Originally published in Brooklyn Daily Eagle, August 8, 2011
BROOKLYN -- No one in their right mind would say that the environment is not one of the major issues of our time.
Major lakes and rivers in parts of this country are highly polluted (although some cleanup efforts, like that on the Gowanus Canal, have made progress). Air pollution contributes to respiratory diseases, many people have serious concerns about the safety of gas drilling in upstate New York, and the supply of fossil fuel is running out. We seriously need to develop renewable energy and to recycle our garbage more effectively.
However, there are some people who focus only on the environment as the big issue of our time. The environment, of course, is only one of several big issues – there’s education, the economy, foreign conflicts, labor conflicts, housing. And those are just a few.
The unfortunate truth is that the “powers that be,” for decades, have promoted environmentalism as a “safe” outlet for youthful idealism, for young people’s desire for social change. And many of these young people, and not-so-young people, are enraptured with environmentalism on the surface, but fail to make connections, to see the environment in context.
They fail to examine why so many American corporations and foreign governments like Russia and China have engaged in massive pollution, and without adequate controls may continue to do so in the future.
At its extreme, this sort of narrow vision has led to widespread acceptance of a situation where the mayor of New York City proposes to build bike lanes on every other street and all sorts of “green” traffic islands, but almost in the same breath threatens to cut the jobs of 6,000 teachers and to close almost 100 senior centers.
Most misled are those people who are under the delusion that they’re changing the world because they’re growing a garden on the roof or buying organic apples rather than “regular” apples. I, given the choice in a grocery or produce store, would probably buy the organic apples, but it’s mainly because, in the long run, this will contribute to my personal health. I have no illusions that I am impacting the wider society in a major way by doing so.
If every single person in the city started to buy organic apples and broccoli tomorrow, the stock market would still be in serious trouble, the good credit rating of the United States would still be in doubt, unemployment would still be high, and wars would still be going on in at least a dozen countries in the world. That’s something to think about.
Tuesday, August 9, 2011
Monday, July 4, 2011
Food for Thought
In the spring of 1982, life as a reporter at the Tri-State Food Retailer, a small, independent trade magazine, had grown progressively weirder for Rob.
Not that the Tri-State Food Retailer wasn’t weird to begin with. It was run like a prison camp; people were discouraged from talking to each other unless their conversation was related to the job. The Zuckermans, father and son, who owned the company ran around the place scowling and peeking over the employees’ shoulders; and only white shirts were allowed. There were no birthday parties, no Christmas parties. You didn’t get any medical benefits until you were there for a year, and every few weeks, someone else was fired. When Rob got the job, he’d hoped to move out of his parents’ house and get his own place again, but on the pitiful salary he received here, it was impossible.
Rob’s misanthropic father usually assumed Rob was to blame for anything that happened to him, but this case was so extreme that Dad was forced to concede that the fault lay elsewhere. "Whoever heard of a job like that!" he screamed. "Why don’t you quit? I’ll support you until you find another one!"
It looked like his father might not have to worry. Bobby, one of the advertising salespeople, confided, "I think you’re a good kid. I’d keep you around all the time. But I’m not really sure what the Zuckermans think ...."
"But Paul just moved me from here," said Rob, indicating the seat near the door, "to there," the seat nearest the editor, Paul Walsh, thought to a sign of moving up within the tiny organization.
"Well," Bobby said, "in the past six months, I’ve seen five people move from here to there, and most of them were fired anyway!"
The following day, Walsh, a tall, bearded man with a lisp whose major claim to fame was having worked for the National Enquirer a few years ago, closed the door.
"Rob," he said, "I have bad news for you."
Maybe it’s not so bad, Rob thought. Maybe it’s merely that he promoted Marlene, the other reporter, to assistant editor over me. But the next minute, he heard Paul say, "I’m firing you."
Rob asked why. Paul replied that Rob had bought two cameras, one a backup, to a supermarket opening in the Bronx because he was uncomfortable with the new camera, showing that he was unsure of himself; that he had let errors slip by in the proofreading process (although Rob had never claimed to be a proofreader); that Rob had misplaced papers on his desk, although he subsequently found them; and above all, Rob had mentioned, in conversation, the Supermarkets Association, which the Zuckermans hated so much that they didn’t want to hear the name mentioned.
"In a way, it’s too bad, because you’re a good writer!" John continued. "But you have a problem – disorganization! And in this organization, you either have to move up or move out! I’ll recommend you for a job, but it has to be as a writer, not an editor. You’re better off in a large organization, like Fairchild Publications, where they can give you assignments and tell you, `Do this,’ `Do that’.."
"But why didn’t you tell me before?"
"Rob, you’re an adult! You’re twenty-nine years old! What should I tell you? `Get organized’?"
At that point, Rob walked into the other room and into the office of Ray, the younger Zuckerman. With nothing to lose, he told him all his dissatisfaction with the magazine: the lack of friendliness, the mandatory white shirts, the fact that the bosses looked over people’s shoulders, the lack of benefits.
"Well," Ray replied, "I’m sorry, but I trust John’s judgment in these matters. As far as the other things you said are concerned, we are what we are!"
