However, for many years, I have found that I have been drawn (dare I say  attracted ) to the cause of gay rights.

Recently, a dear friend asked, “Why?.

Upon reflection, I think the simplest answer is the Golden Rule. I would not want a gay person to deny me a job because I was straight, nor would I want them to ban my marriage. However, I know I feel a stronger pull towards GLBT issues than I do to other minority issues, so I wondered why that is.

I think part of it is that since high school, I have had several friends and co-workers who were openly gay and I liked them. Sure, there were a couple I did not like, but I would guess the ratio of like/dislike was pretty much the same as it is for non-gay friends and co-workers.

However, I grew up in a very white town in a very white state, so I did not have any friends that were of ethnic minorities.  Not that I felt prejudiced, I just did not have any opportunities.

Because of my situation and my belief in treating people fairly and in accordance with the golden rule, I think I have been open to LGBT issues as something I can relate to.

Recently the NoOn1 campaign in Maine suffered a defeat about marriage equality. As someone who generally tends libertarian, I think we should remove the word marriage from any civil contract between two consenting adults and leave marriage to your church, synagogue, Wiccan priestess or whatever.  However, that does not seem to be politically viable, so I think starting with laws like Washington’s recently passed one that gives the ability for “separate but equal” civil setups is a great start. Get enough of those passed and then use the 14th amendment to show that separate but equal does not work in marriage or schools.

That and the 5+ years of equal marriage in Mass that has done nothing but lower the divorce rate!

My daughter is five years old. For me, that’s old — when I dreamed of having children I had a very clear vision of what they might be — I’d have a girl, she’d be a Tomboy, active, interested, rough-and-tumble. We wouldn’t coddle her, so she wouldn’t be needy, we’d take her hiking, so she’d be tough. I had it all figured out. I pushed Colby, my dear, sweet, tender, sensitive girl. Instead of making her tough, we gave her frostbite. Instead of making her sporty, she chooses pink and frilly, and asks incessantly for make-up. I thought she was so smart we’d have her out of diapers before her little sister was born. Instead, she’s just in the last month overcome her Fear of going on the toilet. She tests me, frustrates me, is challenging and so damn different than what I expected — what was “meant to be.”

It made me think about my beautiful D2* and how different she is than I expected, even at age 3. I was not sure what to expect from a child and, as one of three boys growing up, even less sure what to expect from a girl. I had little experience with kids once I was older than 15 or so, my few baby sitting jobs ended as soon as I could work in a restaurant or doing deliveries. I did kind of expect her to follow McWifeski and be into the outdoors and wearing jeans and make up mostly saved for special days (or when stuck in an office job). No no. We have a full on girly girl who has so far managed to only ever watch part of the Little Mermaid and none of the other Disney crap, yet she demands princesses on her pull ups, dresses every day (unless we absolutely insist, usually due to weather), has a pedicure session every week with Mom (at home, not the salon), and loves her ballet lessons. Note – ballet lessons with 8 or 10 three to five year old kids is really funny. They do learn balance and general body awareness, but it is mostly like a band of pink and black and purple penguins on speed. Lots of running, some jumping and some weird waving and balancing.

She does like the beach and the mud and being outside, she is not afraid to get dirty. She just likes to do it in shiny pink shoes and a dress.

So, am I upset by all the pink flying around my house? Nope, not at all.  She likes what she likes and is not afraid to ask for it, I wish all people were so honest.  Besides, she likes putting on her Red Sox hat (even if it is a pink one) and driving around in the Jeep on bumpy roads with her Dad, so I have no complaints.

* A bit of nomenclature. D = dependent. D1 is our 7 year old Bernese Mountain Dog, D2 is the 3 year old and D3 is the 6 month old. I know others have far more imaginative names, but I am a computer geek, and model numbers seem to make sense to me.

Family on a motorcycle

But with the doors and roof removed I get to see and smell and feel driving far more than when I am in another car, even with the windows down.

If it rains, I get wet, if the sun goes down, it gets cold, etc. Sometimes that can be lousy, especially if I am not prepared.

