‘Cause Marci asked about it:

The Key To Her Ferrari

Two weeks ago, I drove to Raleigh, NC to participate in visible opposition to the National Organization “for” Marriage’s tour stop.   At a tour stop the previous week in Indianapolis, NOM supporter Larry Adams carried the death-threat signs shown here, and at a stop later that week in Annapolis, police had threatened to use tear gas to disperse protesters.  So, I felt it was especially important to stand in solidarity with my LGBT sisters and brothers.

So there I was in Raleigh, with two friends from Guilford (one of whom was also an NCSSM alumnus) with a crowd of LGBT protestors who:

• lack any federal or state recognition for our committed relationships,
• can be evicted from rental homes or denied the opportunity to purchase a home just for being LGBT,
• can be fired from civilian jobs, and must be fired from military jobs, for being LGBT.

Across the street, NOM’s invited speaker Mary Forrester claimed that marriage equality would threaten the “stability of our species”, that homosexuality was an “unhealthy choice”, that the homosexual “lifestyle” shortened one’s lifespan by 23 years, and that marriage equality brought an end to the entire institution of marriage “in Scandinavia”.

Now comes Charles Krauthammer to the defense of . . . NOM.  The mean old liberals, he says, are calling them homophobes!  Krauthammer, who accepts without support or examination NOM’s talking point that marriage equality is “the most radical redefinition of marriage in human history”, finds himself moved to defend Larry Adams and Mary Forrester against ”arrogant elites whose undisguised contempt [...] prevents them from conceding a modicum of serious thought to” them.

Krauthammer—whose own right to marriage he takes for granted—writes,

As for Proposition 8, is it so hard to see why people might believe that a single judge overturning the will of 7 million voters is an affront to democracy? And that seeing merit in retaining the structure of the most ancient and fundamental of all social institutions is something other than an alleged hatred of gays — particularly since the opposite-gender requirement has characterized virtually every society in all the millennia until just a few years ago?

(Krauthammer cites other poor victims besides marriage-equality opponents; I’m focusing specifically on the claim that I’m best qualified to address.)

I’m used to seeing drivel like this from Krauthammer. What I’m not used to, is seeing reasonably intelligent people like Barry Campbell cite this drivel and give it credibility.  Campbell ought to be able to parse an argument this facile and refute it himself.

Krauthammer’s claims are:

1. “A single judge overturning the will of 7 million voters is an affront to democracy.”

   But… In the past two years, “single judges” have also overturned ballot initiatives in Arkansas (prohibiting adoption by unmarried couples), Colorado (requiring open space considerations in highway construction projects), and Wisconsin (requring mandatory sick leave for private-sector employees).   The feverish outrage over Judge Walker’s decision is of a wholly different order of magnitude to the outrage (if any) over these other rulings, so it’s clearly about something other than the alleged “affront to democracy”.

   Indeed, our three-branch system, is a cornerstone of our democracy, not an affront to it.

   And, of course, despite being named defendants in the suit, neither the Republican governor nor the Democratic attorney general chose to defend Proposition 8—yet Krauthammer skirts around the contribution their absence made to the case by blaming a “single judge” for the outcome.

2. Proposition 8 “retain[s] the structure of the most ancient and fundamental of all social institutions”.

   But… First of all, the claim is just plain false.  Proposition 8 did not “retain” anything.  Proposition 8 rescinded existing marriage rights.

   The above notwithstanding, this is also the same argument advanced against interracial marriage in Perez v. Sharp: “[M]arriage being the foundation of such society, most of the states in which the negro forms an element of any note have enacted laws inhibiting intermarriage between the white and black races. [...] The purity of the public morals, the moral and physical development of both races, and the highest advancement of civilization, under which the two races must work out and accomplish their destiny, all require that they should be kept distinctly separate.”

   Marriage—because it is ancient and fundamental—has weathered all sorts of changes:  Solomon had 700 wives; we now permit just one (at a time); arranged marriages are rare, as are dowries; no-fault divorce is pretty much the norm.  NOM (and therefore Krauthammer) both underestimate the flexibility and durability of this institution, and there’s something insulting about the suggestion that  marriage is made more fragile by becoming more inclusive.

