Charlie Rose

charliesheep  11/07/2012 11:43 AM Report

FREIDMAN ;- SAYS, THERE IS NO "WELDERS"-DUH- THE FUNDING FROM 1970 ON TO;- A@M A COLLEGES WAS "NOT" FOR SKILLS[G.I.BILL] THAT WERE GOING TO BE NEEDED FOREVER! BUT, THE FREIDMAN'S GASIOUS DREAM OF THE WORLD,-I.E. WHICH- SAW "TECH" WORLD AS SOLUTIONS TO "REAL" WORLD ETHIC-LIKE TEACHING THOSE A@M SKILLS FOREVER!-AS A COLLEGE LEVEL INSTRUCTOR-TEXAS -THOSE--[IN MY CLASSES-UNDER G.I. BILL] TOOK; THE STIPEND FROM THEIR GI BILL;THEN THEY SHOWED UP AT BEGINNING OF A SEMESTER AND LAST DAY, IN THIS WAY; TO SEE THAT THEIR MONEY STREAM WAS "PAID" TO THEM--BUT SANS ANY SKILLS OR BASE KNOWLEDGE! SO, FREIDMAN'S WORLD I.E.-HARD ASS REALITY SAYS; THAT WE [AMERICANS]EAT OUR LONG-TERM CHILDREN! I.E. LET,-BEAN COUNTERS AND PUNDITS,THAT ; LIVE ONLY IN THEIR HEADS RULE! I,E, OBAMA A "CHALKBOARD" PRESIDENT CANT FIX 40 YEARS OF LAZY-DENIAL THAT CORPORATIONS[A.L.E.C./ ROVE/BITES]THAT DON'T CARE- TAKE YOUR RETIREMENT MONEY DRINK;-GAMBLE, FORNICATE, AND SMILE AT THE POOR UNTIL THEY DIE-SAYING-"YEA ITS A GOD DAMN SHAME AIN'T IT"!

SharkswithfrikingLazers  06/28/2012 01:48 AM Report

She gave us an example of compromise on welfare reform between Republicans and Democrats and she also mentioned people resigned.

Peter Edelman famously resigned when Clinton signed the 1996 welfare reform legislation.

He has some great things to say on Bill's show. Here is the transcript: http://billmoyers.com/segment/peter-eldelman-on-fighting-poverty/

BILL MOYERS: What was wrong with it (welfare reform)?

PETER EDELMAN: What was wrong with it is that it did not, it had not ever said to people "We really need for you to get out and get a job and earn money. And we will do that in have a policy in a way that we will help you do that. But we're not going to just let you sit there and stay for your whole life on welfare." If you look at the some of the families, particularly at that period of time, they had essentially gotten too used to having that check.

And 14 million people, which is the number that were on welfare when Bill Clinton took office, that was too many. We didn't have sufficient economic crisis on our hands that there were people lined up because it was a recession, it was just because we had gotten soft about it.

PETER EDELMAN: The practical therefore is that we have 20 million people who are in deep poverty who have incomes below half the poverty line, below $9,000 for a family of three, and we have ripped the safety net down to having only the food stamp to it, at the very bottom. And that it means that you, in all of these states that for so many of them where it basically doesn't exist anymore it leaves people in this incredibly destitute position. That's what it means.

So yes, compromise, but the compromise should not be for bad legislation.

BENEZRAA  06/26/2012 07:30 PM Report

"BAH! HUMBUG"

At least one writer below may find his great awakenings, when he is visited in dreams by those teachers, who may have influenced him far more deeply and truly than his present recollections of them.

That aside, REMant did write an interesting and eminently readable essay; one is reminded that the Ghosts of Christmas did not totally pan Scrooge (they'd not have visited his consciousness, had he been beyond redemption in their eyes).

A FEW IDEAS FOR YOUR CONSIDERATION

1. Republicanism is a form of Democracy, and these are pitiably seen to be in conflict with each other; one wishes that our present day major political parties were not so casually conflated to be representative of the modeled governmental forms after which the two major parties have named themselves.

