The Irregulars Blog

Doctors and Lawyers and Cops, Oh My

Tue, 13 Apr 2004 23:47:33 GMT

Everyone has their own opinions on reality shows (do you really need a link for that sentiment? OK, here's the result of a google search for "opinions on reality shows"). And much of the focus of those opinions centers on why reality shows are so popular. Of course, in this era of word-processor stare-at-the-computer-screen communications, the loaded subtext of that question is lost. Some people are asking, "WHY ARE REALITY SHOWS SO POPULAR?!?!!!" while others are just asking, "why are reality shows so popular?" In the context of yesterday's post on the ridiculous overworking and underpaying of our generation of Americans, I began thinking that we, who are so focused on jobs in our regular life, seem to have little interest in jobs on television, or at least the television people seem to have little interest in showing people actually working at their jobs on television. Particularly in non-reality television, if you are not a doctor, lawyer, or in one of the crime-fighting professions (or some combination of those three), then your job probably isn't on the small screen. That isn't to say that characters on TV don't have jobs. Think of any random sampling of popular sitcoms from the last twenty years. I'll just pick out five from the top of my head (honestly)- The Cosby Show, Seinfeld, Friends, Will and Grace and The Bernie Mac Show. Think of the jobs that the characters in the shows worked. Think of how much time you saw them working those jobs, and of that time, think of how much of it was actually spent working and how much was spent being involved in wacky sitcom hijinks that happened to take place while the characters were at work. Even Seinfeld and The Bernie Mac Show, whose lead characters perform stand-up comedy, a job whose purpose is to entertain people, spend very little time showing them at work (it was never clear if the Seinfeld interludes, showing a few jokes from Jerry's standup, were meant to represent the character doing standup, or the real comedian, Jerry Seinfeld, doing standup, regardless, they never accounted for more than a couple minutes in the show, and were dropped entirely after the first few seasons). What is my point here? Is it that I would prefer a 30-minute show featuring CPAs doing whatever mind-numbingly boring things CPAs do, or delving into the unexciting workdays of computer programmers whose web-surfing is interrupted by nincompoops like myself who think that nothing bad could possibly happen when you open up an unmarked email attachment from your good friend jzzx424242gyi@pppaoda.vfx. No, that's not my point. My point is, that for some reason, the people who decide the content of TV shows have been singularly uninterested in what happens at 99% of the jobs where normal people work. And this can't be just because 99% of the jobs where people work are boring, because I'm sure 99% of people have family, social and dating lives which, while maybe not uneventful, would not be fodder for TV sitcoms. One big reason, I suppose, that we don't see people working real jobs on TV is that the jobs of the people who make TV shows are the making of TV shows. Most of them have no idea what it's like to work in a fast-food restaurant (if ever there was a job that's potential fodder for a sitcom), or to work in as an actuary, or to work in a research lab. And to find out about that stuff would require doing pain-staking research and probably hiring consultants, which takes a lot of time and effort and money, which I'm sure sounds ludicrous when it is so much easier to write a sitcom about two people, a man and a woman, who have ambiguous white-collar careers (how many advertising executives and freelance journalists/writers can there possibly be?), and who hate each other at first, but engage in such witty banter that we know they must eventually kiss and have sex and fall in love, usually in that order. Meanwhile, all of the poor CPAs and lab technicians out there trudge everyday to their 8 to 6 jobs, trudging home with a night's work of catch-up work tucked under their arm, flipping on the tube and dreaming of how wonderful it must be like to be an out-of-work actor or an executive with the Yankees or a corporate attorney, because apparently people with those jobs, judging from Will and Grace and Seinfeld, have the ability to afford upscale Manhattan apartments while spending many an afternoon lounging around getting involved in complicated mishaps with their attractive group of friends. What does all of this have to do with reality TV? Well, it seems to me that reality TV is just the simple progression of the unreality of TV to a new frontier. People on reality TV, just like people on sitcoms, have no jobs or ridiculously contrived jobs and are put into ridiculously contrived situations for the purposes of maximum entertainment. Instead of the maddening cacophony of everyday decisions that confront us real folk, reality TV show participants are forced to make choices and participate in dramas the result of which will determine their partners in marriage, whether or not they win the million dollar prize, or whether they are awarded their dream job or a big recording contract. Isn't this just what we have always been seeing on TV, except now it's not bad actors portraying the situations, it's bad wannabe-actors trying their best to make an impression? Of course, the standard-bearer profession of TV drama, police officer, has had its own reality show for years, Fox's Cops. I don't know if you can count the recent slew of plastic-surgery reality shows as the doctors' entry into the genre, but I'm sure that they and the lawyers will not be far behind in making their marks in America's new favorite tube diversions. And meanwhile, computer programmers and actuaries must content themselves with the possibility of being contestants on Average Joe.

