If he walks like a Nazi and quacks like a Nazi... then maybe...

Hitler attacks the press:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gb3_JPaVMu8


Nixon attacks the press:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iucE78-C2Po

Trump attacks the press:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Y2vozC_kP6Q

Billionaire Betsy must have a great crystal ball.

Despite having essentially zero experience with higher education since she herself graduated, she claims to know exactly what we are telling our students... every last one of of us.

“The faculty, from adjunct professors to deans, tell you what to do, what to say, and more ominously, what to think. They say that if you voted for Donald Trump, you’re a threat to the university community.  But the real threat is silencing the First Amendment rights of people with whom you disagree.”

Really?  Maybe Betsy should begin by educating herself on such key concepts in today's college classroom as:

• Critical thinking
• The flipped classroom
• Group work in and outside the classroom

Perhaps she's recalling the good old days when Old Betsy --- and me too (Old Jim) --- sat through long lectures in which, yes, the profs may very well have injected their own political views and cultural biases.

That's not what's happening today, Betsy... not at the good schools, anyway.

The Secretary of Education delivered her remarks to the Conservative Political Action Conference, an audience primed to applaud these kinds of remarks.

And guess what?  Not all faculty and staff voted for Hilary or Jill.

To the contrary, not long after the November election, I joined a group of faculty and staff meeting with LGBTQ students on my university's campus.  At that meeting, a senior administrator explained why she had voted for Trump.  And guess what else?  These students --- perhaps the most rabidly and fearful anti-Trumpsters --- heard her out and thoughtfully discussed her position.

Similar discussions are still occurring.  And, guess what else?  The next major speaker scheduled for my campus is Newt Gingrich.  So there, Betsy.  As my old mother would have said, put that in your pipe and smoke it.  (And get the clouds of ignorance out of that crystal ball.)

The bathroom wars... or why would a president of the United States want to deprive people of such a simple bit of human dignity?

As regular readers (if any) know, I have been teaching on line for Drexel University for nearly two years now.  And I am pleased to report that my part-time employer has taken the right stance in the wake of Trump's repeal of Obama's order on transgender persons' use of public facilities:

Reaffirming Drexel's Support for Restroom Access for Transgender Individuals As many of you are aware, the U.S. Departments of Justice and Education have recently announced a change in their stance on restroom use by students who are transgender. This announcement has caused anxiety and confusion among many who will be affected and their friends and allies. Drexel University has long protected the right of individuals to use the facilities that comport with their gender identity and expression, rather than their sex assigned at birth. This commitment is enshrined in Drexel’s non-discrimination policies and Philadelphia’s Fair Practices Ordinance. We believe that this policy is necessary in order to provide all members of our community -- students, faculty, professional staff and guests alike -- with a welcoming and inclusive environment that respects our broad and rich diversity. Consistent with our core values, this has been our practice, and will continue to be our practice. Questions or concerns about the rights of transgender and gender nonconforming individuals can be directed to the Office of Equality and Diversity. Also, there will be a meeting today for students, both undergraduate and graduate, who identify as transgender and/or gender nonconforming at 4 p.m. on the 3rd floor of Paul Peck Problem Solving and Research Building at 33rd and Arch Streets (please note that a Drexel ID is needed to enter the building). For more information about this meeting, please contact Alex Daniels-Iannucci (iannucci@drexel.edu).

As a number of older women pointed out during the Women's March on Washington...

"I keep having to do this over and over again."  And so we have to keep reminding ourselves over and over again that the threats to freedom never go away.  That's why I'm pleased to be a very small part of my university's production of "Inherit the Wind," directed by my colleague Miriam Mills, that opened on campus last night.  She gave me the honor of contributing the Program Note:

Why “Inherit the Wind” Matters in 2017

By Dr. Jim Castagnera, Esq., Associate Provost, Rider University

“I believe that God created the known universe, the earth and everything in it, including man. And I also believe that someday scientists will come to see that only the theory of intelligent design provides even a remotely rational explanation for the known universe.”

William Jennings Bryan in the Scopes Monkey Trial of 1925?  No, Vice President Michael Pence spoke these words from the floor of the U.S. House of Representatives in 2002.

