Understanding the past and shaping the future

I have sent this across to the editor ... perhaps it will be published. If not, hey, you read that here ;)
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Thanks to Donald Trump’s election, and his statements and policies since the inauguration, students in my introductory economic geography class seem to be significantly more eager than ever to connect the academic discussions to the real world happenings. On their own!

During routine discussions on population dynamics, when my lectures usually put students to sleep reminding me of the hilarious scene in “Ferris Bueller's Day Off,” one question from the back row nearly jolted the class. A student asked, “Why is Portland so white compared to the other cities that I have been to?” Before I could respond, another question rang out: “Isn’t Oregon itself way white compared to even Washington?”

In my fifteen years of teaching at Western Oregon University, I have not been asked these questions even once in any of my classes. I doubt that these questions were merely a coincidence.

In responding to the students’ questions, and thanks to the technology in the smart classroom, I projected on the screen maps about the Great Migration from the American South and how very few came to Oregon. I pulled up a few photographs of African-Americans in Oregon, including about Vanport, in the Portland area. And about Oregon’s own “Trail of Tears.” The maps and photos were worth more than the proverbial thousand words.

As discussions died down, a student from a town in the Willamette Valley remarked that it now made sense to her why I am the first non-white teacher she has ever had in her entire life as a student—all the way from kindergarten through college.

Of course, as an outsider—first from India, and then from California—this whiteness in Oregon, and hence my brownness, was one of the first things that I had to quickly understand about this state that has been a wonderful home to me.

If this post-election politics has given us an incentive to understand these important issues, then we may as well put that to good use.

In the educational world of geography, there are many formal avenues for all of us to further explore and understand questions like the ones my students asked.  One such avenue is the Geography Awareness Week.  

The National Geographic Society created the “Geography Awareness Week to raise awareness to this dangerous deficiency in American education and excite people about geography as both a discipline and as a part of everyday life.”  Many centers affiliated with this activity have selected “civil rights” as the theme for the Geography Awareness Week in 2017, which will be during November 13-19.  

Civil rights has distinct geographic patterns and impacts. While we usually think of the American South, states like Oregon too have had, and continue to have, issues related to civil rights. 

We do not have to wait until the "Geography Awareness Week" in order to understand civil rights issues. As we plan for our excursions around the state during the gorgeous Oregon summer, I hope more among us will also spend some time stopping by the numerous places that will help us understand who we were and, therefore, who we want to be in the future.

I don't care to write about climate change! Because, I am a part of the problem.

Here in the blog, I write about a range of topics.  It is nothing but a symptom of a problem that I have had throughout my life--while many classmates and friends identified whatever fascinated them and worked on that while excluding subjects and ideas that were of lesser interest to them, I continued to spread myself thin.  I have an intense commitment problem, I suppose!  But, how could I choose to ignore so many fascinating ideas and issues when I am acutely aware that I don't know a damn thing?

Yet, when I write op-eds, I write on a much restricted range of topics.  The other day, I was perusing the listing in my CV, and wondered what a word cloud might look like.  Economics and geography feature a lot, and so do higher education and India.  There are plenty of topics that are not to be found in the CV.  For instance, while I have blogged more than a couple of times about the Ukraine-Russia tensions, I have not authored a single op-ed on that, nor am I planning to write one.

The missing topics are for a simple reason: Even this wannabe public intellectual knows his limits.

I am absolutely ok with readers disagreeing with my interpretations and commentaries.  But, I don't ever want to be in a situation where a reader thinks, after reading an op-ed of mine, that I have no idea what I am talking about.  Hence, despite my passionate opinions on wars, or racism, or climate change, well, I haven't authored any op-ed that are strictly about those issues.

So, why this rambling note about the self?

This op-ed on climate change was the trigger that made me thank my awareness of my own bounded knowledge, especially on highly charged and controversial public policy issues. Am reminded of an old joke that opinions are like armpits--everybody has them and they stink!  While I might freely opine here in the blog, an op-ed is not a mere opinion, but an informed and educated interpretation.

Talking and writing about climate change is difficult for another reason--the bottom line is that it is a moral issue that has guidelines for a good life.  To think that I am typing all these in a well-lit comfortable home that is warm even though it is sub-freezing temperature outside means that this blog-post alone is reflective of the huge carbon footprint that I have, which I should try to reduce before I preach it, right?

