape and unfolded - Enron representatives consulted with the Bush Administrations' Energy Task Force on multiple occasions at the White House. Compare that to the new scandal - Goldman (et al.) assembled the high-risk CDOs, mislabeled those investments, and sold them to unwitting investors somewhere between 2005 and 2007. The President, while not shrinking from the politically difficult task of cleaning up the mess today, didn't serve on any Senate committees that oversaw financial regulation, nor did he preside over any regulatory bodies while Goldman (et al.) assembled those high-risk CDOs.

3) Finally, the Examiner seems to have forgotten an important detail in its update that connects key people at Goldman to key people in the Obama administration. Hank Paulson was Bush 43's pick for Secretary of the Treasury AND a one-time partner at Goldman.

I am all for a vigorous investigation into what happened on Wall Street leading up to the Financial Crisis, but I don't want to see that investigation get mucked up by cheap shots out of the blogosphere or a free Daily with a narrative to sell.

I don't suppose I'll have much of a choice though. Here's to hoping.

Close Encounter of the Meme Kind

2010-04-08T02:31:00.004-07:00

Misinformation is thick on the interwebs today.

This morning I was invited to a Facebook Group called "Proposed 28th Amendment to the U S Constitution."

I also got a viral email suggesting the 28th Amendment has already been ratified and that the Congress is in violation of the Amendment via health care reform.

The note on the email said, "something to remember in November."

At my own peril, I will ignore the Guy Fawkes reference, but I feel compelled to use my tiny blog in an effort to shut this meme down.

The Proposed 28th Amendment is a hoax/falsehood. There is no need for this proposed amendment. Civil servants and elected officials are citizens. They enjoy the same rights and have the same responsibilities as everyone else in the country.

Looking into this meme brought me to some of the web's crazy places.

The Facebook group's page refers to "Now the End Begins." They have a web page. They are a special kind of kooky. Here's their banner.

I want to believe this group is a hoax - a spoof of sorts, but I'm afraid someone assembled that banner without satire in mind.

These people are on the fringe, and their ranting should be considered harmless. But this 28th Amendment meme makes me a little jittery. The Facebook Group has +100,000 members. The email went viral. These ideas have gained an odd kind of traction. The arguments in each message are based on blatant falsehoods and crackpot ideologies. People should dismiss this stuff out of hand, but the messages have seeped into two of my inboxes somehow.

I hope people will realize how silly these ideas are and stop proliferating this kind of garbage.

Muddied Waters

2010-04-06T02:58:00.006-07:00

Yeah, yeah, I know. Last week's post was far too long, but the issue of a functioning public discourse is important to me. My little rant was an attempt to illustrate two things I strongly believe:
1) Informed public discourse is crucial in a democracy, and...
2) The current output of the US media is doing little to help keep the public informed - if anything the large media outlets have muddied the waters.

Today point number 2 was made clearer. The image above actually made it depressingly clear.

I woke up this morning to learn about the leaked video out of Iraq. The screen shots here show that I should have learned about this last night when I checked the top US headlines before going to bed.

It was at about 10pm CET, and I remember reading about Tiger's return. That's embarrassing to admit, but it was the most eye-catching headline (this coming from a reader who closely follows news about the wars).

As a consumer of news, I would now like to know why Tiger was the top story last night. How is it that a sporting figure's return trumps the kind of military misconduct that costs innocent lives, fuels the anger of our enemies, and puts our troops at greater risk?

How can Americans have a real conversation about the wars we are engaged in if we are not informed of the implications those wars have?

We deserve a better media.

To Reuters' credit, they have been attempting to get access to this video for some time - two members of their staff were killed in the attack. Their efforts to expose this were very public, and I count them as part of the mainstream media. Nevertheless, the story has already disappeared from Google's top headlines.

Stay on Target. Stay on Target.

2010-04-01T02:39:00.011-07:00

People do not argue about politics today. Instead, they pick sides and snipe at each other without ever engaging in a real argument. As a guy who teaches students how to write strong arguments, this is frustrating.

Last week, my friend Dan and I got into a discussion about this problem. We were taking a look at events surrounding an appended column by Paul Krugman. Bloggers were making a big fuss over a piece of Krugman's supporting evidence, but they were ignoring his actual point. This was extra frustrating because no matter how you interpreted the supporting evidence, Krugman's larger point remained valid.

One of my roles as a composition instructor is to help students read, interpret, and eventually write complex arguments. Instructors are charged with this task because universities believe that for any community to tackle big issues, the members of that community need to be capable of expressing and analyzing complex ideas.

It might be helpful here to look at an example a bit less complicated than US politics. There's a fun essay on wired.com about the great geek debate, Star Wars versus Star Trek. It illustrates how a strong discourse community functions. Participants are informed and enthusiastic. Opinions are respected, but they are not the end of the debate. Members of each camp do not hold a homogenized view (Who is cooler, Han or Lando? Kirk or Picard?) And most importantly, good arguments do the following: organize evidence into larger points that support one side or the other. Participants in the Great Geek Debate do all these things.

Sadly, when we tackle issues of arguably larger significance, there is a lot more interference. Political debates are all too often a hotbed of cheap rhetorical tricks that keep people away from the real issues.

Yesterday Dan sent another example of this. Krugman is involved once again. A blog targets one item within a Krugman column, contests the truth of the item, and presents the item as though it represents the entire argument.

Breakdown:
1) Krugman objects to violence-themed rhetoric from the mainstream right, including a Sarah Palin Facebook post. He states that the mainstream left does not do such things.
2) People on both the left and right reacted to Palin's post (btw, whoever does her PR is an ace).
3) The blogger found examples of diagrams used by the mainstream left that are similar to the diagram Palin used.
4) Hah ha! The left uses similar rhetoric!
5) But there are differences between the diagrams.
6) Wait, what were we talking about?

This is what gets me. The Palin Facebook post is one piece of supporting evidence Krugman used to make a larger point. Pundits (on the left and right) have jumped on this one item, only to ignore Krugman's larger point.

It's gotten to where no one can assert a complex argument. And let's face it, Krugman's argument was not terribly complex. Here it is: An image of Nancy Pelosi in flames, stating that Pelosi is on "the firing line," or putting cross hairs on congresspeople are all examples of violent rhetoric characteristic of the current mainstream right.

Is that true? Well, no one cares, because now we are having a semantic battle over Palin's Facebook page.

And speaking of semantic battles, the blog post even acknowledges its own flimsy logic: the image of a target is different than cross hairs. That seems like splitting hairs, but there's actually good reason to split that hair. Allow me to put on my language geek hat.

To target something is not necessarily a militant expression. Corporations target certain markets. Teachers target certain students. Media outlets target certain demographics. Are these militant expressions? Well, I say no, but... Damn it!

You see what happened there? I got sucked into that stupid argument. I found myself wanting to explore the difference between the image of a target and the image of cross hairs. I even went off to the OED and read all the definitions of 'target' just now. Can you believe that?

Without even noticing, I am no longer focused on Krugman's analysis of the public discourse. Arrgh.

I want to find effective ways to keep my students from following these kinds of tangential arguments, but I have to acknowledge, once you get into debate mode it's hard to distinguish between the issues. To stay focused, one needs to take time for reflection. That is what makes the act of composition all the more important today. Reflection is an essential part of the composition process, and as channels of communication continue to speed up, writers and thought leaders need to emphasize that portion of the process more than ever.

Props to 'Tiny Art Director'

2010-03-25T04:19:00.007-07:00

I found "Tiny Art Director" after reading a Boing Boing post about the author's book.

Dora and I are expecting our first child in May, and I know the urge to include my son in every aspect of my life will be irresistible. I plan to do just that, but I do worry about Vacation Slide Show Syndrome.

It is a common condition. Sufferers of Vacation Slide Show Syndrome exhibit the following tell-tale symptom: Sharing pictures and stories that they find endlessly entertaining, while failing to realize that their audience only comprehends the 'endless' qualities of that which they are sharing.

New parents are at high risk of contracting Vacation Slide Show Syndrome, as it most often targets people in the weakened state brought about by unique and powerful life-changing experiences.

In my efforts to avoid Vacation Slide Show Syndrome, I have done some research. I found that the condition can be avoided by incorporating a regimented approach to tasteful sharing. That's no easy task, but I think "Tiny Art Director" is an excellent example of success.

Support for Assault Victim from CEU

2010-03-23T03:34:00.003-07:00

Early Saturday morning Edward Cuneo was assaulted by three attackers near a major public transit hub. Edward is from the US and is here in Budapest pursuing a degree in gender studies.

I want to extend my best wishes to Edward and his family and friends.

CEU has done an excellent job keeping the community informed about the situation. According to internal communications, Edward is recovering from his injuries. Again, I wish him all the best.

It is worth noting that in the most recent update on the assault, the Rector of CEU suggested that in the weeks leading up to Hungarian elections "it is advisable to exercise caution when facing situations where the diverse views of others might result in volatile actions."

Sadly, that is good advice today in Hungary. I can't help but feel ashamed that such advice is required in the country I have called home for the past six years.

Banned Words

2010-03-12T13:55:00.005-08:00

My friend Dan sent me this story about an exec at the Tribune Company who has banned 119 cliched words and phrases from the newsroom.

I also read a fun take on the story on an NPR blog.

My first reaction was, "Banning words is bad." But then I thought of all the words and phrases I would like to ban from my students' writing. The first few that come to mind?

"It is true that..."
"In my opinion..."
"In olden times..."
"Nowadays"
"Many people would tell you..."
"At the end of the day..."
"In this paper I am going to..."
"It can be said that..."

And there's so many more.

You see, it's not a set of useful words that the Trib exec is banning, it is the lazy filler words we've heard so often that we now unthinkingly incorporate them into our speech and writing.

I'm all for listing such phrases, and while I won't ban anything outright, I'll certainly think twice before using these words. And more often than not, thinking twice is a good thing.

I'll keep trying to add to the list this week, but I'd love suggestions from other teachers and any old students of mine. Leave them in the comments.

Because everyone else is doing it.

2010-03-03T01:59:00.001-08:00

Pee Tram

2010-02-25T01:18:00.013-08:00

Pictures are of the view from the 4/6 tram as it passes over Margit Bridge, which is undergoing a major renovation.

The 4/6 tram smelled of urine this morning. While this is not the normal state of affairs, it is not as rare as it should be.

Oddly enough, riding along with that smell was something of a learning experience for me. I like to think that speaks to my career choice - I tend to see everything as a teachable moment. Once upon a time, I thought that was how most people saw the world.

Anyway, the pee smell wasn't overpowering, but there was no doubting its presence. I scanned the tram for drunks and layabouts. That's where you normally find the most urine. I was standing near a guy who might have been homeless, but he seemed well-kept enough. I didn't lean in for a good sniff or anything, but I was pretty sure he wasn't the offender, regardless of his housing situation.

When the tram stopped at Nyugati and the crowd thinned a bit, I moved to another spot.

I could still smell the urine. That was curious.

For a moment, I wondered whether or not I was the one who smelled like pee. Could I have had an accident, forgotten about it, and then decided to wear the soiled garment? That seemed unlikely. Perhaps one of the dogs had peed on me during the morning walk. Stranger things have happened. But I'm in jeans, so the wetness would still be visible.

It was at this point that said to myself, "Maybe I should ask one of my friends at work whether or not I smell of pee."

Then I got mad at Perry LaRoque.

You see, on a spring day back in 1999 Perry decided it would be funny if he could convince me that I was a smelly person. I was rather impressionable that day, and after a while Perry had me believing that everyone I knew thought of me as "Smelly Hogan." In fact, according to Perry, that was the name people called me when I wasn't around. The real killer in Perry's little act was this: He seemed surprised by my reaction. I was not happy, of course, and he said, "Wow, Hogan, we all thought you knew. We thought you just didn't care."

For a bit of time there, I thought I was the smelly friend. I thought the people who I had surrounded myself with were tolerant enough to ignore my odor, and now I had to change. I had to show them that I did care. I had to rid myself of the stink. The problem was I didn't know how. Even when I was an undergrad, I showered, I brushed, I laundered, and so on. Was I going to have to invest in some kind of heavy-duty soap product?

Fortunately, it didn't go that far.

Perry let me off the hook after only a few minutes. That wasn't easy. At first, I though maybe he was just being nice. "Oh, Hogan, don't worry about it. You don't really smell... (that bad)." But he eventually convinced me that it was all a joke.

Still, the fact that I fell so hard for the prank exposed a kind of insecurity in me. I first noticed its existence that day in '99, and the feeling resurfaces every once in a while. It did today for a moment on the tram. I don't think I'm alone in having this insecurity: In my weaker moments I can convince myself that I have failed to notice a weakness or fault in myself that is painfully obvious to the rest of the world.

