Rowman & Littlefield Publishers Blog

On Single-Sex Education

By Frances R. Spielhagen

It is no surprise that single-sex classes have emerged as a school reform that might foster student achievement. However, single-sex classes are not a “silver bullet” that will solve all problems associated with student achievement. Ideologically driven reform does not take into account the caveats that must accompany efforts to implement single sex classes.

Do single-sex classes work? The answer is a complex “Yes, no, and maybe.” While single-sex classes are not a panacea for the social ills that beset young adolescents and affect their academic performance, recent research that has examined the implementation of single-sex classes in several districts across the nation suggests that such arrangements work for some students, both boys and girls, in some academic areas. Single-sex class arrangements seem to be most effective when related to the developmental needs of the students. In fact, the younger the student, the more likely that being in a single-sex class will be a positive experience. Moreover, simply grouping students according to gender will not automatically enhance their achievement. Teachers must understand the ways in which they can address and actualize the various ways in which students learn. Such training takes place over time. There are no quick-fixes here. Finally, it is essential that equal curriculum opportunities be offered to all students, both boys and girls. The slippery slope to a curriculum that provides shop classes for boys and home economics classes for girls is dangerously real if one begins to believe that differences in style equals difference in capacity!

Should all students be taught in single-sex classes? Of course not! The very complexity of student personalities and populations precludes any “One size fits all” approach to education, especially in the middle grades. However, the more pertinent question is whether single-sex classes should be offered as a viable choice for students, parents, and teachers who strongly favor them and want to be involved in them. The answer to that question is a resounding “Yes.” Schools must involve parents in decision-making about single-sex classes. Moreover, students who opt for single-sex classes may benefit from the arrangement simply because they chose it. Their success may well be related to the chicken/egg symbiosis of choice and efficacy. Nevertheless, it is still success for those who choose the arrangement. As schools across the nation struggle to address declining achievement among all students, success is welcome wherever it can be found. Researchers who have examined the schools that have implemented single-sex classes can attest to the complexity of results that derive from separating students in any way.

Frances Spielhagen is currently an assistant professor of education at Mount Saint Mary College, in Newburgh, New York and is the author of Debating Single-Sex Education: Separate and Equal?

Book Review of Joseph E. Stiglitz and Linda Bilmes's The Three Trillion Dollar War

By Gerald L. Houseman

Truth is an inevitable casualty of war, and the war of choice undertaken in Iraq is no exception. Lawrence Lindsey, an economic adviser to Bush in 2002, was fired for giving the press his estimate of an overall cost of $200 billion for the this war; Defense Secretary Rumsfeld oracularly declared this to be “baloney.” At the moment the total expenditure is in the neighborhood of $800 billion, but Stiglitz and Bilmes, as their title indicates, say a conservative estimate of the final cost will be $3 trillion. Any reader of their discouraging tome would be justified, all the same, in concluding that the tab, for a wide assortment of reasons, will be considerably higher.

Few will be surprised to know that the Bush Administration hides the figures. The “emergency” funding system adopted in place of a regular appropriation escapes normal scrutiny or budget caps. The “Decider’s” government also mocks the truth with its secrecy assault on the number of casualties, including those occurring during non-combat operations, even though these are vital for budgeting; and it works hard to insure that its expenditures for those infamous mercenaries, the 140,000 or so contractors and sub-contractors, must be the subject of guesswork as well. Then there are the endemic problems of Pentagon accounting, which has been in need of an overhaul for several generations. And cost estimates are also made impossible by being hidden in other parts of the Pentagon budget and in other agencies of the government.

Such obstacles do not leave these co-authors clueless, however. They provide a list of considerations far too long to set out here, but these include the cost of replacing equipment, the inefficiencies of relying so much on the National Guard, the full costs of health care and disability payments for thousands of returning veterans, restoring and re-structuring the Army, inflation, interest (because the war is largely debt-financed), and of course the macro-economic effects felt and endured by the populace. Stiglitz and Bilmes do not go into detail on that king of boondoggles, the Vatican-sized embassy now under construction in Baghdad, and they have little to say about the complex of bases Bush has proposed to build — and is now building — to protect Iraq’s (and our Texas-led and-centered) oil domain.

All of this can seem a peripheral concern when one remembers the massive numbers of horrors and deaths visited upon the people of that unfortunate country; and it goes without saying that the budgetary and accounting horrors pale for anyone who, like myself, has visited a VA facility and has observed a maimed young person trying to cope with a new and unfamiliar kind of existence.

Despite such obvious considerations, we must salute Stiglitz and Bilmes for performing a yeoman service. This is a time in which information blanks appear to be far more abundant than facts, when knowledge is thwarted by secrecy and executive orders, and laws are made up to serve expediency without benefit of much or even any review. Pentagon budgetary affairs are addressed on occasions too few and far between, and these hard researchers (and good websites like the Center for Defense Information) strive to give us some kind of a handle on what is going on.

Stiglitz and Bilmes can in no way be regarded as coldly detached. They point out that most Americans have failed to realize the costs of the Iraq war unless they are family members involved with the voluntary military. Their taxes have not been raised to pay for the war, and the rich have actually enjoyed tax cuts, a previously unheard-of benefit in wartime. But deficit spending cannot be ignored forever, and the nation’s gas pumps now display the cost of the weakened dollar, which in its turn is one of the costs of deficits and the war. And that’s not “baloney.”

Gerald L. Houseman is the author of Economics in a Changed Universe: Joseph E. Stiglitz, Globalization, and the Death of "Free Enterprise".

Immigration and the 2008 Presidential Campaigns

by Margaret Sands Orchowski

Washington DC. Democratic leaders don’t want to talk about immigration issues right now. Neither do Republican leaders. Unfortunately for them all, however, immigration hot buttons underlie almost all the big issues in this election from universal health care to national and economic insecurity. Once the Democrats choose their Presidential nominee, candidates’ stances on immigration will become an election issue, like it or not.

Why do both parties’ leaders treat the immigration issue like the plague?

