June 2008
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Today, June 30, marks the centennial of the Tunguska event, the only instance in recorded history of a very large object striking the Earth. By sheer good luck it struck in a mostly uninhabited region of Siberia, at a spot so remote that it was 19 years before scientists were able to study it firsthand. NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory has a good piece on the event.
The Tunguska object may have been only about 120 feet across, but it laid waste some 800 square miles of forest and registered on seismographs as far away as Britain. Much, much larger objects have struck the Earth in the more remote past. Greg Easterbrook reviews some of that history, or rather prehistory, in the Atlantic by way of exploring current thinking in scientific circles about the prospects for more such events (see Earth impact hazard) in the future. Read it if you’re thinking that you’ve been sleeping too soundly lately.
But, as it happens, there’s good news from out there as well. Mars has water, in the form of ice. On top of that (literally as well as rhetorically), it has soil that seems to be very like Earth’s. This means, quite simply, that humans could live there. Not merely visit; live, as in “Where do you live?” “Me? Oh, I live on Mars.” It would be a little different from living on Earth, to be sure, but it can be done. It ought to be done.
You know what would make for excellent summer reading this year? Ray Bradbury’s The Martian Chronicles, followed by Robert Heinlein’s Red Planet and Isaac Asimov’s The Martian Way. If you just can’t abide science fiction, the latest scoop from the Phoenix lander also comes from JPL. It’s a good idea to keep up with developments there.
As it happens, it was also one hundred years ago that Percival Lowell published Mars as the Abode of Life. What he had in mind was native Martian life. More particularly, he believed that what he called the “canals” on Mars were evidence of intelligent life. Better tools for observing the planet have long since put paid to the notion of irrigation canals on the planet, and there is so far no other evidence of any kind of life, much less any of life of a social, building, civilized sort. But it’s still very early days in Martian exploration.
I’ve been telling my wife for years that if the opportunity to go ever comes my way, I’ll take it. She looks at my gray hair and just smiles. That only adds to my frustration. I’ve been waiting a very long time, and it doesn’t look like it’s going to happen to me. But the first human to set foot on Mars is very possibly alive right now. Whoever you are, bless you for your good fortune.
Written by Robert McHenry on June 30th, 2008 with no comments.
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Politics may make strange bedfellows, but these days, who a politician associates with is treated as an indication of both character and policy. Barack Obama has made it clear that he is running against the policies of “Bush/McCain” and has tried to tie the latter firmly to the former in a number of contexts in hopes that Bush’s unpopularity will rub off on the Republican nominee. This task is simplified, of course, by McCain’s willingness to tie himself to Bush.
More peculiar is McCain’s new strategy. Associated Press reporter Beth Fouhy’s article, discusses all the ways in which the McCain campaign is trying to associate Obama with Jimmy Carter. Apparently, the hope here is that Obama will be tarred by Democratic failures past. Fouhy quotes McCain as saying, “Senator Obama says that I am running for Bush’s third term…It seems to me he’s running for Jimmy Carter’s second.”
As tactics go, this one is puzzling.
For one thing, if McCain is concerned that he is vulnerable on the age question, referencing events that occurred nearly thirty years ago is hardly the way to counter any age-based criticism. Second, as Fouhy points out, the Carter presidency isn’t likely to resonate with young voters, who are more likely to think of Carter as a Nobel winning ex-President who does international relief work than as the man who brought us windfall profits taxes.
But Fouhy does indicate what the Republicans might be thinking: according to former Bush spokesman Ari Fleisher, “Anything connected to Jimmy Carter gives Jewish voters the heebie-jeebies.” This is a key constituency for Democrats, and Obama, who already has problems with Jewish voters—problems that may well matter in the crucial state of Florida—may be hurt by such a parallel. Obama’s actual policies are in that instance less important than the implicit claim that Obama is Carter and thus is somehow bad for Israel.
The difference between these campaign tactics is that McCain has tied himself to Bush; Democrats are right to underline exactly what that might mean (although they should be careful to note both the areas of disagreement between the two as well as where they agree). Obama, on the other hand, has not endorsed Carter’s actions in the Middle East nor has he claimed Carter as a model for his political life. McCain’s tactic is thus somewhat disappointing.
Written by Mary Stuckey on June 30th, 2008 with no comments.