Culture - Sixteen Tons and What Do You Get?

Tue, 13 Apr 2004 03:00:16 GMT

While writing my most recent movie review I got to thinking about work hours in America. It's now an undisputed fact that we are worker longer hours for less money, if you adjust for interest (see here, here and here). It's a shame that we've come to accept as standard operating procedure that we spend every weekday at work, and many weeknights and weekends also at work or trying to catch up with work we've fallen behind on. It's unhealthy to work such long hours, and at some point, it becomes spirit-crushing. Particularly for those who earn less than $10/hour, working a 60-hour work week may just pay the family's bills, with nothing left over for luxuries or savings. I don't want to get into the issue of the working poor, though I think it is a crime, but as for those of us who can manage to find a job that will at least pay the bills, I think it is time to reconsider the role of work. It is our own fault that we are now expected to spend our lives, our whole lives, at work. I suppose that the defining of individuals by their achievements is a uniquely American trait, and since we've deemphasized the role of family, the role of marriage, and the role of community in American life, what has become our generation's tool of self-identity, our venue of achievement, has been the workplace. It's time to change that. Can the American character be changed so that we can say that it's OK if you're not making yourself useful for every single moment of every single waking day? I think maybe it can. But at the very least, as individuals, we can insist on a 40-hour work week, particularly if we don't have a family to support. Maybe it will mean no new car for a couple years and a little less time on ebay... For myself, I want to live happily and if I don't make CEO before I'm 40, I think I can deal. Heck, even if I don't make CEO before I'm 50. All the CEOs will probably be in jail by that time anyway. (Click here to listen to the song where I got the title of this post from)

Around the Web - The Web and Science and George W. Bush

Sat, 10 Apr 2004 02:57:26 GMT

If you have not been following the posts on this blog since Wednesday, then let me bring you up to date. I attended a panel discussion on Wednesday given by Drs. Rick Smalley and Neal Lane, two of the signers of the recent report put out by the Union of Concerned Scientists (UCS) detaling the misuse and misrepresentation of science by the current administration. The discussion centered on why the two of them decided to sign the report, and their thoughts on science and government and the changes that need to be made. One specific subject that came up often in the talk was the administration's stance on climate change science. According to the UCS report, "Since taking office, the Bush administration has consistently sought to undermine the public's understanding of the view held by the vast majority of climate scientists that human-caused emissions of carbon dioxide and other heat-trapping gases are making a discernible contribution to global warming." Smalley recommended looking up the reports on climate change put out by the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC), which do reach the conclusion that global warming is taking place and that it is caused for the most part by human-caused emissions of carbon dioxide and other greenhouse gases. Dr. John Marburger, Science Adviser to President Bush, in his response to the UCS report, cites this speech by President Bush as evidence that the president has acknowledged global warming is occuring and that it is caused by humans.

And that's where things get complicated. Many of the claims in the UCS report are claims I was familiar with- Bush's denial that global warming is occuring or that it is human-caused, false claims about the possible nuclear weapons uses of aluminum tubes intercepted on their way to Iraq, the trumping of good science by politics in the Missouri River controversy... all of these I knew, so I assumed the case against the Bush administration presented by the UCS, citing things that were common knowledge, should be airtight. But, the response by Dr. Marsburger is compelling. Additonally, Marsburger is no GOP hack. As he says in his response to UCS, he is a lifelong Democrat, and according to Neal Lane, who was Science Adviser to President Clinton for several years, Marsburger is probably the most qualified of all of the recent Presidential Science Advisers. In the course of trying to do some additional research about the UCS report and its allegations for my Thursday post, I realized the overwhelming amount of evidence in support of and in opposition to the various claims made by the UCS.