As Rob was walking out, he ran into Ellie, the jovial, middle-aged secretary, by the elevator. When he told her what happened, Ellie replied, "Don’t worry about it. They do that to everybody. What’s the problem—that you made mistakes? Paul’s made plenty of mistakes! He’s gotten people’s names wrong, the whole bit! He once left two hundred-dollar ads at home and forgot to take them to the printing plant, and that cost the company more than a thousand dollars!"
Disappointed but relieved, Rob walked out the building and into the crowded streets of Midtown Manhattan, with their overpriced restaurants, their soul-less, glass-and-steel office buildings, their tourist-trap camera stores. He saw the overstuffed executives in their $500 suits, the vapid secretaries with their dreams of soap operas and romance novels, the overworked delivery men with their hand trucks, all hurrying, rushing somewhere. The only places of any interest to Rob for miles around were Grand Central Station, the Chrysler Building and the 42nd Street Library – he certainly wouldn’t miss working here!
Walking uptown, Rob pondered his future. Thank God he’d be able to get unemployment insurance. If worse came to worse, and he wasn’t able to get another journalism job within six months or so, he could go back to his old management job at the city Housing Authority. Unlike Paul Walsh, Mr. Katz at Housing thought that Rob had done a wonderful job, and promised to bend the regulations so that Rob could return if he ever wanted. Rob, a journalism graduate, had left the Housing Authority for a one-year job on a weekly paper in Ohio to gain newspaper experience, but he was grateful that he still had friends at Housing. He only wished that when he’d left the Authority and temporarily moved out west, he’d had enough time to sublet his old studio apartment, his lost Arcadia. Now he was stuck with his parents again. But it could be worse–what if he’d found a new apartment, only to not be able to pay for it when the Food Retailer fired him?
Walking his usual route, toward the Co-Op City express bus that would take him home to his parents’ house, Rob suddenly felt in the mood for a diversion, for relaxation. He was in no hurry, especially now, with his newfound freedom. He’d take the subway up to Allerton Avenue, the Bronx neighborhood where a particular crowd he’d met in high school used to live, and walk around a little for the sake of nostalgia. Then he’d take another bus back home.
Allerton Avenue was the same as it had been back in the days when Dave, Jeff, Vinnie, Mary and the whole gang had ruled the roost at the pizzeria or the aptly-nicknamed "sleazy bar," although none of those people had lived there for at least five years. There was the Italian bakery, there was the Jewish deli, there was the Woolworth’s. Up the block, the tiny movie theater was still there, hanging on despite the steady march of multiplexes that seemed to be opening everywhere.
Rob went into Joe’s old-fashioned candy store, spun around on the stool, then ordered an egg cream. Next to him was a young Hispanic guy reading a copy of the Daily News. Rob reached a copy of Newsday and perused the magazines and newspapers on the rack.
"Crain’s Chicago Business?" he asked, amused.
"It’s funny, but there’s two guys who buy it every week, like clockwork!" Joe said, pouring the milk and syrup into the seltzer.
Soon, a casually-dressed black guy in his thirties came in and started to talk to no one in particular. "Man, I’m glad I got a day off from work today," he said. "I can spend all my day with my writing! Sometimes I just write for hours!"
The Hispanic guy turned around and faced him. "What sort of writing do you do?"
The black guy’s face lit up. "I do songwriting, man! I write songs!"
"Really! I write songs, too! I’ve written about 100 songs, I’ve given them to at least 20 artists, I even gave one to Luther Vandross’ company, but no luck yet! What’s your name?"
"Mine’s Norman."
"Mine’s Manuel. Maybe we can do some business, man. Here, here’s my phone number."
Watching these two guys, Rob reflected that the real life wasn’t in Midtown Manhattan, it was in neighborhoods like this one, all over New York City. This is where the sense of community was, not back there, where the people totally forgot about their co-workers aside once they left their offices. This is where the real people were, people who meant what they said, not people who were planning to fire you for weeks but didn’t tell you until the last minute.
Satisfied, Rob paid for his egg cream, left the store, then waited for the bus to take him home.
Not that the Tri-State Food Retailer wasn’t weird to begin with. It was run like a prison camp; people were discouraged from talking to each other unless their conversation was related to the job. The Zuckermans, father and son, who owned the company ran around the place scowling and peeking over the employees’ shoulders; and only white shirts were allowed. There were no birthday parties, no Christmas parties. You didn’t get any medical benefits until you were there for a year, and every few weeks, someone else was fired. When Rob got the job, he’d hoped to move out of his parents’ house and get his own place again, but on the pitiful salary he received here, it was impossible.
Rob’s misanthropic father usually assumed Rob was to blame for anything that happened to him, but this case was so extreme that Dad was forced to concede that the fault lay elsewhere. "Whoever heard of a job like that!" he screamed. "Why don’t you quit? I’ll support you until you find another one!"
It looked like his father might not have to worry. Bobby, one of the advertising salespeople, confided, "I think you’re a good kid. I’d keep you around all the time. But I’m not really sure what the Zuckermans think ...."
