Lysergic acid diethylamide has a bunch of anniversaries this year, one of them the sad passing of its inventor, Dr Albert Hofmann, on April 29th, at age 102.

On a more upbeat note, April 19th was the 65th anniversary of Hofmann’s first acid trip. While most of us grew up with LSD an illegal drug, it wasn’t always so. Indeed, Hofmann and his employer, Sandoz, started with high hopes. The compound was discovered while trying to come up with a respiratory stimulant. That didn’t work out, but its hallucinatory properties led psychiatrists to think it might be a treatment for schizophrenia, or at least, a way to understand that condition and other psychoses.

This year also marks the 60th anniversary of the drug’s availability in the United States. According to Martin Lee, author of the book Acid Dreams, LSD was “used as an aid for psychotherapy, actually, fairly widely.”

“During a 15 year period beginning in 1950, research on LSD and other hallucinogens generated over 1,000 scientific papers, several dozen books, and 6 international conferences, and LSD was prescribed as treatment to over 40,000 patients,” according to Coolnurse.com. Eventually, it became clear that LSD had no controllable therapeutic effects. That’s not the same as saying it’s worthless, which itself would be far from justifying laws that make it impossible to obtain.

On the 50th anniversary of the first acid trip, Hofmann said,

“You, my dear friends, and millions all over the world who now commemorate the 50th birthday of ergot’s child, we all testify gratefully that we got valuable help on the way to what Aldous Huxley said is the end and the ultimate purpose of human life–enlightenment, beatific vision, love.”

Sadly, the default position in the United States and Canada seems to be one of making substances invented in a drug lab illegal. LSD is an unfortunate victiim of that; being a path to enlightenment for some people just doesn’t matter to Congress or the FDA.

Why is this important? Maybe drugs should be illegal by default, but if we grant that, we ought to be very careful what we classify as drugs.

Up in Canada, they’re on the verge of reclassifying a bunch of hitherto legal herbs and other concoctions. According to a CBC report,

many natural health products that have been sold in Canada for decades unavailable for purchase and penalizing parents who give herbs or supplements to their children.

The U.S. health food market went through something similar. Beginning with the environmental movement of the late 1960s, and over the course of 30 years, a thriving organic food industry grew. There were no federal regulations concerning organic food, but some states, notably California, had their own. California’s were tough, and accorded with the understandings of organic farmers and health food consumers. Even foods produced in other states often had packaging asserting that it was certified organic in accord with the California regulations.

In 1998 the USDA finally issued regulations that over the course of about four years led to a watered-down definition of “organic.” Worse, the 1998 law made it illegal for the states to have any other definition of the term.

“I want to make it clear that these rules are not about creating a category of agriculture that is safer than any other. No distinctions should be made between organically and non-organically produced products in terms of quality, appearance, or safety.” — then-Department of Agriculture Secretary Dan Glickman, 1998

Today, there are no useful terms to guide consumers who care about the healthfulness of their food, the conditions of its growth, or the practices used to raise food animals. “Organic,” “natural,” and “free-range” are among the terms that no longer have any useful meaning.

Generally speaking, drugs are legal only when expressedly so, and generally regulated when legal. Food is illegal only when expressedly so, and generally isn’t regulated when legal. When looked at that way, it’s pretty clear what happens when the definition of “drug” is opened up to include more and more foods.

When the Canadian government reaches into the language and redefines words like “drugs” and “natural health product” it leaves its manufacturers unable to create the products that citizens want, and it makes it impossible for citizens to know what they’re getting when they buy products they hope will be healthful.

Today’s Orwellian phrase is “coercive humanitarian intervention.”

The military regime that runs Burma initially signaled it would accept outside relief, but has imposed so many conditions on those who would actually deliver it that barely a trickle has made it through. Aid workers have been held at airports. U.N. food shipments have been seized. U.S. naval ships packed with food and medicine idle in the Gulf of Thailand, waiting for an all-clear that may never come.

Retired General William Nash of the Council on Foreign Relations says the U.S. should first pressure China to use its influence over the junta to get them to open up and then supply support to the Thai and Indonesian militaries to carry out relief missions. “We can pay for it — we can provide repair parts to the Indonesians so they can get their Air Force up. We can lend the them two C-130s and let them paint the Indonesian flag on them,” Nash says. “We have to get the stuff to people who can deliver it and who the Burmese government will accept, even if takes an extra day or two and even if it’s not as efficient as the good old U.S. military.”

Time magazine is reporting that the difficulties in getting the Burmese government to accept relief aid has led some governments and some relief organizations to consider an extreme alternative: a “coercive humanitarian intervention.”

