TRUMP, SECRETS, AND THE REPUBLICAN THREAT TO NATIONAL SECURITY

An apocryphal story tells of a seasoned CIA analyst who explains the classification system to a newbie.  “I can tell UNCLASSIFIED from CONFIDENTIAL, CONFIDENTIAL from SECRET, and SECRET from TOP SECRET; but I can’t tell TOP SECRET from front-page news in The New York Times.”

 

As a former intelligence officer, I know that some classifications are puzzling.  One SECRET cable to my unit in Vietnam had, among other recipients, the Pentagon and the White House.  It read, “The U Dong VC battalion attended a wedding.”  (Was President Johnson supposed to send the bride a present?)  The classification may have been given to protect the source.  If the VC knew that we knew of the wedding, they would know that we had an informer in the vicinity.  But, in a war without front lines, the VC would suspect the possibility of informers everywhere.

 

Most classifications are not puzzling.  A year earlier, at my first duty station, I had charge of a small intelligence unit.  Late one afternoon, a truck with armed guards pulled up outside my facility unexpectedly.  It held a large number of sealed boxes marked TOP SECRET.  My unit received them because it alone had enough on-base space to store this material overnight in its transit elsewhere.  But it lacked a secure vault.  The four guards, who meant any and all business, unloaded the truck, stored the boxes, set up round-the-clock shifts outside the storage room, retrieved the boxes, loaded the truck, and left to transport the TS material to its final destination—all by the book, paperwork included.

 

Years later, some of my consulting work involved national defense matters across a range of subjects: submarines, tanks, Reagan’s Strategic Defense Initiative (derisively, “Star Wars Program”), and nuclear weapons.  I had DOD TS and DOE Q (Restricted Data) clearances, and, with the latter, a CNWDI (Critical Nuclear Weapon Design Information) clearance.  CNWDI is not information for Trivial Pursuits.

 

So I have a dog in the fight.  We are in an entirely different and extremely dangerous situation because Trump, for motives still unknown, retained possession of hundreds of pages of classified documents and transported them to his private residence in Florida.  They were not protected in transport or storage.  Even documents not missing or stolen may have been compromised.  They were in areas visited by who knows which and how many people, and whom they knew.  Those with iPhones could have photographed them, sent pictures, yet left no sign of compromised security.  Trump has an iPhone, and he uses it.  In short, he may already have damaged, or enabled damage to, national security.

 

That a malign narcissist or sociopath, norm- and law-breaker, and draft dodger had and kept access to TS, Q, and SCI (Sensitive Compartmented Information) documents—all of it NDI (National Defense Information)—, even while he was in office, scares me for the sake of this country.  The only classification which mattered to Trump was his 4F for bone spurs.  No one should think that a leak of NDI is little or no worse than Trump’s talk about groping women, his loser’s lies about a stolen election, or Republican melt-downs about government “overreach” or Hillary-too nonsense.  Republicans who, for political motives, minimize the risks of compromised DNI and consequent threats to national security do not realize that these threats exempt neither political party from harm.  Trump-Is-Savior devotees—typical is a draft-dodging, flag-waving neighbor with a GED from Fox News—who see great harm in a court-authorized FBI search to recover and protect the country’s national defense secrets are, to put it bluntly, traitors-in-waiting, regardless of whether this country continues as a constitutional democracy or becomes a White Christian nation and bastion against all others.

 

Since 2015, when Trump announced his candidacy for the presidency, many people, especially Republican politicians and voters, have had opportunities to stop him.  Congressional Republicans had two chances to support impeachment; instead, they put loyalty to Trump and their party above loyalty to the country and the Constitution, and fidelity to their oath of office.  The electorate stopped him in 2020.  They have since opposed a House investigation into his attempted coup to prevent the transfer of the presidency to his duly elected successor.  The question is whether the electorate will stop Trump, his clones—among other unworthies, Ron DeSantis and Ted Cruz—, and his base in 2022 and 2024 despite Republican schemes to rig these elections.

 

Every vote, up and down the ballot, in these elections is for or against democracy and national security.  Voters must recognize the even greater peril in which a second Trump presidency or a Republican presidency of a smarter clone would place this country.  Any GOP president would want to entrench and expand anti-democratic election procedures, terminate the investigation into the 6 January attempted coup, initiate investigations (harassments) of political foes, pervert federal law enforcement agencies, and disregard Trump’s breaches of national security.  If voters do not recognize and reject candidates who would support such efforts, they will have no grounds to complain if Republicans undermine America’s best ideals by indulging their worst instincts and effectuating their full-fascist intentions.

MARK RONCHETTI ON ABORTION: SELF-ACCUSED OF EXTREMISM AND BARBARISM

Mark Ronchetti, Republican candidate for Governor of New Mexico, exemplifies the conservative Republican who accuses others of being or believing what he himself is or believes.  In the process, he exhibits other unworthy political tendencies which constitute a threat to government of, by, and for the people.  Call it democracy, if you wish.

 

Even in a political campaign, words matter.  Whether a candidate’s words articulate truth, falsehood, bullshit, or a shifting concoction to suit the occasion, they reveal character and propensities.  When it comes to abortion, Mark Ronchetti is a case study of irresponsible ignorance, calculated cruelty, and implicit prejudice.