But a nice rain on a hot summer day, it can be pretty fun to be driving around splashing in puddles and smelling the scent of newly fallen rain. Which brings me back to Petrichor.

“Petrichor (pronounced /ˈpɛtrɨkər/; from Greek petros “stone” + ichor “the fluid that is supposed to flow in the veins of the gods in Greek mythology”) is the name of the scent of rain on dry earth.

The term was coined in 1964 by two Australian researchers, Bear and Thomas, for an article in the journal Nature.^[1] In the article, the authors describe how the smell derives from an oil exuded by certain plants during dry periods, whereupon it is adsorbed by clay-based soils and rocks. During rain, the oil is released into the air along with another compound, geosmin, producing the distinctive scent. In a follow-up paper, Bear and Thomas (1965) showed that the oil retards seed germination and early plant growth.^[2]

The scent is generally regarded as pleasant and refreshing, and is one of the most frequently cited “favorite smells”.^{[citation needed]} In desert regions, the smell is especially strong during the first rain after a long dry spell.^{[citation needed]} The oil yielding the scent can be collected from rocks and concentrated to produceperfume; however, it has yet to be synthesized, perhaps due to its complexity. It is composed of more than fifty distinct chemical substances.”

The smell of rain on dry earth. On a hot summer day, that first few minutes when the rain starts falling, the big blobby rain drops smack the ground like some sort of natural Pollock painting. When you can see the dust clouds raised by individual drops, watch leaves shudder and flail under the aqueous assault.

That is when that smell happens, that sweet, fresh smell, that petrichor.

Lately I have been trying to come up with (or coin) a word that would be as useful.

Misinformation is the spreading of wrong information by accident. Maybe you misheard a word and ever since you have told everyone that green means stop. Something where you don’t mean to be incorrect, you just learned it wrong or did not understand what you were told, whatever. It must be unintentional to misinform.

Disinformation on the other hand is the spreading of wrong information on purpose. During World War II, the allies convinced the Germans that a big fleet was landing a hundred miles north of Normandy. There were leaked messages, intercepted phone calls and more, all purposely spread with the wrong data so as to trick the Germans. Recently, Apple has been rumored to have team meetings where the wrong information is given out so as to find out who is leaking new product info. Perhaps the most common example is Fox News. There are literally hundreds of examples, but perhaps the most common is labeling Republicans who have screwed up (thieves, adulterers, etc) as Democrats on the screen. Here is a link with several examples http://mediamatters.org/research/200610130010

In fact Fox recently sued to be able to lie and still call themselves a news organization. Seriously – check out http://tinyurl.com/23ys94 and http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jane_Akre

Fox talking heads are also given talking points by their boss, Roger Ailes, Richard Nixon’s Media Strategist, which were often passed along by Republican politicians and the White House under President Bush.  See http://tinyurl.com/l4v972 and http://mediamatters.org/blog/200902110016 for a couple of samples.

Faux Noise (how I shall refer to them from now on), is a prime example of disinformation. They lie to further their cause, they lie to hurt other people, they lie because they can as far as I can tell.

However, I am a firm believer in the first amendment and I think they should have the right to lie, I just think there should be FCC regulations and punishments for lying, just like the FTC and FDA regulate food and medicine ads, IF they are going to use the word “news” or “journalist” for what they do. If they want to call it Fox Opinion, or RNCtv, or GOPtv, that is fine. But don’t sell it as news.

Getting back to my soon to be minted word, both misinformation and disinformation refer to the spreading of information.  For that to work, the spreader must have a spreadee. I have often heard the phrase “willfully ignorant” as typified by Sgt. Schulz in Hogan’s Heroes catchphrase “I see nossink, I hear nossink!”.  This phrase implies that someone is forcefully NOT paying attention. That is ok, I know people that don’t want to know the truth about evolution or how reiki or feng shui or astrology are crap, because they think it is fun or because it challenges their religious beliefs.  I would much rather know the truth than hold onto a superstition or myth, but that is me.  If someone chooses to ignore something, they are willfully ignorant.  The problem with that phrase is that it does not cover people who claim to pay attention, but only pay attention to sources that have been repeatedly proven wrong.