The truth is that both parties are split over immigration. Or rather, they are split over one major point in the immigration reform debate: whether or not Congress should legalize millions of foreign nationals currently living and working in the country illegally, and allow them to earn U.S. citizenship if they meet certain conditions. In other words, the split is over conditional amnesty (is there any other kind?).

Throughout 2006 and 2007, Republican President Bush urged Congress to support his Comprehensive Immigration Reform (CIR) bills which included “a pathway to citizenship”/amnesty. The bills were co-sponsored by Senators John McCain (R-AZ) and Teddy Kennedy (D-MA). But the majority of Republicans (and some Democrats) insisted that existing and enhanced immigration laws should be enforced first, before deciding what to do with the estimated 12-20 million illegal immigrants who came and stayed in the U.S. after the last amnesty bill of 1986. The CIR failed in Congress. So McCain (the presumptive Republican Presidential candidate) changed his mind. “I get it, I get it,” he repeats constantly. “Enforcement first. Legalization later.”

Now the Democratic split over immigration is becoming more visible. On the one side are the “Blue-dog, moderate Reagan-Democrats”. Congressman Heath Schuler (NC), a 2006 “Blue-Pup”, has introduced the SAVE Act -- an “immigration enforcement only” bill. But Congressional Hispanic Caucus leader Luis Gutierrez (Il) insists that there can be no Democratic immigration bill that is not “comprehensive” (the buzz word for “includes amnesty”). Democratic leaders are scheduling hearings for these bills in eight! different committees – enough time to probably stall any floor vote until after the election, if then.

So far both Democratic Presidential candidates have ignored immigration questions unless asked directly. Then, differences appear. While both Hillary Clinton and Barack Obama have admitted that they do NOT include illegal aliens in their universal health care plans, Barack favors giving drivers’ licenses to illegal immigrants while Hillary is against it. But Barack also told a Texas audience of Latinos that “the first bill I will sign as President is the DREAM Act” – a proposal to give instate college tuition and public scholarships to young adults illegally in the country who have graduated from an American high school. Hillary has not made so public a stance for the DREAM Act, which has never passed a Congressional committee nor a chamber vote, and which many states’ laws prohibit.

Barack’s stances on immigration place him on the most “libertarian” end of the immigration political horseshoe. It puts him at odds with many moderate middle class blue collar workers -- voters he already is struggling to win over.

For Democrats hopes in 09, however, McCain is their biggest danger on immigration. The Arizona Senator manages to straddle firmly both sides of the immigration amnesty line-in-the-sand.

Margaret Sands Orchowski is the Vice President of Programs of the Woman's National Democratic Club and the Washington correspondent and columnist for the Hispanic Outlook on Higher Education and is author of Immigration and the American Dream: Battling the Political Hype and Hysteria.

Make Them Answer the Tough Questions: The Realities of Political Debate and Health Care in 2008

By Carey Kriz

The elephant is in the room, and it is time that the political parties seeking to run the U.S. government start acting like they understand the issues of U.S. health care in 2008. First a couple of questions that we need to start asking: Will universal health insurance fix our health care system? The answer is easy: absolutely not. A bumper sticker approach to solving problems means identifying one big emotional issue and suggesting an obvious solution. For health care there a number of these, with the big story being the unfeeling administrator denying benefits to a patient with real needs. Ultimately, this story comes back to the failure of our insurance industry to be portable, to be with you throughout your lifetime and generally to be fair.

And yes, this is a great cause. But it is not the answer.

Will more doctors bring more health care to our communities? The answer to this one is also easy: absolutely not. The U.S. system of educating and branding physicians is arguably the best in the world. Yet we have an imbalance in knowledge and need to think about why our neighbors are getting so fat, or indulging in behaviors that are obviously bad for them. Do any of us understand that we are actually in charge of our bodies?

Will blockbuster science and new drugs cure disease? Dreaming is good for us, and we do have a number of major scientific advances that impact the world of health care – and how that health care can lead to improved longevity and a better quality of life. But science alone is not the answer here. We have a problem in health care that cuts across treatments, diagnosis and infrastructures.

So what will fix our health care system? For the answer to this question start asking your political leaders where all the money is going – and whether we have any idea of the cost/benefits of our investments. When we think of spending money on health care what we fail to also mention is that we spend more than anyone else in the world, that we have declining productivity in our quality of life indices, and are making a “business” out of something that comes close to being a survival requirement. Guess who pays the highest cost for drugs in the world? Yes: we do. Not your neighbors in Australia and Singapore – or Europe.

Imagine how stupid we would look as a society if we charged for the right to breathe air. Now imagine denying someone access to care because they slipped through the coverage cracks – or discriminating against them because they already had a disease. Now add to this reality that a ton of people were making money from this mess, including big investment funds, management, professionals and shareholders. Yes we have cancer and it has metastasized into every corner of the health system. The fix will not be pleasant and will definitely be painful. But it is a requirement and it will be hard on all of us.

So it’s time to put some real debate into health care and start looking at the elephant of big business, profits and motivation. Hiding from a problem, or misleading the public about how bad it is, will not solve it.

Carey Kriz is the author of The Patient Will See You Now (Rowman and Littlefield).

The Paradoxes of Turkish Democracy

By Meltem Muftuler-Bac and Yannis Stivachtis

For the foreign observer, Turkey is a highly interesting country where European and Islamic cultures live in an integrated fashion. Its uniqueness stems from its imperial past, and the development of a secular democracy in a country where the population is predominantly Muslim. Turkey’s position in the European order has been firmly established since the end of the Second World War as Turkey joined the Council of Europe in 1948, the OECD in 1949 and NATO in 1952. It is interesting to point out that Turkey was an integral part of Europe and the Western order while, for example, Spain and Portugal were not.