“There are enormous religious and philosophical questions implied by much of what science does, especially these days…. The debate over origins is an excellent example. Just as has happened in other subjects in the history of science, a number of scholars are now raising scientific challenges to the usual Darwinian account of the origins of life. Some scholars have proposed such alternative theories as intelligent design.”

Lines from the mouth of Matthew Brady (the Bryan counterpart in Inherit the Wind)?  No, again.  This quotation comes from legal papers filed by the school board in Kitzmiller v. Dover Area School District, a lawsuit launched in the federal court for central Pennsylvania in 2005 by parents who objected to the board’s adoption of a text on creationism.  (The parents won.)

Bottom line: Both the play Inherit the Wind (1955) and the real case on which it’s based, State of Tennessee v. John Thomas Scopes (1925) are as relevant in the new millennium as they were six and nine decades ago.

And religion v. science isn’t the only issue lurking in this courtroom drama, which pits America’s most famous populist politician (Bryan aka Brady) against the most brilliant and notorious trial attorney of his era (Clarence Darrow aka Henry Drummond).

Authors Jerome Lawrence and Robert Lee --- writing at the pinnacle of power of the House Un-American Activities Committee, which led the crusade to blacklist and imprison writers suspected of Communist ties --- presented their play as a not-too-subtle metaphor for McCarthyism, red baiting, and censorship.

Depending upon your perspective, you may find in tonight’s production echoes from earlier eras, which reverberate with fresh urgency in America circa 2017.

Hard facts about demographics

NPR reported this morning on a new report that says that by 2030, the United States will have the lowest life expectancy of all the developed nations.  The reasons?  In no particular order:

• Obesity
• The murder rate
• Lack of universal healthcare

Those are the big three.  While American men and women can look for seventy something on average, a baby girl born in South Korea this morning can hope to hit 90.

Meanwhile, I keep listening my way through Thomas Friedman's Thank You for Being Late.  The chapter I just completed concerns the mushrooming of populations in  failed or nearly failed states in Africa and Latin America.  The most fascinating , and disturbing, fact I hear on the way home last night was this:

In countries where drought, desertification and climate change have destroyed agriculture and the economy, most people's solution is --- get this --- to have more children.  Lots of kids are seen as their insurance policy.

And so the pressure continues to build at America's and Europe's southern boundaries.  Dare I ask: is Trump definitely wrong to want to build that wall of his?

Bringing this post full circle, one thing we will soon have in common with Mexico, wall or no wall:  our life expectancy. 

Considering the causes of the decline in American life expectancy, is it not truly remarkable that fat, gun toting voters elected the party that wants to repeal Obamacare?  Is that or is it not social darwinism writ large?

Are we moving to the all-robot university?

First we were told by Clay Christensen of the Harvard B-School that his disruption theory had finally reached higher education.  Where once higher ed lacked a core technology that enabled ease of entry into our market, now online learning is that ticket that gets the competition past all the bricks-and-mortar bother of building and maintaing a college campus.  Not to mention all the payroll costs connected with a full-time, tenured faculty.

A good example is the University of Phoenix Online, which develops its courses centrally and scripts them for its relatively inexpensive adjunct faculty members.

And now we seem to be facing robotic researchers as well, says the Chronicle of Higher Education.  So, will administration be the next target of automation in higher education?

Thomas Friedman in his latest tome, Thank You for Being Late, (my current car "reading") concludes that jobs requiring high-level technical skill sets and high-level human-relations skill sets in combination will stay around, regardless of the level of AI and automation.

If he's right, then administrators will be the last to go... if, indeed, they can ever get rid of us.

What good is history?

That's a question posed by an article in today's Chronicle of Higher Education.  In some prior posts to this Blog, I've been having a little fun with questions like, "What would Hitler have tweeted if he'd had Twitter?"

Philosopher George Santayana famously predicted, "Those who cannot remember the past are condemned to repeat it."  Trouble is that, contra Lamarck's mistaken notion of evolution way back in the 19th century, animals do not pass along what they've learned to their offspring.  Each generation must learn for itself to a very large extent. And, worse still, the younger generations have previously shown little interest in history.

