Moving at the Speed of Creativity

We had a wonderful “partners” Celebrate Oklahoma Voices (COV) workshop this week on Thursday and Friday in MidDel Schools. These are just two of the amazing stories our participants created in a very short and concentrated time together.

Scott Charlson created “A Few Sketches of Minnie’s Cafe,” telling the story of his grandmother and her informal encounters with legendary Oklahoma musician Woody Guthrie:

Find more videos like this on Celebrate Oklahoma Voices!

Scott had told me about this story back in April when he first attended a COV workshop at Western Oklahoma State College in Altus, and his desire to share this story with others. At that time I interviewed Scott for a podcast about their use of Moodle at WOSC, and learned about his passion for family histories. This week Scott not only created another digital story as a COV project, he also helped co-facilitate our workshop and was formally “knighted” as a lead facilitator for our project! Since my Halloween costume for the day included a sword, we felt such a ceremony was appropriate to mark the auspicious moment! Thanks to Jean Hendrickson for taking and sharing this photo.

Rosalynn Wade also created a fantastic digital story in 1.5 days this week titled “Silver Spoon - A Legacy of Integrity and Compassion.” The planets must have been in the proper and requisite alignment for so many things to come together for her and her family last night. Her parents were supposed to have left for a vacation but were delayed in departing. Her father was eager to share this story as well as the photos which make it even more impactful. He even returned later in the evening to add the concluding lines, which he specifically requested be at the end of the story. This is an unforgettable Veteran story from World War II.

Find more videos like this on Celebrate Oklahoma Voices!

It was exciting again to see so many new people become engaged, inspired, and passionate about the power of digital storytelling to preserve family histories and develop the skills of rich-media communication using images, audio, and text.

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history, oklahoma, interview, cov, veteran, story

Thanks to my mom for sharing the link to “They Have Names,” a website dedicated to the soldiers, sailors and airmen who have given their lives in the service of the United States and both need and deserve to be remembered not as simply “another statistic” in our ongoing wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, but as the unique and special people they were to their family and friends. This is exactly the type of website I felt (and still feel) we need when I wrote the July 4th post, “Faces of the Fallen.” According to the website’s about page:

They Have Names is dedicated to giving proper respects to our fallen heroes. Our goal is to raise awareness about my fallen brothers and sisters. All too often, these Troops are relegated to mere numbers by the press. Their stories are unknown. Their lives are unkown. And their names are unknown. Their sacrifice is impersonal and taken for granted. To many Americans, they are faceless figures. They are not enigmas - They Have Names.

At the time of this writing, over 3000 troops have been killed in Iraq alone. Each and every one of them has unique talents, hobbies, families, and histories. Each of them had a reason that led them to serve in one of our nation’s armed forces. These people are not mere numbers - They Have Names.

I have added a linked graphic to the website “They Have Names” in the right sidebar of my blog, and encourage you to do the same. I encourage you to read through the well written tributes about the servicemen and servicewomen already on the site, and share this with other people you know. Whether others are for, against, or neutral with respect to our ongoing wars in the middle and far east, we should be able to come together in remembering the lives and sacrifices of those who have died in the service of our nation. In remembering these brave men and women, we not only pay tribute to them and their sacrifices, but we also can better perceive and understand the human cost of these conflicts and the loss which our nation has and continues to sustain as a result of current U.S. foreign policies.

When Immanuel Kant wrote “Perpetual Peace: A Philosophical Sketch” in 1795, he assumed that as nations continued to evolve, develop and mature, the high human cost of armed conflict would increasingly become widely evident and clearly understood by electorates who voted policymakers into and out of office. Websites like “They Have Names” are important for many reasons, and one is that they provide a tangible way for “we the people” to personally understand and comprehend the high costs of warfare.

Many thanks to C.J. and Sue for their work to date on the site “They Have Names.” Theirs is EXTREMELY important work. For more background on the site, read C.J’s blog post from July 6th, “They All Have Names.”

In addition to encouraging others to read and share the stories included on the site, ask if others in your local community are willing to write and contribute to the site and its mission.

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military, veteran, tribute, story, stories, families, digitalstorytelling, iraq, afghanistan, remember, names, statistic, theyhavenames

Today on July 4, 2008, we celebrate our independence day in the United States. I saw part of a documentary this afternoon about Rocky Mountain News reporter Jim Sheeler’s book “The Final Salute.” In the book, Jim documents the moving stories of US servicemen and servicewomen who are the first to speak with and support the families of U.S. servicemen and servicewomen who have died in the line of duty.

At the end of this show, a brief, silent slideshow of most recent US casualties in the wars we continue to fight in Iraq and Afghanistan were shown. When I saw this show, I was struck by how important it is that we see the FACES and connect at a human level with the sacrifices of these servicemen and servicewomen, as well as their families. When I searched online for an image wall of recent US war dead, I found the AP article (republished by USA Today) “Index of U.S. troop deaths in Iraq.” The article includes the following image of five US soldiers who were recently killed:

At our community 4th of July parade this morning in Edmond, Oklahoma, several wives and family members were in the parade carrying pictures of their husbands and loved ones currently serving the US military at home and abroad. Some of these people are members of the group “Blue Star Mothers,” a nonprofit organization composed of “…mothers who now have, or have had, children honorably serving in the military… supporting each other and our children while promoting patriotism.”

I first heard about Blue Star Mothers when dining at our local Old Chicago restaurant a few weeks ago. Old Chicago has an ongoing support campaign for Blue Star Mothers, to help support and remember our servicemen and servicewomen serving in Iraq and Afghanistan. I’m not sure if these numbers are still accurate, but I would guess they are pretty close: The materials I read at Old Chicago said we have over 130,000 US soldiers serving in the Iraqi theater of operations and over 17,000 serving in Afghanistan. Of course there are thousands of others serving in other countries as well as here in the United States. Today, on July 4th, we need to remember all these military members and their families.

