What Happened in Vegas

I spent the last couple of days in Las Vegas, as a guest at a combined surprise 70th birthday party/wedding vow renewal for my aunt.  It was nice to see everybody--COS and ACOS were there--and I enjoyed the experience of road-tripping across the desert in a Prius--and of finding out that a Prius can actually do 90 on a straightaway.

Interestingly, despite my well-earned reputation as a sophisticated world traveler--I've toured Toronto!  Berlin!  Spokane, Washington!--I had never actually visited Vegas before.  I had caught a connecting flight at the LV airport once, but I'm not sure that counts: I would say it definitely doesn't count, except for the fact that there are, in fact, slot machines on the airport concourse, so one can at least get a smattering of the Vegas experience even on a one-hour stopover.  At any rate, this was my first time spending actual time in Sin City, and I have to say, on the whole. . . . No likey.

For one thing, the sensory overload was daunting--even for me, and I'm from New York!  The Vegas Strip makes Times Square look like a Zen sand garden.  And I had no idea that everything was so compressed.  From numerous TV shows, movies, and commercials, I was under the impression that the Las Vegas Strip was essentially like any other heavily trafficked block in a large city.  I assumed that each hotel would have its spot and that if one walked along the street, one would pass smoothly in front of one resort after another.  But that's not how it works.  Hotels sit on top of one another--or in front and behind one another--or within one another for all I could tell.  Some resorts seem to occupy two different locations at the same time, thus clarifying for me some of the thornier points of quantum physics.

And while everything seems to be in basically one place, nothing is close to anything. On Thursday night, COS and I decided to walk back to our hotel from another hotel, rather than hopping the monorail because. . . well, in retrospect, I'm not sure what our reasoning was: I think it had to do with ACOS admonishing me that I simply had to see the fountains at the Bellagio.  I did.  They were everything I could have expected and more from large amounts of water thrusting skyward.  But anyway, particularly after walking to the Bellagio, COS and I figured that walking to the nearest monorail station would take just about as long as walking back to the hotel--because the hotel was right there!  We could see it from where we were.  But in Vegas, the ability to see something is no guarantee of its relative closeness.  (Never again will I mock Sarah Palin for her ability to see Russia from her bathroom.)  After walking approximately 19 miles in an area that seems to occupy maybe one square mile in its entirety (the Vegas Strip apparently employs TARDIS technology!), we made it back to the hotel--only to have to navigate about another mile underground through the casinos and restaurants and, I don't know, cockfighting rings before arriving safely back at our respective rooms.

I did enjoy the hot tub afterwards, though.

I'm sure that some people appreciate the sheer muchness of Vegas.  There is undoubtedly lots to see and do, but it mostly appeals to one's more prurient interests.  As I walked through yet another subterranean entertainment-plex, I thought of something I once heard about the Smithsonian Institution.  It was one of these "Fun Facts": Something like, if a tourist went to every exhibit at the Smithsonian, and spent only ten seconds looking at each one, it would take 9,000 years to see everything.  (Don't quote me on that, but you get the gist.)  As I wandered the Strip, I thought, If someone wanted to experience every sight/exhibit/store, it would take a similar amount of time; although you'd undoubtedly catch syphilis much faster in Vegas--unless you start at the Smithsonian's Capone exhibit--but I think I digress.

In fairness, Vegas, is exactly as advertised: It is a place designed for hedonism, for pleasure (again, though, of a very specific sort).  It makes no pretenses to high art or culture (except perhaps of the culinary sort), and one doesn't have to make excuses for a Vegas trip if pure entertainment is one's purpose.  Vegas is probably the most capitalistic destination one could ever imagine vacationing: Just about everything is available, and one can experience consumerism in its purest form.  What happens in Vegas stays in Vegas because, ultimately, one takes nothing away from it: The trip is the experience, and any pleasure one derives is consumed as soon as one experiences it.

Vegas, Baby

The Solipsist is in Vegas, Nation. Family affair. Will have more to post in a couple of days.  Right now, I'm pretty exhausted, though, so nitey-nite..