2. I am reminded of a mentor of mine, who had served in the Nam as a Ranger, who made it a habit to say, "If you can't beat 'em with your brawn, then baffle 'em with your bullsh-t." It is well to remember that sophistry and wisdom are not always the same thing. (Thankfully, I am not in such circumstance as to require either brawn or sophistry.) I merely point out, as regards ancient philosophy, that the Sophists and the Philosophists (the b-s artists and their starstruck groupies) made their pedestrian livings hand-to- mouth, village-to-village, by entertaining their audiences. Not without purpose, value, and at times innovation, the sophists and philosophists still ought not be idolized, as too often they are.

Some may dream of well-ordered societies in which are worthy Philosopher Kings, their soldiers, their mouthpieces, and their obedient servants and slaves. Alas, the world is a dynamic place, not a static, perpetual motion machine in which each part is order-suited to it's task. One day's Slave may be next day's King.

3. So-called meritocracies have their corruptions, or they would not be subject to criticism. Yet every society has institutionalized meritocracies. We may ask, which educational institutions are the perfect "black boxes", taking in unformed minds and cranking out grown ups? (Cough, cough....) But, some are better than others and for different things at different times. So it is in Government, Religion, Business, etc.

4. Compromise? Compromise is a loaded word. "Compromise" means a "together promise". Too often the word is used as an euphemism for engaging in acts of conciliation or even out- and-out surrender. American Democracy is based on two fundamental joint concepts: competition and compromise. "Competition" means "to come together in strength" and is distinguished from "conflict" (the word 'competition' is often used as an euphemism for 'conflict'). So, if Amy Gutmann is using the word 'compromise' in it's correct sense, then there is everything right with the idea; a great example of a true spirit of compromise was given to us just the other night in the collegial conversation of Hillary Clinton and James Baker.

5. I'd like to see the Supreme Court expanded to ninteen judges in number. The quantity and complexity of the law, legislation, and issues today call for more minds in the Chambers of the Supreme Court. Agreed, 300-million would be difficult to manage.

6. Freedom? Ideally there are those, who are jealous of their own freedom and respectful of the freedom of others. Just as well, there are those, who are jealous of their own freedom and disrespectful of the freedom of others. And then there are those, who despise freedom altogether. None of these attitudes towards freedom are the sole province of any one political party.

topazgirl  06/26/2012 03:53 AM Report

Sharkey, my dear! ...You got my attention with "FAREED ZAKARIA IS THE MAN!"... Thank you for the link!... He IS "the man", you know... Take it from a woman!

duckmonkeyman  06/25/2012 11:45 PM Report

K-12 is not the monolithic failure nor is post-secondary the nexus of enlightment Dr. suggests. We in K-12 tire of the constant finger pointing from politicians and ivory towers that is neither accurate nor productive. Much of the basis for "failing" schools rhetoric is from the PISA tests. One correlation that stands out the link between poverty and performance. Creativity, learning, and reasoned thought is being crushed in K-12 by mindless testing, suffocating standards, and political ideology.

Post-secondary needs to pursue a pro-education agenda. Rather than more blame, ask the K-12 teacher WHY they are hampered in the classroom to bridge the gap. Once students reach college, ensure they are given quality educators, not ill-prepared, over-worked grad students. Focus on teaching and less on revenue, buildings, and research. End the mind set that all students fit a mold and be weeded out. Many of the greatest thinkers did not fit well in a typical university setting.

And finally STOP RAISING TUITION BEYOND THE ABILITY TO PAY!!! Too many students are in debt far beyond their means.

tabs  06/25/2012 08:03 PM Report

This conversation could have been held by two people over a glass of White Wine at any bar from coast to coast. "Isn't it a shame that America is going to hell in a hand basket" is the refrain and then they can pick a cause from Column A and one from Column B and with four causes you get Egg roll.

Then we got to the SOLUTION part of the discussion!!!! and that is, that we need to "COMPROMISE," and that the politicians should "GET TO WORK." Alas one supposes if the world were so simple then anybody could do it? What we...they..Amy and Charlie have neglected to illuminate is the process and mechanism of how to "compromise." Without that essential little piece of information this whole conversation was a waste of time.