Someone needs to create a “Faces of the Fallen” website which can be used to share the photographs, names, home towns, and service information of U.S. soldiers who have given their lives in our ongoing wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, as well as in other locations around the world. Does anyone know if a website like this exists? Websites like “Iraq Body Count” keep track of statistics of estimated military and civilian war dead in Iraq, and that is very important, but bar graphs somehow dehumanize the reality of military members paying the ultimate price. The U.S. Vietnam Veteran’s Memorial in Washington D.C. has a similar effect, I think, listing rows upon rows of names without faces. The emotional impact of this memorial, which I have visited several times personally, is quite different than the emotional impact of the World War II Marine Corps War Memorial and others. The experiences of US servicemen and women as well as US citizens at home during the US war in Indochina and World War II were quite different, of course, so it is natural these memorials would evoke different emotions. In all conflicts, however, I think it is important to remember and connect with the human side of warfare and the sacrifices of those who serve. It is much more difficult to connect in this human way with textual names listed on a wall of stone or a computerized bar graph, compared to photographs or statues of real people.

If a website would be created (or already exists) sharing the “faces of the fallen” from our ongoing wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, I’m sure the site would be controversial. As I wrote in my October 2004 post, “Kant’s perpetual peace and US war dead,” images of the coffins of US military men and women returning to the United States have been closely protected and very controversial in the past. While many would use a website of fallen servicemember images to pay tribute, say thanks, and share stories, others would likely use the site to campaign for an end to these costly conflicts which were both started and continue to be promulgated by our civilian leaders in the US government.

Irrespective of your personal views on the ongoing US wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, I encourage you to remember the servicemen and servicewomen who continue to serve the United States on July 4th, as well as their families. Consider supporting your local military families through Blue Star Mothers or other similar organizations. Remember and pay tribute to those who have died and given their lives in the line of duty as US military service members.

As I wrote in my February 2007 post “Criticizing policies not people:”

…the line between criticizing a government policy and the perception that the person levying that criticism is simultaneously criticizing the people tasked to carry out the policy is a very thin one at best.

I have very strong feelings and thoughts about our continuing wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, but rather than share them in this post, I will close by reminding us that is is possible to criticize a policy while still supporting those ordered to carry it out. (This is true of NCLB as it is true of US foreign policy.) I would also like to encourage everyone in the United States who will be of legal voting age for our presidential election in November to get out and VOTE. We live in a republic in the United States, and it is both our right and our duty as citizens to vote. Let your voice be heard.

Today, on July 4th, remember those who have served and those who continue to serve our nation in the armed forces. Support them and support their families. The websites AnySoldier and Soldiers’ Angels are two other websites I recommend (as does my mother) to support US soldiers and families.

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Remember the ENIAC computer? (Well, I guess I’m not actually asking if you REMEMBER it– as in you SAW it in person– more if you read and learned about it in the past.)

According to the current WikiPedia entry, it was unveiled in 1946 and cost approximately $500,000.

ENIAC was designed and built to calculate artillery firing tables for the U.S. Army’s Ballistic Research Laboratory… ENIAC contained 17,468 vacuum tubes, 7,200 crystal diodes, 1,500 relays, 70,000 resistors, 10,000 capacitors and around 5 million hand-soldered joints. It weighed 30 short tons (27 t), was roughly 8.5 feet by 3 feet by 80 feet (2.6 m by 0.9 m by 26 m), took up 680 square feet (63 m²), and consumed 150 kW of power… The ENIAC used four of the accumulators controlled by a special Multiplier unit and could perform 385 multiplication operations per second…..

I remember the ENIAC mainly for its size and relatively paltry computing capabilities compared to personal computers and supercomputers today. It was in “continuous operation” until 1955. When I think of the early days of computing, I immediately think of the ENIAC.

I mentioned in my post “The benefits of unplugging” that our family visited Los Alamos, New Mexico, last week. Los Alamos is home to the Los Alamos National Laboratory. Each time we’ve driven through Los Alamos, I’ve wondered what millions of our tax dollars are up to there– paying scientists and engineers to continue developing new technologies for the US military and our weapons systems. This evening, reading the news on our Wii as I waited for my son to teach me how to play “Rayman Raving Rabbids,” I read today’s AP article “Scientists develop fastest computer.” For a total cost of $100 million, scientists and engineers worked six years to create a supercomputer reminiscent of the ENIAC but vastly greater in its physical size as well as computing capabilities. For the first time the computer has:

…performed 1,000 trillion calculations per second in a sustained exercise… To put the computer’s speed in perspective, it has roughly the computing power of 100,000 of today’s most powerful laptops stacked 1.5 miles high, according to IBM. Or, if each of the world’s 6 billion people worked on hand-held computers for 24 hours a day, it would take them 46 years to do what the Roadrunner computer can do in a single day.

So if everyone on the planet was using an iPhone 24/7, how many years would it take us to replicate a day’s work of “the Roadrunner?”

The size specifications of the Roadrunner dwarf the ENIAC as well. According to the same article:

The interconnecting system occupies 6,000 square feet with 57 miles of fiber optics and weighs 500,000 pounds. Although made from commercial parts, the computer consists of 6,948 dual-core computer chips and 12,960 cell engines, and it has 80 terabytes of memory housed in 288 connected refrigerator-sized racks.

80 terabytes of memory… Is that all? Will my kids have that much storage capacity in their handheld computers when they start attending college in about a decade? Quite possibly.

