Category: Viewpoint

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Opinion Viewpoint

An Efficiency Problem

James Madison (Photo: John Vanderlyn | Public domain, via Wikimedia Commons)

On January 20th, President Trump reorganized the United States Digital Service into the Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE) and ordered it to begin “modernizing Federal technology and software to maximize efficiency and productivity.” The task list soon became much larger to include, in the president’s words, “dismantle Government Bureaucracy, slash excess regulations, cut wasteful expenditures, and restructure Federal agencies.” 

DOGE has quickly gone to work, holding up millions of dollars of federal contracts and firing tens of thousands of government employees. Elon Musk, who is somehow involved in the department but not its head, claims the goal is to save up to $2 trillion by radically slashing the federal budget.

Efficiency is a tricky value. It’s hard to be against it. Why wouldn’t you want something to be efficient — meaning, fast, cheap, and accessible? But it’s not always obvious that efficiency is not the only, or the best, standard to have in all important matters. Fast food is efficiently delivered and relatively inexpensive, but no one pretends that it’s nutritious or even really that tasty. I doubt many people would choose a McDonald’s meal for Thanksgiving over a carefully cooked home meal, prepared with love and attention. 

Efficiency is about means-to-end thinking — what’s the cheapest, fastest, easiest way to get from here to goal X. Yet it appears that with DOGE efficiency has become an end in itself now. Efficiency for efficiency’s sake. What goals are we achieving by making government “more efficient”? Musk has floated the idea that the DOGE slashing might result in a savings dividend of $5,000 to eligible households. This sounds exciting to many, but at what expense? What services might no longer be accessible? What kind of government and society do we really want? An efficient one — but to accomplish what kinds of values?

It’s not clear that government efficiency was that high of a concern for the Founding Fathers. They were more concerned that government protect the liberty of its citizens. For that reason, James Madison, the fourth U.S. president, argued that our federal government ought to be organized in a way so as to work in a slow and complicated manner. 

The Founders were worried about groups of people seizing government offices to push their own agendas. So they built a federal republic — a government with multiple independent branches that check each other, splitting the legislative body in two to give public opinion different weight in consideration. All of this was to make government business gradual and deliberative, not necessarily efficient, in order to make sure that individual life, liberty, and property were not unduly infringed upon by the government.

There are some worrying signs about the operations of DOGE. Who exactly is directing it? President Trump has said it is not Musk; he is a “special senior advisor” directly to the president and therefore does not have to be vetted by other branches. The members of DOGE are “special government employees,” meaning they are not subject to ethical rules and conflict of interest regulations like other federal employees. DOGE records are also now classified as presidential records, meaning the public cannot have access to them until after 2034. 

If anything is clear, it seems that any possible “government efficiency” is being balanced against transparency and public oversight. Is getting a one-time check (that may or may not raise inflation, which is rising by itself already) worth a government that blocks insight into how it makes its major decisions about public welfare? 

This kind of power is even more worrisome when there is increasing evidence that these savings are not going to materialize in any significant way. All these developments seem like something that would have raised Madison’s suspicions. 

As he wrote in Federalist Letter 51: “In framing a government which is to be administered by men over men, the great difficulty lies in this: You must first enable the government to control the governed; and in the next place oblige it to control itself.” 

Jose-Antonio Orosco, Ph.D., is the author of several books and a professor at Oregon State University.

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Opinion Viewpoint

Why Did the School Board Fire Feagins?

Dr. Marie Feagins began visiting local schools after she started her tenure as superintendent last April. The school board voted to fire her last month. (photo by Ariel J. Cobbert for Chalkbeat)

I’ve watched every school board meeting since Dr. Marie Feagins was elected superintendent of Memphis-Shelby County Schools a year ago.

I’ve read the board’s resolution that terminated her contract last month, and the special counsel’s 209-page investigation of the board’s allegations against her.

I’ve read Feagins’ written responses to the allegations in her two-page email to board chair Joyce Dorse-Coleman on Jan. 6, and her 14-page “official response” to the board Jan. 14. I’ve read Feagins’ startling allegations against the board in the lawsuit she filed Monday.

I’ve read every relevant document and heard every public statement made by all parties involved in the latest disaster that has befallen our local public school system. And I’ve read news articles, opinion columns, politicians’ comments, and angry social media posts about the sordid mess.

I still don’t get it. I still don’t understand why Feagins was fired after less than a year on the job.

The three examples of “professional misconduct” the board leveled against her might have justified a public reprimand, but not a public execution. At best, as six-year board member Michelle McKissack argued, they reflect  “growing pains” for a superintendent who started working in April and a board with four members elected in August. At worst, well, we don’t know.

In her lawsuit, Feagins claims that an expired $4 million contract with a local nonprofit caused some board members to begin meeting privately last summer in violation of state law to find ways to terminate her contract.

But the special counsel’s Jan. 21 report to the board doesn’t mention that contract at all. The report concluded that Feagins “violated her employment contract no less than eight times and deviated from Board policy on at least nine occasions.”