The point of departure is the question of, what are the causes of polarization in the political process? Polarization is simply and essentially that there are two diametrically opposed points of view about what a problem is, how it should be resolved and that neither side is willing to see the others point of view as being equally valid in its own right. In other words each party chooses only to see one side of a coin without recognizing that there is an obverse side (POV) of the same coin which has equal veracity.

The simple way to improve the American education system is to clean out the DEAD WOOD of the administrative bureaucracy that bloats every school districts offices. But now we are talking about what one may term as the Complexity of Density...and that is a whole different subject that is not really germain to this discussion.

SharkswithfrikingLazers  06/25/2012 04:55 PM Report

We are told that, 'We really have to do something about K-12 and we really have to make it more robust.'

FAREED ZAKARIA IS THE MAN!

He does a fantastic job on CNN and you can read the transcript on his Education Special:

http://transcripts.cnn.com/TRANSCRIPTS/1111/12/fzgps.01.html

ZAKARIA: The global consulting firm McKenzie estimates that if the United States had in recent years closed the gap between its educational achievement levels and those of better performing nations like Finland and South Korea, GDP in 2008 could have been $1.3 trillion to $2.3 trillion higher. This represents a 9 to 16 percent jump in GDP.

Scroll to the bottom of the transcript for his WONDERFUL conclusions.

SharkswithfrikingLazers  06/25/2012 04:45 PM Report

In China she says she is asked how to teach creativity.

Simple, four words this time: Google "creativity Charlie Rose".

My pleasure.

SharkswithfrikingLazers  06/25/2012 04:41 PM Report

We are told by her that 'A university gives you knowledge and tools to seek new knowledge.'

Let me save you tens, if not hundreds of thousands of dollars, with two words: Google and Wikipedia.

You're welcome.

SharkswithfrikingLazers  06/25/2012 04:34 PM Report

She tells us that, 'The role of the university is to speak truth to power but not be arrogant about it. To educate people on how to make a democracy one step at time."

Does she spend time outside her island?

We don't live in a democracy--I pledge allegiance to the flag of a Republic.

A university is a temp agency with labor savings on "Adjunct Faculty", huge, huge classes and graduate students.

Those who could speak truth to power are worried about job security called tenure.

Those who have the tenure have been beaten down to inertia.

It is the youth at the university. THE YOUTH! That is where the university has its power and energy.

The university outlines the problems and focuses the youth on the problems and DOES NOT CRIPPLE THEM WITH DEBT!

(More student loan debt in America than credit card debt--thank you universities.)

SharkswithfrikingLazers  06/25/2012 04:21 PM Report

On a scale of 1 to 10, 10 being "profound" and 1 being “no kidding”, Amy’s presentation is a 2 and she needs to start watching "Charlie Rose".

Or perhaps she has been watching Charlie Rose and that is how she (or perhaps her co-author) came by writing this book.

SharkswithfrikingLazers  06/25/2012 04:19 PM Report

Charlie, you ask your question and you wait for an answer and then you get an answer but it is an answer to some other question.

How does that make you feel?

'Cause I know how it makes me feel--used!

REMant  06/25/2012 11:42 AM Report

I'm supposing she is talking about the continued political conflict over the "DREAM Act" and Bowles-Simpson, but I see no reason for compromise. Regrettably, perhaps, the Constitution doesn't provide for any way out of such impasses, and I doubt as many govts as post-war France would help even if it did. So instead we have ppl like Ornstein writing about conservative cranks.

But this is a real "culture war," and even that begs the question, since once side doesn't think of it as a matter of culture, or "values," at all. Pres Gutmann, herself, appears to owe her career to coming down on one side of this issue. Penn is arguably the most "politically correct" campus in the nation (located in, perhaps not accidentally, one of its most dysfunctional cities). So one tends to be incredulous.