Turkey’s political destiny has changed with the end of the Cold War in 1989. Even though it was still part of the European architecture, its position as an integral part of Europe became under serious scrutiny. The Turkish candidacy and the subsequent opening of accession negotiations with the EU in 2005 were important milestones in the Turkish endeavor to fully belong to Europe. The EU accession process has brought significant pressures into the Turkish political system as the Turkish political norms and rules are different than the European norms. These differences are most visible when the Turkish norms on the ‘supremacy of the state’ and ‘the national identity’ are being challenged by the norms of liberal democracy such as freedom of expression and individual rights and liberties. These differences become highly controversial when the Turkish governments since 1999 began to adopt political reforms that would enable Turkey to meet the political aspects of the Copenhagen criteria.

When the European Commission declared in its 2004 Progress Report for Turkey that “Turkey sufficiently fulfills the Copenhagen criteria’; this was in response to the vast political changes in Turkey adopted in order for accession negotiations for EU membership to begin. Nonetheless, Turkey still had serious problems in its political system stemming from the restrictions on freedom of expression, most notably the Article 301 which foresees legal action against those who insult ‘Turkishness.’ The very vague implication of Article 301 has enabled the ultra-nationalists in Turkey who are skeptical of the EU accession process to petition for cases against the political reformers or intellectuals. Even though most of these cases are dismissed and never come to court, as long as such articles remain in place, Turkey’s democracy is criticized by the EU as falling behind the European standards. As long as such legal changes are not adopted, Turkey’s EU accession might be problematic. However, an equally important aspect of political change is that the norms on freedom of expression and individual rights need to be internalized by the Turkish public. In other words, only changing or amending the Constitution will not suffice. The process of norm diffusion is a much longer process that needs to involve the different segments of the Turkish society.

Meltem Muftuler-Bac is a professor of international relations and the Jean Monnet Chair at Sabanci University in Istanbul. Yannis Stivachtis is an associate professor of international relations and director of the International Studies Program at Virginia Tech. They are co-editors of Turkey-European Union Relations (Lexington Books, 2008).

Don't Blame Katie Couric -- The First Sole Female Anchor Is Not the Cause of the Low Ratings at CBS Evening News

In 1983 TV Guide asked, “Why Are There Still No Female Dan Rathers?” And if Katie Couric steps down as the anchor of CBS Evening News, we still won’t have any “female Dan Rathers.”

When Couric took over at CBS Evening News, the press was quick to add her salary and new title: a five-year contract, a fifteen million dollar salary, Managing Editor, Katie Couric was heralded as the one who would reshape CBS Evening News. CBS executives were hoping that Katie Couric would build a bigger audience, including more women and younger viewers. Now that the newscast’s ratings have tanked, the media is pouncing on Couric – and the underlying theme is that “because she is a woman”-- her anchoring stint was unsuccessful. Katie Couric made history as the first woman anchor she is also being marked as the first woman anchor to fail. John Dickerson of Slate.com, and son of former pioneering correspondent Nancy Dickerson, said that it has taken women over thirty years to get to the anchoring position because “men have always run the networks and it takes time to convince men that women can handle the task. But it’s also the audience. Networks are risk averse and putting a woman in the anchor chair is a change for viewers and advertisers who fund that crucial hour of television. People took time to get used to a female face in the position of authority.”

And it would seem like they still aren’t ready, if we jump on the bandwagon and blame the low ratings of CBS Evening News on Katie Couric’s gender. Truth is, the failure of CBS Evening News is much more complex than that.

Sure, Katie Couric fell prey to the usual intense focus on her appearance, as most women on television do. It is true that the focus on Katie Couric’s appearance was a debilitating factor, but nothing new to women in the media. As Katie Couric readied herself for her new job as evening anchor on CBS, the media was filled with speculation on how effective she would be in the job and mostly, what she would wear and how she would style, and tint her hair to move from “perky” to the gravitas personality needed to deliver the weighty evening news. A story appeared on NBC News about how a publicity photo for CBS Evening News, featuring Katie Couric, had been airbrushed to make the new anchor appear slimmer. The caption on the screen, while the anchor told the story, read “Can CBS News Be Trusted?” The controversy spurred the debate about the standards of appearance for women in television and how they differ from the standards for men. And no one ever mentioned that a photo of Charlie Gibson has been re-touched to make him appear more fit and trim to anchor the news. If anything, the press seems to dote on Gibson’s “avuncular” average man appeal. When Harry Smith, (who by the way is missing a lot of his hair – but no one seems to comment) co-host of CBS The Early Show interviewed Katie Couric about her new position and pointed to the fact that so much hype about her appearance and qualifications, Katie Couric commented, “I think there is some residual sexism, and I think women are sort of judged by different standards. But I try not to get too preoccupied by that. I think that I feel very confident in who I am as a person and as a professional.”

Other factors that contributed to the low rating of CBS Evening News include the format of the broadcast, which was radically different than viewers were used to. There was a “free speech” section that featured people commenting “op/ed” style about issues of a topic nature, and longer interviews conducted in a more relaxed, homey atmosphere Unusual for network anchors, Katie Couric offered personal asides during the broadcast. In addition, CBS also strove to create a larger web presence for the broadcast, and this effort never gained traction.

Before she made her September 5, 2006 debut as anchor of the CBS Evening News Katie Couric went on a "listening tour" of six cities. Of the listening tour, Katie Couric noted “I think face-to-face conversations with people and really getting a sense of where they are and their likes and dislike, their frustrations, is invaluable.” In addition to meeting her CBS audience in person, Katie Couric also spent her time on the road raising money for cancer awareness. Many of us who follow women in leadership and media wanted her to be a resounding success. But it sounds as though, even if she ultimately leaves the CBS Evening News before her five year contract is up, Katie Couric, has been successful. Before starting her new job, Katie Couric said that she would have regretted not taking advantage of the opportunity to be anchor more than she would regret taking it. So before you quickly write off the first woman anchor of a major network, think about the many factors that go into being successful, and resist blaming it on gender.

Nichola D. Gutgold is associate professor of communication arts and sciences at Penn State University at Lehigh Valley and is author of Seen and Heard: The Women of Television News (Lexington Books) and Paving the Way for Madam President (Lexington Books).