 

His campaign website states that “Governor Michelle Lujan Grisham has taken an extreme position that abortions should be legal up to the moment of birth.”  It promises that he will “end the barbaric practice of late-term abortions.”  I do not know whether she advocates this position; I shall take his word that she does.

 

If so, good for the Governor.  She has humane and health considerations supporting her position on abortion.  It encompasses positions of people of different religions—Christianity, Judaism, Islam, among others—with diverse, though sometimes overlapping, definitions of when life begins and, significantly, under what conditions abortions are permissible or not.  She implicitly recognizes freedom of religion for all.

 

Not so good for Ronchetti.  He either does not know—at this late date, he would be irresponsible not to know—or does not care that Jews believe that life begins at breach.  During pregnancy, Jewish law on abortion becomes increasingly restrictive to protect the unborn.  Although late-term abortions are rare, they reflect medical emergencies.  Even for less than 1% of abortions, Judaism never rules them out.  The reason: Judaism gives priority to women’s health and life.  Ronchetti does not.  Judaism knows that no woman wants complications, much less serious ones, in her pregnancy.  Ronchetti does not.

 

Ronchetti’s statements of position imply that, because of their religious beliefs and practices, Jews are extremists and barbarians, respectively.  But these statements are his hypocrisies in waiting.  If a family member—sister, niece, wife, or daughter—had a life-threatening pregnancy, he would not say, “tough luck; suffer and die.”  As covertly as possible, he would get her to a state which permitted a late-term abortion.  But he, extreme and barbaric, would leave other, mostly impoverished, women, in New Mexico, to suffer and die—such is Republican Ronchetti’s compassion for pregnant women and the risks which they run in any pregnancy.

 

Ronchetti’s private opinion seems not to be his public, politically necessary opinion devised to win votes or not lose them.  In private, he reportedly assured Pastor Steve Smothermon of the Legacy Church that, “if elected, he would push for a full ban on abortions in New Mexico” (SourceNM, 18 July).  In public, he offers a vague, kumbaya piety that “we can all come together on a[n abortion] policy that reflects our shared values”  (Santa Fe New Mexican, 3 Aug).  This is twaddle for tweeters and the trusting .  He could not answer, and would dodge even trying to answer, two obvious questions:

 

One: what precisely are those “shared values” which Ronchetti knows that Jews would accept even if they overrode their religious convictions?  To answer, he would have to specify them and defend them—mission impossible for him (or anyone else).

 

Two: how does Ronchetti reconcile “shared values” restricting Jewish religious beliefs and practices on abortions with the First Amendment’s guarantees of religious freedom?  If he cannot or will not explain himself on this fundamental question of Constitutional rights, he implies positions both antisemitic and anti-Constitutional.

 

I have invited Ronchetti to send me his answers; if he replies, I shall publish them.  But I do not expect him to give answers, much less direct ones, to these questions.

 

    What kind of governor would Ronchetti make if he enacted and enforced a narrowly restrictive position on abortion conforming to Catholic doctrine and compatible with Republican autocracy?  On this issue, to many, he would simply be the state governor, but, to 24,000 or so Jews and maybe others, he might be the kamp kommandant. 

REBECCA DOW'S "MIS-FIX" FOR PUBLIC EDUCATION IN NEW MEXICO

Facing Walt Rubel’s column (see previous blog) is Rebecca Dow’s column, “It’s time for school choice for students, parents, educators.”  Dow is a conservative Republican from Truth or Consequences, lately defeated in her party’s primary for the governorship.  She opens with a tendentious account of public education under the current governor and closes with tendentious assertions about school choice, school vouchers, and other school this’s and that’s.

 

Some of her criticisms of public education in New Mexico (see previous blog) have merit, but Dow fails to show that her recommended alternatives can achieve better educational results than the current educational system can.  Indeed, she makes false, dubious, or unsupported claims about her alternatives.  And, like Rubel, she mentions curriculums not at all and “educators” only twice in passing; saying nothing about the content of the one or the quality of the other, she says nothing about education.

 

Dow claims, “Educational savings accounts, scholarship tax credits, individual tuition tax credits…and voucher[s] “are proven ways of increasing access to better educational experiences.”  Questions: How would savings and tax devices help low-income people who pay low or no taxes?  How do financial devices improve chances of presumably “better educational experiences”?  How would competition among schools for student dollars improve their education?  How does anyone measure “access” or “educational experiences” (not academic achievement)?  On what basis does anyone assess that some “educational experiences” are “better” than others?

 

Dow claims, “school choice has shown [sic] to improve academic performance, reduce racial disparities, and save taxpayers’ money.”  Depending on statistical analyses, the average academic performance of charter-school students is no better, and may be slightly worse, than that of public-school students.  Reduced racial disparities and taxpayer savings are campaign promises.

 

Dow’s other claims about the benefits of school choice are no better.  For one, small towns lack multiple schools required for choice.  Consolidating small school districts in rural areas means long transportation times and distances.

 

Enough: ideological politicians are no better at addressing the problems of education in New Mexico than PEDocrats in Santa Fe and educrats in local school districts are.

