>Interesting talk on the nature of disruptions and how the typical work environment, which is “designed” for productivty, may actually hinder getting things done.
http://video.ted.com/assets/player/swf/EmbedPlayer.swf
Author: Tucker
>big city & bicyles
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The title of this video is a bit misleading. There is nothing in it about “bike wars.” There is a description of some of the tension between different kinds of transportation, and specifically bicyclists dealing with motorists and pedestrians, but there is probably much much more that can be described about the so-called “wars.” Still, from where I sit, the images of downtown NYC traffic looks rather insane. I am glad I don’t bike there.
>I / like / Sunbright
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Three classics from SCTV.
>A Faustian bargain: An open letter to George M Philip, President of the State University of New York At Albany
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I am wholesale copying and pasting the letter below by Gregory A. Petsko because it so perfectly captures the implications of universities not offering a liberal arts education in the name of so-called sound fiscal decision making. Schools seem to perennially face funding problems, but the issues raised in the letter below are far bigger than mere funding. Our society has changed its views on education over the decades, and I fear we have made several wrong turns along the way, not least of which includes abandoning better ideas in favor of thin apologia and bureaucratic fads. It’s a long letter, but worth reading in its entirety.
Dear President Philip,
Probably the last thing you need at this moment is someone else from outside your university complaining about your decision. If you want to argue that I can’t really understand all aspects of the situation, never having been associated with SUNY Albany, I wouldn’t disagree. But I cannot let something like this go by without weighing in. I hope, when I’m through, you will at least understand why.
Just 30 days ago, on October 1st, you announced that the departments of French, Italian, Classics, Russian and Theater Arts were being eliminated. You gave several reasons for your decision, including that ‘there are comparatively fewer students enrolled in these degree programs.’ Of course, your decision was also, perhaps chiefly, a cost-cutting measure – in fact, you stated that this decision might not have been necessary had the state legislature passed a bill that would have allowed your university to set its own tuition rates. Finally, you asserted that the humanities were a drain on the institution financially, as opposed to the sciences, which bring in money in the form of grants and contracts.
Let’s examine these and your other reasons in detail, because I think if one does, it becomes clear that the facts on which they are based have some important aspects that are not covered in your statement. First, the matter of enrollment. I’m sure that relatively few students take classes in these subjects nowadays, just as you say. There wouldn’t have been many in my day, either, if universities hadn’t required students to take a distribution of courses in many different parts of the academy: humanities, social sciences, the fine arts, the physical and natural sciences, and to attain minimal proficiency in at least one foreign language. You see, the reason that humanities classes have low enrollment is not because students these days are clamoring for more relevant courses; it’s because administrators like you, and spineless faculty, have stopped setting distribution requirements and started allowing students to choose their own academic programs – something I feel is a complete abrogation of the duty of university faculty as teachers and mentors. You could fix the enrollment problem tomorrow by instituting a mandatory core curriculum that included a wide range of courses.
Young people haven’t, for the most part, yet attained the wisdom to have that kind of freedom without making poor decisions. In fact, without wisdom, it’s hard for most people. That idea is thrashed out better than anywhere else, I think, in Dostoyevsky’s parable of the Grand Inquisitor, which is told in Chapter Five of his great novel, The Brothers Karamazov. In the parable, Christ comes back to earth in Seville at the time of the Spanish Inquisition. He performs several miracles but is arrested by Inquisition leaders and sentenced to be burned at the stake. The Grand Inquisitor visits Him in his cell to tell Him that the Church no longer needs Him. The main portion of the text is the Inquisitor explaining why. The Inquisitor says that Jesus rejected the three temptations of Satan in the desert in favor of freedom, but he believes that Jesus has misjudged human nature. The Inquisitor says that the vast majority of humanity cannot handle freedom. In giving humans the freedom to choose, Christ has doomed humanity to a life of suffering.
That single chapter in a much longer book is one of the great works of modern literature. You would find a lot in it to think about. I’m sure your Russian faculty would love to talk with you about it – if only you had a Russian department, which now, of course, you don’t.
Then there’s the question of whether the state legislature’s inaction gave you no other choice. I’m sure the budgetary problems you have to deal with are serious. They certainly are at Brandeis University, where I work. And we, too, faced critical strategic decisions because our income was no longer enough to meet our expenses. But we eschewed your draconian – and authoritarian – solution, and a team of faculty, with input from all parts of the university, came up with a plan to do more with fewer resources. I’m not saying that all the specifics of our solution would fit your institution, but the process sure would have. You did call a town meeting, but it was to discuss your plan, not let the university craft its own. And you called that meeting for Friday afternoon on October 1st, when few of your students or faculty would be around to attend. In your defense, you called the timing ‘unfortunate’, but pleaded that there was a ‘limited availability of appropriate large venue options.’ I find that rather surprising. If the President of Brandeis needed a lecture hall on short notice, he would get one. I guess you don’t have much clout at your university.