By necessity, to make the report as readable as possible for journalists and the general public, I suppose that the UCS report authors felt that they needed to leave much of the detail out of their reporting of administration science abuses. So, for example, the evidence cited by the UCS report for the administration's misuse of science regarding climate change consists of the administration's deletion of a section of an EPA report mentioning global warming and the discontinuing of a U.S. Department of Agriculture brochure which gave advice to farmers about what they could do to reduce greenhouse emissions. This evidence does not come close to making a definitive case for the administration's misuse of climate change science. Marsburger dismisses these actions as simple bureaucratic choices with no malicious or misleading intent whatsoever, and, indeed, it is easy to sympathize with that view.

So, I found myself pulled in two directions- knowing what I believed to know about the crimes of the Bushies against science and flummoxed by the persuasive arguments of Dr. Marsburger against the claims of the UCS. What I am now going to do is the thing that I hope everyone does when confronted with a contentious issue about which they are passionate; I'm going to educate myself. So, if you would like to follow along with me in my education, here are the websites I'm looking at right now:

This article by physicist David Albright, who from 1992 to 1997 frequently collaborated with the International Atomic Energy Agency and is now president of the Institute for Science and International Security, a D.C.-based think-tank, details the facts and myths about the aluminum tubes that were confiscated in transit to Iraq.

This report, put out by the Aids Research Institute of the University of California, San Franciso, looks at the efficacy of comprehensive sex education versus that of abstinence-only sex education, ultimately reaching the conclusion that comprehensive sex education is demonstrably more effective at reducing teen pregnancy and reducing transmission of sexually-transmitted infections. Based on this conclusion, the report urges the government to reallocate the $102 million in federal money currently being spent on abstinence-only sex programs, which, according to the report, serve political and social goals rather than produce solid public health outcomes for young people.

The Missouri River debate is probably the most maddening for me, because the resources I have found on it seem to contain a lot of partisan bickering. Here is an article in Grist magazine which can serve as an introduction to the issue for those unfamiliar with it. Here is a summary of the stance of the Southern Governors' Association describing their objections to the original U.S. Fish and Wildlife plan to try to recreate the natural flow patterns of the Missouri, and celebrating the fact that the Bush administration in the end decided not to alter the present steady year-long barge-friendly flow of the Missouri River. Here is an article on the American Rivers website detailing the worries about the Bush plan. The article includes a link to a memo written by Assistant Interior Secretary Craig Manson to the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service asking for a reevaluation of the the original U.S. Fish and Wildlife plan by another team of "experts". He refers to this team as a "SWAT Team", and this term is repeated (in quotes) in both the UCS report and Dr. Marburger's response. Probably the best piece I have seen written on the subject is this article in The New Republic written by Michael Grunwald. Unfortunately, you need to purchase a subscription to read the article.

Getting back to global warming, this piece on the Politics and Science website repeats many of the claims made in the UCS report but adds another interesting accusation, saying that the Bush administration dismissed Dr. Robert Watson, chair of the IPCC, because of an ExxonMobil memo sent to the White House asking for the ouster of Watson. Slate magazine examines the allegation in this article.

The final issue that I am currently looking into is the administration's policies on stem cell research. This was not discussed in the UCS report. According to Dr. Lane, they chose to leave it out because the Bush administration's policies and remarks regarding stem cells are based on moral beliefs rather than a misrepresentation of science. However, it cannot be argued that a lot of scientific research has been stymied by the administration's stem cell regulations, and it can also not be argued that it was misleading for Bush to claim that there were sixty stem cell lines available for research at the time he enacted the regulations. The actual number turns out to be about ten stem cell lines. An article in Slate details Bush's misleading claims and the questionable logic behind his stem cell policies. This article in Washington Monthly also examines Bush's questionable claim of sixty viable stem cell lines.

So, everyone, get to work on that reading. But, it's alright if you save it till Monday; have a good weekend.

Potpourri - Bedtime for Blogger

Fri, 09 Apr 2004 03:39:31 GMT

Okay, so I got a little overly ambitious. I promised in yesterday's post to delve further into the claims made against the Bush administration by the Union of Concerned Scientists. Well, it turns out that in between the myriad of things that fills my days, I do not have time to be an ace investigative reporter. Or at least, it will take me more than a day to write an ace investigative report. But fear not, I will keep on the case, and I plan on having my next several politics and potpourri blogs focusing on different aspects of the report, and maybe when it is all said and done, I may compile it together into a big article. We'll see, although I'm once again starting to sound overly ambitious I believe. There is lots of amazing stuff available on the web to be read on the topics discussed in the UCS report, and I will give you your reading assignment tomorrow of all of the wonderful 20-30 page policy papers I have found. Are you brimming with excitement? Well, you better be brimming, because there will be excitement a-brewin'. But it's time for me to get some sleep now. Until tomorrow, faithful readers.