“

That’s why it’s time to consider a more serious option: invading Burma. Some observers, including former USAID director Andrew Natsios, have called on the U.S. to unilaterally begin air drops to the Burmese people regardless of what the junta says. The Bush Administration has so far rejected the idea — “I can’t imagine us going in without the permission of the Myanmar government,” Defense Secretary Robert Gates said Thursday — but it’s not without precedent: as Natsios pointed out to the Wall Street Journal, the U.S. has facilitated the delivery of humanitarian aid without the host government’s consent in places like Bosnia and Sudan. “

It calls to mind that other 21st century coercive humanitarian intervention, the U.S. invasion of Iraq. If I had to guess the reason the American public has turned against the war it’s that, rightly or wrongly, it ran out of patience with people it sees as unwilling to help themselves, or even let anyone else help them. The Iraqi people had only to accept American aid, this sentiment goes, and if they won’t, to hell with them. Americans will say the same thing about Burma.

It’s hard not agree. “Coercive humanitarian intervention” sounds a little too much like what went wrong in Vietnam, the war in which, writ large, it became necessary to destroy the village in order to save it.

When asked if he was a Nazi or sympathized with Nazis or white supremacists, Zirkle replied he didn’t know enough about the group to either favor it or oppose it. — The (Michigan City, Ind.) News-Dispatch, 22 April 2008

Yes, it’s 2008, and a Congressional candidate in a Republican primary doesn’t whether he’s for or against the American Nazi movement. Sure, it’s in Indiana, birthplace of the Klu Klux Klan, but still. It’s 2008, and a Congressional candidate in a Republican primary doesn’t whether he’s for or against Nazism.

Here’s what he does know:

“This is just a great opportunity for me to witness,” he said, referring to his message and his Christian belief.

The candidate is Tony Zirkle, a former county prosecutor. And yes, he did accept a speaking invitation from an American Nazi group. The occasion? Hitler’s birthday. You might think he just didn’t know that, but then there’s that picture of him speaking at a podium right underneath a giant picture of…. Adolf Hitler.

But maybe he didn’t recognize Hitler’s characteristic moustache. Or the swastika further down the wall. Or the swastika armbands that everyone was wearing. But then it turns out there was a cake decorated with yet another picture of Hitler and the phrase “Seig Heil.”

It actually gets worse.

Last week, when he talked to the News-Dispatch, Zirkle wasn’t sure he agreed with the Nazis. But now it seems like he does. Here’s something pulled off Zirkle’s website. I’ve added a paragraph break, to make it easier to read, but left it otherwise as is, including typos.

Last week, MSNBC’s Keith Olberman on his Countdown show called me the world’s 2nd worst person after Bill O’Reilly and ahead of John McCain. What cracks me up is that he showed the picture of me presenting the Gospel book, “The Desire of Ages” to the National Socialists. You know that America and its liberal dominated media have become morally bankrupt when you are called the second worst person in the world for trying to present Jesus to a group the media claims is filled with hate. So, let me get this straight. The liberal media believes that evangelizing Nazis is more evil than suicide bombers, child rapists, drug dealers, murders, torturers and yes even porn-pimps.

Maybe those national socialists have a point that WWII was really about liberalism and communism dominating the world and that it was an assault on Christian civilization. Was the bipolar Churchhill possibly deceived? Was America? Didn’t General Patton say that we should have been fighting the Russian communists instead? How many people died after WWII because of the new communist threat that Patton said we should not have tolerated. On the other hand, communism gave us Russian brides and capitalism gave us porn stars. Oh, that’s tmi (too much info). Maybe asking these qustions will get me ranked #1.

So in the space of a few days, Zirkle goes from not even knowing that National Socialism and Nazism are the same thing, to sophisticated revisionist histories of Yalta and the Cold War. And goes from not being sure who he agrees with to offering 23 links, right on his campaign’s front page, proving the connection between “Jews and porn-prostitution,” including such authoritative sources as David Duke.

The door having been opened by the News-Dispatch, the rest of the press is putting on a full-court press. A hard-hitting report from, of all places, Foxnews, notes that

Zirkle, who is seeking the GOP nomination for the state’s 2nd Congressional District, believes — among other things — that whites are victims of a “genocide,” that the races should be segregated into different states and that pornography is a Jewish plot against women.

Zinkle’s obsession with porn and prostitution dominate his campaign. And of course, that’s now a cliche for Republican politicians; we feel we know almost exactly what skeletons are in his closet.

What’s interesting is that Zinkle immediately runs for the protective cover of revisionism, no matter if it’s tissue-thin. We see this time and again from politicians, especially, it seems, Republicans.

