The Modern-Day Renaissance Man

"Among the hidden costs of the health care crisis is the burden that fire departments across the country are facing as firefighters, much like emergency room doctors, are increasingly serving as primary care providers. . . . About 80 percent of the calls handled by Engine Company 10 are medical emergencies." ("Firefighters Become Medics to the Poor")

In a speech yesterday, Mayor Michael Bloomberg announced plans to capitalize on the versatility and professionalism of the Fire Department of New York, by cross-training FDNY recruits to perform a variety of emergency functions. "You know those Sprint commercials--with firefighters running the world," he said. "Maybe they're on to something." (New York Times, December 13, 2009.)

January 26, 2010

8:14 AM: Truck 72 responds to an emergency call from the Upper West Side. A man complaining of chest pains has collapsed on the corner of 84th and West End. Firefighter Tommy O'Shaughnessy performs CPR. While O'Shaughnessy is at the scene, Kim Sook Woo, proprietor of the Happy Apple bodega, asks the firefighter if he could help him reach a jar of pickled herrings on the top shelf. The 6' 3" O'Shaughnessy complies.

9:38 AM: The new cook at Fred's Diner is unsure of the proper recipe for hollandaise sauce. Firefighters Dennis O'Malley and Rodney O'Connor respond. While Fitzpatrick writes out the recipe, O'Connor completes an order of Eggs Benedict, as well as five "Sunrise Specials" and a batch of pancakes.

1:57 PM: Lieutenant Carl O'Reilly responds to an emergency call at the Gershwin Theater. The lead oboist has failed to arrive for the matinee of "Wicked." O'Reilly fills in on bagpipes. The performance is considered a success.

2:13 PM: Captain Morgan O'Herlihy of Engine 72 is called in to consult with psychiatrist Melvin Harmlich. Recognizing that the patient is bipolar and not merely depressive, O'Herlihy recommends a course of Zyprexa and Depakote. He also convinces the patient, Maggie P., to enter an anger management program and to purchase relaxation tapes.

2:58 PM: Ladder 98 responds to a call from the Bronx Zoo. Lieutenant Brian O'MacNamara performs an emergency tracheotomy on a lemur that is choking on a walnut.

4:13 PM: Firefighter Irving O'Weintraub races to Citi Field to pitch batting practice. While there, he adjusts David Wright's swing. Wright will go 3 for 4 with an opposite field home run later that night.

6:38 PM: In an attempt to head off a Republican filibuster, firefighter Walter Rensellaer O'Winthorpe IV, negotiates an amendment that will provide for expedited review of judicial nominees in exchange for consideration of tort reform in future legislative packages.

9:28 PM: Firefighter Emilio O'Rodriguez fills in for ailing bartender Jimmy Fox at Lower East Side hot-spot Robots After Dark. His mojitos are a huge success.

11:38 PM: Kitchen fire at 784 Columbus. Truck 72 responds. At the scene, they find firefighters from Engine 63, Engine 58, Ladder 29, Truck 98, and Ladder 42, all of whom had rushed to the scene, excited by the prospect of actually fighting a fire. Engine 63 claimed dibs. The other firefighters looked on in envy.

School Daze II

"'It's difficult for me to understand how listening to the president, the commander in chief, the chief citizen of the country, is damaging to the youth of today,' said Phyllis Griffin Epps, an analyst for the city [of Houston]." ("Some Parents Oppose Obama School Speech")

Well, Ms. Epps, your problem is obvious: Your problem, you see, is that you are not 100% CLINICALLY IN-FUCKING-SANE!!! We recommend that you get out of Texas with all speed and head for someplace a bit more tolerant of dissenting viewpoints. Myanmar, perhaps.

We're through the looking glass, people. We reported in yesterday's post about the vocal minority (we hope it's a minority) of conservative wackjobs incensed at the thought of their impressionable youth being exposed to President Barack Obama's particular brand of socialism when he addresses them next week with the clearly Marxist exhortation to "work hard and stay in school." Today the Times picked up the story.