However, all that seems to be changing.  If Trump has done nothing else to the good, he has awakened the sleeping activists in millions of Americans below the age of 35.  Some, sadly, are Trump supporters.  But many --- dare I say many more? --- are leaning sharply to the left.  They are reminding me of me when I was a tender and callow fellow.

So what can history teach these newly aroused activists?  As I have suggested in prior posts, we can learn from Hitler's rise and the lifespans of other demigods... just one example.

But at the same time, we must admit that we are witnessing phenomena that are entirely new in the history of mankind:

• A population explosion that is far from over yet
• Global climate change ( as I write this, we in New Jersey are anticipating 70-degree weather by Thursday, while Southern California is drowning in rain... talk about a flip of positions)
• Artificial intelligence, robotics, and big data
• The internet and social media

... all of which are unique, such that history in my view can offer only very little assistance to our understanding.

Are you ready to deal with a First Amendment claim on your campus?

The Age of Trump is quickly becoming the era of free-speech challenges.  Trump launched his presidency with a news conference in which he refused to take a question from CNN because the network promulgates "fake news."

This week, the White House is whining about leaks from the intelligence community about the late, great National Security Advisor's illegal contact with the Russian ambassador.

This constant attack on free speech and free press is spilling onto our campuses.  Today it's reported that at Orange Coast College a student was suspended for video recording a professor expressing anti-Trump sentiments.  According to the Orange County Register, the student caught the prof in the act of calling Trump's election an "act of terrorism."  The comments were made last semester in the prof's human-sexuality class.

The case raises some interesting issues that we administrators had better be ready to confront:

1.  Was the professor exercising her academic freedom?  The famous 1940 AAUP statement says that faculty enjoy academic freedom in their classrooms so far as how they present their materials.  In a human-sexuality class, comments about Trump --- accused of being a sexual assaulter --- could very well be pertinent to the subject matter of the class.   Or maybe not.

2.  If the student surreptitiously took the video, was he violating state law?  Was he violating any published rule of the college?  If so, this being a public entity, did the college violate his 1st and 14th amendment rights if it promulgated such a prohibition?

3.  Even if the student had the legal right to take the video, did he also have the right to post the video recording?

Note that it --- of course --- went viral, resulting in so many threats that the poor prof fled the state.

At any rate, the video is available here.  You might want to watch it and judge for yourself.

By the way: tomorrow at one I will present my take on the Trump administration and its likely impact on higher education.

What does Flynn's resignation mean for Russiagate?

On one hand, the rapid ousting of Trump's National Security Advisor makes Trump look a lot smarter than Nixon.  Tricky Dick --- paranoid, proud and weirdly obstinate --- held onto advisors John Ehrlichman and H. R. Haldeman until --- like Jaws chewing its way up the ropes to the boat and eating Quint --- Watergate snapped him up as well.

I've always been fascinated by Nixon's irrational tenacity in the face of the relentless crisis that ultimately ruined his presidency and drove him from office.  He could have denounced the burglars right up front.  He could have cashiered his neo-Nazi advisors when the scandal got too close to the Oval Office.  Reputedly a lover of fireplaces even in August, he could have roasted the tapes one evening with Pat.  One arm around the First Lady and one casually tossing the damning recordings into the blaze.  But no, he had to hang onto the rail until he went down with the ship.

So Trump and Pence have wisely acted with alacrity, tossing General Flynn out on his ear.  A smart move.

But is Russiagate over?

I don't think so. As I drove to work this morning, NPR was reporting that Congressional Dems are asking when Trump knew about Flynn's conversations with the Russian ambassador.  Connect the dots.  Putin's regime helps Trump win the election.  The Obama Administration at 11:45 PM in its White House toughens sanctions against Russia.  Russia, uncharacteristically, doesn't complain.  Why not? Because Flynn tells the ambassador, no worries... when our guy takes the oath, sanctions will be relaxed.  Do you really believe he did this all on his own... a retired general who spent his whole life giving and taking orders?

And if he didn't do it all on his own, well then...

Can higher education meet the challenge of "the Age of Acceleration"

The book I'm currently 'reading' on my commute to and from my university is Thomas Friedman's Thank You for Being Late.  The book's subtitle is "An Optimist's Guide to Thriving in the Age of Accelerations."