Estimate your household emissions here

Thus, as Al Gore found out, it is difficult to be a passionate advocate for a whole bunch of lifestyle changing recommendations when his life was anything but simple--with his mansions and jetting around the world and everything else.  Remember the "hippy-crites" route that the Daily Mail went a few years ago?  Heck, it gets awkward and difficult to defend one's beef eating, when that is responsible for more damage to the environment than most things that we would imagine.

I agree with Elizabeth Kolbert, who writes at the end of her essay in which she reviews Naomi Klein's This Changes Everything:

when you tell people what it would actually take to radically reduce carbon emissions, they turn away. They don’t want to give up air travel or air conditioning or HDTV or trips to the mall or the family car or the myriad other things that go along with consuming 5,000 or 8,000 or 12,000 watts. All the major environmental groups know this, which is why they maintain, contrary to the requirements of a 2,000-watt society, that climate change can be tackled with minimal disruption to “the American way of life.”

Which is all the more why this public intellectual does not write op-eds on climate change, though in this blog I write often about the urgency, and my new favorite German word: energiewende.

It is awfully difficult to practice what you teach.  Hey, wait a sec, I wrote a commentary on that many years ago ;)

A walk is never, ever, simply a walk

Once bitten, twice shy.

So, I didn't go for a walk for two days!

Ok,I exaggerate ;)

When I approach the area where that mysterious bug got me, I move to the middle of the path in order to be as far as away from the vegetation as possible.  A few paces later, I return to the normal mode.

There is a curiosity in me to know what that bug was.  "This is no bee or wasp sting" was all the doctor said.  "But something venomous to have triggered such a reaction in your system.  You might want to watch out for another week or two for any systemic response" she added.  Perhaps she thought she was comforting me!

Once past that wild, wild zone, I was lost in my thoughts, as always.  The warm sun and the caressing breeze made me feel half my age.  The water looked lovely. The egret and the heron were patiently perched on dead wood.

I was distracted by a guy walking in the other direction waving out to me.  Out of sheer reflex, I waved back.  He was soon gone. He, too, had a hat on, and was bearded as well.  About my height and age.  Not from the old country--a white guy. For a few minutes I kept wondering who he was and whether I was supposed to know him and ought to have recognized him.

Soon, my mind drifted away into thinking about the upcoming conference.  I wondered whether I ought to prepare myself with a few groaners, like the one that Wendy at the checkout counter asked me the other day:

Is it ok to kiss a nun?
As long as you don't make a habit of it!

I smiled recalling that groaner.  It does not take much to amuse me.

Two women, much older than me, were walking on the other side, and one was cradling a small dog in her arms.  As I neared them, I could not resist the urge to wisecrack.

"That's not how you are supposed to walk the dog" I said.  And, of course, laughed.  Remember, it does not take much to amuse me!

They laughed.

When women laugh at the silly jokes that we men love, I always have a nagging feeling that when away from us they roll their eyes way up, more than how much a pre-teenage girl can, and make remarks like what Lynn Redgrave delivers in Gods and Monsters:

Oh, men!
Always pulling legs. Everything is comedy.
Oh, how very amusing.
How marvelously droll.

People passed by, and I passed a few. A guy with washboard abs jogged pushing a stroller that had two bottles in two cup-holders.  Cup-holders in strollers; only in America!

I felt my paunch jiggle as I quickened my pace.  I was reminded of Zits:

I chuckled.  Yes, it doesn't take much to amuse me!

And then that same bearded guy with a hat on.  I suppose he, too, was walking the entire loop.  He waved and I waved back.

"I like your editorials" he said.

"Oh, thanks."  I removed my hat.  So, that is how he knew me!

"You are the one who writes, right?"

"Yes."

"They are always very well written."

"Thanks so much."

We were back on respective paths.

I crossed the bridge to get to the home-stretch.

If ever I needed an incentive to keep going past Number 170, I could not have asked for anything better.

Am ready to tackle the bugs--the venomous people included!

Is the fateful day just around the corner?

Even after having authored 169 op-ed essays over the years--yes, I counted them a few minutes ago--there is a worry in the back of my mind: what if there is nothing more in me to write about?

