09/12/2006: For the longest time, I’ve enjoyed reading Paul Craig Roberts. A paleo-conservative and former Reagan official, he has long been an avid supporter of classical economics, not to mention someone who is anything but a party hack.
Ergo, when he raises criticisms of the Bush Administration, he is someone to be taken seriously. A non-supporter of the war in Iraq, Roberts was among the first to challenge the “neoconservative” agenda of of the Rice, Rumsfeld, Wolfowitz, Frum, and Perle Institute of International Relations.
Whlie I consider myself a supporter of the war in Iraq, I generally oppose the neoconservative mindset that says, “Simply overthrow oppressive regimes, install a democratic government, and suddenly the people will start kissing each other and making love instead of war.” I have dubbed that Marxist Conservatism. (It is Marxist in that it is a dialectical antithesis of totalitarian rule and conservative in that embraces old-style Buckleyite anti-Communism, and as doomed to fail as Communism because–like Communism–it takes an overly optimistic view of human tendencies.)
However, I think Roberts has been blinded by his hatred of all things Bush, just as most Bush supporters were/are blinded by their hatred of all things Clinton.
I say that because he has all but jumped onto the 9/11 conspiracy bandwagon. In his latest column, Roberts insists that we take David Ray Griffin–author of Christian Faith and the Truth Behind 9-11– seriously, even though Griffin is as deplorable in his one-sided, baseless attacks as Jerry Falwell was with respect to President Clinton.
I reject Griffin for the reason I reject the account of the 9/11 Commission: both were and are seeking to advance political agendas. (Every appointment on the Commission was made to protect either Bush or Clinton. Griffin, on the other hand, seeks to attack Bush at all costs.
For the record: if Bush is guilty of what Griffin is charging, he ought to be impeached, then prosecuted, then executed.
However, conspiracy theorists need to get their heads out of their tin-foil hats for a change and be rational.
For the Griffin conspiracy theory to be true, too many people would be in the know. The conspirators would involve the Pentagon (including several layers of the military spanning different branches of the Service), the FBI, the CIA, the NSA, the White House, the NYPD, the FDNY, the New York Port Authority, the FAA, United Airlines, and American Airlines. If those flights were unmanned, then somoene would have had to stage all those calls by people on the planes to their family members. If Bush knew about the attacks in advance and willfully let them happen, again this would have been leaked. A Secret Service agent would have leaked. An FBI or CIA agent would have leaked. Someone from the Pentagon would have leaked. No way in hell this gets swept under a rug if Bush passed on this one.
Such a conspiracy would have required the cooperation–without any leaks–of multiple agencies, including people at all levels of those agencies.
Don’t get me wrong: as someone who listened to replays of the coverage of 9/11 yesterday, I can understand why conspiracy theorists would have explored the possibility of a willful demolition of the WTC. Many witnesses at the time heard what sounded like an explosion, right before each tower fell. That bang could easily have been the result of a profound structural failure.
The WTC towers were built to withstand a direct hit from a Boeing 707, but a 757 is a much larger aircraft. Prior to the collapses, firefighters expressed concern about a potential collapse due to the effect of the heat from the jet fuel-induced fire. Keep in mind that a fueled jet–travelling at 400+ knots–has a large amount of momentum and kinetic energy (not to mention the chemical potential energy of the jet fuel) that was transferred directly to the building. Coupled with the transient structural response due to the impact of the airplanes, a very high danger of collapse existed.)
Due to the extent of the damage, it would be difficult to reconstruct the exact structural scenario that led to the collapse of the towers.
As for the Bush Administration? Let’s face it: political bodies will do what they are predisposed to do. Newton’s First Law of Politics is that a government has a natural tendency to increase in size and scope; a crisis only exacerbates that tendency.
Does anyone honestly think Gore or Kerry would have responded by making government smaller? Remember: the Department for Homeland Security was not an original Bush idea; that was a Democrat idea that Bush eventually embraced.
My point: Bush did what Presidents do in times like this. He seized on the aftermath of 9/11 to make government bigger so he could exercise more control over matters that the public expected him to control.