I should probably have more confidence in myself. I should know that the odor of urine says more about the city of Budapest than it does about me. But I don't like to simply dismiss these moments. You have bad feelings for a reason. So I thought about it for a while, and this is what I came up with: Even if I'm not the one who stinks, I am riding to work in a uric cloud. I should probably do something to change that circumstance.

That got me thinking of the old advice "surround yourself with excellence." If you want to know something about a person, you look at the environment they choose to live in and the people they associate with.

Spring weather is arriving. Maybe I should starting riding my bike to work again... and I should clean my office.

Communication Was on the Radio This Weekend

2010-02-22T03:44:00.007-08:00

I’m a bit of a science geek. The hobby rarely results in anything directly related to my area of interest, but this weekend the Science Friday podcast dedicated 45 minutes to a panel discussion on the task of communicating science. The show was a goldmine of practical examples of the concepts I try to teach in first-year composition (FYC). Some examples: what constitutes noise in the rhetorical situation; audience-centered approach versus message-centered approach; the importance of balancing concepts, context, and issues; the barriers to entry for many academic/professional communities; source evaluation; breaking down a complex message into its component parts; and my favorite, most academic and professional communities are meritocracies not democracies.

I hope some of my students will take the time to listen to the panel discussion. It is an interesting discussion on communication, science, and the intersection of the scientific community and the public sphere.

The show was of particular interest to me because of the paper I am working on.

The impetus for one of my paper’s main points is this: FYC occupies a particularly awkward moment in the development of many student writers - before they have dug into the college-level discourse of any specific discipline.

This awkward moment presents an obstacle that we must contend with in FYC. Our goal is to give students the skills they will need to contribute effectively to the communities they eventually join, but we must accomplish this before we know exactly what those communities are going to be.

Let me name just a few of the career paths my undergraduate students have expressed an interest in: manufacturing, consulting, finance, fashion, marketing, automobiles, NGOs, government work, entrepreneurship, and the list goes on. As the students advance into upper-division courses related to their individual interests, they will be expected to learn how increasingly-specialized academics communicate about those industries. Then most of the students will step out into the industries and engage in communication processes unique to each community. On top of that, within those industries there are so many different roles. During a recent seminar on communication, members of the MBA class were quick to point out that even within the same company, different departments use vastly different methods of communication.

So the skill set our students obtain in FYC needs to be a combination of

A) the basic tools of written communication and

B) the analytical skills required to evaluate and meet the needs of a discourse community.

Science Friday’s discussion puts a lot of that into a practical context by flipping the challenge on its head. The discussion participants talk about how the science community is struggling to adjust to the expectations of an outside audience. My hope is that students with a strong understanding of the how discourse communities function can go out into the real world and address the issues that beset both outsiders and insiders of any community.

As a final note, I believe it is easy to show the parallel between the scientific community’s issues and the business community. I’ll offer the most obvious example before signing off:

Climate Change: The scientific community has had tremendous difficulty relating complex ideas that involve uncertainty, probability, and complex computations to a public that is hungry for easy-to-digest practical applications. This has resulted in tremendous confusion about how to use information to make policy decisions.

Derivatives: The finance community has had tremendous difficulty relating complex ideas that involve uncertainty, probability, and complex computations to a public that is hungry for easy-to-digest practical applications. This has resulted in tremendous confusion about how to use information to make policy decisions.

Sorry about the new security

2010-02-10T23:47:00.002-08:00

Hey all (three of my readers),
I didn't ever want to add word verification for comments. I didn't want to cut anonymous comments. But the blog spammers have found me, and their bot comments are popping up all over.

It's annoying, I know, but it could be worse.

Great Material From Acephalous

2010-02-08T03:55:00.003-08:00

My friend and coworker Eric sent this my way. As the post states, it is aimed a very specific audience, but speaks very directly to my work. Enjoy.

Race in Hungary

2010-01-17T03:21:00.002-08:00

Just before the holidays Dora and I were eating dinner when we heard a man yelling down in the street. I went to open the window. We could then hear the clearly drunk man chanting the Hungarian equivalent of "Jew go home."

How can you respond to that - especially when you live in the 7th District, the traditionally Jewish district of Budapest?

I've used this space in the past to vent about Hungary's troubled relationship with the minority communities in its borders. It's a topic that gets me riled for two reasons:
1) The worst of examples are violent and motivated by little more than demagoguery.
2) As an outsider, more often than not my views on the issue are dismissed out of hand.

That's a frustrating place to be when you would like to seek a deeper understanding of a problem - perhaps even engage in a constructive effort to improve things.

That frustration is very much related to the paper I'm working on. Much of the reading I've been doing for this project is about young people who do not fit the profile of the typical college student. The effort to bring their views into the academic community seems like a noble cause, but like so many noble causes, it's complicated. In order to interact with an established community, a person must learn and accept the methods the community uses to interact: who is considered an authority, what gives a person the right to challenge an idea/argument, what beliefs are held as truths. These kinds of interactions are dictated by culture and values. So if you want to bring an outsider in, you sometimes have to challenge the person's culture and values. Like I said, it can get complicated.

I hadn't thought of myself as the outsider in such a situation until last week. Dora's extended family got together to celebrate a collection of birthdays and an anniversary. At dinner I sat next to Mate (say "Ma-tey"). He's a law student. He's very smart and very opinionated. He and I don't see eye-to-eye on every issue, and that's okay. But I always try to challenge his take on the Roma (Gypsy) population. He believes that many of Hungary's problems stem from the Roma. Last week I spent at least fifteen minutes listening to Mate explain how the Roma are destroying his country.

I have very little patience for this kind of talk. I believe Hungarians who hold Mate's view are trying to shift the responsibility for the nation's many serious problems to a minority population - a population that has very little political or financial power. The issues that have hampered Hungary's growth are rampant corruption, the public acceptance of tax fraud, and a bloated bureaucratic government that provides very little when you consider people are supposed to pay 50% of their income in taxes. It is absurd to blame these kinds of problems on a group that composes no more than 10% of the population (and that figure is considered a gross overestimate by many).

I've tried to confront Mate's view directly. I've tried to question Mate's assumptions. I've tried acting stupid and forcing him to explain what it is that the Roma have done to make his life so difficult (his life is not very difficult btw). Whenever I get anywhere close to making a point, my views are dismissed. Since I am not Hungarian, I cannot understand how serious the problem is. So my questions and arguments are moot.

My beliefs keep me at arms length from this debate, but it's frustrating because I live here. I am a part of the community - but not really.

Strange as this may sound, I'm thankful for the experience. As a white heterosexual male with a stable family background, it is difficult for me to understand what it means to be a member of a community who lacks certain rights or abilities. This is a rather minor example of that, but it provides some insight.

I like this take on the Sen. Reid thing

2010-01-11T07:29:00.005-08:00

Frank James' take on the gaffe by Senator Reid speaks to a lot of my frustrations with manufactured controversies.

In it, James gets at how people are willing to twist the facts in a debate. Often participants get so worked up about an issue that they grab at anything resembling evidence in their support. In such haste, however, the issue often get lost and people end up simply shouting insults at each other.

I'm not in the States to see how intense this "issue" is getting, but I was surprised to hear people compare Reid's comment to Lott's 2002 comments supporting the breakaway segregationist party of 1948. That seems to be a lopsided analogy at best...
A tasteless and politically incorrect description of Obama
versus
A 2002 statement of support for a party with this in their platform: "We stand for the segregation of the races and the racial integrity of each race."

It may not be apples and oranges, but one is certainly more rotten than the other. Don't you think?

What is Fair Play?

2009-12-18T01:19:00.005-08:00

This article was in the Washington Post today.

GOP Senators tried to filibuster a military funding bill. If the filibuster had succeeded, Democrats would likely have to drop health care reform and find an alternative to funding the troops in Iraq and Afghanistan. The filibuster did not succeed, but only 3 of 36 Republicans voted to end the filibuster (and only after all 60 Dems had already voted 'aye').

I recognize that right now the GOP's number one priority is the defeat of the Dem's health care reform bill. Nevertheless, what does it mean when politicians are willing to betray one of their core values while in pursuit of a goal?

How is a soldier supposed to view of this event? "The GOP didn't really want to withhold support from the military; they were just using our troops as political capital."

Someone who is willing to concede "core values" in order to win the day does not have real core values. Maybe it sounds naive to hope politicians are guided by certain principles, but they're the ones claiming to have them in the first place.

Poorly Rationed Reasoning

2009-11-25T00:40:00.014-08:00

So my new goal here at Hogs is to play around with some of the big arguments of the day. On Monday I dove into the troubles that erupted around the climate change debate after the computers were hacked at CRU. The most interesting comment for me was Karmavore's distinction between "Climate Change Skeptics" & "Climate Change Disbelievers." The difference is important, and it will affect the way I engage in that discussion in the future.

I hope that kind of thing will happen more often here. I want to look at the divisive issues that are too often cast in black and white and then seek out the gray areas.

The hot button issue for today is health care, more specifically last week's ruckus around the word rationing. The issue came into sharp focus after the results of a study on mammography were released by the Preventive Services Task Force. The study recommends that women do not need to start regular screenings for breast cancer until the age of 50. The previous recommendation had been to start screenings at 40.

Patients can ignore the study and get screened in their 40s anyway. However, the people signing the check for those screenings may object, and since most people do not sign the check for their own health care, there is a conflict. People are nervous that the check signers might listen to the experts and certain tests won't get paid for.

Of course that nervousness spilled over into the health care reform debate.

Last week the WSJ's opinion page suggested a lot of things that might happen if the government tried to reduce health care spending. The piece critiques how the government plans to decide what medical procedures to pay for? The idea is to put experts in place, experts like the ones who put out the study on mammography.

With that study out, suddenly we have a stand-in for "the bureaucrat that will get between you and your doctor." And that bureaucrat is advising us to reduce breast cancer screenings. I understand the uproar. Women have been told that regular screenings can save their lives. Now some acronym is telling them to forget about that. It is a powerful reminder of the fact that personal heath care decisions are not always up to the individual. And with the reform bill ready for debate next week, powerful reminders like that are explosive.

My concern is that such explosive material can be misused. Private insurers are also likely to take note of the mammogram study. No matter the insurance scheme, there is a limited amount of money in a pool, and someone needs to decide how to best spend it.

Peter Singer's July piece in the NYT Magazine asks readers to do the following: think about the spending limits you would put on another person's medical treatment if experts claimed that the treatment was not effective in most cases. Singer asks for a number. It's a tough call.

This is the decision any insurer must make. The pro-reform people have cast the private insurers as heartless for refusing service, but the measures up for debate in Congress will put similar decisions in the hands of government appointees.

And that is the heart of the matter: Who do you want making those decisions about rationing?

I like the government appointed panel of experts, because we can demand transparency. The debate over the mammogram study is an example of how a government panel's findings are open to the public and up for debate.

What do you think?

Why the CRU Leak Isn't the Biggest of Deals

2009-11-23T02:00:00.009-08:00

I can't speak to the details around the leak at CRU, as the data is out of context. But at first blush it does look like the scientists at that facility are doing some less-than-ethical work. And less-than-ethical is not a euphemism here. It's an accusation. Data needs to inform the theory, not vice versa. When this all get sorted out, if the science was bad, then the results from that lab are tainted.

But CRU isn't the only body of scientists looking into climate change. Here's an article that cites data from 2 peer review journals. The data does not come from CRU, nor is it interpreted by the people at CRU. The results are not pretty: Even if we could cut greenhouse gases by tomorrow, the ocean levels look like they will rise a meter by 2100. If I have grandchildren, they will see coast lines and island nations disappear.

The movement to slow our contribution to climate change isn't going to stop this. According to most experts, however, we might be able to mitigate the damages.

So here's my question for skeptics of anthropomorphic climate change: Why/how would scientists from a variety of fields, policy makers, and business leaders collaborate to execute a hoax on a global scale?

The groups involved are not like-minded. What could possibly motivate them to work together to forward a false cause?

Job security? The scientists at UT studying "nearly seven years of data on ocean-icesheet interaction... collected by the twin GRACE satellites" do not need global warming to ply their trade. They have tremendous analytical and technical skills. They'll find work.

Political motives? Have you ever met a research scientist? Seen one on TV? Probably not. They are not political creatures.

Greed? Well, Gore is set to make a lot of money if the energy sector goes green. If his motive was just money, however, why not buy a drilling platform? That would produce faster returns that are more secure?

Stupidity? Are we to believe that a select few have convinced top scientists, world leaders, and savvy business people to believe in something that is baseless? Who are these evil geniuses, where is their secret underground base, and why are they doing this?