Oscars for No Country for Old Men

Although many people admired No Country for Old Men, some were repulsed by its nihilism and violence, and quite baffled when the film captured four Oscars (best picture, director, actor in a leading role, and screenplay based on material previously produced or published). To be sure, Joel and Ethan Coen, who wrote, directed, and edited the film based on a novel by Cormac McCarthy, have rarely lingered over sunny aspects of human existence. Nonetheless, No Country’s gore seems especially relentless, unrelieved as it is by either comic or heart-warming turns such as somewhat soften, brighten and humanize Fargo (1996)--another tale of mad violence, and the sole other Coens’ film to garner Oscars (best screenplay written directly for the screen and best actress in a leading role). Indeed, No Country’s relatively uniform style and tone set it apart from most of the Coens’ oeuvre. One might even argue that surprising shifts of tone and generic allusion in Romance and Cigarettes (2005), a film executive-produced by the Coens but written and directed by John Turturro, are more Coens-like than the path charted in No Country.

Errol Morris is another director who has won recognition at the Academy Awards for a film that is uncharacteristic of his work as a whole. Morris’s The Fog of War, which received the Oscar for best documentary in 2003 and the companion book subsequently published by Rowman & Littlefield in 2005, is more linear and conventional in its imagery, picture-sound relationships, and other aspects of form than earlier, more experimental films by Morris. The insertion of staged scenes in The Thin Blue Line, along with apparently whimsical optical and aural effects as in later films by Morris, provoked the Academy Awards committee to disqualify it from documentary competition. Alert to such doubts as to whether Morris’s films were truly documentaries, Roger Ebert wrote admiringly when The Thin Blue Line appeared, “Although he makes documentaries, Morris is much more interested in the spaces between the facts than with the facts themselves.”

To return to the Coens, though, if in forgoing in No Country the playful shifts of tone and generic allusion that distinguish much of their earlier work, including O Brother, Where Art Thou? (2000) as well as Fargo, they retreat from experimentation, Javier Bardem’s performance of the horrific villain Anton Chigurh in No Country possibly represents a new perception on their part, while he offers perverse compensation to the film spectator deprived of playful generic turns. Anton Chigurh is not merely a killer such as appears in other films by the Coens, or in Westerns by other filmmakers. Rather, as he keeps re-emerging abruptly, magically, a ubiquitous, wounded figure of destruction relatively free of bodily constraint as well as reason, he represents an evil spirit overtaking the world--or at least the Southwest, where the action occurs. If one accepts the notion that films reflect broad concerns of the society in which they arise as well as of the filmmaker, it’s not inconceivable that this new film bedecked with Oscars points to an unusual surge of pessimism and foreboding in the American psyche.

Ira Jaffe is professor emeritus and former chair of the Department of Media Arts at the University of New Mexico. He is the author of Hollywood Hybrids: Mixing Genres in Contemporary Films.

Get to Know Your Local Record Store: Celebrate National Record Store Day on April 19th

By Alan O'Connor

With National Record Store Day fast approaching, I was reminded when I first stumbled across punk about 1984. As usual it was through friends because by that time the scene had mostly disappeared underground. Some roommates, who actually wanted nothing to do with me because I went to school, dressed in faded colors and played strange music on the house record-player. It was a real mix from New Order and the Smiths to local punk bands that were scared of Ronald Reagan’s joke about starting a nuclear war against the Soviet Union. “We begin bombing in five minutes...”

So I took myself off to the punk record store in Toronto. It was called the Record Pedlar. Of course I had the usual problem of bins full of records by bands with strange names. On the first trip I came home with twelve-inch records by the Dicks and Dead Kennedys. Sex and politics. And soon after that The Clash, Sandinista! triple album because I was a huge supporter of the revolution in Nicaragua that President Reagan hated so much.

The Record Pedlar moved around a few times, but today it no longer exists.

Independent record stores have always been important in punk scenes. They’re places to hang out, to learn, to sell used records when you’re desperate and to buy them when you’re not. There’s posters for shows, fliers to take away, and notices for “band with recording needs drummer must be willing to tour”. Record stores often have fanzines that you can’t find in magazine outlets. I bought my copy of Smash the State: A Discography of Canadian Punk (the book came with a 7") in a record store.

I traveled all around the USA in the Summer of 2006. My fifteen year-old Honda Civic died in the Arizona desert and a marvelous Mexican-American mechanic put new life into it. I went from Long Island to Florida, Austin, San Diego and Portland. And in every city, I stopped off in the independent record store to flip through vinyl, pick up flyers for shows, and most likely find the coolest part of town and somewhere to eat. It would be impossible to list them all and unfair to mention a only few. But the death of the indie and punk record store has been somewhat exaggerated. It is sad that the Record Pedlar and other like it are no longer with us. But most places still have a record store that sells music on independent record labels. You’ve just got to find it.

Alan O'Connor is associate professor in the cultural studies program at Trent University in Canada. He is the author of Punk Record Labels and the Struggle for Autonomy: The Emergence of DIY.

“Thrown Down the Memory Hole”

By Anne-Marie Brady

It was a crisp, wintry day in Beijing when I set out to pay my respects to the San jiao di notice boards, the historic signage at Peking University that had recently been demolished by the university authorities. San jiao di, or “the Triangle,” had been the favored spot for student protest meetings since the late 1970s—especially in 1989—and its notice boards were the conduit for information on the latest in student thinking and activism.

Unusually, given the sensitivity of the topic, the tearing down of the boards had been front-page news in the print version of Beijing Youth Daily a few days before. It was this factual, though extremely brief, report that had first alerted me to the destruction of this historically significant structure. According to the article, university representatives had stated that San jiao di was demolished because nowadays all “important” information was available online so the notice boards were no longer necessary for the spread of information. They also claimed that the billboards were being used for commercial messages and were thus not suitable for maintaining a tidy environment at Peking University.

Although I used to be very familiar with the campus, I had to ask my way; everything had changed so much. The university is currently a mass of construction sites and ugly new high-rises. I avoided asking the younger students, not sure if they would know the significance of the boards or their destruction. I finally found a man in his late thirties, who would have been about twenty in 1989. When I told him what I was looking for, a faint smile of understanding crossed his face. He gave me very precise directions to the spot, then instantly rushed off before I could ask him more.