EDITORIAL COVERAGE OF NEW MEXICO EDUCATION

In my 15 years in Las Cruces, I have read many editorials on New Mexico’s poor rankings in state public education.  The latest is Walt Rubel’s “Education figures drop state below Mississippi” in the 19 August Las Cruces Bulletin (p. 6).  Standard topics are state rankings (fluctuating between 49^th and 50^th); recitation of governors’ education programs and increased expenditures; administrative arrangements like school-day schedules or school-year calendars; and praise for local teachers and administrators.

 

Rubel claims to have “spoken to enough local teachers, school administrators and students to know they are dedicated to spreading learning and knowledge and there are some real examples of excellence in our classrooms.”  He takes their self-testimonials at face value.  I, too, have spoken with local teachers and administrators, but I am not naïve.  They always testify to their being “dedicated”; why would any testify otherwise?

 

But from LCPS leadership on down, such dedication is rare.  Dr. Wendy Miller-Tomlinson, Deputy Superintendent of Teaching, Learning and Research, is not “dedicated.”  She advocated eliminating advanced programs in the deceptively labeled cause of “equity” (fairness); the honest word is “equality.”  She pushed equality, not fairness, in advocating returning advanced students to average classes—not good for their education.  Had the law not prevented her, she would have pushed to eliminate remedial or special education classes—not good for education.  She cares less about “spreading learning and knowledge” than about spreading the “equity” of mediocrity to serve her political agenda of equality.  Yet such a result is impossible to achieve; students know that they are not, and cannot be made, equal.  Mr. Ralph Ramos, Superintendent, supported her until pressure from parents and students made his support politically untenable.  A “dedicated” educator he is not.

 

Rubel notes state efforts at improvement: a three-tiered salary structure with his only other mention of teachers; the identification of, and more resources for, poor-performing schools; and more charter schools.  He mentions two “challenges,” poverty and language.  This pedestrian account is as perspicacious as he gets.

 

Rubel’s column fails to explain why, under successive governors and despite more money, new programs, and “dedicated” administrators and teachers, 50 percent of all students have failed for decades to achieve proficiency on 4^th- and 8^th-grade tests in mathematics and reading.  The differences among groups make their performance not only mediocre, but also almost racist: Whites and Asian-Americans average a bit above this average; Blacks, Hispanics, and Indians average well below it.  Although most teachers know the culture and the people, they lack the “dedication,” with a sense of urgency, to improve their students’ education.

 

Those who know that education is the transmission of knowledge and skills from teacher to student notice the omissions in Rubel’s column.  Like many who have written about New Mexico’s rock-bottom ranking, Rubel actually says nothing about education.  He mentions neither curriculums nor teachers in connection with quality or competence.  Doing so would mean suffering the slings and arrows of outraged mongers of mediocrity.

 

New Mexico’s curriculum in English Language Arts—“arts,” not a word suggesting the rigor of information and skills—disgraces PEDocrats who approved Common Core State Standards.  One egregious flaw is continued reliance on performance standards.  Though no longer using the word “performance,” “standards” still use verbs to direct students to do something but, unlike true standards, have no metric and no scale.  Students can meet standards just by going through the motions.

 

This flaw has purpose: to shift responsibility for education from teachers to students.  The “standards” define, not what teachers are supposed to teach students, but what students are supposed to learn.  As a result, teachers do not need—thus, lack—adequate knowledge or skills in their subjects (elementary school teachers: no grammar, no math); they need only whatever they find in the teacher’s textbook guide.

 

One reason for shifting responsibility is an unintended result of women’s lib: the best and the brightest left or have never entered the teaching profession.  The residuals, instead of working to acquire subject-matter competence, have “dedicated” themselves to social and political concerns requiring little “learning and knowledge.”  Meanwhile, School Boards have done nothing to retain and attract A’s and B’s with higher salaries; instead, they have economized with C’s and D’s “dedicated” to a steady paycheck and job security.  Psychic benefits, compensation before women’s lib, vanished after it.

 

The Las Cruces School Board and its one employee, Superintendent Ramos, do not care to improve the substance of subject-matter instruction or the quality of teachers.  They want a steady-as-you-go operation which neither rocks boats nor riles the union.  They do not want to hear anything contrary to prevailing policies or practices, no matter how ineffectual or expensive current ones may be.  They certainly do not want to hear from the community, even, perhaps especially, from someone well informed.

 

Personal example.  I met Ramos in my neighborhood when he was training to guide elk hunters.  After a second or third meeting, I said that I was interested in education and would like to interview him.  A date was set.  Ramos allowed an unspecified but short period of time for the interview; it ran about 25 minutes, 10 minutes over his allotment, I think.  I sent him my academic resume (7 pages) to make it unnecessary to waste time by me detailing my background in education and or by him asking about it.  So that he would not think that I was going to ask “got-cha” questions, I sent two sets of questions on six topics.  It turns out that he neither reviewed my resume nor read the questions.  He gave me canned, clichéd answers, all evasive or defensive.  As I left, I offered him hardcopies of my questions.  To my astonishment, he refused to receive them; his reason: he had them on his computer.  In my considerable experience with public officials, I have never had such rude treatment.  I reported his insult by emailing Ramos and copying the School Board, including my representative Mr. Ray Jaramillo, but received no response.  Board members approve of the Superintendent’s rudeness if it shows contempt for community members and rebuffs those well versed in public education and capable of offering credible critiques and constructive alternatives to current and ineffective policies and practices.  Their “dedication” is to self-protection.