The CC skeptics are claiming that disparate groups of well trained specialists have either met in secret to dupe the world OR that they have themselves been duped by a group with a desire to transition the planet to clean energy for unspecified reasons.

The moon landing conspiracy theory looks rational by comparison. You'll have to excuse me for siding with the diverse group of experts who have found something to agree on despite it's challenging implications. While the other side's accusations of conspiracy allow me to comfortably continue my life unchanged, the accusations are asking me to believe in something much more unrealistic than greenhouse gases.

Our Voice is Changing, It's an Awkward Time

2009-10-01T07:01:00.003-07:00

It took me a couple of days, but I got around to listening to the This American Life/Planet Money episode from last weekend.

If you want to listen to a couple of people working to change the tone and register of how the American public discusses economic issues, this episode is a great place to start.

I've learned a lot from the Planet Money team this past year. What strikes me each time I listen is this: That group is aiming to enlarge the audience of economic news - news that has a profound effect on all of us - and they are doing it by bucking the system that made economic news a "members only" club.

Average people of average intelligence have the right to this kind of information, and I'm happy to see a set of journalists acknowledge that. Here's a couple of other journalists acknowledging that acknowledgment.

If these are the kinds of lessons we are learning in the current shift to new media, then let the shift continue.

Public Discourse and Obama's School Speech

2009-09-08T02:59:00.009-07:00

I need some help from any readers I may have left after a summer of sporadic blogging.

I enjoy following American politics, but I am not in America.

So the venomous nature of the current political discourse snuck up on me. At first I thought the public's intense emotions were a reaction to the size of the challenges we face with health care reform. Then I read about the resistance to Obama's speech to school children.

I read the views of those who feel the speech is too political. I read the views of people who think the President is intruding into the sphere of state and local school districts. My reactions to these points are,
A) The speech doesn't read as overtly or covertly political.
B) I don't think such a speech exerts nearly as much Federal influence as the No Child Left Behind program.

People can argue with me about those points. That's fine, but I'm worried about the way our political dialogue is being shaped. When I look at the tone and content of this 'school speech' debate through the lens of my current research, I'm left wondering this: What is the aim of such a discussion?

The President wants to give a "Stay-in-School" speech today, and people are acting very upset. Which struck me as odd until I posed this theory: People aren't really that upset about the speech. The objections are actually an attempt to hijack the process of public political discourse by objecting to any-and-everything the President does.

I wouldn't say this about the health care town halls. That is a deeply divisive issue, and while I think some people are out of line, I understand the passion behind the debate.

But parents have threatened to keep their kids out of school because the President wants to encourage children to do their best and set some goals. Really? What do those parents hope to achieve... other than truancy?

The school speech uproar casts a light on the strategy being used by some members of the opposition: "Raise hell every time Obama tries to do anything, and eventually we'll paralyze the Administration." It's straight out of the Rush Limbaugh "I hope he fails" playbook.

Added 9-9-09: In his article at Forbes.com, Tunku Varadarajan expresses a view close to my own, and he and I are not on the same side of the political spectrum. & Here's the WSJ's reaction to the speech objections. End of added material.

I think the flood of objections is ridiculous, and I'm upset such a strategy has been effective in any way.

My concern about these theories is this: I like Obama.

I've agreed with much of his policy thus far. So it is hard, if not impossible for me to be objective. And with that in mind, I forced myself to remember how often and how vehemently I opposed the policies of Bush 43. Is it possible that my ilk and I employed a similar strategy?

This is where I need some help. I'd like my readers to use the comments section to build a list of the topics/issues that non-extremists have objected to under the Bush and Obama administrations.

My goal is to evaluate those lists and see if the tactics have changed since Obama took the Oath. It isn't fair to evaluate the volume of dissent - Bush had more time in office.

I'll start things off:

Large-scale public objections the left had/has about Bush's policies:
* The rush to war in Iraq
* The detention of terror suspects
* The warrantless wiretapping
* The "over-politicization" of the Federal Courts
* The supervision at military prisons in Iraq
* The support of waterboarding as a legitimate interrogation method

Large-scale public objections the right had/has about Obama's policies:
* The auto company bailout
* The stimulus package
* The closing of Gitmo
* The push to reform health care (specifically with a public option)
* The speech to school children

If we get a good list together, I'll compile the comments in a new post and we can all evaluate it.

If you don't know how to sign in and leave a comment, just check the "Anonymous" box and click "Publish Comment." That is the easiest way to comment.

Theory in Practice

2009-08-14T05:18:00.009-07:00

I've recently been involved in a lively email debate with a small group of friends and family over the health care issue. It's been interesting because we don't all agree, but the conversation has remained civil - for the most part.

Earlier this week I posted a description of my current research project. When I started that post, I intended to present this debate as an example of an emerging discourse community (DC). For better or worse, I got a little wrapped up in trying to describe my academic work with non-academic language. It proved to be a good exercise for me, but as a result my example went by the wayside.

Like I said, it has been a lively debate. There have been carefully laid out arguments, jokes, jabs, sharp back-and-forths, and an ongoing balancing act as we try not to take ourselves too seriously while still addressing a serious issue.

The debate started with one of those video clip montages that show Obama on the campaign trail stating his support for single-payer health care and comparing those clips to his current line that the reforms do not represent a move toward single-payer health care.

The video was sent to a distro list along with the comment, "Hogan should love this one..."

I suppose now would be the appropriate time to say that I am the only person in the group who is for the eventual move to single-payer health care. I responded with my argument for such a plan.

Then the sparks started to fly. Below you will find a summary of the exchanges. You don't have to read it. I only include it here to illustrate the tools used in an emerging DC.

First a former Rear Admiral who will remain unnamed sent a set of statistics. Those were questioned.
Then a small business owner chimed in with how the current system's problems have been exaggerated, and the type of reform proposed is going too far.
These ideas received a lot of positive feedback from other group members.
There was a wise crack about the Obama administration surveilling our discussion.
The debate then turned to the movement resisting the current reforms. One member favorably contrasted the town hall disruptions with some protests held by the extreme left.
This was followed by the small business owner's call to leave the extremists out of our debate. In his request he pointed out that the freedom to dissent is a privilege, and he linked this to successes in the recent war in Iraq.
This was followed by the quip, "Amen! Or whatever the Islamic equivalent is."
Which led to me ranting about the oversimplification of the argument, in which I accused several people of demagoguery. I probably over-reacted.
We then got bogged down in the details of the difference between supporting the current reform proposals and supporting the eventual creation of a single-payer plan.
The nit-picking over semantics is probably what led to a group member sending this image with the caption: Very Important Finding this weekend!!! An archeological team, digging in Washington DC , has uncovered 4,000 year old bones and fossil remains of what is believed to be the first Democrat.

Things have trailed off since, but looking back, I learned a lot about how people exercise power and persuasion in a DC.

There was the use of authoritative quotes and statistics.

There were attempts to respectfully point out logical flaws in other arguments.
There was the use of sarcasm and humor to dismiss others' views.
People presented their own credentials in order to give more weight to their points.
Accusations were bandied about.
The group decided it wasn't interested in semantics.

All of these rhetorical tools were introduced and tested on the group. Some worked. Some didn't. Some members took the debate seriously. Others shoot spitballs from the back of the classroom. People's ideas were misunderstood, and they had to find ways to explain themselves without losing face. A lot happened.

Bottom line, we all spent time trying to discover how to best argue and persuade within a group where relationships of authority were fluid. When you take a step back from such an experience and examine the decisions people were making, there is a lot to learn about how we communicate within a community.

Those are the lessons I hope to bring to my composition classroom when I ask them to build their own DC.

An Attempt to Put My Research into Words

2009-08-11T03:43:00.007-07:00

So my research project this summer has focused on how students deal with the relationships of power when they present an argument or a controversial idea in an essay.

A lot of the previous research on this topic focuses on the student's relationship with the university. Instructors write about how the university is a institution of power, and as such, teachers need to be careful when we ask our students to adjust to how we speak, read, write, and reason.

The researchers illustrate the issue with examples of academic outsiders: minorities, first-generation college students, immigrants, and exchange students.

I see this tension manifest in both my professional and personal life.

Most of my students were educated by people who expected them to enter a European style university. Some students come from systems that more closely resemble the old Soviet-style education. I wouldn't disparage either of these systems. They each have their strengths, but they are very different than the American style of higher education. The sudden introduction of such a new style is a massive upheaval for many. Some resist. Some become confused. Some are too quick to give up on the system that brought them to this point. It's an exciting environment to teach in.

Closer to home, a few years back my brother-in-law gave me a book on Creationism. At first glance, I found the author's position on college education to be disturbing. I thought the author was accusing educators of brainwashing young people. Since then, however, I've come to terms with the man's anti-establishment views of the university.

After all, the university demands that people adjust if they want to participate in the university's discussions. It can be frustrating. There are rules to follow. Lots of them.

Actually, each discipline within the university has its own set of rules. For example, economists discuss issues in a very different way than chemical engineers. It's not just the content of their discussions that differs; the methods for presenting arguments and evidence are different as well.

The jargon used to describe these kinds of groups isn't too complicated: A group of people involved in a formalized ongoing discussion = a discourse community.

There are discourse communities everywhere. They come into and go out of existence everyday. If you belong to a club that has set channels of communication, then you belong to a discourse community. If you follow a blog and comment regularly, that counts too.

The theory I'm putting forth with my paper is this: It is important to teach students how to actively participate in new discourse communities, so we should use the classroom to help them recognize and control the forces that shape a discourse community.

Here's where I got the idea. In my classroom I teach students from all over the world. They enter the class with these wildly varied preconceived notions about each other's countries, about the academic world, about the professional world, about governments, religion, race...

When these students present an argumentative essay to one and other, the complexity of the relationships that develop between them is difficult to keep track of.

I argue in my paper, that if students treat my classroom as an emerging discourse community - a community where they keep track of how people react to arguments and assertions - those students will be able to pull certain skills out of the experience - transferable skills that will help them identify the ways people argue in a community, the ways people assert their authority, the ways people gain power and influence. These are the skills that will help them move from one discourse community to another.

I believe in a world where cultures and communities are interacting more than ever - in a world where the stakes are high in so many of those exchanges, this skill is invaluable.

My question for you, dear reader, is what are some of the discourse communities you belong to? What is the focus of the community? How do members participate?

Failblog Wins.

2009-07-31T01:59:00.003-07:00

Failblog wins. Flawless victory.

Holding onto Agency

2009-07-28T06:36:00.003-07:00

My favorite quote from the scene here is when Snoop gets in the car and explains, “Man said if you wanna shoot nails, this here’s the Cadillac. He mean Lexus, but he ain't know it.”

Despite the curse words, I plan to show this clip to my students this fall so I can introduce them to my research and my teaching objectives.

My students come from all over the place, and this makes some of the workshop sessions very exciting. The cultural divide is clearest when they are trying to explain or persuade. While that is interesting, what I really want to dig into this year are the relationships of perceived power during these exchanges.

In my summer reading about diversity in the classroom, all of the composition people are concerned about the relationship between 'fringe students' and the academy. A fringe student can be one of many types of student - first in the family to go to college, a minority, an EFL student, etc. The academics are worried that the overwhelming force of the academy will wipe out anything unique such a student might bring to a discussion. It's a very real problem, but in my classroom something more interesting is going on.

My students have fairly fixed ideas about each others' countries, cultures, and their places in the world. This means that when the expository essay of an Azeri student is workshopped by a Swede, the relationship between reader and writer is very complex. The expectations of the academy become just one element in a much more complicated exchange.

So, in a more explicit manner than in the past, I want to focus my students' attention on the cultural differences they deal with when presenting expository or persuasive texts to each other. I want them to notice when/how they jump from one style of communication to another. I want them to discuss who they feel is in control of a given discussion. I want them to learn how to navigate between different styles of communication without ever losing their sense of agency. You can see Snoop doing just that in the clip above.

Call it code-switching, code-meshing, negotiating World Englishes, or something else. I believe the skill is only going to become more relevant in the future. So I'm excited to take advantage of the unique make-up of my composition classroom.

Summer Break

2009-07-21T04:36:00.002-07:00

I'm traveling and writing this summer. Working on a research paper, the novel, and PhD applications. So not much excitement to report, but here is an old video about the most popular Hungarian summer vacation spot, Lake Balaton.

Gazprom's New Venture

2009-07-02T08:20:00.005-07:00

Teaching at a business school means it's helpful when one of the biggest corporations in the region makes a ridiculous mistake that inadvertently drives home the basics of Composition Studies. But it isn't always pretty.

One of the things I strive to teach in my classroom is this: Effective communication starts by attempting to understand your audience and then crafting a message that is appropriate for them.