Yet when I finally got to San jiao di, I felt bewildered and overwhelmed. It was as if the notice boards had never existed. The area was ringed by trees as before; there was still a bookshop and a convenience store on one side, dormitories on another. But something was missing. I searched my memory; trying to remember the scene from my many other visits. In the past, I’d often come to look at the boards, trying to keep up with student activities. The place looked much the same, yet somehow, something had altered.

It was only when I looked very carefully at the triangular spot of ground that is the heart of the San jiao di area that I noticed what had changed. A thin line of recently dug dirt ran around the inside of a concrete-lined grassy triangle. This was the only trace to show where the San jiao di notice boards had once stood.

I’d never noticed before that the boards were grouped around a number of ancient pine trees. Now these trees were revealed, and someone (surely ironically) had recently pasted a large notice for rental accommodation at the very top of one of these trees, well out of arms’ reach.

I glanced around the area and noted that there was a long row of display cases to the side of where the old San jiao di boards had been. These were pristine and glass covered, full of glossy government propaganda photos. They were very different from the informality and democratic nature of the rusty old signage, where anyone was free to post and anyone was free to come and read.

The San jiao di notice boards were a historic site with an important role in the story of dissent from authoritarian rule in modern China. It didn’t matter what was pasted on them in recent years, just having them there was enough to give a glimmer of hope that this tradition was preserved, however faintly. When I was a visiting fellow at Beijing University in the late 1990s, people would still gather there to meet.

San jiao di is certainly much tidier now than it was before. I took some photos of the scene, though there was little to focus my camera on. I was studiously ignored by the throngs of people passing by, though they all carefully got out of my way. A young stringer for a foreign newspaper came up and asked me for a comment, she said no Chinese person was willing to talk to her on the subject of the demolition of the boards.

Knocking down San jiao di and saying that the Internet has now replaced it is an example of why the Internet in China is regarded by the party-state as an effective tool of both control and propaganda. San jiao di was once a symbol of Peking University’s proud intellectual independence; it looks as if that independence is very weak indeed these days.

Anne-Marie Brady lectures on Chinese politics at the University of Canterbury. She is the author of Marketing Democracy: Propaganda and Thought Work in Contemporary China (Rowman & Littlefield, 2007).

My High School Senior is Driving Everyone Crazy

After 12 years in the public education system, my child is driving me crazy. We can not blame it on hormonal rage or a transition period between the 10th, 11th and 12th grade. We can blame it on one thing, the failure of public schools to change and address the needs of our children. The senior in high school is at the top of the social order in his or her adolescent world with a vision, and only a vision, of what college is about. Many are left unchallenged academically and we all know that “idle hands are the devils disciple”. Unfortunately for many of these seniors they will return home after a semester at the college of their choice, a failure.

At that time, the parents and student will start the blame game. The student will not go back to visit their favorite teachers in high school because they would have to admit failure. They will probably take some classes at a community college and work until they grow up and mature. Then possibly re-enter a postsecondary institution to complete a bachelor’s degree.

This has become a norm of our society. State universities used to be famous for “tripling up” students in their dorm rooms which were designed for two students with the understanding that after their freshman year of college, 33% will fail out. Back in 1973 in my first Biology lecture, a seasoned professor told us to look left and then right, because next year one of you will not be there!

Change is difficult in public education and my book, Overcoming the Senior Slump: Meeting the Challenge with Internships, calls for such change. All of the adults in a child’s’ life, parents, educators and relatives will benefit from the progressive nature of the recommendations made in this book. The path for change is clearly outlined and the planning process needs to start now. We need to increase the academic rigor of the senior year, make learning challenging and relevant and give our seniors a chance to develop productive relationships with adults. Then, and only then, will all of our children make a smooth transition to college.

Dr. Randall Glading is a school administrator at Yorktown high School and an adjunct professor of Graduate Education at Mercy College and The College of New Rochelle. He is the author of Overcoming the Senior Slump: Meeting the Challenge with Internships, which will be available February 28th. Dr. Glading is the author of Overcoming the Senior Slump.

Operation Condor’s Lessons for the “War on Terror”

By J. Patrice McSherry

International attention is focusing again on Operation Condor, the Cold War-era covert network of U.S.-backed military regimes in Argentina, Brazil, Bolivia, Chile, Paraguay, and Uruguay, later joined by Ecuador and Peru. The anticommunist Condor apparatus carried out a program of transnational political repression against exiled political opponents during the 1970s. Multinational Condor squads crossed into one another’s territory to carry out hundreds of disappearances, illegal cross-border transfers, tortures, and assassinations, including one in Washington, D.C. Condor’s targets included pro-democracy activists, unionists, Christian Democrat leaders, constitutionalist military officers, former ministers, and critics of the military regimes as well as guerrillas. Today in Latin America and Europe several trials of former Condor commanders and operatives are underway. One Italian judge recently called for the extradition of some 140 military and intelligence officers from Argentina, Chile, Uruguay, and elsewhere for cross-border Condor crimes.

One recent news report highlighted the 1980 abductions of Noemi Gianetti de Molfino, a former Mother of the Plaza de Mayo of Argentina, and three other Argentines in Peru. U.S. officials knew of their capture by a joint Peruvian-Argentine commando, and one had advance knowledge of Condor's plan for the “permanent disappearance” of the Argentines. I discovered this document in the course of my research for a book published by Rowman & Littlefield in 2005, Predatory States: Operation Condor and Covert War in Latin America. No steps were taken to avert the murder of the four.

In the course of my research on the repressive Condor system over the last fourteen years I have spoken to a number of survivors. They tell of abductions in the middle of the night, sadistic tortures they suffered at the hands of Condor teams, and the despair they endured in squalid secret prisons. Today, as we witness our own government using extralegal means such as abductions and cross-border transfers (“extraordinary rendition”), “waterboarding,” and incommunicado detention in Guantánamo and other secret “black sites,” their stories are painfully relevant.