 

Bottom line: the press is feckless.  It will continue to publish insipid columns on the state’s deplorable educational ranking.  We have heard from the League of Women Voters and Walt Rubel.  Someday, perhaps we shall hear from Peter Goodman and Randy Lynch.  The equivalent of Trump’s Big Lie about a stolen election is the establishment’s Big Lies about LCPS “dedication” to public education.  Unless educrats stop telling lies with misleading words like “equity” or “standards,” and start telling the truth about flawed curriculums and mediocre teachers, the state will remain the worst of the worst unless it bootstraps itself up to next-to-worst.  Watch out, Mississippi.

TEACHING COMPOSITION

Composition, or formal writing, is often a drag.  Thomas Edison never said that good writing is 2 percent inspiration, 98 percent perspiration, but he could have.  When I retired to rework my dissertation into a book on Shakespeare, as my friends in academe had encouraged me to do, I had a huge task ahead of me.  I had to start over.  I had to write three new chapters to explain the originality and foundations of my topic, to replace two chapters which I knew were G*d-awful, and to revise two others in light of new ideas and for a better focus on old ones.  And I had to rewrite everything in a style more attractive than the stilted style required by that academic exercise.  It took me three years, but I think that little in my life has been as much fun as that labor of love.

 

I doubt that I read the final version from cover to cover at the time, in 2003, but I did when I prepared to revise it for a second edition in 2014.  I have just re-read it just to see what I think of it now.  By gum, by golly, I knew a lot and wrote well.  Experienced in writing well and trained in reading critically and self-critically, I still feared that vanity prompted my good opinions.  I asked a mentor about self-appraisals and self-approvals.  He upheld retrospective self-judgments and, knowing my book, thought my judgment solid and my satisfaction in good results from hard work deserved.

 

*      *      *

 

For high-school students, however, expository writing is usually a drag.  Interests are often undeveloped, information often scanty, energy in short supply, and rewards few and far between.  Making matters worse, the teaching of composition focuses on form, not content.  In general, it amounts to this: paragraphs with a topic sentence and three sentences of “supports,” themes with an introduction, three paragraphs of “supports,” and a conclusion.  Writing better, are you?

 

A better approach to teaching composition begins with the fundamentals, set forth in Cleanth Brooks and Robert Penn Warren’s Modern Rhetoric (out of print but available at Amazon).  A college textbook for a first-year writing course, its subject is non-technical writing, especially the theme (an early section is “Finding a Subject”).  But its guidance is good for technical writing as well.  I used it to teach myself almost everything important about composition, to teach my students, and to improve my writing.

 

Most valuable is their focus on four fundamentals:

Unity—relevance to the topic

Coherence—sensible order of ideas with connecting or transitional devices

Emphasis—relative importance of different information

Development—patterns for presenting the information suited to the topic

I add three others: completeness (not just unity) within the scope of the topic, accuracy, and cogency, the latter the overall effect of a rational presentation with good reasons and fallacy-free logic.  To judge your writing, turn these fundamentals into questions.

 

Of their four fundamentals, I place greatest importance on development, with its six basic patterns—definition, description/identification, exemplification, classification, contrast-comparison, and analysis (including process)—for two reasons.  One, these patterns are the basic ways of analyzing a subject, and selecting and organizing information about it.  Two, teachers basing assignments on one or more of these patterns help students in “Finding a Subject.”  A process paper teaches students how to explain making a dress, changing a flat tire, or cooking a dinner.  A contrast-comparison paper teaches students that they must “measure” two items by the same “yardsticks” and that the comparison must have a point.  An imaginative student might compare worms and stars; assess them in terms of molecular, atomic, and sub-atomic particle components; and thus show that atomic structures are the same throughout the universe.

 

*      *      *

 

Some teachers and students believe that writers are born, not bred.  Differences in acquisition—speakers learn from imitation; writers, from instruction—mean that there are no born writers (also, no born speakers, crying excepted).  As they mature, speakers learn better how to communicate their message to listeners and readers.  They learn to consider their purpose and approach, their audiences’ abilities, interests, and opinion of them and their message. What is learned unconsciously for speaking can and should be taught formally for writing.

 

Writing, like speaking, is a person-to-person act.  The big difference is that writers, unlike speakers, cannot make real-time, mid-course adjustments in reaction to their audiences’ responses.  So, with no feedback loop, with no second chance to make a first impression or correct a false one, writers must use “critical thinking” about purpose, approach, and audience; and carefully plan the execution of the fundamentals to get their intended response.  Teachers should teach these inter-acting factors by giving students opportunities to learn from experience.  In my day, the custom was the weekly theme; fallen by the wayside, it should be revived (crucial need: more and better English teachers, smaller classes).  A few themes a term satisfies a formal requirement only.