(Digression: Not the first time, incidentally, the paper of record has plucked a story from The Solipsist. You remember that whole Bernie Madoff thing? Us. You're welcome. EOD)

The latest outrages against common sense include Canadian author Mark Steyn comparing Obama--apparently unironically--with Kim Jong-il and Saddam Hussein, and Chris Stigall, a Kansas City talk-show host, who said, "I wouldn't let my next-door neighbor talk to my kid alone; I'm sure as hell not letting Barack Obama talk to him alone." Well, KC Chris, considering that any random next-door neighbor in flyover country is likely to be the BTK killer, we understand your caution. We like to think, though, that the Secret Service and the millions of viewers watching his speech might--might--preclude President Obama from raping, killing and eating (not necessarily in that order)--your precious offspring.

(Digression: We stole that last bit from Harlan Ellison. EOD)

As FOS might ask of these conservative rabble-rousers: Do they seriously believe their own bullshit? We don't know which possibility is worse: that they do or they don't. If they DO, then we live in a benighted age, when a sizable portion of the American population believes that a duly and overwhelmingly elected president is a Manchurian candidate seeking to poison the minds of the nation's youth with subliminal socialist propaganda under a message of hard work and good citizenship. If they DON'T, though. . . .

If they don't believe what they're saying--if they are engaging in nakedly cynical political maneuvering--then they are no better than Hitler's ministers of propaganda, or those Rwandan radio personalities who stirred up their citizenry to acts of genocide.

Run, Phyllis Griffin Epps. Seriously. Run.

School Daze

Next week, on September 8, President Obama will make a speech aimed at our nation's youth. According to Mr. Obama, the speech will talk about such hot-button issues as the importance of staying in school (!). Republicans are, predictably, outraged:

From the Cato Institute, a libertarian "think" tank:

"It's one thing for a president [note the lower-case 'p,' Anonymous--and no, it's not a Cato Institute thing] to encourage all kids to work hard and stay in school. . . . It's another thing entirely, however, to have the U.S. Department of Education send detailed instructions to public schools nationwide. . . and push them to drive social change." ("Obama Goes Back to School")

Right. Because we wouldn't want our schools and the youth of America to be agents of social change. Best to leave that sort of thing to paid lobbyists.

It's worth noting, also, that schools are being invited, or, at most, encouraged to have their students watch the speech. They are not being required to do so. Of course, even this reasonable concession to democratic ideals raises concerns. From Jim Greer, Chairman of Florida's Republican Party:

"The address. . . . obligates the youngest children in our public school system to agree with our President's [note the improper use of an upper-case 'P,' Anonymous] initiatives or be ostracized by their teacher's and classmates."

Florida! Figures!

We would have significantly more sympathy with Greer's argument if he weren't the Chairman of a political party whose party platform "energetically assert[s] the right of students to engage in voluntary prayer in schools and to have equal access to school facilities for religious purposes."

So for those of you playing along at home: voluntary viewing of a presidential speech is bad because it could impermissibly ostracize the apolitical, but voluntary prayer is fine even if it might unfortunately ostracize the irreligious.

This whole ruckus makes us want to ask one question of prominent Republicans:

Really? Really?!?

Look, considering the fact that the most prominent guest speaker we ever had at any school function was a guy who once worked as Chief of Staff to the New York City Sanitation Commissioner, we think it's pretty darn nifty that a bunch of schoolkids are going to have the chance to listen to a live address from THE PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES!!! And, let's get real, are we expected to believe that all these people who are complaining about Obama would be equally appalled at a speech by a Republican president? Hell, we would have even been excited if Bush had come to speak at a local school.

Of course, then all the kids would have come home saying "nukyular."

Catch and Release

Admittedly, sex offenders--particularly those who prey on children--are not the most sympathetic souls. One has difficulty thinking of a group less likely to receive a consoling hug or a shoulder to cry on. Nazis, maybe. Republicans, sure. But, still, one is hard pressed to muster any fellow-feeling for these depraved predators.