This worry is not anything new.  It has been the case for a long time now, though I am not certain when exactly this emotion kicked in.  It is a terrible nightmare.  A nightmare of my own creation, no doubt.  But, it comes up, especially soon after an op-ed is published.

Dreading about failure is not unique to me by any means.  And to write about such a fear is also a typical approach that writers take, I would think.  It is cathartic. Further, if we lower our bars ourselves, then we come out looking good if we do produce something, right? ;)

failure in writing is more of an intimately crushing day-to-day thing. O.K., minute-to-minute. Measured against your ideal of yourself.

You see how that writer describes the failure as an intimate experience that is triggered by measuring "against your ideal of yourself" and yet she writes about it for the entire world?  I tell ya, such public cleansing avoids what would otherwise be a huge expense of gazillions of dollars that we don't have on shrinks!

When I started going down this path of a lowly-paid faculty who wanted to write op-eds, I used to send copies for my father to read--after all, the op-eds are on topics that would interest him too.  Once he asked me how much I got paid for the op-eds, and was shocked to hear me tell him that there was no money involved.  But, hey, there are things we do in life for money, and then there are things we do in life.  If writing is what we do, then writing is what we do whether we get paid nor not, and whether we succeed or fail.

As you get older, rest assured, you accept failure as part of your writing life. You realize the many forms failure can take: There is sentence-to-sentence failure, in which the words fly from your brain out the window or throw themselves on the page like suicide bombers. There is the failure to get on the page what is in your head. There is a failure of will. There is organizational failure, in which you wind up collapsing.
You develop strategies to deal with it all. You develop a kind of sixth sense, a detective’s intuition about what will fail and what won’t. But above all, no matter how much you fail, you still sit down at your computer every day, and you keep going.

Exactly!  It is every single day at the computer reading, blogging, and then every once in a while piecing together an op-ed.  And then worrying that the well has dried up.

But, hey, at least my writing makes sense--even if only occasionally!

BTW, one more round of editing and I will email #170 to the editor. Phew; apparently not this corner! ;)

I don't get paid for writing. I should sue somebody. Anybody!

I understood early on that it won't be easy, if even possible, to monetize my professional interests and expertise (if any.)  At dinner table conversations, I freely share my "asset" but will have to pay for the consultation with an attorney or physician at the same table.  That is how the world operates.

Thus, when I started writing op-eds, I knew I was giving it away for nothing.  After spending my time, and a little bit of my money, in formally educating myself, I was then spending 45 to 60 minutes to write an op-ed for which I would not get paid anything.  Yet, that is exactly what I chose to do.  Which is why it was one heck of a pleasant surprise when a few years ago the editor at the Register Guard offered to compensate me with a honorarium that might just about pay for dinner for two.  A huge bonus!

There are plenty of reasons why we engage in such writing that does not pay.  At least, in my case, I have a day job that takes care of my expenses.  What about those who like to engage in interests similar to mine, are even more qualified and able than I am, but do not have a regular job?  The web is simply killing their abilities to sell words, leading to this NY Times op-ed with a catchy lead of "Slaves of the internet, unite!"  While it was never easy to have a lucrative career as a professional writer, the internet has certainly made it even tougher for writers to sell their work when so much is being written for free.

Ta-Nehisi Coates writes recalling his own experiences and notes this about the "exposure" element:

ask yourself how often you've seen writers/thinkers/historians/intellectuals etc. in online "conversation." Ask yourself how often you've seen guest-bloggers at sites like The Daily Dish. Do you believe these people to be paid? Do you believe them to not actually be doing work? Tomorrow I will go on television, a prospect that I try (lately unsuccessfully) to avoid. I try to avoid it because it is work. I have to prepare information that I hope to provide. I have to think about what I'm saying. I have to make sure I know what I'm talking about. I have to tell my nervous self to shut up. No one pays me--or any other guests--for these contributions. We work "for exposure."

One simply cannot buy this "exposure" but has to earn it.  Tongue-in-cheek, a colleague commented that I might just about be the most well known academic up and down the Willamette Valley--because of this "exposure" for which I have worked for free.

In a way, it is also this working for free, for exposure, that is behind the idea of internships.  Students provide their time and work for free, or at best for low compensation, knowing that the exposure would pay off.  When I worked as a planner, our agency routinely hired interns.  Private companies hired interns.  Everybody did that.  Some even paid their interns.

