BOLC II

So I figured I should give a little update on what I am doing here in Army school. We spent last week learning "combatives". That is, we were learning hand-to-hand combat. The point seems to be to take a bunch of people who have little or no experience with actually fighting, and give them a bit of the experience getting punched around and being aggressive. I am pretty sure it didn't work on me. I still do not have an aggressive bone in my body.

We spent this week learning basic rifle marksmanship, and US weapons systems. We all qualified on the M4 rifle. We also used "nightvision" equipment and shot off a bunch of rounds at night. It looks just like it does on CNN, with the greenish hue and flashes of light all over. But they are really neat, especially with the IR laser thingy.

We also used the M16/M203 grenade launcher, the .50 cal machine gun, the MK-19 really big thing that causes a lot of damage, and other weapons.

It is an interesting place. The people here are all good. Most are intelligent thoughtful people, each in their own way. I am learning a lo from them. I managed to get in to an excellent company. We have great staff, and I really seemed to have lucked out.

Nothing is too onerous yet, though there is still quite a bit to go.

Touro College

The fact that Touro College has been selling grades and degrees seems hardly surprising. I wonder if this will start making the school have standards. I'll bet anything that the chilul hashem involved will not cause anyone to change their positive opinion about Touro College.

Review of Malcom Gladwell's The Tipping Point

Malcom Gladwell's The Tipping Point is a famous book. It was not a great book, or even a good book, but perhaps a not bad book. Basically he took a bunch of famous and some not so famous incidents that seemed to involve a bunch of people and trends that seemed to emerge, and wrote about them and put them all in to a book, and tried to make a point. The point was that there is a system to understanding the "tipping points". I thought the point fell kid of flat, and was not really well argued. He took the lessons of the hipster Hush Puppie shoes, the sudden drop in crime in NY, the Bernie Goetz incident, the Zimbazrdo prison experiment, the success of Sesame Street and Blue's clues, teenage suicide in Micronesia, and a few other things and claimed that there is a time where trends hit a "tipping point" and they take off. There is also a special kind of people who make it happen, and it can only happen if the message is sufficiently "sticky".

As far as the drop in crime is concerned, I tend to be a fan of Leavitt and Dubner who attributes it to the legalization of abortion. Gladwell did not know of Leavitt and Dubner when he wrote the book, I presume.

Gladwell attributes all these tipping points to mavens, who are enthusiastic about products they are experts on, Connectors, who are really social people who know all sorts of people and Salesmen who love selling good products. These people are responsible for all the big tipping points in history.

There is an interesting example about the rule that 150 people seem to be a maximal community size.

He also has an interesting suggestion about a way to slow down the smoking epidemic that is so sensible that it is certain to never be adopted. He suggests that teens will smoke regardless of what adults do. So instead of trying to stop them from smoking, you should just get them to have too little nicotine so they won't get addicted. There is a reasonable belief that lowering the nicotine levels of cigarettes will stop people from becoming addicted.

As a whole I did not love the book. And while the examples are a mixture of the things everyone knows and some interesting well chosen anecdotes, the thesis of the book is not clear. It attempts to be a social scientific explanation of why some things take off and some don't, I don't see the causal mechanism that accounts for the success of say, the sales of the book The Divine Secrets of the Ya-Ya Sisterhood. To tell me that suddenly mothers started coming to the readings with their daughters, just doesn't explain why it happened, or how it could be reproduced, or it could have been predicted from the nature of the books' audience. . .

It is a quick read, so you wouldn't be wasting too much time figuring out what all the hype was about. Maybe Blink, his other book, is better.

France's role in the Rwandan genocide

Who would have thought that France had a role in the Rwanda genocide too. But apparently they did and the story just gets better and better.

4th of July

This is my third military fourth of July. My first was in 2003 in Fort Knox during Basic Combat Training. We didn't do much but pass the time, and we had to watch Black Hawk Down. It was actually not a bad day. In 2004 I was in Advanced Individual Training in Fort Eustis, and I don't have any specific memories of the day, but I seem to recall it sucking. This time around I am on Fort Benning in Basic Officer Leadership Course II, and it is so far not bad. I to sleep in late, though I failed to take advantage and was up at 7:30. I went out with some of my classmates and we watched the Transformers movie, which was silly at times, but not too bad. I hope to attend a barbeque today with some friends in nearby Columbus.

So far school here is going well enough. We're still in the paperwork and briefing phase of the course. Nothing too exciting has happened yet.