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In case you’ve missed this . . .
Here’s a wonderful tale and animation, from the second season of This American Life on Showtime, about the power of memory, the vividness of stories, and how all can get jumbled in that mystery called marriage. The animation is by famed graphic artist Chris Ware.
Written by admin on June 27th, 2008 with no comments.
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Information, Please! was one of the most popular, and literate, shows on American radio, airing from 1938-1948 and running briefly as a TV show in 1952. Its format was novel: instead of quizzing contestants from the general public, listeners submitted questions to quiz the experts, and if they stumped the panel of resident eggheads, they won money and (for many years) a set of Encyclopaedia Britannica. The program became a cultural icon, spurring Information, Please! quiz books, card games, almanacs, film shorts, and countless editorial cartoons and satires. Anybody who was anybody wanted to appear on the show.
Its master of ceremonies was the warm and witty Clifton Fadiman (right), literary editor of the New Yorker magazine and a longtime member of Britannica’s Board of Editors. His amusing three-member panel of savants routinely included Franklin P. Adams, the popular newspaper columnist, Shakespeare expert, and member of the fashionable Algonquin Round Table of New York writers; John Kieran, the amazing Bronx-accented sportswriter, linguist and Latinist, botanist and bird-lover, and master reciter of Western poetry; and Oscar Levant, pianist, composer, actor, raconteur, and all-around wit. Fadiman and his brain trust would often be joined by a special guest panelist, usually a famous writer, political leader, or Hollywood star. Throughout World War II, the popular show broadcast from cities across the United States, selling millions of dollars of War Bonds in the process.
The program was also hailed for its integrity, as explained in the PBS documentary “The American Experience: The Rise of TV Quiz Shows“:
One of the most popular and intelligent shows was “Information, Please,” which called on the audience to send in questions to stump a panel of experts. The show aired for 14 years, until its finale in 1952, and was noteworthy not only for its success, but for its integrity. At the time, radio programs made their way on air in two ways. They were underwritten by big name sponsors, who were expected to be involved with the show, or they were funded by individual producers, making them self-sufficient. Dan Golenpaul, the producer for “Information, Please,” earned kudos when he fired the Reynolds Tobacco Company, which had run a series of untruthful commercials and also demanded that panelists on the show smoke its cigarettes.
The opportunity to win a set of Encyclopaedia Britannica for stumping the experts was an offer instituted shortly after the program went on the air, and it was an immediate hit with the public. Within weeks of advertising the offer, mail to the radio show skyrocketed from 6,000 letters a week to more than 20,000. Britannica salesmen, however, did encounter one problem: some prospective customers were now delaying their purchase of the encyclopedia because they hoped to win a set by appearing on the show. To combat this, Britannica promised full cash refunds if, within three months, any purchaser of a print set won an Information, Please! prize, and this promise was maintained throughout Britannica’s long affiliation with the program. Exactly 1,366 sets of the encyclopedia were given away to listeners of the show.
The Britannica Blog is proud to highlight one of these broadcasts each Friday. So, “Wake Up!”—as the show’s announcer would say at the start of each broadcast. “It’s Time to Stump the Experts!”
Click here and enjoy the show!
Today’s special guests: Jan Struther, author of Mrs. Miniver, and C.S. Forester (below).
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For thousands of other classic radio broadcasts, visit Ken Varga’s ”Old Time Radio Network Library,” where he offers links to more than 12,000 free shows.
Written by admin on June 27th, 2008 with no comments.
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Brian Dennis, a Marine fighter pilot stationed in Anbar province in Iraq, took immediately to the 60-pound German shepherd–border collie mix he found one day while on patrol. The dog had been stabbed with a screwdriver or an awl and had had his ears cut off, the latter apparently in the belief that doing so would make Nubs, as Dennis dubbed him, more alert.
Dennis had Nubs treated for his injuries and then had to leave him behind when he was reassigned to a base 70 miles away. Nubs set off after Dennis and somehow found him. His tour of duty in Iraq over, Dennis spent $3,500 to send Nubs to Miramar Marine Corps Air Station in California, where the two are now living.
Special Forces Sergeant Major William Gillette happened upon three men beating a German shepherd at a checkpoint on the border of Iraq and Jordan. Brandishing his rifle, he rescued the dog, whom he named Yo-ge. At a cost of thousands of dollars, he took Yo-ge home with him to Clarksville, Tennessee.