I don’t intend to trivialize this computing achievement with attempted levity. On a more serious note, I recognize the pivotal role funding by the US government for military computing applications continues to play in the development of computing and supercomputing capabilities. The ENIAC was originally designed to make more accurate and thorough calculations for the US Army’s artillery units. The Roadrunner is ostensibly being used “to assure the safety and security of our (weapons) stockpile.” Do we really need a supercomputer with petaflop performance capabilities to do that? I thought the nuclear football, developed during the administration of Eisenhower, did that for us? I think it’s fair to hypothesize the actual military uses of the Roadrunner are barely touched on in today’s AP article.

A petaflop is 10 to the 15th power “flops: FLoating point Operations Per Second.” Can I begin to comprehend a number that large? That challenge is similar to trying to understand the distance the Andromeda Galaxy (our closest neighbor galaxy) is away from our own Milky Way galaxy: Approximately 2.5 million light-years away. I can say that number, but I can I really comprehend it? I don’t think so.

The speed of change we are witnessing today, in our lifetimes, when it comes to information technologies and telecommunications truly IS staggering. An SR-71 was fast (when it was operational) but blog-powered communication is faster. At the speed of light, packets of data traverse our planet and magically permit our ideas and thoughts to interact and influence each other. Who could have dreamed of such a day?

$100 million for a petaflop of performance. Wow. What does that mean? Are we approaching the moment of technological singularity? We’re certainly moving in that direction.

Amidst such change, it is ludicrous and sad to see our political leaders in the United States continuing to emphasize a 19th century approach to education via standardized assessments which place zero value on digital literacy or 21st century skills. We can be frustrated with NCLB, we can be mad about high stakes testing, but more than anything else, I think we can justifiably be sad at the glaring lack of vision and understanding for the dynamic communications landscape of the 21st century which it reflects.

In a few months, citizens of the United States will have an opportunity to cast votes for a new chief executive. When the reins of power are transferred, I hope we’ll be pleased with new educational vision in the White House which supports the development of both traditional as well as digital literacies in the classrooms and homes of our nation. If we’re paying $100 million for a petaflop of performance today, we’ll probably be paying $1000 for that same performance capacity in a decade. Are we equipping our current generations of learners to thrive in an environment replete with such computational capacity? No. Sadly, we’re still arguing about whether or not cell phones should be permitted in schools at all. Are people of all ages going to continue making poor choices with the tools at their fingertips, including cell phones? Of course. The solution is not banning them and condemning students and teachers to a 19th century learning environment devoid of opportunities for digital interaction.

Is this “glass” half empty or half full? I prefer to see it as half full. We live in a day ripe with opportunity for visionary and inspired leadership. Let’s hope our next chief executive signs landmark educational legislation framed by an electronic whiteboard or at least a laptop computer, rather than a chalkboard.

Perhaps such an image will inspire educators around the world to stand up and cheer, rather than fall to their knees and weep.

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eniac, petaflop, computer, supercomputer, losalamos, election, obama, mccain, politics, school, education, reform

I was both impressed and thrilled by the quality of the digital stories created a couple weeks ago by the largest group of teachers we’ve had participate together to date in our statewide digital storytelling project, “Celebrate Oklahoma Voices.” My interest in and passion for digital storytelling has been fueled by multiple people and experiences, but the muves of Marco Torres as well as my conversations and interactions with Marco over the past 3 years have been pivotal. Marco’s film “Tocayo” is one example of a video which has made on strong impression on me, not only for the ideas it communicates about families and immigration, but also for the power of digital media to speak directly to both the heart and the mind.

During our latest “Celebrate Oklahoma Voices” workshop, we divided participants into two groups for our “digital show and tell” activity the last day. I have not yet watched all the videos of the other group, but do want to share two more videos created by teachers in our group. Both of these videos can provide a rich backdrop to discuss some very important topics with our students: the multiple faces of immigration policies as well as realities, and the important need we have to meaningfully acknowledge and understand the continuing sacrifices of many of our countrymen and women (as well as their families) in military service around the world.

Jon Corea’s video “Torres Family” tells the story of an Oklahoma family which immigrated to the United States from El Salvador in 1982. Similar to “Tocayo,” but with more basic digital storytelling techniques (this was Jon’s first experience with digital storytelling and PhotoStory3,) I think Jon succeeds in telling a compelling and important story using both his own voice as well as the voices of other members of the Torres family. (I do not think there is a family connection between the Torres family this video describes and Marco, btw.) I visited El Salvador in 1993 when the UN sponsored “Truth Commission” was gathering evidence about the death squads which had plagued the nation for years. If your students do not understand “death squad” on a personal level, they should count that a blessing. Videos like these can help our students connect with concepts which include ideas in the formal curriculum but also may extend far beyond them.

Find more videos like this on Celebrate Oklahoma Voices!

Angela Dormiani’s video “Iraqi War: Five Years Ago” tells part of the story of her husband, former Sgt. Mark McDevitt, who served in the US Army in Iraq in 2003.

Find more videos like this on Celebrate Oklahoma Voices!

Here in the United States where I currently live, we are surrounded by a media-centric society. According to Dr. Lynell Burmark, the human brain processes an image over 60,000 times faster than plain text. OF COURSE we should use images and other types of media to help extend our learning and expand the learning opportunities of our students when we can. I think our abilities to connect ideas to our personal lives can powerfully amplify the “stickability” of the stories and lessons we share. These videos provide two examples of this contention.

Thanks to Jon, Angela, and all our other participants in the Celebrate Oklahoma Voices project for not only taking time to learn some of the skills of digital storytelling, but also contributing to our growing archive of digital stories about the lives of Oklahomans.

We’ve only just begun to document, archive and share the stories of Oklahomans safely on the global stage of the Internet.