In fact, I uncovered significant evidence of secret U.S. support for, and collaboration with, Operation Condor in the 1970s. During the Cold War, anticommunism often overrode human rights in Washington’s policy calculus. U.S. policy-makers feared that progressive or nationalist movements in the developing world were communist-inspired, and cultivated anticommunist allies who shared U.S. strategic interests. Declassified documents suggest that U.S. military and intelligence officials considered the Condor system to be an effective weapon in the hemispheric anticommunist crusade. It seems that a similar mentality prevails today among some of those in government.

In the 1970s Defense Department and CIA personnel had up-to-the-minute knowledge of Condor operations. One Defense Intelligence Agency report of October 1976 discussed a secret Argentine-Uruguayan intelligence operation in which members of an opposition organization of Uruguayans in Buenos Aires were abducted. The report noted that “a very secret phase of ‘Operation Condor’ involves the formation of special teams from member countries who are to carry out operations including assassinations….A special team has apparently been organized in Argentina…structured much like a U.S. Special Forces Team.”

Perhaps the most significant document I uncovered in my research was a report indicating that Condor was granted authorized access to the U.S. continental communications system housed in the Panama Canal Zone. The 1978 cable, from U.S. Ambassador to Paraguay Robert White to the Secretary of State, reported that the commander of Paraguay’s armed forces had told him that intelligence chiefs from Brazil, Argentina, Chile, Bolivia, Paraguay, and Uruguay used “an encrypted system within the U.S. telecommunications net[work],” which covered all of Latin America, to communicate and coordinate intelligence—and presumably operations against Condor targets. Essentially, U.S. military and/or intelligence forces put the official U.S. communications channel at the disposal of Operation Condor. The conclusion was unavoidable: such collaboration reflected high-level approval of the Condor apparatus.

Why did Washington support the military dictatorships of the Cold War era and collaborate with Condor? Clearly, top U.S. policy-makers considered such support to be in the U.S. interest. But that time of terror resulted in the destruction of democracy and widespread human rights atrocities that still reverberate in Latin America. Today there are many disturbing echoes of Operation Condor in the so-called war on terror. Again it is argued that the ends justify the means. But Operation Condor should have made clear that egregious violations of human rights and the rule of law are not the means to any good end.

J. Patrice McSherry, author of Predatory States: Operation Condor and Covert War in Latin America, is professor of political science and director of the Latin American & Caribbean Studies program at Long Island University.

Silda Spitzer: Why Was She There?

by Nichola D. Gutgold

“She looked like she aged.” That’s what former New York mayor, Ed Koch, said about Silda Spitzer when he saw her standing by her husband, Elliot Spitzer, during his shameful admission that he had violated his obligations to his family and his “sense of right and wrong.” It seems to me, that while accompanying your political spouse to his swearing in and glitzy round of inaugural balls, this first lady ritual – the standing by your man silently while he apologizes for his mistakes—seems like a ritual worth abandoning. It is no wonder if Ed Koch is right and Silda Spitzer seemed to age overnight. I imagine that being internationally humiliated can take its toll. Maybe Ed Koch should put himself in Silda Spitzer’s shoes: trying to look together while your whole world is unraveling. To endure such a humiliation is first lady media waterboarding. And she did it again when Governor Spitzer resigned. She didn’t say a word: so why was she there?

Why do these women allow themselves to appear in public when their husband announces his wrongdoing? It is becoming an all too familiar sight. By participating in these public spectacles, what do these women accomplish? Silda Spitzer, looking forlorn and all cried out, is as accomplished as her husband. A Harvard trained lawyer, she played the role of the political spouse to perfection and the media quickly showed the vignettes of happier times. Dressed up for the inauguration, beautiful family photos, swelling with pride at her husband’s inaugural swearing-in ceremony. And there she was on Monday at the press conference: perfectly groomed, gloomily enduring the public humiliation of the “I messed up” speech. Silda Spitzer brought back images of Dina McGreevey, the ex-wife of former New Jersey Governor James McGreevey who resigned in 2004 over a gay affair with a man. As McGreevey announced to the world, “I am a gay American,” Dina McGreevy stood there, with a forced, partial smile, but saying nothing. It begs the question: “Why are they there?” I want to say, “Go home.” Even if her goal is to keep the family together, this seems like one outing she could skip and still fulfill her goal. America doesn’t need the wronged woman visual. We’ve come too far. Stay with him if you choose, for your own, very personal and private reasons, whether they are religious or political, but save the public and yourself the sad replay of the painful event. This isn’t your wrongdoing, so why participate?

Despite the rich first lady tradition in our country and the visual of looking supportive is an important one as first lady, this is where first ladies should draw the line. Why don’t these women say, “We can deal with this in private. Go make your speech. I’m sitting this one out”? She could save herself the international humiliation since she is only standing there, and she isn’t speaking. When Hillary Clinton appeared on 60 Minutes in 1992 and defended her husband, she spoke, like Wendy Vitter did when she commented on her conservative husband’s name appearing on the client list of a D.C. madam. Though she previously criticized Hillary Clinton for staying with Bill Clinton through his infidelities, she commented that, "To forgive is not only always the easy choice, but it was the right choice for me.” Forgiving is divine, but must it include standing in public while your spouse makes his speech of mea culpa? As the role of the political spouse continues to evolve with some spouses who are as qualified to be president as the one who is elected, it makes sense that future spouses would refuse the public humiliation of standing by her spouse in a public speech that declares his wrongdoing.

It begs the question: Would a male political spouse stand next to his wife in such a situation?

Nichola D. Gutgold is associate professor or communication arts and sciences at Penn State University at Lehigh Valley and is author of Paving the Way for Madam President (Lexington Books) and Seen and Heard: The Women of Television News (Lexington Books).

How much more peacemaking can the Middle East endure?