When Gazprom announced its new venture in Nigeria, the executives in charge failed to anticipate how a global audience might react to the name Nigaz.

Nigaz is the name of the new Russian-Nigerian oil firm.

I thought maybe the Daily Mail article was a joke, but here's the BBC report.

I'm not outraged or angry. I don't think the naming was motivated by racism.

In a way, I'm happy about the misstep. This firm's name will make an excellent real-world example of how a writer's intentions can be obscured by the reader's frame of reference. Thanks, Nigaz.

(And thanks to Dan for spotting the story.)

Where we Fight our Battles Matters

2009-06-12T02:28:00.021-07:00

This week at CEU there were several volleys exchanged in a debate over LGBT rights and homophobia. The debate took place through a series of mass emails - everyone kept hitting 'reply all'. I want to write about how frustrating it was to see this debate carried out via such an inefficient channel, but before I do, there is something that should be said:

The atmosphere in Hungary is odd right now. Tolerance of all kinds is on the wane.

A quick and dirty explanation: The ruling government has failed to govern, and some segments of the population have turned to extreme political parties as a result. "Hungary belongs to Hungarians" is the proud slogan of Jobbik, a party that recently won three seats in the EU Parliament. Jobbik is backed by the Magyar Garda, a militia that dresses its members in paramilitary fashion. Last month, the party's leading figure refused an interview with the Daily Telegraph because the paper reported that Jobbik can be linked to anti-Gypsy and anti-Semitic sentiments. Even if the party officials do not intend to enact xenophobic policies, the tone of their constituency is not very open minded. They are a small group, but they have the nation's attention.

The result: Debates most would deem offensive are taking place in the public sphere. The debate that took place over the CEU servers was not nearly as bad as what one might hear in a Budapest bar, but I got involved in the email battle because Hungary's growing lack of tolerance is making me angry.

Anyway, the whole affair reminded me of when I was younger.

Back when I first started writing, my motivations were horribly self-centered. I was absolutely certain that everybody would be interested in what I had to say. That was true of a lot of things in my life. It was an unattractive trait. It may have looked like confidence at the outset, but if I wasn't humbled on a regular basis, my head grew to unsustainable proportions.

I have to thank my friends here for being big enough pricks to knock me down a couple of pegs whenever necessary. I don't know how Dora does it without being a prick, but I love her for it. And of course living in a country where the language is as wily as Hungarian has kept me in check as well. Nevertheless, it's that "Hey, look at me!" characteristic that's guided me down many of the roads I've taken in life thus far.
Acting when I was younger
Working as a camp councilor
Much of my college-themed debauchery
Writing
And now as a teacher...
As a teacher I get up in front of people everyday and act like what I have to say is important .

My actions feel less self-centered now, and yet I'm more confident than ever that what I have to say is important. This may seem like a paradox, but I figured out why it isn't this week.

The confidence first took root when I got serious and started studying writing as a craft. When I was at UC Davis, I learned quickly that people were not interested in what I had to say - unless what I had to say was interesting. That sounds obvious, but I think it's a lesson a lot of twenty-somethings need to figure out.

I learned a lot while trying to put together that first novel. Then I got to Hungary and started teaching composition. My work was to help a diverse group of young people struggling to make their views comprehensible. The obstacles they encountered helped me break down the task of writing into much smaller tasks. It was exciting, but it was hard work.

I didn't know at the time that I was reinventing the wheel. When I got to CEU and started reading journals and textbooks my work became easier - and more interesting. And now, with experience and the concepts of a discipline at my disposal, I'm certain that what I have to say about composition and communication is valuable.

That certainty was tested this week after a Master's student sent out an email to everyone at CEU. She invited people to get involved in Budapest Pride 2009 - a film and cultural festival held by a LGBT rights group. That afternoon another student hit 'reply all' and scolded the university for allowing someone to distribute such an invitation. He called the invitation propaganda and then compared LGBT groups to the KGB.

The floodgates were open.

Over the next two days, there were more than 30 emails sent using the 'reply all' option. The few reasonable arguments forwarded were buried beneath ad hominems and outrageous statements. One person indirectly compared homosexuality to witchcraft.

I wrote up a standard reply for everyone who abused the 'reply all' option. Each time I replied only to the sender, asking him/her to recognize that no one was going to make any progress by batting insults back and forth. And to those asking for tolerance, I presented evidence that the use of the 'reply all' button was only driving the wedge in deeper.

I took the debate seriously because it is a very touchy issue in Hungary right now.

But I took the platform for the debate even more seriously because such an issue deserves a real debate. People told me that 'reply all' was forcing others to think about the issue. But from what I read, most of the people were not thinking very hard. People do not hit 'reply all' to generate awareness.

I know why people hit the 'reply all' button. That is the button you hit when you believe everyone is interested in what you have to say. That is the 'self-centered' button, the 'look-at-me!' button, the 'Watch-me-be-smarter-than-that-guy' button. It's an easy button to hit, but if people can stop themselves from hitting it and take a moment to find a more effective way to solve our collective problems, then both time and server space will be put to better use.

So, my challenge to you, readers, is to suggest a forum for such a debate in an environment as volatile as Hungary.

Good News from the Governmant

2009-06-04T02:44:00.003-07:00

Yesterday the White House appointed Jim Leach to head the National Endowment for the Humanities (NEH).

The NEH is the nation's largest funding body for the humanities. The New York Times article that reported the appointment quotes Leach stating his support for the NEH.

Leach is described as a liberal Republican. He teaches at Princeton.

The Chronicle of Higher Education suggests that Obama's choice of a Republican will likely help push through his proposal to increase NEH funding from $155 million to $171 million. If that proposal is approved, it would reverse the decades-long trend of real terms budget erosion for the NEH.

When I was an undergraduate in philosophy ('94-'99) and a Master's student in English ('02-'04), the outlook for people in the Humanities was bleak at best. People didn't talk about a lack of growth - they talked about how fast the discipline was shrinking. This appointment doesn't make all that go away, but it is pleasant to see those in power renew their appreciation for what people in the humanities have to offer.

Write Like a What Now?

2009-06-02T08:11:00.009-07:00

We just finished a three-day weekend here. Dora and I got out of the city for most of it. That was very nice, but while in the country, our dog Dio got some kind of skin infection on his head. So today the vet had to shave his head and scrub the skin clean (read "raw").

So now when I walk the dogs I try to keep my mind occupied. If I don't, I end up fixated on the horrified looks of passers-by. You might find it hard to believe, but most people don't like looking at infected dog head skin.*

Anyway, as I walked my little Frankenstein monster along Andrassy ut, I tried to figure out what it is that keeps my students from writing clearly.

The subject brought me back to a mantra posted on the wall of my high school's expository writing classroom, "Read like a writer; write like a reader." I throw this idea up on the whiteboard during the opening and closing lectures in my first-year writing skills course. Many of the students latch onto it. They often quote it in the summary statements of their final portfolios. It's a nice phrase. It's got symmetry. It's got alliteration. And it makes you sound like you care about writing.

The problem with this advice is that it is easy to say, but it is exceptionally difficult to execute. This is the issue I tried to unravel a bit today. So while people gasped in horror at Dio's gory little head, I contemplated the challenge of 'writing like a reader.'**

The fact is, most of my students do not think about the reader while writing. They think about the rules of grammar, the due date, source citation, the word count, and (if I'm lucky) the content of their essays. These things ought to be the focus during the early stages of writing. They are important. Unfortunately, many students believe that once they can understand their own writing, then everyone else ought to understand that writing as well.

However, when a writer is focused on understanding the meaning of their own work, it's impossible to think about the reader - to consider how another person could/would/might understand a sentence or a paragraph. It's impossible because our brains can't build a strong enough wall between what we want to say and what the text says.

Whenever a writer tries to edit for clarity while still teasing out the meanings and concepts in a paper, there's a turf war in that writer's brain between the intended meaning and the text's possible meanings. Intended meaning is always going to win that war. So to write like a reader, a writer must have the firmest of grasps on the material before reaching the editing and proofreading stages. Once there, the writer then has to think about the material as though they have lost that grasp; they have to anticipate how their words could be misinterpreted.

The advice this challenge might spawn: "Stop thinking about what you want to do, and think about what you might be doing." Not quite as catchy as the adage from my high school, but it does get at the complexity of the task.

Such activity not only requires time and abstract thought - it also requires a powerful sense of insecurity. You have to be the type to worry and fret about all the ways your words might be misread. Most writers I've met have that kind of insecurity in spades. It make some areas of their lives more challenging, but it makes for some very readable prose.

Many beginning writers, on the other hand, believe that once the words are on the page, the task of deciphering an essay's meaning belongs to the reader. They seem to say, "If the paragraph isn't clear, why don't you read it again, stupid." While this kind of confidence might help a person in some situations, it often leads to poorly written papers.

So during my dog walk, while I was worrying about how strangers were reacting to my dog's head, the writing advice I generated was this: "Try being a bit more insecure about yourself and your work."

Mmm, maybe I'm a bit biased.

*Note to my students: "dog head skin" is an awkwardly long noun sequence. Just the kind of thing I've warned many of you against. Avoiding such a sequence is almost always a good point of style, but you will find writers who will break that 'rule' if the awkwardness of the phrasing compliments the meaning of the content. In this case, I used an ungainly and ugly collection of nouns to better get across how unpleasant my dog's head is when shaved.

**I'll leave the challenge of Reading Like a Writer to Francine Prose's lovely volume on the subject.

So What?

2009-05-22T05:25:00.003-07:00

Yesterday I asked each of my Business Communication students to stand up in front of the class and say four specific things about the term papers they are going to turn in on Tuesday:

* State your thesis/findings/proposal.
* Briefly describe the evidence you used to support your assertions.
* Explain why your evidence supports your assertions.
* Tell us why your assertions are important.

Students saw the first three requests coming, but when I asked them to explain the importance of their work, several of them looked confused - enough of them that I decided to explain I meant by 'important.'

To do so, I borrowed a lesson from my one-time fiction writing professor, Lynn Freed. Back when I was walking the halls of Voorhies at UC Davis, Lynn's name evoked anxiety in many of the fiction writers. We liked hearing what she had to say, but what she said often hurt. She's not one to pull punches during workshop. If she thinks your being a lazy writer, she'll call you out on it. If she thinks you've lost control of the story, she'll tell you just that. But the reason she was feared - the reason people were nervous about enrolling in her workshop was not what she said in the classroom; it was what she wrote on the final page of so many people's submissions that scared us. She scratched two words across the whole page: "So what?"

A young man might be drawing on deeply personal experiences to write about how a girlfriend humiliated his fictional self in front of family and friends, and at the end of the story all Lynn wanted to know was, "So what?"

She explained that this is the most important question a writer can ever ask about his or her work. If a writer is going to take up a reader's time and energy, then there sure as hell better be a pay off. And Lynn carries herself in such a way that you know she probably has better things to do than read your short story. That really drives the point home.

And so, in my classroom I asked my students to explain why their term paper was important. "Why should I spend my time reading it? How will my life be affected if I accept or reject your assertion? In short, so what?" The class laughed. Then the presentations began.

Then just before the first break, I had to push one presenter a bit on the "so what" issue. I asked her, "Why should I read your paper?"

Before she could answer, one of the other students exclaimed, "I hate that question." He was adamant. I asked him why, and he told us that whenever there is a message, there is always a 'sender' and a 'reciever,' and that relationship is defined by pre-established positions of power. He suggested that you shouldn't compose a message if you are not in a position to make someone read that message. The relationship must be in place before the reader's eyes fall upon the first word: Boss & subordinate, journalist & news customer, politician & citizen, parent & child, and the list goes on.

It was a fascinating misconception of the reader-writer relationship, and I think it's one many students have. After all, many students only read because they are told to read. Reluctant readers get to school where they are told what to read, and if they fail to read the book, an authority punishes them. This 'teaches' reluctant readers that "We read because we have to."

Now, I don't want to do away with that system. I think teachers should force reluctant readers to read. The Great Gasby may feel like 'eating your vegetables' to a 15-year-old, but it's good for you AND eventually we all learn how delicious asparagus is (it's in season here, and soooo good).

But we also need to teach about the reader-writer relationship. The reader is giving time and thought to a writer's work. That writer better bring something to the table - something worth the time and energy - something that offers a satisfying answer to the question, "So what?"

Troubles Teaching Argument

2009-05-08T02:44:00.005-07:00

It's been an interesting week. I'm reading a lot of Composition Studies literature for my research project, and that's got my head in an odd place. I keep thinking in jargon, which is uncomfortable.