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oklahoma, story, stories, digitalstories, digital, cov, cov08, history, heritage, immigration, war, iraq, military, family, sacrifice

This podcast is a recording of a presentation shared by a docent aboard the USS Missouri battleship, now docked at Ford Island, Pearl Harbor, Hawaii, on December 5, 2007. It was on September 2, 1945, in Tokyo Harbor aboard the USS Missouri that generals representing the Empire of Japan surrendered to General of the Army Douglas MacArthur and other officials representing the United States of America. The USS Missouri is now docked right next to the location where the USS Oklahoma was docked on December 7, 1941, when it was attacked by the Japanese Navy and sunk after sustaining nine torpedo hits. Two days after this presentation was recorded, a memorial to the men who died aboard the USS Oklahoma was dedicated in Pearl Harbor, only five hundred feet away from where the Missouri is now docked. This presentation and retelling of the surrender of the Japanese to the Americans aboard the USS Missouri was shared especially for junior ROTC students from Claremore, Oklahoma, who had spent the previous night aboard the USS Missouri and were concluding their tour of the battleship. These junior ROTC students served as part of the color guard participating the dedication ceremony of the USS Oklahoma Memorial two days later. It was a moving and powerful experience to stand on the deck of the USS Missouri, in the exact location where the Japanese surrender to the United States had been signed sixty-two years before in Tokoyo Harbor, and look out onto the placid waters of Pearl Harbor and the USS Arizona memorial. Let us pray the nations and people of our planet never again experience a world war as terrible and costly as World War II. The courage, fortitude, and sacrifices of the men and women who fought and struggled to bring that conflict to an end should never be forgotten.

 

 Podcast214: Surrender of the Japanese to the United States Aboard the USS Missouri (a re-enactment in Pearl Harbor, Hawaii) [21:35m]: Play Now | Play in Popup | Download (2600)

Show Notes:

1. Oklahoma World War II Stories Project Wiki
2. Flickr Set from December 2007: The USS Missouri at Pearl Harbor
3. Battleship Missouri Memorial, Pearl Harbor, Hawaii
   
4. WikiPedia article on General Douglas MacArthur
5. WikiPedia article on the USS Missouri (BB-63)
   

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I have uploaded the entire dedication ceremony for the USS Oklahoma Memorial from December 7, 2007, in Pearl Harbor Hawaii to the OETA ftp server for subsequent transfer and posting to the NewsOK.com “Brightcove” video server. The entire ceremony was approximately two hours long. These videos will be subsequently “chunked” into pieces that are less than 20 minutes long each (which is required by Brightcove) and available as linkable, embeddable flash movies. If you would like to download and view the entire ceremony before it becomes available in smaller “chunks” on Brightcove, you can download it in the following two segments:

• Part 1 (46 min, 11 sec, 104 MB)
• Part 2 (69 min, 7 sec, 155.8 MB)

More information about our Oklahoma World War II Digital Learning Project is available on http://okwwii.wetpaint.com.

I have been thinking about issues relating to immigration, the politics of borders and walls, the importance of international relationships and friendships, and the responsibility we all have to tangibly promote the causes of understanding and cooperation in our own contexts and spheres of influence. Several events have influenced my thinking lately and precipitated new thoughts about these topics, including:

1. An hour long audio conference call (via phone) with Rep. Mary Fallin (our elected representative in the US House of Representatives) and over 600 of her other Oklahoma constituents last week
2. Discussions I’ve had with various people relating to immigration, our flat world, and policies we (the United States) have or some support relating to immigration
3. An excellent article in the May 2007 issue of National Geographic magazine titled, “America’s Border Wall”
4. Some excerpts I’ve read from Lee Iacocca’s new book, ““Where Have All the Leaders Gone?”
5. An excellent presentation at the MO-Ranch Men’s conference by Rev. John Fife titled “The Bible on the Border” on May 5, 2007

I’ll begin this reflection by first sharing two of the best quotations from the May 2007 National Geographic article “America’s Border Wall.” First, this sentence about the nature of walls and the challenge which walls pose to the national identity of U.S. citizens:

A BORDER WALL SEEMS TO VIOLATE a deep sense of identity most Americans cherish. We see ourselves as a nation of immigrants with our own goddess, the Statue of Liberty, a symbol so potent that dissident Chinese students fabricated a version of it in 1989 in Tiananmen Square as the visual representation of their yearning for freedom.

As the article goes on to point out, some walls are built to keep people out, while others are built to keep people in. I agree with the author who observed that the walls which now separate the United States and Mexico are enforcement solutions to problems which are fundamentally economic. Like many challenging issues and situations, the dynamics of the southern U.S. border are highly complex and not easily simplified, especially for people who are saavy to the real issues. This, perhaps, is the strongest statement in the entire article, and one with which I personally resonate deeply:

There is a law on the border: the closer you get to the line, the more rational you become, because everyone has ties to people on the other side.

I am discouraged and concerned by many of the statements made by my fellow citizens here in Oklahoma and elsewhere in the United States concerning issues surrounding our southern border and illegal immigration, because I sense the simplified, “black and white” view of things they currently hold to reflects a LACK of rationality due in large part to a LACK of personal relationships, experiences, and connections they have to people who live near our southern border or further within the nation of Mexico itself.

I’m distressed by ethnocentrism, racism, and attitudes which support the unjustified, discriminatory treatment of other individuals based on their race, creed, skin color, or other characteristics due to birth and current location. “Distressed” is perhaps too tactful and light a word in fact: I am also incensed and motivated to both passionate words and actions because of these evils. Hatred (of anything but sin) is an evil, in my view, and the sentiments of racism and ethnocentrism which are stirred by many current discussions about immigration and immigration policy communicate at a minimum the seeds of hate, and at worst outright manifestations of hatred for other human beings which I categorically oppose.

I want to keep the tone of this reflection reasoned, however, because I think while emotion is important, it can in many cases obscure the real issues and the real solutions which are available to us in a complex and highly-charged discussion like one over legal and illegal immigration.

