New design

Even the exceedingly dull reader will note that I have made some changes to the site. The most obvious of course is that I’ve goofed around a bit with the site’s general look, for no reason other than that I had a lot of important things to get done, and so I needed a way to delay doing them. Dinking around with Unschooled’s CSS proved to be a nice distraction, and as a bonus I can even feel mildly accomplished because I have something to show for my effort. A special thanks to Six for helping sculpt the new look, and for debugging a few nasty CSS issues.

The slightly more subtle change is that I’ve integrated Twitter using Twitter Tools by Alex King. This means that whenever I post to Twitter, a post on Unschooled will automatically be generated. Similarly, if I post a new entry on Unschooled, a link to it will be posted to Twitter. (Thus if you want to always be the first to know when I post a new entry on Unschooled, you can start following me on Twitter.)

These changes were made largely as an experiment. I have developed a hypothesis that goes something like this: Posting a blog entry — no matter how short — is psychologically heavy, while posting a tweet is very lightweight. Think e-mail (heavy — oh lord do I hate e-mail at the moment) vs. a Facebook wallpost (light — who doesn’t have time to post on his friend’s wall?).

The result should be a significant increase in the number of (very) short posts, and business-as-usual in terms of the frequency of longer posts.

Let’s see what happens.

Is it legal to purposely drive someone crazy?

Jose Padilla had no history of mental illness when President Bush ordered him detained…but he does now.

That’s it in a nutshell, folks. The smartest and best scientists we have confirm that our country’s policies are literally driving people crazy. Warren Richey has a tremendous three-part series spelling it out. (Part 2 here, Part 3 here.)

If this were a movie, we’d call it Gaslight. But in the final act, someone would come in and save the heroine.

For Jose Padilla, there is no final act. His family and friends can hardly bear to see him; his lawyers are focused on keeping him alive. And our government is busy arguing that extreme solitary confinement and other elaborate, prolonged tortures are somehow going to save us.

They’re not.

There is no right to know

Newsflash:

Without special permission, officials [at the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration] are no longer allowed to provide information to reporters except on a background basis.

(Source.)

Let’s get that straight. You and I pay taxes to support one of the most important safety agencies in the world, one that spends millions of dollars studying a machine we all use every day: Cars. But to talk to one of those safety experts…whoops, no, we can’t. And reporters can’t, in any meaningful way.

The explanation? “We were finding a lot of stuff did not need to be on the record.” That’s from chief of staff for the political appointee who now runs NHTSA.

Talk about an upside-down view of the world. “We were finding a lot of stuff did not need to be on the record.” This is a democratic republic. We presume that our civil servants are working for us, so they’re obligated — indeed, honor-bound — to answer to the American people because we’re their employers.

This guy apparently believes that civil servants need a good reason to speak to Americans. Funny, in my world a civil servant needs a darned good reason not to.

Sexism, then and now

Contrast two quotations from recent Philadelphia Inquirer stories:

First, a 70-year-old man rhapsodizes:

[This is] the last bar in Margate…And by that, I mean it’s the last real bar. Just a lovely place. The prices are right and the food is good, for what it is. Lots of people met their wives here.”

And second, from a newly annointed young celebrity:

“When people come up to you and say nice things, it’s the loveliest thing, it just means that they’re enjoying what you’re trying hard to do,” [says the 23-year-old actor]. “But it’s so strange when you can tell someone recognizes you . . . but they just kind of stare at you. Michael was saying it’s like you’re an object. Like a vase or something.

“I realized what it might be like to be, like, a really attractive woman, you know what I mean? Like a hot girl. It’s like somebody’s staring at a really attractive woman, like – I feel weird that you’re staring at me, but you’re not saying anything, or saying hello, even.”

For those of you who want it spelled out: The elderly gentleman (who I have no doubt is a lovely human being) is unconsciously using “people” as if it includes only men. (Lots of people met their wives here.) The younger gentleman is fumbling his way towards understanding how it feels to be treated like an object, something that happens much more often to women in our society than to men.

The road is long, but every step helps.

The moral dimensions of baseball

Imagine you’re a poor kid from a poor country. At 15 you quit school so you can concentrate full-time on baseball. It’s a huge gamble; the odds are low that you will ever be a big-league American star. So does the major-league U.S. team that’s encouraging you have a responsibility to provide a Plan B? Like, say, a basic education?

That’s the provocative argument buried in the final paragraphs of Kate Kilpatrick’s excellent analysis of baseball in the Dominican Republic.

And before you say no, recall that without the talented-but-not-superstar players to make up the remainder of the practice teams and junior leagues, MLB player-development programs would never be able to pick out the stars.

(Note to alert readers: I am hoping to sneak this baseball post past our gracious host, not otherwise known for his charity toward this noble sport. It’s really about ethics, anyway.)

The walls of Philadelphia

When Philadelphia gets national attention, all too often it’s because of our horrific murder rate. So it was a pleasure to see Time spotlighting one of the most powerfully beautiful projects of the last 20 years.

I always take out-of-town visitors on a tour of my favorite Philadelphia murals. Not only do we have more murals than any other city in the U.S., the city’s Mural Arts Program has perfected a process that gathers community input to design each mural, making every one truly a homegrown phenomenon. In this city of neighborhoods, where people feel passionate allegiances not just to areas but to single blocks, that’s important.

So if you visit Philadelphia, please take a tour of our gorgeous murals. And if you’re not here, at least get yourself a book for your coffee table.

And right now, go look at the photo essay. I like #6, for its artsy craziness (is that a water tower the mural is covering up?), and #12 for its creative use of jagged building edges. And I love the soaringly tall Dr. J, the legendary Julius Erving. What is your favorite?