At what cost dignity?

Students at the Barnard School, Washington DC, 1955

One thing that we used to learn young is that there is never something for nothing. That axiom appears to be on the wane. At least one state plans to give away academic achievement.

Imagine that you work at a jewelry factory on a line that produces earrings. You are paid by the piece and are expected to complete 10 sets per hour. You are pretty good at your job and regularly meet or exceed your quota. You are proud of your performance and feel that you earn every penny of your paycheck. 

Suddenly, one day, your manager approaches and asks to speak privately. Upon discovering that you are of Lithuanian ancestry, she confides that you are no longer to be held to the same standard as your peers. Instead of the 10 pieces per hour expected of your coworkers, you will only be required to complete five (although you will be paid the same).

How will you react?  How do you feel? Relieved, because ten sets per hour was demanding and now you can coast? Or ashamed, because you will now take it easy while your coworkers continue to produce at the higher level? The answer might well be the latter since you were deemed not capable due only to your Lithuanian ancestry. What’s wrong with being Lithuanian, anyway? 

A poor analogy, perhaps, but something quite similar is about to happen in Virginia. The state board of education, upon receiving a federal waiver from the “No Child Left Behind” act, is adjusting expectations for students based on their ancestry.

According to Virginia Public Radio, this is the scoop. “Here's what the Virginia state board of education actually did. It looked at students' test scores in reading and math and then proposed new passing rates. In math it set an acceptable passing rate at 82 percent for Asian students, 68 percent for whites, 52 percent for Latinos, 45 percent for blacks and 33 percent for kids with disabilities.”

So now, depending on your ancestry, you will be held to different levels of expectation and standards of success. An African American student is expected to achieve only roughly half of an Asian American. What kind of message is that to send to striving students? How is that expected to motivate and cheer them on to succeed? And how will they fare in college, once graduated from high school under this tiered multi-ancestral success scheme?

Another approach is to believe that all students are capable of great achievement if only they are nurtured and encouraged. Students who are believed in and presented with high expectations can achieve great results.  Lowering the standards of success is cruel and destructive. It is far better to cultivate and raise each individual student to their greatest human potential. 

One thing is clear - this policy benefits only adults. The teachers and their unions, by redefining failure as success, have mitigated their own failures. And bureaucrats also come out on top - they no longer have to focus energy on the problem because, poof, they have made the problem vanish. The only faction accruing absolutely no benefit - the children.

Lowering expectations unavoidably leads to the diminution of human dignity. How can we possibly do that with a clear conscience? 

Instant adults

Farm boy driving a tractor in North Carolina

The glory days of agricultural in New England are over.  Long ago, the glacial rocks won and the majority of farming moved west.  So you might be surprised to know that there are 7,691 farms in Massachusetts alone producing over $489 million annually.  It is with some astonishment, then, that we are faced with new government regulations that will increase the cost of farming, increase teen unemployment, and at the same time reduce the opportunity for teens to become responsible adults.  What’s not to like?

Growing up on a farm was a wonderful opportunity to learn about cause and effect, personal responsibility, and how to actually do things.  If the cows didn’t get milked, they dried up.  If the cows dried up, the family didn’t have milk to sell or consume.  This was serious; if your chore was to help milk the cows, you didn’t mess around.

It seemed like many things were like that.  The kitchen garden fed the family in season and provided a bounty of canned and frozen produce to last through the winter.  But the garden must be planted, watered, weeded, cultivated, protected from woodchucks and rabbits, and finally harvested.  If your chore was to participate in those activities (and it usually was), the consequences of failure were severe.

Farm boys and girls, at the ripe old age of eight or nine, were often enlisted to steer a hay truck through the winding windrows of bales.  The older teens and adults threw the hay up on the truck as a youngster steered, feet not reaching the pedals.  At the end of the row, one of the older workers would jump into the cab to turn the rig around, and then the whole thing would be repeated in the opposite direction.   Although the lack of seatbelts, car seats, and helmets would today seem scandalous, no one was injured or killed, and a lot of self esteem was rightfully earned.

Farm boys and girls, when leaving for college or the military or their first outside job, actually knew how to do things.  They could replace spark plugs, build a chicken coop, responsibly fire a rifle, drive a tractor, and care for dependent livestock.  When entering the wider world, they had developed a sense of self confidence that was based on real skills and accomplishments.

But no longer.  In our zeal to keep our children perfectly safe, the nanny state is preparing to crack down.  The US Department of Labor is issuing rules to prohibit farm kids under the age of 16 from operating power equipment.  They would also proscribe “children” under the age of 18 from activities involving the storing, marketing, or transportation of raw farm materials. This means that they could not work in “country grain elevators, grain bins, silos, feed lots, stockyards, livestock exchanges and livestock auctions.”

This is nothing short of amazing.  We consider an 18-year-old to be an adult, the age of majority.  But the Federal government is now usurping parental discretion, becoming in effect, a super-parent.    