I understand that many people are fearful. Good Lord, you have to be blind to not realize that FEAR seems to be the predominant emotion which politicians seek to invoke these days in attempting to connect with and move their constituents to action, which is usually limited to “support me for office.” We live in a society seemingly riven with fear: Fear of terrorism, fear of illegal immigration which is touted to threaten our economic well being, fear of outsourcing which similarly threatens our economy and way of life, etc. Fear, fear, fear. I recognize the threats posed by violent terrorists and economic sea changes are both real and important to deal with, but I reject the premise that fear itself should form the basis of our response to these challenges.

Instead of waxing on further about politics and economics, let me cut to the chase for what I see as a critical imperative for educators everywhere: WE MUST STRIVE EVERY DAY TO HELP CONNECT OUR STUDENTS TO INTERNATIONAL PEERS, SO THEY CAN FORM RELATIONSHIPS OF FRIENDSHIP WHICH WILL MORE CONCRETELY CHANGE THEIR PERCEPTIONS OF INTERNATIONAL BOUNDARIES AND INTERNATIONAL ISSUES MORE POWERFULLY THAN ANY LESSON FOCUSED PRIMARILY ON COGNITIVE FACTS ABOUT OTHER COUNTRIES. At our children’s school this past Friday, it was “multicultural day.” The goal of helping students develop better senses of the wonderfully diverse and culturally rich world which we inhabit together is an outstanding one, but that goal cannot be authentically advanced very far by simply declaring and holding a “multicultural day.” Similarly, school districts cannot advance this goal by simply hiring a person to be “Director of Diversity” or multiculturalism, which some districts have done.

The best way to promote the causes of international understanding, cultural awareness, and respectful, tolerant attitudes is to foster international friendships. Our capabilities to foster those friendships via electronic tools today is unprecedented. One of the main things I am looking forward to most in the 2007 K-12 Online Conference is the opportunity to learn more, and in-depth, about how progressive educators are using digital tools to make international collaboration a daily reality rather than an imagined pipe dream for students, as it sadly is in many contexts.

We need to humanize discussions we are having about immigration and our southern border in the United States. I perceive that rather than build more walls, and invest more millions of dollars in border patrol and technological attempts to curb immigration, we would spend our money more wisely by simply enforcing the employment laws which we already have on the books. It is illegal for someone to employ an undocumented worker in the United States. People who hire undocumented workers are breaking the law. Yet instead of cracking down on this reality, which is precisely the economic center of gravity in the entire debate over immigration policy in the United States, our leaders seem content to turn a blind eye to this reality and instead advocate for bigger walls, more people with guns and dogs on the border, and more money for militarizing our southern border.

Has there ever been a better day to be a defense contractor or a law enforcement contractor for the United States? When do our current leaders project “the war on terror” will ever end? The “war on illegal immigration?” It is a mistake to call these legal enforcement efforts “wars,” because they will NEVER end. Wars are fought to convert the will of an enemy with violent means. Fighting terrorism and other criminal behaviors, opposing the flow of illegal drugs into our country and the use of illegal drugs by people within our country, and addressing the challenges of border control and enforcement are issues which will remain with us ad infinitum.

So why do we hear such a chorus of voices clamoring for greater militarization of the U.S. Mexican border, instead of dealing with the economic challenges present there and throughout our nation due to the realities of freer commerce? One reason, unfortunately, it that it’s easier for a politician to demonize people as “enemies” and suggest a military / law enforcement solution, rather than deal constructively with the complex issues which have only viable long term, rather than short term solutions. I wrote about this at length in the context of drug control in 1992-1993, when I lived and studied in Mexico City. During the course of my research, I encountered the metaphor used during the Nixon administration for drug control. It was not “a war on drugs,” instead it was “weeding the garden.” Weeds are going to continue to grow in a garden, just as illegal drugs will continue to be grown or made, transported, sold and used as long as there is an economic demand for them.

People, however, are not weeds. Every person is a human being, and as a human has inalienable human rights which they possess irrespective of their current geographic context. In discussions about U.S./Mexico immigration issues, we need to listen more to those people living on the border and connected in their personal relationships to those on the other side of the border. Those voices are likely to continue to be the most rational in these discussions. We can’t take all our students to the U.S. and Mexican border for an object lesson, but we certainly can connect them to other learners on either side of the border who by the fact of their current geographic location have important perspectives to consider when it comes to these issues, which may be quite different from our own perspectives and those of our students’ parents.

Lee Iacocca shares some “on target” thoughts related to these issues in his latest book. On page 112 he writes:

Some people are nervous about globalization. And some people are just in denial. But it’s impossible to escape it, the way the world seeps in. You can’t fence the world out, and you can’t fence yourself in. Technology knows no borders. As one of the first computer geeks stated, “Information wants to be free.” To fear globalization is to fear change, but like it or not, change is a constant in our lives.

Global collaboration in our classrooms. We need more of it, not only to prepare our students for the economically flat world in which they live and will live in the future, but also to humanize the ongoing discussions we’re having and will have about immigration, borders, and many other topics we’ll face together in the years ahead.

Technorati Tags: border, immigration, mexico, military, unitedstates

USA Today’s headline article “Military beefs up Internet arsenal” from Wednesday suggests new offensive capabilities are in development for the U.S. war on terror. While I don’t have any insider information on this, I do know that for some time the mission of the U.S. Air Force has included fighting in cyberspace:

The mission of the United States Air Force is to deliver sovereign options for the defense of the United States of America and its global interests — to fly and fight in Air, Space, and Cyberspace.

