The culmination of the Brooklyn Book Festival last Sunday was better than I expected. Hundreds of writers, publishers, and organizations had booths setup in Columbus Park, and there were so many interesting presentations that it was difficult to choose which to attend. I selected three and spent the rest of the day exploring the booths.
The Nation Presents Election 2012
The first presentation that I attended was entitled “The Nation Presents Election 2012”. Panelists included Katrina vanden Heuvel, Tom Frank, and Eric Alterman, and the moderator was Toure. The description of the talk was supposed to encompass the foreign and domestic issues surrounding the upcoming presidential election; however, the discussion actually became more about how messed up our political system is. Toure pointed out that 47% of voters will vote for Romney no matter what, and 47% will vote for Obama no matter what. Katrina agreed by saying that due to the electoral college, only eight states really matter in this election as the others are already decided. (In the last election, 19 states were important in the election.) With the collapse of local news and the rise of blogs, it is possible for everyone to listen only to the information that suits them and not to pay attention to other points of view. And since media doesn’t dig in to find the truth anymore (and would rather stay on the fence), they aren’t doing any good in helping the American people determine fact and fiction in this election.
Our political parties are also a problem. Katrina pointed out that the Republicans are being controlled by an extremist right-wing movement. All panelists seemed to agree that Romney had to become more extreme to get the nomination even though he isn’t that extreme. Eric stated that the Democrats are also a problem in that many are culturally liberal but not economically liberal. He believes they are liberal on women’s issues and such but hate unions and love free trade. Tom said that Democrats in DC aren’t in touch with reality as they see this election as gaining just a few more votes as opposed to harnessing the growing unhappiness and inequality that is forming among the populace.
Eric brought up some interesting information about Jews in America. He said that only 2% of citizens are Jews (and only 1% are Muslims). And only 7% Jews in America say that policy on Israel is important to them, but every president seems afraid to put pressure Israel. He believes there are a few wealthy Jewish people who are instrumental in pushing their agenda, but it is not representative of the entire Jewish population.
The financial crisis was discussed, and Katrina pointed out that the problems in the banking system have not been fixed as the concentration of powers in banks is stronger now than before the bank failures. Tom pointed out that it is ironic that Romney has been selected as the candidate (due to his business background) when we are still trying to recover from the financial crisis. Eric also mentioned that “Occupy Wall Street” may have failed in its agenda, but it did accomplish the task of showing the world how the wealthy has bought the political system.
Though the panelists all seemed more supportive of Obama than Romney, two complaints were mentioned about Obama’s actions over the past four years. Tom felt that Obama could have reduced unemployment by hiring people to do projects just like Franklin Roosevelt did so many years ago. Katrina feels that Obama should have held the banks accountable for their actions during our latest financial crisis. They seemed to feel that Obama has been listening to the wrong advisors.
In conclusion, the panelists feel that we should all do something to improve our political system. Stop whining and do something. There needs to be a bottom-up campaign for change and only then will we make progress. Although the discussion was only 50 minutes, it was very interesting, entertaining, and thought-provoking, and I believe that all of us wanted the talk to continue longer.
Sometimes the Best Medicine is a Story Itself
The next presentation was hosted by Granta with Patrick Ryan moderating. Granta picks a topic every quarter for its publication, and writers submit essays on that topic. This quarter’s topic was medicine, and three authors read portions of their entries. James Lasdun read his poem entitled “Blueberries” which was a letter written to himself for 20 years into the future. He also read an excerpt of his essay about a school principal who found a lump in his neck that needed to be removed. Gish Jen said that she thought her essay was more about real estate than medicine but was about someone trying to get his/her Chinese parents to move into a retirement home. Terrence Holt is a doctor who wrote an essay about residency. He said that in residency things just happen to you. Residents don’t have much time or control. You don’t have time to have an identity so he wrote the essay in the 2nd person. He only read a little bit of his essay, but it really intrigued me. I sought out the Granta booth and bought a copy to finish the story!
The moderator talked about how depressing and difficult this issue had been. He had read hundreds of stories about cancer and surgery and death, and he’s still reading them as Granta’s website continues the medical theme for the quarter. He also asked the authors how it was to write about difficult topics such as those mentioned. Gish answered that she feels that she can write about a difficult topic when that topic becomes humorous to her in some way. For example, in her essay, the parents don’t want to move into the retirement home because they would have to eat Western food like lamb and salad. It is funny sidebars like this that makes writing about difficult topics easier. Terrence said that the passage of time can help. For example, he moonlighted at a state psychiatric hospital during this fellowship and couldn’t write his fictional medical stories during that time. Only as time has passed has it become easier to write.
An Education: Coming of Age in America Today
My last presentation of the day was moderated by Richard Greenwald with a panel discussion by Andrew Delbanco, Andrew Hacker, and Kimberley Phillips and mostly focused on costs. Delbanco talked about the purpose of college and how it has contracted over the years. College was supposed to be a time to discover self and learn from professors and other students. It was also to teach ethical lessons and lessons on democracy. But education has changed. Wealthy students go to exclusive schools that lack diversity. Private institutions are under stress, and public disinvestment has reduced resources to education. Schools are converting full-time professors into piecework, part-time professors. Students are encouraged to discover self but are also pressured to choose a major quickly.
Hacker believes that schools are self-serving just like financial institutions. If a student’s parents are able to write a check for school (which about 50% are), then those students are pushed to the front of the line since most other students get a discount of some sort if they have to take out loans. He stated that a full professor at a private university makes $182,000 for 9 months of work. That doesn’t include the $59,000 per year in benefits, subsidized housing, $5,000 per year toward the professor’s children’s education, and the ability to take a sabbatical every 3-5 years. He also believes that most research done by professors is useless and unnecessary and that professors don’t care that the students are taking out enormous loans to pay for these professors’ high lifestyles. He then continued to discuss college athletics and how much they cost a school. A men’s golf team costs $11,000 per year per player to cover travel expenses, equipment, etc. In looking at basketball, he found that in many schools, most students don’t attend the games, so the costs are not benefitting the students.
Phillips, a dean at Brooklyn College (a public school), said that the school Hacker described was not familiar to her. She said that most faculty members did not make that kind of money and that they sincerely cared for the students and worked very hard for them. At her school, 104 languages are spoken and 65% of the students have immigrant parents. Each student does have to pay over $1,000 toward the athletic department each year, but school costs are much lower at Brooklyn College than Hacker described. She believes that the focus needs to be on the high schools and has found that professors are spending too much time repairing the deficits that students have from their secondary educations. She said that we are also asking students to double major so that they are more employable which is taking students 6-8 years to finish school. This long length of time is costly and puts a great financial burden on students.
Their commentary was all very interesting, but I wish that we had more time to spend on one of the questions that was asked at the end. A gentleman stood up and asked how online education was affecting schools. The panelists didn’t really have much to say, but the gentleman said that with 10% of college educations coming from the University of Phoenix, he felt that it was a very important issue. I agree with him. Online programs are great disruptors to traditional educational centers, and as Stanford’s president stated, it is a “coming tsunami” where schools must prepare and adapt.
I had a great time at the Brooklyn Book Festival and look forward to next year’s event!