According to our Federal betters, upon reaching the age of 18, these kids are entitled to vote, but don’t understand economics, having no personal involvement.  They can buy and drive a car, but have little experience in mechanical things and little sense of personal responsibility.  They can join the military and go off to war, but just a day before were considered immature and needing of great protection.  How can we expect them to be successful if we don’t trust them and give them opportunities to grow?  According to the government, they must become instant adults with none of the experiences necessary to do so.

In the old days, the family was responsible for the well being and development of their offspring.  It seems increasingly now that the government has usurped that role.  A good thing? Not likely.  

Attack of the Killer Coyotes

A hungry coyote.  Photo courtesy of USDA.

We are counting our blessings in New England.  This is the mildest winter we have seen in many years.  But while we walk and jog and even play golf, luxuriating in moderate temperatures and enjoying the lack of snow, there is a grim struggle for survival going on.

The number of coyote attacks reported this winter has been rapidly escalating.  Dogs injured and killed, cats missing without a trace, and even children bitten and terrorized.  What the heck is going on?  Have coyotes suddenly turned malevolent, possessed by evil spirits?

No, the answer is far simpler, and in two parts.  First, as we have become an urban nation,  coyotes have extended their range into our suburbs while at the same time we have stopped vigorously hunting them; they have lost their fear of man.  But this is a long term trend that has played out over many decades. Of more immediate portent, they are ravenous. Slowly starving, they are driven to attack pets and children and livestock and whatever else might keep them sustained for another day.

The question begs to be answered: why? The proximate cause is an extreme lack of acorns.  In a good year (called a high mast year), a single large oak tree can produce tens of thousands of acorns.  In a low mast year, perhaps half that.  But in the autumn of 2011, there were large tracts of New England without an acorn.  Nary a one.  And that is catastrophic for mice and chipmunks and squirrels and many other direct acorn-eaters including wild turkeys, quail, and deer.  Some ecologists have estimated that up to 90% of the current rodent population could die by spring.  This puts enormous pressure on coyotes and other predators, such as foxes and weasels and hawks and owls, who must compete for that rapidly dwindling food supply.

No wonder the coyotes are famished.

But where did the acorns go?  There are multiple theories; here are two that seem most likely, especially in tandem:

1. In the spring of 2010, we suffered extremely heavy rains and flooding.  This excessive moisture interfered with the pollination of oak flowers, the necessary precursor to acorns.
2. The intense winter moth infestation in the autumn of 2010 caused the trees to be nearly defoliated the following spring.  This greatly stressed the oaks.

Perhaps as result of two consecutive whammies, the 2011 acorn yield was a record near-zero.  It is most likely that we will soon return to normal mast production and a recovery of the rodent population will remove pressure from coyotes and other predators.  Hard spring rains are not typically intense enough to interfere with the blooming of oaks.  And there is a new tool for winter moth control.  Cyzenis albicans, a parasitic fly imported from Europe (where winter moths originated) is showing promise in controlling moth outbreaks.

So the problem remains, how to minimize the risk of coyote attacks?  Here is a short list of ideas from the Massachusetts Department of Fish and Game and the New York State Department of Environmental Conservation:

• Don't let coyotes intimidate you. Don't hesitate to scare or threaten coyotes with loud noises and bright lights. Don't hesitate to pick up small objects, such as a tennis ball, and throw them at the coyote. If a water hose is close at hand, spray the coyote with water in the face. Let the coyote know it is unwelcome in your area.
• Secure your garbage. Coyotes will raid open trash materials and compost piles. Secure your garbage in tough plastic containers with tight fitting lids and keep in secure buildings when possible. Take out trash on the morning pick up is scheduled, not the previous night. Keep compost in containers designed to contain but vent the material.
• Don't feed or try to pet coyotes. Keep wild things wild. Feeding, whether direct or indirect, can cause coyotes to act tame and over time may lead to bold behavior. Coyotes that rely on natural food items remain wild and wary of humans.
•  Keep your pets safe. Coyotes view cats and small dogs as potential food and larger dogs as competition. For the safety of your pets, keep them restrained at all times.   
• Eliminate availability of bird seed. Coyotes are attracted to the concentration of birds and rodents that come to feeders. If you do feed birds, clean up waste seed and spillage.
• Ask your neighbors to follow these same steps.

Some of these may seem cruel… poor squirrels, poor birds!  Why can’t we feed them?  But remember that you are trying to save Tabby and Rover and even Junior from becoming a coyote meal.  Mother nature will return to a balance – have faith.

What I did on my summer vacation

In current times, kids are excused from school for the summer, but for what? To play Wii, spend hours on Facebook, accompany their parents to Florida, and otherwise squander their free hours away? It obviously has nothing to do with industriousness – just try to hire a generously-allowanced neighborhood kid to mow your lawn.