   And finally, it is precisely because marriage is a “fundamental … social institution” that Judge Walker found that the Fourteenth Amendment guarantee of equal protection applied to the case.

3. Supporting Proposition 8 (that is “seeing merit” in the proposition) “is something other than an alleged hatred of gays”.

   But… It’s not hard to trace the history of this proposition.

   The proposition was authored, and its ballot qualification signatures collected, by a group calling itself ProtectMarriage.org.  In television commercials aired in 2008 encouraging Californians to vote for Proposition 8, ProtectMarriage made these claims:

   “It’s no longer about tolerance.  Acceptance of gay marriage is now mandatory!  That changes a lot of things:  People sued over personal beliefs.  Churches could lose their tax exemption!  Gay marriage taught in public schools! We don’t have to accept this!”  (video)

   “Mommy, guess what I learned in school today? [...] Teaching children about gay marriage will happen here unless we pass Proposition 8!” (video)

   ProtectMarriage released three other ads (1 2 3) all hammering the same message:  If Proposition 8 passes, your children will be exposed to messages of tolerance.  The amendment was sold to the public not on the basis of how it would alter an “ancient and fundamental institution” (further undermining Krauthammer’s second point), but on how it would cause your kids to hear positive affirmations of same-sex relationships. This isn’t an “alleged” hatred of gays, it’s pretty darned overt.

   Were there voters in California who voted ‘yes’ for other reasons?  Undoubtedly.  But the proponent of the amendment: the organization that wrote the amendment, collected the signatures, ran the ads, and were the only defenders of the amendment in court, revealed their agenda early and consistently.

There’s little irony in the fact that Krauthammer is objecting to ProtectMarriage.org being stereotyped as homophobes while stereotyping his target as “arrogant elites”.   I’m half-surprised he didn’t work an arugula or latte reference into the article.  What surprises and saddens me is how easily folks who ought to have better critical thinking skills are duped by his lazy jeremiad.

But the rest of you can check it out, too.

Zorbing

Back when I was a student at Virginia Tech, either the fall of ’92 or the fall of ’93 — I don’t remember which — I trained as a DJ at our college radio station, WUVT.  I finished the semester, but did not return for the spring. The station had a policy at the time of designating songs to be in “A” rotation, “B” rotation, and “C” rotation, and we had a quota of having to play a certain number of songs from each rotation each hour.  I scrupulously met that quota, but often had time left over to play other songs in the station’s stacks that weren’t in rotation.  A station manager persistently and oppressively wrote snide comments in my play log about these non-rotation choices:  “not alt[ernative] enough” and “don’t play this cheese”.   After a semester of her  hipper-than-thou intolerance, I’d had enough.

This week, the station released their list of the “greatest musicians of our time”. With such a pretentious claim, you just know their list is going to be comedy gold.

As great as the artists they chose are, no women made the list.  Glenn Danzig > Aretha Franklin, really?

But more tellingly, every artist on the list is either American or British, and they’re all performers of music from American popular tradition — rock, jazz, blues.  No international or classical artists were included.  Sucks to be Nana Mouskouri or Ravi Shankar — y’all got pwned by Paul McCartney.  John Coolidge Adams and Elliot Carter — Quincy Jones beat you out.

It’s a conceit of the WUVT staff that the they think the tiny sliver of current musical culture they appreciate is all there is to music, that a list containing only western, English-speaking performers of popular music represents the “greatest musicians of our time”.  It’s the same conceit I encountered there almost 20 years ago: anything off their radar doesn’t count.

Note:  I originally wrote this in 2005 for a different medium, and am reposting it here at the request of a colleague; I’ve posted a few updates.  The indented portions of the article are a letter from Virginia Tech to the Chronicle of Higher Education from 1998.

In 1998, the Chronicle of Higher Education published an article critical of the Math Emporium, which was a year old at the time. The university’s PR machine responded quickly with a letter to the Chronicle, which the Chronicle was diplomatic enough to publish. That letter appears here in its entirety.

Read more »

When you hear “The Wall”, you think of:

1. Berlin
2. Pink Floyd
3. Facebook

I’m feeling trapped in a lose-lose situation at a gigantic university buckling under the weight of many successive budgetary paper-cuts.

