I noticed in the NYT this morning this interesting headline: “Illustrator Maira Kalman observes, as Tocqueville did, the essence of democracy.” Wow. What a treat. Kalman evidently has recently visited a New England town hall meeting and the visit inspired this work. It is sort of a long poem — illustrated them with great drawings. I think she has some good insight into the essence of democracy.

I found a TED video of a Kalman presentation. She seems an endearing person. In the presentation she discusses a lot of her illustrations and explains some of her inspiration. (I embedded the video below.)

I checked the NYT for previous Kalman presentations, and found one that she completed in honor of Barack Obama’s inauguration. It is called, “Hallelujah” And in its first frame is a wonderfully drawn angel. I think Kalman is quite a poet. Her narration goes:
The angels are singing on this glorious day. And we mortals driving down to Washington, passing white mountains and black mountains of unidentified industrial stuff, listen to Lorraine Hunt Lieberson sing words from a Bach cantata, “Now is the time of grace.” The heart is racing and all I can say is Hallelujah

Interesting interview with Eugene Jarecki on The Real News web-site. Jarecki talks about ideas in his book, “The American Way Of War,” and, his book, “Why We Fight.”

Jarecki expresses a lot of admiration for Dwight Eisenhower’s warning of the military industrial complex and says that President Obama should heed Eisenhower’s example and advice. He feels that a military point of view actually diminishes military aggression. Jarecki notes that, at the time of Eisenhower’s famous speech, it was Democrats who were pushing for more military spending and were accusing Eisenhower of allowing the military to become weak, of allowing a missile gap, etc.

Jarecki speaks of the trillion dollar military as being part of a “rapacious predatory power — undermining the very soul of our democracy.” He says this monster spending machine is under better control in other democracies but that in the U.S. the military industrial complex uses effective “political engineering,” to get its way. He points out that the B2 Bomber has production in every state, so many congressman have politically benefited from money spent on the B2. He says that many projects are organized, not for efficiency, but to exert the greatest political influence. Jarecki also says that our campaign financing laws empower the military industrial complex to be effective in their “political engineering.”

The F-22 fighter jet, according to Jarecki, has already cost over $70 billion that that it is “a case study of defense procurement.” He says it illustrates a “great shortcoming of democracy,” that time and again we choose that which is “most profitable for the few at the expense of the many.”

The interviews are worth the time to listen to. They include a plea from Real News to commit to help fund their efforts to create an independent news source.

Interview with Eugence Jarecki: Part One

Interview with Eugence Jarecki: Part Two

Interesting post on the Madrigal Maniac site this morning, “Witness Called by the Defense Hurts Freshwater’s Case,” responds to the latest news about the dismissal hearing for a Mt Vernon teacher, John Freshwater. Freshwater is a ninth grade science teacher who, according to the board, insisted on teaching creationism.

The Madrigal Maniac site has two previous articles about this ongoing case, the first posted October 31, 2008 and the other January 5, 2009. On today’s post Mardigal Maniac analyzes the report given in The Columbus Dispatch, “Ex-superintendent: Science teacher should have avoided religion”

Jeff Maley, the retired superintendent, was called by Freshwater’s defense. Maley testified that Freshwater was an effective teacher. But Maley added this: “I believe that John, Mr. Freshwater, has a strong difficulty resolving his philosophical difficulties with the scientific community. I respect that struggle, by the way. He is very fervent about the issue of evolution being incorrect.”

This is an interesting way to frame the question — it’s all about philosophy — Mr. Freshwater, a science teacher, had “philosophical difficulties with the scientific community.” Wow.

Maley’s testimony is amazing. This educational leader appears sympathetic to the fact that a science teacher would fervently deny a major tenet of science. The retired school superintendent seemed to want to show some solidarity with Freshwater by saying, “I respect that struggle.”

Freshwater is only one of many public school science teachers who teach their own views of creation. I was surprised to see a report that research indicates one in eight science teachers, when surveyed, admit to teaching creationism, or intelligent design, as a “valid, scientific alternative to Darwinian explanations for the origin of species.” Amazingly this report also shows that 16% of science teachers who responded to the poll have a personal belief that humans were created by God within the last 10,000 years.

These results come from a polling effort in 2007. The researchers polled a random sample of nearly 2,000 high-school science teachers across the U.S. in 2007 — and 939 teachers responded.

Freshwater got in trouble for more than teaching creationism. He is also accused of burning crosses into the arms of a couple of students. Freshwater claims his marks were not crosses, but X’s. One set of parents are suing Freshwater because of injury to their child.

It looks like the school board will prevail. But, firing Mr. Freshwater has been expensive. In January, the report was that the board had spent over $200,000, so I’m sure the tab will end up much more.