"...it's the only thing."
Saw that on the office of somebody's door last semester, someone who works in the field of health. And it really bugged me, but it's taken me a long time to put my finger on exactly how and why it's bugging me.
I got it.
It creates a polarity, divides people into two distinct groups of people, with no possibility for existence in between.
The healthy? Lucky. I suspect, too, that a lot of people who subscribe to this belief also think that the healthy are doing lots of things right. They don't smoke, they eat well, they exercise, they've banished their personal demons, all through strength of will.
The unhealthy, by contrast, are unlucky or badly behaved, or perhaps simply weak in discipline. They brought diseases upon themselves or simply chose poor genetic material.
(I'm using "unhealthy" very broadly here to mean anyone with a physical or mental impairment, whether caused by illness or accident or roll of the genetic dice, as well as anyone with a chronic or intermittent illness.)
Placing the unhealthy in the position of culpability has a number of problematic effects, one of which is the attitude that society doesn't need to provide health insurance, because people should take better care of themselves so they won't get sick and won't need to see the doctor.
Calling the unhealthy "unlucky" is also problematic. It suggests that those who are unhealthy can't be happy or productive. It suggests that those who are not completely able and disease-free should be pitied. Also, they should probably take better care of themselves and avoid activities that exacerbate the illness, even if they're activities that allow independence. And this becomes paternalistic.
So let's hang on to the first part of that sentence on the door: "Health isn't the most important thing." Because it's not.
It's entirely possibly to live a rich, full, varied life while "unhealthy."
25 February 2011
24 February 2011
Like Atoms in Space
When I'm riding my bike along the East River at dusk, it seems as if all of New York City is in motion. With me on the pavement are other bike commuters, recreational cyclists, joggers, dog-walkers, and the occasional couple canoodling on a bench -- and they, too, will soon move on.
On the river beside me, the ferry on its way to New Jersey, the river taxi coming from one of the airports. A few minutes earlier or later, and I might have seen one of the evening cruise boats, or the huge Department of Environmental Protection ship moving slowly but inexorably along the water.
On the other side, the FDR drive, headlights and taillights speeding by in both directions, and now the flashing lights of an ambulance, just as quickly gone.
Overhead on the bridges, subways and buses bringing people home from work, or in for the night shift, or just out for the evening. Trucks: produce, clothing, books and beer and all the other things you can buy in the big city.
Even higher, a helicopter choppering its way downtown, headed maybe for the landing pad at the South Street Seaport, or maybe going on to cross New York Harbor for Staten Island or New Jersey, or maybe just aiming for a spot above one of the bridges to report on the traffic.
And far above that, airplanes aiming across America or out over open water, carrying passengers to Cleveland or California or Korea, a million stories in the sky.
The high rises on the other side of the FDR, with lights flickering on inside: such temporary landing places for all this bustle, seeming, in this magic hour of transition from light to darkness, to possess little more permanence than a park bench.
On the river beside me, the ferry on its way to New Jersey, the river taxi coming from one of the airports. A few minutes earlier or later, and I might have seen one of the evening cruise boats, or the huge Department of Environmental Protection ship moving slowly but inexorably along the water.
On the other side, the FDR drive, headlights and taillights speeding by in both directions, and now the flashing lights of an ambulance, just as quickly gone.
Overhead on the bridges, subways and buses bringing people home from work, or in for the night shift, or just out for the evening. Trucks: produce, clothing, books and beer and all the other things you can buy in the big city.
Even higher, a helicopter choppering its way downtown, headed maybe for the landing pad at the South Street Seaport, or maybe going on to cross New York Harbor for Staten Island or New Jersey, or maybe just aiming for a spot above one of the bridges to report on the traffic.
And far above that, airplanes aiming across America or out over open water, carrying passengers to Cleveland or California or Korea, a million stories in the sky.
The high rises on the other side of the FDR, with lights flickering on inside: such temporary landing places for all this bustle, seeming, in this magic hour of transition from light to darkness, to possess little more permanence than a park bench.