Anyway, I was on the receiving end of a couple of interesting ideas this week, and it got me to thinking about the challenges of teaching effective arguments. I know from my reading and experience why it's a challenge:

* Many students often struggle in their attempts to understand the opposition's point of view.
* Many students have been taught to argue using vague or unsubstantiated evidence, a lesson imparted by various media and often by the family/community.
* Many students believe generalizations and emotional appeals are more effective tools of persuasion because they are easy to create.
* Many students don't hang out with people who disagree with them very often.

But what struck me this week is this:
* Many people often struggle in their attempts to understand the opposition's point of view.
* Many people have been taught to argue using vague or unsubstantiated evidence, a lesson imparted by various media and often by the family/community.
* Many people believe generalizations and emotional appeals are more effective tools of persuasion because they are easy to create.
* Many people don't hang out with people who disagree with them very often.

Let me offer this article from CBS News as an example. The article tells of the Hawaii State Senate's recent passage of a bill that established "Islam Day." My friend Dan sent me the article, and pointed out that someone in Hawaii had clearly forgotten about the separation of Church and State. And I'm with him on that, but to me the article is interesting for a different reason. There was partisan debate on the issue, and the way arguments were framed put both parties in a bad light.

Two quotes struck me:
"...objections of [Republican] lawmakers who said they didn't want to honor a religion connected to Sept. 11, 2001."

Okay, there are a ton of arguments against "Islam Day." Dan's Church/State point is the strongest, but there are others. The 'holiday' should've been shot down before before leaving the lips of whatever ass-head thought of it.

But, if you're a Republican forced to argue against Islam Day by a power-drunk member of the far left, the best way to expose the left's folly is to retaliate from the center. Even if you don't want to bring the Church/State debate to the table (Don't upset the base!), I think a toned down version of "Islam Day is a stupid idea, and we are wasting time and oxygen talking about it," ought to settle the issue.

But that is not the tactic the Hawaii Republicans chose. Instead they went with the one argument that makes them look either obtuse or mildly racist: "Some members of Islam are evil (those who carried out the 9/11 attacks), so we shouldn't celebrate Islam." That's the stupidest argument I've ever heard. Aside from being poor inductive reasoning, the only people who would rally behind that argument are already loyal to the position of 'No Islam Day.'
If you want change people's minds, then you argue from a position they can identify with. That's Rhetoric 101, people.

And at the end of the article, there's this gem:

"The lone Democrat voting against the bill opposed it on church-state separation fears."

Really? Just one Democrat remembered that the separation of Church and State is important? One? Come on, guys. The First Amendment is a pretty good amendment. I actually think it's one of the best (although 23's granting of presidential electors to DC is a close second). Defending the 1st is a principled position that helps support other Democratic views. Most Democrats, Independents, and many Republicans would like to keep law makers out of our bedrooms and religion out of the science classroom; the 1st Amendment is the best protection against the many clamoring at those gates. Focus, people. Focus.

This article illustrates with disturbing clarity how poorly people reason. These senators have a job that is largely concerned with having, holding and defending positions in an argument.

So my question to readers this week is this: Where can we find examples of people constructing and delivering well composed arguments?

Two of my answers:
Intelligence Squared US
George Orwell

A More Interesting World

2009-04-29T03:32:00.004-07:00

Playing For Change | Song Around The World "Stand By Me" from Concord Music Group on Vimeo.

davidbraun93 threw this onto Twitter. It touches on the ideas behind the post I put up Monday.

I think I'm going to enjoy seeing the global culture that emerges from the cultural, economic, and environmental crises we're enduring right now.

If my classroom is any kind of indicator, it won't always be as pleasant as this video makes it seem, but it has this kind of potential. And that's exciting.

A Futile Attempt to Hold onto 'Politically Correct'

2009-04-27T05:50:00.011-07:00

My friend Dan and I spent the last week arguing over email about the term 'politically correct.' I was foolish enough to step in and defend the often reviled term. I knew I was getting myself into trouble. There are few phrases more loaded than, "That's not PC."

Dan was unhappy about what happened at the Miss America Pageant (That sentence, taken out of context, puts Dan in an odd light, but it is true.). Dan suggested that Miss California had lost because her stance on gay marriage is not politically correct. That's where our debate began, but to be clear, we did not get into a debate over gay marriage.

I took issue with Dan's assertion that it is politically incorrect to oppose gay marriage. He was suggesting that the ideas behind PC are motivated by a political agenda - an agenda that favors gay marriage. He had both history and examples of 'PC-gone-wild' to back him up.

Despite that, I argued that a more useful definition of political correctness suggests this:
If an issue is still open for debate in the public discourse, then the various sides of that debate are all valid - none of the views are politically correct or incorrect.
The distinction between correct and incorrect is actually as follows: If your language pushes a stakeholder out of an active debate by marginalizing him/her based on sex, race, creed, religion, sexuality, or socioeconomic status, then you are being politically incorrect.
I went on to say that anyone arguing in a debate can cross the line of political correctness. As a hypothetical example, I said if Miss California had been in favor of giving gays the right to marry, and she had phrased her answer using words like 'homo' or 'Jesus-freak', then she would have crossed the line. She would have been politically incorrect.

Which means the pageant "judge" responsible for the question that started this debate crossed a line at the end of his recent interview.

You see what he did there? He used two gender-specific slurs to marginalize a woman's view on same-sex marriage. It's offensive, and it is politically incorrect. Not to mention, he just helped the same-sex marriage movement take several monumental steps backward.

It's frustrating because that video really helps Dan's side of the debate on how we understand political correctness. And that drives me nuts because my understanding of political correctness is very helpful in the classroom. In fact, that is why I engaged in the debate in the first place.

In my composition course we discuss and write about cultural diversity. In that classroom I have students from over 15 different countries, at least 6 different religious views, a wide array of political ideologies, and many different temperaments (often changing from one day to the next). In order for such a class to function, I need to both abide by AND enforce the brand of PC I argued for. I've had students sit out of discussions because of the offensive way a peer has expressed an opinion. I actually need political correctness as a teaching tool.

Of course, I don't use the term in class because it has become a parody of itself - especially here, where Europeans see PC ideology as a pointless debate about "manholes versus people-holes." Nevertheless, I need to keep in mind that I am an American teaching non-Americans via an American system of education. The ideas behind political correctness help to remind me of the lack of balance in that power structure.

So my question for readers today is this: Can we invent a term that avoids the baggage of PC while describing the act of avoiding "expressions or actions that can be perceived to exclude or marginalize or insult people who are socially disadvantaged or discriminated against?"

Dreams and Dreaming of Fiction

2009-04-20T05:56:00.006-07:00

I'm working hard to make up for some lost time at work. I got sick last week. It's still lingering, but I'm back in the office, which is good. On top of that, the week's fitful sleep has resulted in some exquisite imagery from my dreams, some of which I hope to incorporate into my creative work.

I don't keep a dream journal in a strict sense, but I do keep a pen at my bedside. It was 3am last night when I woke up coughing. The image I held onto from the dream was of a nude, hairless, sexless, gray humanoid with bulging black eyes. It was shivering beside an iron bed frame covered in a pile of bloodied bandages stacked so high it was impossible to tell if there was a mattress underneath. The room was padded, lined with a mildewed polyurethane fabric. There was a porcelain sink in the corner, with rust stains and a leaky faucet.

The trouble with dream images is the difficulty of transcribing the mood from a dream. What I wrote above fails to deliver the simultaneous feeling of dread and excitement that was in that room during my dream. There was also a sense of altered states woven into the whole thing. And those bloodied bandages were unpleasant to look at, but there was a kind of relief in that they were no longer in use.

There's a character in my project that gets guidance from spirits while hallucinating, and I think this dream might contribute something to her story. But trying to get all the elements on the page will undoubtedly change the original moment several times before the elements are all just right.

And there's the part of fiction that's hard to describe, the aspect of fiction writing that I can't explain to some people. These people suggest, "You ought to write some journalism stuff. Like some 'life in Hungary' bits." These people mean well. They feel I'd be better off if I cast a wider net in search of publishers. But if I just wanted my words in print I'd go into journalism (or I'd keep a blog). It's not the act of writing that's got its hooks so deep in me. I enjoy composing a killer paragraph sure, but that is not what brings me back to this work. It is the fiction that I get a kick out of. It is the attempt to capture a moment taking on a life of its own.

My work on Miffland was exciting as long as it felt like the manuscript was more in control than I was, and the same is true of this fantasy story I'm working on. I guess it's kind of like dreaming that way.

So my question this week is this: What have you read or seen that creates a dreamlike state for the audience?

Unpleasant Violence

2009-04-09T01:10:00.005-07:00

I still enjoy a good kung-fu movie from time to time, and I know the cartoon violence of big-budget action flicks can be fun. For me, however, the portrayal of violence is much more interesting when the violence is an unpleasant experience for the audience. Violence is horrible in real life. So, when art portrays violence as horrible, I find that engaging. I find this rings even more true when the audience is expecting the more cartoonish variety of violence.

Don't get me wrong, I like the over-the-top stuff. When I mentioned kung-fu movies as a source of exaggerated and exciting violence, I was thinking of classics like this:

No doubt, that's a great scene. Many would argue it's one of the highlights of Chan's career. But there's something 'Three Stooges' about it. That's not necessarily a bad thing, but when the audience gets excited because a guy is on fire, then the audience has cut yet another connection between themselves and the fictional world on the screen (I hope). And I think those connections - the uncut connections - help us experience fiction in a more interesting and more engaging way.

Staying within the kung-fu genre, here's one of the best fight scenes of all time:

While it maintains the excitement of an old Jackie Chan film, that scene is infused with the pain and dread of both inflicting receiving bodily harm. And I think the fight has more of an impact on the audience as a result.

This is the issue I'm currently exploring in my fantasy story. I'm dealing with a lot of violence: ranged attacks, massive flooding, soldier-eating beasts, and other forms of violence that are common in fantasy fiction. My aim is to bring those fictional moments as close as possible to a reader's experience with real violence - I want cringe-inducing violence, like the end of that Bruce Lee fight when he kills Bob Wall's character.

I think I'm going to re-read "The Iliad." I remember a lot of battle sequences that seemed awful in that.

My question for today is this: What else should I see or read to get a sense of how to portray violence in a less-than-romantic way?

Congrats to Dave, Anna, & Joni!

2009-04-08T01:41:00.003-07:00

In a departure from the usual content, I want to send out my congratulatory wishes to my old roommate and longtime friend Dave Burck, his wife Anna, and their newborn baby girl Joni.

Well Said

2009-04-06T09:58:00.002-07:00

I guess this thing is all over the cyber-place. It lays out a lot of the basic concepts I try to instill when I teach persuasive writing. Good stuff.

Rock and Roll, Sisyphean Style

2009-04-04T01:41:00.012-07:00

I sent a message to my family the other day, and in it I used the term 'Sisyphean task.' I worried for a moment that using the term might come off as obnoxious. I thought to myself, “Perhaps that’s a bit much. Can people still allude to Greek mythology in everyday conversation, or will that go over some heads?”

I dismissed the thought for two reasons:
1) My family is a smart group of people.
2) The term suited the situation far too well.
You see, my cousin Kim is working very hard to organize a Hayes family reunion. There are two words in that last sentence that should give away the interminable and thankless nature of her task, 'Hayes' and 'Organize'.

So I used the term, but my brief hesitation highlights an issue I deal with in the classroom.

At Davis, I took a seminar on how to teach creative writing. It was led by Jack Hicks. He gave us all a very good piece of advice, “You’ve got to take them where they are.” Meaning, as teachers, we get students of varied skill levels, varied backgrounds, varied temperaments, and varied intelligence. This fact, along with the challenges it presents, is part of the job.

I understand and accept that. My issue is not that some students arrive in my classroom with subpar writing skills. I can fix that. My issue is that the world they come from, and the world they’ll go back to when they leave my classroom is...

A) Full of dumb people...
AND
B) Those dumb people are often in positions of power and influence.

This seems to suggest that the pursuit of knowledge is a waste of time. Now, I know that's not true, but I am just one quiet voice. And the dumb are loud and many.

Here’s an example from my area of instruction.
The headline from USA Today's top story reads as follows: “Suspected NY shooter may have lost job.” I don’t wish to make light of the shooting, but that sloppy bit of writing suggests that since the shooting, the suspect might have lost his job. In other words, after killing 13 people and then himself, the shooter may no longer be employed.

As a grammar issue, it's an interesting problem. The auxiliary verb 'have' is used to place the modal 'may lose' in the past, and you get 'may have lost.' But the word 'have' can also make a verb present perfect, which means the verb's action affects the present moment (the cause of my gripe). Introducing the past perfect would solve this, but then the headline would read 'NY shooter may have had lost job.' Yuck. The headline could have added a time indicator like "NY shooter may have lost job before rampage." It's certainly not as catchy a headline, so I can see why they didn’t go with that. The headline they chose, however, is sloppy to the point of blurring the meaning of the intended message.