Six of the nine alleged policy “deviations” pertained to a single board policy — 1013, or the Superintendent Code of Ethics. That three-page policy, approved in 2017, contains 15 “statements of standards” the superintendent must follow, including: “I will endeavor to fulfill my professional responsibilities with honesty and integrity.”

Vague enough for you?

All eight alleged contract violations pertained to a single paragraph in her contract: “Ethical conduct: The superintendent in all aspects of her interactions and transactions related to carrying out her duties of superintendent, agrees to represent, enforce and adhere to the highest ethical standards.”

Whose ethical standards? Which ethical standards?

“I will point out,” McKissack wrote in a Jan. 13 letter to the board, “that Superintendent Feagins is not accused of theft, fraud or any criminal misconduct.”

What she is mostly accused of is making “false and/or misleading” statements to the board about the three allegations of “professional misconduct.” That covers 13 of the 17 alleged violations. The four other “violations” were attributed to Feagins’ failure to provide a document or report to the board in a timely manner.

Feagins said those failures were unintentional and the result of “staff oversights.” The record seems to support her version.

First, the termination resolution claims that Feagins “misled the board” about  “overtime abuse” she brought to the board’s attention last July. “Dr. Feagins never presented any evidence suggesting that her statement was true, and she did not correct or clarify her statement to the public,” the board’s first allegation reads.

But Feagins told the board last July and again this month that she based her comments on “documented fiscal reports” of overtime pay records for 2022, 2023, and 2024.

“I provided at least three years of data to the board,” Feagins said after hearing the charges read aloud at the Dec. 17 special called meeting. There are no records that the board ever asked for or reviewed the data or tried to substantiate Feagins’ claims about overtime abuse.

Second, the termination resolution claims that Feagins accepted and deposited a $45,000 donation to the district from the SchoolSeed Foundation “without Board approval.”

“At a (Nov. 19) Board Work Session, Dr. Feagins misrepresented her knowledge of and involvement in depositing the unapproved donation check in violation of Board Policy,” the board’s second allegation reads.

Feagins said she didn’t learn about the donation until Nov. 8, the result of “a staff oversight, and “promptly submitted the donation to the Board” at its next meeting, Nov. 19. 

The board approved the donation Dec. 3. Two weeks later, they used it to charge her with “professional misconduct.”

The special counsel’s report cites two emails Feagins sent to staff in July that “irrefutably establishes” she knew then about the check. But neither email mentions a $45,000 SchoolSeed check, which records show wasn’t received by the district until Aug. 13.

Third, the termination resolution claims that Feagins “was dishonest with the board and public” about missing a deadline for a $300,000 federal grant to help homeless students.

Feagins acknowledged that her staff failed to meet the Sept. 30 deadline, but said the state subsequently allowed the district to use the funds for various expenses related to helping homeless students.

“We missed the deadline,” she told the board Dec. 17. The board’s allegations and investigation do not say how much — if any — of the $300,000 grant (leftover Covid-relief funds) was used or forfeited.

The special counsel’s report to the board states that Feagins’ comments about the grant were “only accurate to a degree, but not completely.” That could sum up the board’s allegations. Only accurate to a degree, but not completely.

“Clerical errors,” McKissack called them at the Dec. 17 special board meeting. At least five board members at that meeting were clearly determined to fire Feagins. They didn’t explain why Feagins or board members in her corner didn’t see the resolution to fire her until a few minutes before that meeting. They didn’t respond to questions that Feagins or four other board members raised about the specific allegations in the resolution. They did raise a slew of other issues that weren’t in the resolution or the 209-page report.

Board member Sable Otey, elected Aug. 1, blamed Feagins for the suicidal thoughts of an educator in her district, and the firing of a teacher in her district. She also claimed teachers were texting her with complaints about the superintendent. She didn’t present any evidence of her claims, and they weren’t included in the resolution.

Board member Towanna Murphy, elected Aug. 1, blamed Feagins for the injury of a special needs child in her district, and for putting other special needs students at risk. She didn’t present any evidence of her claims, and they weren’t included in the resolution.

Board member Natalie McKinney, elected Aug. 1, accused Feagins of creating “a climate of fear and intimidation” in staff across the district. She didn’t present any evidence of her claims, and they weren’t included in the resolution.

Various board members blamed Feagins for the district’s problems receiving sufficient staff and materials for online learning, dual enrollment, remedial instruction, and student assessment. They didn’t present any evidence that Feagins was to blame, and those complaints weren’t included in the termination resolution.

Board member Amber Huett-Garcia, who also voted not to fire Feagins, said the complaints were “highlighting the woes of a district that is under-resourced [with] generational challenges” that began decades before Feagins arrived.

McKinney pushed back. “Our [board] seats have given us a bird’s-eye view of the working of the district,” McKinney said. “We see things the general public does not see.”

The general public still is not seeing those things. The superintendent works for the board, but the board works for the public. The board owes the public — not to mention Feagins, her staff, teachers and parents, and other public officials — a thorough, clear and compelling explanation for why she was fired.

There was a fourth and final accusation in the termination resolution.