Staff Sergeant Jason Cowart found an emaciated puppy under a garbage container at his command post and nursed the dog, which he called Ratchet, back to health. Ratchet sat beside him as he patrolled the streets in a Humvee. When it came time for Cowart to return to Fort Hood, Texas, he wrote to the World Society for the Protection of Animals to ask for help. The Massachusetts-based organization connected him with a Samaritan who paid the costs of shipping Ratchet halfway across the world.
Dogs and soldiers have always forged strong bonds, and the war in Iraq has afforded many opportunities for them to do so. The present conflict, though, has seen unusual efforts on the part of soldiers and civilians to take those dogs back to the United States—efforts that sometimes come up against military regulations. One is the standard rule that military equipment, Ratchet’s ride notwithstanding, may not be used to transport nonmilitary animals. Pets are eligible for transportation, but only when a soldier is being permanently assigned to a new post; posts in Iraq and Afghanistan are considered temporary tours of duty, so pets acquired there are ineligible.
Furthermore, it is against regulations for individual soldiers to keep “mascots,” as they are called. Many commanders overlook that point, reasoning that the boost in morale is reason enough to do so. Others do not, though, and put official obstacles in the way of soldiers determined to take their friends home despite the red tape and high costs. To get around the injunction against mascots, Sergeant Peter Neesley built a doghouse just outside his base in Baghdad to house a stray Labrador mix and her pup, whom he named Mama and Boris. Neesley died, and his family worked with a Utah-based animal rescue group to transport the dogs to their home in Michigan. An executive at a private airline volunteered to ship them home, and local government officials helped maneuver Mama and Boris through the military and civilian bureaucracies.
Bonds form officially too. The U.S. Army, for instance, had 578 dog teams in the field in July 2007 when 20-year-old Corporal Kory D. Wiens was killed by an explosive device along with his dog, Cooper, who had been trained to sniff out weapons caches. The two were buried together in Wiens’s Oregon hometown. The military also maintains “official” dogs whose task it is to simply keep soldiers company as a means of reducing combat-related stress. Said one soldier, Sergeant Brenda Rich, of a dog assigned to her unit, “I felt more relaxed after being able spend some time with her. For a few minutes it was just me and the dog, and nothing in this environment seemed to matter.”
In previous wars, military dogs were usually killed at the end of their working lives. Today, however, many of them return home and are adopted by former handlers, police departments, and, as in a few well-publicized cases, the families of handlers killed in action. Such was the case with Lex, a German shepherd whose trainer, 20-year-old Marine Corporal Dustin Lee, died in a mortar attack in Falluja in 2007. Lex, who had played with and slept alongside Lee throughout their service, was also injured in the attack; the dog at first refused to leave his side and had to be pulled away. Lee’s family lobbied extensively for the Marines to retire Lex before the customary age of 10, and Lex is now living with the Lees at their home in rural Mississippi.
An Iraq-based blogger working in the reconstruction program observes that it often seems that dogs adopt soldiers, not the other way around. “Maybe the dogs just like to be around people. Maybe it is a mutual protection racket. … We are conditioned to support and reward the dogs, just as the dogs are conditioned to guard us. It is primeval. Something in our Pleistocene genes compels the partnership.”
And so it is that the bonds of friendship in war extend across species lines. Yet, even after having successfully skirted the regulations that forbid that friendship, many soldiers simply cannot afford the cost—typically $3,000 to $3,500 per dog—of bringing their partners home. The Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals International reports that at any given time there are a dozen or so dogs awaiting rescue from Iraq and Afghanistan, their passage hindered only by lack of funds. Another organization, Vet Dogs, an offshoot of the Guide Dog Foundation for the Blind, Inc., is active in training service dogs to work with injured veterans; it too is in constant need of funds to support its efforts.
Since it seems that the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan will go on and on, those bonds will continue. And so too will the need for public support for the dogs and soldiers caught up in those conflicts.
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How Can I Help?
This post ran originally on Britannica’s Advocacy for Animals site.
Written by Gregory McNamee on June 26th, 2008 with no comments.
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Barack Obama has done what all candidates do: he has begun the general election with an ad that introduces himself, with what is called a “character ad.” We learn what sort of public figure the candidate is, and through a discussion of this, are also told what sorts of policy actions we can expect from that candidate.