The trap is a circle (a “vicious circle”), but I can only write about it in a linear fashion, I’ll try to make it sound coherent.

A few years after I began teaching, our department made a commitment to move many of our first-year courses to a completely online format. As of this writing, we offer eight courses that involve *no* teacher-student contact, and are passed or failed solely on the basis of clicking through multiple-choice questions. Three other courses are offered in a ‘hybrid’ format, with an online component and an as-yet-unconverted classroom component.

These graded-by-computer courses can perhaps measure concrete, objective skills (“Is the correct value of x: 23.6, or 28.1?”), but that’s about it. They can’t qualitatively judge a student’s ability to abstract what they’ve learned, to apply knowledge in new contexts, to synthesize what they’ve learned in one discipline with knowledge they’ve gained from another. Certainly, a computer can’t tell if a student “gets” a concept, and isn’t just successful at mimicking examples.

In 2006, I was offered the opportunity to manage one of these online courses, and I declined. The job of ‘course manager’ is fairly easy: no classes, no grading. Their responsibilities are to reschedule electronic deadlines for students who have been ill, arbitrate the occasional grading dispute (“the computer made a mistake!”), and watch over the 600-seat computer lab full of robotized students dutifully clicking away. Perhaps answer a few questions as they pace the floor, that’s about it.

It’d have been an easy job, but one I know I’d have hated. That year, I received a negative evaluation from the department, saying that they were “disappointed” that I chose not to participate in their adopted form of freshling calculus.

Since then, my student load has increased every year:

• 2007-2008: 429 students
• 2008-2009: 492 students
• 2009-: 652 students this semester alone

I don’t regard these increases as intentionally punitive, just a symptom of the ongoing budget problems; we generally do not get to replace departing faculty.

I should mention at this point, that many other departments have also turned to online testing (or at least ‘scantron’ testing) as a way of dealing with budget constraints. This semester across the university, 42 courses are offered in an online-only format.

During the 2008-2009 school year, I taught three sections of Differential Equations, which traditionally is the last ‘non-proofs’ course a student would take: for mathematicians, the rest of the courses are far more abstract, for engineers, this course is often their last math requirement.

I felt pretty strongly that a ‘capstone’ course like that ought to involve more than just rote memorization and multiple-guess questions. And so, despite the large class size, I assigned a challenging real-life project involving estimating the impact that a December 2008 accident at the Chalk River Laboratories had on the drinking water of nearby communities.

There were a number of variables at play — how far is the plant from the reservoir? What’s the flow rate of the river? What’s the half-life of the contaminant? What percent of the water entering the reservoir was contaminated?

I was proud of this assignment: it got students to, well, panic at first, but eventually piece together bits of information. Using the formula for radioactive decay, and thinking of the reservoir as a single-tank mixing problem (two standard topics from an introductory Differential Equations course), they eventually came up with a combined formula to model the situation given. Even though it took me three weeks to grade all the projects, I was satisfied with the outcomes.

Most of them anyway. There were, unfortunately, a number of students who chose to cheat their way through the project; sharing data and computer code by e-mail among their friends, and half-assing their way towards projects that were in some cases verbatim identical, but in most cases, lightly modified versions of each other.

Following university procedure, I turned the students in to the Honor System. There were nearly 20 of them. Also following university procedures, the students are presumed innocent until proven guilty, which means that they receive a grade for their work pending adjudication of the case. So, I awarded grades to these 20 students that in all probability weren’t earned.

As the cases were submitted very near the end of the semester, these grades remained on the students’ records all summer. During the summer, I receive an e-mail from the department head saying, in part:

“Your spring 2214 grades (section averages of 3.1 and 3.0) were a bit on the high side. Experienced teachers tend to fall in the C+ to B- range.”

There was more to it, but the intent was clear: lower your grades. Certainly, the grades *were* higher than they should have been: the university required me to assign a passing grade to 20 cheaters, and so I did. I sent the department head an e-mail to that effect, and — for the time being — that matter has subsided.

