If you are like most people, you see a checker board with a green cylinder. Would it surprise you to know that the squares A and B are the same color – or more accurately the same shade of grey? Don’t believe me? print out this page and cut out the squares and line them up side by side.

Happy?

Advances in neuroscience have shown that everything we experience is actually a figment of our imagination. Yet, our sensations feel accurate and truthful, so how can that be? As it turns out, our sensations cannot reproduce the physical reality of the outside world, they are simply representations. Of course, many experiences in daily life reflect the physical stimuli that enter the brain. But the same neural machinery that interprets actual sensory inputs is also responsible for our dreams, delusions and failings of memory.

In other words, the real and the imagined share a physical source in the brain. Enter Buddhism’s concept of  Pratītyasamutpāda. Pratītyasamutpādais a Sanskrit term that has been translated into English in a variety of ways. The most common translations are dependent origination or dependent arising. But the term is also translated as interdependent co-arising, conditioned arising, conditioned genesis, etc. The term could be translated somewhat more literally as arising in dependence upon conditions.

In his 1992 book “The Meaning of Life,” His Holiness the Dalai Lama wrote:

In Sanskrit the word for dependent-arising is pratītyasamutpāda. The word pratitya has three different meanings–meeting, relying, and depending–but all three, in terms of their basic import, mean dependence. Samutpada means arising. Hence, the meaning of pratītyasamutpāda is that which arises in dependence upon conditions, in reliance upon conditions, through the force of conditions.

In the picture above, the color you see is dependent on your brains desire to make the external world fit into a neat little box. After all, from an evolutionary point of view quick assimilation and integration of external information ( like external threats ) would be rewarded with longevity. So what has all this got to do with happiness?

If something as straightforward as a picture can be so misinterpreted by our brains, – as the addage goes “seeing is believing” and as has just been shown this is demonstrably false - how then can we trust our reaction to other sensory input? I think the question is a lot less interesting than the practical implications on our own personal happiness. Happiness is something that each of us is capable of, and is a byproduct of how we assimilate and integrate the flow of external sensory inputs.

I think we can all agree that living beings have the same basic wish to be happy and avoid suffering. In general most people tend to believe that external material conditions generate a sense of happiness, and as a result we devote a good deal of our time and energy trying to satisfy our material urges. Superficially it seems that these things can make us happy, but, like the illusion above, if we look more deeply we shall see that they also bring us a lot of suffering and problems.

Happiness and suffering are (for most sentient beings) opposites. It stands to reason, therefore, if something is a real cause of happiness it should not give rise to suffering. If external material conditions really are causes of happiness, they can never be causes of suffering; yet we know from our own experience that they often do cause suffering. Stop and consider that Happiness and suffering are both states of mind, and so their main causes cannot be found outside the mind.

This is a very liberating idea.

The real source of happiness is found as a result of inner peace. If we take steps to ensure that our minds are peaceful, we shall be happy all the time, regardless of external conditions. Inner peace allows us to more carefully assimilate and integrate external sensory input from the world around us. By being present in the moment of assimilation and integration we can make a conscious choice about how best to “react” to these inputs. Our care will give rise to more evenness of mind, especially under stress, and this is known as equanimity.

If we can deal with all of the people in our lives, family, friends, strangers, and yes enemies with loving kindness and compassion we will be creating a better world.  Love is the wish that all beings be happy, and compassion is the wish that all beings be free from suffering. Now that you know your perception of the world is a dependent arising that you share with all other sentient beings, show others the love and compassion you would hope for yourself.

Things that I did wrong over this winter: (a) didn’t keep up my 10 to 15 miles a day walking routine. (b) started eating grains ( breads, pasta, cereal ).

So? Back to Paleo and off to Cross-Fit by walking there…

At the outset, it is important to acknowledge we humans have been deluding ourselves for some time. This idea that somehow we are in control of the environment ( either positively or negatively ) is simply delusional. Stop and think about it. When you do, you realize that we ( as individuals ) have precious little control over anything but our minds -and for some of us, not so much control there either.

Not that we don’t have the best of intentions. Not that we don’t have limited success. We can control things like the temperature in very small spaces. We build homes and maintain them to keep ourselves insulated against environmental extremes.

Our control, however, is both limited and temporary. Although it is not going to happen for another 5 billion years, consider that our own Sun will someday swell into a red giant and swallow the Earth. Now that will really be global warming.

