Celebrate the Fall

Studies have shown that Fall is the best time of year.  I’m not 100% sure of these studies existence, but academics have by now successfully proven everyone’s point of view to be true, so I’m sure they are out there.  Google it.

In Fall, "The King of Seasons" (I'm sure someone has written), the leaves on the trees turn beautiful red and gold colors, KU basketball starts, Royals baseball ends, and because my birthday is October 15, I get cupcake and presents. 

On a professional level, courses have unfolded and like an old shoe have been comfortably settled into.  Maybe an old shoe isn’t the best metaphor for a college course.  How about, a cozy cardigan?

 

Fall Break two years ago I was with the Pikes in upper Michigan chopping down trees.  They told me, before I left, that this was for charity.  During the trip we did charitable things, but we also played Wiffle Ball and laughed a lot. I will long remember the guy who took his kitchen door off so he could shoot deer while he washed his dishes.

Last year over Fall Break I participated in the first Rockhurst Urban Immersion service trip.  It was kind of like a “stay-cation,” but with more housework.  Here’s a photo of the group:

 

I also need to publicize this picture of Paul Hess, now a senior.  He has a built in genetic feature to climb to the tallest place in a room, like a monkey.  I’m not sure if this is to avoid predators or gather food.  Notice someone else taking a picture of him; see, it’s not just me that found this amazing.

This fall break I spent time with my kids.  My oldest son, Alex, was recently diagnosed as having Type I diabetes, so it was great to spend some time with him just goofing around.  Here’s a picture of Alex with his friend Stetson:

Alex is the one on the right.  The boy on the right I mean.  Man I suck at captions.

No matter how you spent your time over this past weekend, I hope you get a chance to do what you love and enjoy the outdoors before the snow starts flying.  Students welcome back and time to dig into those research papers!!!  Happy Fall!

A Different Perspective

As this week begins our government remains shut down.  Washington D.C is in a full on political meltdown regarding Obamacare.  Much like Vietnam and Korea though, this conflict is a disguised proxy war.  

The current partisan fight is a really a small skirmish in a grand primal dispute over big ideas regarding government’s role and taxes.  In a down economy these issues become more important to the middle and lower classes.  The national shutdown has as much to do with healthcare as embargoing Cuba has to do with Havana; its on the wrong side of things but is not the core of the problem.  The issues seem intractable to us Americans, not because of their particular subject matter, but because of the insolent behavior of the politicians involved.  

No wonder that the current job approval rating of Congress, according to an Associated Press Poll ending last week, is at a historical low of:

 5%

5% is a solid interest on a used car, 5% of the population is very well off, 5% is the typical alcohol volume by weight of beer, 5% of the male population is under 5’4” tall, 5% - whichever light one casts it in – is not a good number of people to have liking you.  Because, it means something on the order of 95% of the people dislike you.

We’re disgusted with these people!  Strangely enough, outside of any especially appointed fill-ins, they theoretically all attained office through winning popularity contests.  This a strange irony that might require a couple of doctoral degrees to sort out:  shouldn’t they at least by likable?

I believe that our collective disgust comes from the failure of these high functioning adults (again….that qualifying word ‘theoretically’ comes to mind) to listen to another perspective.  This past week Israeli Ambassador Zion Evrony spent some time at Rockhurst as part of the Visiting Scholar Lecture Series.  He spoke to my Honors American Government class, along with Father Curran; and I had the honor of eating dinner with him before his talk to the community.  I had traveled to Israel this past summer and he was interested in what I thought of his country. 

The Ambassador’s traveled halfway around the world, leaving his usual diplomatic station in Rome, to visit our Kansas City campus.  After his talk, this kind and engaging man was willing to take questions from the large audience.  Some questions were good, but most were little more than thinly disguised, or even undisguised, political statements about the treatment of Palestinians or even Catholics at the hands of Israelis.  Ever the gentleman and the professional, the Ambassador answered all “questions” graciously. 

To me, it was a shame that what could have been a short dialogue was turned into a forum for tired polemics by those wishing to only speak and not listen. 