I have heard the phrase “willfully misinformed” a couple of times, but that has two problems. First, it is cumbersome. If you need to use multiple words to describe something, I think you lessen the impact.  Second, the use of “misinformed” makes it an oxymoron. You can’t willfully do something accidental. Misinformed means not deliberate, so you can’t deliberately do something undeliberate.  I felt it was time to coin a word that meant paying attention to and believing in lies, even when you know they are lies.

For example, when discussing evolution, you might hear names like Ray Comfort, Kirk Cameron (yes the 80’s tv guy), or Micheal Behe. They all have videos and/or books purporting to show why evolution is false. All of them have been debunked over and over by scientists.  Read Why Evolution Is True by Jerry A. Coyne if you like books or check out http://www.talkorigins.org/ for very clear explanations of evolution. Even when shown the proof, some people choose to believe in something they know to be false and often will read or pay attention in greater earnestness to these liars.

The same is true of people who claim that the attacks of September 11th are some grand conspiracy. Dozens of independent sources have shown that the way the buildings fell was perfectly normal based on their architecture, that the terrorists were mostly Saudi Arabian, that Iraq had nothing to do with the attacks, that 4000 Jews did not get forewarned to avoid work that day, etc, etc. No matter what evidence they are given, they won’t believe the truth because “they trust their gut”.

Remember the boy who cried wolf? In the original story, the boy got eaten by the wolves, because the towns people learned to ignore the liar, so that even when he finally told the truth about the wolf, he was ignored. Sad for the boy, but the moral of the story is twofold: First, don’t lie. Second, ignore liars. Somehow people have forgotten that part of the story.

So, what to call people that watch Faux Noise, read arcane web sites about 9/11 or deny evolution (while happily typing away on computers and a network using the same scientific method that explains evolution, the age of the universe, etc.)?

One of my favorite words besides petrichor is cognition. The latin is cognosco and it means to know.  It has evolved into recognize, prognosis, cognoscenti, incognito, agnostic, and is the origin of one of my all time favorite phrases:

Cogito Ergo Sum

I needed to take a word that relates to knowledge and the process of thinking and modify it to mean the continued and mindful intake of disinformation. Agnostic means not able to know, so that is not it. Decognitive? That implies moving away from knowledge, more akin to forgetting.

Then it struck me. Works like malignant, maladjusted, malaise, all start with “mal-”, from the Latin: bad, badly, harsh, wrong; ill; evil; abnormal, defective; used primarily as a prefix.  Sometimes you can use male- as in malevolent or malefactor (oddly enough, all of those are on Cheny’s resume as well).  I believe I have found my word.

Malcognition

Malcognizant. Malcognitive.  etc.  Examples: That guy is such a malcognent, he actually thinks there were WMDs in Iraq.  She is so malcognitive she believes the earth is flat.

Use it and enjoy.

Now I just need to get it in use by some of the popular folks, PZ, Dana, TPM, Kos,

UPDATE: I am an Elitist Bastard.   YARRRRRR!!!

]]> http://aculeus.net/2009/07/10/petrichor-and-more/feed/ 3 webster69 5 on one http://aculeus.net/2009/06/23/losing-my-religion-again/ http://aculeus.net/2009/06/23/losing-my-religion-again/#comments Tue, 23 Jun 2009 19:31:37 +0000 webster69 http://aculeus.net/?p=90 ]]> Ok, religion. Big topic. In the US, most people are Christian (although the group growing fastest is non-religious), but since this country was founded on freedom of religion, Christianity is not the official religion as it is in the UK or Sweden.

Anyway, here is my version of my religious history and eventual progression to atheism.

When I was very young, 0-7, I went to a Christian Scientist (CS) church.  I don’t remember much of it, except the rotunda, it was beautiful.  The best I can say about Christian Science these days is that the placebo affect is real.