It all goes back to the shift in numbering in the west that gave us the ability to calculate risk. The Arabs, by way of invasion of India, had exposure to the Hindu numbering system. In turn, this enabled them to incorporate eastern intellectual advances into their own scholarship, scientific research, and experimentation. The impact was tremendous, first for the Arabs and then for the West.

In the hands of the Arabs, the Hindu numbers would transform mathematics and measurement in astronomy, navigation, and commerce. New methods of calculation gradually replaced the abacus, which for centuries had been the only tool for doing arithmetic everywhere from the Mayans in the western hemisphere, across Europe, to India and the Orient.  [1]

As the new numbering system took the place of the simple abacus over the next 500 years, writing out calculations became preferred over movable counters. This written computation encouraged abstract thinking. In turn areas of mathematics never conceived of in the past came to the forefront. Sea voyages became longer, time-keeping more accurate, architecture more ambitious, and production methods more elaborate. If you want to contemplate the the impact, consider how the modern world would look if we still measured and counted with I, V, X, L, C, D, and M-or with the Greek or Hebrew letters that stood for numbers.

The upside to abstract thinking should be completely obvious. Our advances in understanding have created the technological advances to support humanity’s ever swelling population. Today, we have the capacity to feed, shelter, and ensure the health and safety of every one of our 7 billion+ companions on this little blue-green marble in space. Where we fail to do so is a largely a failing of political and religious systems that govern those regions.

The downside to abstract thinking is a little less obvious. As it turns out, each time we achieve some limited success in temporarily controlling the external world, we get it in our heads that we, in fact, CAN control the external world. Our modern calculator and simulator for abstract thinking, the computer, has only served to enhance our hubris and delusional state.

Consider Frank Drake’s the now-famous Drake equation from 1960:

N=N*fp ne fl fi fc fL

[where N is the number of stars in the Milky Way galaxy; fp is the fraction with planets; ne is the number of planets per star capable of supporting life; fl is the fraction of planets where life evolves; fi is the fraction where intelligent life evolves; and fc is the fraction that communicates; and fL is the fraction of the planet's life during which the communicating civilizations live.]

The problem with this serious-looking equation is that it makes speculation appear to be legitimate intellectual inquiry. Drake’s equation has variables that cannot be known. Worse yet, most cannot even be estimated. The only way to work this equation is to fill in with guesses.

Of course, when you are guessing, you are substituting your personal prejudices for actual data.

In 1983, computational advances in computing allowed Carl Sagan and Paul Ehrlich to appear on the Johnny Carson show a combined 65 times to pump their paper “Nuclear Winter: Global Consequences of Multiple Nuclear Explosions.” Following these appearances, there were press conferences, meetings with congressmen, and so on. At the heart of their undertaking was an equation, never specifically expressed, but one that could be paraphrased as follows:

Ds = Wn Ws Wh Tf Tb Pt Pr Pe etc
 (The amount of tropospheric dust = # warheads x size warheads x warhead detonation height x flammability of targets x Target burn duration x Particles entering the Troposphere x Particle reflectivity x Particle endurance, and so on.)

The Drake equation can have any value from “billions and billions” to zero and gave rise to the mostly harmless SETI project. In the case of Sagan and company, the study not only made those guesses, but concluded they were catastrophic. According to Sagan and his coworkers, even a limited 5,000 megaton nuclear exchange would cause a global temperature drop of more than 35 degrees Centigrade, and this change would last for three months. In contrast, the greatest volcanic eruptions that we know of changed world temperatures somewhere between .5 and 2 degrees Centigrade. Ice ages changed global temperatures by 10 degrees. Here we have an estimated change three times greater than any ice age.

One might expect such claims to be the subject of some scientific dispute. However, Sagan and his coauthors were prepared. Nuclear winter was from the outset the subject of a well-orchestrated media campaign.

Being very direct, the Drake equation is literally meaningless, and has nothing to do with science. Also true of Sagan and Ehrlich’s Nuclear Winter. Expressions that can mean anything mean nothing. Like many others, I take a hard view that actual science involves the creation of testable hypotheses. Any equation which cannot be tested is not science. Such things are unquestionably the domain of faith.

Faith is defined as the firm belief in a thing for which there is no proof. The belief that the Koran is the word of God is a matter of faith. The belief that God created the heavens and earth in seven days is a matter of faith. The belief that there are other life forms in the universe is a matter of faith. The belief that Nuclear Winter will drop the earth’s temperature by 35 degrees is a matter of faith. Where you stand by faith, you are participating in religion.