Not so, many years ago. In farm country, we were let out of school in early June and didn’t return till early September. In between, we certainly found some time to camp out in the woods and ride our bikes down shady lanes, but that was not the main event. No, we were let out of school to work. Whenever our own farm work was completed, we hired ourselves out to the neighbors. As the season progressed, we went from picking strawberries to harvesting raspberries, blackberries, and grapes, each in their season. The pay was minimal – a few cents per quart basket – but it added up as long hours passed in the hot sun.

But of course the main event for the older children was haying. A serious affair, for cows must survive the long, cold winter and continue to produce high quality milk throughout that dead season. The only way to ensure their health and productivity was to feed them stored sunshine in the form of hay.

There are typically three harvests of hay – roughly May, June, and July. First, tractors pull mowers through a fragrant mix of timothy, alfalfa, red clover, and birdsfoot trefoil. Then the freshly mown hay is conditioned (crimped and fluffed) to encourage drying. If the hay were baled and stored with too great a moisture content, it would be subject to spoilage, or worse, spontaneous combustion. More than a few horses have succumbed to the former (cattle are hardier) and many a barn lost to the latter.

After a few days, the hay is raked and baled into rectangular bales weighing about 75 pounds, just enough so that the older teens, mostly high school football players and wrestlers, grunted while heaving them up onto the truck. A younger kid could be put to work guiding the truck, in double-granny low, between the rows of bales as they were heaved up and stacked. No need for short legs to reach the brake, clutch, or accelerator pedals… the only requirement was to steer through the gently winding rows of bales. At the end of the field, one of the farmers or an older teen would jump into the cab to wheel the truck around and another pass would begin.

This was hot work, and the farmers took care that their charges had plentiful water, both for drinking and for pouring over glistening, sweaty faces and bare chests and backs. It was a rare pleasure when a hayfield contained an ice-cold spring, usually marked by a green thicket on a hillside, containing a small pool of brilliantly clean, frigid water burbling straight from the earth. Almost as good were the fields that bordered on a farm pond, where cannonball dives were performed amid great uproar during short breaks from the relentless, dusty bales.

When the truck was full, it was driven slowly over farm roads to a barn where it must be unloaded and stacked into a hayloft. If the crew were really lucky, the barn was built into a hillside so the truck could be backed directly into the second-story loft. This part of the operation was, if at all possible, even hotter than those preceding as the barn baked in the midday sun. But given the resilience of youth, a brief pickup basketball game often formed around a rusty hoop nailed to the barn planking after the stacking was done.

So were our summer days, such that a late supper on a wide farmhouse porch, as the gloom thickened and temperatures moderated, was treasured as much as today’s trip to an air conditioned mall on a sultry afternoon.

Let's end violence violence

This weekend’s Wall Street Journal (May 23-24, 2009) reports that community activists are begging president Obama to intercede in an epidemic of murders of young people (“Chicago student killings spark appeals to Obama”). Chicago has suffered the killings of 37 school age children so far in the 2008-2009 school year – which we can all agree is 37 too many.

Two thirds of the murders were drug or gang related, others may involve cases of mistaken identify. Activists decry gun violence and are calling for stricter gun control. This focus may be dangerously wrong headed in that it doesn’t address the root cause of the problem.

The Reverend Michael Pfleger (of “America is the greatest sin against God” fame) urged his congregation to sell and wear t-shirts emblazoned with an upside-down American flag (a sign of distress) and the exclamation “Gun Violence – An American Emergency.” Reverend Pfleger also asked them to wear American flag pins upside down. Reverend Pfleger thinks that America is sick.

Imagine that Mr. Obama could cause all of the guns in Chicago to be magically atomized. Do you think for one instant that the violence would end? That guns are the underlying cause of violence and, that by “disappearing” them, the violence would leave with them? If guns are the source of violence, then I must have had a blessedly lucky childhood. We had guns down on the farm and in all of my friends’ homes, too. None of these guns ever forced one of us to murder a classmate. No, there is something else at work here.

There are creatures in Chicago (hard to call them human) who do not blink to kill in cold blood. The willingness to pull a trigger would transfer with ease to the willingness to swing a baseball bat, crushing a skull, or wield a knife to stab the heart, or slice a throat, or rip open an abdomen. It is that willingness that is the problem. That is our enemy, and that which must be eliminated. Magically atomizing guns won’t make that willingness go away.

But from where does it arise? Much has been written on this, but I suggest that it is lack of boundaries, skewed values, and distorted social and cultural norms. The willingness to kill in cold blood is evil incarnate. So it is not gun violence, or knife violence, or brickbat violence, or dynamite violence, or motor vehicle violence that is the issue – it is violence violence. And until we address the root cause, we are tilting at windmills.

In this, I side with Dr. William Henry “Bill” Cosby, not with Reverend Pfleger. I wonder whom Mr. Obama favors.