At the same time, one is troubled by the proliferation of "notification laws" across the country. ("Case Shows Limits of Sex Offender Alert Programs") You know, those laws that require paroled sex offenders to register with law-enforcement officials wherever they settle and that actively or passively alert the neighborhoods to the danger in their midst. One can hardly blame states and localities from passing such laws. Indeed, we ourselves would want to know if such a person were to move into our neighborhood. (All right, to be fair, the Solipsist just assumes that anybody within shooting distance is probably out to get him anyway, so it wouldn't make THAT much difference, but you get the point.) Still, there's something fundamentally unfair about the concept that a person who commits a crime, pays a penalty (i.e., jail time), and is then released after serving the time, must be forever branded with the scarlet letter of criminal tendency. It's hard enough for ex-convicts to rejoin society, get jobs, get on with their lives--if society has essentially given up on the notion that these people can safely rejoin society, how are they ever to prove that they can be trusted?

Maybe they can't be. But if that's the case, then are we not, as a society, being at best hypocritical by releasing them from prison at all? Look, if citizens truly feel sexual predators are the worst of the worst--and you'd be hard-pressed to find anybody who would disagree with that statement--then why don't we act accordingly? Life sentences for child molesters, rapists, et al. And if you think such sentences too harsh, then do away with the Megan's Laws across the country. You can't have it both ways.

Well, maybe you could. We could just designate a state to which all released sex offenders can be relocated, and then put a big fence around it. Is anyone really using Wyoming? Just wondering.

All's Fair in Love and Writing Skills Development

How opinionated should a teacher be? We wonder this every time a potentially "loaded" topic comes up in a classroom.

Case in point: Today we were discussing paragraph development. To get the conversation started, the Solipsist wrote this sentence on the board:

"Barack Obama is the president of the United States."

(Thankfully, this did not seem to come as news to anyone.)

We went on to say that this sentence, while true, would not be a good topic sentence for a paragraph. We asked the class to discuss why it was not a good topic sentence and then to propose alternatives. We established the "why" fairly quickly. (It's too "narrow": In and of itself, there's nothing about that sentence that "screams out" for support.) Then we got into a discussion of what might make a good revision.

At first, students struggled with this. We got responses like, "Barack Obama is the first black president of the U.S." or "Barack Obama is the 44th president of the U.S."--all things that suffer from the same problem of "narrowness." We explained that students should try to make a statement with which someone could conceivably argue. Finally, someone came up with "Barack Obama is a better president than George W. Bush."

Now, that's a good topic sentence. Not because we agree with it, but because it provides a specific focus and because someone could conceivably disagree: Presumably John McCain would disagree. We assume Bush himself would disagree, but since he never reads the papers, he may not even know that Obama is the president.

And, you see, there's the rub. We can't SAY things like that in class. Can we? It's so hard to avoid partisanship. We did mention fact that it was likely that--in this area, at least (the Bay Area of California)--this statement would be largely uncontroversial. We think it was OK to say that. But when we ventured that the general Bay-Area-response to this statement would be a resounding "Duh!" we fear we may have been out of bounds.

Obviously, teachers have opinions, just like anybody else. And in our case, we assume our opinions are probably in sync with those of the majority of our students. But there's that "assumption" again. And even if we're right, what does that do to the small minority of students who may feel differently? Do we alienate the one conservative student who attends a community college just north of San Francisco? Do we need to bend over backwards to accommodate that student's feelings?

We do try. But there's still a part of us that thinks anyone ill-informed enough to hold such out-of-step, right wing views needs to have their horizons expanded, if not their heads examined.

D'oh! There we go again!

Mad Props to Arthur Schack

New York State Supreme Court Judge Arthur M. Schack "fashions himself a judicial Don Quixote, tilting at the phalanxes of bankers, foreclosure facilitators and lawyers who file motions by the bale." ("A 'Little Judge' Who Rejects Foreclosures, Brooklyn Style"). In a world where the little guy usually gets slammed by the modern-day robber barons of the subprime-mortgage industry, it's nice to know there's a "little judge" looking out for his interests.

What we like about Judge Schack is that he's not so much a crusader as a nitpicker: But he picks all the right nits. When the Wells Fargos and Citigroups of the world move against embattled homeowners, they largely have the law on their side. Judge Schack may or may not agree that the "law is an ass," but he certainly has little sympathy for big banks and their legal claims. Of 102 foreclosure motions that have come before him over the last few years, he has rejected 42 of them, mainly for technical glitches. The judge's logic is "straightforward. . . . If a bank cannot prove ownership, it cannot foreclose." Or as he puts it himself (and we just WANT to imagine a Yiddish accent): "I'm a strange guy--I don't want to put a family on the street unless it's legitimate."