Of course, as with anything, here too there were organizations that abused this system--they sucked the energy out of their interns, by essentially treating them like full-time staff without paying them like full-time staff.  Which then led to a law on internships.

As Charles Dickens expressed via the Mr. Bumble character in Oliver Twist, "the law is a ass, a idiot."  It generates all kinds of unintended consequences.  Internship opportunities quickly evaporated.  At public and private agencies alike.  After all, it is easy to comply with the law by not offering internships at all, than it is to make sure that the internship program conforms to the letter of the law.

The latest in this:

Condé Nast, the globally renowned media publisher that produces magazines like Glamour, The New Yorker, and Wired, announced late last month that it will no longer offer its internship program.

Why?

The decision comes in response to a lawsuit filed by two former interns, Lauren Ballinger and Matthew Leib; in June, the interns sued Condé Nast for months of backpay, alleging that the publisher violated federal and state labor laws.

Reason adds this:

Condé Nast is the first major firm to eliminate its internship program since the flurry of unpaid intern lawsuits sprung up this summer. However, lawyers and employers are predicting that many firms may start to cut their programs - or offer just a few paid positions instead of many unpaid ones. So despite advocates' desire to open doors for struggling students, it seems the "Great Unpaid-Intern Uprising" may result in employers closing off opportunities altogether. 

Again, "the law is a ass, a idiot."

Meanwhile, this essay in the Chronicle of Higher Education argues that academics should not write for free.  Ahem, the author has not read Chekov's Uncle Vanya, which I quoted in my essay on academics and research--more than a decade ago--in the Chronicle of Higher Education.  If they know what they are getting, people will not part with their money in order to buy an academic's writings!

I will continue on with my writing for which I don't get paid.  But, hey, if you want to pay me, I am all for it ;)

Why do I do whatever it is that I do?

Along with the link to a TED talk that a student emailed me, he included a comment, "I feel like this guy stole your idea ..." of course, he was kidding about the stealing--I, too, can recognize a joke ;)

A friend emails me this NY Times piece with a comment "Food for your blog…"

It is a relief knowing that I am not talking to myself, after all, and that there are students listening to me in the classroom, and that there are people reading my blog ;)

It is also a moment, yet again, of profound disappointment--I have been offering such arguments/critiques for years now and the very small part of the world where I interact hasn't paid attention to any of these and other issues at all.  If I were to ask myself what was I able to accomplish by blogging and writing op-eds, I cannot simply think of anything substantive to offer as evidence.

Nothing.
Nada.
Zip.
A big fat zero.

The craziest thing is that years ago, when saying the same things that I say now, I believed that something, somewhere might change for the better as a result.  One benefit in getting older is that I have become wiser--I truly expect nothing as a response to my analysis and understanding of the world.  It is not a matter of setting the bar low, but is a reflection of my understanding that what I say and do are inconsequential.

Yet, I continue to blog and write op-eds. And teach classes in my own ways.

A student asked me a couple of days ago, "how are you so passionate about what you teach and blog?"  Answering the question was easy because I think about that all the time.  Why do I do whatever it is that I do?

It is about giving life my best shot--even while expecting nothing.  Earlier in my life, emotions often ran high within me because of my inability to accept that a big fat zero was the response to my best shot.  Or, a negative too in many cases.  But, now, it is easy--I give it my best, and anything that I get in return is always an unexpected bonus that makes my day.

There is no way but onward and doing whatever it is that I do.

The president is god, and I am chopped liver?

There is explicit abuse of power and privilege.  Yes. But then there are plenty of subtle ways in which that power and privilege are abused.

An example?  A few months ago, the immediate past-president of the university where I teach authored an opinion piece in the Oregonian.   It was on the politically controversial topic of children of illegal immigrants.  I was happy he wrote that because we need to discuss this issue as a society--as Oregonians, and as Americans.  Of course, I have my own concerns on this topic. 

Authoring such an opinion piece is not any abuse of power and privilege at all.

An example of a subtler abuse of the office that one holds is the following email from the provost of the university:

Many of you may have seen today's Oregonian and noted the opinion piece written by President Minahan.  For those of you who have not read the guest editorial, I have copied the link below and I encourage you to read it.

