Jul/09©Chris Farley
Relaunch
A sunset from Captiva, Florida; used here so I could have a nice image for this post
Now that it’s the summer, I obviously have quite a bit more free time to spend on View from a Farley. I had initially intended to do a grand relaunch with a great new design by Juxtaprose. They recently designed CommonCraft’s new website and I was duly impressed. I definitely intend to get a custom theme soon, but I realized that it would be unwise to spend so much on a theme right now. I intend to go back to Juxtaprose when I do decide to get View from a Farley redesined; they are remarkably professional and did everything they could to fit my needs.
As a temporary long-term measure, I’ve put up a new theme which is very nice, but not custom.
Over the next days, I will be adding posts that I’ve stockpiled. I should have some good material for a while. If you’re looking for some immediate reading, check out the newly updated about page.
Mar/09©Chris Farley
Signs of Life
This is my first post in quite some time, but it’s not content. That will come later this evening or tomorrow. This is, however, my notice to all readers that the blog is still alive. I’ve changed the theme (I grew slowly less fond of the old one) and I’m in the process of “moving in” to the new theme. There are several things I’m working on related to that, but send me an email if you notice anything.
So why the long absences? Sure, I’ve been busy, but that’s not why I haven’t been posting. It’s not that I haven’t had any time. But somehow there’s a limit to how much I can write in a day, how much new material I can create. School is very demanding of my creative abilities, so my creativity has usually dried up by the evening. I’m on spring break now, so we’ll see how things go.
Jan/09©Chris Farley
Questions
What does it say about a country when a fairly elected senator is told that he won’t be seated, but a senator appointed by a likely felon is?
What does it say about the power of religion over reason when people put bumper stickers that say, “Wherever I stand, I stand with Israel” on their car? Are people so blind to the reality that nothing is black and white?
Does the fact that a president is much freer to make good, if not politically popular decisions when he doesn’t have to be reelected mean we should reevaluate our electoral system?
Is it possible to defend freedom and liberty by taking it away? How far down that path can one go before there’s no freedom or liberty left to defend? Once one freedom or liberty is taken away and is in some way philosophically justified, is there anything to prevent any remaining freedoms or liberties from being taken away?
What does it say about society when MTV feels the way to save itself is to add 16 new reality shows to its lineup? If they go bankrupt, should the CEO fall through a trapdoor in the platform, have to live on an island for a few months, or be made to eat a live scorpion?
If all information is meant to be free (as some proponents of repealing copyright legislation argue), then what incentive will publishers and creators of everything from web content to music to books to movies have to continue creating new things? Wouldn’t there be much less quality information?
If new media is the future, why is old media still the gold standard, even for bloggers?
If the war on terror and Islamic extremism is so important, why are we only partially engaged? Are we just prolonging an end? Don’t we have to decide if we’re completely committed or just dangling our feet in the water? Is the only way to end this either to leave or take control of every country harboring Islamic extremists?
Would it be a good idea to return the electoral college to its intended use and have individual voters vote for a trusted individual to vote on their behalf, instead of voters voting for electors who they know will vote for a certain candidate? The average voter isn’t well informed, so doesn’t it make sense to distance them?
Why do we ignore Saudi Arabia’s human rights violations, but Bush Administration officials are quick to point out that part of the reason for invading Iraq was their human rights violations?
How can someone have a 69.4% job approval rating before they’ve actually taken the job?
Just a few questions. I’m sure there’ll be more. Let me know what you think in the comments.
Jan/09©Chris Farley
Pre-Macworld Thoughts
Since the iPhone was announced at the historic Jobs keynote in 2007, the Apple community has swelled to several times its previous size. We now expect a great deal from an Apple keynote: a new product release isn’t good enough – we expect to be amazed. And it just isn’t a quintessential keynote with Steve Jobs and his “one more thing.” I think it has been for those reasons that the past few keynotes have lacked the magic that they once had.