Want to oppose climate change? Find the handful of scientists who doubt the science, even if each and every one of them is bought and paid for by industries that would be adversely affected (or think they would be) and their “studies” are never published in peer-reviewed journals. Want to oppose evolution? Find the handful of scientists who doubt the science, even if each and every one of them is a religous nutcase who can’t get published in peer-reviewed journals. Want to lower taxes?

The Indiana Republican party leadership has repudiated Zinkle, but Foxnews noted that

Zirkle captured 30 percent of the Republican primary vote in 2006, when he ran against an incumbent who went on to lose to a Democrat (Joe Donnelly) in November. With three candidates but no incumbent in Tuesday’s Republican primary, some wonder if Zirkle will perform better this time around.

Thirty percent would be scary enough. But then, Indiana is a pretty scary place, if you don’t happen to believe in what my cousin likes to call the International Jewish Communist Banker’s Conspiracy theory.

In April 1968, when Mark Rudd and other students took over the halls of Columbia University, I was 12 years old - too young for anything other than hero-worship. So I read the newspaper accounts, watched the news on television, and wrote in magic marker all over my bedroom walls.

I carefully drew peace signs, Rudd’s name, and “Columbia” from the closet at one end of the room’s longest wall to the rear window at the other end. And the word “Love,” scrawled Peter-Max style - big balloon sans-serif letters that overlapped one another, with the “O” being yet another peace symbol. I don’t remember asking my parents about writing all over my walls, and I do remember my mother’s odd smile when I showed her my handiwork.

That year students took over college campuses from Berkeley to Bonn. They drew their energy from the Civil Rights protests that ended Jim Crow and the antiwar demonstrations that ended Lyndon Johnson’s reelection campaign.

Where did that energy go? Where are the protest movements of today? As it turns out, there’s still plenty of energy, and still plenty of protest. What’s missing is the reporting of it. Consider Human Rights Torch Relay, a world-wide ongoing protest that has taken the traditional Olympic torch relay as an occasion for repeated protest of China’s subjugation of Tibet. Yesterday, Reuters published a nice timeline or their protests, beginning with the March 24th Athens torch lighting, and continuing, among other places, in San Francisco, Paris, Bangkok, and, last Sunday, South Korea.

Indeed, the print media has done a pretty good job of covering Human Rights Torch Relay. But where are the television networks? A google search looks in vain for them until the 48th link, where a story by CNN is the first network-based one to appear.

And even if the big wire services such as Reuters, AP, and AFP can cover a big protest like Human Rights Torch Relay, they fall down when it comes to smaller ones. Did you know about a protest at Penn State that has lasted more than two weeks now? They are “demanding improved conditions in the factories where Penn State apparel is made.” Nor has Penn State been the only anti-sweatshop rally in recent weeks; there have been at least three others.

I learned about them at a new blog, http://studentactivism.net/, that hopes to provide a focal point for “News and analysis on student organizing, student activism, and students’ rights.” The blog, which launched yesterday, is maintained by Angus Johnston, whose goal is to fill the middle ground between the mainstream media, which doesn’t cover smaller activist efforts, and student networks, which largely preach to the choir.

Students provided much of the early white support for black civil rights activism, they spearheaded the anti-Vietnam movement, and they’ve never stopped being in the forefront of protest, whether it’s over environmental issues, Nicaragua, corporate responsibility, the death penalty, or the war in Iraq. Whether we agree or disagree with the stances that students take (and they’re by no means all of one mind in their concerns), I hope that many of us will subscribe and link to the site, as I now have.

As if we need more tiresome, trite commentary about dead-horse issues from self-oblivious Luddites, Rick Reilly chimed with his opinions on the blogosphere’s contributions to sports journalism. Reilly is a well-known, highly regarded—by many, though not yours truly—sports journalist who left Sport Illustrated in 2007, after 23 years of service, to join the ranks of ESPN. (A move which, it should be noted, did not take him beyond the bounds of the Time Warner mediaplex.)

Normally, I’m not sufficiently motivated to defend the blogosphere from insulting platitudes, but seeing as how this one was deliciously ironic as well, I think it’s worth some keystrokes.

Okay, let’s get the meta-platitude out of the way. As the crew over at FireJoeMorgan phrased it when dissecting Reilly’s comments, “most stuff sucks.” To say that most sports blogging sucks is probably entirely true. But, it would be equally true to say that most sports print journalism sucks. Music, writing, dancing, television movies, everything – statistically, the great majority of it sucks! Thus, when Reilly calls internet sports journalism, “all over the map,” he is describing what he is talking about only as accurately as everything he is not talking about.