Quotations in the article from Marine Brig. Gen. John Davis include:

“You should not let them [terrorists] operate uncontested” on the Internet and elsewhere in cyberspace…”Our opponents do a heck of a lot more than just watch us in cyberspace… They are acting in cyberspace. We need to develop options so that we can … dominate cyberspace.”

I would like to know what the omitted words were in the last sentence, between “can” and “dominate.” The article makes it sound like at least some members of U.S. military believe a capacity to “dominate cyberspace” can and should be developed. Perhaps that is accurate, but I would guess a capacity to act decisively [including fighting when ordered] is being developed rather than a capacity to “dominate.” I think the distributed nature of the Internet’s architecture insures no single entity can “dominate” it entirely.

John Arquilla, a professor at the U.S. Naval Postgraduate School, is quoted in the article as saying he:

favors an offensive approach he calls a “virtual scorched-earth policy [toward terrorists acting in cyberspace].”

Again, full quotations instead of shortened sound bytes would be preferable. What exactly does that mean? Sherman’s march to the sea comes to mind when this language is used. Is that what Arquilla meant? We have no way of knowing, because more parts of the interview text are not provided by USA Today. I think media articles including interview quotations should include links to the full-text versions online, so critical and inquisitive readers (and citizens) can access the full context of provided statements.

With traditional media sources, paper space was limited and journalists HAD to be more selective about the quotations they used and included with articles. Today, however, the online environment provides the possibility to journalists and publishers of providing much more content and details.

The use of Internet resources by terrorist groups certainly deserves attention, not only from U.S. military and political leaders, but from teachers and students as well. As I wrote in my recent post “Evolving online security threats deserve more attention,” often anonymous cyber-attackers concern us all particularly when the focus of their attacks are the root DNS servers which keep the entire Internet running.

According to the same USA Today article:

The videos and messages [of terrorists] are “getting more and more professional,” said Andretta Summerville of iDefense, a private contractor that monitors terrorist activity on the Internet.

This use of web tools for destructive ends again highlights a key message from my presentations and workshops on “safe digital social networking,” cyberbullying and “digital dialog.” Web tools can be used constructively or destructively. We need to be doing more in schools to help students as well as teachers learn how to appropriately, ethically and constructively use digital tools to serve noble rather than insidious ends.

Technorati Tags: cyberwarfare, security, terrorism

This podcast features an interview with my mother, Angie Fryer, recorded in a coffeeshop in Manhattan, Kansas on March 2, 2007, following the MACE conference. For several years now, my mother has read and subscribed to a number of blogs from a diverse group of people including U.S. students studying abroad in other countries, milbloggers written by a wide variety of U.S. servicemen and servicewomen serving overseas and in the United States, and others. Most recently she has been reading a variety of cooking blogs, and enjoys incorporating new recipies and cooking ideas into her own cooking at home. My mom is a lifetime learner, and exemplifies the idea that digital learners can be of any age. This interview also helped me realize the similarities between good cooking and good teaching: Master chefs like master teachers use recipies and lesson plans as guidelines to craft worthwhile experiences for others. Many thanks to my mom for agreeing to this interview! Feedback on her thoughts and perspectives are welcome, she’ll be checking this podcast post for comments!

SHOWNOTES:

Milblogs:
http://www.milblogging.com/
http://acutepolitics.blogspot.com/
http://www.blackfive.net/
http://www.soldiersperspective.us/
http://www.mudvillegazette.com/
http://www.jrsalzman.com/weblog/
http://tcoverride.blogspot.com/
http://gunnywade.com/

Support the Troops:
http://www.anysoldier.com/ (Support U.S. soldiers serving overseas with kind notes, artwork, and care packages)
http://www.soldiersangels.com/

Embedded Journalists:
http://www.michaelyon-online.com/
http://www.indcjournal.com/

Iraqi Blogs:
http://iraqthemodel.blogspot.com/
http://hammorabi.blogspot.com/

Cookery Blogs:
http://savorynotebook.blogspot.com
http://www.elise.com/recipes/
http://www.101cookbooks.com/
http://coconutlime.blogspot.com/
http://ideasinfood.typepad.com/
http://thepassionatecook.typepad.com/
http://cooknkate.wordpress.com/
http://cooksister.typepad.com/
http://homesicktexan.blogspot.com/
http://madeater.blogspot.com/
http://desertculinary.blogspot.com/
http://www.spittoonextra.biz/
http://www.gildedfork.com/newsfeed/
http://www.slashfood.com/

A Cajun Blogger I Enjoy:
http://www.mostlycajun.com/wordpress/

OPML:
Angie Fryer’s blog subscriptions as an OPML file (You can import OPML into your blog/feed reader)
OPML for Angie Fryer’s blog subscriptions with groups (categories, may not be supported by all feed reader applications)
AnySoldier.com

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Technorati Tags: blogs, milblog, milbloggers

 

 Podcast139: Powerful and Meaningful Connections from Blogging International Students, MilBloggers, and Others (An interview with Angie Fryer) [38:24m]: Play Now | Play in Popup | Download (1305)

I listened to two NPR podcasts driving into work that really framed my thinking for the morning in powerful ways.

The first was an NPR “This I Believe” podcast titled “I believe that my husband will call me tomorrow” by Becky Herz. For people who don’t have loved ones serving overseas in the military, podcasts like this can really add another human dimension to the headlines we most often read and hear about in mainstream media.

This episode originally aired on January 15, 2007. I think it is fantastic NPR makes short recordings like this available and accessible (text-transcriptions of many shows like this one are available online) for free.

Teachers and students studying and discussing events in the Middle East, and specifically in Iraq, should consider listening to short podcasts like this one. Often “This I Believe” episodes provide perspectives you typically don’t find when you just read or watch the news.