It seems to me that the way you went about it couldn’t have been more likely to alienate just about everybody on campus. In your position, I would have done everything possible to avoid that. I wouldn’t want to end up in the 9th Bolgia (ditch of stone) of the 8th Circle of the Inferno, where the great 14th century Italian poet Dante Alighieri put the sowers of discord. There, as they struggle in that pit for all eternity, a demon continually hacks their limbs apart, just as in life they divided others.
The Inferno is the first book of Dante’s Divine Comedy, one of the great works of the human imagination. There’s so much to learn from it about human weakness and folly. The faculty in your Italian department would be delighted to introduce you to its many wonders – if only you had an Italian department, which now, of course, you don’t.
And do you really think even those faculty and administrators who may applaud your tough-minded stance (partly, I’m sure, in relief that they didn’t get the axe themselves) are still going to be on your side in the future? I’m reminded of the fable by Aesop of the Travelers and the Bear: two men were walking together through the woods, when a bear rushed out at them. One of the travelers happened to be in front, and he grabbed the branch of a tree, climbed up, and hid himself in the leaves. The other, being too far behind, threw himself flat down on the ground, with his face in the dust. The bear came up to him, put his muzzle close to the man’s ear, and sniffed and sniffed. But at last with a growl the bear slouched off, for bears will not touch dead meat. Then the fellow in the tree came down to his companion, and, laughing, said ‘What was it that the bear whispered to you?’ ‘He told me,’ said the other man, ‘Never to trust a friend who deserts you in a pinch.’
I first learned that fable, and its valuable lesson for life, in a freshman classics course. Aesop is credited with literally hundreds of fables, most of which are equally enjoyable – and enlightening. Your classics faculty would gladly tell you about them, if only you had a Classics department, which now, of course, you don’t.
As for the argument that the humanities don’t pay their own way, well, I guess that’s true, but it seems to me that there’s a fallacy in assuming that a university should be run like a business. I’m not saying it shouldn’t be managed prudently, but the notion that every part of it needs to be self-supporting is simply at variance with what a university is all about. You seem to value entrepreneurial programs and practical subjects that might generate intellectual property more than you do ‘old-fashioned’ courses of study. But universities aren’t just about discovering and capitalizing on new knowledge; they are also about preserving knowledge from being lost over time, and that requires a financial investment. There is good reason for it: what seems to be archaic today can become vital in the future. I’ll give you two examples of that. The first is the science of virology, which in the 1970s was dying out because people felt that infectious diseases were no longer a serious health problem in the developed world and other subjects, such as molecular biology, were much sexier. Then, in the early 1990s, a little problem called AIDS became the world’s number 1 health concern. The virus that causes AIDS was first isolated and characterized at the National Institutes of Health in the USA and the Institute Pasteur in France, because these were among the few institutions that still had thriving virology programs. My second example you will probably be more familiar with. Middle Eastern Studies, including the study of foreign languages such as Arabic and Persian, was hardly a hot subject on most campuses in the 1990s. Then came September 11, 2001. Suddenly we realized that we needed a lot more people who understood something about that part of the world, especially its Muslim culture. Those universities that had preserved their Middle Eastern Studies departments, even in the face of declining enrollment, suddenly became very important places. Those that hadn’t – well, I’m sure you get the picture.
I know one of your arguments is that not every place should try to do everything. Let other institutions have great programs in classics or theater arts, you say; we will focus on preparing students for jobs in the real world. Well, I hope I’ve just shown you that the real world is pretty fickle about what it wants. The best way for people to be prepared for the inevitable shock of change is to be as broadly educated as possible, because today’s backwater is often tomorrow’s hot field. And interdisciplinary research, which is all the rage these days, is only possible if people aren’t too narrowly trained. If none of that convinces you, then I’m willing to let you turn your institution into a place that focuses on the practical, but only if you stop calling it a university and yourself the President of one. You see, the word ‘university’ derives from the Latin ‘universitas’, meaning ‘the whole’. You can’t be a university without having a thriving humanities program. You will need to call SUNY Albany a trade school, or perhaps a vocational college, but not a university. Not anymore.
I utterly refuse to believe that you had no alternative. It’s your job as President to find ways of solving problems that do not require the amputation of healthy limbs. Voltaire said that no problem can withstand the assault of sustained thinking. Voltaire, whose real name was François-Marie Arouet, had a lot of pithy, witty and brilliant things to say (my favorite is ‘God is a comedian playing to an audience that is afraid to laugh’). Much of what he wrote would be very useful to you. I’m sure the faculty in your French department would be happy to introduce you to his writings, if only you had a French department, which now, of course, you don’t.