Ok, so we can all agree that the planet, as measured for the restricted range of the last ~130 years, appears to be warming. Note, that this has nothing to do with the much lauded “Scientific Consensus” politicians are so pleased to pump on the Tonight Show. This statement of fact is based on the temperature measurements we have been able to make over time.

ASIDE: Consensus is invoked only in situations where the science is not solid enough. No one says that the consensus of scientists agrees that E=mc2. Nobody invokes the consensus is that the sun is 93 million miles away. It would never occur to someone engaged in stating a scientific conclusion to speak this way.

So, there are (at least) two questions we need to address: (a) what are the contributing factors to this warming? (b) what (if anything) can (or should) be done?

The first question has been the subject of study for some time now. According to their published history, the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) was created in 1988. Set up by the World Meteorological Organization (WMO) and the United Nations Environment Program (UNEP) to provide the governments of the world with a scientific view of what is happening to the world’s climate. The initial task for the IPCC as outlined in the UN General Assembly Resolution 43/53 in December 1988 was to “prepare a comprehensive review and recommendations with respect to the state of knowledge of the science of climate change; social and economic impact of climate change, and possible response strategies and elements for inclusion in a possible future international convention on climate.”

While they do have plenty of computer models, these models include variables that are not measurable. As we reviewed before, when you are guessing, you are not in the realm of science. So let’s just assume that there is currently a trend towards increasing temperature – albeit a trend with very large variance in potential outcomes.

Alright already, Where’s the Beef?

So, what to do about it…

I think nearly everyone agrees that a reduction in greenhouse gasses is part of the goal, as is carbon sequestration. Others have suggested that perhaps just by reflecting back around 1% of the sunlight (and people should understand that global warming is a 1% problem – which over time is adding up) it would have the desired cooling effect irrespective of what we do about carbon and other greenhouse gasses. Scientifically speaking no matter what we do on the carbon emissions front TODAY the impact of these actions are likely 200 to 20,000 years down the road.

Oddly enough, Beef might just be the answer in the short term. Hell, it might be the answer for the long term as well.

You see, an often overlooked source of greenhouse gas and carbon are the desertified areas of our planet. As you can see from the map, in environments where humidity is guaranteed throughout the year it is almost impossible to create vast desertified areas. No matter what you do, nature covers it up so quickly. And we have environments where we have months of humidity followed by months of dryness, and that is where desertification is occurring.

Allan Savory gives a very compelling TED Talk on the subject. He talks about an area of the Tihamah Desert subjected to 25 millimeters of rainfall. In terms of drums of water, each containing 200 liters, over 1,000 drums of water fell on every hectare of the land in one. In less than a day, the land will be devoid of all evidence of rain. Some of the water runs off as flooding, but most of the water that soaked into the soil has now simply evaporated – water vapor in the atmosphere is a very potent greenhouse gas. Because water and carbon are tied to soil organic matter, when we damage soils, we send off carbon back to the atmosphere.

We have just simply not understood why desertification really began to happen en mass almost 10,000 years ago. We also don’t really understand why has it accelerated lately. Again there are no models, just guesses. But that hasn’t stopped us from trying to stop it.

One of the early thoughts we had was that we would need to protect the land from overgrazing. So we reduced grazing animal populations. The problem there is that any seasonal grass that is left over at the end of the wet season has to decay biologically before the next growing season. If it doesn’t, the grassland and the soil begin to die leading to desertification.

So absent biological decay ( here meaning grazing animals to come and eat the grass), the decay must be handled by oxidation which is a very slow process. In fact, this smothers and kills grasses, leading to a shift to woody vegetation and bare soil, releasing carbon. Ugh. What to do.

Well, next we thought to use fire. Fire also leaves the soil bare, releasing carbon, but worse than that, burning one hectare of grassland gives off more, and more damaging, pollutants than 6,000 cars. Currently, in Africa, we are burning more than one billion hectares of grasslands a year. Almost nobody is talking about this. This is probably because it does remove the dead material and it allows the plants to regrow.

Perhaps we really ought to consider that math for a moment. Assuming an outrageously high 1.5 cars for every person on the planet, this world has ~10.5 billion cars in play polluting every day. In Africa they are burning grassland equivalent to 6,000 billion cars or the equivalent of every man woman and child driving ( simultaneously ) 857 cars daily.