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One other tidbit from today's paper: "Cheney Offers Sharp Defense of C.I.A. Interrogation Tactics"

Former Vice President and Prince of Darkness Dick Cheney is (gasp!) upset that the attorney general has launched an investigation of C.I.A. interrogation tactics. Speaking of the interrogators, Cheney said, "We ask these people to do some very difficult things. They do so at the direction of the president."

Fair play, Dick. So, what say we investigate you and the president to find out just what orders these good people were following?

Reading is FUN-damental

From the "This is news?" Department:

"New Assignment: Pick Books You Like"

Front page news, too, apparently.

It seems that, in a radical rethinking of age-old pedagogical wisdom, English teachers are promoting the idea that students can find more enjoyment in reading (and thus improve their reading skills) by--wait for it--reading things they actually want to read. Shocking, we know. Still, it's nice to hear that the Solipsist has been on the right track all along, simply encouraging students to read, regardless of the inherent nutritional value of the words consumed.

The Solipsist has had a pretty much lifelong love of reading, inculcated in him not least by his English teacher mother and free-lance writer father. But even he found many of the works he was forced to read onerous. Of the dozens of books he read as class assignments, he can count on one hand the number of books he actually enjoyed at the time: Lord of the Flies was nifty. Pride and Prejudice was surprisingly delightful. All the King's Men was spectacular. But even the books that you would think would be right up our alley--Dracula, Frankenstein, The Odyssey--left us cold. And while, in our maturity (not to say dotage) we have come to appreciate these works, along with Hamlet and Heart of Darkness and Jane Eyre and other canonical works, one major reason for our lack of enthusiasm was the fact that we were essentially forced to read these books and told they were good for us. But back when the classics were first published, nobody read them for their health--they read them (or didn't) because they were entertaining (or not).

Critics fret that, left to their own devices, children will subsist on pablum and never graduate to the great works. But taste in literature is similar to taste in food. As children, we turn up our noses at anything more exotic than cheeseburgers, despite our parents' best efforts to expand our palates. As we grow older, though, we find the same old thing boring, unsatisfying, so we decide to take a chance and order something a little out of the ordinary. Before you know it, we are making reservations at the new Ethiopian joint downtown, which turns out to be a mistake, but who cares? We tried it, didn't like it, and so move on to the next experience.

So, too, in literature. We start out reading "Spiderman" and Stephen King, and this leads us to "Watchmen" and Harlan Ellison, which in turn leads us to Vonnegut and Heller and Pynchon, until we're just snatching up random books at the sidewalk bargain bins (of which there are simply not enough outside of New York City). And, of course, we still enjoy the cheeseburgers of Stephen King--everyone's got to have comfort food, right?

A couple of choice quotes from today's Times article show you the out-of-touchness of those who question the "read-what-you-like" movement. First, from Diane Ravitch, arguably the most famous name in education policy: If given the option to choose their reading material, she says, "What child is going to pick up 'Moby-Dick'?"

Well, exactly, Dr. Ravitch. Although, in defense of Melville's masterpiece, we would like to say that the first 100 pages and the last 50 pages are one hell of a book. It's those middle 500 pages about penguins and blubber and ice that make you want to kill yourself.

And from Mark Bauerlein, a professor at Emory University: "I actually used to be a real hard-line, great books, high-culture kind of person who would want to stick to Dickens." In describing his eventual, if perhaps grudging, acceptance of a more liberal approach to reading, Bauerlein continues: "I think if [kids] read a lot of Conan novels or Hardy Boys or Harry Potter or whatever, that's good."

We applaud your conversion, Prof. Bauerlein, but, um, "Conan novels"? "The Hardy Boys"? Is Emory Univerity located in the 1930's? Maybe your students should also make soapbox racers and get jobs selling the evening paper for a nickel. "Wuxtry, wuxtry! Read all about it!" We're just saying.

Oh, and by the way, we like Dickens. But not as much as we would have if we hadn't been forced to read David Copperfield.