“The board has also become aware of certain patterns of behavior by Dr. Feagins that are not conducive to the effective operation of the District in the best interests of students, including but not limited to her refusal to communicate and/or cooperate with valued District partners.”

That accusation was not included in the 209-page investigation, nor in the list of 17 alleged contract or policy violations. But I suspect it probably comes closest to explaining what went wrong.

Feagins could be prickly, curt, and dismissive, even in public board meetings, in stark contrast to her predecessor Joris Ray who resigned under a cloud in 2022. At board meetings, Ray was unfailingly polite and solicitous, usually thanking board members profusely and formally by title and name for each and every question. His staff members did the same. Ray began meetings by asking his staff to join him in reciting aloud the district’s motto: “Together we must believe. Together we can achieve. Together we are reimagining 901.” 

Feagins didn’t have a motto or lead a cheer. Her responses to board members’ questions were more direct and could include a cold stare or a disdainful “for the record” or “let the record show.”

I suspect that Feagins was fired because a majority of board members didn’t like her, didn’t like how she was managing the district, and were getting complaints from central staff administrators, principals, local nonprofit leaders, and favored local contractors.

They were being told that Feagins was moving too fast and going too far and stepping on too many toes in her efforts to restructure the district to address the loss of Covid funding and to give classroom teachers more support and more authority.

But that’s just speculation. Just about everything you’ve read or heard about why Feagins was fired is speculation.

Feagins has called the allegations against her “meritless and baseless.” Monday, she sued the school board and asked the court to void the board’s 6-3 vote to fire her. In the lawsuit, Feagins claims that Greene, Dorse-Coleman and several other board members violated the state’s open meetings law by meeting secretly beginning in August to plan ways to terminate her contract.

It’s likely the litigation will end with a quiet, off-the-record settlement much like Ray’s agreement to resign in 2022. Which means the public may never know exactly why Feagins was fired.

So now the school board is at odds and searching for its sixth superintendent since the 2013 merger upended the entire system. The county is discussing ways to take over the school budget. The state is threatening to take over the school board.

Meanwhile, public education is under duress.

The governor plans to spend nearly half a billion dollars a year offering private school vouchers to high-income parents. The Trump administration is prioritizing private “school choice” funding. Public schools are preparing for massive safety net cuts and immigration raids, in addition to regular “active shooter drills.”

Meanwhile, schools and teachers continue to try to address the academic, social, and emotional needs of students traumatized by poverty, community violence, school shootings, and the pandemic.

And constant political turmoil.

David Waters, a veteran journalist, has covered public education in Memphis and Tennessee off and on for 30 years. He is associate director of the Institute for Public Service Reporting at the University of Memphis.

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The Pain of Not Knowing

Photo: picture.jacker | Dreamstime.com

At work, the therapist often shares a psychoeducational handout that describes ways to cope with anxiety. The recommended tools of deep breathing and meditation can be helpful, and yet she doubts they are adequate in the present situation. Even classic cognitive restructuring — scaling back worst-case-scenario thinking — seems to her duplicitous. She wants to conjure exercises that banish all anxiety, particularly worries around Trump’s threats of mass deportation. But she isn’t that good. 

Undocumented immigrants living in the United States have been in this spot before, and so has the therapist, who worked in this small office eight years ago, when Trump first set up residence in the White House. She has waited for this fear to resurface as a concern for those who visit the family medicine clinic to treat diabetes or high blood pressure and then stop in to discuss their life stressors. Soon after the 2024 presidential election, a patient brought up Trump’s aggressive threats. “I don’t belong anywhere in this country,” she said sadly. Some patients report difficulty controlling worrying, trouble relaxing, and feeling as if something catastrophic might happen. 

Trained to maintain confidentiality, the therapist nevertheless believed back in 2017 that it was important to move outside the bubble of therapy and raise awareness of the toxic impact Trump’s immigration policies had on mental health. During Trump’s first term, she wrote an article for Memphis Parent magazine introducing Karla’s story. An article reflecting similar concerns could be written today. “Sixteen-year-old Karla plans a special Mother’s Day celebration. The high school junior will serve breakfast in bed to her mom, honoring her mother’s presence in her life. Throughout the day, she’ll try to push aside the anxiety she has experienced the past few months. ‘I try to cherish every moment.’ Inevitably, though, she will read a news report or social media post outlining President Donald Trump’s immigration policies. Karla is a U.S. citizen, and her parents are undocumented immigrants from Mexico. ‘I worry that one day my parents may not come back to my house,’ she said. ‘My 9-year-old sister looks at the news and worries when someone knocks on the door.’” 

When at school, the distracted girls found it difficult to concentrate on academics. In many ways, Karla’s parents were typical — they worked hard, paid taxes, and built strong relationships in the community. The children looked forward to attending college. 

Another source for the article was Mauricio Calvo, the director of Latino Memphis, who said, “Children are hearing the conversation at the dinner table, ‘What happens if I don’t come back today?’ For a community where family is everything, the fear of separation touches us at our core. People fear that any interaction with the government will result in deportation — applying for food stamps for their U.S. citizen families, or going to any court, not just immigration court. Some skip doctors’ appointments, and fear of deportation may prevent crime victims from filing police reports. Even if nothing happens, anxiety makes people sick.”