I suggest to you that your purchase of a Prius is not going to make this problem go away. It is a problem born of the agricultural revolution and it is one that can be remedied  (at least partially if not entirely ) by organized and planned grazing by livestock. In a nutshell, we need to consume more bacon and beef.

Allan Savory and his team are already doing so on about 15 million hectares on five continents. Quick calculations show that we can take enough carbon out of the atmosphere and safely store it in the grassland soils for thousands of years. ( Keep in mind that ALL plant and animal life here on earth is primarily made up of carbon ) Further, if we just do that on about half the world’s known grasslands we can take carbon emissions back to pre-industrial levels, while simultaneously feeding people.

Bacon and Beef. It’s what’s for breakfast, lunch, and dinner on your low carbon emissions diet. [2]

[1] Peter L. Bernstein. Against the Gods: The Remarkable Story of Risk (Kindle Locations 247-255). Kindle Edition.

[2] And before you get too up in arms about methane levels from livestock, please read this paper on Methane Production from Cattle.

In my mind, this is why Easter Sunday is so meaningful to so many people around the world. It is our annual opportunity to experience a re-birth of sorts and begin anew the one mission central to all humanity, acts of loving kindness. As it was written in Ecclesiastes 3:1 “To every thing there is a season, and a time to every purpose under the heaven.”

On this day, in this season, I wish all of you in my extended family the joy and peace that comes with forgiveness of self and others as well as engaging in תקון עולם (Tikkun Olam) – a Hebrew phrase which means “repairing the world”. תקון עולם commands that it is humanity’s shared responsibility is to heal, repair, and transform the world into a better place for everyone. Each and every day, we wake up with a choice about how we will conduct our lives, through these choices, the world can be made a better place.

Peace Be With You & Happy Easter!

How is it possible to so miss judge someone? For me, as someone who has a hard earned reputation identifying very talented people and creating very long lasting relationships, it gave me serious pause. In order to reconcile my mistake, I began to research the disorder, and how Narcissists manage to dupe their victims.

To understand the Narcissist, and why identifying them isn’t easy, we’ll start buy looking at disease in general and build up from there.

When your Dentist looks as a diseased tooth she has a relatively simple task. There are a limited number of things wrong with your tooth and or mouth. A physical examination often makes the diagnosis obvious. A simple dental x-ray confirms the diagnosis in most cases. Relative to the mind, teeth just aren’t that complicated.

Disorders of mind do not have the diagnostic reliability of a cavity, or of a broken bone throat or of cancer. Each of these enjoys proven laboratory tests that can verify the signs and symptoms. While the diagnostic tools can have false positives, for example the lump turns out to be benign, there is solid heuristic value to each label. Narcissistic Personality does not have this kind of diagnostic certainty and in part, that makes it very difficult for the rest of us to spot and understand with certainty that this is in fact what we are dealing with.

After all, to label someone a Narcissist is pretty damning.

The human brain has hundreds of billion of neurons, and an order of magnitude more connections between each of them. As a result each brain is individually unique. Think about a fingerprint. Fingerprints are classified by general shape, (arch, loop, or whorl) position within the finger, and relative size. Sounds simple; yet with some minor variations you find that no two fingerprints are exactly the same. Each brain has an unlimited number of differences that help to make a person what he or she is to become. Couple that with environmental triggers, and you can easily see how the normal medical model of diagnostics does not do well with this problem.

Psychiatric diagnosis can classify disorders in a manner that in some cases is highly reliable. Most people with Obsessive Compulsive Disorder or Schizophrenia or Panic Attacks have much in common with each other. Mental status exams and psychiatric evaluations come closer to the oncologist and cancer diagnosis every day. Neuropsychological testing reveals consistent pattern of thinking that indicate whether a person is say, psychotic or just obsessively anxious. Here psychiatry approaches the oncology standard even if it still falls well short of the mark.

That’s ok because these are diseases of a system with hundreds of billions of moving parts.

What about Narcissism?