Plan B for Plan B

The Obama administration has decided to drop its legal appeals in a case involving the "morning after pill."  A few months ago, the FDA released an advisory report, in which it recommended that so-called one-step emergency contraceptives (i.e., those involving a single pill) be sold over-the-counter, without a prescription.  In an unusual move, the Obama administration, in the person of health and human services secretary Kathleen Sebelius decided to ignore the advisory, which led to lawsuits from reproductive-rights advocates.

This is the right decision on the administration's part--right up there with their earlier decision to stop defending the homophobic "Defense of Marriage" Act.  Let's face it, right now Obama has enough on his plate without looking for battles he doesn't NEED to fight.  I was struck, however, by the following tidbit from the news article:

"The Justice Department said it would not remove restrictions from two-pill emergency contraceptives because it is concerned that young girls might not be able to adequately understand how to take two separate doses."

Now, I know girls are bad at math, but I was always under the impression that--at least once they reached child-bearing age--they possessed the ability to count to TWO!

(Yeah, yeah, same to you!)

Why Weep for Theon?

After watching last night's season finale of "Game of Thrones," I started to wonder about my own moral compass--my ideas about right and wrong and about what constitutes "just" punishment.  For one thing--

(DIGRESSION: Should I say "spoiler alert"?  Probably not necessary.  If you watch "GoT," this is old news, and, if you don't you probably don't care anyway.  In fact, you might as well check back tomorrow for whatever I decide to blather about then.  Or perhaps I can interest you in this post about pandas? EOD)

For one thing, I could never have imagined that I would experience such a cathartic sense of joy--such a fist-pump worthy feeling of euphoria over a little girl repeatedly stabbing a man in the neck.  Yes, the man had it coming, and, yes, the little girl in question, Arya Stark (Maisie Williams) has more than earned the right to inflict payback on those who have wronged her and her family.  But what does it say about my sense of morality that I (and, I suspect, tens of thousands of viewers across the country) let out a silent (or not so silent) cheer at this moment when a child has irrevocably embarked down a path of bloody vengeance. 

(DIGRESSION: I ASSUME this is merely a starting point:

The Hound (Rory McCann): Is that the first man you've killed?

Arya: Yes.  The first man.

Emphasis in the original!  The "YES!!!" heard 'round the world! We're not good people! EOD)

But then there are the more complicated emotions around another character, Theon Greyjoy (Alfie Allen), who literally spent the entire season being tortured ever-more horrifically at the hands of a mysterious psychopath whose identity we only learned last night: crucified, beaten, broken, and ultimately castrated.  So, of course, by the end, we feel bad for Theon--but should we?  True, his suffering seems disproportionate punishment for any crime we could think of.  I mean, it's not like he betrayed his family and murdered helpless old men, women, and children!  Except. . . that's exactly what he did.  So maybe he deserves whatever is happening to him?

One of the great qualities of "GoT" is its absence of black and white characters.  There are no unambiguously good or bad people.  Except King Joffrey (Jack Gleeson), perhaps, who is truly irredeemable, but even he has the somewhat mitigating factor of being (A) a child and (B) the poster child for the dangers of inbreeding.  Even the ostensible main villain--Tywin Lannister (Charles Dance)-- inspires admiration because of his obvious intelligence and the fact that his primary motivation is to advance his family's well-being--albeit through war, murder, and treachery: He's basically Walter White without the knowledge of chemistry and the porkpie hat. 

Because we cannot easily categorize people into good or bad, we also cannot draw easy conclusions about what constitutes right and wrong: Murder for the sake of revenge is good; torture for the sake of punishment is bad.  Or maybe not.  The complexity of the characters leads a viewer to question his own sympathies--his own desires.  I have no idea who, ultimately, will win the "game of thrones," and for the sake of a "satisfying" narrative conclusion, I don't even know who should win.  What would the "happy ending" be?  Is one even possible?  In a fictional landscape devoid of clear heroes and villains, where the quest for power is the overriding concern, a consistent set of morals--a desire to be the "good guy"-seems an unaffordable luxury.  The one group of people in the story who have displayed  any concern with acting "ethically" are the Starks--a concern that so far, consistently, has just gotten them killed.