Now for the ironies. There are two of them. Reilly, conveniently, gives special recognition to the writers on ESPN.com, as the sort of hard-journalism antithesis of the stereotypical underwear-clad, mom’s-basement-dwelling, sports blogger. Perhaps Reilly is unaware the most popular columnist on ESPN’s website is Bill Simmons. Simmons is one of the pioneers of the sports blogging revolution. His columns are multi-thousand word ramblings packed with pop-culture references, bar stool hypotheses, and obscure tidbits about his friends and family. Reilly’s new home, and self-described beacon of quality journalism, gives its top billing to an ostensible blogger.

The other great irony stems from Reilly’s career itself. Reilly is most well known for his, “Life of Reilly” column that graced the back page of Sports Illustrated for many years. These columns were (at least attempts at) humorous quips. They were casual, side-bar commentaries. Reilly’s defining column was basically an abbreviated blog entry in printed form directed at a slightly older and more square demographic than your average sports blog, with the following week’s Letters to the Editor as the only potential source for commenting. The dichotomy between Reilly and Simmons is one of talent, not of tone!

Here’s another fun fact, in the article above he talks about bloggers not going into locker rooms, and thus being removed from the athletes and dynamics of teams and the game. Reilly writes endlessly about golf, and his favorite athlete is cyclist Lance Armstrong–two sports, in other words, that don’t even have locker rooms.

Reilly is hardly the only old guard journalist to fundamentally misunderstand blogging, the internet, and internet journalism. Many who self-righteously dismiss internet journalism don’t recognize the new generation of sports fans, who get their news primarily from blogs, the internet, and independent media, nor do they understand the dynamics of the modern information age. The fact is many young, savvy readers don’t want their news from staples of the mainstream media. ESPN.com thinks it is competing with Deadspin, et al, but to a large extent it is not (Simmons excluded). In fact, the blogs are competing with each other for those who ESPN lost a long time ago when they chose to abandon their leadership in sports journalism in favor of promoting entertainment, sensationalism, and the lowest common denominator.

The internet is a medium, not a genre. “Internet journalism” is no more descriptive a term than “print journalism.” There seems an inherent disdain for the internet among print journalists, perhaps because the internet can destroy the glass menagerie of journalism as an institution by making it more of a true meritocracy. Regardless, the internet is the most convenient way for many of us to get our news. I work a lot, I can surf the web and read dozens of different sites during the course of my work day, I can read things on my phone on the go, but I can’t bring 20 different magazines and newspapers to work and thumb through them at my leisure. Ironically (a third irony today), while in many ways regular news on the Web is still derivative of print newspapers and magazines, that’s less true of sports than just about any other news category.

Since the boom of the internet, I’ve been able to read more, and hear more voices than I ever have; that’s a good thing. Rick Reilly just doesn’t happen to be one of those voices who’ve earned a piece of my time and mindshare. Sorry, Rick, but don’t blame the supermarket for my opinion that your food product tastes like shit. But then again, shouldn’t that be expected when the producer doesn’t even know which dish he’s actually famous for making?

When you think of Seattle, your mind probably conjures up the Space Needle, grunge music, Starbucks, and, in the distance, majestic Mt. Rainier. Starbucks will play a role in what follows, but our topic today is Seattle as a sports city, something you probably didn’t think of right away.

The first measure of a sports city is the devotion of its fans. The Key Arena, home to the NBA’s Seattle Supersonics, is famous for getting so loud that the crowd noise drowns out the public address system. The baseball Mariners had a very nice run in the mid-nineties and are a trendy choice as a sleeper-contender this year. The football Seahawks are only two seasons removed from a Super Bowl appearance. They got to the brink of a championship, but the aforementioned Sonics are the only Seattle (male) professional sports franchise to bring one home (’78-79). Such a distinction only makes it that much sadder that NBA Commissioner David Stern, is a willing participant in a cabal to hijack the team and relocate it to Oklahoma City.

I will attempt a brief recounting of the events leading up to this, the key players involved, and the egregious deceit transparent through the process.

The Seattle Sonics were owned, until recently, by Starbucks mogul, Howard Schultz. (This sordid story makes me even prouder that I’ve never consumed a single Starbucks product) In the run up to, and the inaugural stages of, ownership, Schultz made saccharine overtures about his intimate and intrinsic connection with Seattle, and how that should be collateral for proving his pride in, and dedication to, owning the Seattle Sonics. That was 2001.