I guess I shouldn’t be surprised that you have trouble understanding the importance of maintaining programs in unglamorous or even seemingly ‘dead’ subjects. From your biography, you don’t actually have a PhD or other high degree, and have never really taught or done research at a university. Perhaps my own background will interest you. I started out as a classics major. I’m now Professor of Biochemistry and Chemistry. Of all the courses I took in college and graduate school, the ones that have benefited me the most in my career as a scientist are the courses in classics, art history, sociology, and English literature. These courses didn’t just give me a much better appreciation for my own culture; they taught me how to think, to analyze, and to write clearly. None of my sciences courses did any of that.
One of the things I do now is write a monthly column on science and society. I’ve done it for over 10 years, and I’m pleased to say some people seem to like it. If I’ve been fortunate enough to come up with a few insightful observations, I can assure you they are entirely due to my background in the humanities and my love of the arts.
One of the things I’ve written about is the way genomics is changing the world we live in. Our ability to manipulate the human genome is going to pose some very difficult questions for humanity in the next few decades, including the question of just what it means to be human. That isn’t a question for science alone; it’s a question that must be answered with input from every sphere of human thought, including – especially including – the humanities and arts. Science unleavened by the human heart and the human spirit is sterile, cold, and self-absorbed. It’s also unimaginative: some of my best ideas as a scientist have come from thinking and reading about things that have, superficially, nothing to do with science. If I’m right that what it means to be human is going to be one of the central issues of our time, then universities that are best equipped to deal with it, in all its many facets, will be the most important institutions of higher learning in the future. You’ve just ensured that yours won’t be one of them.
Some of your defenders have asserted that this is all a brilliant ploy on your part – a master political move designed to shock the legislature and force them to give SUNY Albany enough resources to keep these departments open. That would be Machiavellian (another notable Italian writer, but then, you don’t have any Italian faculty to tell you about him), certainly, but I doubt that you’re that clever. If you were, you would have held that town meeting when the whole university could have been present, at a place where the press would be all over it. That’s how you force the hand of a bunch of politicians. You proclaim your action on the steps of the state capitol. You don’t try to sneak it through in the dead of night, when your institution has its back turned.
No, I think you were simply trying to balance your budget at the expense of what you believe to be weak, outdated and powerless departments. I think you will find, in time, that you made a Faustian bargain. Faust is the title character in a play by Johann Wolfgang von Goethe. It was written around 1800 but still attracts the largest audiences of any play in Germany whenever it’s performed. Faust is the story of a scholar who makes a deal with the devil. The devil promises him anything he wants as long as he lives. In return, the devil will get – well, I’m sure you can guess how these sorts of deals usually go. If only you had a Theater department, which now, of course, you don’t, you could ask them to perform the play so you could see what happens. It’s awfully relevant to your situation. You see, Goethe believed that it profits a man nothing to give up his soul for the whole world. That’s the whole world, President Philip, not just a balanced budget. Although, I guess, to be fair, you haven’t given up your soul. Just the soul of your institution.
Disrespectfully yours,
Gregory A Petsko
You can email Mr. Petsko here: petsko@brandeis.edu
>snow and bicycles
>
Okay, I have to post this video because I keep fining myself watching it. Maybe it’s because I like the song so much, but we just had snow here, and though it is going away quickly, I still want to be out on my bike.
Now I just need to install my repaired shifters and get my bike working again, soon.
>Committing to better cycling: Infrastructure & Education
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It’s impossible to be interested in bicycling, and more specifically cycling infrastructure, and not wonder how the Netherlands did it. By “did it” I mean create a kind of cycling Utopia that is the measure against which the rest of the world is evaluated. Below are two interesting videos, one shows the history of creating bicycle-only paths in the Netherlands, and the other shows one of the ways (education) that Netherlanders become excellent cyclists. I would love to see both increase in the U.S. I don’t post these because I have been to the Netherlands (which I have not) but because I continue to be amazed at what I find via the Interwebs.
>Steve Howe shows us how on three vintage Yes riffs
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>Attitudes & Platitudes
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Mankind has invested more than four million years of evolution in the attempt to avoid physical exertion. Now a group of backward-thinking atavists mounted on foot-powered pairs of Hula-Hoops would have us pumping our legs, gritting our teeth, and searing our lungs as though we were being chased across the Pleistocene savanna by saber-toothed tigers. Think of the hopes, the dreams, the effort, the brilliance, the pure force of will that, over the eons, has gone into the creation of the Cadillac Coupe de Ville. Bicycle riders would have us throw all this on the ash heap of history.
~P.J. O’Rourke
- Driver gets 90 days in jail for hit-and-run involving bicyclist
- Rich Vail Fund Manager Hits Cyclist And Runs, Gets Off Because Charges Might “Jeopardize His Job”
Both of these stories have something in common: In both cases the DA refused to press charges. In one story, however, bicycle activists (read: people who think cyclists should not be unfairly discriminated against) helped get the case to court and the hit and run driver got 90 days.