Politics - Dr. Neal Lane's and Dr. Richard Smalley's Discussion on the Recent Report Put Out by the Union of Concerned Scientists

Thu, 08 Apr 2004 04:54:26 GMT

I remember visiting Neal when he was Science Adviser to the President. His office was in the West Wing. Marburger's [Dr. John Marburger, Current Science Adviser to the President] office is 3 or 4 blocks away in an unmarked building, and that seems to me to be symbolic.
- Dr. Rick Smalley, Rice University

I attended a discussion panel today that was led by Drs. Rick Smalley and Neal Lane, two of the signers of the report released recently by the Union of Concerned Scientists entitled Scientific Integrity in Policymaking: An Investigation into the Bush Administrations Misuse of Science. The report is cosigned by a number of prominent scientists, including many Nobel laureates, a group which includes Dr. Smalley. Smalley won the Noble prize in chemistry in 1996 for the discovery and characterization of C₆₀, Buckminsterfullerene, more commonly known as Bucky Balls. He is curently professor of chemistry and a professor of physics at Rice University. Dr. Neal Lane was President Clinton's Science Adviser from 1998 to 2001, and he is currently a University Professor at Rice and a Senior Fellow at Rice's Baker Institute for Public Policy.

Drs. Smalley and Lane talked for two hours today about the reasons why they signed the report and their thoughts about the report and about the current administration's attitude toward science. There is a link to the report in pdf form here and you can view prominent signatories of the report here. You can see Dr. Marburger's rebuttal of the report here, and you can read an editorial critcizing the UCS report for indulging in partisanship which is written by the editors of the website Spinsanity and published in the Philadelphia Inquirer here (click on the title to read the full article; you will need to do a free registration with the Philadelphia Inquirer). More information on Dr. Smalley can be found here and more information on Dr. Lane can be found here.

The rest of my post today will consist of a summary of the discussion by Drs. Smalley and Lane and some of my impressions of that discussion. The subject is near and dear to my heart. I am several months away from receiving my Ph.D. in physics, and I hope to someday be involved in the field of science policy in the government. This subject, the current Bush administration and its stance towards science, is a complicated topic, and Dr. Marburger makes some persuasive points in his rebuttal, so I plan to return in tomorrow's post to this topic- the UCS report and the reactions to it. Please note that all of the quotes in today's post are from my notes on the discussion and may not be accurate. I do not believe that a transcript is yet available. So please do not view the quotes in this post as an accurate record of what was said, they are only the best I could do in deciphering my chicken scratch.

The discussion of the content of the report centered primarily on climate change. Both Smalley and Lane pointed out that the research for the report was done by a number of scientists, and neither one of them were experts on any one topic. But they were clearly comfortable in backing up the report's criticism of the Bush administration's public views on climate change. According to the report, "Since taking office, the Bush administration has consistently sought to undermine the public's understanding of the view held by the vast majority of climate scientists that human-caused emissions of carbon dioxide and other heat-trapping gases are making a discernible contribution to global warming." Smalley suggested looking up the findings of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC), which can be found here, as an exemplary example of scientists getting together to draw conclusions which can be used to make good public policy. According to the UCS report, the Bush administration continues to question the findings of the IPCC.

One thing that Lane was uncomfortable with in the UCS report was the criticism of Richard Russell, associate director of the Office of Science and Technology Policy, who is responisible for the agency's technology portfolio. Russell does not have a Ph.D., only a bachelor's degree in biology, and he has no graduate or professional training whatsoever, and no experience in a technology-related industry. Russell was appointed to the post by John Marsburger, and Marsburger has claimed that Russell is indeed qualified for the post and that there was no political motivation in the appoitment. Lane says that he trusts Marsburger's assertion, and Dr. Lane claimed that he unsuccessfully lobbied UCS to remove the criticisms of Richard Russell from the report.