"But Paul just moved me from here," said Rob, indicating the seat near the door, "to there," the seat nearest the editor, Paul Walsh, thought to a sign of moving up within the tiny organization.
"Well," Bobby said, "in the past six months, I’ve seen five people move from here to there, and most of them were fired anyway!"
The following day, Walsh, a tall, bearded man with a lisp whose major claim to fame was having worked for the National Enquirer a few years ago, closed the door.
"Rob," he said, "I have bad news for you."
Maybe it’s not so bad, Rob thought. Maybe it’s merely that he promoted Marlene, the other reporter, to assistant editor over me. But the next minute, he heard Paul say, "I’m firing you."
Rob asked why. Paul replied that Rob had bought two cameras, one a backup, to a supermarket opening in the Bronx because he was uncomfortable with the new camera, showing that he was unsure of himself; that he had let errors slip by in the proofreading process (although Rob had never claimed to be a proofreader); that Rob had misplaced papers on his desk, although he subsequently found them; and above all, Rob had mentioned, in conversation, the Supermarkets Association, which the Zuckermans hated so much that they didn’t want to hear the name mentioned.
"In a way, it’s too bad, because you’re a good writer!" John continued. "But you have a problem – disorganization! And in this organization, you either have to move up or move out! I’ll recommend you for a job, but it has to be as a writer, not an editor. You’re better off in a large organization, like Fairchild Publications, where they can give you assignments and tell you, `Do this,’ `Do that’.."
"But why didn’t you tell me before?"
"Rob, you’re an adult! You’re twenty-nine years old! What should I tell you? `Get organized’?"
At that point, Rob walked into the other room and into the office of Ray, the younger Zuckerman. With nothing to lose, he told him all his dissatisfaction with the magazine: the lack of friendliness, the mandatory white shirts, the fact that the bosses looked over people’s shoulders, the lack of benefits.
"Well," Ray replied, "I’m sorry, but I trust John’s judgment in these matters. As far as the other things you said are concerned, we are what we are!"
As Rob was walking out, he ran into Ellie, the jovial, middle-aged secretary, by the elevator. When he told her what happened, Ellie replied, "Don’t worry about it. They do that to everybody. What’s the problem—that you made mistakes? Paul’s made plenty of mistakes! He’s gotten people’s names wrong, the whole bit! He once left two hundred-dollar ads at home and forgot to take them to the printing plant, and that cost the company more than a thousand dollars!"
Disappointed but relieved, Rob walked out the building and into the crowded streets of Midtown Manhattan, with their overpriced restaurants, their soul-less, glass-and-steel office buildings, their tourist-trap camera stores. He saw the overstuffed executives in their $500 suits, the vapid secretaries with their dreams of soap operas and romance novels, the overworked delivery men with their hand trucks, all hurrying, rushing somewhere. The only places of any interest to Rob for miles around were Grand Central Station, the Chrysler Building and the 42nd Street Library – he certainly wouldn’t miss working here!
Walking uptown, Rob pondered his future. Thank God he’d be able to get unemployment insurance. If worse came to worse, and he wasn’t able to get another journalism job within six months or so, he could go back to his old management job at the city Housing Authority. Unlike Paul Walsh, Mr. Katz at Housing thought that Rob had done a wonderful job, and promised to bend the regulations so that Rob could return if he ever wanted. Rob, a journalism graduate, had left the Housing Authority for a one-year job on a weekly paper in Ohio to gain newspaper experience, but he was grateful that he still had friends at Housing. He only wished that when he’d left the Authority and temporarily moved out west, he’d had enough time to sublet his old studio apartment, his lost Arcadia. Now he was stuck with his parents again. But it could be worse–what if he’d found a new apartment, only to not be able to pay for it when the Food Retailer fired him?
Walking his usual route, toward the Co-Op City express bus that would take him home to his parents’ house, Rob suddenly felt in the mood for a diversion, for relaxation. He was in no hurry, especially now, with his newfound freedom. He’d take the subway up to Allerton Avenue, the Bronx neighborhood where a particular crowd he’d met in high school used to live, and walk around a little for the sake of nostalgia. Then he’d take another bus back home.
Allerton Avenue was the same as it had been back in the days when Dave, Jeff, Vinnie, Mary and the whole gang had ruled the roost at the pizzeria or the aptly-nicknamed "sleazy bar," although none of those people had lived there for at least five years. There was the Italian bakery, there was the Jewish deli, there was the Woolworth’s. Up the block, the tiny movie theater was still there, hanging on despite the steady march of multiplexes that seemed to be opening everywhere.
Rob went into Joe’s old-fashioned candy store, spun around on the stool, then ordered an egg cream. Next to him was a young Hispanic guy reading a copy of the Daily News. Rob reached a copy of Newsday and perused the magazines and newspapers on the rack.
"Crain’s Chicago Business?" he asked, amused.
"It’s funny, but there’s two guys who buy it every week, like clockwork!" Joe said, pouring the milk and syrup into the seltzer.
Soon, a casually-dressed black guy in his thirties came in and started to talk to no one in particular. "Man, I’m glad I got a day off from work today," he said. "I can spend all my day with my writing! Sometimes I just write for hours!"
