Monthly Archives: April 2004

a local open-access journal

Here’s an idea that some colleagues and I are going to try to promote at the University of Maryland. The University (or perhaps the University and Prince George’s County, where we are located) would launch a peer-reviewed journal for high-quality research on the community. Anyone would be eligible to submit articles, maps, datasets, and images, but submissions would be peer-reviewed and publication standards would be high. The central administration of the University would promote the journal as a prestigious publication venue for faculty. Although this website would not have the status of a major disciplinary journal, its quality would be high and it would advance several core purposes for the University (see below). Therefore, the central administration would ask departments to treat it as the equivalent of high-status specialized publications for tenure and promotion purposes.

In order to increase the value of the publication for community residents, it could be linked to a website that also provided: research summaries written for lay audiences (perhaps in Spanish as well as English); basic information about the County; links to other online resources; and open forums for public discussion.

Goals:

  • To encourage faculty (at the University of Maryland and elsewhere) to produce research about this community, thereby improving the County?s understanding of its own problems and assets and supporting economic development and good government.
  • To enhance the University?s reputation for community service and citizenship, in keeping with our Land-Grant charter.
  • To develop an internationally recognized new venue for scholarship, a model for other major research universities.
  • Universities are experimenting with new forms of free, open-access digital publication, motivated by the soaring costs of journal subscriptions and the enormous positive potential of free, online publishing. For example, the University of California has created the exemplary California Digital Library, and MIT provides its course materials free for the world to use, gambling that this giveaway of high-quality material will enhance its reputation. To the best of our knowledge, no other university has developed a free online publication focused on its own community, and this could become a model.

    Any group that was involved in establishing this journal would need to discuss and answer the following questions:

    What is the geographical scope: Prince George?s County; the Washington Metro area, or the State of Maryland?

    What is the disciplinary reach: The social sciences? The social sciences and the humanities? All the liberal arts? The liberal arts and the fine arts?

    Public Agenda’s FirstChoice

    Public Agenda has done what I once hoped to do myself: they have created a website with detailed background information on important public issues and self-diagnostic exercises that can help you to decide what policies you prefer–understanding that all policies have costs and risks, as well as advantages. The site says:

    When politicians present their plans, they naturally play up the quick, easy, cheap part of their program and downplay the messy, expensive, risky parts. In reality, however, many problems don’t get solved without facing harsh choices; the government can’t avoid pleasing some people and offending others. First Choice 2004 is designed to help you make the most of your vote by having strong, informed opinions about what those choices might be.

    Public Agenda is a careful, skillful, and truly nonpartisan organization. They have certainly done a far better job with the site than I could have done. If there were any way to get lots of people to use resources like this, our democracy would work much better. The New York Times and MTV are described as “partners” for the site, and they may boost its usage. Nevertheless, I presume that it will appeal mostly to very motivated and serious people. If only it could be used in thousands of high school social studies courses ….

    undermining stereotypes in Hong Kong

    I’m mainly thinking about the situation in Iraq, but I have no special information or insights about that deeply troubling matter. Meanwhile, on a somewhat lighter note, the Times’ Keith Bradsher analyzes the political situation in Hong Kong for us. It seems that the Communists want to retain a constitution that allows only rich oligarchs to vote. Some of their main critics are Christian groups that are committed to preserving gay rights. At least these folks aren’t hidebound ideologues.

    kids, computers, and research

    I haven’t posted lately about our work with high school kids, because I’ve missed the class for several weeks in a row due to scheduling conflicts. With help from my colleagues and grad students, the kids have explored the issue of obesity, learned some geography skills, and deliberated about what maps they should make that will help explain (or even reduce) the obesity problem in their community. They have decided to select one small area that contains both food sources and exercise opportunities. They will collect data about food quality and price, the exercise options, and the “walkability” of the streets in that area, and then they will make GIS maps for PrinceGeorges.org This will be a pilot study that should lead to the comprehensive mapping of the whole community.

    Continue reading

    negative campaigning is a mistake in ’04

    Several factors have conspired to make many Democrats believe that the key to the ’04 election is attacking the president:

  • Progressives sincerely believe that the mainstream press favors Bush, so denouncing him would improve the “balance.”
  • Howard Dean generated enthusiasm in the primary by aggressively criticizing Republicans.
  • Bush is genuinely vulnerable on several important issues.
  • Above all, progressives loathe the president and want their fellow Americans to share their view.

    This approach dismays me because it cannot create a mandate for positive change. I also think it’s bad partisan politics. Liberal northeasterners use a set of heuristics (“prejudices” would be another word) that move them from disagreeing with the president to despising him. Since he’s a born-again Christian, he must be intolerant. Since he hangs around with oilmen, he must be a predatory polluter. And since he speaks with a Texas drawl, he must be a redneck. Like all arguments from stereotypes, these are fallacies. One has to prove that the administration is intolerant, predatory, and stupid; and it isn’t always so. Furthermore, many Americans draw the opposite conclusions from the very same “heuristics” that drive leftists to loathing. Since GWB is devout, his motives must be OK. Since he comes out of a corporate background, he must know how to get business done. And since he’s from Texas, he must be unpretentious. In ABC News/Washington Post polls, between 52 percent and 71 percent of those surveyed have always said that Bush is “honest and trustworthy.”

    The lowest rating (52 percent) is also the most recent. So perhaps one can chip away at Bush’s reputation by showing that he wasn’t much of an entrepreneur–he was bailed out by his political friends and relatives. If the administration is ever caught in some literal corruption, this might shake people’s faith in the president’s good character. Yet liberals consistently overestimate how bad they can make Bush look, because they have detested him from the first time they heard him speak.

    But I’m really worried about something else. Maybe liberals lack a positive message because they don’t have anything compelling and positive to say. For anyone who is deeply dissatisfied with the status quo, the lack of alternatives would be the worst news of all. Then it would hardly matter who won in November. So instead of trying the “get the message out” that George W. Bush is a horrible man, why don’t we put some energy into developing new solutions for America? John Kerry could sure use our help.

    (See Brad Rourke’s latest piece for a similar argument, referring to the new liberal broadcast shows and think tanks.)