Once I was in first grade, I became friends with some people who went to a different church. I asked my parents to go to the same church as those people. My mom was having problems with the CS church and decided that trying a new church might help her faith.  That was an Episcopal church, which I called Catholic-lite.  Very similar  to Catholic, but does not discriminate against women as priests and divorce is allowed. We went there for years, I became an Acolyte (like an altar boy) and earned the highest level of crosses and ribbons they had. Then when I was 13 they asked me to be confirmed or I could no longer do what I had been doing almost every Sunday for 6 years; carry the cross, setup communion, light the candles, etc.

I did not get confirmed and stopped going to church.

Part of the reason I left was because I thought about what the church experience meant to me. Back in 1982, WHJY in Rhode Island had a show on the radio called “The Rock & Roll Root Cellar” every Sunday morning. It was a collection of the trippiest, heaviest, cool old rock from the late 60’s to mid 70’s.  I found that I could listen to it surreptitiously on my Sony Walkman by clipping the Walkman to my belt, in the small of my back. Then I would run the ear buds up and over my shoulders, but under my cassock.  After walking down the aisle, setting up the altar and sitting at the far end of the chancel, I would put in the ear bud that could not be seen by the congregation. When it became time for me to do something related to the service, I would simply move the ear bud under my robe and do my job. I knew the religious part was not pulling me to church and I had friends from school, so I was no longer interested in going.

I stopped going to church, except for Christmas eve. My mom understood what I was feeling but she loved that service and I had to go to that.  Until I was about 20 or so, then I stopped completely.

By then I had been through high school and to the “evil librul college” and had read philosophy and comparative religion.  Several thousand pages and years later, I had realized that all religions were simply ways of trying to explain why we are here.  None had any better evidence for their belief system than their own books and all have been consistently minimized by science.  Illness used to be demons or vapors or desire, but know we know about bacteria and viruses.  The sun was pulled by a chariot, the earth was created by god at the center of the universe, but know we know the earth revolves around the sun due to gravity.  No religious or supernatural explanation for how things work has ever replaced a natural one. Sure, some natural ones have been wrong, but they can also be corrected. Dogma does not allow for corrections.

Also, I recognized that people who grew up in Christian households became Christians and people who grew up in Buddhist households became Buddhist.  “Hindus, Catholics and Jews are the groups with the lowest proportion of members who have switched affiliation to these respective faiths. Overall, nine-in-ten Hindus were raised Hindu, 89% of Catholics were raised Catholic and 85% of Jews were raised Jewish.” http://religions.pewforum.org/pdf/report-religious-landscape-study-chapter-2.pdf

It does not take much to realize that childhood indoctrination explains why most people believe what they believe.

Anyway, from 20-35 I pretty much ignored any church based activities or news, except when it interfered with my life or the lives of my friends (like some church’s concepts about IVF or homosexuality). However, after the birth of my first child (D2), Gorgeous McWifeski, who grew up Catholic, wanted to find a church. We went to several to try, Episcopal, Unitarian Universalist (UUC), Congregational, and finally Methodist. The Methodist church we picked had a few young families and a woman pastor. It was not socially conservative as much as some Baptist or fundamentalist churches, but not as wishy-washy as the UUC.  So it seemed like it might be a good fit. However, once we started going, I remembered why I did not like church. So much of the messages were conflicting or just wrong.  I started reading the bible again, but also reading The Skeptic’s Annotated Bible http://skepticsannotatedbible.com/index.htm that showed how often Bible versus directly conflict with each other or with reality.  I read hundreds of articles on evolutionary biology, cosmology, paleontology and climatology.

I have spent the better part of the last three years searching for any kind of interest in Christianity and realized I have none. I don’t hate God, I just have not seen any evidence for any gods.  Buddhist, Taoist, Christian, Jain, Rasta, Egyptian, Roman, Greek, Norse, etc.  There have been an awful lot of gods believed to exist in this world and some still are.  For a long time I would have said I was agnostic, that we could not know if there was a god or not, but I think that just is nonsensical. I can say I don’t know if there is an invisible pink unicorn sitting on my front lawn, but that does not mean I should assume it or can’t disprove such an idea.  I am not anti-Christian, I simply find no evidence for that belief system. The universe is billions of years old, evolution, gravity, relativity and other scientific theories explain how we got to this point.  If you want to argue that something had to kick off the big bang, then I have two questions. 1) What kicked off whatever kicked off the big bang? 2) Why can’t the universe “just exist” as gods are supposed to do?