22 February 2011
Logging Work
Last week, I wrote with dismay that Kean University is requiring professors to keep time sheets proving that they work at least 35 hours a week.
Out of curiosity about how many hours I actually spend working, I started keeping track of my own time. To my own surprise, I spent 41 hours and 45 minutes working last week. Working, that is, at tasks related to my academic position -- so not including child care, household responsibilities, reading the paper, checking Facebook, or writing this blog.
Why surprise? Because The Offspring came down with a virus at school on Thursday, and I had to pick him up in the middle of the day, thus losing half that day and the entire day on Friday to work. I also spent several hours in the car on Saturday driving The Offspring to The Grandparents, where he's spending his winter vacation, so again no job-related tasks.
I'm going to keep this log for at least another week. I'm now quite curious about how much time I actually spend working during a "normal" week.
***
A log is a large piece of wood -- a material used extensively through much of human history for fuel and construction material.
The Oxford English Dictionary records that in the sixteenth century, the word "log" began to be used in a more specific sense to mean a piece of wood attached to a line, thrown by sailors into the water, and allowed to drift behind a ship, with the line unwinding as the ship moved forward. After two hours or so, the "log" would be pulled back to the ship, and the length of the line that had unwound in that time measured, to find out how fast the ship was traveling.
The distances would, each time, be entered into a "log-book." And in the early nineteenth century, we get "log" as a verb meaning to enter information into a log-book.
***
I have a feeling I'm not going to be entirely thrilled about how many hours I discover, in the next week or two, I spend "at work" -- at my office or at home, at night after The Offspring goes to bed, on weekends while he's reading a book or out with The Dad.
Out of curiosity about how many hours I actually spend working, I started keeping track of my own time. To my own surprise, I spent 41 hours and 45 minutes working last week. Working, that is, at tasks related to my academic position -- so not including child care, household responsibilities, reading the paper, checking Facebook, or writing this blog.
Why surprise? Because The Offspring came down with a virus at school on Thursday, and I had to pick him up in the middle of the day, thus losing half that day and the entire day on Friday to work. I also spent several hours in the car on Saturday driving The Offspring to The Grandparents, where he's spending his winter vacation, so again no job-related tasks.
I'm going to keep this log for at least another week. I'm now quite curious about how much time I actually spend working during a "normal" week.
***
A log is a large piece of wood -- a material used extensively through much of human history for fuel and construction material.
The Oxford English Dictionary records that in the sixteenth century, the word "log" began to be used in a more specific sense to mean a piece of wood attached to a line, thrown by sailors into the water, and allowed to drift behind a ship, with the line unwinding as the ship moved forward. After two hours or so, the "log" would be pulled back to the ship, and the length of the line that had unwound in that time measured, to find out how fast the ship was traveling.
The distances would, each time, be entered into a "log-book." And in the early nineteenth century, we get "log" as a verb meaning to enter information into a log-book.
***
I have a feeling I'm not going to be entirely thrilled about how many hours I discover, in the next week or two, I spend "at work" -- at my office or at home, at night after The Offspring goes to bed, on weekends while he's reading a book or out with The Dad.
20 February 2011
Unions and Student Achievement
It's going around Facebook: five states prohibit collective bargaining for teachers, and their students rank lowest in the nation in average SAT scores. But is it true?
Well, no.
Here's a map from the National Council on Teacher Equality that shows the five states that prohibit teachers from unionizing. The states: Texas, Georgia, South and North Carolina, and Virginia.
The data:
According to a table posted here, the five lowest states for combined scores in all three subtests are Maine, Hawaii, South Carolina, Georgia, and New York, with Texas coming in at #6.
(I'm using the total of scores on all three subtests for this ranking; the website only provides the scores broken down by subtest, so I copied the data into an Excel spreadsheet to do the addition and the comparisons.)
However, this data is skewed by the percentage of students who take the test; more takers seem to translated to lower scores. Maine requires all juniors to take the SAT; 90 percent of students in fact take it; and Maine has the lowest average scores in the nation. Next on the list, with 85 percent of students taking the SAT, is New York, which also falls into the five-lowest group.