By Stephen Marmura

The ongoing violence between Palestinian militants operating from inside Gaza and Israeli forces raises real concerns about the future and well being of the region and its peoples. It also invites worrisome questions about the true character and ultimate objectives of American state policies towards Israel/Palestine. When Arial Sharon decided to remove Israeli settlements from Gaza in 2005, he did so for strategic reasons, and without any prodding from the Bush administration. Likewise, Israel’s accompanying strategy of consolidating its hold and on the West Bank has met with no resistance from the US. Quite the contrary, Bush effectively endorsed Sharon’s (and now Olmert’s) strategy of expanding existing settlements by stating that it was unrealistic for the Palestinians to ever expect sovereignty over West Bank territory where Israel has its largest settlement blocs. Not coincidentally, these blocs are located above the West Bank’s main water aquifers. As was the case under previous administrations, US aid to Israel, which amounts to roughly one third of all American aid world-wide, continues to flow in the face of Israel’s illegal settlement building practices.

The unforgiving stance which the US has long adopted towards the Palestinian people is matched only by its unwavering support for the Israeli state. Three years ago, Bush declared that “It is the policy of the United States to seek and support the growth of democratic movements and institutions in every nation and culture, with the ultimate goal of ending tyranny in our world.” Yet, when Palestinians exercised their democratic rights and elected Hamas into power in Gaza in 2006, the Bush administration responded by cutting off aid while simultaneously encouraging Fatah to launch a coup. While placing sanctions on a people already living under an illegal military occupation may represent a historic novelty, it is also an act which is entirely in keeping with American policies dating back to Israel’s capture of the West Bank and Gaza Strip during the Six-Day War of 1967. When the Carter administration induced Egypt to sign a separate peace with Israel in 1979, it effectively neutralized the only Arab force potentially capable of countering Israeli militarism and expansionism. No sooner were the Camp David Accords signed, than Israel began to intensify its settlement building in the West Bank. Three years later, when Israel invaded Lebanon in an attempt to crush the PLO as a political force, it was able to do so without fear of any serious resistance from the larger Arab world, and was quickly rewarded for its efforts with a generous increase in US financial and military aid. All rhetoric about peacemaking aside, the fact is that the US has effectively been subsidizing Israeli settlement building in the remainder of historic Palestine while shielding successive Israeli governments from international pressure for the past forty-one years.

While it may not be common knowledge among North Americans, since at least the mid-1970s the PLO, along with every Arab state bordering Israel, has indicated its willingness to make peace with Israel based on relevant Security Council resolutions and recognition of Palestinian national rights. That willingness was formalized at the Fez Summit of 1982, and reaffirmed by the Arab League during the Saudi peace initiative of 2002. The Bush administration has responded predictably to the latter, issuing statements about the need for substantive peace talks, while placing no serious pressure on Israel to respond to the initiative favorably. The recent US sponsored “peace summit” in Annapolis merely underscores this point. Rather than being used as an opportunity to push for resolution of the most crucial issues standing in the way of a two-state solution, such as the Palestinian refugee issue, Israeli settlements and the status of East Jerusalem, the summit was instead seized upon by the Bush administration as a platform to encourage the formation of a common front amongst Israel and “moderate” Arab states against Iran, Hezbollah and Hamas. Needless to say the latter were not invited to the peace talks. Likewise, Hamas’ recent offers to recognize the state of Israel – as opposed to Israel’s alleged “right” to lay claim to most of historic Palestine – and negotiate a peace agreement with it have been dismissed by both the Bush administration and the Israeli political elements it favors.

That the unqualified support which successive US administrations have given to Israel’s expansionist policies is directly at odds with America’s proclaimed desire to facilitate a lasting peace between Israelis and Palestinians is clear. Obvious as well, is the fact that a truly even-handed approach to peacemaking – one whereby the US would stop vetoing every UN resolution critical of Israel’s occupation practices and instead use its influence to compel Israel to withdraw from illegally occupied land – would greatly enhance America’s effectiveness in its present War on Terror. Al Qaeda would certainly not be placated or deterred from attacking US interests, but it would lose a key basis of its popular support, making it far easier for America’s allies in the Arab and Muslim worlds to isolate and diminish it as a serious political and military force. These rather elementary observations beg two very serious questions. First, what exactly are the primary motivations and political forces driving US policies towards Israel/Palestine? Secondly, what if anything could conceivably induce a policy shift?

Recently, Mearsheimer & Walt (2008) have come under fire for suggesting that American Mideast policies are best explained by the apparent stranglehold which Jewish Zionist and Christian fundamentalist pro-Israel lobbies have on Congress. By contrast, critics on the left such as Noam Chomsky and Stephen Zunes have downplayed the relative importance of such pressure groups, pointing instead to longstanding US interests in the region’s oil supply and to Israel’s related role as America’s regional enforcer. These two lines of argument are not mutually exclusive. Equally important is the fact that lobbies such as the American Israel Public Affairs Committee (AIPAC) and the Christian Coalition differ in character from commercial lobbies such as those representing the oil industry, tobacco, or major arms manufacturers. More specifically, their dual nature as entrenched presences on capital hill on the one hand, and genuine expressions of grassroots ideological currents in American society on the other, make them particularly formidable allies of those elite interests driving US foreign policy more generally. The challenges that this reality presents to activists hoping to bring about a more progressive role for the US in Middle East affairs are considerable. In fact, given the almost complete absence of media and (hence) public scrutiny of the issues raised above, it appears very likely that present policies will change only after their detrimental effects on American interests become so severe that they can no longer be countenanced. This should come as little comfort to the Middle Easterners who continue to bear the brunt of US “peacemaking”.

Stephen M. E. Marmura teaches sociology at Queen's University and is the author of Hegemony in the Digital Age: The Arab/Israeli Conflict Online.

Issues Raised by Writers Guild of America Strike

by Vincent Mosco

The strike of the Writers Guild of America captured a lot of attention because it deprived millions of their favorite television programs. But the issues it raised will persist long after people comfortably settle into new episodes of CSI. Here are some observations to consider.