Barely back from the honeymoon, the relationship turned sour. Schultz has spent considerable time bitching about the terms of the Key Arena’s lease with the city. Admittedly, I’m uneducated as to the specifics of that financial issue, but as wealthy as Schultz is, I have difficulty understanding how much it can affect him. (He dropped out of the Forbes 400 in 2008, but still checks in with a net worth of $1.1B), One Sonics fan characterized Schultz’s behavior as owner as that of a “a spoiled punk kid who’s already bored with his absurdly expensive Christmas present by New Year’s Day.” Schultz sold the team in 2006 for a $150M profit, despite complaining about his inability to make money running the franchise.

Enter Clay Bennett, a wealthy Hall-of-Fame oil tycoon from Oklahoma, new owner of the Seattle franchise. Oklahoma City has been flirting with the NBA for a while; two years ago it was awarded temporary partial custody of the New Orleans Hornets from ’05-’07. Despite the obvious conclusions to be drawn, Bennett commented publicly on numerous occasions about his intent to keep the Sonics in Seattle. It wasn’t long before he changed his tune.

Bennett first began complaining that the Key Arena was inadequate (translation: not enough luxury boxes). This is utter nonsense, especially since the Seattle taxpayers forked $125M to renovate the current arena just twelve years ago! Bennett claimed a satisfactory arena would cost half a billion dollars. Even more nonsensical when you consider of the NBA and NHL arenas costructed in the 90’s the one with the highest estimate on any approved project was less than half Bennett’s figure ($235M for Portland’s Rose Garden)Bennett was clearly shill-bidding in an attempt to contrive an excuse to relocate the team by pitting the taxpayers with an offer they couldn’t accept.

Basically, Bennett is holding the city of Seattle’s beloved pro basketball team ransom, bullying the city’s taxpayers and fans to build a billionaire a new toybox even though he already has a more than adequate one.

Now, you may be asking yourself if an individual can just purchase a team and relocate it as he/she pleases. The answer is, no! I’m sketchy on the actual process by which one is granted permission to relocate a franchise, but an attempt to do so can certainly be thwarted by other owners and/or the Commissioner of the League, currently David Stern.

Did you know that the state of Oklahoma has a Hall of Fame for Oklahomans? Maybe that’s not strange, and other states have Halls of Fame as well – but I certainly chuckled when I found this out. How did I find it out and why am I mentioning it here, you ask. Well, because Bennett was elected to the Oklahoma Hall of Fame in 2007… and the induction speech was given by his close personal friend, David fucking Stern!

Do I need to expound on the respective sport market size estimates, and general population figures for Oklahoma City and Seattle? Take a wild guess, and you’ll be in the, ahem, ballpark.

So, what does the NBA have to gain by allowing this relocation? About as much as the Suns did for trading for a broken down Shaquille O’Neal! David Stern is just hooking up his boy – this is like Jay-Z giving Memphis Bleek all his DJ Premier beats. Isn’t it great that you don’t have to get either of the two references in this paragraph, but just learned that the Shaq trade will be a bust, and some guy named “Memphis Bleek” is a shitty rapper (and another guy,“DJ Premier” is a talented producer)… I’m here to inform!

This is pretty “fierce, dangerous, pathetic, fucked up,” to quote a Nirvana lyric (or, “not fierce,” and “a hot-tranny-mess,” to quote Project Runway winner, Christian Siriano) Circumstantially it has the elements of collusion even, right? So why isn’t this a story – how come nobody knows or cares about it? Yeah, I guess because it’s happening in Seattle. Home of flannel, and mocha frappuccino , not sports.

To add insult to injury, although the Sonics have never revisited their 1979 glory, they and their fans can see some light at the end of the tunnel. After some dismal play in recent memory, they landed a future superstar, Kevin Durant, in last year’s draft, shed their bad contracts and stockpiled, through trades, 13 picks in the next three drafts – saving a ton of salary in the process (important because the NBA has a team salary cap). The team would have to hire Isiah Thomas to not be very good in a few years.

Sportswriting godsend, Bill Simmons (a.k.a. the only reason any sentient sports fan should be caught visiting ESPN’s website, and the widely-accredited pioneer of sports blogging) has dedicated two of his famously epic “mailbag” columns to giving a voice to dejected Sonics fans – forty pages worth, after claiming to be necessarily highly selective about which ones to print! He is the only nationally relevant, sports media, heavy-hitter I’ve read/heard talk about this; so, as usual, props to him.