Now I am comfortable being an atheist. I have heard lots of other terms like “bright”, “humanist”, etc. and “naturalist” comes close, but I think carries an connotation of being someone who studies nature. I think of it as someone who simply understands that nature is all that there is and enjoys it.  I don’t believe in lucky numbers, ghosts, UFOs, Santa Claus, Elves, Pixies, chiropractors, homeopathy, reiki, fung shui, God, Jah, Isis, Thor, etc.  Show me some proof, real, reproducible proof of any of those and I will be happy to check it out.  But proof does not mean the bible as evidence for Jesus. That means Ents are real because of Lord of the Rings.  Show me a walking talking tree and we can talk. Have Jesus show up on every TV, computer, movie screen and cell phone all over the world in 1080p and say “Hi, I am real and you need to believe” and we can talk.  A pareidoliac example of a burn mark in a tortilla is not a miracle, its the same part of you brain that sees sheep in clouds or butterflies in Rorschach tests.

So, that is my path.  What’s yours?

peace

I was reading Dana’s Brain (invite only) and it got me thinking about where I am.  I have posted vaguely on this before, but not in quite the same sense. My last post was more about motivation and changing my life and less about where I am.

At some point in my life, if you had told me I would be living in Maine, married to a girl from the town I grew up in with and had 2 kids, I would have laughed at you. For a long time I was bored, frustrated, and angry with my life and where I was. No blame on a bad childhood or poverty or any excuses, I just was unhappy.  Any thought of a suburban lifestyle made me cringe. There are parts that still bug me, I don’t like the environmental waste that I see all around me (ChemLawn, lawns in general, three-ton SUVs driven by one person to a store that is half a mile away, sprawl, and more), I don’t like the remoteness from downtown to walk to dinner or a bar, but not having the remoteness of not seeing my neighbor’s house.

However, I would not trade the life I have. Not for money or fame or hedonism. I love my wife, I love my kids (D2 & D3) and my dog (D1).  I can have a firepit in my backyard and drink a beer and not worry about burning down the town or forest. I have a garage that I get to use for 5 months of the year when I have no top on my Jeep and my wife gets the other 7 for rain and snow.  My job is not difficult and pays well, even with the two pay cuts I have gotten lately.  Some of my friends have gotten divorced and/or laid off, they have lost money in stocks or failed companies, they have endured the late loss of a pregnancy, the headaches of ex-spouses and step-children and the politics of family. I know five separate groups of siblings that don’t talk to each other or their families do not speak due to divorce, marriage or who knows.  My biggest complaints in life are around money, my occasional Gout attack, and … well, that is mostly it. I am sure there are others, but I lead a very happy life. I won’t say lucky or blessed life because there is no evidence for such things and thus don’t belive them (big post on that soon).

The post that started this was from a person I knew pretty well in high school and recently got in touch with again. She was commenting on the fact that some days she feels like she is just acting like an adult and that someone will show up, confront her that they know this is all a scam and they will take it all away.

I think that comes in part from being a theater geek in high school (as was I) and also from the same level of insecurity that smart people seem to have when they know lots of options and thus can second guess themselves when they make decisions.  In my earlier post (referenced above) I spoke of “fake it till you make it” and such, but was referring to getting into good habits and out of bad ones, like excersising every day or taking photos every day, quitting smoking, etc.  But I think what can help with life in general is the same thing. Nobody has all the answers, although I am sure Gorgeuous McWifeski would say I try, and nobody ever will. That does not mean we should try to come up with answers.

Where ever you find yourself now, unless you are under 18, you are currently responsible for your life. Where you are, what you are doing, who you are spending time with, all of it. If you don’t like it, change it. If you feel like you don’t know how or can’t, ask for advice. Post on anonymous message boards, ask people at the bus stop. If you know what you want, but can’t seem to motivate to do it, then just do it. I know that sounds trite, but of all the cliched phrases that I have heard and remember one has always stuck out to me:

The journey of 1000 miles begins with one step.

