I don’t usually read the Education section of the Sunday NYTimes, but its lead piece caught my eye this week.

In New York State, people have a constitutional right to an education. The question is: How good an education?

… the court ruled [last week] that schools were obligated by the state Constitution to do nothing more than prepare students for low-level jobs, for serving on a jury and for reading campaign literature ÷ the equivalent, the court suggested, of an eighth- or a ninth-grade education.

Yep. Sure makes me want to send my kids to a public school. (And let’s not forget that New York State sends less money per kid to New York City schools than to any other district in the state.)

In the discussion of kids as economic units vs kids as citizen units, I’d venture that this ruling does credit to neither. Whatever happened to the notion that an educated electorate is necessary for an adequately functioning democracy?

I once saw a grafitto scrawled on a bridge in Boston: “If voting mattered, they wouldn’t let you.” Sometimes I do wonder if our government doesn’t prefer an electorate that’s easy to lie to.

Clay Shirky is one of my favorite writers about the Internet. Only some of that is because I was the first editor to put his essays in general circulation; the rest is that he’s such a wonderfully clear thinker and writer. We don’t usually agree entirely, but our conversations always leave me more informed than when we started.

His latest is an investigation into the meme “Half the world has never made a phone call.” Clay does what someone should have done a long time ago: he tracks down who first said it, and when, and why. Then he talks about why it probably isn’t true — and why it doesn’t matter one way or another.

Angela Gunn passes this along, with only a slightly victorious sneer. From the New Scientist:

The further your politics lean to the right the more likely you are to have nightmares, according to a dream researcher from Santa Clara University in California.

Kelly Bulkeley found that US Republicans are almost three times more likely to have bad dreams than Democrats.

 

They are apparently re-making one of my favorite movies. “The In-Laws” is a 1979 comedy written by Andrew Bergman, who also wrote “The Freshman” and “Soapdish,” and part of “Blazing Saddles.” (He also wrote “So Fine” and “Striptease,” demonstrating that no one’s career is unmarred.) “The In-Laws” starred Alan Arkin and Peter Falk, with Richard Libertini in a large supporting role.

Like most Bergman films, this one is about an innocent (a Long Island dentist) who gets placed in increasing absurd and dangerous situations — bad days that keep getting worse. And like most Bergman films, the dialog is razor sharp.

Not willing to let a classic lie unmolested, “The In-Laws” is about to start filming in Toronto. It could be worse: Albert Brooks — now a podiatrist — is in the Alan Arkin role and Michael Douglas in the Peter Falk part. Sounds like it’ll be pretty glossy, which is a big change from the low-budget original.

 

The Telegraph reports something of a dust-up over a prosthetic penis in a West End play.

 

I have no idea where these thoughts are leading:

Where we have today is the Hands-On Generation. People use technology to control their lives. They use computers to decide what they want to read and where and when. The choices of music — and the media by which its enjoyed — is unprecedented. We’ve moved from once-a-week Don Kirschner’s Rock Concert, to MTV, to a choice of daily live rock performance on Letterman or Leno. Cable television, the VCR and DVD have utterly blown up the movie distribution industry. Tivo is already changing the way networks program. Cell phones and pagers let us shift time and place; is it possible to watch an old TV cop show that hinges on someone finding a pay phone without snickering?

It’s not just about instant gratification. It’s not even about Carrie Fisher’s wonderful line, “Instant gratification isn’t fast enough.” It’s about the instants getting ever shorter. It’s John Brunner, in his novel “Stand on Zanzibar:” “They say it’s automatic, but you really have to push this button.”

Though it’s been possible for decades to start your own garage band, now you can start the band, record it, press a CD, and distribute it — all without much of a corporate infrastructure.

Which is good, because corporations, which through the latter half of the ’90s tried to portray themselves as Shiny Happy People so that you too could be a spectacularly rich 30-year-old CEO of a publically traded company… well, not only are those days gone forever, but even the “adult supervision” companies are finally getting outed as Nasty Bastards who drove the market into a bridge abutment. Remember: it’s not the speed that kills you. It’s the deceleration after you stop.

If anyone can figure out what I’m getting at, please let me know.

Former UPI reporter Barney Lerten tracked down U.S. District Judge Ted Goodwin at his summer home for an interview. Read it here.

 

A couple of enterprising reporters tour some of Las Vegas’s 283 miles of drainage tunnels. Spooky. Good piece.

 

The Supreme Court ruled today that school vouchers, which allow parents essentially to opt out of the public education system, are constitutional. That may be as it is, but “constitutional” is not the same thing as “good.”

I will make out very well with school vouchers, which will allow me to apply a significant amount of my tax money — which would otherwise have gone to our local struggling publc school — to tuition at one of the very excellent private schools in our neighborhood. By the time our six-month-old twins are old enough, I’ve no doubt that New York City’s voucher program will be in place.

My kids will therefore get a great education, because we can afford to make up the difference between the voucher and tuition. But the local public school — with its low test results, high “minority” enrollment, and dedicated principal — is going to get slammed. It’s not that the other affluent white kids will leave the school; none go there now. But any incentive for the neighborhood’s educated parents to get involved in the public school is now gone, and it’s frequently parental involvement that makes the difference between a good school and a bad one.

 

From the Denver Post (passed on by David Hakala):

A 12-year-old seventh-grader has been summoned to Littleton Municipal Court on a charge of unlawful retention of library materials: She had an overdue library book…

Delinquent borrowers aren’t hauled into court right away, Smith said. Books at the Bemis Library are loaned for three weeks. After that, overdue fees begin accumulating at 10 cents a day. A first overdue notice is mailed after two weeks. Two weeks later, a bill for the materials is mailed. After another two weeks, if the borrower doesn’t respond, the library calls.

A citation is mailed if the borrower still doesn’t respond.

Yeah, that’ll teach the kid to patronize her libary. I’m sure the problem will be solved by having her recite the unexpurgated Pledge of Allegiance every day during the summer.