Until tonight. The first batch of Honor System hearings occurred this evening. Our Honor System is student-run: eager beavers looking to pad their resumes sign up for the opportunity to pass judgement on their peers. However, after 12 years of No-Child-Left-Behind-style education, and a couple of years of multiple-choice testing at the university, these students turned out to be woefully ill-equipped to evaluate qualitative work.

“Sure, the first 60 lines of code are identical, but line 61 is indented on this paper, and non-indented on this other paper. Doesn’t that make the assignments different?” That was the sort of question the student jury was asking. One jurist actually commented (and I’m not making this up) that since one paper was in Times and the other paper was in Courier, they couldn’t have been copied from each other. (The jurist didn’t know the names of the fonts, his interpretation was that one was a “Word file” and the other came from “some computer program”.)

Confused and in over their heads, the jurists punted: everyone who pleaded not guilty was found not guilty; and the four students who “manned up” and pleaded guilty got screwed. As a result of the not-guilty verdicts, the inflated grades stand.

So…the upshot of this is that:

• In order to feel good about my teaching (and more fundamentally: in order to teach), I challenge my students to produce work that goes beyond what a computer can assess.
• In doing so, I’m required to forfeit control of my grades to a body of students who have not yet developed an ability to evaluate this type of work in a meaningful manner.
• The department is unhappy, because this produces higher grades than those generated by other teachers, many of whom are content to tread a well-beaten path. I’m unhappy too, but for a different reason.

Our online-graded courses aren’t particularly equipped to detect academic dishonesty. If Sam promises to buy Joe pizza if Joe takes Sam’s quiz, our computers can’t tell whether it was Joe or Sam who clicked “A”, only that Sam’s account was the one logged into. If Linda surreptitiously texts a friend during an online quiz, no one at Verizon bothers to inform our computer. If Jim’s taped a copy of the unit circle to the back of his student ID card, our computer will still scan the barcode on the front of the ID.

Surely, you see the circle now: In order to satisfy the department’s directive to lower the grades that I give, I need the authority to determine the grades I give. The university’s academic honesty procedures doesn’t allow me that authority. If I’m conscientious about following those procedures, that is. If I choose instead to not participate in the Honor System, I regain control over my own grades, and I can replace the Chalk River Project with some sadistic brutal computational questions that even a phone-a-friend couldn’t get right, and ta-da! Lower grades, less-engaged students, happy department, sad teacher.

(The background: I’ve been a Vonage customer since June 2005. My VOIP device died recently — would not power up, no lights, completely kaput. Despite Vonage’s widely advertised claims of “no equipment costs” (see, for example, their homepage where the footnote reads “with one-year agreement”), in fact, they require a one-year agreement on each piece of equipment. Since this is the second adapter to die on me, I got tired of having to re-up with them just to maintain my current level of service and moved the line to another carrier. Today, I received a bill for the line that they no longer service.)

I’ve edited out their standard advertising boilerplate footers from the e-mails that follow.

Me:

Hello —

I recently ported one of the two numbers (704-2xx-xxxx) on my Vonage account to another provider; this port was completed on August 13. I have retained Vonage service on the other number on the account.

On August 14, I received an invoice (and was charged) for service on both lines, including the number which was ported from Vonage. The statement number was 116964721, and the billing period began after the port for the line was completed.

Please reverse this charge and remove 704-2xx-xxxx from my account.

Heath

Them:

Hello,

We have received your email and will respond to you as soon as possible. For your convenience, ticket number 23414123 has been assigned to this inquiry. If you should contact us again regarding the same inquiry in the future, please reference this ticket number.

And then later:

Thank you for contacting Vonage Customer Care!

I understand you would like to remove your additional phone line, 1-(704)-2xx-xxxx from your Vonage account and also want to receive a credit regarding the same.

In order to remove your additional phone line please reply to this email with the phone number you would like to receive the call and the date and time of your availability. Please provide more than one call back option and a time range including your time zone (e.g. August 15th 9:00-9:30 AM EST and 3:00-4:00 PM EST).

Once the phone line is removed, we will then be able to validate the exact amount of credit, issued to your account.

so…even though the port has already been completed to the other carrier, they want to talk to me in person to remove the line that has, um, already been removed? Roadblock one: Let us call you in person before we provide any service!