Fill out the job application, walk 100 yards, do 3 sit ups, write a letter to the person you miss or lost or hurt. Act like a parent or a sibling. Just start.

Just do it.

peace

• 45 million Americans without health care
• 60 percent of EPA scientists report political interference with their work
• 1,273 whistleblower complaints filed from 2002-2008; 1,256 were dismissed
• 190,000 U.S.-supplied weapons missing in Iraq
• $212.3 million in overcharges by Halliburton for Iraq oil reconstruction work
• $455 billion deficit for fiscal year 2008; estimated to reach up to $1 trillion in 2009
• $9.91 billion for government secrecy in 2007 — a record
• 809 government laptops with sensitive information lost by FBI, Drug Enforcement Administration, and Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives
• 30 million pounds of beef recalled in 2007
• $300 billion over budget for Department of Defense weapons acquisitions
• Less than 3 percent of U.S. electricity needs met by alternative energy
• 2,145 troops killed and 21,000 injured in Iraq from March 2003 through November 1, 2008, by IEDs (improvised explosive devices) and other explosives — many while awaiting body armor. Additionally, tens of thousands of Iraqis have been killed in the conflict
• 34.8 percent of oil used in America imported during Nixon administration; 42.2 percent during first Gulf War; 59.9 percent in 2006
• $100 million for failed FBI computer network
• $100 billion in federal tax revenues lost annually to corporations using off-shore tax shelters
• 163 million airline passengers delayed 320 million hours; cost to U.S. economy: more than $41 billion in 2007
• $60 billion stolen in Medicare fraud each year
• 2.5 million toxic toys recalled in summer of 2007
• $12.5 billion for defective National Polar-Orbiting Environmental Satellite System
• $4 billion to upgrade National Security Agency computers that often crash, have trouble talking to each other, and lose key intelligence
• 60,000 flights made by 46 Southwest Airline jets in violation of FAA safety directives due to lax FAA enforcement
• 12.8 percent job turnover at Department of Homeland Security in 2006 — double that of any other cabinet-level agency
• 730,000 backlogged patent applications
• 148,000 troops not enough to secure Iraq, enabling insurgency to take root
• $1 billion, six-year “Reading First” program called ineffective by Department of Education Inspector General
• 20,000 U.S. deaths annually from lack of pollution controls on diesel vehicles and power plants
• 60,000 newborns a year at risk for neurological problems due to mercury emissions from coal-fired power plants
• Two-thirds fewer clean ups of EPA Superfund toxic waste sites during 2001-2006 than in previous six years
• 935 demonstrably false statements in lead-up to Iraq war by President Bush and seven members of his administration
• At least $500 million for FEMA trailers contaminated by formaldehyde occupied by thousands displaced after Hurricane Katrina
• 558 detainees at Guantanamo detention facility reduced to 255 after court-ordered case reviews
• 26 percent of corporations holding at least $250 million in assets audited in 2006; percent audited in 1990: more than 70 percent. IRS audit staff slashed by 30 percent
• $431.5 billion spent on Medicare in 2007, double amount in 2001
• 47 dead in mining accidents in 2006 blamed on lax oversight
• $9 billion in federal oil and gas royalties mismanaged by agency linked to drug-and-sex scandal
• 275 largest U.S. corporations pay, on average, about 17 percent in taxes in 2007, half the standard corporate tax rate
• $45 trillion in credit-default swaps, without federal oversight, in 2007
• 760,800 disability claims backlogged, awaiting hearings at Social Security Administration as of October 2008
• 806,000 Veterans Affairs disability claims in 2006, up 39 percent since 2000; backlog reached 400,000 claims by February 2007
• 2,677 days Osama bin Laden at large since September 11, 2001 (as of January 12, 2009)

Staggering, just staggering.

Full details at http://www.publicintegrity.org/

However, just two verses earlier it says this: “Verily I say unto you, This generation shall not pass, till all these things be fulfilled.”
Matthew (not really written by him, but let’s play along for a bit), clearly quotes Jesus as saying that he (Jesus) will return before the people he is talking to, die.