The Hispanic guy turned around and faced him. "What sort of writing do you do?"
The black guy’s face lit up. "I do songwriting, man! I write songs!"
"Really! I write songs, too! I’ve written about 100 songs, I’ve given them to at least 20 artists, I even gave one to Luther Vandross’ company, but no luck yet! What’s your name?"
"Mine’s Norman."
"Mine’s Manuel. Maybe we can do some business, man. Here, here’s my phone number."
Watching these two guys, Rob reflected that the real life wasn’t in Midtown Manhattan, it was in neighborhoods like this one, all over New York City. This is where the sense of community was, not back there, where the people totally forgot about their co-workers aside once they left their offices. This is where the real people were, people who meant what they said, not people who were planning to fire you for weeks but didn’t tell you until the last minute.
Satisfied, Rob paid for his egg cream, left the store, then waited for the bus to take him home.
Thursday, March 31, 2011
Unrest in Arab World Could Lead to Mideast Peace
By Raanan Geberer
Originally Published in Brooklyn Daily Eagle
BROOKLYN — By now, everybody knows about the revolutions sweeping the Arab world, not only in Egypt, Libya, Tunisia and Syria, but in nations that most people weren’t even aware of, like Bahrain.
Everyone also knows that the Arab-Israeli conflict is one of the most burning issues in the Middle East. If it’s not the Number One problem — that “honor” probably belongs to the tension between Iran and the Arab world — it’s certainly in the top three.
Some people in the West, mainly hard-core conservatives, fear this revolutionary development and are certain that takeover by the Muslim Brotherhood is right around the corner. Maybe it is in, but maybe more democracy is around the corner instead. We’ll have to wait and see.
If the Arab regimes are transformed, at least partially, into genuine democracies, this could definitely help efforts to find a solution to the Arab-Israeli conflict.
For years, Arab regimes and their controlled media have been emphasizing hatred of Israel 24 hours a day. Viewers of state TV stations are exposed to hysterical tirades about Israel and the Palestinians that often crosses the line into anti-Semitism. Israel is characterized as being propped only by the United States, and as an entity that is certain to fall on the “day of revenge.” The Arab leaders do this in order to take their people’s minds off the real problems in their countries. And more than 60 years after the establishment of Israel, Palestinian refugees, depending on the particular country, often are given very little or no rights from their “brother Arabs” and still are forced to live in squalid “refugee camps.”
I’m not saying that Israel is blameless. Certainly, Israel frequently violates international law and flouts U.N. resolutions by permitting settlement activity in the West Bank, by imprisoning Palestinian suspects for months without charging them, and by its continued blockade of Gaza. Israeli soldiers harass Palestinians at checkpoints on a regular basis. Even within Israel, Arab villages offer much fewer essential services than Israeli towns.
Even so, if democracy in the Arab world comes to pass, a free discussion of the issues can only help the situation. Arab leaders may come forward with their own peace initiatives rather than cynically calculating that they have more to win from peace than from a no-war, no-peace situation.
And even if Israeli leaders typically respond with their own hard-line tactics, the Israeli public may finally start questioning certain outdated assumptions that are at the heart of Israeli culture (“The Arabs respect only strength,” The non-Jewish world hates us no matter what we do”) and become more open toward peace.
For those who are sincerely interested in Arab-Israeli peace, Arab democracy can only be seen as a step forward.
Originally Published in Brooklyn Daily Eagle
BROOKLYN — By now, everybody knows about the revolutions sweeping the Arab world, not only in Egypt, Libya, Tunisia and Syria, but in nations that most people weren’t even aware of, like Bahrain.
Everyone also knows that the Arab-Israeli conflict is one of the most burning issues in the Middle East. If it’s not the Number One problem — that “honor” probably belongs to the tension between Iran and the Arab world — it’s certainly in the top three.
Some people in the West, mainly hard-core conservatives, fear this revolutionary development and are certain that takeover by the Muslim Brotherhood is right around the corner. Maybe it is in, but maybe more democracy is around the corner instead. We’ll have to wait and see.
If the Arab regimes are transformed, at least partially, into genuine democracies, this could definitely help efforts to find a solution to the Arab-Israeli conflict.
For years, Arab regimes and their controlled media have been emphasizing hatred of Israel 24 hours a day. Viewers of state TV stations are exposed to hysterical tirades about Israel and the Palestinians that often crosses the line into anti-Semitism. Israel is characterized as being propped only by the United States, and as an entity that is certain to fall on the “day of revenge.” The Arab leaders do this in order to take their people’s minds off the real problems in their countries. And more than 60 years after the establishment of Israel, Palestinian refugees, depending on the particular country, often are given very little or no rights from their “brother Arabs” and still are forced to live in squalid “refugee camps.”
I’m not saying that Israel is blameless. Certainly, Israel frequently violates international law and flouts U.N. resolutions by permitting settlement activity in the West Bank, by imprisoning Palestinian suspects for months without charging them, and by its continued blockade of Gaza. Israeli soldiers harass Palestinians at checkpoints on a regular basis. Even within Israel, Arab villages offer much fewer essential services than Israeli towns.