(And why is a newspaper speculating about past events in the first place? I don't want to read about what might have happened. Tell me what did happen.)

How am I supposed to convince young people that the rules of grammar are there to help craft precise meaning when the editors of a major national newspaper print a headline that ignores those rules?

Spring Break in my 30s

2009-04-02T03:32:00.005-07:00

When I was 21 years old I went on spring break with John Andonov, Andy Gehl, Mike Kodner, and Perry LaRoque. Our aim was to drive down to the southern end of the Appalachian Trail and backpack north for a few days. We arrived in Chattahoochee in a downpour of cold miserable rain. There was no opposition when someone suggested we continue to drive south until the sun came out.

We ended up in Daytona Beach, and though we felt like outsiders looking in, our spring break did meet many of the benchmarks of an Mtv spring break.

Note for the ladies: During the wet T-shirt contest, we're not laughing with you.

Note for the guys: Chanting doesn't make it so.

As someone in education, I once again have a spring break coming up. It will probably pale in pop-culture comparison to that week in Florida. I'm going to catch up at work, write, finish Master and Margarita, and train Dio to fetch properly (he gets the ball, brings it back, and then runs away with the ball).

So... Can I get a "Spring Break! Yeah! Whoooooo! Badgers rule! Spring Break! Spring Break! Spring Break! Whooooo! Yeah! Spring Break! Dude I am so wasted..."

Okay, so maybe the connotation has changed, but I'm just as excited.

Midterms? Midterms? We don't need no stinking midterms.

2009-03-31T01:09:00.007-07:00

Last week I wrote that I wanted to share the challenges of writing fantasy fiction.

This week I'm finding the biggest challenge to be my work here at school. I guess that shouldn't be a surprise.

I'm administering two midterms this week. I'm normally not a huge fan of the in-class exam (nor are my students), but I do like devising tricky questions. And that's what's keeping me from the creative writing work.

I think I have to start keeping one of those crazy creative-person schedules where I get up extra early for my labor of love, and then spend the rest of the day here at school. I do enjoy the teaching, but if you've ever corrected 56 midterms, then you know why I hesitate to call it a labor of love.

Anyway, my question for people reading this today is as follows: How do you maintain a balance between 'the work you have to do in order to keep money in the bank' and 'the work you have to do to stay sane?'

Oh, and Brad, you are incorrect about BSG. Start over and try harder this time.

My Inspiration to Teach

2009-03-26T10:39:00.006-07:00

I first heard this skit/song by The Frantics when I was very young (11?). And hearing it again today, I can't help but think that this recording is what inspired me to one day become a teacher.

There are just way too many parallels between this and my experience in the classroom.

Enjoy.

dr. demento - boot to the head -

Vampires versus Radicals

2009-03-25T07:57:00.005-07:00

My good friend Dan sent me an article by Ron Charles from the March 8th issue of the Washington Post. The article is about the kinds of books being read on college campuses today. According to Charles and his sources, lighter pop fiction has usurped the more radical literature we typically associate with campus reading.

I remember when I was in the English Department at UC Davis, there was a debate that riled both my peers and teachers: Should Harry Potter have been considered in the same category as Seamus Heaney's "Beowulf" for the Whitbread Book of the Year Prize. Smart people came down on both sides of the issue.

I like Harry Potter, and I think it's great YA lit, but I don't take the books too seriously outside of that category. Don't get me wrong, YA is a serious category with a lot of talented writers who are performing an essential and difficult task. They are writing for young readers, helping those readers sort out the issues important in a young person's life. It's hard to do that.

But if these are the books you read when you move into adulthood, then you're not engaging with literature as an adult.

I was toting around Tom Robbins and Kurt Vonnegut when I was an undergrad. Not because I was trying live up to an image of campus radical, but because those were great books for me to read while I was cobbling together my adult identity. I want my 20-something novels to illustrate how sex and drugs are more complicated than rock and roll. That's what I was dealing with, and my books helped me do so.

But according to Charles's article, that not the case for many college kids today. Now it's the Twilight books that have moved in to take Harry's place. More YA books in the hands of non-YAs.

This addresses both of the topics I want to write about here.

In the classroom, I encourage my students to read in English. They all speak English very well, and they can keep up with university lectures in English. However, the best thing for developing one's writing skills is reading. So I tell them to read. Read anything, as long as it's in English. They like spy novels, thrillers, newspapers, and sports magazines. And I tell them, "Great. Just keep reading." And when they tell me they are working on the last Harry Potter book, I am pleased, because it's a long book and the writing is good.

However, if I picked the books my college-aged students should read, Harry would be left out in the cold. The Sun Also Rises. Still Life with Woodpecker. Lolita. Crime and Punishment. How to Talk Dirty and Influence People. Tropic of Cancer. Catch-22. And the list goes on.

I like the trouble makers in books and in the classroom. It's the students who give me a hard time that really engage me. As long as there's mutual respect, the students who challenge me, who challenge the institution I represent - they get the best I have to offer in the classroom. Consequently, I want my students to read books that raise hell, and I want them to bring that attitude into the classroom.

(Note to my students, you have to actually read the books.)

So, in my writing, does this undermine my decision to write a fantasy genre novel for adult readers? I don't think so. I think there's enough genre work that either challenges the status quo or comments on the issues of the day. 1984, Brave New World, TLotR, Hitchhiker's Guide, Stranger in a Strange Land, and everything by Phillip k. Dick...

Yeah, I'll be okay

What about you all? What do you think of the trend that's had adults reading YA literature for the last 10 years or so?

Seeking Motivation to Move Forward

2009-03-24T02:42:00.004-07:00

Eight years ago I thought I had an idea for a story - maybe even a novel. The idea I had back then never made it to the page. But I did start writing. I had been reading Chabon's The Amazing Adventures of Kavalier & Clay, and all those pretty sentences got me fired up. Suddenly I didn't care where the story was going, I just wanted to write. In the process my idea took on a life of its own. Eventually the pages came together and turned into the manuscript for Miffland. An earlier draft, titled Mifflin, served as my Master's thesis. Since completing that draft, I've revised several times, a painfully joyfull process. I'm happier with the product each time I go through that; the story still feels like a living thing to me, but I've wanted to move on for some time.

I figured getting excited about a new story is what it would take. I've tried to start a project based on my time here in Budapest. I also wanted to write something based on working in New York from 1999-2002. I have started and re-started those projects several times, but each time I failed to get any forward momentum going. I think those ideas will eventually take on a life of their own, but I need that spark before I can really get behind something. I need to feel like the story will take me somewhere, rather than feeling like I'm taking the story somewhere.

The good news is recently I started writing about a fantasy world that has been rattling around my head for a few years now, and I think I've found that spark once again. This project is very different from Miffland, but I'm having the same kind of fun while I write. I grew up reading sci-fi/fantasy. The first fiction I wrote was a post-apocalypse mutant superhero story. While I love literary fiction, I do miss spice worms and swordplay.

Interestingly, the urge to push past the outlining stage and get ink on the page came as I was reading more Chabon. I finished Gentlemen of The Road last month, and once again those sentences of his got me back to the keyboard. It also didn't hurt to read a well respected author who can dip into genre without the critical commuinty biting his head off. That and The Road have confirmed my suspicions that serious readers can see past the label of genre.

So, I'm back at it, and hoping to share the challenges of writing fantasy fiction here. But my question to readers is this:
What are some examples of fantasy/sci-fi that rise above the stereotypes of genre fiction?

Questions about Teaching Business Students

2009-03-23T02:18:00.009-07:00

The NYT article and the Pestiside.hu article that promoted (that last word should be 'prompted' - thanks to the ever-vigilant autonomous commenter for finding my typos and bringing them to light - I hope you get out of the house today, sir) me to write today both indirectly address an issue that most teachers grapple with: the relationship between what a teacher wants to do, what a student wants, and what a university should do.

Last week, my little Undergraduate Writing Center here at the CEU Business School hosted a brown bag lunch discussion session. The focus of the session was Niall Ferguson's description of the banking meltdown in "Wall Street Lays Another Egg." Before arriving for the discussion session, students were asked to read the article. One student showed up. Just one. We talked for 15 minutes. Then the student politely suggested that I might re-think the set up for such voluntary discussion sessions if I want to foster student discussion.

You see, going in I assumed that undergraduates at a business school would jump at the opportunity to get their heads out of the textbooks - to look into some recent reporting and talk about the current events in the business world.

I think thoughts like this because I like education; I enjoy all aspects of the learning process. I read Friedman's op-ed from a couple of weeks ago and thought to myself, "I am teaching the people who will step into a job market after (or during) a new industrial revolution." With thoughts like that in mind, I want to offer these students a chance to be critical, to put their textbooks into context, to start painting a picture of the world they're going to participate in. In short, I am far too idealistic about what my students actually want out of their education.

The NYT article from last week is about major business schools doing some self-reflection: Did the growing focus on finance within MBA programs contribute to the current economic mess? Maybe it did, but does that mean instructors and institutions could've/should've shifted their emphasis towards corporate social responsibility or business ethics?

I think that's kind of like asking undergrads to read a long-form article on the banking crisis. It sounds like a good idea, but it's not what our students are here for.

It highlights an interesting challenge: My students want something from the program. I have teaching objectives I want to deliver. The two goals often do not align. But in the right environment, we should be able to walk our way through a dynamic learning experience that informs not only teacher and student, but may also affect the institutions and professions we each inhabit.

Yeah, I'm cursed with an all-to-potent strain of idealism.

A shift in focus

2009-03-23T01:48:00.002-07:00

I'm going to take this blog in a new direction. I want to focus more on the day to day concerns in two areas of my life: my teaching & my writing.

My Teaching
I teach composition and communication at CEU Business School here in Budapest. In the past six months I have invested myself more and more into my work as a teacher. I launched a writing center. I'm trying to keep up with the journals. I'm beginning a big research project on how a multi-national classroom affects collaborative writing projects. In sum, I'm more excited about my work than ever, and I'm aiming at a level of professionalism that I wasn't previously interested in.

The obstacles and objectives on this path include the the following:
I teach students in a relatively new undergraduate program that is still working to determine its own 'hows and whys.'
I do need to return to school for my PhD if I plan to take this career path any further, and in the current atmosphere, I need to get that PhD from a top-notch university.

My Writing
I recently put away the latest manuscript of a novel that I've written and re-written countless times in the past several years. Since then, I've begun working on a writing project that feels like fun (for now), a fantasy saga.

For the next several months, I'd like to use Hogs In Budapest to focus on these two areas of my life. I plan to compose significantly shorter posts, but I also plan to post much more often.

How We Learn Today

2009-03-03T01:04:00.004-08:00

I don't write about my work very often here, largely because so often my work is what keeps me from writing. But it is worth saying that I enjoy my job a great deal. Teaching composition and communication to undergraduate students who have come from all over the world is challenging and exciting work that keeps me very much on my toes.
And I like to be kept on my toes.

Recently I engaged in a rousing debate about fiscal policy with some of my more conservative family members. Each participant kept pulling out historical and theoretical evidence to back their case. It was exciting, and it certainly kept me on my toes. But now, when I look back on those exchanges, I'm surprised at how much I understand about the concepts and context behind the issue, behind the financial crisis. I never studied anything that would help me understand this stuff. My degree from UW may help me to sift and winnow through the news and analysis. My degree from UC Davis might help me parse the meaning of a skilled rhetorician. But why do I understand the banking crisis or the stimulus plan well enough to debate these issues with confidence?

I'm going to lean on my work experience to help me explore this question.

The undergraduate students arrive here at CEU each with a very different educational background. At 18 or 19 years old, however, most of them to have one thing in common - most are just beginning to assemble a worldview they can call their own - a world view that is getting closer everyday to coherence. But it's not there yet.

From some of my stronger students, I've read drafts of essays that contain issues like this one: One paragraph asserts point A) 'Companies must make the pursuit of profit the number one priority.' And in the same essay, sometimes in the next paragraph, I'll read point B) 'The well-being of the environment and the global community must dictate a company's policy.' When I point out the potential conflict between points A & B, the reaction I'll get depends largely on the student's background.

To oversimplify:
Students coming from east of Budapest will pull their research sources out of a backpack. They will point out that each of the points came from books or journals - experts, they'll tell me, have written these things down. Why am I making a fuss?
Students from west of here do something different. They'll attempt to argue that the points do not conflict. They'll stand at my desk and describe how, "you know, with some companies, like the ones who want to protect themselves from stuff, but they also want to make money, and---"
And that's where I stop them. I stop them and say, if you are able explain how these two points can co-exist, then you need to do so in the essay, in writing. (They haven't managed to do so yet.)

