some extra reading

New York University lost it's "Dream School" status earlier this year. To Harvard, Princeton, and Stanford. Pshaw. A New York City true-blood reported that she had no problem working on her doctorate because life at Princeton was so boring all there was to do was watch spiders cross the windowsill.

Things still happen at fourth-place schools, however. Thanks to a hefty tuition bill, a prime location, and great connections, my ninth--and hopefully final--alma mater is good at wrangling guest speakers. Some other journalism class got Gay Talese, but I'm not holding any grudges.

Earlier this week we heard from David Grann, a writer for The New Yorker who has a book coming out early next year. In preparation, may I recommend the following pieces as a brief sample of his work:

Giving 'The Devil' His Due--for those of us who need another reason to make our blood boil over U.S. relations in Haiti

The City That Fell In Love With the Mob--oh me oh my oh: look what went on in Ohio

My professor, who is a friend and colleague of Grann's, reports that Grann will frantically declare he doesn't know what to write about next, and then comes up with something like this: The Chameleon.

just a spot by the sea

for those, like my mother, who are better people when there are mountains afoot and the ocean crashes on the proper side.

Today's vocab word: public

Just in case I wasn't partisan enough in my prior post (warily! warily! I say to you):

According to the New York Times, Senator McCain announced that "the federal government should play a limited role in public education."

If not a government (for the people, by the people) who then shall regulate the public school system? Will the government (that faceless entity) whittle away its hours with the private school system?

“Education is obviously not the issue Senator McCain spends the most time on,” said Lisa Graham Keegan, a former Arizona education commissioner and McCain adviser. Oops--not anymore.

Hey, teach

I think Teach for America slipped Obama some of their Koolaid. From a speech in Dayton, Ohio:

A while back, I was talking with my friend Arne Duncan, who runs the Chicago Public Schools. He was explaining how he’d managed to increase the number of kids taking and passing AP courses in Chicago over the last few years. What he said was, our kids aren’t smarter than they were three years ago; our expectations for them are just higher. Well, I think it’s time we raised expectations for our kids all across this country, and that’s what we’ll do when I’m President of the United States.

Actually, it's probably the influence of ED in '08, an advocacy group focused on education reform. They share a number of philosophies (and former alumni) with TFA, many of them reflected in the candidate's speech.

A few things I worry about:

The overenthusiastic push for charter schools--just because competition works for grocery stores does not mean it should work for our country's intellect.

Focusing on new teacher recruitment, if it is at the expense of retention and stimulating career development. (Stimulating is key here--I don't mean those teacher in-services with smiling motivational speakers and PowerPoint slides. You don't know boredom until you've sampled a few hours of one of these. Unless, of course, you've wallowed through a week of state testing.)

The underlying theme of competition. Yes, we need a knowledgeable workforce, and I don't wish this country into the Dark Ages. But there is something suspicious in lines such as "When the story of our time is told, I don’t want it to be said that China seized this moment to reform its education system, but the United States did not." I hope it merely reeks of rhetoric.

But these things worry me too:

High school sophomores counting on their fingers.
Seventh graders unable to write in complete sentences.
The junior who slapped her chapter book shut in frustration, unable to understand the words and old enough to be embarrassed.

I could go on.

This is not about competition. It's about dignity.

I admit I've tasted the Koolaid too. I suspect some batches contain Nutrasweet--synthetic and ultimately unsavory methods that create more problems--but it sure is better than dying of thirst. Let's just not forget to hold each other to our high expectations.

Prince Phillip

One last bit of non-New York color, before my life is completely ensconced in Manhattan's fall foliage: check out Phillips Seafood Festival Buffet, of Ocean City, Maryland. We did, but only externally--one of my traveling companions sampled the fare on an earlier trip to this lovely coastal town and suggested we dine elsewhere (in her defense, the visit was not of her own volition).

Phillips is an endless expanse of fried seafood and it's sundry companions (crab legs, french fries, and, I'd imagine, copious amounts of tartar sauce and ketchup). Unfortunately, and yet somehow predictably, it's not very good.

Despite its culinary failings, Phillips is world-renowned. This is what you do when you go to Ocean City. Afterwards, you can stagger down the boardwalk and ogle women in gold-lamé bathing suits. Or, as two women we observed coming from Phillips did, you can call friends and relations on your cellphone, click on the speaker phone (so as to capture the muddy Atlantic surf) and tell them "We're just calling to to brag that we just left Phillips!"

couldn't drag me away

I had high hopes for the wild ponies of Assateague—I imagined their majestic manes streaming in the tempestuous Atlantic winds, sinews straining as they raced across the rolling dunes. I saw them rearing fiercely in the sunset, whinnies echoing above the roar of the waves. (And yes, I maybe envisaged myself clasping my arms around their necks, swinging up upon their sturdy backs, yelling like a banshee and riding like hell.)

Perhaps it was my former dealings with the bears in Yosemite, the moose in the Maine, or the stampeding elephants in South Africa that filled me with romantic expectations. But the wild ponies of Assateague were anything but—it turns out that they’re not even ponies. And they certainly are feral: they show little regard for the beachgoer who may not wish to sunbath in their excrement. The small herd near my campsite did maintain a frighteningly obsessive habit of relieving themselves directly outside the entrance to the chemical toilets—although every day the placement varied every so slightly, a strategic deviation that kept campers on their toes and confirmed certain suspicions about the neuroses that develop during decades of in-breeding.