Even so, if democracy in the Arab world comes to pass, a free discussion of the issues can only help the situation. Arab leaders may come forward with their own peace initiatives rather than cynically calculating that they have more to win from peace than from a no-war, no-peace situation.
And even if Israeli leaders typically respond with their own hard-line tactics, the Israeli public may finally start questioning certain outdated assumptions that are at the heart of Israeli culture (“The Arabs respect only strength,” The non-Jewish world hates us no matter what we do”) and become more open toward peace.
For those who are sincerely interested in Arab-Israeli peace, Arab democracy can only be seen as a step forward.
Thursday, March 3, 2011
Does Obama Have a Double Standard
By Raanan Geberer
Originally published in Brooklyn Daily Eagle
Recently, when the people of Egypt, Bahrain, Tunisia and finally Libya simultaneously revolted against dictatorial rules, no one was more vociferous in his praise of these popular revolutions than President Obama.
After a brief silence of a few days when a successful revolt against Egyptian President Hosni Mubarak broke out, Obama made statements that there is no doubt that the people demand change, and that we were at a historic moment. He later hailed Mubarak’s decision to resign.
In the case of Libya, perhaps because Libya was never an ally of the United States, Obama was even more forthright. He first made statements demanding that dictator Moamar Khadafi stop the violence against his own people, and soon demanded that Khadafi step down in favor of rumors yet to be determined.
But if you look much closer to home, you’ll see a situation where Obama has suddenly become timid. Starting in Wisconsin and then spreading to Ohio and Indiana, public employees, including teachers, firefighters and others, and their supporters in state legislators are leading huge protests and sit-ins against right-wing Republican governors’ efforts to take away collective bargaining rights from public-employee unions.
Many observers believe that this is just the first salvo in an effort to de-legitimize public-sector unions in general, and possibly, eventually to destroy the union movement in the private sector, or what remains of it, as well.
Since the 1930s, the union movement has been one of the greatest supporters of the Democratic Party. But what does Obama say about the situation in Wisconsin? Almost nothing! The most he’s said is that he’s "troubled” by the fact that the governor of Wisconsin is “making it hard for unions to collectively bargain.” That’s the equivalent of scolding someone for jaywalking across the street.
Contrast this statement with the strong statements on issues of all sorts made by Presidents Roosevelt, Truman and Johnson, and we see why the Democratic Party is so ineffectual nowadays.
In the face of a Republican opposition that holds in contempt not only Franklin Roosevelt’s New Deal but even many of the Progressive-era reforms of Theodore Roosevelt, the Democratic Party needs stronger leadership, one that doesn’t hesitate to defend its power base.
It’s time to run a primary candidate against Obama, even if that candidate can’t win, just to wake Obama up. We don’t need another Jimmy Carter—we need another William Jennings Bryan.
Originally published in Brooklyn Daily Eagle
Recently, when the people of Egypt, Bahrain, Tunisia and finally Libya simultaneously revolted against dictatorial rules, no one was more vociferous in his praise of these popular revolutions than President Obama.
After a brief silence of a few days when a successful revolt against Egyptian President Hosni Mubarak broke out, Obama made statements that there is no doubt that the people demand change, and that we were at a historic moment. He later hailed Mubarak’s decision to resign.
In the case of Libya, perhaps because Libya was never an ally of the United States, Obama was even more forthright. He first made statements demanding that dictator Moamar Khadafi stop the violence against his own people, and soon demanded that Khadafi step down in favor of rumors yet to be determined.
But if you look much closer to home, you’ll see a situation where Obama has suddenly become timid. Starting in Wisconsin and then spreading to Ohio and Indiana, public employees, including teachers, firefighters and others, and their supporters in state legislators are leading huge protests and sit-ins against right-wing Republican governors’ efforts to take away collective bargaining rights from public-employee unions.
Many observers believe that this is just the first salvo in an effort to de-legitimize public-sector unions in general, and possibly, eventually to destroy the union movement in the private sector, or what remains of it, as well.
Since the 1930s, the union movement has been one of the greatest supporters of the Democratic Party. But what does Obama say about the situation in Wisconsin? Almost nothing! The most he’s said is that he’s "troubled” by the fact that the governor of Wisconsin is “making it hard for unions to collectively bargain.” That’s the equivalent of scolding someone for jaywalking across the street.
Contrast this statement with the strong statements on issues of all sorts made by Presidents Roosevelt, Truman and Johnson, and we see why the Democratic Party is so ineffectual nowadays.
In the face of a Republican opposition that holds in contempt not only Franklin Roosevelt’s New Deal but even many of the Progressive-era reforms of Theodore Roosevelt, the Democratic Party needs stronger leadership, one that doesn’t hesitate to defend its power base.
It’s time to run a primary candidate against Obama, even if that candidate can’t win, just to wake Obama up. We don’t need another Jimmy Carter—we need another William Jennings Bryan.
Saturday, February 12, 2011
Academic Freedom for High School Teachers
Originally published in Brooklyn Daily Eagle
From time to time, a controversy erupts at some major university as the school attempts to discipline something a professor said, whereupon the professor comes back that he’s being denied his “academic freedom.”