He noted that at one elementary school, parents from four families approached a teacher, pleading with her to take custody of their children in the event of their deportation. 

That year, local artist Yancy Villa shared her perspective with the Barrier Free installation displayed in pop-ups around the country. In silhouettes portraying a father carrying a child and a caregiver pushing a wheelchair, the artist left void spaces representing missing persons. Her project built on the controversial idea of Trump’s proposed wall along the U.S.-Mexico border. Instead of concrete, the installation consisted of portraits of local families and individuals representing Memphis’ diverse tapestry. “Everyone is an essential part of our community, and separating us, physically, emotionally, or in any other form, makes our community incomplete,” she said.

It is now early 2025 just after the festive holiday season. In some areas of Mexico and the United States, children recently celebrated Epiphany, commonly known as Three Kings Day or El Día de Los Tres Reyes, by leaving out shoes filled with hay for the kings’ camels. It is a happy and joyful time. Weeks later, the 60th presidential inauguration ceremony took place, ushering in a period with many unknowns. It is vital for undocumented immigrants to know their rights, and the Latino Memphis website describes those rights and how to apply them.

The therapist is not fluent in Spanish, the “heart language” of many patients, and relies on medical interpreters to facilitate conversations about the ways of the heart and mind. Still, the pain comes through loud and clear, and Mauricio Calvo’s words from eight years ago return to the therapist. “Even if nothing happens, anxiety makes people sick.” 

Stephanie Painter is a behavioral health consultant and freelance writer.

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Reason for Concern

Photo: Andrew Baum | Dreamstime.com

“We’re not the best situated to address issues like that. … Doesn’t that make a stronger case for us to leave those determinations to the legislative bodies rather than try to determine them for ourselves?” — Chief Justice John Roberts on Tennessee’s transgender care ban, Dec. 4, 2024

So just how worried should a reasonable person be about Donald Trump’s return to power? We’ve entered that awkward stage in post-election reporting where the op-ed journalists who watched the Donald abuse power the last time he held office are writing sensible columns about why everybody should probably calm down since, even with seriously eroded guardrails, nobody could possibly do all the terrible things he says he wants to do, and certainly not as fast as he says he wants to do them. 

Christian leaders agreed to support him in exchange for his promise to appoint an unprecedented number of conservative, pro-life judges: “God’s wrecking ball.”

If you’ve ever wondered how Trump can receive so much earnest support from conservative Christians while appointing a cabinet full of sex pests and incompetents, it’s because they don’t expect him to build God’s kingdom on Earth, they expect him to smash norms and destroy liberal institutions.

Trump had been out of office for almost two years when the Supreme Court did the unthinkable and overturned Roe v. Wade, gutting half-a-century’s worth of settled abortion law. For all the anxiety the decision may have created for swing district Republicans campaigning in the 2022 midterms, this moment still has to be seen as a major victory for the once and future president whose first election turned on a promise to enable such a decision through judicial appointments: promise fulfilled. 

And since modern Christian politics are rooted in the twofold mission of stopping abortion and curtailing LGBTQ rights, it looks like the SCOTUS that Trump made is about to give Evangelicals another reason to celebrate. 

As of this writing, the Supreme Court seems poised to let Tennessee’s bad-faith ban on gender-affirming care for transgender youth stand. U.S. Chief Justice John Roberts feigned helplessness while Brett Kavanaugh wondered if personal choices regarding medical services, important to less than 1.6 percent of all Americans, should be determined by the murderous impulses of the mob … er, majority. 

If oral arguments are any indication of what’s to come, Wednesday, December 4th, was a worrisome day for the trans community, women, and just anybody else who might be counting on the Roberts court to defend settled law. It’s an appropriately chilling prelude to Donald Trump’s return to power since his RNC was chock-full of anti-trans rhetoric, and he spent the closing weeks of his campaign blanketing swing states with ads designed to make undecided voters feel anxious about trans people. 

So, questioning whether or not Trump can fulfill the worst of his threats by fiat is probably beside the point. The mood is tense, and the stage is set for chaos. Even if you aren’t worried about what comes next, it’s probably a good idea to be prepared. 

Chris Davis is a freelance writer and journalist living in Memphis.

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Opinion Viewpoint

Musk’s Department of Government Efficiency

Elon Musk (Photo: Frédéric Legrand | Dreamstime.com)

Elon Musk and Vivek Ramaswamy are partnering to create a new U.S. government agency, the Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE). 

Musk underwrote the Trump campaign with $200 million in donations (AP estimate) and his own brand of buying votes.

Supposedly, the acronym comes from Musk’s favorite cryptocurrency, the Doge. Whatever. When Heather Cox Richardson says the name of the pending Musk/Ramaswamy agency, she pronounces it doggy. She’s authoritative enough for me. 

So yes, Musk paid for his new appointment, which represent a colossal conflict of interest, as that agency reportedly, avowedly, will shut down many regulations that currently govern aspects of Musk’s enormous U.S. government contracts. Getting his new powers involved corruption — a person really isn’t supposed to pay to acquire powers in the U.S. federal government. Can there be a shred of doubt that corruption won’t feature in nullifying EPA regulations on SpaceX, Tesla, and other Musk holdings?