According to the experts, narcissism fits in a psychiatric category we call Personality Disorders. Narcissists have a maladaptive style of functioning in the world that can be hurtful to them or to others. Here is an abbreviated view of narcissism:

1. Exaggerated sense of one’s talents and importance
2. Fantasies of great romance, great insight or great achievement
3. Excessive need for admiration and attention
4. Powerful sense of entitlement – can rationalize selfish acts as perfectly normal
5. Tendency to use people as objects
6. Lacks true empathy; but often can feign empathy quite well
7. Easily hurt – and easily injures others (sometimes badly)
8. Obsessed with oneself

Interestingly, all of us have elements of these traits. People have argued that this list beautifully describes most healthy teenagers! Yet, if an adult is trapped in this personality set it can spell trouble for them and those who are their spouses, their business partners and their children.

Caution: Not every hurtful person is a Narcissist. Sometimes they’re just an asshole. There is a difference.

Once you have figured out you are dealing with a Narcissist you need to plan appropriately to avoid personal injury. If you are the Narcissist, you will ultimately benefit from understanding why you go from failed relationship to failed relationship. I’m going to look at this from the perspective of the person who must deal with the Narcissist because telling a Narcissist there is something wrong they need to fix is largely a
waste of time (and can cause them to slip into a Narcissistic rage against the person offering advice…).

Know that it is highly unlikely that the narcissist will ever find the need to change. If anything is to shift, it will have to come from you. Your first step is to realize that you deserve to treat yourself in a worthy manner. Apply the following:

1. Decide upon your boundaries. Identify what behaviors cross the line for you and communicate this as needed.
2. Build into your schedule plenty of down time for you when you’ve been interacting with them.
3. Identify a strong circle of support for yourself, not as a place to whine, but as a place to renew your energy and perspective.
4. Build reserve. Know that when the time comes to set stronger boundaries, there will be push-back.
5. Don’t crumble. Stay steady. Stand your ground without drama. Stay neutral.
6. Do not be duped. Move towards other relationships and try to eliminate the Narcissist from you life as soon as possible.

Bottom Line: Narcissists miss out on much of the subtle beauty of life. If you are close to one protect yourself. If you can get away, do.

Birth, love, marriage, death. These are the things we cannot escape and they are the weigh points of our lives. In our lives we will all be called to confront the human condition in its various forms. Our experiences with vacillate from joy to sorrow, from exuberance to anger, and through it all there will be people by our sides whom we will consider family.

Cayden Long suffers from cerebral palsy. His brother Conner doesn’t let that stop him from playing sports as an equal. The two compete in triathlons together, with Conner towing Cayden behind in a raft during the swimming leg, towing him behind his bike during the cycling portion, and pushing him during the run. Triathlons have been a great way for the brothers to come together and have made them an inspiration to everyone that hears their story.

By the metrics of time and place they have not won a single race. By the metrics of family, they are world champions ten times over.

Syrian authorities boasted of driving rebels out of a key neighborhood in the heart of Damascus as gunfire and shelling by pro-regime loyalists drove thousands from the capital towards the borders on the eve of the Islamic holy month of Ramadan. This should hardly be treated as a great victory. Even more disconcerting is the claim by US officials that Syria started moving chemical weapons out of storage on July 13th coupled with the statement on July 17th by the Israeli army intelligence chief that Syrian army forces has moved from the Golan Heights area next to Israel toward Damascus and other internal conflict zones.

Last week two journalists were murdered in Damascus which only served to remind me of June 1979 savage murder of ABC news reporter Bill Stewart by a National Guardsman who shot him while he was lying face down on the ground, kicked him, and shot him again. Another journalist captured the killing on film.

For Somoza, this marked a true turning point and the death rattle for his regime.

The mosques are now calling for “Ramadan for Victory in Damascus” in their Friday call to prayer. This led to “Massive” demonstrations against the Syrian government after Friday prayers, most notably in the center districts of Aleppo and Damascus cities, their suburbs, and the Idlib, Hama, Daara and Homs provinces.

The result? 215 civilians were killed by the Syrian army’s artillery shelling by the end of the day. 55 were killed in the Damascus suburbs, and 26 in Damascus city itself, including at least 10 protesters when security forces fired on a large crowd in the Baramkeh district of central damascus.

I think what the world now can look forward to is the death of another tyrant.

By July 5, 1979 the Sandinistas controlled eighty percent of Nicaragua. Eight days later they were in control of the major roads into Managua, cutting the National Guard’s land communications with the outside world. Surely with the Syrian Army abandoning their positions in the Golan Heights to circle the wagons in Damascus, the end must be near. The overwhelming power of the people in their desire for political and economic freedom will win the day in the end.