The latest example of this took place at Brooklyn College, where a graduate student who was teaching a political science course as an adjunct was removed from teaching because he allegedly didn’t have the proper qualifications. The adjunct came back and charged that he was being removed because of his pro-Palestinian political views, and said his academic freedom was being violated.
Regardless of how someone might feel about particular controversies, the overall concept of academic freedom for college professors is accepted.
But if academic freedom is OK for professors, why not for high school teachers?
I can almost hear the objects to this now: “High school students are still minors!” Technically, they are. But consider this: the age of the average high school student is, say, 16. The age of the average college student (other than adults who are returning to school after many years) is about 20.
Is there that much difference between a person of 16 and one who is 20 years old, particularly in today’s technological climate, where so much information is available to people at an early age?
Think back. When you were 16 or 17 years old, did you think of yourself as a child? You can be sure that the majority, if not all, of today’s 16- and 17-year-olds don’t, either. The law and the school system should recognize that fact.
Another objection that is sure to be heard is that by state law, high school classes have to reflect a certain syllabus. Obviously, students must know the difference between George Washington and Abraham Lincoln, between an isosceles and a right triangle, between William Shakespeare and Charles Dickens. But why not make the curriculum a little looser, leaving more room for the teachers to express their creativity and impart some of their own special knowledge?
Thinking back to my high school years in the late ’60s and early ’70s, much of what some of my favorite teachers did — express their political opinions, tell humorous anecdotes about their own lives, make occasional risque jokes — would be considered a problem today. Everyone in the school knew who the liberal teachers were, who the conservative teachers were. No one minded. Kids liked teachers who were charismatic and entertaining, whether they agreed with their opinions or not. And these were the very teachers who inspired kids to study and get high grades. Let’s bring those days back again.
From time to time, a controversy erupts at some major university as the school attempts to discipline something a professor said, whereupon the professor comes back that he’s being denied his “academic freedom.”
The latest example of this took place at Brooklyn College, where a graduate student who was teaching a political science course as an adjunct was removed from teaching because he allegedly didn’t have the proper qualifications. The adjunct came back and charged that he was being removed because of his pro-Palestinian political views, and said his academic freedom was being violated.
Regardless of how someone might feel about particular controversies, the overall concept of academic freedom for college professors is accepted.
But if academic freedom is OK for professors, why not for high school teachers?
I can almost hear the objects to this now: “High school students are still minors!” Technically, they are. But consider this: the age of the average high school student is, say, 16. The age of the average college student (other than adults who are returning to school after many years) is about 20.
Is there that much difference between a person of 16 and one who is 20 years old, particularly in today’s technological climate, where so much information is available to people at an early age?
Think back. When you were 16 or 17 years old, did you think of yourself as a child? You can be sure that the majority, if not all, of today’s 16- and 17-year-olds don’t, either. The law and the school system should recognize that fact.
Another objection that is sure to be heard is that by state law, high school classes have to reflect a certain syllabus. Obviously, students must know the difference between George Washington and Abraham Lincoln, between an isosceles and a right triangle, between William Shakespeare and Charles Dickens. But why not make the curriculum a little looser, leaving more room for the teachers to express their creativity and impart some of their own special knowledge?
Thinking back to my high school years in the late ’60s and early ’70s, much of what some of my favorite teachers did — express their political opinions, tell humorous anecdotes about their own lives, make occasional risque jokes — would be considered a problem today. Everyone in the school knew who the liberal teachers were, who the conservative teachers were. No one minded. Kids liked teachers who were charismatic and entertaining, whether they agreed with their opinions or not. And these were the very teachers who inspired kids to study and get high grades. Let’s bring those days back again.
Wednesday, February 2, 2011
Let Teachers Have a Say in Hiring Their Principals
Originally Published in Brooklyn Daily Eagle, feb. 2011
Every once in awhile, there are reports of principals ruining schools by harassing teachers, trying to fire them on flimsy grounds, looting the budget for their own personal reasons, etc. The teachers, and often the parents, complain about the principals, yet can do nothing.
This calls into question the way we hire principals. As I understand, principal candidates must be certified, then appear before school districts, who then make the choice.
But if the teachers will be the ones who deal with principals on a day-to-day basis, why should they have no voice in the hiring process?
In today’s America, people talk constantly about democracy, but democracy really functions only in a very narrow sphere. In the workplace, whether public or private, things operate in a top-down manner no different than those found in any foreign dictatorship.
Instead of having a few administrators select the principals, why not have the Department of Education, which certifies supervisors, provide a list of qualified candidates to the schools themselves? Then, a committee of teachers would interview the principal candidates and make their selection on real criteria — what it would be like to deal with that principal on a day-to-day basis.
While the teachers’ opinions wouldn’t be the only ones counted, they still would be an important part in the selection process.
Then the students would get a real lesson in democracy, not just from the pages of a book.
Every once in awhile, there are reports of principals ruining schools by harassing teachers, trying to fire them on flimsy grounds, looting the budget for their own personal reasons, etc. The teachers, and often the parents, complain about the principals, yet can do nothing.
This calls into question the way we hire principals. As I understand, principal candidates must be certified, then appear before school districts, who then make the choice.