But that is just toxic foreplay. Musk and Ramaswamy tell Forbes they will cut some $2 trillion in U.S. federal spending (sparing all the contracts with Musk-owned corporations, no doubt). What do they intend to defund?

They will get rid of the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau, which tells us, “We protect consumers from unfair, deceptive, or abusive practices and take action against companies that break the law.” Thanks, Elon, for planning to deep-six this one.

Goodbye, Department of Education. Populist demagogues like Trump have railed against such an unwanted department for decades, clearly tired of spending funds on schools that serve marginalized communities 

DOGE will get really vicious with organizations like Planned Parenthood, which averages approximately $50 million a year in federal funding. Reproductive help for women is almost certainly taking that hit.

Musk will make headlines when he and Ramaswamy end the $535 million federal support for public radio and TV. They actually called that “unauthorized spending,” even though Congress authorized it. You may not get public TV — so long, Sesame Street — but you will get a full display of gaslighting. 

The Veterans Administration healthcare funding is targeted by Musk — interesting, a white South African deciding the U.S. military veterans should stop getting healthcare.

The World Bank and the International Monetary Fund imposed “austerity” measures on some poor countries that were not managing to repay loans and the impacts were severe, with poverty increased and government services decreased, even eliminated. The targeted countries — such as Greece, Kenya, and many more — reacted with cries of extreme pain and many of those harmful punishing policies were curtailed. 

Musk says his DOGE will inflict hardship. Many Americans will lose their jobs, both inside the government and outside. The government contracts with many companies and when DOGE decides those contracts are not going to be honored, the losses will be severe in some quarters. Add to that the rising consumer prices that are widely predicted from Trump’s tariffs on Canada, Mexico, and China (and possibly everyone else), and the American lifestyle may be in for the biggest shock since 1929.

When Trump was desperately seeking votes from retirees and those who love them, he promised not to cut Social Security, and even added that he would stop the practice of the IRS taxing Social Security. We will see if Musk lets him keep that promise. 

It is astonishing that, in a roaring Biden-Harris economy that is benefiting literally every class of Americans, Trump garnered more votes than Harris and will throw wrenches into many of the gears of that economy, if Musk succeeds. 

Dr. Tom H. Hastings is coordinator of conflict resolution BA/BS degree programs and certificates at Portland State University. His views, however, are not those of any institution.

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Pressing Questions

I prove I’m a human all the time. (Photos: Dreamstime.com)

Thanks to a single post on TikTok, a question rocketed through social media and emerged into real-world conversations. Since the spirit of inquiry is in the Memphis Flyer’s DNA, we set out to explore the “man-bear quandary” and find a definitive answer. Our investigation spawned many other pressing questions. The following conversation took place entirely within the writer’s head.

Let’s say you’re walking alone in the woods. Which would you rather meet: a man or a bear?

I don’t know. Can you give me more details?

No. Man or bear?

I choose bear.

Let’s say you’re walking alone in the woods. Would you rather meet a woman or a bear?

Is the bear male or female?

It doesn’t matter. It’s a bear.

It does matter! Is it a mama bear defending her cubs? Or is it a male bear with a belly full of salmon he just pulled from the rushing stream at the bottom of the hill?

I don’t know! It’s a non-bear-nary bear! Woman or bear, that’s the choice.

Bear.

If your sister or mother or daughter were walking alone in the woods, would you rather she encounter a bear or a man?

I’m gonna go with bear again.

You’re doing this all wrong.

That wasn’t a question. How are my answers wrong?

I’m trying to make a point about misogyny and sexual assault. Men are supposed to choose the man because bears are dangerous. Women are supposed to choose the bear because it’s not as dangerous to them as a man. About 20 percent of women will experience sexual assault in their lifetimes. Don’t you think that’s bad?

Of course sexual assault is bad! Listen, if you really want to make a dent in the Memphis crime rate, get to work fixing the TBI crime lab. I’m just not sure questioning what a man, a bear, or the pope does in the woods is the best way to make your point.

Don’t bring religion into this. It’s a social-media gotcha question. Your response says a lot about you. Can you think of a better way to determine moral worth?

No, I guess not.

Right. So, why do you keep choosing the bear?

If all I know is gender, I’m going to have to assume the worst. People have all kinds of agendas. But bears only have bear agendas. They’re not out to get you. They’re just doing their bear stuff. Stay out of their way and leave them to it. Bears can be dangerous, sure, but at least you know where you stand with a bear. If the choice is Jane the friendly forest ranger or a bear, I’ll choose the forest ranger. If it’s Tweakin’ Joe defending his secret meth lab, I’ll take the bear. Plus, bears don’t have guns.

Aha! You just chose the woman over the bear!

No, I’m choosing the park ranger. Women do meth, too. It’s all in the details. Is this like the Voight-Kampff test from the movie Blade Runner, where they try to determine if you’re a replicant by asking you weird empathy questions?