I'm here

I arrived in Fort Benning today more or less intact after three days on the road. I signed in, got a room, and I am fairly left alone. have to be at formation tomorrow morning, but otherwise Not much is happening. Fort Benning is rather large and hot. The accommodations are fine. So far so good. It all starts tomorrow.

In Atlanta

I am now in Atlanta. I just drove in from Richmond, VA where I spent last night. The accents are getting thicker, the weather wetter. I am going to report in to Fort Benning tomorrow. I'll try to keep y'all posted on how things are going.

And I'm off

I am off to Fort Benning in a few moments. I do not know what to expect, but it should be fine.

I'll be back in 5 months, so goodbye to all you New Yorkers, I'll see you when I get back.

I hope to be blogging every now and then. I'll keep you posted on what goes on there.

Review of Capitalism and Arithmetic

Frank J. Swetz's Capitalism and Arithmetic is a translation of the Trevisio Arithmetic by an unknown Italian teacher of arithmetic. (The translation is by David Eugene Smith, and there is a thoughtful tribute to him in the book.)

The Trevisio was a rather ordinary book teaching students, mostly merchants how to compute using addition, subtraction, division, multiplication, basic fractions, and the like.

It is historically interesting because we find a lot of mathematical techniques whose import we may not have otherwise been aware. Granted, it makes dull reading if you already know arithmetic through long division, but it does give us a few interesting clues about the life and times of the book.

Mathematically, I never realized how important some of these computing rules, like "casting out nines", or "the rule of three" were. Culturally, we can see the influence on banking and trade on the style of arithmetic and other areas of life. By merely looking at the examples, we can tell what was important to the culture, and money was certainly important.

There is also a good chunk of analysis and historical background thrown in.

The book is probably of interest to people who study the history of mathematics education, and the history of old reckoning books.

Review of Wheelan's Naked Economics

Charles Wheelan's Naked Economics is pretty good as popular books on economics go. It is a very clear basic discussion of a number of the more important economic issues that effect individuals, countries, and the world. The basic lessons, as one would expect are about markets, and incentives. But there are also great discussions about inflation, deflation, interest rates, globalization, the IMF, the World Bank and a whole host of other things.

I thought the discussion of demystifying the fed was great, as I never really knew what exactly the fed does, and how it controls interest rates or the money supply? Wheelan really clears a lot up.

The book has no math, and no graphs or charts, but it manages to get it's point across pretty well. It is peppered with anecdotes about interesting economic thingies, and has a spate of good examples. I enjoyed the book.

Need more time

So much has been going on lately that there has been little time to write in this space. I have been very preoccupied with my two main writing projects. They are both coming along, albeit a bit slower than I had hoped. I went with my unity to VA for 5 days last week. That was a lot of fun, but some work as well. I finally got a real picture of how different things are on the officer side. I have also been spending a lot of time preparing for going to officer school. Mostly I have been saying goodbye to people who I won't see for another six months, though they mostly are people I only see every six months or so anyway. I had some sort of get-together for a lot of friends, sort of a good-bye party. My unit was kind enough to throw a joint good-bye party for me and someone who is retiring.

I have barely read the news in the past two months. I am sure that some things have happened that are worth commenting on, but I have had little time. Nor have I read too many whole books. I hope you will be hearing more from me soon, though it looks like lately I am getting less and less thoughtful, as I have less and less time.

Also, if anyone has any advice about life at Fort Benning, let me know. Thanks.

Review of Segal's Mathematicians under the Nazis

Sanford Segal's Mathematicians Under the Nazis is a long, meticulous and painstakingly researched book about the history of German mathematics, mathematical institutions, and mathematicians during the Nazi era.

The book does a good job of dispelling a number of impressions that one might have of Mathematicians and Nazis. First, there is one reading of Segal's book that can be construed as the history of the petty bickering among the mathematicians in Nazi Germany. German mathematicians quarreled incessantly. Many of them spent a lot of time jockeying for power. Almost none were above political quarrels or denunciations. Many of them got truly swept up in Naziism. Many had little problem with the initial full-scale of removal of Jews from universities. This was especially true in Gottengen, which was a mathematical powerhouse and also a bastion of right-wing activity. Segal traces much of this attitude to the idea of the good German university professor as a civil servant who was in some way beholden to the state.

Secondly, lest one get the impression that the German state was efficient, Segal clears much up there too. First there were many overlapping bureaucracies, all of which competed for resources, and all of which were driven to backstabbing to get ahead.