But if the teachers will be the ones who deal with principals on a day-to-day basis, why should they have no voice in the hiring process?
In today’s America, people talk constantly about democracy, but democracy really functions only in a very narrow sphere. In the workplace, whether public or private, things operate in a top-down manner no different than those found in any foreign dictatorship.
Instead of having a few administrators select the principals, why not have the Department of Education, which certifies supervisors, provide a list of qualified candidates to the schools themselves? Then, a committee of teachers would interview the principal candidates and make their selection on real criteria — what it would be like to deal with that principal on a day-to-day basis.
While the teachers’ opinions wouldn’t be the only ones counted, they still would be an important part in the selection process.
Then the students would get a real lesson in democracy, not just from the pages of a book.
Tuesday, December 14, 2010
Death of a Magazine
By Raanan Geberer
(originally published in "Mr. Beller's Neighborhood"
For seven years, I worked at Energy Saver’s News, a trade magazine that reported on commercial and industrial energy conservation. Six of those years were at the old Fairchild Publications building on East 12th Street near Fifth Avenue. It was a great neighborhood to work in: We were near both Stromboli Pizza and Ray’s Pizza, Cinema Village, the Jefferson Market Library and the Cedar Tavern. If I was willing to take off a little extra time from lunch, I could even walk to the East Village, to St. Marks Place.
We also had a pretty colorful crew of creative people at work, almost all of us in our early or mid-thirties. So many of us had played in rock bands that we once, just for the hell of it, had a rock band of our own. One of our statisticians had dropped out of Yale Medical School. At the other end of the spectrum, two of our reporters had previously been a truck driver and a security guard, respectively. One guy, who didn’t work too hard but was always cracking everybody up, later became a well-known TV comedy writer. The magazine’s founding editor, who left a few months after I came, was just beginning to write a series of best-selling novels about his Vietnam War experiences.
The work was pretty dull – “such and such hospital in Tempe, Arizona saved $30,000 a year by installing new Trane chillers” – but we felt good about the fact that we were encouraging people to save energy and help the environment. And during lulls in the work, we had a great time playing word games in the office.
Because there were so many different magazines in the same building with their own staff (including many attractive women), you felt like you were part of the same family – well, sometimes. I remember one of the few times we tried to cooperate with one of the other Fairchild magazines. Our editor, Robbie, went upstairs to the Supermarket Times editor, told her that we had a great story about energy conservation in supermarkets, and asked if she would like to print it, too. She just looked at him and said, “Well, we only print stories about supermarkets!”
The magazine had been founded in the 1970s at the height of the energy crisis, but by the time I came, the energy crisis was over. The first sign of trouble came about four years after I started working there. We always had several reporters in “bureaus” – one person in Washington, D.C.; one in Houston, one in San Francisco, one in Pittsburgh and one in Chicago. One day, after rumors about less and less advertising, the head of our publishing group, whom we rarely saw, gave us an ultimatum: Cut the staff in half! The bureau reporters, except for the one in Washington who followed government legislation, had to go. “I told them not to do any work for these last two weeks,” our editor, Robbie, confided in me.
About a year later, the group publisher retired. Fairchild, which was busy cultivating a high-fashion image with Women’s Wear Daily, W, and Home Furnishings, didn’t know what to do with us and the other technical magazines. So they arranged that we would get transferred to another publishing group within the Capital Cities-ABC group, Milltown Publishing, located in Newton, Mass. Milltown was best known for its automotive publications, and our new publisher, Harry Cuddy, was a hard-drinking, tough-talking, rugby-playing guy whose main claim to fame was having once been a successful used car dealer. They also took us out of the Fairchild Building and gave us a cramped space in an anonymous, soul-less building in the Midtown business district.
The first sign of change came over a minor matter – Harry, who traveled back and forth from New York to Newton, decided that all our folios at the top of the pages would have to be the same color, rather than red for heating and air conditioning, yellow for lighting, blue for oil and gas pricing, and so forth. Then he started having arguments with Bob DiGerolimo, our longtime ad manager, and we heard Harry calling Bob a “fucking moron.” Soon, Harry was out of there. But the most alarming trend was that whenever one of the editorial staff left, he was replaced by a new employee – but in Newton. Harry even talked about “getting a new core group together in Newton.” Larry, our equally tough-talking technology editor, confided in me, “You know, this newspaper does a lot to help the environment, but Milltown couldn’t give a rat’s ass!”
Then, one day, I heard Robbie yelling from Harry’s office, “Do you mean you’re firing me?” Harry brought the Washington, D.C. staffer to Newton to make her the editor. Larry went back to the Midwest, and I was alone in the New York office. It was just a matter of time before they laid me off and shut down the office completely. When Harry came into my room with a personnel official, I knew why. Harry was polite, for a change, and explained that this had nothing to do with my work, which he actually thought was good. Because I had been at Energy Saver’s News for so long, Milltown gave me 18 months severance pay, which was nice. Maybe they should have given me the opportunity to work in Newton, but the whole thing happened so fast, I couldn’t think that quickly. I called Robbie. “Kick Harry for me!” he said.