But South Carolina, Georgia, and Texas have lower percentages of students taking the SAT -- 67, 71, and 51 percent, respectively -- so on the assumption that where better students self-select to take the SAT, the averages should be higher. So the fact that those three states rank 3rd, 4th, and 6th should still prompt a hard look at educational policies, and how they might be affecting achievement.
(How about Virginia and North Carolina? 12th and 8th from the bottom, respectively, with 63 and 68 percent of students taking the test.)
Update: I looked up ACT scores, and it's not true for those, either. I was wondering, though, if Texas is an ACT state and that's why such a low percentage of students take the SAT -- but only 33 percent of Texas students take that test. Is this the result of former Governor Bush's No Child Left Behind policies?
Well, no.
Here's a map from the National Council on Teacher Equality that shows the five states that prohibit teachers from unionizing. The states: Texas, Georgia, South and North Carolina, and Virginia.
The data:
According to a table posted here, the five lowest states for combined scores in all three subtests are Maine, Hawaii, South Carolina, Georgia, and New York, with Texas coming in at #6.
(I'm using the total of scores on all three subtests for this ranking; the website only provides the scores broken down by subtest, so I copied the data into an Excel spreadsheet to do the addition and the comparisons.)
However, this data is skewed by the percentage of students who take the test; more takers seem to translated to lower scores. Maine requires all juniors to take the SAT; 90 percent of students in fact take it; and Maine has the lowest average scores in the nation. Next on the list, with 85 percent of students taking the SAT, is New York, which also falls into the five-lowest group.
But South Carolina, Georgia, and Texas have lower percentages of students taking the SAT -- 67, 71, and 51 percent, respectively -- so on the assumption that where better students self-select to take the SAT, the averages should be higher. So the fact that those three states rank 3rd, 4th, and 6th should still prompt a hard look at educational policies, and how they might be affecting achievement.
(How about Virginia and North Carolina? 12th and 8th from the bottom, respectively, with 63 and 68 percent of students taking the test.)
Update: I looked up ACT scores, and it's not true for those, either. I was wondering, though, if Texas is an ACT state and that's why such a low percentage of students take the SAT -- but only 33 percent of Texas students take that test. Is this the result of former Governor Bush's No Child Left Behind policies?
18 February 2011
Assault on Education
At Idaho State University, the state Board of Education has suspended the faculty senate.
In Wisconsin and Ohio, the state legislatures want to ban unions entirely, including the unions that represent college faculty and public school teachers.
In New Jersey, faculty at one institution are being required to fill out time sheets to prove that they actually spend a whole 35 hours a week at work.
In South Carolina, the House of Representatives is considering a bill that would require all faculty to teach at least nine hours a week. A Republican state representative said "I think we need to have professors in the classroom and not on sabbatical and out researching and doing things to that effect."
What does he think faculty are up to when they're "out researching"? Where does he think knowledge comes from? (Also, maybe he doesn't realize that it's a tiny number of faculty who teach fewer than nine hours a week -- 12 or 15 is standard at many schools.)
In New York City, the mayor appointed a schools chancellor with no experience -- none at all -- in any kind of education system.
A lot of this is about labor. New York's governor Cuomo is also apparently thinking of unions when he writes that the state's education system is "bloated with waste and inefficiency."
But I'm struck by the number of assaults specifically on teachers.
What is it about education as a profession -- from kindergarten through graduate school -- that has the public steaming so badly? Is it the disconnect between a public that sees education as a credential to be paid for, and a faculty that demands it be worked for? Or something broader and deeper than that?
In Wisconsin and Ohio, the state legislatures want to ban unions entirely, including the unions that represent college faculty and public school teachers.
In New Jersey, faculty at one institution are being required to fill out time sheets to prove that they actually spend a whole 35 hours a week at work.
In South Carolina, the House of Representatives is considering a bill that would require all faculty to teach at least nine hours a week. A Republican state representative said "I think we need to have professors in the classroom and not on sabbatical and out researching and doing things to that effect."