This keynote (for me, at least) promises to be better than any keynote for a while. The Apple community doesn’t have high expectations. We have a vague idea of what’s going to happen and we’re mostly saddened that this will be the last Apple Macworld keynote, but that’s very liberating. It’s no fun to have your expectations raised so high than anything short of a miracle is simply unacceptable.
So this year, I’m looking forward to Macworld. With no presumptions of amazing, shiny new products, I can just enjoy the show. Sure, I’ll miss Steve, but I’m excited about Macworld because it’ll be purely fun. And maybe Apple will surprise as all; you never know.
Jan/09©Chris Farley
The Ideal School
Whenever I think about how to solve the world’s problems (as I do frequently, with limited success), I realize that education is the most important tools to combat a plethora of issues. On a national scale, proper education would have, I believe, prevented the sub-prime mortgage crisis. Part of the blame for the crisis falls to consumers who accepted loans they shouldn’t have and lived beyond their means because they didn’t understand basic economics. Voters’ susceptibility to the various misinformation campaigns in the recent election (particularly those perpetrated against then-Senator Obama) underline how better education might focus voters better on real issues.
Then I thought more specifically about schools. My school does many things right, but like most students, I’m constantly thinking of ways things could be better. I eventually want to be a venture capitalist and, assuming I’m wildly successful (which is admittedly a lot to hope), I figure that I want to donate money to education.
So what would be in my ideal school? It would be an independent school (public education, at least at the moment, is fraught with complications) and the facilities would be state-of-the-art. Schools with amazing facilities, however, are not unique.
The standards for both students and teachers would have to be stringent, but at the same time I believe that teacher salaries should be very high. The culture of standardized testing in public education has reduced teachers there to babysitters instead of trained professionals. The ideal school would pay teachers like pros because they are pros. All contracts would be year-to-year. In the time I was in public school, I saw far too many teachers who worked hard until they got tenure. Job security should be tied to job performance.
Students should also have tough academic requirements. Schools are responsible for creating well-rounded people, but academics should always be the primary focus. In addition to disciplinary measures, the school should expel students for failing to meet academic standards. Students shouldn’t live under the constant threat of being expelled, but there are a few students in my grade who clearly do not live up to basic standards of academics. In the ideal school, they would be given the chance to improve and, if they didn’t, they’d be expelled.
Of course, it should be difficult to get in to the school to begin with. Ideally, an entrance exam would not only cover the subjects that you need to study for, it would include problems that require reasoning. It’s more important that people know how to think than it is that they remember things, particularly in a time when information is so easily obtained. Oxford and Cambridge do this really well. Admissions should also be blind – students shouldn’t be admitted because they’re likely high donors.
As far as the curriculum goes, ethical and moral reasoning should be featured prominently. Independent schools attract wealthy families and produce the next generation of important people. It’s important that ethics is introduced very early on. There’s a class at Harvard called “Justice” that would ideally be the model for the Upper School ethics curriculum. I also believe that writing should be a big part of the curriculum. My school’s most glaring curricular failing is not having a good writing program. We simply do not do enough writing and we don’t do enough long writing. Students should have to write papers of considerable length frequently. The result of the lax writing program has been students viewing writing as traumatic and poor writing quality.
Those are the few building blocks of an ideal school that I was able to brainstorm in a few minutes. My observations and conclusions are based on my time in both public and independent schools. My ideal school is based on my current school which is as close to ideal as possible. That said, there are always improvements to be made.
Happy 2009 everyone,
CF
Nov/08©Chris Farley
Election Post-Mortem
I went to bed around 1 AM on Election Night (well, the morning after Election Night if you want to be precise). I probably could have gone to bed after the networks called Ohio and, if I had listened to pollsters, I could have gone to bed long before that. I’m more excited for President-Elect Obama’s term to start than I have been about any other president’s term starting. (That’s not saying much, though. I was born during the Clinton years and the first election I remember was Bush’s first term). A lot has been written about how historical this election has been and how amazing his term will be, so I doubt I can top the experts, but this is my take on this election, devoid of hyperbole.