Obama’s ad is an interesting one, for while it purports to be a straightforward biographical ad, it also responds to charges that have been made against him and his political party. He talks about strong families, and values, issues that most Democrats have ceded to Republicans. He places his roots squarely in “the heartland,” claiming Midwestern history and values. And he ends with a brief nod to his love of country.
This is a firm starting point for the campaign to come. He can hope to sidestep the culture war campaign with his allegiance to families and values; he can use his willingness to defend Chicago’s poor as a way to focus on domestic policy; and his patriotism is a platform for foreign policy.
This appears to be an ad that begins a campaign based on character—what communication scholars call ethos, or the public character of a speaker. Through an emphasis on who he is, Obama can also make arguments about what he will do. It’s something to watch out for, as other candidates—Ronald Reagan among them—have used this approach to good effect.
Written by Mary Stuckey on June 26th, 2008 with no comments.
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I finally forced myself to sit down and read the Institute of Education Science’s interim report on Reading First. If you pull it down from the web you’ll see why I had to force myself. It is written in almost incomprehensible language, which may explain why so few reporters seemed to understand that it does not prove, as so many articles have said, that Reading First has had no effect on reading.
Unfortunately, it is being cited as the reason to eliminate funding for Reading First—in fact, according to the June 25 issue of Education Daily, House Appropriations Committee chair Rep. David Obey, D- Wis., said ending the program would not have a significant impact, as an [Education Department] study in May “revealed that the program has not had a marked influence on student reading performance.”
First, I should say that my initial reaction to hearing about the report was relief that the IES, which is part of the U.S. Department of Education, really is an independent research agency that doesn’t just write things that the administration wants. That has been a worry, and the IES can certainly say it didn’t bend to any political pressure with this report. Reading First was a pet project of President George W. Bush, and the report said, point blank, “estimated impacts on student reading comprehension test scores were not statistically significant.” No kowtowing there. That’s the good news that came out of this report.
My second reaction was dismay that all the money, time, and effort put into Reading First seemed not to have had a good effect on kids’ reading. There have been smaller studies, mostly on a state level, that have indicated that Reading First has had a good effect, and I have talked with many teachers and principals who say that Reading First has made a huge difference in their instruction and their students’ achievement. So I thought it was too bad that this national study found no widespread effect.
Reading First, for those of you who haven’t been following this, is a huge funding stream–$1 billion a year—that was put in place by Congress to try to ensure that all children read at or above grade level by third grade. The original idea was that if teachers and schools were to use research-proven instruction and materials, reading difficulties would be prevented and just about all children would learn to read. So Greg Toppo’s story in USA Today saying that the study demonstrated that Reading First “doesn’t have much impact on the reading skills of the young students it’s supposed to help” saddened me.
But then I read the report.
You can get a pretty clear idea of the scope of the problems with the report in Kathleen Kennedy Manzo’s article in June 4 issue of Education Week, but I’ll be blunter: This report proves just about nothing about Reading First.
The first problem with the report is that IES commissioned the study too late to do the research properly. Although the 200 legislation for Reading First directed IES to study Reading First’s effectiveness and allocated $15 million to do so, the independent researchers IES contracted with weren’t given the contract until September, 2003, as the first Reading First Grants were being handed out. As a result of the delay, the researchers couldn’t do research in the obvious way. Instead, they came up with a complex and inadequate research design that didn’t answer the questions asked.
This is what I mean: The purpose of the study was to figure out if Reading First had any effect on teacher behavior and student achievement. The obvious way to do this was to study schools, reading instruction, and student achievement in the schools both before and after receiving Reading First grants, while simultaneously studying demographically similar schools that did not receive Reading First grants. That would have given us a lot of useful information.
But because the study was commissioned too late for that, it couldn’t look at what the Reading First schools were doing before they got the grants. As the report says, “the study does not have data from early award sites from before they began their implementation of Reading First (page 61).”
To make up for this, the researchers compared two groups of schools: those that applied for and received the grants and those that applied and didn’t receive the grants but which were substantially similar in demographics, structure, and so forth. Researchers came up with their “best estimates” of what reading scores would have been without the Reading First grants, and then compared the Reading First schools’ scores to the scores in the similar schools that didn’t have Reading First grants but were in the same districts.