You’re walking in the desert, and you see a tortoise on its back, baking in the sun. Why aren’t you turning the tortoise over?

Of course I’m going to turn the tortoise over! I’m not a robot.

How do I know you’re not a robot? How do YOU know?

I prove I’m a human on the internet all the time.

Please choose all the images which contain a bear.

Exactly! Like an AI doesn’t know what a bear looks like.

Has the AI ever seen a bear?

AIs don’t “see” anything. It’s just making educated guesses about what comes next. AI is just spicy autocorrect.

Doesn’t “making educated guesses about what comes next” also describe human thought processes?

This is getting ridiculous. You can’t measure my humanity by asking about my reaction to animal encounters. The man-bear quandary is just another “Would You Rather?” question designed to stir up meaningless debate on the internet. Good for procrastinating when you should be writing, but that’s it. Would you rather fight one man-sized chicken or five chicken-sized men?

Obviously, the man-sized chicken.

You obviously don’t play Dungeons & Dragons. A man-sized chicken is called a “dinosaur.” They get two claw-attacks and one bite-attack per round. Smoosh a couple of the tiny men, and the rest will have to pass a morale check or retreat.

Would you rather duel Aaron Burr with pistols at 10 paces, or fight Abraham Lincoln in a pit with a broadsword?

Hmm …

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Opinion Viewpoint

The Power of Opportunity

Sarinya Pinngam | Dreamstime.com

The last week of January is National School Choice Week, a week dedicated to advocating for policies that promote education freedom for families, allowing parents to choose the education best suited for their children. However, the spotlight on support for school choice should extend beyond one week, especially being that it is one of the few nonpartisan issues that is popular throughout the country — and not just with Republican primary voters, but also among 71 percent of all voters, across all demographics and the general electorate. 

Tennessee is one of 13 states with an education savings account program, which allows lower-income families to receive approximately $7,000 per year in private school tuition assistance. Growing up in a zip code where poverty ran rampant, I was able to qualify for an education savings account, an opportunity that changed my life path completely. 

Joi Taylor (Photo: Priscilla Foreman)

My mom and my grandmother were the matriarchs of the family, and my school choice journey began with them. They were the biggest advocates for my siblings and me, always looking for opportunities to help us get ahead and seeking resources to break down the barriers we faced in accessing a quality education. 

Instead of being relegated to the schools that we were zoned for, school choice allowed me to attend New Hope Christian Academy, opening my world up to new possibilities through an exceptional education I would not have otherwise received. New Hope cultivated in me a commitment to hard work and servant leadership, and inspirited the notion that my biggest hopes and dreams could become a reality.  

For middle and high school, I continued my journey at independent schools and attended Evangelical Christian School, where I learned academic discipline and outside-of-the-box thinking. Advanced classes and extracurricular activities prepared me for college, challenging my worldview and thought process constantly. 

After graduating from Evangelical Christian School, I attended University of Memphis where I graduated magna cum laude with a degree in social work. While achieving something like this is attributed to many different factors, the undeniable reality is that the foundation laid by my private schools was instrumental in my success. I currently work for City Leadership, one of the top nonprofit consulting firms in the city of Memphis, and originally made the connection through my school choice journey.

It would have been impossible for me to realize my full potential without the opportunities and support system that school choice afforded me. I aspire to see more students who are just like me, overcoming their circumstances to rewrite their future. I truly believe that every family deserves the chance to choose their child’s education and have access to any school in their community, no matter their background.

In 2023, 20 states said “yes” to expanding school choice. These states either currently implement or are trying to implement policies that allow students to have a variety of choices when it comes to their education, whether that be traditional public schools, private schools, charter schools, or homeschooling. While this evolution of school choice across the country is remarkable, there are still millions of students stuck in school systems based on their family’s income or zip code that don’t fit their unique learning needs.

School choice is essential for the current and future generations of Tennessee, and our lawmakers should support education freedom here and for students across America through the Educational Choice for Children Act (ECCA), a federal tax credit scholarship bill that would help up to 2 million students access a school or education service of their parents’ choice. 

The ECCA would fund scholarships with private donations, not federal money, and donors would receive a federal tax credit. Students could use scholarships for tuition, tutoring to address learning loss, special needs services, education technology, and more. The bill would triple the number of students benefiting from private school choice programs, and it would complement the programs already in effect in 31 states, while creating new opportunities in 19 states that lack the option of school choice. The legislation has more than 100 House co-sponsors and more than two dozen Senate co-sponsors.

My story is proof that there lies power in opportunity, and school choice can give you a chance to blaze a path for generations to come. Education is not “one-size-fits-all” and families deserve the opportunity to choose where their children will learn the best. I urge lawmakers to support school choice by supporting the ECCA so that every child has the opportunity to achieve academic success, despite their background. 

Joi Taylor is Choose901 alumni director at City Leadership in Memphis and a graduate of the Tennessee Educational Savings Account Program. She was also recognized in the Memphis Flyer’s 20<30 class of 2020. 