Sports stories always pull my heart strings for some reason; I probably average at least one cry per Real Sports episode. Not surprisingly many of the emails moved me to tears (leading to several strange glances on the subway, the likes of which I haven’t received since the last chapter of Marley and Me). But, thumbing through the columns would be heart-wrenching for anybody. It may be hard for others to imagine, but any true fan knows that losing a team is really like losing part of yourself. Shit, I saw a serious discussion among a group of age 70-ish Brooklynites about going to Cooperstown to protest the induction of Walter O’Malley to the National Baseball Hall of Fame, even though they had to be in their 20s when he pulled the Dodgers from Brooklyn!

One email in the Simmons column was unlike all the others though, and, in truth, I’ve written this whole piece to provide necessary context to quote it in its entirety. It’s an entirely different take on the situation, though the commiseration with the feeling of loss is obvious in its undertones. So, Michael from Boston, have at it:

Seattle deserves our praise, not our pity. The people there should hold their heads high, even if there is a tear in their eye. They were adults — MEN and WOMEN — who held firm when residents of other cities would have childishly voted against their own best interests and capitulated like cowards. Seattle said no to Clay Bennett, and no to his greed. The city grew a steel backbone. Losing the Sonics seems like a small price to pay for collective courage and integrity. We should all be so lucky as to have looked an immoral thing clear in the face, and told it to go screw itself.

It worries me that people wouldn’t write you as many letters if Seattle had voted for the arena and Bennett had elected to stay. People might be so busy cheering they would forget the money that could have gone to schools, the elderly or even back to the taxpayers themselves. It worries me that many probably couldn’t be bothered to notice or care. People seem far more upset by this cost of doing good than they are strengthened by their courage. I wish they weren’t. Our loyalties and values tell us who we are as people, and, in your real life, stepping up to do the right thing for those who matter and count on you is a real brand of caring that you usually can’t find in ballparks or metaphors.

I am a fan. I am grateful that my loyalty to the Celtics is now bearing fruit. However, the ecstasy of sport must not morph into a willful ignorance or a denial of bigger realities, and there are real choices to be made when an owner’s push comes to a city’s shove. Owners are coming for your tax dollars. They have been. On the other side of things, Medicare and Medicaid expenses for the states are growing — they could soon be beyond our ability to cover them. We are fighting two wars and have entered a recession. We live in a time of national challenge. And Clay Bennett wants an arena. Thank you, Seattle, for showing us what caring really is.

The NBA’s community development arm, which calls itself “NBA Cares,” should read that last line carefully. We already know what David Stern really cares about.

Once an idiosyncratic, almost anthropological pursuit practiced by hip-hop devotees, sports fans, and urban fashion connoisseurs being a “sneakerhead” is now simply about hollow consumerism.

Sneaker manufacturers churn out one low-quality, theme-packed, limited edition gimmick shoe, after another, at unprecedented rates, all the while forgoing attention to detail on the reproduction of retro classics. As is often the case when mainstream producers discover a niche market, the suppliers did a better job of feeding the market before they were fully aware of its existence. Why is it so difficult to understand that the essential beauty of something that arises naturally in the marketplace will only be preserved if it continues to evolve organically?

But this post isn’t really about sneakers, it’s about identifying impending co-optation, exploitation, and death through language and labeling.

It didn’t take much sneaker savvy to see what was going to happen to “the sneaker game” when fourteen year-olds with five pairs, all released this calendar year, started calling themselves “collectors” and the “box-stacking” photo became de rigeur on the (supposedly) urban teen’s Myspace profile. A “collection” isn’t some sort of goal to aspire to; it’s the natural outgrowth (side-effect?) of a passion. And veterans of the sneaker culture don’t refer to themselves as “sneakerheads.” Personally, my relationship with sneakers is a part of larger culture(s) with which I identify. To call myself a “sneakerhead” would be treat the signifier as the signified.

That outsiders, particularly the mainstream media, have a cute little name for a group of people who participate in a lifestyle, is a sure sign that the purity of the community is compromised—a process of erosion that will progress exponentially. It is only a matter of time before you will be gazing at the putrid shell of what was. Shortly after that, you can only curse what your culture has become.

The term “hippie,” in the sense that we understand it now, was coined by a San Francisco journalist in a piece about the Blue Unicorn coffeehouse to refer to the new generation of Haight-Ashbury residents. Within a few years, “hippie” was being widely used by the mainstream press. The Haight-Ashbury residents weren’t calling themselves “hippies.” It wasn’t long until the term gained enough traction that every slacker in search of drugs, sex, music, and fun headed West, destroying the socio-political underpinnings of the lifestyle as it originally existed in the process. Of course, next came the stereotyping, followed by a marketing wave that completed the neutering process.