 

Moreover, because writing, like speaking, is a person-to-person act, it is also a social act and thus has ethical and moral dimensions.  Writing should be taught as behavior requiring civility and respect for others.  As the 17^th-century French intellectual prodigy Blaise Pascal wrote, “I would have written a shorter letter, but I did not have the time.”  Brevity is one courtesy; order is another.  In my professional capacity as an analyst and editor, I too often reviewed word salads from technical specialists whose defense was that “it’s all there,” as if they would be pleased with a dinner at a restaurant serving cocktails, appetizer, salad, soup, sirloin steak, baked potato, string beans, and ice cream mixed in a large bowl.  Such writing not only makes for hard reading, but also conveys the writers’ disregard of their readers.

 

*      *      *

 

My last word is that studying to acquire knowledge of and skill in grammar and composition can help achieve effective communication and promote better relations with others.  I would venture that grammar and composition effectively taught may be able to do more to promote better inter-personal relations than courses in multiculturalism and diversity have done thus far.  Indeed, it may be that the decline in literacy corresponds to, if it has not contributed to, the increase in belligerence and bigotry.

TO BE OR NOT TO BE YOUR DOG'S BEST FRIEND

This blog advertises my book On the Same Team: Dog Owners Coaching Their Best Friends.  A Kindle version is available at Amazon, other e-book versions will be available on other websites, and a paperback version is in the works.  Veterinarian Jon Morrow, DVM, owner of Animal Hospital of Las Cruces, responded to a draft with high praise: “I feel honored to be your veterinarian!”  My book description follows:

 

       The unusual starting point of On the Same Team: Dog Owners Coaching Their Best Friends is your dog’s nature.  However you acquire a new dog—buy from a breeder, adopt from a rescue organization or pound, or bring in a stray—, your new dog is a social animal.

 

Without you, he would learn to live in his family, then his pack.  He would learn how to support and protect it.  He would seek to please those who guide him.  He would learn what is right and what is wrong as he is trained by parents and leaders.  With you, if you understand these natural tendencies and develop them, your dog can live in your family and your pack (even if you are the only member), support and protect it, seek to please you, and learn right from wrong.  On the Same Team will help you prepare for your dog to become your best friend and a gratifying part of your life.

 

The beginning of a good relationship between you and your dog—one based on trust, respect, and affection—is an understanding of dogs and your dog, and some reflection on what it means for you to assume responsibilities for caring for and coaching him.  There are preparatory steps, and On the Same Team gives guidance, advice, and tips in taking them.  You need to select or accept a blend (aka “mix”) or breed suitable to your home, neighborhood, and lifestyle.  A Foxhound is no dog for a city; a Pomeranian is no dog for the country.  An adorable puppy may become an adult too large, strong, active, or aggressive to fit in with your family and your visitors.  You need to provide both material basics which cost (food, water, shelter, health care), and emotional and social basics which are time- and energy-consuming (security, routines, exercise, play).  These basics make for a good relationship and everything desirable in companionship and obedience.

 

Only when you have begun such a relationship should you think of modifying your dog’s behavior.  On the Same Team advocates “training” your dog as part of building and enhancing your relationship with him.  It views “training” as a cooperative, not an adversarial, effort because it relies on your dog’s natural desire to please you.  So you can do what is best for both of you by coaching and guiding him, not commanding and punishing him.  Loud scoldings and harsh discipline make him fearful and distract him from learning.  Instead, On the Same Team urges you to skip the rough, tough stuff which dogs dislike; to treat your dog like your best friend; and to let your coaching—understanding, patient, firm, but gentle—make it easy for him to learn.

 

Along the way, On the Same Team tells stories about and shows pictures of my dogs (and cats) to illustrate my points.  I end with a horse story just because it was a one-of-a-kind relationship between that horse and this rider.

TEACHING GRAMMAR AGAIN--PART 3--AND A WORD ON "GRAMMAR POLICE"

The bell ending class stopped us from moving on to errors in subject-verb agreement and who-whom.  I cover them to further illustrate that knowing grammar can prevent or cure these common errors.  I conclude by lodging a complaint against the “grammar police” for phony “rules.”

 

*      *      *

 

Everyone knows that you cannot connect an appliance cord with a three-prong plug into a two-prong wall outlet.  It gets more complicated with computers, of course.  As the technologies change, problems arise, as my ex-wife found out when she went to get a cable to connect her iPhone to her charger.  The clerk did not ask her about plug-port compatibility. He sold a cable with two Thunderbolt plugs, but her charger had a USB-C port: no fit.  She returned it, and I uncovered an extra cable with the right plugs.

 

Everyone learns not to connect a plural verb to a singular subject or a singular verb to a plural noun.  So what is the problem of subject-verb agreement?  The problem is not that writers do not know the rule; the problem usually arises when they write words between the subject and the verb, and laze into letting the number (singular or plural) of the word nearest the verb determine its number.  Writers can avoid problem if they can quickly parse, or analyze, a sentence for the verb and its subject.  If not, trouble ensues, with guessing, a stab-in-the-dark, or coin-flipping to the rescue.