The strike demonstrated the importance of new media for old media industries and especially for their workers. After all, a central issue in the strike was the distribution of revenues from new media uses of traditional television programming. What, if any, compensation should writers receive for work that is increasingly repackaged for the digital world, especially the internet? With the producers proposing to end the system of residuals and develop new forms of compensation, and the writers determined to press for expanded residual payments, it came as no surprise that the WGA took to the picket line on November 1, 2007. The strike, which lasted three months and cost Hollywood an estimated $2.5 billion, was resolved with a deal that promised writers a stronger foothold in the online world. In the first two years of the three-year contract, writers would get a maximum flat fee of about $1,200 for programs streamed online. In the third year, however, they would receive two percent of a distributor’s gross, a key union demand. Other provisions include increased residual payments for downloaded movies and TV programs.

No one is sure what the size of the revenue stream will be from streaming and downloading, but it should be clear to anyone familiar with research on labor, especially in the communication industry, Hollywood workers would benefit from greater solidarity among its many unions. With separate unions representing directors, writers, actors and technicians, it is difficult for them to speak with one voice against increasingly integrated media conglomerates that dominate both old and new media. The Communication Workers of America which represents journalists, telephone workers, media technicians, and high tech workers has benefited from solidarity. But attempts to bring together the Hollywood unions have failed, often on very close votes. There are many reasons for this but a narrow craft consciousness and a guild, rather than a union, culture have been especially difficult to overcome. In essence, they have failed to match technological and industry convergence with the labor convergence that would provide Hollywood workers with the resources to defend their interests.

Finally, as a communication scholar, it was disappointing to observe how few researchers in the field commented on the strike to offer the historical background and context for the events. Academics, especially those working on the issues swirling around new media and the internet, need to spend more time on the labor dimension. It is not enough to ask: What will be next new thing? We also need to ask whether media workers of the world will unite.

Vincent Mosco is professor of sociology and Canada Research Chair in Communication and Society at Queen's University and co-author with Catherine McKercher of Knowledge Workers in the Information Society.

From Silence to Prominence; The Story of Women is Evident in Their Television Images

by Nichola D. Gutgold

Being First Lady seems like a dread for any woman who wishes to be known for her own achievements. Louisa Adams, the wife of John Quincy Adams was so unhappy and desperate that most of the time she could be found indulging in chocolate and penning a biography titled  Adventures of a Nobody.  Eleanor Roosevelt carved out a life for herself as first lady, though the press pounced on her unorthodox role as she traveled around the country serving as the legs of her husband. But at least she had a voice. To see the progress that women have made in society we need only to turn on our televisions and see that women are not only major figures in the news, they are major figures reporting the news, too. Hillary Clinton as a viable presidential candidate is major progress over the symbolic presidential aspirations of Margaret Chase Smith, Shirley Chisholm, Pat Schroeder, Elizabeth Dole and Carol Moseley Braun. As she said, she is “in, and in it to win.” Being a front runner, even if she doesn’t win the nomination, is closer than any woman in American history. And she was first lady. To be seen and heard is progress for women in politics and in broadcasting. From curvaceous weather forecasters hired more for their looks than their understanding of meteorology, women have become forces in television news. Women like Senior Political Correspondent Candy Crowley and Dana Bash, who are front and center reporting on the latest political developments. Crowley has become a presence on CNN, reporting on Washington politics. She has distinguished herself with witty, yet serious and intelligent coverage of the presidential campaigns of Ronald Reagan, Ted Kennedy, Jesse Jackson, George Bush, Pat Buchanan, Paul Tsongas, Bill Clinton and George W. Bush. Since the nomination of Jimmy Carter, she has reported from all but one of the national political conventions. Her strong, confident voice and insightful questions and commentary make her a fixture on the political scene. She is a self described “political junkie” who revels in participating in the campaigns and the other political rituals that she covers. Dana Bash represents the younger broadcast journalist who grew up with role models, including her own father, who had long and productive careers. Though her career trajectory demonstrates her strong work ethic and persistence—she started out labeling archival tapes--she recognizes that several women in broadcasting who went before her have paved the way for her to be successful at the most difficult and prestigious levels of journalism. She recalls telling Judy Woodward one day as she prepared for a stand up report from the White House, “I’m standing here on the North Lawn of the White House because you stood here before me.” She told me that though both her mother and father graduated from one of the top journalism schools in the country, her father immediately landed a good job in television, while the best job her mother could find was as a secretary. And we should remember some of the trailblazing women in journalism – women like NBC’s Nancy Dickerson whose son, John Dickerson is chief political correspondent of Slate.com. Dickerson was the first woman to cover the White House for television on a regular basis. She tenaciously studied speech at Catholic University while she was a producer at CBS with the hope that she could become a correspondent, though the idea of that was outrageous at the time. In 1965 Liz Trotta was television’s first woman assigned full-time as a foreign correspondent. She stayed with NBC for thirteen years, covering major stories in Europe, Asia, Africa and the Middle East. In 1962 Barbara Walters became a reporter for NBC’s Today show and is still a major presence—with a Star on Hollywood’s Walk of Fame-- she has interviewed every American president and first lady since Richard and Pat Nixon. Many of the most controversial world leaders have sat down to tell their stories to her including Menachen Begin, Margaret Thatcher, Fidel Castro, Anwar Sadat, Vladimir Putin, Boris Yeltsin, King Hussein of Jordan and Premier Jiang Zemin. Her tenacity and hard work were especially evident she was the first of the three big network news anchors to conduct a joint interview with Egypt’s President Anwar el-Sadat and Israeli Prime Minister Menachem Begin. Something that Walter Cronkite noted in his autobiography he “did not count on.” Lesley Stahl joined CBS as a correspondent in 1972 and was the first woman to co-anchor election night coverage.  And of course, Katie Couric is making history as the first sole anchor of CBS Evening News. So, yes, we are seeing women make gains not only as major figures in the news, but as major figures reporting the news.

 

Nichola D. Gutgold is associate professor or communication arts and sciences at Penn State University at Lehigh Valley and is author of Paving the Way for Madam President  (Lexington Books) and Seen and Heard: The Women of Television News (Lexington Book, forthcoming, March 2008)