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Opinion Viewpoint

Friends Don’t Let Friends Kill Innocent Civilians

According to the United Nations, more than 4,000 Palestinians have been killed in four wars since 2008. In this December 2012 image, a child stands amid the rubble of the destroyed Al Dalu family home in Gaza City. Ten members of the Al Dalu family were killed, as well as two neighbors, by an Israeli air strike that November. Four of those killed were children, and four were women. (Photo: Rrodrickbeiler | Dreamstime.com)

Turn on any mainstream news media and you are guaranteed to see grisly details of violence transpiring in Israel and Palestine. Interviews with survivors and witnesses describing horrors; observers asking important questions like “how could this happen?” and “why didn’t we stop it?” Sooner or later the politics, the leaders, and the responses become central to the story.

The New York Times reported: Israel’s defense minister said “no electricity, no food, no water, no fuel” would be allowed into Gaza after an invasion by the militant group Hamas.

All I could think was, “Not again!”

I hate seeing the same failed responses. But breaking the narrative is a daunting task. 

Attacks on civilians are morally reprehensible — always. Hamas, however, is not just repugnant in its horrific choice of tactics but counterproductive. Over and over, we see terror groups using violence against civilians; while it makes the news, it does not achieve desired outcomes. 

Simply put, with rare exception, when Hamas targets civilians it is used as justification for an even more violent response, and one that much of the world supports.

No critique of grievances is necessary to make a full condemnation of the violent terrorism employed by Hamas, and the choice to target civilians makes it much less likely for those grievances to be considered at all. “Idiotic” understates the monumental stupidity in such a bad strategic choice. 

Hamas, likely, just set the Palestinian resistance/struggle for legitimate grievances back several years. As usual. Once again.

But what is this about a siege of Gaza? “No electricity, no food, no water, no fuel” — are you kidding me? Worse, Israel is bombing apartment buildings full of Palestinian families, and hospitals. How many children or suffering patients does Israel kill before the world throws up its collective hands and stops caring much about either side?

If the U.S. is any friend to Israel, then they must help them to avoid such an unforced error. There is no doubt that such a blockade would kill innocent civilians, they always do, and they place the most vulnerable at greatest risk. Grandparents and newborn babies have these survival needs; cutting off access to basic human needs … it is just as counterproductive for Israel as terrorism is for Hamas.

And the world sees the Israeli air strikes on civilians and asks, so how is that not terrorism?

Being a friend does not mean standing idly by while your friend makes bad choices. The U.S. has participated in such bad choices too many times, and we have learned these lessons. Killing innocent civilians, whether directly or indirectly, tends to do several things: First, it undermines legitimacy; second, it is used as a recruitment tool for the opposition; third, it causes committed opposition to dig in and become even more entrenched.

The U.S. ought to tell Israel, “Believe it or not, when we dealt with the Taliban in Afghanistan, we always accomplished more with bridges than bombs.” It’s true, the innocent civilians provided great intelligence on the terror group when they came to see the U.S. for doing good. Never underestimate the achievements you can make when the choice is taking two steps forward instead of two steps backward; in this regard, violence is always regressive. 

Wim Laven, Ph.D., syndicated by PeaceVoice, teaches courses in political science and conflict resolution.

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Opinion Viewpoint

Go Outside, Feel Better, Save the Climate

Photo: Jan Huber | Unsplash Just being in nature has benefits.

We’re experiencing disastrous climatic events because we treat the land — metaphorically speaking — like dirt. 

Nature’s ecosystems regulate climate. In turn, the well-being of all nature, ourselves included, is dependent upon the health of the climate. The current level of global climate change is so extreme that climate scientists have issued what they call the final warning.

Work with the sliver of hope. We can combat global climate change by reestablishing our love for and connection to the only home we’ve ever known, Earth. We can start by simply going outside. Being in nature has health benefits for you, and the closer you are to nature, the more inclined you’ll be to protect it.

Please: Try it now. You’ll likely be surprised by the invigorating benefits, both for you and the planet. Improving one’s health by simply being in nature is called ecotherapy, and there is a growing field of practitioners. The science behind ecotherapy is new, but there is evidence that being outdoors has significant health benefits, both mental and physical. 

Just being around plants and trees has been shown to lower blood pressure and pulse rate, reduce levels of stress hormones, increase levels of immune-boosting white blood cells, and improve sleep. Some therapists believe that in order to get the full benefit of ecotherapy, you need to give something back, such as plant a tree, start a garden, and so on. The beauty of this is that giving back to nature — even a little — will help combat global climate change. 

The best way to experience the health benefits of ecotherapy is to find a nice quiet spot in a natural setting where you can be alone with your thoughts. The only hard part will be muting your smartphone, but you can do it. Pay attention to the sights, sounds, and smells of nature. 

Acknowledge what you’re sensing. If it’s sunny, appreciate the warmth the sun is giving you. Appreciate the support of the rock or stump or ground you’re sitting on. You might try repeating to yourself over and over, “I have arrived, I am home,” and pay attention to the tension draining from your body. You won’t reach nirvana, but you might very well sense a connection to the Earth, and that’s a spiritual feeling. 