 

I once asked my high-school-age son whether a sentence in some text which I had written was correct grammatically; it was of the type “one of the boys entered in two races was unable to travel because of illness.”  He furrowed his brow, shifted his eyes back and forth, and silently moved his lips.  I called a halt.  I said that he was struggling with intuition and mindreading: was I tricking him with a correct sentence when he expected me to pick an incorrect wrong one or was it really incorrect?  He confessed his sins.  I forgave him but not his teachers, because they had not taught him parsing.

 

The answer: the sentence is grammatically correct.  A binary choice gives a fifty-fifty chance of being right.  Knowing grammar eliminates the gamble but requires parsing, that is, knowing the terminology and applying the implied connections.  Always start with the verb; then look for the subject.  If you think it is “boys” or “races,” you would be wrong; both words are objects of prepositions, “of” and “in,” respectively.  An object of a preposition cannot double as the subject of a sentence or as anything else, for that matter; it is what it is.  That leaves “one,” which is the subject of the sentence, the one boy who cannot travel.

 

*      *      *

 

Similarly, parsing enables you to solve the dreaded choice between “who(ever)” and “whom(ever),” which seems to occur on all English proficiency tests.  Again, the ability to parse sentences avoids crossed-fingers guesses and leads to infallibly correct answers.  Test item: “The principal gave awards to (whoever, whomever) received their teachers’ recommendations.”  If you do as my son did, you either read “to” and “whomever” or read “whoever” and “received”; most base their choice on the preposition “to” because it needs an object and comes first.  But verbs need subjects before prepositions need objects—remember that!  “Gave” has “principal”; “received” has “whoever.”  What about the object of the preposition “to”?  Glad you asked.  It is the noun clause, “whoever received their teachers’ recommendations” functioning as the object of the preposition.  A noun clause—a group of words having a verb and a subject, beginning with a relative pronoun, and acting like a noun—identifies without actually naming them.

 

*      *      *

 

In their micro-aggressions, “grammar police” often make false allegations about broken rules.  Usually, their “rules” are stylistic preferences found in organization manuals or writing guides.  The New York Times Manual of Style and Usage, The Washington Post Deskbook on Style, The Chicago Manual of Style , and APA Style fall into the first category; H. W. Fowler’s Dictionary of Modern English Usage and William Strunk, Jr.’s, Elements of Style fall into the second.

 

Example: many such books have a “rule” which eschews “who” or “which” and prefers “that” as a relative pronoun.  By this “rule,” “the man who raised the objection” is incorrect; “the man that raised the objection,” correct.  I guess at the motive behind this advice: to help the lazy or ignorant writer skirt the headache choice between “who” and “whom.”  If I am right, this “rule” is a preference concealing—but, to one like me, revealing—grammatical incompetence.

 

I have broken more than one of those “rules” either as I have developed my style or when I thought it appropriate to do so.  For example, I split infinitives.  The reason given for this rule is inane: Latin has no split infinitives.  Right: Latin infinitives are inflected; English infinitives, often with markers (“to” or “to have”) enabling the split, are not.  Were I to make only one “rule,” it would be to disregard a “rule” based on a foreign language.  The “rule” against split-infinitives is a preference and nothing more.

 

Nevertheless, this rule has taken possession of some otherwise fine minds.  Years ago, when I was a consultant as analyst and editor to the President’s Blue Ribbon Task Group on Nuclear Weapons Program Management, its chair, Judge William P. Clark, Jr., a former ranking Reagan official, sent an aide to tell me that he had one rule.  Instantly, I said, “no split infinitive”; the aide was astonished; I said that, if anyone has a grammar gripe, it is that one.  I told him to tell Judge Clark that I promised that no split infinitive would appear in any part of the classified report—executive summary, report, and appendices.  I also told him to tell the Judge that I would make all other editorial decisions; the word came back: agreed.

 

About correctness in grammar, there can be little debate; the rules are the rules, and they are not made to be broken.  But what is a rule, what is a preference, and what is the difference between them are good questions.  The answer is that a rule affects syntax; a preference affects something like presentation (split infinitive), punctuation (Harvard or serial comma), or diction (less v. fewer).  Never the twain to meet.  My book, were I to write it, would set forth the rules as rules and the preferences with truth-in-labeling.

 

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I close this third lesson—I have a fourth and final one in draft, on composition—with my main message: teachers can teach and students can learn everything about grammar to everyone’s benefit.  Once mastered, grammar becomes an almost unconscious reflex in writing correctly and clearly.  As my students in remedial grammar learned long ago, mastery is worth the effort because it embeds information and skill, bestows confidence, and encourages good writing.

TEACHING GRAMMAR AGAIN--PART 2

 Before talking grammar, I want to talk cars, or two of my experiences with them.  When many high-school boys had their heads under the hoods, I had my nose in a book.  The first time I drove to school—I usually walked the two miles—was in the spring of my senior year (’58).  After track practice, I went to my car and discovered that I had a flat.  I just stood there, staring at it because I did not know what to do.  Teammates came over and asked what the problem was; I told them, and they teased me: “Big Brains can’t change a tire.”  Then they showed me where the tools were and how to use them.  After they had finished, I thanked them.  But I also teased them right back; I said that I may not have known how to change a tire, but I knew how to get them to change it!