This tells us nothing about the effectiveness of the Reading First instructional approaches, because the researchers did not look at any changes the non-Reading First “control” schools may have made in their reading instruction at the same time. I know from talking with school administrators that many districts that received Reading First grants made changes in their non-Reading First schools that were similar to what Reading First called for–different reading materials and substantially more and better training for teachers. I am going to guess–though this is just a guess–that that would be more true for the schools that applied for Reading First grants than for a random sampling of demographically similar schools. Ohio’s Reading First co-director says in this answer to the IES study that that is exactly what happened: “In our large urban districts,” he says, “the central office was not standing still while RF was being done in their district.”
If this were a medical trial, this would be like comparing two groups of people, both of which had asked for a particular treatment. One group gets the treatment and results are compared to the second, control, group, and the treatment is declared to have no effect. But—and this is the important part—members of the second group are never asked whether they went to the drug store and bought the generic version of the treatment. They could all have been using substantially the same medicine.
A lot of commentary on the Reading First study has used its conclusions to reopen the reading wars, with some people even saying that the study proves that phonics instruction is worthless (Reading First is supposed to ensure that reading instruction addresses the five elements of reading identified by the National Reading Panel: phonemic awareness, phonics, fluency, vocabulary, and comprehension). This study doesn’t even come close to addressing whether phonics instruction is valuable, and it is a shame that some people would try and fit it into that kind of argument.
There is no question that there have been problems with both the Reading First legislation and the way the program has been implemented. But I have talked to too many teachers and principals who say that the training and materials they received as part of their Reading First grants were important and led to real and important gains in student achievement to think that it is useless.
I know my information is anecdotal and thus fragmentary and insufficient, but at this point I’d rather believe what I see in front of my nose than take my information from such a report.
Written by Karin Chenoweth on June 25th, 2008 with no comments.
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I don’t respond to poll questions. Occasionally someone will call on the telephone, introduce him- or herself as associated with some organization I never heard of – and often saying the name of it so quickly that I can’t quite make it out – and then announce that I’m about to be asked questions about something. I invariably say “No, thanks,” and hang up. I don’t give it away, folks.
While pursuing a business degree – do you ever wonder why we are said to “pursue” a degree, as though it were fleeing in terror, or at least at high speed, like the rabbit at a greyhound race? – I took some marketing course in which we learned about polls and surveys. The readings gave us an inside look at how subjects are chosen, how questions are composed, how the process is conducted. What was clear although never spoken aloud was that these techniques are about equally efficacious in finding what people actually think and finding that they think what pollers want or expect them to. It’s all in the wrist.
Today’s newspaper brings a story that underscores just how useless polls can be. The Pew Forum on Religion and Public Life surveyed 35,000 Americans on their religious beliefs. There’s a wealth of information on religious affiliations, strength of certain beliefs, the relationship between religious belief and political posture, and so on. And there are some puzzling results like this: Of those who identified themselves as atheists, 21 percent said that they believe in God or in some universal spirit, and 6 percent believe in a personal God. Of agnostics, 55 percent believe in God, 14 percent in a personal God. How can that be, you may be wondering?
I’m reminded of the man-in-the-street surveys that Steve Allen used to conduct when he was the host of the “Tonight Show” on television. One election year he asked people if they would vote for a presidential candidate if it could be convincingly demonstrated that he had “scruples.” The pollees were unanimous: They most certainly would not.
Poll results can be influenced by the wording of questions, by the tone of voice or facial expression of the interviewer, by myriad factors that do not bear on the actual issues at hand. Notoriously, too, people choose their answers to survey questions under the influence of a welter of sometimes conflicting motives. They tend to answer as they think they are expected to and tend to avoid controversial or unpopular positions. Hence the wide differences between pre-election polls and election results, for example.
There are those who just like to mess with the survey. This might account for some of the believing atheists, jolly folks that they are.
And then there would seem to be those who – it must be said – simply don’t know what the heck they are talking about. “Scruples” sounds as though it might be a rather nasty and contagious disease, after all, one that probably causes pustulant irruptions on the skin. Not what we want to see at the inaugural ball, so why take chances?