She tips her hand by repeatedly referring to this nation as a democracy. Nowhere in the Constitution is the word democracy found. (Nor for that matter in the Declaration of Independence.) And republic, which is, has a far different meaning, and always has had, although I see dictionaries failing to distinguish them nowadays. Historically, a republic meant self-government by individuals of virtue. The question turns on virtue, which meant ratiocination and control of the passions, resulting in prowess. Democracy, on the other hand, derived from the period of Athens' rule by the common people, always thought of as a mob. No doubt, as in Athens, it arose in England when the aristocratic monarchy grew so weak it turned to support from London's bankers and tradesmen, and to taxes from trade, to which, BTW, the Constitution limits the Federal government, because the Founders were already aware that government follows the money.

But the question is larger than that, since it involves the re-emergence, against the background of the Reformation, of society based on sentiment and history, rather than reason and design, which Mandeville, Smith, Tocqueville, and most of the 19th c grappled with, and reflected in the so-called religious "awakenings" in which personal relations were made conditional, (precisely, incidentally, what our "politically correct" profess to oppose). Whereas republicans are jealous of their freedom, and relate to others with similar respect, democrats are envious of others, from which stems the whole idea of welfare capitalism with its scramble for power and both need and great professions of charity, which defines our politics. Such "values" as tolerance, pluralism, and multiculturalism come down to interest-, not identity-, group politics.

Americans imagine themselves the world's saviors. All are deserving of love, and the victims of prejudice, and yet, the idea could only have arisen in a condition of low self-worth or atonement to begin with, such as has formed the basis of evangelical religion for centuries. Such ppl feel they should never have to say they're sorry, ironically, because all are made out to be victims. The word for it is self-righteousness. But such patronizing was not the politics of the majority of Founders, and it is not synonymous with paternalism, Gordon Wood, a Democrat, notwithstanding. Revolutions are started by good people with good intentions, lapse into mob rule and revert to absolutism, a progress noted by the ancients.

Not, of course, that money is unconnected with such a sentiment, as we readily see in the debate between sentimentalist Keynesians and rationalist hard money men. And arguably education before Horace Mann referred to the development of rationality, not sensitivity-training. This is, in fact, where the culture wars started. Two hundred years ago Presidents Dwight and Day would have dealt with the problem of compromise by impressing on their charges that they were lacking in grace, by which they would mean the ability to see things from God's perspective. And they would have taught them to look to Greek and Roman philosophers for instruction.

Real republicans are opposed to the DREAM Act not because they are hostile to free trade or racially prejudiced, nor are opposed to welfare because they are "puritanical," but because they are opposed to sustaining what they view as corruption, about which there can be no compromise. They are not the ones behind "austerity." Calvinism has been libeled since Weber and Tawney. The 1986 tax reform broadened the tax base and closed some loopholes only to open the one which led to the real estate debacle, and to Reagan's spending spree, both supported by the analogous notion that utility is a matter of possession rather than productivity. Last Thursday, the Senate provided a fine example of such logrolling, passing a $770 billion food stamp extension within a $970 billion farm bill.

Similarly, Sunday Jonathan Turley suggested increasing the size of the Supreme Court, since nine justices is too few a number to "make health care policy." But making health care policy is the function of the Congress. The function of the Court is to decide whether the law has met the legal requirements of the Constitution. One justice is enough to do that, and it is unlikely that 300 million would do any better.

There are limits to central decision-making even in an advanced society, and subsidiarity must be followed to prevent abuse of power, as Montesquieu reiterated for the founding generation, and which every good management textbook still does. True, Hume, Jefferson and Madison spent a lot of time trying to figure out how to get good leaders, but in the end, no matter what Wilson may have thought, it plays little part in our system of government, except in the popular imagination, and apparently that of officeholders.

I can't think of any of my teachers who made a difference in my life, or whom I would respect today. I think the social scientists in particular belong in the rice paddies, believing as they do that description alone is either sufficient to convey meaning or that meaning has no relevance, which of course, leaves them free to put whatever meaning they like on things. It is a peculiar view of history, I say, which has no use for the past.

As usual with stuff of this sort Rose tried to turn the interview into propaganda, and a typically Democratic thing to do.