Why NFL Discipline is Such a Circus (Not in the Way it Wants)

The National Football League makes money by drawing attention to itself. It feeds off the gossip-girl behavior of ESPN and the morning pregame shows, and only benefits as long as there is something to talk about, even if it is salacious.

Some news items, however, are less good for the league. Junior Seau's death, probably resulting from repeated blows to the head suffered as a literal poster boy for hard hits, is one such item, and the league and its minions would prefer it not get much attention.

Also, the brutal behavior of many of its players, including Ray Rice and Greg Hardy, reflect the inherent, embarrassing violence and entitlement surrounding these very rich, poorly educated young men.

Roger Goodell is the primary problem, though. Because he runs a three-ring circus, his predilections and training lean toward the public relations gesture, the short-term image, and the political expedient. As a result of the Collective Bargaining Agreement and the league charter, however, he is also the sole dispenser of discipline on the league level, and that is a problem.

Goodell's punishment of Tom Brady is downright ridiculous. It may well be within his power, but it has more to do with his desire to show his independence from Patriots owner Robert Kraft than it does with any principles of law or fairness. It's just another embarrassment for him in a long line of recent debacles.

Goodell, like many Americans, including the current governor of Wisconsin, think that justice can be determined through popularity and politics. It cannot. Politics is a a useful thing; it allows for the peaceful distribution of power and treasure. Judges, however, should always be isolated from its operations, however, because what is just often is unpopular. Frankly, I could not care less what happens to Tom Brady of any other NFL player. The actions of the league demonstrate, however, what happens when crime and punishment are confused with politics.

The Obergefell Decision is Incorrect

I think the Supreme Court decision in Obergefell v. Hodges, which declared that state prohibition of gay marriage is unconstitutional, is incorrect. I can't find a right to marry in the Constitution.

That's not to say that I think gay couples should not be married. Every state in the union, and the federal government as well, should endorse and protect same-sex marriages. There is not earthly reason to prohibit it; the arguments made by opponents are silly and often contradictory. As I noted in the space earlier, Justice Scalia's dissent in the case was especially embarrassing. No one, for example, has a First Amendment right to refuse to interact with gay people in the public sphere. That's nonsense.

Also, I think the Supreme Court decision in Lawrence v. Texas is absolutely correct. Justice Kennedy's opinion is that case made precisely the right point when it said that

liberty presumes an autonomy of self that includes freedom of thought, belief, expression, and certain intimate conduct....  The petitioners are entitled to respect for their private lives. The State cannot demean their existence or control their destiny by making their private sexual conduct a crime. Their right to liberty under the Due Process Clause gives them the full right to engage in their conduct without intervention of the government.

To outlaw homosexual conduct is as much an invasion into basic liberty as it would be to outlaw heterosexual conduct as a whole. This kind of government intrusion is exactly the kind of this the 9th Amendment was written to prevent. 

Marriage, on the other hand, is not private. It is an explicitly public act, recognized (or not) by religious, social, or political communities. It's not conducted in private, and has no serious bearing on other protected behavior. One can be gay, straight or otherwise whether one is married or not. Although Justice Roberts dissent was unnecessarily uncivil, I think he was right. He said, in part,

Today the Court takes the extraordinary step of ordering every State to license and recognize same-sex marriage. Many people will rejoice at this decision, and I begrudge none their celebration. But for those who believe in a government of laws, not of men, the majority’s approach is deeply disheartening…

The majority’s decision is an act of will, not legal judgment. The right it announces has no basis in the Constitution or this Court’s precedent. The majority expressly disclaims judicial “caution” and omits even a pretense of humility, openly relying on its desire to remake society according to its own “new insight” into the “nature of injustice…

That is, the right to gay marriage is a legal one, to be protected by political process, not a constitutional one. I think Justice Kennedy and the four justices who signed his opinion went a step too far.

Why, Exactly, Should We Care What Bibi Netanyahu Thinks?

Bibi Netyanyahu does not like President Obama's deal with Iran. We should not be surprised, since he has opposed any negotiations with Iran all along. Fair enough.

So what?

Israel has been, in some cases, an ally of the United States in a region of the world in which the US needs as many allies as it can get. It is a democracy, it is not Islamist, and it has extensive cultural ties to the US, especially in the form of millions of Jews who play an important role in American politics. For these reasons, President Obama ought to pay attention to what Israeli leaders say.