Looking back to Managua, by the second week of July 1979, president Somoza had agreed to resign and hand power to vice-president Francisco Urcuyo Maliaños, who was then supposed to transfer the government to the revolutionary junta. Somoza fled to Miami in a converted Curtiss C-46. In Miami he was denied entry to the U.S. by President Carter. He later took refuge in Paraguay, then under the dictatorship of Alfredo Stroessner. He bought a ranch and a gated house at Avenida de España no. 433 in Asunción.

Somoza’s regime only survived him by a day, when the Sandinistas captured Managua.

The pressure is on with British Prime Minister David Cameron calling on Bashar al-Assad to fall on his sword and increased pressure on Russian leader Vladimir Putin to back UN sanctions against Syria.

Speaking during a visit to the Afghan capital Kabul, Mr Cameron said: ‘I have a very clear message for President Assad. It is time for him to go. ’It is time for transition in the regime. If there isn’t transition it’s quite clear there’s going to be civil war.’

Bashar al-Assad is only three years older than me, and I can’t imagine he hasn’t studied the Nicaraguan revolution. So, as he prepares to flee the country, somewhere in the back of his head there must be second or third thoughts about where to wind up. These probably are very worrying thoughts.

Bashar might recall that Somoza was assassinated near his exile home a little more that a year after his resignation. Somoza was ambushed by a seven-person Sandinista commando team (four men and three women) on September 17, 1980.

For over six months the Sandinista assassins researched and planned their assault. The team meticulously studied Somoza’s movements with a team member who was staked out at a newspaper kiosk near the estate. They waited in ambush for Somoza in Avenida España. Somoza was often driven about the city in a Mercedes-Benz S-Class sedan. On that morning, they watched Somoza exit the estate at 10:10 A.M.

Already in position, the team tried to fire an anti-tank rocket at the car, but the RPG-7 misfired. The team then gunned down the chauffeur while another RPG was readied. The second rocket made a direct hit on the sedan. Accounts mentioned that the Mercedes’ engine kept on running even after the rocket explosion. Those Mercedes engineers sure can build an engine.

Somoza was killed instantly and charred with the other two passengers in the car, his financial advisor Jou Baittiner and his new driver César Gallardo. Later media reports in Paraguay stated that Somoza’s body was so unrecognizable that forensics had to identify him through his feet. Bashar al-Assad must be hoping to avoid this fate. I’m not sure he can.

Damned like Quadafi if he stays, damned like Somoza if he leaves. I’m pretty sure he’s rethinking his approach to the Damascus Spring. He probably wishes he’d been a little more open to letting political and economic freedom play out. He might even be wondering if he’d still be an eye doctor somewhere if his idiot brother Bassel hadn’t managed to get himself killed driving recklessly through the Damascus airport in the fog back in 1994. Aside on the death of Bassel: it turns our that as good as Mercedes Benz engineers are, at high enough speeds you still need to wear a seatbelt.

As they say: “oh well”

In 1983. the report of American President Ronald Reagan’s National Commission on Excellence in Education was published under the title “A Nation at Risk: The Imperative For Educational Reform.” Its publication marks a landmark event in modern American educational history. Among other things, the report contributed to the ever-growing (and still present) sense that American schools are failing. As well, it touched off the current and ever swelling wave of local, state, and federal educational reform efforts.

If you take the time to read the report, you will discover that the report surveys various studies which point to academic underachievement on national and international scales. For instance, the report notes that average SAT scores dropped “over 50 points” in the verbal section and “nearly 40 points” in the mathematics section during the period 1963-1980. Nearly forty percent of 17 year olds tested could not successfully “draw inferences from written material,” and “only one-fifth can write a persuasive essay; and only one-third can solve a mathematics problem requiring several steps.” Referencing tests conducted in the seventies, the study points to unfavorable comparisons with students outside the United States: on “19 academic tests American students were never first or second and, in comparison with other industrialized nations, were last seven times.”

In response, we set out as a nation to fix what was wrong with out schools.

Education reform in the United States since then has been largely driven by the setting of academic standards for what students should know and be able to do. These standards can then be used to guide all other system components. The SBE (standards-based education) reform movement calls for clear, measurable standards for all school students. Rather than norm-referenced rankings, a standards-based system measures each student against the concrete standard. Curriculum, assessments, and professional development are aligned to the standards.