Not kosher at all to treat the newspaper op-ed as official university business, especially when it is on such a controversial hot-button issue!

If the provost's email in the context of the president's op-ed was out of a professional interest to trigger discussions, then he ought to have sent similar emails before and after the president's emails, right?  After all, day in a day out, there are plenty of opinions being written on critical aspects of higher education.  But, that was not ever the case.

As I tell my students, evidence strengthens arguments.  So, here is one example: a few days prior to that, I had authored this op-ed on higher education in the same newspaper, in which I wrote:

the only beneficiaries are colleges and universities that are, naturally, recording enrollment increases -- even in my classes in the summer. This enrollment growth then triggers the need for additional facilities, which necessitates a demand for more money from students and taxpayers.

Such a higher educational system cannot go on forever. As economist Herbert Stein famously remarked, "If something cannot go on forever, it will stop."

Imagine if the provost had urged the campus to read that op-ed, too!  Ha!

A few hours after that op-ed was published, a faculty colleague emailed me and the dean of the college:

That was an excellent piece in the paper this morning.  I, too, feel that the objective of a university education must be to encourage intellectual growth rather than simply being a minimal qualifier for employment.  We have community colleges for that purpose.  My observation has been that many, if not most, WOU students are intellectually adrift.  We, as an institution, can help young people discover significance.  I believe that should be our mission.

Guess what?  There was no response from the dean.  The silence was simply deafening. 

But then, I am not the president who authored an op-ed, right?  After all, all my work is nothing but mashed potatoes :)

As I think back, I do wonder if the provost sending that kind of an all-campus email was an attempt to set himself up for the presidency!

Another reader responds to my op-ed. Made my day :)

This one is wonderful, unlike my previous post wherein I referred to a few responses to my recent op-ed.

To begin with, it was a letter in the mail. Yes, that old-style snail-mail.

And, it looks like it was composed on one of those electric typewriters.

With a name and from address. And, she includes in the intro:"former teacher, parent of adult women, not teachers, who do have Masters degrees, their choice to do so."

From the letter, it is clear that the reader is a woman from a generation that is senior to me.  She opens that lengthy letter with:

Thank you for your good editorial in the S-J on Masters degrees.

Her postscript is the best part of all:

Thank you, "P."  I could not have imagined a better start to a morning.

I wrote an op-ed and ... one reader wants to deport me :)

So, it was one quick turnaround from the time I submitted my op-ed essay to its publication in the paper.  I knew fully well that the topic would generate discussions at the newspaper's site and, hopefully, amongst my colleagues too.

I have no idea about the colleagues, but reviewing the comments at the newspaper's site, I came across this, from a reader whose ID there is SchizNick::

All this article makes me wonder about is why are we letting foreign students into this country to get educated and then we are letting them stay after they have gotten their higher degree? Shouldn't Sriram Khe maybe be fighting the injustices in his country instead of trying to cause them in this country? Am I the only one who sees an injustice in allowing some guy from a foriegn country come here , carve out a living most likely at taxpayer expense and then trying to deny a living to those who were born here?

As I kid around with my students, you can say "get back to where you once belonged" but it has been years since I was naturalized as a citizen :)

Another reader there is disappointed with the nature of the debate, or rather the lack of it:

Many of the previous responses are exactly what is wrong with our political discourse. Rather than challenge the ideas, we attack the person with the ideas. The writer is a geography professor, therefore he has no valid opinion of public education? Does that mean that anyone not serving in a war can have no opinion on military action? No one having not experienced cancer can have an opinion on cancer research funding? This is the definition of small mindedness.

Mr. Khe proposes a provocative idea that challenges our preconceived ideas. Not only does he do this, but he does it while being employed at an institution that has a vested interest in keeping the status quo.

His is a courageous position given current dogma and where Mr. Khe works. You may disagree. Attack the idea, vigorously if you will, not the person. Unless of course you are in fact afraid of debate and wish to stifle it for fear of the weakness in your own position.

Well, the reader might be even more disappointed then with the lack of substantive debates and discussions within the academic walls.

Another reader remarks:

Does the author of this editorial have a Master's degree? My intuition is no. Sour grapes, maybe?

Seriously?