       I have no doubt that Mr. Friedman is thriving and therefore has every reason to be an optimist.  However, he is failing to persuade me.

       First a word about his writing.  It may be that his style reflects his background as a reporter.  Or it may be --- as a colleague of mine who met him observed --- "he's really full of himself."  Or a bit of both.  Whatever, I find all his name dropping gets in the way of his narrative.  I'd prefer that he graduate from reporter and columnist to real scholar: digest the material, become yourself the expert, Mr. Friedman, and use footnotes to support your observations.

      That aside, the "gee whiz" nature of this book really annoys me.  One example: he describes how a museum curator and his staff in the 1980s spent two years developing an animated replica of a dinosaur  That same curator recently was able to use his smart phone to accomplish the same task in minutes.  How wonderful, gushes Friedman.  My question: what is the team doing now that their services on such projects is redundant, inefficient, unwanted and unneeded?

       We humans like to think that we are better than the dinosaurs that curator was modeling.  But are we indeed?  While the geniuses among us are charging relentlessly toward an AI-run world for their own reasons: fame, fortune, curiosity, etc. --- what is to become of the millions whose jobs are daily disappearing?  Sure, technology makes the best and brightest among us enormously efficient.  But what of the not-so-bright who once could make a living--- a good middle-class living --- on an auto assembly line or in a steel mill?  They now are baristos at Starbucks, as are all too many college grads, I'm afraid. If Friedman is right --- and I'm sure he is --- even the baristos will soon be redundant.

      And there is no way we can stop this from happening.  It is outside of our control.  Just as population growth is outside our control.  The growth is the uncontrolled and unintended result of billions of 'rational' decisions made by couples across the globe day after day and night after night.  Rational though every one of them may be (a doubtful generalization, of course), the cumulative effect is non-rational... as non-rational and uncontrollable as climate change and the rise of rodents was to the dinosaurs.

       We in higher education should and no doubt will help as many of our students to thrive in the age of acceleration.  But what of the billions we will never reach for myriad reasons? And what of the thousands, perhaps tens of thousands, we do reach, but who fail to thrive anyway?

       I guess Hot, Flat, and Crowded is Friedman's pessimistic book (although not really, since there "Friedman proposes... an ambitious national strategy—which he calls 'Geo-Greenism'.” An optimist, indeed!).  

       Call me the raven ala Edgar Alan Poe.  But it all sounds pretty pessimistic from the average Jane and Joe perspective.

If Twitter had been available to Hitler,

he might have tweeted:

                                                     Credit: https://twitter.com/hitlercriollo

On Field Marshall Von Hindenberg:

"[Von Hindenburg] is, without question, the WORST EVER president. I predict he will now do something really bad and totally stupid to show manhood!"

On his failed beer-hall putsch in Munich:

"Wow, every poll said I won the [uprising] last night.  Great honor!"

On the 1932 German election:

"This election is a total sham and a travesty. We are not a democracy!"

"More votes equals a loss... revolution!"

On getting the Reichstag to pass the enabling Act in 1933:

"Man shot inside Paris police station. Just announced that terror threat is at it highest level.  Germany is a total mess--- big crime.  GET SMART!"

About those who considered him a clown:

"Amazing how the haters & losers keep tweeting the name “F**kface Von Clownstick” like they are so original & like no one else is doing it..."

About those who considered him a dunce:

"Sorry losers and haters, but my I.Q. is one of the highest -and you all know it! Please don't feel so stupid or insecure,it's not your fault"

On global warming:

"The concept of global warming was created by and for [the Jews] in order to make [German] manufacturing uncompetitive."

"It's freezing and snowing in [Berlin].  We need global warming."

On his mistress:

"It was truly an honor to introduce [my girlfriend, Eva.]  Her speech and demeanor were absolutely incredible.  Very proud!"

After being stopped by the Russians at Stalingrad:

"The attack on [Russia] is turning out to be a total disaster. We gave them months of notice. [Germany] is looking so dumb."

Sources of the tweets:

https://www.indy100.com/article/presenting-donald-trumps-best-worst-tweets--Z1r35m__Zg

https://www.indy100.com/article/donald-trump-president-us-worst-tweets-ever-shocking-7408916

https://www.theodysseyonline.com/trump-20-worst-tweets