What does he think faculty are up to when they're "out researching"? Where does he think knowledge comes from? (Also, maybe he doesn't realize that it's a tiny number of faculty who teach fewer than nine hours a week -- 12 or 15 is standard at many schools.)
In New York City, the mayor appointed a schools chancellor with no experience -- none at all -- in any kind of education system.
A lot of this is about labor. New York's governor Cuomo is also apparently thinking of unions when he writes that the state's education system is "bloated with waste and inefficiency."
But I'm struck by the number of assaults specifically on teachers.
What is it about education as a profession -- from kindergarten through graduate school -- that has the public steaming so badly? Is it the disconnect between a public that sees education as a credential to be paid for, and a faculty that demands it be worked for? Or something broader and deeper than that?
Smoking and NJ Transit (Again)
Smoking on the train platform at Long Branch continues to be a problem; NJ Transit has refused to take constructive action. I've just written this letter to the American Lung Association of the Mid-Atlantic:
I’m writing in the hope that you can help with suggestions for constructive action.I regularly take the New Jersey transit train from New York City to Long Branch, NJ, and though there are no-smoking signs along the platform at the Long Branch Station, people routinely smoke under them.
I’ve asked train attendants to remind the smokers they’re not permitted to smoke on the platforms; they say it’s not their job. I’ve asked the station attendant to make announcements reminding riders that smoking isn’t permitted on the platform; sometimes she does. I’ve asked smokers myself to stop, and received very rude responses.
I’ve contacted the NJ Transit customer service office. Their official response: “Call the police when you see someone smoking.” They also suggested that I not speak to any smokers myself.
(It should be irrelevant – everyone is entitled to clean air – but I’m asthmatic, with severe allergy to smoke of all kinds, and recovering from a bout of pneumonia last month.)
Do you have any contacts at NJ Transit? Any suggestions about how to draw more attention to this issue and get NJ Transit to act constructively?
Thank you very much for your time.
My next step might be the local papers. Anyone reading this have another idea?
Update: Nine minutes after I sent the above message, I got this reply:
Thank you for your email. Let me start some conversations about this. I appreciate you making me aware of the situation.
17 February 2011
Should Environmental Action Hurt?
I just stumbled over a carbon footprint calculator that tells you how much carbon you can avoid spewing into the environment by making various lifestyle changes.
One of the sections available is drinking less. And I learned that if I cut out my habit of drinking a glass of wine or a little single malt once a week or so, I can reduce my carbon output by something like 266 pounds a year.
Context: if I ride my bike to work one day a week instead of driving, I save 2619 pounds of CO2.
More context: I've never in my life been drunk. Having a drink relaxes me a little at the end of the day, and I like the taste. I've gone weeks, months, sometimes years, without having a drink and without missing it.
But for some reason the idea that I should cut back leaves me feeling kind of whimpery.
Which raises another issue. If I'm already doing lots of things to try to reduce my environmental impact -- avoiding meat, trying to drive less, choosing fair trade coffee, living in a small apartment rather than a big house, even drinking relatively little alcohol -- what responsibility do I have to cut back further?
To what extent should changing our lives make us uncomfortable? Can we reverse, or even slow, climate change without collectively being very uncomfortable?
One of the sections available is drinking less. And I learned that if I cut out my habit of drinking a glass of wine or a little single malt once a week or so, I can reduce my carbon output by something like 266 pounds a year.
Context: if I ride my bike to work one day a week instead of driving, I save 2619 pounds of CO2.
More context: I've never in my life been drunk. Having a drink relaxes me a little at the end of the day, and I like the taste. I've gone weeks, months, sometimes years, without having a drink and without missing it.
But for some reason the idea that I should cut back leaves me feeling kind of whimpery.
Which raises another issue. If I'm already doing lots of things to try to reduce my environmental impact -- avoiding meat, trying to drive less, choosing fair trade coffee, living in a small apartment rather than a big house, even drinking relatively little alcohol -- what responsibility do I have to cut back further?
To what extent should changing our lives make us uncomfortable? Can we reverse, or even slow, climate change without collectively being very uncomfortable?
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