Going into election night, I was cautiously optimistic. During election night, I was overjoyed. And now I’m back to cautiously optimistic. A lot hinges on this next term – Supreme court justices, tax policy, the war in Iraq, and economic policy. The promises made in a campaign are never promises to enact legislation; they’re promises to try. By the time the promises get on paper, they become subject to political realities. That’s why it’s not enough for a candidate to win the presidency. They have to win decisively or they’re dead in the water.
The President-Elect has won decisively but I’m still worried. Yes, this win is historic. I still wake up every morning and I’m proud of the progress we’ve made. But we’ve only made the first step. The Republicans are in minority, but that doesn’t mean they’ll be a quiet minority. No, the ones who are left are the most conservative wackos of their party and they will give the President-Elect no end of trouble.
In other words, we have a couple weeks of happiness and marveling in the amazing step the country has taken. But then, as Jed Bartlett would say, “Break’s over.”
Nov/08©Chris Farley
Election Night
Hello everyone. Yeah, yeah, I haven’t written lately. I’m working on that. Indeed, it will probably be easier to write after the election.
If you want good election coverage, I suggest NBC if you must watch one of the news networks (CNN would be alright if Wolf Blitzer could speak in a complete, fluid sentence). For great online coverage, check out pollster.com and fivethirtyeight.com, as well as the websites for the major news networks. Pollster.com is great because they will show the calls of all the major networks and the AP as they happen.
Have a great election night!
Oct/08©Chris Farley
Gwen Ifill and the Debate
The Vice Presidential debate is tonight and the Republicans are already looking for a way to cover in case Palin doesn’t deliver. The moderator is a woman so they won’t be able to whine about the sexist coverage in the media and the moderator is a fair, unbiased journalist – a characteristic which drives Republicans crazy…with annoyance.
They’ll probably try to whine about the “gotcha” questions. They have a problem though. Not every question for which the candidate does not have an adequate answer is a “gotcha” question. And not having good answers doesn’t endear the candidate to anyone with a middle school education.
So now they’re fixated on the moderator, Gwen Ifill. I’ve written before about how I’m a big fan of The News Hour with Jim Lehrer, for which Ifill is a correspondent. PBS is about as fair as they come and I’ve always appreciated their philosophy, characterized by this Jim Lehrer quote: ”..I am not in the entertainment business.” But the McCain campaign has fixated on a book that Ifill is writing called The Breakthrough: Politics and Race in the Age of Obama.
First of all, no one has actually read the book, so it’s not fair to jump to conclusions based on manufactured information. All we have is an Amazon.com book summary:
“In The Breakthrough, veteran journalist Gwen Ifill surveys the American political landscape, shedding new light on the impact of Barack Obama’s stunning presidential campaign and introducing the emerging young African American politicians forging a bold new path to political power.
Ifill argues that the Black political structure formed during the Civil Rights movement is giving way to a generation of men and women who are the direct beneficiaries of the struggles of the 1960s. She offers incisive, detailed profiles of such prominent leaders as Newark Mayor Cory Booker, Massachusetts Governor Deval Patrick, and U.S. Congressman Artur Davis of Alabama, and also covers up-and-coming figures from across the nation. Drawing on interviews with power brokers like Senator Obama, former Secretary of State Colin Powell, Vernon Jordan, the Reverend Jesse Jackson, and many others, as well as her own razor-sharp observations and analysis of such issues as generational conflict and the “black enough” conundrum, Ifill shows why this is a pivotal moment in American history.”
So the book is obviously not just about Obama, nor is Obama really the subject of the book. Ifill is trying to make a broader point about African Americans in politics. Obama is the clearest example of that, so it makes sense that Ifill would include him. He has defined this era for African Americans in politics.
But Orin Hatch seems to turn what I’m sure will be a scholarly exploration of African Americans in politics into an Obama bias. He wrote:
“Watch out.
“Sarah Palin is being set up.
“The moderator of tonight’s debate is in the tank for Obama — this liberal PBS reporter is releasing a pro-Obama book . . . to debut on inauguration day.”