I have written about bike safety before, and about attitudes of both cyclists and motorists. I am curious about traffic in general and why it is the way it is, and why people are the way they are. (Read Tom Vanderbilt’s great book Traffic.) Why is it that our society, not that different from others, has such deep seated prejudices against bicyclists? I know all the arguments about cyclists running red lights, but that is still no excuse to hit one with your car and then drive away like nothing serous happened. And many of these kinds of cases (there are quite a lot) involve very responsible, law abiding cyclists on their way to their professional jobs [which allow them, like every one else, to pay for the roads that cars wear out at a far greater rate than any number of bicycles could ever do. This is not hyperbole. If you don’t believe it, or have not thought about who really pays for the roads, then read this.]
The problem with prejudices is that we all have them even if we don’t see it. There are many people who would be incensed if called racist, but still hold racist views because they just don’t see their views as racist. Sometimes the best solution is just to let someone speak their mind. That way the prejudice is out on the table for all to see. Maybe we just need more people to say out loud their thoughts about cyclists so we can ask, “really?” As a piece of evidence in this line of reasoning (poor as it is), here is some anti-cycling prejudice from a (sadly ironic) video clip that’s been all over the Interwebs:
Those cyclists deserve what they get, right? Roads (read: the world) is made for cars and, apparently for Rob Ford, cars are for getting you to the all-you-can-eat endless-platter-special at the Hog and Heifer.* Maybe Mr. Ford should just keep his opinions to himself from now on. So much for that theory
But general contempt for others around oneself, or at least around one’s speeding car, comes in many forms. Most of the time contempt does not display itself as outright hostility, but masquerades as benign indifference. We know that many states now have hands free laws that forbid drivers from holding cell phones to their ears while driving. I think that law is somewhat debatable, but there is no doubt that we are all far more distracted while driving than we either realize or admit. Some drivers, however, take it to a new level, like this driver who (it’s fair to say) does not care about anyone else around him, including you or your children:
According to the Bush Doctrine it would be completely appropriate to physically run his car off the road into the ditch before he hurt anyone. He is “driving” a lethal weapon after all.
I wish these were isolated cases, but I fear they are not. Every day I still see people driving with their cell phone to their ear, even though it is against the law in this state. I also see cyclists riding without lights at night, riding the wrong way on bike lanes and roads, running stop signs and lights, and generally navigating their bikes like they learned to ride when they where thirteen and never advanced beyond their adolescent brain.
Which makes me think we live in a society that, for the the most part, views bicycles as toys; either toys for kids, or toys for adults. If a bike is not being used as a toy then it must be for someone who cannot afford a car, which means they are poor, which means they deserve double contempt – cycling while poor – right? Well, societies don’t change overnight. I don’t see a new world anytime soon. As soon as we figure out why nice, kind, ordinary, god fearing, family loving individuals turn into maniacal, cursing, foaming at the mouth tyrants as soon as they get behind the wheel of their car we just might figure out why there is so much contempt between drivers and cyclists.
I end with this quote, a kind of bookend to O’Rourke’s at the top:
It is curious that with the advent of the automobile and the airplane, the bicycle is still with us. Perhaps people like the world they can see from a bike, or the air they breathe when they’re out on a bike. Or they like the bicycle’s simplicity and the precision with which it is made. Or because they like the feeling of being able to hurtle through air one minute, and saunter through a park the next, without leaving behind clouds of choking exhaust, without leaving behind so much as a footstep.
~Gurdon S. Leete
* I don’t intend this to be a “fat joke”, though Mr. Ford is rather rotund, for I am somewhat doughy myself and in my weaker moments, of which there are many, I have dreams of binging at the Hog and Heifer.
>Two fun videos from Rivendell Bicycle Works
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Shouldn’t we all be making fun videos with bicycles?
>Pour un Maillot Jaune
>Back in high school I took two years of French. The first year was taught by a youngish French woman who was a little crazy, did not speak English well, and was wonderful. She still remains one of my favorite teachers. Yet, I cannot, for the life of me, remember her name; Madame something. Part way through the year she came in to class bubbling with excitement. She had just received her U.S. citizenship. I thought that was cool. As any good high school teacher will do, she would bring movies to class from time to time. French movies of course, so we could hear the language spoken properly by people other than her, and to appreciate French culture. Once she brought in Pour un Maillot Jaune, which is a documentary about the 1965 Tour de France. At the time I knew nothing of bicycle racing, so it was all strange to me. But I loved it. If you have become a fan of the Tour de France in the age of Lance, or earlier like me in the age of LeMond, then seeing something of what the tour was like in 1965 is an eye opener.
This is a great film that was innovative in its day as well. Notice the use of color to evoke various emotions. It’s also great to compare the image of cycling we have today with that of years ago.
pilgrimakimbo 