The second podcast was also from the “This I Believe” series, and is one I’d heard before. I picked up something new the second time I heard it, however. This one is titled “Doing Things My Own Way” by Bela Fleck, from September 25, 2006. Bela talks about his experiences as a musician and banjo player, and the example his grandfather set for him creatively solving problems and running two businesses without the advantage of a college education. He wrote and said:

I didn’t learn to play bluegrass, classical music or jazz in school. I took banjo lessons from some of the best, but my breakthrough moments came when I left the lesson plans.

That statement resonates with me: “My breakthrough moments came when I left the lesson plans.” In educational contexts, I think our breakthrough moments with students often come from “teachable moments” when we deviate from the scripted lesson plans, and investigate ideas the students are genuinely interested in and have lots of questions about.

One of the most important reasons to continue working toward reforming our educational system is to provide more TIME for learning. Learning is a complex, webby, organic and non-linear process for all of us. Computer technologies should help us genuinely differentiate learning experiences as well as more powerfully assess (on an ongoing basis) the learning, skills, and understandings being developed by the learners in our charge. The fundamental problem with our current factory-based model of learning in most K-12 schools as well as many universities is the non-differentiated nature of the curriculum. Differentiated learning is something all students need and deserve, whether they have an IEP or not, and whether they are attending a free public or expensive private institution.

I love to hear musicians talk about their creative processes for developing new ideas and performing. We need to emphasize creativity more in our schools. Consider giving Bela’s podcast a listen, and then sharing it with your students. The conversations which ensue might be extremely worthwhile. Not everything we need to know is taught in schools, and not everyone who is “successful in life” acquired their skills, dispositions, and attitudes in formal educational settings.

It’s great to be able to learn from people like Becky and Bela.

Technorati Tags: creativity, education, educationreform, iraq, npr, podcasting, school2.0, schoolreform

I listened to the podcast “The Mighty and the Almighty” by Madeleine Albright today in the car, and I found her reflections and responses to questions from the audience insightful and thought provoking. Her view that the decision for the U.S. to go to war in Iraq was a decision of choice rather than necessity struck a chord with me. I was particularly interested to hear her discuss Rwanda and the mistake which the Clinton administration made at that time, to not attempt to do more to stop genocide– and the common ground she sees between US political parties on the issue of genocide now in Darfur and elsewhere. I agree with her view that the US response to 9-11 to attack the Taliban in Afghanistan was warranted, but not the subsequent attack on Iraq which was not linked to Al-Queda or the 9-11 attacks.

This podcast was published on the channel “World Beyond the Headlines” maintained by the Center for International Studies at the University of Chicago. Secretary Albright was interviewed by Susan Thistlethwaite, President of the Chicago Theological Seminary. Many of the issues she addressed related to religion, faith, the role of faith in policymaking, the ongoing US war in Iraq and Afghanistan, and other topics. This was a long presentation (an hour and seventeen minutes, including the Q&A) but well worth a listen.

The part that interested me the most related to President Bush’s public statements that “God is on our side” in the war in Iraq. I was reminded of another podcast I heard this summer on the “Talking History” podcast channel about President Abraham Lincoln, and his thoughts about God during the US Civil War. I agree with Secretary Albright that as a nation, we should be more concerned with being on God’s side than assuring ourselves that He is on ours. The podcast I listened to was titled, “The Best of Talking History: Program #5: Lincoln’s Greatest Speech: The Second Inaugural.” I agree with Secretary Albright that the United States is an exceptional nation, but also that the Iraq war, the incidents at Abu Ghraib, and the ongoing situation at Guantanamo Bay have done significant damage to the moral authority of the United States throughout the world.

I love my country, I support our soldiers, but I regret many of the decisions of our Commander in Chief. It was good to hear the perspectives of Secretary Albright on these and many other issues of vital importance, especially since she has so much experience and insight into these complex topics. What a tremendous role model Secretary Albright is for the young women of our nation, as well as the young men! I do not think the foreign policy record of the Clinton administration was spotless either, and I was not a big fan of President Clinton when he was in office, but I do agree that government officials should admit wrongdoing when it has taken place. To date I don’t think US officials have done that adequately in the case of Abu Ghraib, and certainly not in the ongoing situations at Guantanamo and in Iraq.

Lastly, I agree with Secretary Albright that US government leaders should NOT announce that our nation is at war with Islam. This is a mistake. We are at war against terrorists, but not all Muslims are terrorists. To equate the war on terror with a war on Islam– to give the perception that the United States government is fighting a holy war in the Middle East, is to go down the wrong path which I do not support. I don’t think the crusades during the Middle Ages were defensible under any theory of just war, and I don’t think a 21st century crusade against Muslims is either.

President Bush sent the right message on Tuesday before the U.N. General Assembly. He said:

My country desires peace. Extremists in your midst spread propaganda claiming that the West is engaged in a war against Islam. This propaganda is false and its purpose is to confuse you and justify acts of terror. We respect Islam.

The original podcast I listened to and is linked above was from May 2006. Interestingly, the same article which quoted President Bush also quoted Secretary Albright:

While praising Bush’s freedom refrain, Madeleine Albright, secretary of state under President Clinton, said in an interview that the U.S.-led war in Iraq, not democratic reform, has destabilized the Middle East.

Albright said the Bush administration has not carried out its democratic initiative with uniformity. It denounces autocratic nations that are unfriendly toward the United States, then casts a blind eye to autocratic nations that are allies, she said. She mentioned Kazakhstan, whose leader will be honored at the White House Sept. 29, and Egypt.

The article also noted that President Bush’s tone and rhetoric is considerably changed from the past:

In his speech, Bush spoke directly to the people of Iran, not the government of President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, who did not attend the address. Bush said America respects Islam, the Iranian nation’s rich history and culture and that he looks to a day when the two peoples “can be good friends and close partners in the cause of peace.” That’s very different from 2002 when Bush said Iran was part of an “axis of evil.”