And now they are dead. And have been for (according to the story) nineteen centuries.  So, that does not make sense.  Now, you can come up with varying excuses for this, but then that is admitting that the bible is not the word of god.

And if it is not the word of god, then it must not be the be-all, end-all of knowledge/morality/truthiness/etc.

And is just another reason why I think all religion, including Christianity, is crap.

Creationism/Intelligent Design [sic] is debunked by Evolution.

The earth is NOT flat.

The earth DOES rotate around the Sun.

Being “possessed” is a chemical imbalance in the brain, not demons.

etc

etc

Perhaps you (Ltl) do not have a commitment issue, just an expectations issue?  Set academia at the same level as films or music. Sure, some can be outstanding, both in small/indie releases, as can some big ones, and some can be miserable. Academia seems to be the same. You may find a Professor that inspires you to great heights at a small college in the smallest state, or you might find one at UT Austin, with 50k+ students.  I think the trick is to expect to go see a Will Smith movie as stupid, but entertaining for 90 min, and to expect a Kieslowski film to entrance and so forth.  You may just need to expect that to get your PhD. will be a grind with the highlights NOT being the professors, but rather what YOU create during that process.

WHile I was getting my Masters of Science, I remember one of my Professors talking about school in stages of responsibility, which I have adapted here with my own thoughts.

Elementary school is mostly memorization, most of the onus is on the Teachers to teach you the basics of reading, math, etc, so you can grow into learning more. About the only choices you get is what color crayons and whether the fire truck eveyone is drawing is facing left or right.  90/10 on the teachers.

High School takes those basics and starts to do critical thinking work, you write essays that are not just book reviews to show you read it, but rather to compare the book to another one, or a style of literature or such. Still mostly the teacher expecting you to learn, but the beginnings of independent/analytic thought, say 75%/25%.

College expands that role so that you are (hypothetically) never doing book reviews, but instead are expected to synthesize several books into longer papers of 10-20 pages to answer certain questions posed by the Professor. You can often explore independent studies and take classes not related to your specific degree.  50/50

Masters work tends to finally swap this equation, such that you begin to decide what you are going to write about, within a fairly narrow framework of a particular class. When I did my MS in Information Systems at University of San Francisco, I wrote a great deal about Apple Computers (was the name then) and privacy in the internet age.  I could focus on those topics whether it was Telecommunications, Database Theory or Marketing.  However, you still often have specific topics from your teachers and sets of core requirements for math, science, language, etc.  40/60 Teacher/Student responsibility

Finally, from what I understand, as I have not endeavored one for myself, a PhD. program is almost the “student becomes the teacher” paradigm.  You pick your thesis, you choose the books and studies and methodology to use, etc.  Of course it needs approval, which is why I peg this at 10/90, but I think this is what makes PhD work apparently both the most frustrating and rewarding of educational experiences.

You can’t really complain about the teachers giving you too much homework, as you picked it for yourself. You can’t really complain about the teachers giving you a bad grade, as you set the goals when you picked the program. Of course, any group of people will have personality conflitcs and issues with internal politics, but generally speaking, its like telling a bunch of people that you are going to build a bicycle. And then complaining about bending steel, oil, and the smell of rubber.

Now, don’t get me wrong, I am not saying that students can’t complain about pinching their fingers or ruining a shirt with grease, just that complaining about the process seems arbitrary.

As to LtL, whose post on Academic Romance got me thinking about education again, I hope this does not sound like a personal attack, it is not that at all.  I hope it comes across as more my own views on how academia works, and perhaps a way for you to recognize that if you have committment issues with the process, perhaps the committment issue is really with yourself.

Which goes back to the beginning when I spoke of my own fear of failure. I think that I often do not take the leap of faith, into running for office or going for a PhD or JD, because I do not trust myself to finish what I started. Past experiences of half-assery have probably only reinforced this belief. However, as I approach 40 next year, I think that perhaps I need to commit myself to a path of action to change my past. To look forward to the future more than I do now.

To do something I have not done much in the depression of the Bush Presidency, and in the fog of having small childeren.

To hope.