What the eager visitors do not yet realize, as they pay their $15 entrance fee, a fee that will permit them to scout out a towel-sized claim of feces-and-cigarette-butt-strewn beach front; as they toss their park pass in the windshield and excitedly tamp on the brake—it is their first wild pony and the thrill of the spotting makes them forget the vehicles that pause politely behind them while they click their cameras with frenetic abandon—what these eager visitors do not yet realize is that these wild ponies, descendants of the noble Misty of Chincoteague, descendant of the fierce Phantom, descendant of the shipwrecked ponies who swam to the island years ago (or, the Park Service gently apprises us, more likely the descendant of horses brought to the islands by 17th century agrarians who wanted to avoid fencing laws and livestock taxes): yes, these ponies of ponies are actually the squirrels of Assateague.

Do not feed the ponies. Do not touch the ponies. Shoo them away when they come near—clap and shout if you must. They may look docile, but they are prone to wild and unpredictable behavior. And while they might relieve themselves outside the chemical toilets with predictable alacrity, they certainly do engage in wild and unpredictable activities: nuzzling scantily-clad young ladies on the beach, rustling through the recycling in the middle of the night, standing stoically near one’s campsite for mysteriously long periods of time. (The gentlemen, I must note, also wantonly exhibit that which makes them men—I can say nothing of the gentle, as one of my companions recalls an earlier visit to the island, where she and her busload of classmates witnessed a very graphic rendition of the procreatory act.)

The ever-amiable Park Service does its best to defend the dear ponies: they remind visitors that the horses are “tough enough to survive the scorching heat, abundant mosquitoes, stormy weather and poor quality food found on this remote, windswept barrier island.” I will concur that unless one plans appropriately, food and drink is scant on the island, and that heat, mosquitoes and stormy weather appear in abundance. But the ponies' curriculum vitae fails to impress. For once upon a time I harbored childish ambitions to be a horse (don't ask), but alas, I am not, and despite domestication and a lack of equestrian attributes, I too survived life on the island and all the rigors and dilemmas of a holiday at the beach.

Misty of Chincoteague, it turns out, has not. I am sad to report that she, the equine heroine of the children’s classic (a surprising number of people I’ve spoken with are familiar with this book), passed in 1972. But never fear: if you wish to brave the mosquitoes, ultraviolet rays and horse-awn tourists, you can go see Misty, glassy-eyed and stuffed, in full taxidermic glory.

But please don’t touch.

paling in comparison

Well, we all know who Tina Fey will be spoofing for the next two months (I'm being optimistic here).

Why do I feel like they're trying to tug on the heart strings of my double X chromosomes?

When CCR sang "I ain't no fortunate son," I don't think they were arguing for the senators and governors and representatives to march their children and past experiences down the corridor to the sacrificial alter [ahem]. I don't think this is what Biden and Palin and McCain and Obama intend, but the specters of a child with Down syndrome, sons in Iraq, x & y chromosomes, melanin and a tortured body flit about the campaign speeches and television ads.

how cool will it be!?

Currently, barackobama.com opens with a nice graphic and the sweetly rhyming phrase "Who Will Be Barack's VP? Be the first to know." Us Virginians and pseudo-Virginians are crossing our fingers for Governor Tim Kaine. And we're eagerly awaiting the news. It's just a bit unfortunate that the slogan sounds remarkably like an ad for a home pregnancy test.

And just in case you aren't obsessively checking the NYTimes for the announcement, the campaign can send you a text as soon as the decision is made:

Barack is making his decision and will be announcing it any day now. If you haven't had a chance to text "VP" to 62262 pull out your phone and do it now! How cool will it be to know before it's announced by Wolf Blitzer, Katie Couric, or some other news outlet?

Um...I want to know too, and yes, before Katie reads it off the teleprompter. But is this how the campaign thinks we want to be spoken to? Barack, he's so cool! I agree, but please--I'd like a little substance with my exclamation points.

vaccumming the valley

This is Barry K-, president of the Plains District Memorial Museum. Here's a truncated version of an article I wrote for a local publication:

Barry King was plagued by a triad of problems. Or, rather, the old feed mill that he hoped would house the Plains District Memorial Museum suffered three afflictions. Asbestos. A leaking roof. And pigeons—or rather, piles of pigeon guano.

“In my mind, every time it rained, I could feel the raindrops on my head,” said King.

The building is a much-needed upgrade from the museum’s current location, a small garage brimming with Virginia artifacts from decades and centuries past. It took the dedication of dozens of volunteers, a number of fundraisers and generous donations, a few negotiations with the electricians, and a visit from a pigeon abatement company to ready the mill for moving day. Today, a few buckets still collect raindrops in the back section of the building, but the front room—a spacious area complete with museum-style lighting and climate controls—will open its doors in September.

Now King’s task is to fill the mill. “I’m in vacuum mode,” he said. “Do you have any old ledgers?”

Unlike a typical diviner, King sniffs out history, and is not afraid to ask his friends and neighbors about the contents of their attics, basements, and sheds. “Once you start to smell the ancient dust, it gets in your blood,” said King.

gonna look both ways

The funny thing about documenting sprawl is how the experience literally reinforces the very definition of suburban ooze: its utter inaccessibility to anything but a car. You want footage of the land where the Wal-Mart was supposed to go? Park on the slender shoulder, slog down the hot asphalt, past shrieking cars and belching trucks. Wade through the bracken in the ditch. The crickets will leap in fright. To get a shot of where the Wal-Mart ended up, tripod off bank ATMs and lean against street signs. Cross highway traffic with a prayer that if you get hit, your camera will survive. (Don't worry, mom: I'm gonna look both ways before I cross the street. Three times.)

What is most disturbing, in the end, is not the tireless uniformity or the men who yell out car windows but the anomaly of a footed figure. That what everything thinks is bizarre is not a girl with a camera, but a girl--if they notice you at all.