I write back:

Hello there –

I don’t understand why this step is necessary.

According to your own Terms of Service, paragraph 6.6(b),

“Once the port of the requested number is completed, you will remain
responsible for all charges and fees through the end of that billing
cycle, including any cancellation fees applicable to the ported number.”

Since the port of the requested number is completed, why am I still
being billed for charges and fees for a *new* billing cycle?

I’m seeking to remove just one line from the account. Please don’t give
me a reason to remove them both.

Heath

Their reply:

Dear Heath,

I understand you need clarification on the charge incurred for 1-(704)-2xx-xxxx on DATE.

Heath, your phone number 1-(704)-2xx-xxxx is still active in your account. This is the reason why you got billed for it. Generally when you port your number out of Vonage, it will be removed from Vonage automatically if we receive a request from the new carrier, however in this case we did not receive it. Hence I suggest you to contact your other carrier, and get a confirmation from them that the phone number 1-(704)-2xx-xxxx has been ported out to them.

Once you get this, please contact us with the confirmation number and the date in which it was ported out. When you contact us on this, please include phone number and date and time of your availability to receive call from us.

If you have any questions, your Vonage team is available to assist you 24 hours a day, 7 days a week. Contact us whenever and however it suits you!

I know I’m in for a ride at this point.

But they’re claiming that they’ve never received a request from the other carrier to port my number. This other company hijacked my number without communicating with them first? Roadblock two: Call the other carrier, and get a “confirmation number” before we provide any service!

I write back again:

Hi there,

I am satisfied that the number has been ported out to them. I received a confirmation e-mail from them last night at 7:12 pm, and I have successfully placed and received calls from that number on their device; and in fact, I received an automated call from Vonage on that device this morning.

I do think it’s odd that you’re insisting that I have to go through the trouble of receiving a call from you in order to remove my line, while at the same time, adding the tagline: “Contact us whenever and however it suits you!”

E-mail suits me.

Since you are refusing to remove (704-2xx-xxxx) from my account and refusing to reverse the charges for the service you have billed on a number that has been ported away, I’ll go ahead and port the second line away from Vonage and call you when that port is also completed. I would rather do that than have to go through this ordeal with you twice.

Heath

Them:

Dear Heath Hart,

Thank you for contacting us, I apologize for any delay in responding to you.

In response to your inquiry, In order for us to Close/Disconnect your Vonage account, you will need to disable the features for 1-(704)-2xx-xxxx. Please logon to your Vonage​.​com account a disable/turn off the (Simul Ring). Your number was recently uploaded to our system to disconnect your account; once you turn off your features your account will close in 24 hours.

If you need assistance please call us at: 1-Vonage-Help 1-866-243-4357.

Sincerely,
Vonage Port Out Department

Roadblock three: Disable the SimulRing before we provide any service! However, I’m concerned that the e-mail is talking about closing the entire account — I know this is a form letter, but I *do* have a second line with them, and I’d like the service on that line to stay active until I can get it ported away. So…

I write back:

Please confirm: Are you going to *close my account*, or merely remove
the 704-2xx-xxxx line from the account? I have a second line with
Vonage that I have not asked to be removed.

Heath

Obviously, it was a mistake to include the consecutive words “close my account” in the body of that e-mail, because here’s how they replied:

Thank you for choosing Vonage, the award winning internet phone company.

We are sorry to hear that you wish to cancel your account. We value your business and would like to address any concerns you may have regarding our service. To cancel your account and to protect you from having another person terminate your service without your knowledge, we need to verbally verify the owner of the account. Please call our Account Management Department between Monday-Friday from 8:30 AM to 8:30 PM EST at 1-866-243-4357.

Thanks again for choosing Vonage, a better phone service for less!

Roadblock four: We forgot what it is you really wanted. Refresh our memory before we provide any service!

I write back:

To whomever is reading this:

If I call your account department, is there anyone there who can read through these messages and figure out that I am NOT trying to close my entire account, but that I am simply trying to remove the line (704)2xx-xxxx from that account? (Although, I’m so frustrated at this point that the idea is very tempting.)