So beware that cover story in New York magazine or People identifying some group with whom you share a passion. The Nehru jacket will follow soon enough. Meaning, substance, and texture will be replaced by a two-dimensional stereotype subtrate upon which corporate America will culture a hideous market fungus., The edginess of the lifestyle will be turned into soft smooth sides. Salsa becomes onion-flavored ketchup; bagels nothing more than tiny loaves of Wonder Bread with holes in the center. Resist the labeling of your passion. By doing so, you resist definition, and hence pigeonholing, subsequent exploitation and metamorphosis, and ultimately, cultural death.

For the sneaker enthusiasts, we have it easy. We can just hope the fad runs its cycle and soon we can go back to finding classics at remote outlets and mom and pop stores for 30% of retail price. And we can go back to the day when wearing a pair of Nike Air Pressures leads to suspicious looks from the NYPD and being pulled out of the security line at the airport.

Are students abysmally ignorant? Of course they are. Are they more abysmally ignorant than ever? That’s not so clear. The NY Times is far from the only publication taking a new survey at face value, but it does such an exemplary job of it, let’s start with them.

History Survey Stumps U.S. Teens

By SAM DILLON

Published: February 26, 2008

 

Fewer than half of American teenagers who were asked basic questions about history and literature during a recent telephone survey knew when the Civil War was fought, and one-quarter thought that Christopher Columbus sailed to the New World sometime after 1750, not in 1492.

 

The results of the survey, released Tuesday, demonstrate that a significant proportion of American teenagers live in “stunning ignorance” of history and literature, according to the group that commissioned it. Known as Common Core, the organization describes itself as a new, nonpartisan research and advocacy organization that will press for more teaching of the liberal arts in American public schools.

We get the usual litany of teen ignorance: one-fourth failed to identify Adolf Hitler, only 4 out of ten 10
could pick the name of Ralph Ellison’s “Invisible Man,” from a list of titles, and “only about half knew that in the Bible, Job is known for his patience in suffering.”

It seems to me that in a nation where half of all adults reject the truth of evolution in favor of the six-day theory of creation, the fewer teens who know their Bible the better. But let’s leave that aside.

Arguably the two most serious educators in the new group are its co-chairs, Antonia Cortese, of the American Federation of Teachers, and Diane Ravitch, who now teaches in at the Steinhardt School of Education of New York University but was assistant secretary of education in the elder Bush’s administration. According to the Times, they’re leading the charge against NCLB.

The group argues that President Bush’s No Child Left Behind law has impoverished America’s public school curriculum by holding schools accountable for student scores on annual tests in reading and math but in no other subjects.

But over on the History News Network, Ravitch wrote

I cannot now speak for the board, as the organization is just getting underway and board members have yet to articulate their areas of agreement and disagreement.

The Times later says:

In a joint introduction to their report, Ms. Cortese and Dr. Ravitch did not directly blame the No Child law for the dismal survey results, but argued that the law has led schools to focus too narrowly on reading and math, thereby crowding time out of the school day for history, literature and other subjects.

 

“The nation’s education system has become obsessed with testing and basic skills because of the requirements of federal law, and that is not healthy,” Ms. Cortese and Dr. Ravitch said.

Yes, certainly Ravitch, and probably the rest of Common Core, take issue with the way NCLB tests knowledge.

However, it is increasingly clear that the law’s relentless focus on raising scores in the basic skills of reading and math has the effect of reducing time for all other studies.

But she also says,

The board of CC is not opposed to testing. We view it as a necessary but not sufficient part of education.

I would prefer to see development and implementation of more thoughtful kinds of testing than those that are now in general use; in particular, I would hope for new tests that call on students to describe, analyze, explain, and demonstrate what they know and can do, not just asking them to pick a bubble.

That’s a lot more nuanced a view than the Times represents. But let’s cut to the chase.

Are things getting worse? And is NCLB to blame? Prof. Ravitch doesn’t seem to entirely think so. She wrote,

it appears to me that the telephone sample of 2007 were somewhat better informed than their parents’ generation of 1986. In 1986, only 32% knew that the American Civil War occurred in the half-century between 1850-1900 (this was NOT a trick question!); now, 43% do. In 1986, 64% could identify the main holding of the Brown v. Board of Education decision; now, 71% can. On most questions of a factual nature, the proportion who answered correctly was either higher or the same, seldom lower. So perhaps the pressure to improve history education over the past 20 years was making some headway.

 

NCLB is not uniquely responsible for causing loss of knowledge of history. The 1986 survey demonstrates that the problems of “I don’t know” existed long before NCLB.

The Times couldn’t be bothered to compare the 2007 survey with the 1986 results, even though it knew enough of the earlier study to say, of the newer one, “The questions were drawn from a test administered by the federal government in 1986.”

