A Citizen's Guide to Indiana

Masson's Blog

Nels Ackerson on No Child Left Behind

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Nels Ackerson, Democratic candidate for Indiana’s 4th Congressional District has an opinion column in the Journal Review (out of Crawfordsville, I believe.) He criticizes the premise of No Child Left Behind. That policy does not promote education. It merely promotes the indicia of education. In other words, it doesn’t encourage teachers to teach kids to be smart. It encourages them only to produce students who can take a particular test. And, it does so at an expense. There are only so many hours in the day, and so every minute spent teaching to the test is a minute not spent teaching kids what they need to live. (Never mind other problematic aspects of NCLB — unequal and inadequate resources and disparate needs of student populations, for example).

To be sure, this isn’t the only time waster in a teacher’s life. My wife was formerly a teacher, and from her perspective, the non-education obligations imposed on teachers and schools were legion. The bureaucracy was formidable. Teachers are expected to be babysitters, police officers, and social workers as much as educators. Frequently, it seems, there is poor communication between school boards and teachers; leaving a school corporation in bad shape where, perhaps, the teachers and the board members are adequate, but school administration is not.

Top O’ The World, Ma!

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I am finally back with my fellow flatlanders after having spent much of the last 2 weeks at or above 7,500 feet in altitude. The highest I got was atop La Plata Peak (14,336 feet):

The highest point in the lower 48 states is only 149 feet higher, so I feel pretty good about the climb. In terms of difficulty, La Plata is pretty easy for hardcore mountaineers. But, for a novice such as myself, it was a tough climb; but gratifying.

In 1999 and 2003, I went with my buddy, Tom, on trips to Rocky Mountain National and Yosemite, respectively, and was good for about one or two hikes on each occasion. The second one usually ended with me limping severely on the last half of the hike, my knees foreclosing the possibility of further excursions. I think my fitness kick of the past 1.5 years really helped in that respect. I felt a twinge here and there, but my knees held up very well.

After La Plata, we took it easy for a couple of days in Ouray and Pagosa Springs, both in the southwestern corner of Colorado. Rested and ready for one last climb, we camped south of Breckenridge, and went up Quandary Peak (14,271 feet) which is, fittingly, just south of Hoosier Pass. In fact, Quandary was once known by some as “Hoosier Peak”. Once I heard that little factoid, I knew I had to go up the thing. It’s an easier climb than La Plata, but still a solid hike for an amateur like myself. But, you know it’s not a killer peak when large mammals are hanging out at the top — in our case, a family of mountain goats.

Even so, Tom and I were happy to be up there — what a view!

Tom had the camera, so I’m still waiting on the bulk of the pictures, but if you’re interested there are a few more here.

(One of the oddest moments of the trip came on the way down Quandary. We came across an elderly gentleman heading up the mountain. He greeted us by saying humorously that he was making forward progress and exhibiting vital signs. Then he handed Tom a card that said something like, “Learn the Truth” and then giving a web address. Turns out the address was for the John Birch Society. Man, did he have the wrong two guys.)

From the road

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I’m posting on a Sunday afternoon in a Durango coffee shop. The past couple of days have been fairly eventful. On Friday, I dropped Amy & the kids off at the airport and picked up my buddy, Tom. (Sometimes known in these parts simply as “T”). From Denver we drove to Leadville, saw some mine ruins, then went on and set up a camp site near Twin Lakes, Colorado. We wound up eating at the only eating establishment open at Twin Lakes. The name of the place escapes me at the moment, but it was surprisingly elegant. $20 per head, but I had an outstanding cut of bison with some veggies and mashed potatoes. Then we went back to our tent, threw down some Tylenol PM and got to sleep at about 8:30 p.m. We woke up at about 4:15 and were at the trail head for La Plata peak by 5:15 a.m. After one false start with a trail that was hard to follow at the beginning, we got moving at 5:30, allowing us to reach the peak by 9:30 a.m. As 14ers go, La Plata is probably pretty tame, but it was about the toughest thing I’ve done physically. Its total elevation is 14,336 feet with an elevation gain from the trailhead of about 4,000 feet. It took us 4 hours to get up and, surprisingly, 4 hours to get back. A little after we got back down under tree line the rains started – so as with most high mountain ascents, it’s good we got an early start.

After we got down the mountain, we took advantage of a break in the rain to break camp. After that, it was time to relax with some High Mountain Pies in Leadville — some of the best pizza I’ve ever had. After stuffing our bellies, we were ready for some R&R. But, we’re not normal people. We ended up taking a 4 hour drive down to Ouray, Colorado where they have an outstanding public hot springs. After checking into The Western Hotel and Saloon, we threw our bags in our room and went on up to the hot springs. That did a body good. My head hurt, I had done serious damage to two of my toe nails, and, most of all, my quads were screaming at me. After soaking for about an hour, we went to a local tavern and capped the day with a pitcher or two of beer and a lot of jukebox. The day started at 4 a.m. and ended at about 12:30 a.m. So, it was a full one.