I have heard several talks by Neal Lane, and one of the things that has struck me from those talks is how difficult it is to change policy when faced with the overwhelming weight of the bureaucracy in Washington. It would almost be amusing, if it wasn't so sad, that aggressive action against Al Quaeda may have taken place in the spring or summer of 2001 if Richard Clarke could just have gotten Condoleezza Rice to call a meeting. So much of getting things done in Washington depends on knowing the right people and having access to those people, which is why it was such a big deal when Clarke's counterterrorism coordinator position got demoted from a Cabinet-level position when Bush took office. No longer did Clarke have direct access to the President. Much the same is true of science. If the President doesn't want to consider scientific findings when making policy decisions, he doesn't have to take any antagonistic actions towards the findings, simple inaction will suffice. If scientists can't meet with the President or his Cabinet, then what they say will have little impact on the administration's decisions. And so that is why Dr. Smalley finds it worrisome that the Science Adviser's office is now 3 blocks away from the White House.

Even in administrations sympathetic to science, there is still an uphill battle to get the kinds of policies enacted that scientists hope for. One of the biggest hurdles is that thing that always comes into play with politics- money. It's difficult to get money for science. Among the Capitol Hill folks, the Senate has no science committee whatsoever, and while the House does have a science committee, it has no appopriation ability. So, the money for scientific endeavors is divied up among thirteen different appropriations committees, none of which is principally concerned with science. Funding for science, then, is almost never of question of funding for space exploration versus funding for cancer research versus funding for studies of alternative energy sources. The National Science Foundation (NSF) is in the same appropriations committee as veterans affairs, so as Lane described it, "we end up in the ridiculous situation that a good funding year for NSF means a bad funding year for the veterans, and a good funding year for the veterans means a bad funding year for NSF." The National Institute of Health is funded by the same committee that funds the Department of Labor.

It doesn't take a willful antagonism towards science by the government to cause problems, it merely takes a willful neglect. Which is why, according to Lane and Smalley, they did not want this report to be viewed as a critism of the policies of the Bush administration, they wanted the report to be viewed as a criticism of the neglect, misuse and misrepresentation of science in enacting public policy. Smalley opened the discussion by saying, "I don't know who I want to win the next election. I didn't do any work for the Clinton administration, but I have done some work for the Bush administration... I just wanted to bring this issue up for discussion." Later on, Smalley said, "Of course this report is about politics. I signed it because I wanted to see a change take place in the way politics are done in the administration." Like I said at the beginning, it can be confusing. But the point was, in my mind, that there is a place for science in politics, and not just that, there needs to be a place for science in politics, and that place is in the policies where scientific data and scientific findings can dictate the best course to take. So, while science may not have much to say about steel tariffs (actually, there's bound to be economics research on steel tariffs, but anyway), it has a lot to say about global warming.

The most informative part of the discussion for me was the talk about the subtle ways that government and science interact. According to Lane, the frustration of many long-time EPA scientists over the administration's stance on issues like global warming and stricter standards on mercury emissions from coal-fired power plants, has caused a lot of those people to leave the agency. Lane said that the exodus will cause "lasting damage, that will be very hard to reverse." He worried that "most students who get their Ph.D. do not consider working for the EPA to be their first choice for a career. There will not be enough scientists available to replace all those who are leaving. And the people coming in who do replace them will probably be underqualified for the positions they are filling." Another example of the subtle influences government can have on science was given by Smalley. After President Bush promised in his 2003 State of the Union address to devote $1.2 billion towards the development of hydrogen-powered automobiles, Smalley says, "Suddenly the rhetoric on energy policy opened up. Government scientists were given a new freedom, and discussions about the real problems involving energy were taking place. The most interesting discussions were not even about hydrogen-fueled cars, but were rather about where we would get the energy to charge the hydrogen cells [Note: Hydrogen is what is known as a secondary energy source, which means that some other (primary) energy source must be used to power up a hydrogen battery]."

What will come of this report? Smalley stated that sooner or later the country and the government must reckon with science. "Regardless of whether any issues raised by the UCS report turn out to be true, the question that must be dealt with is whether the truth is being acknowledged in policy decisions."