Too many surveys seem to take no pains to exclude the “eager to speak out but unfortunately clueless” portion of the population or at least to identify it separately in the results. Consequently, those of us who haven’t yet decided to ignore surveys entirely are left with an unknown and unadmitted degree of uncertainty. Word to the wise.
Written by Robert McHenry on June 25th, 2008 with no comments.
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Science is an important facet of Scotland’s history. Innovations, such as the steam engine and penicillin, and the generation of theories such as empiricism, the acquisition of knowledge through experience, are products of the minds of Scottish scientists. Today, science continues to be of vital importance, in large part because the Scots have found ways to actively incorporate science and technology into their lives while also maintaining a grasp on their traditions and history. The result is the existence in Scotland of a unique harmony between old and new that is reflected in the architecture, the mindset of the people, and the land.
This harmony is especially striking in the tranquil and remarkably beautiful countryside of Scotland. In Aberdeenshire, located in the northeast, there is an ancient landmark, known as the Loanhead of Daviot, which lies not more than a few miles away from a very modern landmark, a wind farm (right). The contrast between old and new is startling, but so too is the similarity in connection and dedication to the land. The Loanhead is a recumbent stone circle erected by druid farmers 4,500 years ago. It was presumably used to anticipate changes in the seasons and to observe cyclical patterns of the moon, as well as other astronomical phenomena, all of which were believed to impact farming. The turbines, on the other hand, were erected several years ago and serve as a source of renewable energy. While both landmarks are significant, their juxtaposition seems to highlight their histories and reasons for existence.
Wildlife in the Ancient Hills
A little ways southwest of Aberdeenshire sits the rugged, northern edge of the highlands. In these lands, the affects of science are subtle but appreciated. Covering the greater part of western, central, and northern Scotland, the highlands are home to mountains, moors, diverse alpine vegetation, and numerous species of animals. Few people live in the highlands, and although modern technology doesn’t permeate far into this daunting and mysterious landscape, modern concepts of nature conservation do.
The highlands are a major source of pride for the Scottish people. Historically, they are the homelands of Scottish martyrs like Rob Roy and the site of countless battles between clans and nations. However, today the highlands are a vital habitat for much of Scotland’s inland wildlife. Due to the establishment of protected areas such as Cairngorms National Park, which extends over 3,800 kilometers, a diverse range of animals native to Scotland are thriving. Red deer, pine martens, and red squirrels and a great many species of birds, including ospreys, ptarmigans, and dotterels, either live in the highlands year round or go there to breed in the late spring and summer.
In addition, climate is a defining feature of the highlands. Over the hills and mountains, the clouds often hover low, and it is frequently rainy, windy, and cool. But the alpine vegetation prospers in this climate. The grasses are hardy but soft and feel like walking on pillows, heather grows in abundance close to the earth, clusters of purple and white flowers brighten the grayness, and bogs of peat populate the moors.
Veneration of Scottish Scientists
In the cities of Scotland there also exists a deep respect for science, as well as for members of science, art, and literary academies. In the yard at Glasgow cathedral and in the Necropolis above it, hundreds of monuments demonstrate an appreciation for the most eminent Glaswegians of the Victorian era, which included a number of physicians and scientists. In Edinburgh, hanging on the walls inside St. Giles cathedral are numerous plaques dedicated to great professors, scientists, and intellectuals who once walked the streets of Auld Reekie. Odes to scientists can be found elsewhere in Edinburgh too. On the side of a building at the western end of North Bridge near Princes Street, a plaque commemorates Sir James Simpson’s mid-19th-century discovery of the anesthetic affects of chloroform.
Today, Scottish researchers continue to advance the frontlines of science. From cloned animals such as Dolly (right) to solar-powered public toilets and bus shelters (most efficient in summer, of course) to government funding of science festivals in remote locations such as Orkney, it is clear that science is important to the people of Scotland. Discovery and innovation have led to a better understanding of the environment, animals, and humans. This, in turn, has produced in the Scots a keen awareness of how their activities impact the world around them.
Written by Kara Rogers on June 25th, 2008 with no comments.
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Blame it on television.
In 1992, then vice president Dan Quayle took the television comedy Murphy Brown to task because its lead, played by Candice Bergen, was to give birth out of wedlock. The show and its sponsors’ apparent endorsement of this transgression, Quayle argued, was proof that the entertainment industry was antifamily—or, at least, against the traditional American family as defined by Ozzie and Harriet, by the Cleavers and the Ricardos.