The exciting part of my work stems from the challenge of digging into the diversity and helping this group firm up their understanding of complex ideas.

When I think back to my email debate with my uncle and my cousin, I see how that challenge goes well beyond the walls of this business school in Budapest. In the past few months, world affairs have forced me to evaluate the way I learn about and subsequently digest current events.
It started when I got back for the fall semester. I have a lot of Georgian students. Their turbulent country was interesting to me well before the conflict with the Russians this past summer, but my understanding of Georgia lacked the context to put the wine embargo, the rose revolution, or oil pipelines in their places. Then I heard America Abroad's program "Pipeline Politics and Caspian Conflict." It pulled the history, the politics, and the economics of that region into a well documented summary. Now I know I won't be able to debate Georgian politics with a Georgian after such a 60 minute survey, but the show informed all of my subsequent reading and discussions on the topic. I am far from an expert, but I am informed. And to feel informed on a subject as complicated as Russian-Georgian relations is no small thing.

I liked having that feeling, and I fostered it with AP updates, blog posts, and media coverage.
Then the housing bubble burst. I've posted on the issue here from time to time, and as the situation has developed, I'm more and more surprised at how much I'm learning. Especially since the stuff I am learning should not be interesting to me in any way.

I like literary fiction, modern rock, sci-fi, wine, Indian food, and movies that rely on insane special effects. I should not have developed an understanding of the complex debate behind Timothy Geithner's reluctance to say the word "Nationalization."

But I have.

And I think that learning process speaks to the new way adults learn. We lean hard on the information infrastructure to help us contextualize every decision, and quickly. So the ability to educate oneself has become a crucial element of operating in the modern world. Traditional education is essential, more essential than ever, because it offers the tools needed to educate oneself. But beyond the basics, someday soon - if not already - a person will not be able to participate in modern democracy or the global economy without the ability to absorb information quickly, critique it, and integrate that information into the way he/she sees the world.

But when I look back at the America Abroad program, I realize that the information it provided was different from what mainstream media is putting out there. It provided something I needed that I wasn't getting anywhere else. The program did not address current events; it provided context that helped me understand those events.

That lesson helped me educate myself about the financial meltdown and its aftermath. I've been collecting sources that help me fit the economic crisis into the way I see the world.

This American Life has been an unexpected help. The show steered away from its typical content for two shows, each with the specific intent to teach listeners about the obscenely complex basic principles that led to our current economic situation.

Then I read the article in December's Vanity Fair by Niall Ferguson. I wouldn't have gotten through this one without the radio shows, but it cleared up a lot of the more complicated stuff. Vanity Fair is clearly trying hard to educate its readers. They've put all of the articles that deal with the meltdown into a mini-archive on their homepage.

Last week I tackled something in The Atlantic by Richard Florida, and while it was looking more to the future, he laid out his ideas so clearly that it was another piece that put things into perspective.

The traditional outlets like The New York Times and The Wall Street Journal have done more than any TV outlet to help me keep up on a day to day basis, while the up-and-comers at Planet Money the blog/podcast keep helping me break the more complicated stuff down into digestible pieces.

And while I'm happy to have found all this, I think most people have to dig to find information that puts today's issues into context. I think the new media infrastructure is beginning to recognize the need, but it's taking a lot of time to change from the old formats that allowed for long-form analysis.

So, how do you cope? What outlets in the information infrastructure help you. How do you put the news of today in its place and avoid the contradictions and cognitive dissidence?

Busy Week

2009-01-21T06:15:00.003-08:00

I watched the inauguration and was proud of my country.

I have 42 ten-page essays to grade by next week.

We're getting near the end of the semester at school.

Dora and I are both trying to keep our heads above water + spend time together + keep the dogs happy and healthy.

On top of that, I'm trying to keep up with the writing.

So, sorry if the blogging has slowed, but know that all is well.

How a Pig Killing Sheds Some Light

2008-12-19T02:20:00.005-08:00

I saw the pig pictured here killed, butchered, and turned into food. It was earlier this month on a Sunday, when Dora and I attended our second traditional 'pig killing.' The more accurate translation would be 'pig slaughter,' but that just doesn't sound right to me.

Many Central European families slaughter a pig just before Christmas. The slaughter is a reason to have family and friends over, as it requires many hands. Over the years, the event has become a floating holiday for those who have the space and means to raise and kill a pig. While there are some places that hold pig killings for tourists, the best way to experience this event is as a guest of a family that is killing a pig for their own use. The killing of an animal is not improved by a tourist-friendly atmosphere.

Dora and I are lucky, because we have now attended two pig killings at the same farm. Being recognized faces made us feel more like part of the event.

Tomas, a good friend of ours, is from southern Slovakia. His family owns some farm land which they rent out. The cost of renting this land is, get ready... One Pig per year.

The pig is not delivered to Tomas's family home wrapped in cellophane. No. Tomas and his family attend the slaughter, arriving at dawn and helping to kill the pig and turn it into a lot of food. It is a major annual event with wine, palinka, cakes, sweets, and... oh yes, pork, bacon, sausage, lard, and other pig products.

I can't even begin to paint a full picture of the day in a blog entry. I will say this, however, I plan to use this experience as material in my next writing project. Still, I wanted to share some highlights.

This is Robi (Robbie). He was our butcher. He brought with him a bag of knives that could have been crafted in the middle ages (see the lower-right-hand corner of the first picture). Robi didn't talk much, but he kept up with the guys as we all drank shot after shot of palinka. And while I struggled to keep from slurring my speech, Robi wielded his knives with an enviable precision.

His job was not a pretty one. He cornered the pig, stunned it with a handheld shocking device, and then he cut the pig's throat. After that he (with help) burned the hair off the pig, scrubbed the skin clean, and prepped the animal for the knife. Then Robi went at the legs, the head, and the spine with his instraments. He pulled the skin off the pig. He cut fat and meat from the bone. He carefully removed the innards. Finally, after two and a half hours of hard dirty work, Robi had turned a pig into food.

Naturally, Dora developed a bit of the crush on the man. I understand. I am not offended. Maybe that's simply because I am not the jealous type, but I think there's something more to my appreciation for Dora's crush. I think my appreciation stems from an admiration of skilled labor. Dora saw in Robi something that has slipped away, slipped almost into mythology for many in the middle class and above: The ability to apply a practical trade.

Watching Robi work left me asking myself, "Hogan, what can you do? I mean really do? What can you do with the skill of an expert?"

My answer is not an empty one. I teach. A task I take very seriously. And I think I'm good at it, maybe not good enough to perform effectively after five shots of palinka, but good nevertheless. However, teaching doesn't turn a pig into delicious sausage. Teaching doesn't make a tree into a sturdy dinning room table. Teaching doesn't bring hot water into my bathroom. What Robi has in his ability to butcher an animal is a skill that our society requires in order to maintain its existence. It is essential.

In my job I aim to improve society. That's what teachers do. But I could not have such lofty goals if Robi didn't turn pigs into food. I like seeing that. I like being there when the essential work gets done. But seeing it leads me to the inevitable question: Why is such essential work valued less than my work, or the work of a marketing exec, or an investment banker? I'm not trying to get all Marxist, or anything. I don't want to suggest a new way of distributing wages. I just find it interesting that our society puts a smaller monetary value on the services we need compared to the services we want.

Great Debate!

2008-11-13T05:36:00.005-08:00

Wow, I've never read such well thought out and even tempered political arguments on a blog before. I'm kind of excited to be taking part in it.

The following is an edited response I wrote to a friend who expressed some similar ideas to the comments section from my last post. This is geared toward people who want to lay the majority of the blame for today's financial crisis at the feet of Fannie and Freddie.

*****************
First off, I like fiscal conservatives. I just wanted to start with that. I know it sounds like I don't sometimes, but that's only because there aren't any real fiscal conservatives left in the world. I'd vote for a true fiscal conservative, but I haven't seen one with any clout in my lifetime.

A true fiscal conservative would recognize that the role of government has pushed us well past the free market. That may be sad, but let's face it: Public aid is a reality. So policy must take that into account. There are insured institutions aimed at aiding the public (those institutions make conservatives angry), and there are private institutions aimed at making money for investors.

While public aid for home investments is high risk, the state views it as a more complex investment than a typical home loan. New home owners increase the tax base, stimulate growth, improve local schools, and create more stable communities. That's why the state can argue for a propping up of state insured institutions.

I don't like the way Frank & co. defended Fannie & Freddie, but to call those "companies" instrumental in the meltdown is shifting the blame way too far to the left.

It was the private firms that packaged the toxic debt and sold it as assets. Meanwhile other private institutions modeled F&F's lending practices without obtaining the same kind of backing of the government. During all that, it was a bi-partisan decision to look the other way while these large companies leveraged themselves to the hilt.

It was the fall Bear Stearns, AIG, and Lehman Brothers that signaled how intertwined the system has become.

That intertwined quality is not a result of F&F. It is a result of uninsured companies wanting to take the same risks as insured companies, then swapping risky assests around the world. Without insurance, however, those risks have serious consequences. And not just for the companies, but for the global economy.

If you place the blame on F&F, you are placing Fannie & Freddie on the same playing field as Bear Stearns. Six months ago, anyone at Bear Stearns would have been deeply insulted by that. Six months ago a true fiscal conservative would have been insulted by that.

Private firms over-reached. That same true fiscal conservative would let them fail. But at what expense?

I respect the view that government often impedes business. But the firms that froze the credit markets and inflated oil and housing prices are now impeding governments: Iceland, Hungary, and the US are just a few examples.

While I see where you're coming from, I think you've let partisan thinking cloud your judgment. There is not a party or public institution that can shoulder all the blame for this mess. Fannie and Freddie are not innocent, but if they had fallen alone, this would not be a crisis. The Dems didn't stop this, but the Republicans didn't either.
***********

As for the CRA argument, I never suggested anyone had the power to overturn CRA. I don't think the act should be overturned. I think a bank chartered within a community should serve that community. It is up to them to find an appropriate business model to do so.

CRA strikes me as the latest in a line of strawmen set up by conservative thinkers who want to pretend the private sector didn't do anything wrong. But if that were the case, then why do the private firms need public assistence? If you want to place blame, you are left with an odd choice: Blame the boy who tripped in the mud, or blame the girl trying to help him back up.

I love this kind of dialogue. I want to say this to those who disagree: Thank you for presenting real arguments. I find that these debates often devolve very quickly on the blogs. I really like real arguments devoid of insults.

In The Know: Should The Government Stop Dumping Money Into A Giant Hole?

The Crunch in Hungary and Where It's Coming From

2008-11-11T00:52:00.007-08:00

The payment on my home loan was up about 35% this month. Kind of.

It's complicated.

The Hungarian currency, the Forint, has been taking a beating lately. Our home loan, however, is calculated in Swiss Francs. So the amount of Forints we were charged this month is up significantly. It is fortunate, therefore, that I landed a job that pays in Euros.

All this leads to the question, 'Why is the loan in Swiss Francs?'

It is that question, and its absurd answer, that has kept me abreast of the global financial meltdown. In an attempt to keep it simple, I'll just say this: Due to a serious deficit, the Hungarian National Bank won't lower interest rates (currently at 11.5%), even if a rate cut would stimulate local lending. For this reason, it is much cheaper for people seeking credit in Hungary to borrow in a foreign currency. But when the Forint lost value last month after the credit markets froze, anyone earning in the local currency got pinched hard on this month's repayments. And it doesn't look like a one-month issue. Recovery is going to take some time.

While I'm normally not the kind of person who pays attention to financial news, having to keep track of currencies and national lending rates has changed the way I read the morning papers a bit.

That being the case, I've recently raised some objections to the way the US dealt with the approaching crisis. I've stayed fairly informed for a layman. My opinions are based on real numbers and actual policy. I don't think the way forward is going to be easy, but I am happy about the Obama camp's take on the issue. The only thing I wasn't too sure about was how the opposition felt about things.

Then last night a good friend sent me an article from The National Review Online. My friend knows I'm not much of an NRO reader, but I send him NPR pieces, so all's fair. Anyway, the article he sent, by Mark Steyn, is titled "The Death of the American Idea." I had to ignore Steyn's bitterness over the sound thumping the GOP received in the election, but the focus of his piece exposed an interesting blind spot in current conservative thinking.

Steyn's complaint is concerned with the ever-expanding Federal Government, a legitimate concern, especially for a fiscal conservative. But what struck me was the evidence Steyn used to put his argument over the top. He described the bailout package as the US Government’s latest step towards the left.

As someone who admires the values of fiscal conservatives, I can understand Steyn's objections to the bailout package. However, it is the policies of 'small-government' conservatives that have been peeling away at government regulatory powers over the past two decades. Those powers had been put in place to keep companies from slipping into an AIG-like situation. The value of such regulation has never been as clear as it is today.