 

I never did learn much about cars.  In the early 80s, I owned a Volkswagen diesel station wagon.  After a few months, it began performing sluggishly.  I took it to the dealer and the mechanic who had always repaired my cars.  He asked me what I thought the problem was.  I said that it was probably a clogged carburetor.  I had hardly gotten the words out than he said that was not the problem.  I asked how he could know without even looking.  “Well, Mr. Hays,” he said, “diesels don’t have carburetors.”

 

I am not going to push an analogy between cars and sentences very far, but the similarities mean that grammar is not something unusual, much less unique.  There are different kinds of cars and parts, and they have different technical specifications.  The same is true of sentences.  Car X requires a specific kind of fuel pump; sentence Y needs a particular kind of conjunction.  To run smoothly, both require the right parts and the right fit.  In that sense, a grammar book is much like an owner’s manual.  (And what is true of fixing cars is true of cooking a meal.)

 

Simply, grammar is the system of a language with rules for selecting and arranging the words of a language to match the writer’s or speaker’s meaning to the reader’s or listener’s interpretation.  In learning a primary language, we learn and use intuitively the grammar of speaking.  Up to a point, intuition can help us avoid or correct errors in, or polish, our prose—but only up to a point, for the grammar of speaking is not exactly the same as the grammar of writing.  Expository or persuasive writing involves formal rules.  To understand and apply them mean knowing and identifying the components of the system, knowing the terminology, and knowing how the components fit together.  (Panic alert: the number of technical terms is not great, and most of them are self-explanatory or easily understood with a little of study.  Still, I must admit, good grammar does not taste as good as that first morning cigarette, Marlboro or not, or a freshly brewed cup of coffee at a mountain campsite.)

 

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As I indicated in my previous blog, I use a bit-by-bit approach to slowly build on fundamentals: words to phrases to clauses to sentences.  Before going grammatical, I want to go mathematical to indicate the importance of starting small and ending big to acquire subject-matter mastery.  Many high-school students take algebra and encounter, among other difficulties, factoring.  A cashier, amazed at the speed at which I computed change due me, mentioned having failed algebra twice before finally passing it.  When I told her that her biggest difficulty had been factoring, she was amazed again.  I gave the example of x²+15x+56, which, when factored, is (x+7)(x+8).  Her problem was that, in elementary school, her teachers did not assign enough classwork and homework—drill, baby, drill—to become familiar with numbers.  Mine did, so seeing 15 and 56—no sweat.  My elementary school teachers made sure that my classmates and I had the basics so that we could build on them.  To tell the truth, I enjoyed the drills and, in third grade, my daily races with David Clark to see who could be first to get them all right.

 

So my approach to grammar begins with the eight parts of speech: verb, noun, pronoun, adverb, adjective, preposition, conjunctions, and interjections, the latter not used in expository or persuasive writing.  (I hope this list looks familiar.)  I teach (and drill) their kinds, technical specifications, and uses.  Only, verbs, nouns, and pronouns have such specifications—among them, tense, number, person—each with meaning.  For purposes of teaching grammar or parsing—that is, analyzing—sentences, verbs come first because they are always explicit (as in commands, for a subject may be implied only).

 

My lesson for today is to show that knowing the components and terminology of grammar enables a teacher to teach students to know with confidence that they can avoid grammatical issues.  My examples: sentence fragment and subject-verb agreement.

 

When it comes to sentences, teachers who do not know grammar take shortcuts.  I remember from elementary school the definition of a sentence: it is the expression of a complete idea.  This definition is a total flop.  First, it defines a specific term “sentence” with a general term “complete,” which is virtually impossible to define.  Second, it relies on intuition, which involves no instruction at all.  Result: nothing taught, nothing learned; only the teachers’ right to say, “I covered it.”

 

Yet a sentence can by defined and taught in a manner enabling students to ascertain whether they have written a sentence or—perish the thought—a sentence fragment.  Here goes with a simple procedure:

1. Does the group of words have a verb?  If no, no sentence.  If yes, go to 2.
2. Does it have a subject?  If no, no sentence.  If yes, go to 3.
3. Does it begin with a relative pronoun?  If yes, no sentence.  If no, got to 4.
4. Does it begin with a subordinating conjunction?  If yes, no sentence.  If no, voila!

Definition of a sentence: a group of words with a verb and a subject, and without an introductory relative pronoun or subordinating conjunction.  If the group lacks a verb or a subject, or begins with a relative pronoun or a subordinating conjunction—you have a fragment, no matter how many words are involved.

 

Note two things about this procedure.  One, it is explicit, so it is teachable/learnable.  The teacher can illustrate the procedure on a wall chart or a handout.  Two, it assumes prior knowledge of the fundamentals: the parts of speech and their terminology.  Here, not just pronouns, but relative pronouns; not just conjunctions, but subordinating conjunctions.  With this procedure, teachers and students can know with certainty whether a group of words is a (simple) sentence or not.  (Compound, complex, and compound-complex sentences—different models of “cars”—follow a similar procedure.)  So much for sentences and avoiding the mortal sin of a sentence fragment.

 

On to subject-verb agreement.  Oh, there’s the bell.  Next time, we shall address a few other grammar issues to further demonstrate that mastering and building on the fundamentals can help teachers and, with their help, students learn grammar, develop confidence, and proceed to use grammar to improve their writing. 