As a libertarian, I take serious exception with Bush over that: he could have taken the opportunity to beat the drum for drastic government spending cuts while prosecuting the war in Afghanistan. He could also prosecute the war in Iraq while making it clear that we are not going to make it a general habit of using our military to make nations democratic.
Personally, I’d like to see him have a summit with Iran and secure an agreement with them. We could officially apologize for using the CIA to undermine Mossadegh and the Shah, and–in return–we could have a trust and verify relationship that allowed Iran to have nukes while we help ensure that they do not end in the hands of Islammunist paramilitary groups. We could make it clear to Iran that the Israelis and Palestinians have existing agreements, and will respect the right of Israel to fight nations that provide material support to proxy armies that would undermine those peace agreements.
That said, Griffin is guilty of a partisan smear against Bush all wrapped in Christian sanctimony. I am disappointed that Roberts would be so blinded by his hatred of Bush that he would willingly embrace such a nut job.
Math Council Repents of “Fuzzy Math”
09/12/2006: The National Council of Teachers of Mathematics (NCTM) has finally woken up and smelled the napalm. In a stunning–but very necessary–reversal of a policy disaster that goes back 17 years, the Council is now advising teachers to ensure that students learn mathematics fundamentals.
In 1989, the Council recommended more focus on problem solving and estimation skills, to the exclusion of multiplication tables, facts regarding addition and subtraction, and long division. This caused critics to rightfully blast the strategy as “fuzzy math”.
The results have been staggering, as American students have increasingly fallen behind students in other countries in terms of mathematical aptitude. This in spite of spending record per-student dollar amounts on education. Many college professors reported that students needed increasing levels of remedial work, as they entered college vastly unprepared for college mathematics.
I should know: I work with one of those students. He is a senior at a large university, and–by his own admission–he knows very little math. Last academic year, he needed help with his remedial algebra class, in which the material was 8th and 9th grade-caliber pre-algebra and Algebra I. What was most damaging was his lack of ability to be able to perform basic arithmetic operations. He had a nice calculator, but he was needing it to perform very basic calculations that should require no calculator. I tutored him to a B last year, and now he is taking College Algebra, which is typically a prep class for calculus.
Here is the kicker: his mathematics instructors allow–and encourage–the use of calculators on exams. (This was something encouraged in the NCTM advisory of 1989.)
Throughout my high school and college mathematical experiences, I was never allowed to use a calculator: in mathematics classes, they were strictly prohibited. Even for trigonometric functions. We had to understand cosines, sines, and tangents of basic angles on the unit circle. (I still remember those.) We also had to know the dimensions of basic triangles: 30-60-90, 45-45-90, and 3-4-5 right triangles. (I still remember those, too.) We had to know basic square and cube roots.
When I was a kid, my stepmother did not allow me to have a calculator until I was in 5th grade, when I got one for Christmas. She spent long hours drilling me on the multiplication tables, using flash cards. Even when I got the calculator, I had to know my math: with the new calculator came increased expectations of math performance on my part.
In college, I bought an HP-41, which allowed me to write programs for certain engineering functions (pressure/temperature/density at altitudes, Mohr’s Circle, basic aerodynamics and thermodynamics), and English-metric unit conversions. While calculators like mine were allowed in engineering classes, they were not allowed in mathematics classes. And graphing calculators? Hell no: we had to know how to sketch our own graphs (that’s a fundamental concept in Calculus I).
Did the prohibition of calculators hinder my mathematical problem-solving abilities? I doubt it: I had a better-than-average GPA (3.15) majoring in aeronautical engineering. That in spite of working almost full-time hours on the side.
Some might say, “Well…but you were an engineering major. What about non-technical majors, such as psychology or sociology?” Even in the soft-sciences, there is an increasing need for students to be able to analyze data. That means knowing statistics and probability. To do those well, you’d better be pretty good at numbers.
Even non-analytical types are getting a disservice with softer math, as everyone–irrespective of vocation–is facing an increasing need to be able to evaluate different economic and investment decisions (within IRAs and other retirement plans, budgeting for short and long-term expenses), as well as the risks involved.
With a robust understanding of mathematics, such a one is in better position to make sounder decisions in those arenas.
Given that, the NCTM’s new recommendation is a welcome reversal.