Is there anyone there who answers real questions and doesn’t just keep sending form letters on how to do the thing that I DON’T want done with my account?

Heath

This time, I got an entirely different response:

Dear Heath Hart,

Welcome to Vonage!

Please review the important information below:

Order Details
Please review the details of your order
*******************************************************************
Order Date: August 14, 2009
Order Number: 6EAEC0GWLL

*******************************************************************
Item Quantity Unit Subtotal
*******************************************************************
————————————
————————————
Total: $0.00

*******************************************************************

Roadblock five: Okay, we’re just pulling stuff out of our ass now and entered an order on your behalf with no items on it. Pay us zero dollars and zero cents before we provide any service!

I didn’t respond at this point, because something work-related came up that kept me away from the office for an hour. During that hour, inexplicably, the following e-mail came in, from a different Vonage e-mail address than the others:

Dear Heath Hart,

As per your request, I have removed the 1-(704)-2xx-xxxx and I credited your account. This line has been removed from your billing so you will not be charged anymore for this line. Your account is now set up as follows:

1-(704)-5xx-xxxx Primary Voice line

What? This is what I wanted in the first place, seven hours earlier.

Y’all were just yanking my chain.

the-nervous-wreck-of-edna-fitzgerald

We sailed away from Huntington Bay
and the waters were calm as could be-oh
On our new cabin cruiser, the first time we used her
’twas just the family and me-oh
And my husband stood proud in his new captain’s hat
using words like ahoy there and- crap like that
So we took the kid and Cleo our cat
and set out to conquer the sea-oh
Everyone loved it but Clee-oh

And it’s yo ho over the seas
The salt and the spray and the cool ocean breeze
Pass me a bottle of Perrier please
This is the life for me

The tranquility three miles out to sea
suddenly came to an end-oh
when the kid started saying “No way am I staying
I’d rather be playing Nintendo-oh”
And the captain cried “Ho there, you little snot,
I paid fifty grand for this family yacht
You’re going to enjoy yourself, like it or not
so you’d better learn how to pretend-oh”
(We all caught the man’s innuendo-oh)

And it’s yo ho over the seas
The salt and the spray and the cool ocean breeze
Pass me a bottle of Dramamine please
This is the life for me

My husband the captain was checking the charts
while the cruiser was burning up fu-el
And the kid threw the cat in, trolling for sharks
he called it a project for school-el
I reached down to pull the cat in by the tail
when I smelled what I held my complexion went pale
That’s when I lost my lunch over the rail
The kid thought the whole thing was coo-el
Mama was not feeling too-well

And it’s yo ho over the seas
The salt and the spray and the cool ocean breeze
Pass me a bottle of Valium please
Is this the life for me?

We ran out of fuel by mid-afternoon
and the clouds were moving in fast-er
And the captain did say, “There’s no more Perrier”
which made it a total disast-er.
With hardly a warning it started to pour
and we drifted ’til we reached the New Jersey shore
(never thought I’d be glad to see Jersey before)
We started drifting in fast-er,
tried to steer the ship, but we crashed her

No more yo ho over the seas
The salt and the spray and the cool ocean breeze
Pass me a bottle of cyanide please
This is no life for me.

I’m back in my condo, the cruiser’s a wreck
My husband is spending the insurance check
On something for dry land or I’ll break his neck
‘Cause this is the life for me
Yo ho

Visit the artist’s site…

For those of you who hadn’t heard it yesterday — it was scarcely a blip on mainstream news — the Obama administration dealt a gigantic slap in the face to LGBT Americans yesterday. In a DOJ brief submitted yesterday, the Obama administration defended the poorly-named Defense of Marriage Act. This would have been offensive enough, had the brief argued merely on technical grounds and legal arcana. Instead, though, it went much further, comparing the ban on same-sex marriage to bans on incest. It made the outrageous determination that marrying someone is a “fundamental right” only when that someone has different plumbing, and — get this! — since the law doesn’t bar homosexuals from actually marrying someone with different plumbing, the law does not discriminate.

I’ve got more to say on this once I can keep my fingers from involuntarily retracting into fists — makes it damn hard to type…