Until our elected officials learn the value of putting time into listening to the opposition they are like those protestors spouting off into the microphone: marginalizing themselves down to 5% (…maybe we can hit 3%, how low can it go!).   There are times and places for setting forth your opinion on the way the world should be.  Like, I don’t know… a blog.  Or say a political campaign or debate during an election; but not during a budget negotiation.  A dangerously divisive new political reality will be formed if they aren’t going to serve as more responsible elected representatives. 

Bring back Truman! Hell, Bring back Ike (Skelton)

Bring back Truman!  Hell, Bring back Ike (Skelton)

Scholarly treatments of congress tend to be damning.  For those who subscribe to noble visions of our nation’s legislative body, such as those presented by JFK in Profiles in Courage or conjured up by thoughts of Harry Truman overseeing spending in WWII, such rough treatment might be an eye opener. 

Yesterday my Honors American Government students read and discussed an excerpt from David Mayhew’s Congress: The Electoral Connection.  He proposed that members of congress are solely interested in getting reelected.  To further this goal they engage in three basic activities:

Advertising

Credit Claiming

And Strategic Position Taking

These three behaviors sound familiar as of late?  Such hard-nosed critiques of congress that border on theoretically minded denunciations are nothing new to political scientists.  And I want to raise this point: the self-interested behavior of congressmen and women has proven to be a non-partisan affair, neither party is immune to bad behavior when holding the majority.

It is difficult to tell how long this government shutdown will last, as we are entering unprecedented territory here.  Clinton and Gingrich’s 1996 offers little in the way of comparisons, as the political landscape since then has changed not so drastically.  That reminds me of people who place the Cold War on top of modern foreign policy seeking meaningful similarities and differences. 

In a few hours former member of the House of Representatives Ike Skelton (D-MO) is going to talk to my Political Leadership course. I can’t help but being a bit nostalgic for some of the congressional leaders of yesterday.  People who, like Missouri’s own Harry Truman, acted with a degree of trust in the opposition and willingness to bargain and compromise. 

If Mayors Ruled the World

If Mayors Ruled the World

At this year’s American Political Science Conference in Chicago a new book published by Yale University Press caught my eye:  If Mayors Ruled the World by noted scholar Benjamin Barber. 

This got me thinking about my appreciation for local leaders.  I place a high emphasis on grassroots community leadership, rather than the distant kind in Washington D.C.  Local leaders have nowhere to run, nowhere to hide.  The decisions they make, though often small, rarely go unnoticed.  What they do touches people’s everyday lives directly: emergency services, roads, and garbage collection.

I’ve also had many positive interactions with them.  Often I’ll invite the Kansas City area’s regional leaders into classes to speak.  Generally, these folks that take the time to run for local offices are driven to do so because they care.  They care about their neighborhoods, and more importantly, their neighbors.  I have found them to be quite a different breed than national level office holders and seekers.  This isn’t to say there aren’t bad ineffective local leaders, there are!  But if nothing else, they just case an even deeper affection for the good ones.

This semester I’m helping Rockhurst political science alum Joe Reardon teach a course on regionalism.  Joe, who is no doubt a well-known civic leader to many reading this blog, is the former Mayor/CEO of the Unified Government of Wyandotte County/Kansas City, Kansas.

While publicly known as the person who helped resurrect at least a part of the metropolitan area from life support (Cerner, Google, Sporting Kansas City…), I know him as a an all-around nice and smart guy.  He’s a great teacher too by the way!

Rockhurst is lucky enough to have its prominent alum back on campus educating our students.  While a primary theme of this new course is the necessity of innovation, the course is itself structured in an innovative way.  The class is of a smaller size – it has 15 in it - and is composed of students in both the social sciences and business.  It meets on Monday nights and has the students working on research projects centered on the concept of metropolitan regionalism.  Joe brings in some fantastic guest speakers from his contact list, and then speaks based on firsthand knowledge about local leadership.

My favorite feature of the class is probably the exchange of ideas between people in different disciplines: Professor Mike Stellern in economics, students from the Helzberg School, as well as undergraduates in political science. 

I’m proud to be a part of such a great group of people exploring such an important topic as regionalism!   That’s an idea I’ll have to return to in a later post…