IS TAIWAN TODAY'S SOUTH VIETNAM?

An answer to the question requires a comparison of the political entities and their political contexts.  America’s involvement makes obvious differences less important than ominous similarities: one people divided by dubious boundaries, US support of one party for self-serving purposes, unclear US objectives, and no domestic debate or support.

 

In 1954, without US participation, the Geneva Convention met to address political and military conflict in French Indochina, the countries of Laos, Cambodia, and Vietnam.  For political convenience, the Convention divided Vietnam into two zones meant to be temporary, abolished by a nationwide election to establish a government of all Vietnam 2 years later.  The northern and southern zones roughly corresponded to areas held by Communists and those held by non-Communist Catholics and Buddhists, respectively.  Though only an observer, the US agreed to this arrangement and this schedule.

 

At the same time, America replaced France in opposition to Communist expansion and supported the provisional, or Saigon, government of South Vietnam.  Knowing that Ho Chi Minh, a nationalist and a communist, would win the election, the US cancelled it.  By the mid 60s, after nearly a decade, the division of Vietnam into two zones seemed to have established two legitimate countries, North and South Vietnam.  Established the division was; legitimate it was not.  Vietnam was one country, one nation, one people with a shared history, culture, and language.

 

America’s motive was plainly less self-determination by the Vietnamese people than opposition to communism.  So the US escalated its military and economic commitment to the Saigon government until it became clear after millions of casualties, billions of dollars, and unspeakable damage throughout the country that it could not defeat the communists.  The US ended its involvement in the Vietnam War without ever having defined what it thought a fit conclusion to hostilities and to the misrule of a corrupt, incompetent, and undemocratic Saigon government would be.  The communists unified Vietnam, but, despite America’s great fear which rationalized the war, they did not extend communism beyond its boundaries, and Southeast Asian countries did not fall domino-like into the clutches of a monstrous monolithic Sino-Soviet communist bloc.

 

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No Geneva Convention or other international conference has defined the relationship between China and Taiwan.  Arrangements, understandings, and treaties—a diplomatic morass of indifference or ineptitude—over many years and in many contexts make a historically or legally based determination of their relationship unlikely.  The present overarching international status of the relationship of the two parties is that the Peoples’ Republic of China (PRC) is the only recognized Chinese entity represented in the United Nations.  So be it.

 

Notwithstanding the diplomatic morass, the paramount facts are clear.  Chinese have long inhabited Taiwan.  In 1949, after Mao Zedong’s communist armies defeated Chiang Kai-shek’s Kuomintang armies, his troops, their families, and loyalists fled to Taiwan, where they have dominated the island government.  Since the populations of China and Taiwan are Chinese, the happenstance of 100-mile-wide Taiwan Strait between them is no basis for thinking them separate countries.  (In the US, Michigan exists in two parts separated by water.)

 

With US support, Taiwan has evolved as a democracy with a successful capitalist economy.  Understandably, the US endorses these developments.  But it has never recognized Taiwan as an independent country and has accepted a “one-China” policy, which is China’s view of the relationship.  From China’s perspective, the only question is when reunification will occur.  From the US perspective—well, what exactly is it?  Does the US believe in its “one-China” policy or not?  If so, how does it think that the relationship between China and Taiwan will evolve toward actual unity?  And how many years and how many crises later?  What does the US hope to achieve by delay?

 

The US position seems less a continuation of its opposition to communism than resistance to China’s growing political, economic, and military influence in East Asia and beyond.  If China decided that it had postponed reunification long enough, it could take steps to achieve its objective.  The US would find itself with respect to Taiwan as the Soviet Union found itself with respect to Cuba—too far away to achieve its purposes.  China can initiate and sustain an offensive to seize Taiwan with sufficient resources close to home while the US would have difficulty countering it.  Vietnam déjà vu.

 

Although the US is at a strategic disadvantage, it is not without options, some more attractive than others.  All assume that time and circumstances make it impossible for the US to continue its irresolute waffling indefinitely or reckless to declare its support for Taiwan’s independence.  This assumption implies that the US should reverse its current position by negotiating with China a multi-year, phased reunification.  (If the Taiwanese object and refuse to participate, the US would renounce its security guarantees.)  In the reunification process, Taiwanese would choose whether to relocate to mainland China, remain in Taiwan, or emigrate to other countries.  Those abandoning businesses would receive compensation from China at market value.  UN supervision of current maritime and aviation treaties would ensure that reunification did not restrict sea-lanes in or flyways over the Taiwan Strait between the 12-mile limits of mainland China and Taiwan.

 

China’s gain would not necessarily be America’s loss.  China will not want to lose the trade in which Taiwan companies engage.  If the US ensures safe supply chains, Taiwan companies will be useful but not essential suppliers of its manufactures.  The US offer to resolve this contentious issue would give credibility to its oft-proclaimed preference for diplomacy to the risks of military conflict and would burnish America’s image in Asia, Africa, and South America.  Finally, given the absence of a clear and worthwhile US justification for more of the same risky muddle, both sides—indeed, all sides--would gain from avoiding a needless war with enormous costs and unforeseen consequences.

 

No South Vietnam means no Taiwan.