And speaking of the truth, and of obvious scientific truths, let me end with a non-sequitar, and return again to global warming. This is Dr. Lane's very common-sense view on the issue of global warming, and his take on how it this issue could and should be presented to and understood by politicians: "Global warming science is straightforward in that we know climate change will eventually contribute to major weather catastrophes. It's just simple physics that the more heat that is trapped in the atmosphere, the more energy is available for weather events. If flooding is right now a problem in Houston and the Gulf Coast, it will be an even worse problem when global warming changes start to have a major effect... I feel that many common citizens who worry about global warming do so because they have been the victims of a weather disaster- a flood, a hurricane, a tornado. These may not have been caused by global warming, but we know if we let things go on as they are, that there will be these kinds of events, more of these catastrophes, because of global warming. This is how politicians should understand the issue and what should persuade them to take action."

Television - Channel Surfing

Tue, 06 Apr 2004 20:29:39 GMT

So, when I decided to start a blog, I was a dedicated and enthusiastic television watcher. I could get into emotional arguments over Paradise Hotel, I could quote entire episodes of Seinfeld, I even almost stuck it out with Ally McBeal until the end. Naturally, it seemed to me, television should be one of my weekly discussion topics.

But suddenly I've developed all of these annoying outside interests, or maybe the more accurate way to say it is that outside interests have recruited me. So, I found myself at the beginning of April just finished with a marathon of rehearsals and performances of a three-and-a-quarter hour production of Othello, only to commit myself to two more plays, in addition to trying to catch up on all of the research work I have fallen behind on. Alas, I find that it is T.V. that must be sacrificied when my nights are so busy. So, I cannot talk to you about all the intrigues of the latest Survivor, or celebrate the much-too-tardy end of Friends, or share giggles over the silliness of Scrubs. I have not forsaken T.V., though, when I do get home, usually around 10 P.M., CST, I will turn on the tube and watch for about an hour before I get to slogging through the 1000+ page translation of Don Quixote that I have been reading before I go to bed. There is usually not much that is good that is on around that time, but it's not all bad, either. I thought I'd share with you my experience when I get home and start flipping through channels, giving you a sense of my random thoughts, anticipations, and pet peeves as I explore the aether that is cable TV.

I usually start channel surfing at the high end of the dial. I almost always begin with VH-1, Channel 61 on my cable. Though Bravo (Channel 69) and fx (Channel 72), both sometimes have some good shows, it's usually not worth exploring so far up my cable dial for their usually scanty returns.

Channel 61 (VH-1) - Is I Love the 70s, I Love the 80s or Best Week Ever! on? If not, it's usually not worth sticking around.

Channel 60 (SciFi) - Every once in a while, they'll have reruns of X-Files, about the only thing I ever watch on this channel.

Channel 59 (Comedy Central) - I'll watch the first half of The Daily Show, bailing out for the interview portion. Colin Quinn's show is growing on me, though I still haven't been able to sit through an entire episode. Dave Chappelle rocks. I can no longer stand Crank Yankers, where is Reno 911?

Channel 58 (History Channel) - The History Channel sounds good in theory, but all they ever show are features on WW2, and Modern Marvels, which I guess is a show I should like, since I am a scientist and into gadgets, but I don't like the show at all. Also, R. Lee Ermy gets on my nerves just by watching the commercials for Mail Call.

Channel 57 (AMC) - Does the American Movie Classics station ever show any good movies? Yeah, every once in a while you'll get The French Connection, but that hardly makes up for the hours and hours of Jimmy Stewart/John Wayne westerns and random 70s drivel, that nobody even liked much back then.

Channels 56, 55 - I think one of these channels might be the tube channel. I just flip by them.

Channel 54 (WGN) - These guys show a lot of reruns of Becker, which I like, but every time I sit down and start watching Becker, I feel like I should be watching something else, and I'll flip to another station.

Channels 49-53 - I don't know what these channels are, there are some Spanish-language stations in there. Every once in a while, I feel like I should sit down and watch a lot of Mexican wrestling, because it is so very kitschy and it sounds like it would be such a very cool thing to brag that I am totally into Mexican wrestling, and I might even learn some Spanish "Grande Pugilisto!!!", but I can never actually make myself watch it.

Channel 48 (WE) - The Women's Entertainment channel will show it's share of pretty good movies.