On top of that, Steyn feels comfortable ignoring the fact that the bailout is propping up companies whose failure would wreak havoc on the global economy.

Steyn probably hasn't had to sit across from a Hungarian colleague - a colleague already angry with her own government for botching the local economy - and listen to a diatribe on unchecked American greed. Greed that is, according to my colleague, destroying what little progress the Hungarian economy has made in the past few years. Even with an IMF loan, the EU bailouts, and the US bailout in place, the Hungarian economy is tapping the pocketbooks of its citizens, and American greed has a lot to do with that.

Personally, I will probably weather Hungary's economic downturn, but there are a lot of people earning in Forints right now, and they may have some harsh questions for Mr. Steyn.
"You want to let these companies fail, huh? Then what happens next? You want to let my nation's economy fail?"

It was laissez-faire policies that got us into this situation. Fiscal conservatives may be upset that those same policies can't get us out, but anger or blame pointed at election results is misplaced and ill-spent.

It is very easy to be fiscally conservative when the crisis is under a microscope. But I'm on the wrong end of that microscope. The loan I took out was described as the most economically responsible loan available. When the repayment on such a loan jumps 35% in one month, there is something wrong with the system. If we trace the problem to its roots, we find two things:

A mismanaged Hungarian economy (no big surprise there)

Unregulated US banks and investment firms packaging bad loans and selling them for a profit around the world.

This is not a problem that will go away if we just ignore it. Men like Steyn can moan about how their ideology has been violated, but they ought to look at where their ideology has taken the world economy. Their time is up, and now the governments they scorned are left to clean up the mess. I’m just glad the US has a leader whose approach is about inspiring the best rather than fearing the worst.

Visits and Vacations

2008-10-27T02:12:00.004-07:00

This last weekend in Hungary was a four-day holiday. On the 23rd the country celebrated the Revolution of 1956 , during which the Hungarians booted the Soviets out of the country for a full seven days (before the Soviets came back with their tanks and guns).

The holiday has taken on a political bent over the past few years. For three years running, on the date of the anniversary the opposition party here in Hungary has held a large rally in Budapest's city center. Two years ago there was some serious violence. Last year there was a little trouble, but it was was much more subdued. This year there was a rally, but no major violence.

Even if events were more civil this year, I did get to see the event through a different, and slightly disturbing lens. My long-time friend Brad is here in Hungary on a visit. He took a walk with Dóra, me, and the dogs on the 23rd. On the walk we skirted the rally itself.

Having a visitor in town always forces me to take a closer look at the city I've called home for four years now. I think the same is true for Dóra, and as we passed the rally we found ourselves in a reflective mood.

The rally was held at Deák Ferenc tér, right where all the major streets and Metros intersect. Meaning the city was effectively shut down so the opposition party could pay homage to the bravery of those who rose up against tyranny some fifty-two years ago. A part of me knows that's a good thing. I'm happy Hungarians are passionate about their nation's history opposing totalitarianism.

But those positive feelings were tempered when Dóra told us that the man at the podium who was addressing the crowd was the leader of Hungary's far-right party - the same party that sponsored the marches that recently spiraled out of control, where police were injured and racist chants were bandied about. Once we knew the speakers affiliation, it was hard to ignore the other signs of intolerance. Shaved heads were peppered throughout the gathering. The red and white stripes of the nationalist flag were much more prominent than the red, green, and white bands of the national flag. At one point the speaker instigated a call-and-response that had the gathered crowd bark out a slogan, and while I know that happens at political rallies, the crowd's tone had an unsettling edge to it. Members of the Magyar Garda, a right-wing militia group, were lined up and ready to parade through the assembly.

Brad was stunned. The combat boots and hairstyles spoke a creepy international language. For someone in from the US, this gathering was an eye-opener. Dóra was more disappointed than stunned. She remembered how this anniversary was once commemorated. In the mid-90s there was little-to-no political posturing. The citizens of Hungary marched the same route that protesting students and workers marched in 1956. Dóra doesn't remember anything from this holiday in the 90s being as divisive as what we saw last week.

After the walk, Brad, Dóra, and I took the dogs out to the countryside and enjoyed a weekend away from the city. It gave us a chance to clear out heads and relax. Something perhaps more people should do.

Who's Right? Whose Wrong?

2008-09-26T01:18:00.012-07:00

Disasters help people see clearly.

Even if only for a moment, people always cling swiftly and surely to what they value most just as the proverbial shit hits the fan.

Two very different disasters struck last week, one in my country and the other in my adopted country. I've come to better understand the character of the people involved as a result.

Last weekend there were several political rallies here in Budapest. The most publicized event was held by the Hungarian Democratic Charta. It was held almost in concert with a demonstration of several Roma organizations. Those rallies were held to protest against the menacing rise in influence of the far-right here in Hungary.

Far-right extremists held a counter-protest which allegedly threatened the safety of people leaving the Hungarian Democratic Charta rally. The counter-protest led to a violent clash with the police. Petrol bombs and cobblestones versus riot gear and tear gas. Property was damaged. Police and citizens were injured.

A disaster.

Since the anti-government protests of 2006, the extreme right has been gaining political traction - slowly perhaps - but such progress is alarming nonetheless. The ideology of the far-right in Hungary is not something many Americans would recognize as a legitimate part of political discourse. Many of the far-right protesters arrive at rallies wearing swastikas or other symbols harkening back to the days of fascism. At the protest last week, anti-Semitic chants were interspersed among the anti-government chants. The far-right is proudly racist, hating both the Jewish population and the Roma population with equal vigor. And the violent enthusiasm with which they threw themselves into last week's protest shed some light on what they're all about.

The far-right here in Hungary is cornered, threatened, and frightened. They are lashing out at anything that resembles a threat to their twisted anachronistic values, and they are doing so with the strength of an animal in its final throes.

I would normally think this was a positive sign, but I know a cornered animal is dangerous. And I thought fascism went through its final throes last century.

I am happy the left came out to protest the influence of the far-right. In a country of very reserved people that is progress, but I think it is time for more unified action against such extremism. Fidesz is the mainstream party on the right, and they will certainly win the next Parliamentary elections. They have no need for the votes of extremists. So now is the time to put that dying animal out of its misery. Now is the time for Fidesz to condemn the extremists outright... But where are the Party's leaders? No one can say. What are those leaders saying when they fail to condemn violent racist behavior?

Speaking of party leaders, what the hell is Congress doing about the impending financial disaster? The Republicans can't govern their own, and the Democrats seem to have forgotten they have the majority.

What I've learned about America's political leaders from this disaster is making Hungary look pretty good right now. It seems the panic in D.C. is going to cost Americans even more than the past decade of incompetence.

Let me try and sort this out. For all the politicians who read my blog (none), here's my advice:

Republicans: You have failed. Your fiscal policy has led to a disaster of epic proportions, and the solution is going to run counter to your core principles. So sit back and watch the Democrats make the painful choices needed to put this right again. Oh, and by the way, thanks a lot.

Democrats: You do not have to accept the Administration's Bailout Plan. If you do and people don't like it, the Republicans are going to pin the blame on you. You are the ruling party in terms of legislation. Draw up a plan that illustrates your party's commitment to the middle class.

Here's the plan:
1) Be realistic. Make it a trillion dollars.

2) Buy up the bad mortgages and re-write them, helping %80-%90 of at-risk Americans keep their homes (primary residences only).

3) Extend lifelines to troubled banks on the following conditions:
a) loans are paid back with interest, or if the bank becomes profitable again taxpayers get a percentage of that profit (whatever benefits the taxpayer more)
b) cap executive salaries for three years, but give a substantial loyalty bonus to execs who weather the storm (we need talent now more than ever)
c) Until the loans are paid, banks that receive aid must give monthly reports to a panel of financial experts appointed by a bi-partisan committee, this panel then offers recommendations to the committee which may exercise control of the bank

4) Establish a regulatory apparatus capable of overseeing the financial sector that emerges after this crisis passes

5) Use remaining funds to give a cash infusion into sectors that have been neglected while the housing market was being inflated artificially.

That should do it. Any questions.
Now playing: OK Go - It's a Disaster
via FoxyTunes

Not So Funny Stuff

2008-09-16T01:16:00.003-07:00

I have the Wall Street Journal here at my desk. I get this cute little version over here, not the big broadsheet they publish in the US.

I was reading about the financial turmoil. And I'm surprised to find that the story has me in a vice grip. I don't know why. I'm not invested in much of anything beyond my apartment. So the fall of Lehman Bros. is not going to reach into my pocket much. Still, I can't turn away.

I think it's the enormity of the thing. Markets around the world were shaken. Uncertainty is the only certainty. And everyone who is plugged into an economic system anywhere in the world will be touched by this. It's a world event, right? But it's not like any of the world events we've experienced in my lifetime.

It doesn't have the feel of an attack or a war. It's not like a government falling. I'm tempted to link it to a natural disaster, but I'm afraid that's disrespectful because tsunamis and earthquakes takes lives. I just can't place where this sits in my understanding of current events. But I am straining to do so - It's just so big. So I read and I thought about it, and I think I might have been making progress.

But then what happened? The presidential candidates started talking about it, and I started thinking about politics and the political side of the economy. I started to get angry. And so I watched the following.

I don't know how to fix this, and when I look at the campaigns I do not feel reassured.

They aren't speaking to the issues, as usual. But I guess these events are the issues speaking out of turn.

I just hope we can elect someone who will put the right people in place to find our balance again. My thoughts aren't worth much, but for what they are worth: I think we need to reintroduce regulation (duh), but I don't think it would be useful to go back to the stuff Clinton repealed at the end of his term. That stuff was from the 1930's, and the repealing of it was part of what has fueled the last 10 years of worldwide economic growth. I guess someone should have thrown cold water on the mess before we got to this point, but I don't want to place blame (yet). It's too easy to say someone should have been watching. I don't think we have the kind of regulatory apparatus in place to have seen this coming. I guess we have to watch and learn (and when the market hits the bottom, get your money in there).

Seriously, however, best wishes and my sympathy go out to all who are going to be affected by the job losses and the financial strain that's troubling the world right now.

You can't eat the Venetian blinds.

2008-09-09T02:23:00.013-07:00

There's a story in the news about some high-end medical equipment that has gone missing from hospitals here in Budapest. The equipment was obviously stolen, and stealing it was easy because the hospitals in question are currently in the process of closing down. You see, the Hungarian government is trying to fix a broken economy, and part of that process involves closing hospitals.

To their credit, those responsible for the equipment's disappearance knew what they were doing. For one thing, only the most expensive inventory is missing. For another thing, selling this particular stolen equipment is going to be a breeze. Most medical equipment would easy to track down, but because the purchase of high-end equipment for these hospitals was sponsored by private doctors and financed by medical foundations, the paper trail for the equipment is difficult (if not impossible) to follow.

The story screams inside job.

A related story, while not as visible, hit us closer to home last month. Dóra’s colleague Mark recently finished renovating his apartment here in the city. The work was nearing completion just a few weeks ago. All that remained was the installation of the major appliances: stove, oven, refrigerator, water heater, dishwasher, etc. The equipment was delivered the night before it was to be installed, but before that night was over, someone kicked in the door and hauled off all seven of the large appliances.

Again, the story screams inside job.

I've heard more of these stories in Hungary than I ever did in the other places I’ve lived. I realize this kind of crap happens all over the world, but in corruption-plagued countries like Hungary, it happens more often and at more levels of society. Everywhere you turn in Hungary there are people seeking to infiltrate the systems where money or goods are exchanged. They find their way in and skim what they can, be it medical equipment from a pediatric hospital or some guy’s refrigerator. I used to find myself wondering why.

Then, during a recent lecture on academic integrity, one of my students made the following argument: If a student is clever enough to cheat and not get caught by the teacher, then that is reason enough for the student to get a passing grade.

The majority of the class started nodding enthusiastically. They waited for my response, and I managed a reasonable rebuttal. I don’t, however, harbor any illusions. Most of them still believe their peer won that argument.

Interestingly, many of my students come from countries where corruption is an issue at every level of government. Many of them come from cultures where business transactions are hampered by a crippling lack of trust between parties.

It would surprise me if either the thieves from the hospital or the thieves from Mark’s apartment were ever apprehended. They studied the system. They identified a weak spot. And now thanks to their efforts, Hungary lacks machinery for its hospitals. As a result of their talent, homeowners in Budapest can’t trust contractors.

Meanwhile, Hungary’s government is trying to fix a broken economy.

Finally, please check out my brother Myles's music store. He's quite good, and by quite good, I mean excellent. But you don't have to take my word for it...