Today, we got up, lounged about Ouray and took an easy stroll up to Cascade Falls and are now in Durango. Life is pretty good.

Trifles provides a political history lesson

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Trifles from Anderson brings us a good political history lesson in the wake of Karl Rove’s resignation. Rove’s ambitions apparently were to create a GOP machine that equalled or surpassed Mark Hannah’s at the turn of the 20th century. Trifles points out that Hannah wasn’t necessarily the primary reason for GOP success during the early part of the 20th century but, even so, Rove is no Hannah.

For my part, I don’t think Rove’s resignation means much one way or another. His power and success never had much to do with his official job. He’s still very good at sleazy but successful political campaigns, and all those require are candidates who listen to him. I suspect GOP candidates will continue to listen to Rove’s suggestions. The fundamental problem is that successful campaigns have nothing at all to do with competent governing.

Private rights and the Public Good

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My recent trip to Telluride got me thinking a little bit about private property rights and the public good. Yeah, I’m a geek. Anyway, Telluride is this beautiful little mountain town in the midst of a box canyon. My understanding is that it came on hard times back in the 70s and early 80s as the mines closed down. But, a funny thing happened. Skiing took off as did other outdoor pursuits. The hippies came and made it cool. The coolness attracted money, big money. Now, it seems that every other person in the town is involved in real estate one way or another. The town is striving mightily to avoid killing the goose that’s laying those golden eggs. This involves some significant limitations on the rights of private property owners.

At some point about 20 years ago (I think), the town did a survey of all of the structures in town. Aside from some real derelict properties, pretty much everything that was there has to stay. You can rehab it, but externally, things have to remain much the same. There is also some freedom, apparently, to squeeze appropriate improvements onto lots that already have the historic structures. Additional development beyond the traditional town is somewhat restricted as well. To some extent, the geography itself places these limits. But, there are a lot of regulations as well.

So, I’m wondering how you figure out what limitations are appropriate. Telluride would be an easy place to kill off if an idiot with a lot of money and only short-term vision decided to run amok. So, maybe a place like Telluride needs heavier restrictions than the normal place. But, even in a place like Lafayette, you want to keep a lid on some of the worse potential abuses — don’t want someone jamming a landfill next to the city park, for example.

I know there are private property purists who look no further than to say “It’s mine, I should be able to do with it as I please.” But, this ignores the fact that anybody’s property exists in a context where its use has an impact on neighboring property. On the other hand, Soviet-style totalitarian regulation isn’t the answer either — clearly the USSR wasn’t some kind of Telluride writ large. So, I wonder, in a perfect world, what principles should guide appropriate regulation to ensure the long term success and improvement of a community.

Under the Banner of Heaven

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Some vacation reading I have done was Jon Krakauer’s Under the Banner of Heaven. It examines the case of Ron and Dan Lafferty’s murder of their sister-in-law and baby niece as a jumping off point to take a look at Mormon history and Mormon fundamentalism particularly and to thereby examine some aspects of religion generally.

The Laffertys seemed to have grown up as pretty solid mainline Mormons. They converted to Mormon fundamentalism in part because of a conviction that the abandonment of polygamy by the mainline Church was contrary to the revelation of Joseph Smith about the sanctity of plural marriages. One thing led to another and they wound up killing their uppity sister-in-law and her toddler daughter because God told them to.

Krakauer speculates that some of the fundamentals of the development of the Mormon religion probably parallels the development of other more “major” religions. The difference is that due to its recency, the rise of Mormonism is better documented than the rise of Christianity or Islam. Like Joseph Smith, Mohammad and Jesus were probably charismatic individuals with odd ideas and claims to a direct link to God. Men who seemed peculiar to most, but by virtue of their extreme charisma were able to convince a non-trivial number of people of the truth of their odd ideas. The oddities of Mormon belief are not inherently less believable than some of the oddities of Christian belief, for example. The Christian oddities are simply older and more familiar. Transubstantiation – the Catholic idea that bread and wine are literally turned into Christ’s flesh and blood or even the idea of a Virgin Birth don’t generally make most people bat an eyelash. But, it’s pretty easy to get people to raise their eyebrows at the Mormons’ sacred underwear.

In case any of you are looking for a book to read, I’d recommend Krakauer’s Under the Banner of Heaven.