Channels 45-47 - One of these is Black Entertainment Television, which could be a very cool channel, but is actually a very bad channel. Robert Johnson, CEO of BET, is a cheapskate and a hypocrite, who fills BET with low-cost programming consisting mainly of music videos and taped comedy performances. What a shame.

Channel 44 (E!) - Be careful going past this channel, you may get sucked in. I like almost nothing about Howard Stern, but I can't help but watch his show when I see it is on. Ditto for the Celebrities Uncensored! or Celebrities Caught On Tape! shows. E! is a dangerous network, and I vow from here on out to never again watch its cheap, exploitative shows. I promise to quit, after this week... I mean this month... Well, someday I will quit watching its cheap, exploitative shows.

Channel 43 (Nickelodeon) - When I get home, Nick at Nite will be showing either Cheers reruns, Roseanne reruns or Wings reruns. God help me if they're showing Roseanne. If it's Cheers or Wings I might stick around to watch.

Channels 40-42 - I think these are premium cable stations, or maybe they're more Spanish wrestling. For whatever reason, I either don't get them or have programmed them out of my TV.

Channel 39 (TCM) - I watch the Silent Sunday Nights Movies, which is one of the best ideas ever in cable television programming. Otherwise, I just don't have the time to take in whole movies, and I feel cheated if I have to tune in late or leave early.

Channel 38 (Fox News) - I now remember that Channel 56 is CSPAN, tune in for British Parliament, seriously, it's viscious, and that Channel 45 is MSNBC, and, according to this guy The Dennis Miller Show isn't really so bad. But about Fox News. What can you say? Fair and Balanced, well maybe not. I was addicted to Bill O'Reilly's The Factor for a while, but have since come to my senses.

Channel 37 (Fox Sports) - This is the ESPN-wannabe channel. I never have been able to get into The Best Damn Sports Show like others I know, but I'm not too worried about it.

Channel 36 - Don't know, don't care.

Channel 35 (TNT or TBS) - I can never keep these straight, but Channel 35 shows the X-Files reruns, which is what I'm interested in.

Channel 34 (ESPN2) - An ESPN1 wannabe. Every once in a while, I'll catch Pardon the Interruption on "The Deuce", and PTI really is the best damn sports show. Other than that, I keep on flipping.

Channel 33 (ESPN) - Slate had an article recently about the demise of SportsCenter. I guess it has gotten worse, but I never thought it was so good. I alway believed that Dan Patrick and Keith Olberman were way overrated, and it seems that maybe their career tracks have borne that out.

Channel 32 (Spike) - They had a summer show, Joe Somebody or Joe Nobody... Joe something, but whatever it was, it was pretty good.

Channel 31 (TNT or TBS) - This is the one that doesn't show X-Files reruns.

Channel 30 (MTV) - OK, maybe I am a dirty old man, but isn't Hilary Duff hot?

Channels 23-29 - Keep flipping.

Channel 22 (Cartoon Network) - I'm sorry, but I just can't get into that anime crap. Can't they just show Home Movies, Aqua Teen Hunger Force and SeaLab 2021 all week? Is that too much to ask?

Channel 21 (USA) - I like Monk, although it's not nearly as good as some people seem to think it is. These guys had the latest Heidi Fleiss movie, didn't they? And I heard they showed a lot of bare-ass butts in that movie. I'll have to catch it in reruns.

Channels 14-20 - Public access stuff.

Channel 13 (ABC) - Network TV, they still have network TV?

Channel 12 (CBS or NBC) - See Channel 13.

Channel 11 (CBS or NBC) - See Channel 13.

Channel 10 - Spanish-speaking station, I don't speak Spanish.

Channel 9 (Fox) - To hell with Must See TV, the Fox Sunday night television lineup is the best television lineup ever, and that coupled with Cartoon Network's Sunday Adult Swim, and the Silent Sunday Night movie on TCM, makes present-day Sundays the best TV night of all night. No, I'm not engaging in hyperbole. Memo to Fox: Do not cancel Arrested Development or I will switch to the Mexican wrestling-only station.

Channel 8 (PBS) - PBS has had on recently an apparently heartrending documentary on immigration and some other Frontline show that was supposed to be very good. I missed them both, damn schedule conflicts, damn no TiVo, damn not knowing how to tape stuff with my VCR!!!! I did catch a Charlie Rose in which he interviewed two members of the 9/11 Commission in which they made some of the same points that were made by the very wise person who wrote this post.