For a time, States were entrusted with the development of standards, but more recently the States Governors have gotten together and established something called the “Common Core: State Standards Initiative” These standards propose to define the knowledge and skills students should have within their K-12 education careers so that they will graduate high school able to succeed in entry-level, credit-bearing academic college courses and in workforce training programs.

They claim the standards:

• Are aligned with college and work expectations;
• Are clear, understandable and consistent;
• Include rigorous content and application of knowledge through high-order skills;
• Build upon strengths and lessons of current state standards;
• Are informed by other top performing countries, so that all students are prepared to succeed in our global economy and society; and
• Are evidence-based.

Further, when asked why we need these standards they claim:

We need standards to ensure that all students, no matter where they live, are prepared for success in postsecondary education and the workforce. Common standards will help ensure that students are receiving a high quality education consistently, from school to school and state to state. Common standards will provide a greater opportunity to share experiences and best practices within and across states that will improve our ability to best serve the needs of students.

Standards do not tell teachers how to teach, but they do help teachers figure out the knowledge and skills their students should have so that teachers can build the best lessons and environments for their classrooms. Standards also help students and parents by setting clear and realistic goals for success. Standards are a first step – a key building block – in providing our young people with a high-quality education that will prepare them for success in college and work. Of course, standards are not the only thing that is needed for our children’s success, but they provide an accessible roadmap for our teachers, parents, and students.

So, I ask you, what if nothing was wrong with our schools in the first place? If you look at poll data, parents in suburban school districts might say that schools in general are bad, but that their own schools are fine. What has all this standardization managed to do?

Well, for starters I think it is doing two things that are likely to cause more problems than they solve. The first is that this approach to education tends to push teachers and students away from creativity and towards conformity. The second concern I have is that it creates fear and suspicion between and among teachers, parents, and administrators.

The scholar Yong Zhao has made a similar argument, calling for what he calls “mass localism” as the key to successful education reform. In this post, he writes:

Soon enough, the reformers will celebrate their success in finally moving America out of its miserably outdated, 19th century, parochial education system and imposing consistency and coherence upon a seemingly chaotic system. Yet, in my opinion, they will have succeeded in destroying precisely what America needs for its future in a 21st century, globalized society. And, in time, even the reformers will discover that America has lost its capacity to be the leader in creativity, innovation, and democracy. They will have succeeded in ruining the engine for that.

He goes on to explain,

… a decentralized system with strong local control and professional autonomy is an effective way to cultivate the diversity of talents that will help keep a nation, a community, and an individual competitive. In contrast, a national common curriculum, enforced through high-stakes common assessment, is just the poison that kills creativity, homogenizes talents, and reduces individuality through an exclusive focus on the prescribed content and teaching-to-the-test by schools and teachers, as we have already seen with NCLB. There is no question that education should help develop some common basics for the purpose of citizenship, but that is the extent to which government can mandate. And for hundreds of years, despite the lack of a national curriculum, the decentralized education system has performed that function well.

Finally, he concludes,

An ideal education system is tens of thousands of autonomous schools and millions of autonomous professional educators connected together in a global community, where they exchange ideas, collaborate on projects, and create new solutions. In this system are tens of thousands of innovation centers and millions of innovators instead of one wise body located far away from the real actions of teaching. Such a system enables every community, school, teacher, and student to build on its strengths. And such a system can be spared from a total disaster that could result from one authoritarian body–no matter how wise that body may seem to be.

In my mind, standardization and centralized control are the objectives of the technocrats, and these are the biggest opponents of innovation. The stakes attached to tests are the tools of coercion, by which teachers and students will be rewarded or punished for the extent to which they comply. But in the big picture, the final objective is not tests, but uniformity, and adherence to a centrally conceived and approved version of truth. I think the Common Core is the vehicle for this technocratic vision, and it should be firmly opposed for this reason.

All of this leads to the second issue, the mistrust that exists between teachers, parents and administrators. Because the performance of the students on the tests is considered of paramount importance, over actual learning skills, parents, teachers, and administrators are all now focused on ONE form of demonstrating learning. This focus is central regardless of the individual learning style of the student in question.

For example, we might need to confront head-on why many within education have lost faith in the transformative potential of a knowledge-based subject-centred curriculum. However now that we expect Governors (and Government) to “define the knowledge and skills students should have within their K-12 education careers so that they will graduate high school able to succeed in entry-level, credit-bearing academic college courses and in workforce training programs…” we have abdicated our responsibility as a society to guide education locally.