On the other hand, Netanyahu himself has not done a lot to promote American interests in the Middle East. His heavy-handed treatment of Palestinians, both in and out of Israel, continues to provide motivation and opportunity for terrorist recruitment. He has done little, if anything, to help settle the conflicts created by the Arab Spring, in part because he does not like the idea of strong Muslim democracies -- or democracies at all, come to think of it. He has deliberately inserted himself into American politics in violation of all diplomatic protocols, especially between allies.

And, again, the United States needs as many allies in the region as possible. Iran is no friend of ISIS, and Saudi Arabia has been reluctant to help out on that front, at times. Israel is not exactly overextending itself in stopping the spread of a menace far more dangerous to it than to the US, but neither has it been appreciative of US efforts there.

In sum, Bibi can say what he wants, but I don't know why anyone should listen to him.

"Southern pride" is just as bad as Holocaust denial

People who argue that the Confederate flag stands for their "heritage," rather than any racial agenda are either hopelessly ignorant or in deep denial (or they are outright liars.) The Civil War was fought over slavery, pure and simple. If you want to say people were defending a way of life (dependent on slavery) or states' rights (to allow slavery) or heritage (of brutality and violence perpetrated on blacks by whites), that's fine, so long as you acknowledge the root of it all. Marching in support of the flag, then, is marching in support of an especially virulent form of racism. Of course, anyone has the right to support such things, but to march and also to deny the cause is a combination of stupidity and cowardice.


from Style Weekly 

Effective Students and Standardized Testing

In an earlier post, I noted the obvious: that the ultimate goal in all teaching (and therefore in all educational policy) is to produce effective students -- people who can do the things we want them to be able to do. The problem for teachers and policy makers, though, lies in identifying these abilities and then assessing whether students have them. Neither step is especially easy, but the Common Core Standards attempt to achieve both.

According to the developers of these standards, "the Common Core State Standards establish clear, consistent guidelines for what every student should know and be able to do in math and English language arts from kindergarten through 12th grade." In theory, at least, the program "focuses on developing critical-thinking, problem-solving, and analytical skills." In other words, the developers have determined that they prefer to cultivate certain skills rather than emphasizing the retention of certain prescribed content. They have identified the abilities they believe kids should have.

In the abstract, I endorse these choices. In my own work, I spend much more time thinking about how to teach kids to do things than about how to get them to remember things. And, really who can object to the idea of improving "critical thinking and problem solving?"

Perhaps the most underestimated or misunderstood truth in education, however, is the extreme difficulty of assessing such things, even if we can nail down what, exactly, the phrases mean. Critical thinking happens only internally, in the brain of the thinker. In order to know whether someone is doing it, then, we have to design ways for her to reveal what is going on her mind. In other words, she needs to communicate with us. As a result, the means of communication we choose are at least as important as the skills we identify. Not only that, but we have to help the student communicate in our preferred medium so that we can see what she is thinking.

No one thinks that the ultimate goal -- effectiveness -- is the same as taking a paper and pencil test.Very few adults take tests as a part of their daily lives; few employers care how well their employees do it, no one does it for fun, and it is not an element of good parenting. The question, then, is why we want anyone to take a test as a way of assessing her effectiveness.

The answer is that we need some proxy for "effectiveness." We need to find the elements of adult effectiveness (critical thinking, for example) and then measure whether people have those elements. Tests might be able to do that.

Also, maybe not.

Scalia (Once Again) Undermines His Own Institution

Antonin Scalia would like to think that he is the lone defender of the United States Constitution, and the stalwart member of the Supreme Court. He talks (and talks) about how the "liberal" members of the Court and the promoters of a "homosexual agenda" (a phrase he actually used in an earlier dissent) are usurping the rights of the majority to pronounce homosexuality immoral.

Antonin Scalia is wrong. No one is more responsible for the disintegration of political discourse in this country than he is. His repeated ad hominem attacks on his colleagues, his insistence on emotional, irrational and irresponsible statements in dissenting opinions, he refusal to accept the necessity of stepping out of the limelight in order to maintain at least an appearance of impartiality, help undercut the very rule of law hos purports to defend.

His latest rant, after the Court struck laws that did not accept gay marriages from other states, makes hi look like a fool, and the Supreme Court like a dysfunctional group of political hacks. If he opposes gay marriage on personal religious grounds, that's his right. I think such beliefs are selfish, myopic and out of touch, but OK. If he believes that the Court reached incorrect conclusions, it's his job to dissent. But to ignore the dignity of the Court and launch a campaign against it is unprofessional and harmful.

In my opinion, he is coming quite close to impeachable offenses.