I’m glad to read about this change, and these clarifications that the U.S. is NOT at war against Islam and the Muslim people. Now let’s hope the Bush administration can face up Abu Ghraib and Guantanamo and take steps to correct those blights on the US diplomatic and foreign policy record.

SC Eagle (a US soldier stationed in Germany who lived in NYC on 9-11-2001) has posted a home video to his blog of a video he and his wife took looking outside their NYC apartment building that fateful day. Close up footage, with the quiet voices of regular citizens responding to the most horrific terrorist attack in the history of the United States. No music, no fancy effects, just real video footage and real reflections from 9-11.

What a terrible day that was. Let us hope and pray that as a nation we will work toward reconciliation and peace– and not a state of perpetual war, in the Middle East and elsewhere in the world. There are some who say we (the United States) are at war with Islam and with Muslims. I hope that is not the case. We need to stand together with people around the world against intolerance and violent terrorism– but we do NOT need to conceive of ourselves and our nation as engaged in a holy war against a religion and the people who practice it.

All Muslims are NOT terrorists and all of them did not support or approve of the 9-11 attacks. We must not stereotype an entire group of people based on the actions, however disastrous and deadly, of a limited few. Yes, the United States IS at war in Iraq, but our nation’s leaders chose to invade and occupy Iraq based on very flimsy evidence that Iraq had ties to the 9-11 attackers and WMD. I stand behind our soldiers and our military– I “support our troops” and their families, but I am convinced that President Bush made the decision to go to war after 9-11 irrespective of the facts that were present, and has doomed our nation and the men and women who serve it in uniform to an extremely protracted and costly conflict that was not justified on a prima facia basis given the facts at the time.

After speaking at length several years ago with US military members activated following 9-11, it become clear to me that an immediate US military build-up in the Gulf area started right away following these attacks. The political declaration of war was just a formality that came later. (Unfortunately, this is not the way the US Constitution mandates that our nation go to war.)

I was scared on 9-11. I was confused and bewildered. We had been attacked, and of course I was angry that someone would do this on US soil. The majority of the attackers on 9-11 were from Saudi Arabia, from what I understand, and they were primarily upset that the US continued to station troops in Saudi Arabia. One of their objectives was to get US forces out of Saudi. In that goal they succeeded. From what I know, the US military is out of Saudi. Now we are in Iraq, and all signs point to an extremely prolonged stay. There is no such a thing as “a short land war in Asia.” If we are to stay the course in Iraq, as I think we should do now that we have committed so many lives and resources to this cause– it is going to take significant political will as well as money and blood.

I support our nation, I support our troops, but I am angry at our President for misleading our nation in taking us to war in the Middle East. The Iraqi people, and even the Iraqi government, was not responsible for or behind the 9-11 attacks. They were not behind Al-Queda. And all Muslims are not enemies. I read Global Voices fairly often and I have known several Muslims from the Middle East in my short life, and I know all Muslims are not terrorists. I am a Christian, and I am not engaged in a holy war with Islam. Videos like this one of 9-11 ARE emotionally powerful and cause us to remember– but they should also give us pause to THINK and consider what course of action is both prudent and justified given historical facts as well as current commitments.

I do pray for our soldiers serving and fighting in both Iraq and Afghanistan, and for their families left behind here in the United States and in other parts of the globe. I pray for the Iraqi and Afghani people. I pray for the causes of human rights and self-determination in these nations– because these are not just “American ideas.” These are universal ideas, rights and values. Saddam Hussein WAS and IS a bad guy. I’m glad he’s no longer running Iraq. But I don’t think the 9-11 attacks provided just cause for us to invade his country and unseat him from power.

If I had been the US President on 9-11 and afterwards, I am sure I would have also struggled to know how to respond and how to lead. I do not think I would have pursued a course of military action that was not supported by the intelligence and best analysis of our military servicemen and women and other government officials, however. I could probably write more on this subject, but I will stop there. These images and what we know now about 9-11 and the aftermath give much food for thought, and subjects for prayer.

This headline from this evening breaks my heart:

Gunmen roaming a Baghdad neighborhood on Sunday killed at least 42 unarmed Iraqis as soon as they identified them as Sunnis, emergency police said. Ala’a Makki, a spokesman for the Iraqi Islamic Party — Iraq’s main Sunni political movement — said the victims included women and children.

This is not, apparently, a killing spree perpetuated by an organized governmental or non-governmental group, but I wonder if qualifies as attempted ethnic cleansing? This reminds me of the Rwandan genocide. In both cases, people were and are being killed because of their group identity. The article continues:

In the Hay al Jihad rampage, gunmen — mostly “young reckless teenagers” — started to pick up Sunni youth and execute them in public, while others went door-to-door looking for Sunni families who stayed behind, Makki said. After warning one Iraqi woman she had 10 seconds to leave, the gunmen killed her and her children, Makki said.

My prayers go out to the families of those killed in these senseless attacks, the other Iraqis living in fear in such a climate, and the military servicemen and women serving Iraq, the US and other nations to preserve peace and promote respect for the rule of law amidst such chaos.

Milblogger Jason has posted haunting images of the Holocaust and reflected about his role in the US military serving in Iraq. I really don’t think it is possible for people who did not experience the Holocaust to adequately comprehend the magnitude of the suffering and evil which was endured and perpetuated during those years. Tragically, genocides continue. Despite our likely inability to understand fully, we must try to understand. We must struggle to understand. Not only for the dead, but also and even more importantly for the living.

We must continually strive to oppose and fight evil in whatever sphere we find ourselves, whether we are armed with a sword, a gun, or a laptop. We must never forget, and we must struggle to help others “reject the hate,” as Dachau survivor Eva Hance insists.