Here is the ultimate for me: even though the tag-line gave readers the email address to contact me, not a single email. I wonder if it is also because it is easier to hide behind nicknames and be "anonymous" than it is to step up, identify oneself, and engage in debates?

Forty years of op-ed at the NY Times

I grew up with opinions (op-eds) as the norm in newspapers.  But, it wasn't always so.  The NY Times is celebrating 40 years of op-eds:

On Sept. 21, 1970, readers who turned to the last inside page of The Times's main section found something new. The obituaries that normally appeared in that space had been moved, replaced by something called Op-Ed. The vision of John Oakes, the editorial page editor, and Harrison Salisbury, the eminent foreign correspondent, Op-Ed was meant to open the paper to outside voices. It was to be a venue for writers with no institutional affiliation with the paper, people from all walks of life whose views and perspectives would often be at odds with the opinions expressed on the editorial page across the way. (Hence, Op-Ed - Opposite Editorial.)

The multimedia the paper has put together for this occasion is pretty good.  The following is one of those--more here.

For Op-Ed's 40th anniversary, Ali Soufan, a F.B.I. supervisory special agent from 1997 to 2005, recounted the events that triggered his Op-Ed in April 2009.

In the op-ed, Soufan wrote:

It is surprising, as the eighth anniversary of 9/11 approaches, that none of Al Qaeda’s top leadership is in our custody. One damaging consequence of the harsh interrogation program was that the expert interrogators whose skills were deemed unnecessary to the new methods were forced out.
Mr. Mohammed knew the location of most, if not all, of the members of Al Qaeda’s leadership council, and possibly of every covert cell around the world. One can only imagine who else we could have captured, or what attacks we might have disrupted, if Mr. Mohammed had been questioned by the experts who knew the most about him.
A lack of knowledge perhaps explains why so many false claims have been made about the program’s alleged successes.

 It is a new administration, but I am not sure how much things have changed.  Here is an exhibit on the continuation of some of those practices:

President Barack Obama's administration has invoked the state secret privilege to avoid a lawsuit on behalf of Yemeni-American cleric Anwar al-Awlaki, whose father charges the US government of targeting him for assassination.
Nasser al-Awlaki last month asked two civil rights groups to sue the White House and the Central Intelligence Agency for placing his son on a list of people targeted for killing.
The younger Awlaki is considered a dangerous terrorist by the US government and is currently believed to be hiding in Yemen.
The American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) and the Center for Constitutional Rights (CCR) filed the court action seeking to force the US government to say how it decides to target US citizens for murder far from any armed conflict without due process.

Am waiting for that "change" ....

The death of the newspapers.

It is not an exaggeration by any means. Megan McArdle writes:

Journalism is not being brought low by excess supply of content; it's being steadily eroded by insufficient demand for advertising pages. For most of history, most publications lost money, or at best broke even, on their subscription base, which just about paid for the cost of printing and distributing the papers. Advertising was what paid the bills. To be sure, some of that advertising is migrating to blogs and similar new media. But most of it is simply being siphoned out of journalism altogether. Craigslist ate the classified ads. eHarmony stole the personals. Google took those tiny ads for weird products. And Macy's can email its own damn customers to announce a sale.

We could herd every new media type into camps and force them to become shorthand/typists, and newspapers would still be in just as bad shape as they are now. We could take down Google News, and it would barely register in their bottom lines. Even if every newspaper and magazine in the country entered into a binding cartel agreement not to put more than a smidgen of free content on their websites, newspapers would still be losing money, and closing by the dozens. It's the economics, stupid.

We're not witnessing the breakup of a monopoly, in which more players make more modest incomes providing more stuff, and everyone flourishes (except the monopolist). We're witnessing the death of a business model. And no one has figured out how to pay for hard news. Hard news stories take a great deal of time to write--more time than most amateurs can afford, which is why blogs tend to do opinion rather than journalism. Moreover, they are at least greatly improved when their authors are not worried about losing their jobs if what they write pisses off a local power broker.

This is a genuine loss for the American public.

Yes, it is a genuine loss. Papers, particularly local papers, if they do good work, can be wonderful for the local communities. And, many of them do. As they close shop, I wonder what will happen.

Planetizen's notable opeds in 2007

Mine made that list. Am excited. I wonder if being listed first also means that it was the best oped of that year? Cool!
Read it here