Not Rotten to the Core

Coming soon to--or perhaps already arrived at--a school near you: The Common Core State Standards.  As the name implies, the Common Core comprises a set of academic requirements (in math and language skills) that students are supposed to master in each grade through high school.  While adoption of the Common Core is, strictly speaking, voluntary, the vast majority of states have committed to using them, not least because adopting the Common Core was a pre-requisite to qualify for federal funding in the "Race to the Top" program.  Conservatives dislike the Common Core, seeing it as unwarranted federal intrusion in an area--public education--historically reserved for the states.  Liberals are uneasy about the Common Core's reliance on standardized testing and its potential use as a bludgeon against teachers.  ("Mr. Smith, your students' scores on the Common Core exams fell 3% this year.  What do you have to say for yourself?")

First, to the conservatives: You are absolutely right that the Common Core represents a federal mandate.  (Yes, technically, as mentioned above, the curriculum is voluntary, but since so much funding depends on its adoption, the Common Core is voluntary in much the same way that eating is voluntary: One doesn't have to do it, but one will probably not enjoy the results of such a choice.)  But, seriously, folks, haven't we outgrown the notion that education policy should be left to the states?  It's a truism that the world is flat--that Americans are competing for jobs and opportunities not only with people within their own communities but with people from across the entire country and, indeed, the world.  Can anyone truly argue that the educational needs of a child in New York differ fundamentally from those of a child in Mississippi?  When educational researchers and policy experts lament the fact that Americans consistently lag their peers in South Korea or Germany (or the Czech Republic, for Pete's sake!), they are implicitly or explicitly calling for a national educational policy.  There is no reason a high school student in Arkansas shouldn't have to suffer as much with trigonometry as an 11th grader in Massachusetts.

A more liberal-leaning complaint bemoans the Core's emphasis on measurable skills, which do not take into account the need for students to experience the more intrinsic rewards of learning.  These complaints deal mainly with the language-based standards.  According to public school teacher Claire Needell Hollander,

"The writers of the Common Core had no intention of killing literature in the classroom. But the convenient fiction that yearly language learning can be precisely measured by various “metrics” is supplanting the importance of literary experience. The Common Core remains neutral on the question of whether my students should read Shakespeare, Salinger or a Ford owner’s manual, so long as the text remains 'complex.'"

Well, again, yes.  Certainly, I would personally encourage students to read Shakespeare rather than a repair manual for a tractor (unless we're talking about Cymbeline, in which case it's a toss-up), but as I mentioned in a previous post, the point is that students should read and, by reading, develop their reading skills.  When it comes to testing students' reading abilities, the more they have been exposed to the written word--in whatever form--the better they will be able to perform on standardized tests.  Now, we can argue that standardized tests--especially of the multiple-choice variety--are not the best way to evaluate a student's knowledge, and we can and should look for other evaluative mechanisms.  But again there is nothing inherently objectionable in the idea that all students--regardless of which state they live in--should possess certain literacy skills.

I do share some concern about Common Core standards being used as a weapon to punish teachers and teachers' unions.  Especially in the early going, one can expect that students will struggle with some of the Common Core's requirements--particularly if these students have not been adequately prepared in the years that have preceded the Core's implementation. If a fifth-grade teacher is suddenly responsible for teaching certain material that the students are not ready for (based on their suddenly "subpar" fourth-grade instruction), it seems unfair to punish that teacher when the results are less than satisfactory in the first few years.  Once the Common Core has been around for some time, though, it stands to reason that teachers and students will adjust.  Ultimately, I am not against the idea of teacher accountability or even using standardized test scores as a part--a PART--of a teacher evaluation system.  And frankly, a Common Core could make life easier--or at least more predictable--for a teacher facing evaluation: No matter where the teachers are working, they know what they need to teach and what standards they will be held to.

A Common Core--a common body of knowledge--is a logical development in education.  There is no reason to oppose it reflexively.