You don’t have to go for a wilderness outing; simply spending time in a city park or backyard can achieve health benefits. And if you don’t have an opportunity to find solitude in a natural setting, you can also get some benefits of ecotherapy inside. 

Look around your home. You’ve likely brought nature into your household in one form or another — perhaps a houseplant, pet, scenic painting, natural wood furniture, calendar with nature pictures, fire in the form of candles or fireplace, and so on. If you have brought such natural objects into your house, pause and notice them for a moment. 

It may even inspire you to join a local environmental group, buy a bicycle for some of your transportation needs, start using only reusable bags when you shop, donate to a climate defense organization, testify at local public hearings on behalf of carbon reduction policies, or add insulation to your home, as examples of what we can all do once we see how much we care for nature. 

We know what needs to be done to combat climate change, but too many of us lack the motivation to make lifestyle adjustments for the good of humanity and the planet. 

If you are willing and able to take the above simple and healing steps, you will come to a deeper understanding of your connection to everything in the world around you. Then giving something back to nature will suddenly seem important. What could be better than taking steps to combat climate change? If enough of us contribute a little, the effect will be large, and together we can make the world a better place for everyone. 

We need to do it now, while we still can. 

Paul Hellweg is a freelance writer and poet. His writing can be seen at PaulHellweg.com and VietnamWarPoetry.com.

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Opinion Viewpoint

Missed the Mark

Illustration: C. Barsotti

Ideas about men and manhood have been evolving for more than 50 years, but Sen. Josh Hawley has not gotten the message. Like so many others working to protect white male supremacy (see Carlson, Tucker; McCarthy, Kevin), he’s driving a gas-guzzling Cadillac on a road increasingly filled with EVs.

Just as women are vigorously resisting returning to a pre-Roe v. Wade America, men aren’t going back either. Tone-deaf to shifts in the culture, Hawley published a book about men last month, perhaps as a ploy to revive his presidential ambitions.

Manhood: The Masculine Virtues America Needs is a call for American men to “stand up and embrace their God-given responsibility as husbands, fathers, and citizens,” according to Regnery, Hawley’s far-right publisher. If you want to know what not to embrace in considering American manhood, it’s all in the 256 pages of this book. Claiming that our country’s all-male founders believed that the U.S. “depends” on certain masculine virtues ignores the realities of today.

There is much to appreciate about men; still, we’d be much better off if we talked about positive changes — embracing gender equality and rejecting white male supremacy. Calling men out as unemployed whiners, and trash-talking women while playing video games and watching pornography, misses the mark. Examples of new expressions of masculinity abound, from stay-at-home dads to younger men becoming curious about feminism.

Hawley’s thesis — that men are in crisis — does have a kernel of truth; there are men floundering, but that is not where the majority of younger men are headed. More and more men are abandoning expressions of masculine culture based on oppressing anyone not white or male. Sure, we still have a ways to go, but support among younger men for women’s reproductive rights, for gay and trans rights, for voting rights, is on the rise.

There are organizations around the country and across the globe promoting gender equality, challenging men’s violence, encouraging involved fatherhood, while rejecting men as top dog at home, work, and houses of worship.

Danger does exist; just not what Hawley is concerned about. It’s in young men enamored of gun culture, sucked into social media echo chambers of hate. To see how out of touch Hawley is, there’s nothing in his book about perpetrators of mass shooting massacres — primarily young men.

“Ever since the January 6 committee showed the video of Sen. Hawley running from the insurrectionist mob he’d earlier encouraged with a fist in the air, we’ve all had a good laugh at his expense,” Jonathan Capehart wrote in The Washington Post.

Although caricatured as a “manhood-obsessed hypocrite,” make no mistake: Hawley is dangerous precisely because, as Capehart noted, “He is selling a vision of masculinity to White America that has much more to do with prejudice than manliness.”

His message may still resonate with older white men, but younger men, even those who may enjoy watching Ultimate Fighting, are generally tolerant, accepting of their gay and trans coworkers, and are supportive of colleagues who have had an abortion.

The future is not white male supremacy, in part because patriarchy is dangerous for men.

In a March 31, 1776, letter, Abigail Adams, future first lady to our second president, wrote her husband John, urging the Continental Congress to remember women’s interests as they prepared to fight for independence from Great Britain. “[I]n the new code of laws … I desire you would remember the ladies and be more generous and favorable to them than your ancestors. … Do not put such unlimited power into the hands of the husbands. Remember, all men would be tyrants if they could. If particular care and attention is not paid to the ladies, we are determined to foment a rebellion and will not hold ourselves bound by any laws in which we have no voice or representation.”

There have been “pro-feminist” men since at least the 18th century. While Abigail Adams may not have mentioned men, they were allies-in-waiting then, and are growing in numbers today. What is different now is that we’re stepping forward to say so. Fifty years ago, Josh Hawley may have sold a lot of books. Today, I’m betting they’ll be remaindered by the Fourth of July.

Rob Okun (rob@voicemalemagazine.org), syndicated by PeaceVoice, writes about politics and culture. He is editor-publisher of Voice Male magazine, chronicling the antisexist men’s movement for more than three decades.