The point of history, the Times, sadly, needs to be told, is to learn from it.

The Times even acknowledged, though it didn’t know what to make of it, that in the 2007 study, “Ninety-seven percent of teenagers correctly picked Martin Luther King Jr.” as the man who said, “I have a dream,” and an astonishing four-fifths of all teens knew the plot of “To Kill a Mockingbird.”

The lesson seems clear: students learn what we teach them. But the newspaper of record would rather take a swipe at No Child Left Behind in the course of an article that, starting with its headline of “History Survey Stumps U.S. Teens,” mainly consists of blaming the victim.

I blog at work, and it can be a close call whether to post something here or there. So from time to time, I’ll be providing a note and link to ones that end up there.

I received a questionnaire for jury duty yesterday in the mail. It wasn’t a summons, though surely it will lead to that. I don’t mind. Serving on a jury is one of our few civic duties, a cornerstone of free and fair trials, which itself is a cornerstone of democracy.

The notice says that my name was culled at random from voter registration, driver registration, unemployment, or other social service records. I have no problem with that. But it did make me stop and think. That’s not a bad way to come up with a jury of my peers – I do, after all, vote, drive, and rely on the social safety net from time to time. But to really come up with a jury of my peers, how about getting records from Netflix?

more

I suppose I’m not supposed to mourn the passing of William F. Buckley Jr. but I can’t help myself. Buckley was was a fierce proponent of a sort of spare, consistent arch-conservativism that one almost longs for in these days of big-government, big-business Republicanism.

Ryan Lizza’s New Yorker article this week, “On the Bus: Can John McCain reinvent Republicanism?” reminds us, as if we need it, that there are many types of Republican - the radical religious right-wingers who flocked to Huckabee; the strangle-government types such as Grover Norquist; the small-government Goldwater/Reagan types; the oddly pragmatic sort that Gingrich has turned into; the moderates in the tradition of Eisenhower and Nelson Rockefeller (it’s Lizza’s contention that McCain falls into this category); and the libertarians, such as Ron Paul (except that Paul is also a bat-shit-crazy conspiracy theorist).

While I’ve never been a connoisseur of conservatism, and so I might get this wrong, Buckley struck me as one who straddled the Goldwater and libertarian camps, reminding them both to be at once pragmatic and pure. And while he sometimes wore the same ideological blinders as, say, Reagan, he was also committed to reason in a way that few hard-core conservatives are. And so it is that the moment I remember best about Buckley was also one of his most rational and therefore also, surely, one of his finest.

I couldn’t have been more than about 16. It was, therefore, about 1972, and my grandmother had that still-rare commodity, a color television. I’m not sure that’s why I was downstairs, in her part of the house, while she was out, or whether it was just to watch some TV without arguing with anyone about what to have on. I don’t know why I would have stopped turning the dial at Firing Line, except that in the days of 9 channels and no remotes it was sometimes even harder to find something worthwhile than it is with today’s 999.

And so I sat on her worn couch, watching her Sony television. Any memory of her place necessarily includes the lingering smells of olive oil, chicken livers, overripe bananas, and Chesterfield nonfiltered cigarettes. If it was winter, then her place was also much warmer than the basement couch I slept on.

Certainly the topic itself was interesting - decriminalizing drugs. I’d certainly done my share already, but one certainly knew what a Buckley would think about them, and who needed to hear that? I guess the thing is, I don’t channel surf as quickly as most people do.

I don’t know who Buckley’s guest was. All I know is that he advocated decriminalizing drugs, and he had plenty of good reasons, and he was kicking Buckley’s ass, because he had none. And there was this moment somewhere down near the bottom of the hour, maybe at the 28 minute mark, when you could see this look on Buckley’s face as if he was hearing the guy for the first time and you could see that 2+2 was starting to equal 4 for him.

Wait, you could hear him think. A small government doesn’t care what adults do in the privacy of their own home. Wait, these people are only hurting themselves, if anyone, and a small government is okay with that. Wait, why should a government care about whether people self-medicate with cocaine instead of caffeine? Actually, that’s more of a 1980s thought. But I do think I remember his guest asking Buckley where he would draw the line: what if the government decided to consider caffeine a narcotic?

Right then and there I saw that rare thing, someone listening to the voice of reason enough to switch sides. On television, with millions (okay, some significant fraction of a million) watching. And a hard-line conservative to boot.

But Buckley wasn’t just any hard-line conservative. He was a thoughtful guy. He could hear, and even heed, the voice of reason. And forever that made him and me more alike than different. Farewell, WFB, Jr. Goodspeed.