The Republicans are looking for some way to bail themselves out of a potential disaster. And Orin Hatch is brilliantly demonstrating the abandonment of integrity for party politics. PBS is not liberal and there is no evidence that the book is pro-Obama. The only people being set up are the American people and they’re not being set up by Gwen Ifill or even Barack Obama. They’re being set up by John McCain, Sarah Palin, and the Republican party.
Sep/08©Chris Farley
Writing a Television Show
Hey, everyone. Remember me? Yeah, the person that’s supposed to write. So, I’m back. There may or may not have been what could be characterized but will not be formally named as time management issues/constraints (Dana Perino wrote that line), but I am now re-incarnated, ready to take on (i.e. write about) the world, including, but not limited to: economic crises, the election, certain comedy shows, and all the other stuff that I manage to cram in. (By the way, this is a very short post by any standards. I’ll make up for the extreme shortness within the next week).
Aaron Sorkin is my favorite writer, as I’ve previously stated, but up until now I’ve never wanted his job. I’ve always appreciated his amazingly fast-paced dialogue and wit, worshipped shows like The West Wing and Studio 60 on the Sunset Strip, and I’m looking forward to seeing the results of his recent forays into feature films.
I, on the other hand, have never written anything longer than nine or ten pages. But I’m intrigued about the idea of writing a television show. I’m just slightly unsure how to proceed. So here’s my question to the masses: How do you write a television script? What do you do?
Obviously, you need a concept, which I already have, but I’d like to know what format or style is required for scripts. I’m not intending to shop this when I’m done, but I’d like it to be done right.
Sep/08©Chris Farley
Should Schools Regulate What Happens Outside Their Walls?
So here I am, sitting at my desk on Labor Day. Two days before the official start of school. At my feet, I have textbooks, stacked by subject, in mint condition. On my desk, I have piles of pens and pencils. To my right, I have my required summer work. On my laptop, I have IM windows open to ask questions of people and to allow them to ask questions of me. (I’m still trying to solve the mystery of two pieces of paper that no one seems to have, despite the fact that they were referenced in a cover letter for the same mailing in which they supposedly arrived).
I finally decide to do something productive. For the third or fourth time, I open the student-parent handbook and start reading. I figure that, as class Vice President, I should be familiar with the rules and guidelines. I stop on page 29, at a note about how my school is a smoke free campus. The passage, in part, reads, “Smoking is prohibited in the buildings, on the grounds, or in the immediate vicinty of the school, including downtown [redacted].”
And then I had an idea for a blog post. The passage prohibits smoking in school buildings and on the grounds. Fine. In fact, I’m glad for the rule. But I wondered about the school’s prohibition on “[s]moking..in the immediate vicinity of the school, including downtown [redacted].” The smoking issue is just the beginning, however. What about other issues? Should schools have the ability to regulate what students do out of school? Should they have the ability to punish a student for behaving badly in public?
My legal advisers tell me that this issue is still somewhat up in the air. For private schools, of course, the issue is simple. A private school can expel any student, at any time, and for any non-discriminatory and otherwise legal reason. Public schools get a bit more complicated.
Instead of focusing on what schools can do (which is largely up in the air), I’m going to focus on what schools should do. Private schools should always maintain their ability to expel students at will (or within the systems that they’ve set up internally). When students opt into private school, they accept that the rules are different. If students don’t like the rules in a private school, they can opt out. It becomes a simple contractual relationship. At the same time, private schools should internally protect a student’s right to freedom of expression.
In public schools, activities outside school should never be punished at school. It’s simply not their jurisdiction. If it’s something illegal, the Police can take care of it. If it’s something just generally undesireable, it’s a parental issue. The school, of course, would say that if a student is reflecting badly on the school, then they should be able to punish that student. Or perhaps that once the student re-enters their jurisdiction, they can punish the student. That’s absolutely ridiculous because it would be the equivalent of the NYPD claiming jurisdiction over a crime that happened in Los Angeles, simply because the criminal traveled to New York.
When the legalities finally shake out, I anticipate that private schools will be left alone and public school students will, once again, have their first amendment rights curtailed (not that they have many rights left right now).
For now, I’m going to look over all the mailings from school. Again.