Channels 6, 7 - Channels 6 and 7? I don't need no stinkin' channels 6 and 7.

Channel 5 (WB) - When I come home at 9 or 10 at night, channel 5 is my savior. They have the Seinfeld reruns, and the Will and Grace reruns, and the Everybody Loves Raymond reruns, and Seinfeld reruns again. And sure, maybe I've reached the point of diminishing returns with Seinfeld, so that the jokes are no longer as funny the 789th time around, and maybe the only character I like on Will and Grace is Karen, and maybe I do secretly hate Deborah and Ray on Everybody Loves Raymond, and I secretly hope they are killed in a freak water sprinkler accident, so that the show becomes Ray's Family, and All the Crazy-Ass Stuff They Do, but does that make me a bad person? I think it does.

Channel 4 (UPN) - If I get home at 9, instead of having to actually do something constructive and worthwhile in the 1/2 hour before Seinfeld comes on, I can instead watch Frasier, which is on at 9. The motto for the show Frasier I've always thought should be "Something You Can Do In the Half-Hour Before Seinfeld Comes On", but apparently the "network bigwigs" didn't think it was a good idea, and didn't think a date with Debra Messing would be appropriate compensation for a motto, even if they did like it, and even if I bought lobster for her.

Channels 2 and 3 - Do these stations really exist? It will forever remain a mystery.

Culture - The Kids Are Alright

Mon, 05 Apr 2004 20:00:46 GMT

Sure, things are bad now, but imagine what's going to happen to this country when today's teenagers take over. What, with the violent video games, the lousy movies, internet porn, teenage drug use, pregnancy, and general stupidity, and let's not forget the popularity of Britney and Christina, and their future replacements, Hilary and Lindsay, and one could forgive even the most optimistic 25+ year-old for fretting about the upcoming apocalypse. With the school gun shootings, and the portrayals of stereotypical teens on TV, movies and the news wanting to pierce anything and everything, join a cult, have sex often, and do whatever illicit drugs are on hand, it's hard not to wonder what has happened to the young in our country.

The problem is, when you look at the statistics, you realize that the young are in pretty good shape. Or at least they're in a lot better shape than the young of the early-'70s, or even the young of the mid-90s. Just about any statistic you could think of which is indicative of the depravity, or lack thereof, of the young shows our current times to be some of the most hopeful of recent memory. According to these data, teenage pregnancy rates are at an all-time 30-year low, even as the pregnancy rates for the next generation up, 20-24 year-olds, have remained relatively steady, showing that many teenagers actually do heed the advice that it is better to wait to have children. How about teen drug use? Those numbers are not quite as hopeful, with a sharp rise in drug use among teenagers taking place in the late '90s, but they are still better than their counterparts in the early '80s, and there seems to be a downturn now occuring. Statistics on teen violence can be found here. According to the commentary included with the report, "In 2000 the serious violent crime offending rate was 17 crimes per 1,000 juveniles ages 12 to 17, totaling 413,000 such crimes involving juveniles. This is a 67 percent drop from the 1993 high and the lowest rate recorded since the national victimization survey began in 1973."

What about education statistics? Certainly America's schools need to be fixed. We hear everyday about how bad education in America is, and just looking around a little will confirm the low level of cerebral cortex activity in today's teenagers. Well... once again, things are a little different than the prevailing talk among media and pundits lets on. Here you can find statistics for reading performance for 9, 13 and 17 year-olds in the United States since 1970, and here you can find statistics for math performance for approximately the same groups (they are listed by grade level in these tables). While reading ability has remained approximately unchanged for students in the last 20 years, it has improved since the early '70s. Meanwhile, students in grade 4 and 8 have showed steady improvement in mathematics since 1990, while students in grade 12 improved between 1990-1996, but then went down slightly between 1996-2000. Regardless, across the board, there has been improvement in mathematical ability for all students since 1990.

So, what does it all mean? It means, I think, that there's still room for improvement, and there is still room for worry, but that things aren't so bad either. Of course, teenage pop culture will always be the bane of the older generations, and teenagers' flouting of mores and principles will always cause consternation among polite society. But it's time to cut the kids some slack, trust that if we give them good information (which, given some of the trends during the current administration, may be a big "if"), then they will be able to make good decisions.