In the "total state" as Nazi Germany was, there was a push to make all the country's institutions hierarchical. That is, there would be a leader of each institution with a clear command structure. The Nazi state was interested in this, and other types of existing hierarchies mattered little to them. In an attempt to get ahead then, there were various mathematicians who attempted to ingratiate themselves as "fuhrer" of German mathematics.

One of the main contenders for this position was perhaps the most colorful character in the story. Ludwig Bieberbach, who was a rather respected mathematician, attempted to Nazify mathematics itself. In a series of articles, Bieberbach identified a style of mathematics that he thought was Aryan and another that was Jewish. Racially typologizing mathematics was part of a tradition that went back at least as far as Felix Klein, and was used by many, especially Oswald Spengler in his famous Decline of the West. This generated something of a small research program in "Nazi Mathematics".

Segal's book is rife with detail, and tells the stories of many of the Jewish and German mathematicians who were impacted by Naziism, like Courant, Landau, Suss, Blaschke, . . . The Book also details the many mathematical institutions in Nazi Germany, such as Nazi mathematics camps, and mathematics in concentration camps.

The book is long and detailed and was an enlightening read.

Worth seeing

I finally got out to do something relaxing. I saw The Black Book. It is a really good, suspense-filled WWII movie. Strongly recommended.

Class last week

This week, I had a discussion with one of my ethics classes about democracy. It was connected to one of the chapters in the text, and I thought worthy of some good philosophical discussion.

Just so you get a feel for the class: it has about 20 students, almost none of whom are humanities students. Mine may have been one of the only humanities classes they ever took. The students are almost all reasonably bright, and I would say that about 15 of them were not born in the US, and about 17 of them were male.

The discussion was about values that we might want to promote in a society. I gave a rough definition of involving a government where citizens are the authority, and the government is accountable to them, a government where individuals are sovereign, and have a say in the government, and where individuals are reasonably free and vote.

I then threw out the question "Is democracy good?" and I heard one or two "yes"es and one or two "no"s from the class. I asked one of the "no" students to explain. He began by going through a complaint that was essentially Plato's : who wants the masses to make decisions about what to do in a government? Too much democracy couldn't be a good thing, especially where it allowed the people to make many of the routine decisions for a society.

A second student worried that democracies cannot work on too large a scale (contrary to federalist #10) as people with too different an opinion (then the reasonable one, I presume) may end up with a say, as they may form too large a faction.

A third student thought that democracies would be good, if they weren't all corrupt.

A fourth student thought that democracy was good in theory, but if we look at it's history (which for him seemed to be the Iraq war and Nazi Germany ) it led to disasters.

A fifth student claimed that he had no opinion, as he did not care about politics.

A sixth claimed that it really did seem reasonable to have people from other countries vote in US elections, as they are impacted by US foreign policy.

. . .

And so the class went. It was a difficult task in class just clarifying minor points here and there, adding historical caveats and discussions, making certain crucial distinctions, and offering the obvious counterarguments to some of the more ridiculous claims.

Students had little problem airing their antagonism towards western political systems. Mind you, we were not discussing economics, just democracy. I did not ask what good alternatives might be, though there was agreement that all those kinds that are generally accompanied by mass slaughter were also unacceptable.

Perhaps there would have been some concession that though they did not like democracy, there was not better alternative. At the end of the class I was able to ask if there was anyone who wanted to offer a defense of democracy.

The class was silent. At that point we adjurned for the weekend. I left wondering a whole lot of things. Every critique of democracy is on the tips of all my students' tongues. There is little appreciation for the idea that in a democracy you have some control over your fate. There is little appreciation for the fact that most of them came from countries that had no democracies and they are here now, presumably
because it was a better option than their own country. There is little appreciation for the fact that the government is supposed to be them, not something imposed on them. . .

I guess we will see how the discussion picks up next week. I wonder how well I am reading the attitudes of my students. I wonder how well I am reading their education.

silence

I just realized that it has been a long time since I have actually written anything here. I suspect that the universe is conspiring against me. For the past few weeks I seem to have been plagued with an endless stream of very minor, but annoying medical problems: a minor head injury, a cold, a pulled shoulder, a tooth problem . . . Coupled with my obsessive reading and writing and teaching, I have not given my opinion to the world. Sorry world. I hope to resume my regularly scheduled posts in the very near future.