Milltown had the magazine for two or three years, then sold it to another publishing group, which changed its name and moved it to another part of the country. That magazine was sold twice more after that, moved offices at least one more time, and changed its named yet again.
I looked at it recently on the Web – there’s no trace of the old Energy Saver’s News. Even the type of news they cover is different. If I called them and told them about all the fun we had in Greenwich Village, they would probably be at a loss for words.
(originally published in "Mr. Beller's Neighborhood"
For seven years, I worked at Energy Saver’s News, a trade magazine that reported on commercial and industrial energy conservation. Six of those years were at the old Fairchild Publications building on East 12th Street near Fifth Avenue. It was a great neighborhood to work in: We were near both Stromboli Pizza and Ray’s Pizza, Cinema Village, the Jefferson Market Library and the Cedar Tavern. If I was willing to take off a little extra time from lunch, I could even walk to the East Village, to St. Marks Place.
We also had a pretty colorful crew of creative people at work, almost all of us in our early or mid-thirties. So many of us had played in rock bands that we once, just for the hell of it, had a rock band of our own. One of our statisticians had dropped out of Yale Medical School. At the other end of the spectrum, two of our reporters had previously been a truck driver and a security guard, respectively. One guy, who didn’t work too hard but was always cracking everybody up, later became a well-known TV comedy writer. The magazine’s founding editor, who left a few months after I came, was just beginning to write a series of best-selling novels about his Vietnam War experiences.
The work was pretty dull – “such and such hospital in Tempe, Arizona saved $30,000 a year by installing new Trane chillers” – but we felt good about the fact that we were encouraging people to save energy and help the environment. And during lulls in the work, we had a great time playing word games in the office.
Because there were so many different magazines in the same building with their own staff (including many attractive women), you felt like you were part of the same family – well, sometimes. I remember one of the few times we tried to cooperate with one of the other Fairchild magazines. Our editor, Robbie, went upstairs to the Supermarket Times editor, told her that we had a great story about energy conservation in supermarkets, and asked if she would like to print it, too. She just looked at him and said, “Well, we only print stories about supermarkets!”
The magazine had been founded in the 1970s at the height of the energy crisis, but by the time I came, the energy crisis was over. The first sign of trouble came about four years after I started working there. We always had several reporters in “bureaus” – one person in Washington, D.C.; one in Houston, one in San Francisco, one in Pittsburgh and one in Chicago. One day, after rumors about less and less advertising, the head of our publishing group, whom we rarely saw, gave us an ultimatum: Cut the staff in half! The bureau reporters, except for the one in Washington who followed government legislation, had to go. “I told them not to do any work for these last two weeks,” our editor, Robbie, confided in me.
About a year later, the group publisher retired. Fairchild, which was busy cultivating a high-fashion image with Women’s Wear Daily, W, and Home Furnishings, didn’t know what to do with us and the other technical magazines. So they arranged that we would get transferred to another publishing group within the Capital Cities-ABC group, Milltown Publishing, located in Newton, Mass. Milltown was best known for its automotive publications, and our new publisher, Harry Cuddy, was a hard-drinking, tough-talking, rugby-playing guy whose main claim to fame was having once been a successful used car dealer. They also took us out of the Fairchild Building and gave us a cramped space in an anonymous, soul-less building in the Midtown business district.
The first sign of change came over a minor matter – Harry, who traveled back and forth from New York to Newton, decided that all our folios at the top of the pages would have to be the same color, rather than red for heating and air conditioning, yellow for lighting, blue for oil and gas pricing, and so forth. Then he started having arguments with Bob DiGerolimo, our longtime ad manager, and we heard Harry calling Bob a “fucking moron.” Soon, Harry was out of there. But the most alarming trend was that whenever one of the editorial staff left, he was replaced by a new employee – but in Newton. Harry even talked about “getting a new core group together in Newton.” Larry, our equally tough-talking technology editor, confided in me, “You know, this newspaper does a lot to help the environment, but Milltown couldn’t give a rat’s ass!”
Then, one day, I heard Robbie yelling from Harry’s office, “Do you mean you’re firing me?” Harry brought the Washington, D.C. staffer to Newton to make her the editor. Larry went back to the Midwest, and I was alone in the New York office. It was just a matter of time before they laid me off and shut down the office completely. When Harry came into my room with a personnel official, I knew why. Harry was polite, for a change, and explained that this had nothing to do with my work, which he actually thought was good. Because I had been at Energy Saver’s News for so long, Milltown gave me 18 months severance pay, which was nice. Maybe they should have given me the opportunity to work in Newton, but the whole thing happened so fast, I couldn’t think that quickly. I called Robbie. “Kick Harry for me!” he said.
Milltown had the magazine for two or three years, then sold it to another publishing group, which changed its name and moved it to another part of the country. That magazine was sold twice more after that, moved offices at least one more time, and changed its named yet again.
I looked at it recently on the Web – there’s no trace of the old Energy Saver’s News. Even the type of news they cover is different. If I called them and told them about all the fun we had in Greenwich Village, they would probably be at a loss for words.
Subscribe to:
Comments (Atom)