One of the unique things about America’s educational system at the K-12 level has traditionally been the local school board. The school board was responsible for setting the standard for achievement in it’s district, incorporating the community’s view of what students should know and be able to do at each grade level. The school board also has also been responsible for working with the superintendent to establish a valid process for measuring student success and, when necessary, shifting resources to ensure that the district’s goals are achieved.

So now, with external forces setting the standards, and advocating penalties for failing to live up to the standards, we have become passengers on this journey. There is a real loss of teacher autonomy in the classroom. Over the past few years the policies of the previous government has chipped away at the professionalism of teachers, exposing them to ridiculous levels of over-regulation.

If you find it irritating having external bureaucrats crossing the “t”s and the dotting the “i”s of every lesson, you might also realize how this lack of trust in our teachers abilities to teach and our community’s ability to set standards is impacting the overall level of trust by parents of the schools. Because all the local participants are in fact passengers and not crew on the journey, no one is really responsible for any individual child’s success in education. Worse, no one is willing to step up and be on the crew.

After all, responsibility without authority is rarely a recipe for success. Perhaps it is time for Americans to become Crew on our collective educational journey rather than simply passengers. Let’s get rid of National Standards and return Education to the communities and the people.

Germany ( the über-fit ) made adjustments earlier than planned earning release from the “excessive deficit procedure”. Likewise, Bulgaria has achieved the same in an attempt to prove that fiscal discipline is not just for the economically mighty. Estonia, Finland, Luxembourg and Sweden all seemed to have managed to gain access to the club of European nations complying with deficit targets. Even renegade Hungry has the commission now recommending lifting their previous threat to withhold chunks of aid.

Celebration abounds in Brussels as the Eurocrats cheer on their early success in what may well still be a pyrrhic victory .

Will, or should, big countries like France take orders from Brussels? Word on the street is that France will miss its target of cutting the deficit below 3% of GDP next year. Brussels wants it to accelerate it’s deficit-reduction measures. This is likely to cause some problems for François Hollande, who was elected on a pledge to turn Europe away from austerity. What will he do now that he is being told by Europe that not only does he need more austerity he needs it quickly.

France was one of the 12 countries subjected to in-depth studies this year. The findings: France faces serious imbalances, a worrying decline in competitiveness as well as a falling share of exports. Failure to redress excessive imbalances is subject to punishment, just like failure to address deficits. Can sanctions be far off?

It is quite clear that much of the European economic model is in serious trouble. That said, when you are close to heart failure, worrying about your chemo-therapy dosages for a small tumor seems unwise. The Greeks are in a depression and their election next month may push them out of the euro zone, with wildly unpredictable consequences. Bad loans by Spain’s banking system are close to crushing the (formerly?) fourth-largest economy in the euro zone. Short-term measures to boost investment are likely to be approved at a EC summit next month. Surely something else can ( must? ) be done…

While deficit reduction is the hallmark of the EC curative potion, and it is likely a wise thing for a country to engage in over the long run, what impact is it having today? Most EC adjustments seem to fall on deficit countries, and surplus countries can contribute. I wonder why the EC doesn’t urge the Germans to stimulate their economy and let inflation go on the one hand, but they hint that the Germans could remove “unnecessary regulatory and other constraints on domestic demand”.

Can the patient survive long enough for a real cure?
Real growth in Europe will only come when there is no more doubt about the euro’s survival AND when countries move away from the popular but unsustainable social programs that drive so much of the debt.

The political reality is that Europe’s trend toward greater and greater Socialism does seem irreversible. But even if it were, two big problems lie ahead of reversing the trend. From where I sit, there is the distinct possibility that Greece (or Spain) could blow up in the immediate future. Spain is looking more and more like it will need European cash for its banks to avoid massive increases in it’s own public debt. The other big risk is that “more Europe” runs into severe political problems. Owing largely to their own upcoming Federal elections, Germans are already reluctant to stake more money to help weaker members of the euro. Add to that, the fact that citizens across the EU are increasingly disenchanted with the whole European experiment.

Really, with massive debt, declining standards of living, and a host of other difficulties, who could blame them?

What we discovered is that (1) We learned some of the wrong lessons & (2) even though everything seems to go outrageously wrong we ended up with a tasty product!