Quayle was right: television had moved beyond the comfortable, happy, two-parent family, an artifact that, at least to the scriptwriters, seemed to belong to a time past. The new TV household, the world of the Simpsons and Bundys and Connors, was something altogether different from those of the golden age.
Still, by making the prefab world of Happy Days an ideal for the age, Quayle opened himself to the perhaps justifiable charge that he could not sufficiently distinguish televised fiction from lived reality, much as George H. W. Bush seemingly could not comprehend shopping for one’s own groceries. Quayle’s appeal to replace Candice Bergen and her cohort with putatively more wholesome role models did not work: American voters did not endorse his viewpoint in the 1992 election, opting for soap opera instead. (For its part, Murphy Brown continues to air in syndication.)
It being an election year, the issue of family values is in the news again, tucked away amid talk of war and resource scarcity, often in the form of discussions about the rightness or wrongness of same-sex marriage, often couched in religious language. “Today,” writes social historian John Gillis in A World of Their Own Making, “both Democrats and Republicans deploy equally apocalyptic visions of family decline and social disorder. And although most Americans do not believe their own family life to be in immediate danger, they are quick to perceive their neighbors being in total disrepair.”
That perception is an old one, a current that has long flowed through our history. Barack Obama may trace the decline in family values to an uncaring government and economic system, John McCain to the corrupting influence of the welfare state and the Hollywoodization of the culture, but both will talk about them in some form or another. In the case of the latter, the assumption will almost certainly emerge that we once lived in a happy time where the two-parent, constantly together family was paramount, and that we have somehow fallen from this state of grace.
All golden ages are mythic. The one to which presidential candidates advert is no exception, growing from the idealized family of the 1950s, itself an idealized version of the family in the Depression Era, a bulwark of us-against-them struggle in the face of hard times. Those who lived in the 1950s—and in the 1920s and 1930s, though there are fewer of them left every day—will tell you that the reality was far different.
One of the cornerstones of the golden age is the notion of the family made up of partners who were monogamous, with sex contained within marriage. The census records show that, throughout our history, this was not always the case. Premarital pregnancy rates in most American states have never fallen below 10 percent, and sometimes have reached 30 percent, especially in rural areas. Little shame was attached to these out-of-wedlock adventures until recently. “Before the nineteenth century,” Gillis maintains, “no great fuss was made about premarital pregnancy or even illegitimate birth as long as the community was assured that it would not be unduly burdened by the child.” Indeed, childless couples were viewed as being somehow more unnatural than unwed teenage mothers, a view that still obtains in many parts of the world.
Another golden-age cornerstone is the presence of a father quietly prepared for all crises and on hand at every formative moment of his children’s lives. But throughout much of history, American fathers—and mothers—worked such long hours that they saw their children only on Sundays, their one day off. Leisure hours expanded in the 1950s and 1960s, but have since contracted again, and parents, at least those who have jobs, are likely to be absent as well from their children’s lives. Compulsory education was initially meant to be a remedy for this situation, replacing the ever-present parents of family workshop and farm with the authority of the state in loco parentis. Parents were left to carve out “quality time” for their families—as much a concern in Victorian times as now—in the tattered remnants of the week.
The golden age may never have existed, but it exerts a powerful influence on us. Among its manifestations, too, are the self-styled family restaurants that seem to dot every street corner, the soups and microwave-heated dinners marketed as homemade, and even the fact that some Las Vegas casinos are marketed as family destinations.
Times are changing; from 1970 to 2006, the number of American households made up of one person has increased from 13 to 26 percent of the total, while the percentage of children living with a single parent more than doubled. The trend continues. Yet the family itself endures, bending rather than breaking, through mechanisms like shared custody of children and, yes, same-sex marriage.
This is far from the television ideal of old; even the Simpsons live under one roof, while the Ricardos, one foot on the bedroom floor, and their cohort were resolutely heterosexual. It is far from the ideal that many of us, particularly the elders of the tribe, hold in our minds. But to yearn for a golden past that restores a condition in which men are the producers and women the directors of the real-life family drama is misguided. Watch for how that yearning plays out in this election.
Written by Gregory McNamee on June 24th, 2008 with no comments.
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